The new Library Wellbeing Collection

A blossom tree growing from the open pages of a book.Looking for ways to look after yourself during your studies and exams? The Library’s new Wellbeing Collection provides resources on all aspects of wellbeing, including but not limited to anxiety, exercise, general wellbeing, happiness, relationships, sleeping well and University life.

The collection of books and e-books is available to borrow for all students and staff. In this blog post we highlight just a few of the e-books available in the collection.

You can explore all the books in the Wellbeing Collection in DiscoverEd or browse a list of books by subject area in the resource list.

To launch our new collection we have a display of Wellbeing Collection books in the Main Library (30 George Square) which is in place until the end of May 2024. In the two weeks since the display was put in place 66 items have already been borrowed!

Wellbeing Collection books on display in the Main Library

Wellbeing Collection books on display in the Main Library

What does the Wellbeing Collection cover?

Here we highlight some example e-books from the collection on a few different themes that you might wish to explore:

University life

Book coverIt’s normal to feel nervous before an exam or overwhelmed with your workload sometimes, but it’s important not to let anxiety or stress have a negative impact on your performance.

Building good habits

Book coverIf you have a tendency to procrastinate instead of revising, or want to develop healthy habits in your life, the collection has books to help.

Sleep and rest

Book coverIt’s important to look after yourself at stressful times, and that includes getting plenty of sleep and rest.

Getting more exercise

Keeping active can boost your mood as well as your physical health.

Why not pair your reading with a spot of rock climbing or yoga – Sport & Exercise have a whole range of activity running in April and May, from bootcamps to Yoga, from Learn to lift workshops to weekend courses at Firbush, and free gym entry for students and staff next week.

Exploring nature

Book coverExposure to nature has been shown to have a positive impact on physical health and cognitive function. Spring has sprung in Edinburgh, so now’s the perfect time to get out into nature.

You can read more about using the Library for wellbeing and leisure on our subject guide.

The Wellbeing Collection is managed by a team including Library staff, University Student Wellbeing Advisers and the EUSA Student Opportunities Representative (Wellbeing).

 

If you are an Edinburgh student and you need to talk to someone there’s lots of help and guidance available from the Student Health and Wellbeing Services, and staff can access support through the Staff Health and Wellbeing Hub.

AI, Theological Libraries … and me

The University of Edinburgh hosted the Association of British Theological and Philosophical Libraries conference this year at New College on 21-23 March. As usual there was the opportunity for discovering fascinating and historic libraries, including (of course) New College Library, the National Museum of Library of Scotland and the Signet Library.

Computer17293866, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

A key focus this year was Artificial Intelligence or AI, and Prof Nigel Crook from Oxford Brookes University opened the conference, speaking about ‘Generative AI and the Chatbot revolution’, and concluding that while he didn’t predict a future like the one in the Terminator, this couldn’t entirely be ruled out. 😊 Following this was Professor Paul Gooding from the University of Glasgow, with an engaging talk on ‘Applying AI to Library Collections’. He identified a key challenge for libraries as being the control of AI development by a handful of technology firms – the forces driving AI tools are not situated in the library sector. How can libraries play a part in AI innovation? Continue reading