Home University of Edinburgh Library Essentials
December 14, 2025
Divinity Approaches to Research – Library Resources for Islam
- View of pages from the Qur’an of Tipu Sultan. Shows text in the centre, surrounded by gold and blue illumination. Tipu Sultan was the Muslim ruler of Southern India’s Mysore province (now part of Karnataka) during the late eighteenth century. Edinburgh University Library Or.Ms 148
New College Library holds book collections to support the current courses and research by the School of Divinity in the area of Islam. A wide range of online resources is also available, such as Early Western Korans Online, the Encyclopaedia of Islam and Oxford Islamic Studies Online.
For a full introduction to the range to Library Resources for Islam at the University of Edinburgh, please see the Subject Guide for Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at:
http://www.ed.ac.uk/information-services/library-museum-gallery/finding-resources/subject-guides/islamic-middle-east
Today’s question for Divinity postgraduate students on the Divinity Approaches to Research course is :
“At what shelfmark would you find the principal collection of books on Islamic Law at New College Library? Use DiscoverEd to help you find the answer, or come into New College Library to explore”
[Example : BJ is the shelfmark for Ethics]
Tweet me your answer at NewCollegeLibrarian@cloverodgers or email me on Christine.Love-Rodgers@ed.ac.uk.
Questions are also posted on the Learn course for Approaches to Research.
A winner will be drawn on Friday 2 Oct from all correct answers received and they will receive a mystery prize!
Christine Love-Rodgers, Academic Support Librarian – Divinity
Centre for Research Collections Pop-up at the LLC School
1-3pm, Tuesday 29 September
Languages and Humanities Centre
50 George Square
Staff from the CRC will be at the Language and Humanities Centre of the LLC School, 50 George Square, to promote the University’s heritage and cultural collections, and provide practical advice about how to explore the collections, where to consult them, and how to find digital resources for assignments.
With over 400,000 rare books and 6km of archive material, there is something for everyone!
Clement Littil ‘Thair to Remain’ Treasures room, CRC 5th Floor, December 2011.
Access issue – Springer website
As reported earlier on twitter, there are access issues to Springer content – both e-books and e-journals. The publishers have now restored Shibboleth authentication which means all users can now access content again.
To access the Springer content via Shibboleth authentication, click the sign up/log in link located at top right corner of any Springer webpage and follow the on-screen instructions for Shibboleth.
Springer continue to work on IP address/EZProxy authentication. UPDATE – all technical problems fully resolved 29/9/15
Cambridge University Press E-Book Additions – September
A further 130 monographs and 32 coursebooks have been made available in September. A list of the additions can be found at the links below. These are now available via DiscoverEd.
September Coursebooks Additions
Further info
Further information about our e-books is available from http://www.ed.ac.uk/information-services/library-museum-gallery/finding-resources/ebooks
If a book you require is not held by the library, please visit our Library Resources Plus webpage.
Sage Knowledge E-Books – New Additions
We have added a further 147 Sage e-books to DiscoverEd. Subject areas primarily Education and Psychology. See the new additions list here.
Further info
Further information about our e-books is available from http://www.ed.ac.uk/information-services/library-museum-gallery/finding-resources/ebooks
If a book you require is not held by the library, please visit our Library Resources Plus webpage.
Palgrave Connect E-Books – New Additions
Over 600 new e-books from Palgrave have been added to DiscoverEd. Subject areas include: Business & Management, Economics & Finance, Education, History, Language & Linguistics, Literature, Media & Culture, Political Science Collection, International Relations & Development, Religion & Philosophy, Social Sciences and Theatre & Performance.
A title list of the new additions can be viewed here.
We now have access to over 6,600 e-books on the Palgrave Connect platform, these can be browsed at this link http://www.ezproxy.is.ed.ac.uk/login?url=http://www.palgraveconnect.com/pc/browse/jumpStartResults.
Open Book Publishers Library Membership
The Library has recently taken out membership to Open Book Publishers (OBP). OBP are an open access publisher, primarily for humanities and social sciences but now expanding into other disciplines. Further info. about their vision can be found here. Currently there are 63 books available with a further 12-18 to be published during the next 12 months. A list of the e-books currently available can be found here. New titles will be added to DiscoverEd.
Library membership provides students/staff and alumni with the right to freely download any digital edition format of any title from their website. Library Membership also provides a 15% discount (to staff/student/alumni) on any printed edition of their titles, purchased from their website.
Top five library questions from SPS PG students
Welcome from Caroline & Christine
It was great to meet so many SPS postgraduate students in our Welcome Week workshops on Library Resources. We’ve now put the slides from these sessions up on our subject guide web pages. We asked you to write any questions you still had about the library on your feedback sheets so we could get back to you. Here’s some of the things you asked :
- “How do I find out more about using Endnote?”
To learn more about Endnote Online (Web) you canbook on the iSkills course, Using EndNote Online to Manage your References via MyEd. Further details can be found at http://www.ed.ac.uk/information-services/help-consultancy/is-skills/classroom-courses/basic-it-library-and-bibliography. Alternatively, the course materials are also available online.Training for the desktop version of Endnote that I mentioned is also available (Managing Bibliographies with EndNote X7).
2. “How do I log in/sign in via the University to JSTOR journals?”
If you access JSTOR via the University link at http://www.ed.ac.uk/is/databases-a-z, you will be taken through the University’s authentication which is the EASE username and password log in. This will enable you to be recognised as a University of Edinburgh student and access JSTOR. If you have done this and you get an “authorisation failed” error message, contact the IS Helpline (IS.Helpline@ed.ac.uk) , by phone (0131 651 5151) or via the self-service portal (https://ed.unidesk.ac.uk/tas/public/.
3. “Are IT services and helpdesk the same? If not where can I find the IT desk?”
The IS Helpline are the main contact for IT and e-learning enquiries. They don’t have a desk that you can visit them in-person, but they do offer a pretty much 24/7 service. You can contact them via email (IS.Helpline@ed.ac.uk) , by phone (0131 651 5151) or via the self-service portal (https://ed.unidesk.ac.uk/tas/public/ – if you contact them via this route then you can keep a track of your enquiry).
There are also Mobile Device Clinics that you can book onto via MyEd for one-to-one help with your laptop or tablet : www.ed.ac.uk/is/mdc
If you’re having problems connecting to your email account or using the University’s wireless or VPN services then the Helpline are running drop-in Get Connected sessions in the Main Library, 10am-4pm (until Fri 25 Sept). More information at www.ed.ac.uk/is/get-connected
4. “Can you tell me more about study spaces beyond the Library (as I’ve heard it gets crowded)? ”
During peak periods such as undergraduate revision and exam time, extra study space is opened up around the central area and this is advertised through the Library website, library social media accounts e.g. https://www.facebook.com/EdUniLibraries and https://twitter.com/EdUniMainLib, and a large map gets put up in the Main Library itself.
Apart from this though, remember that you can use any of the other site libraries around the University, which have study space and often open access computing facilities as well. Also in George Square the Hugh Robson Building, which is next door to the Chrystal Macmillan Building (CMB), has a 24 hour open access computing lab in it which all students have access to. There are also other open access computing labs available, not based in libraries, around the central area. See http://www.ed.ac.uk/information-services/students/study-space for more information.
5. “I want to know more about the possibility of using other academic libraries in the UK”
Have you heard of the SCONUL Access scheme? Most of the Universities in the UK and Ireland are members of this reciprocal scheme which gives students and staff of member universities access to other member university libraries. You have to register with the scheme first of all and you register online with your home library i.e. University of Edinburgh Library. Once registered you will be sent a registration email and it is this email AND your student card that you will need to gain access to other University Libraries in the UK. For more information see :
More information can also be found on the SCONUL Access website http://www.sconul.ac.uk/sconul-access
Christine Love-Rodgers & Caroline Stirling, Academic Support Librarians – Social & Political Science
DIU Moving Image Update
The work that DIU are developing around moving image has grown considerably in the last two years and the demand for moving image has increased exponentially with each new film produced. We now have around twenty two separate projects archived on the servers, some of these include up to six films in one project. A good example of that is the Curators short films that appear on the Universities Collections web page. Recently we produced an exhibition introduction film for Towards Dolly : A Century of Animal Genetics in Edinburgh. The Dolly intro film features on the University Collections page, social media and also on the Towards Dolly exhibition App. This is the second exhibition App we have contributed to which is proving a popular way to deliver content. The izi App is a free download from the Apple App store and contains information on the Dolly and “Out Of The Blue” exhibitions. We have also made our first contact with digitising 8mm film in the form of Eric Lucy’s “Drosophila Egg” for the Towards Dolly exhibition which is currently open.
Projects under way at writing include time-lapse films “Documenting the Redevelopment of St Cecilia’s Hall” the first section of which you can see below. This section is the very early stages and we are now starting to film the deconstruction of the 1960’s caretakers flat. This is an ongoing project which shall also include film of musical instrument conservation work to be shown on screen within the new development and musical performance using the collection itself.
The performances captured already include the exhibition opening concert for “The Stuart Sound” exhibition currently open in the Centre for Research Collections which featured a beautiful performance of the anonymous, ” but probably” Padua Lute circa 1620. Also captured are the recording sessions from the Edinburgh College Music Box Studio. These are active projects still to be completed.
In addition we have created seven two minute films as content for the upcoming Main Library guide App soon to be released on the Apple and Android App stores. We also have a ton of footage still to be bashed and coerced into a watch-able form. Watch this space for new material soon.
Malcolm Brown, Deputy Photographer.
LOCH Project Update – September 2015
The three partners in the LOCH Project have all had busy few months, using the Summer to gear up for Open Access implementation in the new semester.
Events
- In early August, the project held a workshop in Edinburgh to talk about planning and implementation of Open Access requirements in REF 2020. Project partners presented case studies relating to activities at their universities and delegates were given the opportunity to start formulating or refining their own institutional plans. Presentations are available at https://libraryblogs.is.ed.ac.uk/loch/2015/08/06/ref-open-access-planning-workshop-5th-august/.
External Promotion & Publications
- Dominic Tate attended the ELPUB 2015 conference in Valetta, Malta and talked about UK Open Access policy and the University of Edinburgh’s approach to implementing Green Open Access in light of the OA requirements for the forthcoming REF. A conference paper which briefly analyses the implications of these requirements and the presentation slides are available at https://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/10553.
Reusable Outputs – Deposit of Acceptance Email Templates
- Colleagues at St Andrews University have published a series of reusable email templates which can be used by repository staff in a variety of circumstances to encourage academics to transition to “deposit on acceptance” (as required for REF compliance). These are licenced with CC-BY and are available at https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/handle/10023/7506.
Reflections on the Last Few Months
Reviewing progress over the last few months, the Summer has been extremely busy, with LOCH Project partners working closely with colleagues from Elsevier and the PURE UK User Group to further develop functionality to support OA compliance for research funder and research assessment requirements. Thinking back about our activities, they have mostly been informed by external policy and amendments to it – and balancing these external pressures with a need to provide robust processes and services to support researchers in their work. Thinking about our conversations and deliberations over the last months – here are five top tips for Open Access implementation:
- Devise, implement and maintain one steady internal policy on Open Access which provides best-fit for a range of external drivers (REF, RCUK, Wellcome, Horizon 2020 etc.).
- Do not change internal Open Access policy to reflect changes in the wider environment – doing so could be unsettling for researchers and undermine confidence in your Open Access services.
- Devise one very simple, clear message about what action researchers need to take and the support there is available to them.
- Robust yet flexible planning and early adoption are everything. Do not underestimate the time it takes to achieve a change of culture around publication practice.
- Don’t work in isolation – gain the buy-in of senior stakeholders, research administrators, library staff and academic research leads across your institution.
Looking Forward
We are now in the new Semester and April 2016 is rapidly approaching – and there is still much work to complete, but there are already a number of dates for the diary and events in planning:
- A short workshop on Open Access implementation for PURE customers is planned to take place at the PURE UK User Group in Birmingham on Wednesday September 30th. Please contact dominic.tate@ed.ac.uk for further details of this event.
- Dominic Tate will be presenting at a FOSTER webinar facilitated by Jisc and ARMA on Thursday 19th This webinar will feature a series of case studies on Open Access advocacy – details are available at https://www.arma.ac.uk/events/training-and-development/online-resources/neventitem.2015-06-17.2792528938.
- A further Open Access planning workshop is planned for early December – this will take place in England – exact location and date to be confirmed and publicised shortly.
Dominic Tate – on behalf of the LOCH Project Team
Collections
Hill and Adamson Collection: an insight into Edinburgh’s past
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Cataloguing the private papers of Archibald Hunter Campbell: A Journey Through Correspondence
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Projects
Cataloguing the private papers of Archibald Hunter Campbell: A Journey Through Correspondence
My name is Pauline Vincent, I am a student in my last year of a...
Archival Provenance Research Project: Lishan’s Experience
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