Photo: Paul Dodds
Everyone’s noticing the cost of living at the moment. And when you’re a student juggling your studies with a job, time is money. Here’s ten tips to help save money and time by using the library.
- It sounds obvious, but borrowing books from the Library means you don’t have to buy them. All students can now borrow a whopping 100 books at a time – that’s a lot of free reading!
- Of course borrowing all those books means you have to bring them back and if you don’t, you may incur library fines. We automatically renew your loans for 36 months unless your books are needed by someone else. Watch out for emails from us requesting a return, and keep track of what you’ve borrowed by signing in to your library account on DiscoverEd.
- Want a book for your studies the library doesn’t hold? Before you click ‘Pay now’ on Amazon – stop! The Library’s Request a Book service buys books requested by students at no cost to you. Just fill in our online form to request.
- Found an article you want via a Google search but the full text link is asking you to pay? Stop! Check DiscoverEd to see if the library has a subscription to this article you can access for free. Even better, watch our short video to learn how to change the Google settings on your laptop to automatically link to the library subscriptions
- If the Library doesn’t subscribe to the journal you’re looking for – don’t panic! You can get a scan of the article from another library for free through our interlibrary loans service. Undergraduates get 5 free interlibrary loans per year, postgraduates get 30.
- Save time searching for literature by setting up alerts. DiscoverEd and most library databases will save searches you’ve made, automatically rerun them and alert you when new content is added that matches your topic. For help on this contact your Academic Support Librarian.
- Plan ahead to save time searching for a study desk in the Main Library by booking a seat.
- Think before you print! Colour printing costs much more than black and white – and scanning is completely free. See Print and copy costs.
- Save money you would have spent in the café by using the drinking water points in the Main Library to fill your water bottle, or the hot water tap on the first floor to make a cup of tea (bring your own teabags).
- Invest some of your time in completing the LibSmart online course. As well as helping you feel more confident about using online library resources, this will pay off by saving you time by searching more effectively, managing the references you’ve found and using library tools for easy citation and referencing.
Christine Love-Rodgers, Academic Support Librarian