Category Archives: How to use New College Library

Welcome to New College Library

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A big welcome to all students starting and returning to the University of Edinburgh today, at the beginning of Freshers week 2012. We’re looking forward to meeting you. To help you get started at University, check out this guide  for new students to Library & IT services.

If you want to get ahead with using New College Library, you could start with the Virtual Tour.

There will be a programme of tours for students at New College Library – students please watch your email for details. There will also be events happening all over the University Library to help you get connected with your IT and Library services.

Planned changes to New College Library photocopying services

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The University is introducing a new system of copying and printing over the summer of 2012.

Pushing start button on printer

New Xerox multi-function devices (MFDs) are due to be installed for the beginning of semester in September. University users will continue to be able to charge their University smartcards with credit for photocopying.  However, for external users, the old prepaid copy cards will cease to function. Instead, the New College Library helpdesk will be able to charge visitors cards with credit to enable external users to copy. After the new machines have been installed, New College Library will no longer be selling the prepaid copy cards.

We are still selling the prepaid copy cards but advising users to only buy for what they need right now. If you have a copy card, please try to use up any prepaid copy card balance now while you can. If you do have a balance on your prepaid copy card, after you are no longer able to use it in the Library, you will be able to have this balance checked at the Main Library Helpdesk, and receive a refund on the balance, until 31 December 2012.

Full article on the University website :

http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/information-services/about/news/copy-cards-cease

New College Library is open throughout the Edinburgh Festival

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Edinburgh Festival time is coming, and the Assembly Hall on the Mound will once again be a Festival venue.   As well as the Assembly Hall, the Rainy Hall and various other rooms at New College will be used during this year’s Festival Fringe from Thursday 19th July to Friday 31st August.

New College Library remains open throughout the festival season. Between 17 and 27 July there will be set up activities in New College and the Quad which may cause noise and disruption – although the Library itself is not involved. You may wish to allow a little extra time for travelling to the Library as there may be crowds and queues. Please also remember, as always, to bring your University smart card for entrance and identification.

If you are visiting Edinburgh, you are welcome to register for visitor reference access to New College Library.

Please bring two forms of identity with you. We require photographic proof of identity, confirmation of current address, and a passport size/style colour photograph to register for a reference card.

Studying away from Edinburgh over the summer?

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If you’re a School of Divinity student moving away from Edinburgh over the summer but continuing to work on your thesis, you’ll be thinking about how to obtain the library materials you need.

All of the University of Edinburgh’s online services remain open to you, of course. Just log in remotely using your EASE user name and password.

As long as you remain a University of Edinburgh student, the Library can continue to process inter-library loan requests for you, and photocopies of  journal articles and book chapters can be posted to you (We can’t supply physical loans of books or microfilms by post). If an electronic copy has been supplied, we will email it to you. You’ll need to register for the ILLiad system first, if you haven’t already done so, and then submit your requests online. 

In the UK, you can usually request inter-library loans using the services available at your local public library. This will depend on the services offered locally, and there may be a charge. Always allow a minimum of two weeks, and more if possible, for an inter-library loan item to be delivered.

If you live within easy travelling distance of a University library, it’s probably worth joining the SCONUL access scheme. This allows University of Edinburgh staff and students to have access to 170+ Higher Education Libraries in the UK. You might find visiting one of these libraries quicker than waiting for inter-library loans. You need to register with Edinburgh University as  your home library first – so do it before you leave Edinburgh.  Use the COPAC Union library catalogue http://copac.ac.uk/ to help you see which academic libraries have the materials you want.

A plea from us to all of you going away over the summer – please keep checking your e-mail notices for library books that have been recalled. We need you to return these books for the benefit of other library users. Thank you!

Finding New College theses on the online catalogue

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In response to your questions, here’s some tips for finding New College theses on the University of Edinburgh Library catalogue.

Personally, I find using the Aquabrowser version of the catalogue quite useful for a quick (if dirty) search of what’s available. Type in theses + another search term – e.g. christianity, New Testament etc – into the search box. I searched for eschatology theses. Once you’ve got your list of results make sure that you select ‘New College Library’ from the list of library locations and you should get New College Library results only. One health warning here : you will also get books with the word ‘theses’ in the title and you may get theses from other universities if we have them in the library.

For more precision, you can use the ‘classic’ library catalogue interface. Go straight to the advanced search. Type theses into the search box . Add any additional keywords into the remaining search boxes. Make sure you choose a year of publication option – click one of the radio buttons. For instance you can click the first radio button and choose to search the last 50 years. Now go down to the Library location box and choose New College Library only. 

 Another tip – when you click the search button at the bottom of the form, choose the search button next to where it says ’10 records per page’. Don’t click the word ‘Search’ which is on the tab at the bottom of the page next to Saved Searches. If you do – as I’ve found to my frustration – it thinks you want to start a new search and you end up having to start over again.