Summer Holiday Library Update

Photo by Kent Pilcher on Unsplash

While summer has very definitely arrived in the last few weeks, we wanted to remind our users that the library and library staff are still here throughout this period to help with any study and information needs you have – whether in person or remotely.

For those staying close to St George’s, the library will be open every day over the summer – from 8am to 11pm Monday to Friday and 9am to 9pm at weekends. (24/7 opening will return on 3rd October.) And as always, library staff will be onsite to help between 8am and 6pm every weekday.

But no matter where you’re spending the summer, our online resources and other services can help you stay on top of your studies when you need to. Read our post below for a few suggestions.

1. Find e-books in Hunter

Forgot to borrow a book from the library before leaving St George’s for the summer? Don’t panic! With over 5000 e-books now in our collection, it’s increasingly likely that you’ll be able to find something relevant in Hunter that you can access from anywhere.

To find and access e-books in Hunter:

1. Choose Books and more in the dropdown menu before searching.
2. Select Online resources from the options on the left to narrow your search results to e-books only.
3. All our e-books have a Full text available link – click here to see access options.

You’ll need your St George’s username and password to access online resources, including e-books. To reset a forgotten or expired password, see below.

Reset your St George’s password…

…using this link. Please note, you’ll need to have registered an alternate email address to use the link. If you haven’t done this previously, email studentlifecentre@sgul.ac.uk to set one up.

If you’ve registered an alternate address but still can’t reset your password, email ITAV@sgul.ac.uk.

2. Discover online learning tools

Your St George’s login also gives you access to our growing collection of online learning tools, many of which use video, quizzes and other features to keep your learning interactive. Below we’ve highlighted one of our newer resources, but you can view a full list here.

St George’s students have full access to JoVE Science Education resources

JoVE Science Education helps you recap topics in basic and advanced biology, chemistry, clinical skills and more through an extensive collection of video lessons. Click here to sign in with your St George’s username and password.

Also included in our subscription is access to JoVE Core, a collection of video textbooks that use animation to teach molecular and cell biology, statistics and more; and JoVE Lab Manuals in biology and chemistry.

3. Study at other university libraries

After a long break, the SCONUL Access Scheme has returned, allowing St George’s students reference access to over 150 university libraries across the UK and Ireland. (Postgraduate students may also get limited borrowing rights at some libraries.)

To start using the scheme, visit the SCONUL Access website where you can register your details and check whether the library you’d like to visit is participating. Within a few days, and provided your library account is in good standing, we’ll send you a confirmation email. Take this email, along with your St George’s ID, to your chosen library to apply for access.

Christmas 2021 Closure Dates

In line with the University closure dates, the Library will close at

5pm on Thursday 23 December and reopen at 8am on Tuesday 4 January 2022.

The computer rooms will be accessible with a valid ID card during this period.

Wishing all library members a peaceful and safe time with your family and friends.

Your ‘On-Call Librarian’ is at hand…

Today, we are pleased to announce the launch of our new ‘On-Call Librarian service’ where library users can get on the spot help with finding information and using library resources. No need to book, just come to the library helpdesk between the hours of 10am and 2pm, Monday to Friday and ask to speak to a librarian for help with literature searching, referencing and more. This service replaces our now closed Research Enquiries desk – we hope you like it- email your feedback to library@sgul.ac.uk

The library working environment: study break passes and texting service

Maintaining a pleasant working environment for everyone who uses the library is one of our main concerns. To ensure that it continues to be a great place to study, we have introduced, or rather reintroduced for those of you  who have used the library for a few years, two new schemes.

Study break scheme

We are still operating at reduced capacity and we’d like to make sure everyone has access to the study space they need. A study break pass allows you to take a break of up to 30 minutes during which time you can leave your belongings unattended. While we don’t take any responsibility for unattended personal stuff, with our study break scheme you can make sure that we don’t move your things to make space for other library users during the 30 minutes. After that time or if you choose not to use a study break card and you are away from the desk, other library users or staff are able to move your belongings to the side to make space. Find out more here or email library@sgul.ac.uk with any comments you might have.

Noise in the library

We have also introduced a texting service, so you are easily able to alert us to noise in the library or other issues affecting your study space. Text us, with your location, on 07562901543 and we will ensure you can study in peace and quiet. This service is available between 9am and 9pm Monday through to Sunday. Again, if you have any comments about this, please email library@sgul.ac.uk.

We hope that these schemes allow us to continue keeping the library a pleasant working environment for all library users.

Library services updates in August

We hope you are enjoying your summer break as best as you can. Here are some changes we are making in August.

August opening hours

We have decided to extend our opening hours. The Library and computer room will now be open 10am to 4pm Monday to Friday. Space limitations and social distancing rules continue to apply. We have about 45 spaces in the Library and 19 computers available. The Library is available for silent study only. Please make use of the space careful and come in only when you have to. To find out more about how to use the Library safely, please have a look at our website. We post regular updates on our Twitter account.

Click and Collect book loans service

We have made a few changes to our current service provision in order to provide as much as we can within the limits of what is safe in the current environment.

From August, we are offering a ‘click and collect’ service to enable users to reserve print books from the library shelves and borrow them.

Please follow the steps below to reserve books. If you have any questions, please email library@sgul.ac.uk.

To reserve books:

• Sign into Hunter. You will need your University username and password if you are a student or University staff. For students, you can reset your password yourself if you need to or contact itav@sgul.ac.uk. For NHS staff, if you have trouble logging in, please call 020 8725 5466 Mon-Fri 10am – 4pm or email library@sgul.ac.uk.
• Search for the book you wish to reserve remembering to use the drop-down menu to change the search criteria to ‘books and more’.
• Once you have found the book you wish to reserve, click on ‘Check availability of print copies’.
• Select ‘place hold’. Have a look at our Place a Hold video for more information.

You will receive an email when the reserved item(s) become available. It may take up to 2 working days between placing your reservation and receiving the email informing you that your reservations are ready to collect.

You will have 7 days from the date of the email to collect your item(s).

To collect your books:

• Make sure you have your SGUL ID card with you.
• Please visit during staffed hours – Monday-Friday 10am-4pm.
• The books will be shelved in paper bags in front of Blossom the Jenner cow-skin inside the Library.
• The bag will have the last four digits of your ID (barcode) number and the first three letters of your surname written on it. The bags will be organised in alphabetical order.
• Collect your bag and use the self-service kiosks to borrow the items – they don’t need to be removed from the bag.
• Please sanitise/wash your hands and the self-service kiosks before and after use.

Points to note:

• You may only reserve ‘on-shelf’ items. Books currently on loan to other users are unable to be reserved at this time.
• Books will only be held for 7 days from the date of your email. After this time, they will be returned to the shelves and will have to be requested again if still needed.
• Library users cannot access our physical book collection themselves. You have to request any item you are interested in.

If you are NHS staff at St George’s, you can also request articles from our online collection and we will send it to you free of charge! To place a request and for more information, please have a look at our webpage.

Christmas Opening Hours 2019

With the Christmas break rapidly approaching, we’ve reached that point in the year where we confirm the Library’s closure over the holidays. However, it is worth noting that our opening hours this Christmas are slightly different to previous years:

On Monday 23rd December and Tuesday 24th December the Library will be staffed by security and will be self-service only.

Therefore you should aim to complete any transactions that require Library staff before Friday 20th December.

The Library will then be closing for the Christmas break at 1pm on Tuesday 24th December and will reopen at 8am on Thursday 2nd January.

As ever, the Computer Rooms next to the Library will be open 24/7 during this period but access to the building will require a valid ID card. If you are planning to use these facilities during the break, users may wish to check that their Library account has not expired – this is particularly relevant for our NHS users.

Keeping the Library a pleasant space for studying

If you are a regular library user it won’t have escaped your notice that our study spaces have been very busy recently. Since we tend to get even more visitors around assessment periods, we’re sharing a timely reminder of what we expect from our users. You can find our Library Code of Conduct on the library website as well as on the Library Rules page of our Library Essentials LibGuide.

For now, we wanted to remind you that:

• Noise travels very easily, so please be mindful of your conversations and be aware of how they might disturb those working in the area around you.
  • The Library is a designated place for study and while it’s a convenient place to meet people, it isn’t an area that can, or should, facilitate socialising. If you are planning to meet up with friends, the social learning space or SU bar are better options.
• The Library is zoned to accommodate different learning preferences. You are expected to be silent in the blue silent study zones and quiet, low volume conversation is allowed in the orange group study sections. Again, please be mindful of the volume of your conversations as you enter and exit these areas.
• No food is permitted in the Library, although lidded drinks are allowed
• No mobile phone conversations are permitted in the Library – even if you are using headphones. Please take your calls outside of the Library in the social learning space.
• Personal belongings should not be left unattended nor used to ‘reserve’ a particular computer or study space. Unattended belongings may be removed by library or security staff to ensure fair use of the space, but you can indicate to other users you are taking a short break by using our Study Break Passes.

We encourage users to move aside belongings without a study pass so that they can use the space, or ask noisy groups to keep the noise down. However, if you aren’t comfortable doing so, you are always welcome to report noise disturbances or unattended belongings to the Library Helpdesk.

If you have any questions about the above, please contact a member of our User Services team by emailing library@sgul.ac.uk

Introducing…New RefWorks!

You might be about to embark on a research project, perhaps a dissertation, a case study or longer assignment which requires you to collect, store, manage and use a large amount of references. Or you might be a second-year student realising that as you are progressing through your degree you are expected to use more references. If you are, there is no need to panic as there are some handy tools available to help you manage all this information.

---

There are many different types of reference management software, each with its own special features. In practice, whichever tool you use, it can substantially increase the speed and efficiency with which you manage your references.

Here at SGUL, we support RefWorks, which is perfectly suited to those preparing longer pieces of academic writing. This term we have moved away from using Legacy RefWorks to (new) Refworks!  RefWorks is freely available to all SGUL students and staff. We also provide training to people who want to learn how to use RefWorks effectively and efficiently. There is a lot of online support available too, like our recently updated Libguide.

What is RefWorks?

RefWorks is one of the most popular reference management applications and it allows users to:

• collect references – no need to type details in manually
• store references
• organise references
• link to full text, web pages and documents
• cite your references and create bibliographies in different styles

How does it work?

Unlike other reference management tools, RefWorks is a web-based software, so no need to download anything!

Go to http://refworks.proquest.com and click on “Use login from my institution”. Then, under Shibboleth find or search for “St George’s, University of London”. All you need is your SGUL username and password to log in.

The first time you do this you have to fill in some information about yourself and then you’re all set to start collecting references.

There are multiple ways to populate your RefWorks account with reference data. Depending on the search tool or database(s) you are using, there are different ways to add references:

• Direct export from a database
• Downloading and importing a text file from a database
• Drag and drop PDFs into RefWorks
• Adding references manually
• Use the ‘Save to RefWorks’ browser extension

For more information on how each of these options work, have a look at our RefWorks Libguide.

Be sure to always check if the information that was added is correct and complete! As you start adding more references, you will want to organise them so that they stay manageable. You can for example assign references to different folders and subfolders. You can also deduplicate them, if you are in the habit of adding big batches of references in one go.

Top tips

• Quality check your references by looking at citation view, that way you can see what details are missing. Make sure to select Harvard – SGUL & FHSCE and save this as the default setting to ensure that you are using the right citation style. It is a good idea to double-check your reference in citation view immediately after adding it, so you can compare it to the original document without having to retrieve it.

• Refworks can generate an in-text citation in the correct style for you and it can create a bibliography too. Just click on the “Create Bibliography” icon at the top of the page. Follow the guidance on the screen and copy/paste what you need, done!

• Much easier and more effective is using Write-N-Cite which is a small separate programme you can download which connects your Refworks account to Word. An equivalent is available for Word on Mac devices as well. On SGUL computers, this programme is built into Word so no need to download anything!

Legacy RefWorks vs (New) RefWorks

The new RefWorks is intuitive to use and has better functionality than Legacy RefWorks. However, if you have used RefWorks before, you will have created a Legacy RefWorks account. If you are interested in migrating your references from the old to the new version, please be aware that it is currently not possible to edit documents in new RefWorks if they have previously been used in Legacy RefWorks.

We recommend that you continue to use your Legacy account until you have finished the projects you are currently working on. More information on migrating from Legacy RefWorks can be found here.

Referencing styles at St George’s

We have also updated our guidelines around using the Harvard referencing style, which is the referencing style used across St George’s, in line with the recent new edition of Cite Them Right (2019). Although the new edition doesn’t contain big changes, it includes a lot more examples, including of a NICE guideline and a systematic review published on the Cochrane Library. For more information, have a look at our user help sheet for Harvard.

If your lecturer requires you to use the Vancouver style, you can have a look at this help sheet. Vancouver at SGUL is based on Citing medicine: The NLM style guide for authors, editors, and publishers (2007) by Patrias.

Further help

Make sure to have a look at our Libguide on RefWorks and Reference Management and check out RefWorks’ own YouTube tutorials.

Many of you will receive RefWorks training as part of your degree, but if you want to get ahead or missed out on training, get in touch by emailing liaison@sgul.ac.uk to book a session with us in which we cover the basics of using RefWorks.

---

For general research and referencing questions, be sure to make use of the Research Enquiries Desk (RED) located in the Library and staffed every weekday from 11 am to 2 pm.

New Library website launched

St George’s Library website has now been integrated into the new University website, launched on 30^th September. The site guides key audiences, including current students, teaching staff, researchers and our NHS partners to the information they need about library services.

There’s no need to immediately update your bookmarks, as our old address http://library.sgul.ac.uk should automatically redirect to our new address:

https://www.sgul.ac.uk/about/our-professional-services/information-services/library

To navigate to the library from the SGUL website homepage, just move to the footer at the bottom and click on ‘Library’. Familiar links to key resources such as Hunter, Databases and LibGuides remain on our landing page.

We hope you find our new website useful. If you have any comments about the new website or suggestions for ways we can improve it, please email the project team.

Study Break Pass Scheme launches today

Having listened to your feedback, we announced last month that we would be launching a new scheme to both encourage health study practice and to combat the issue of desk-hogging in the Library.

Today, our new Study Break Passes come into effect: if you are planning on leaving your belongings unattended you will need to make sure you’ve displayed one of our passes on the desk where you are working. This will enable you to leave your things for up to 30 minutes in the knowledge that they won’t be moved.

However, if you don’t display a pass with your belongings, or more than 30 minutes has elapsed since the time on your card, other users are free to move your items aside so that they can use the space for themselves.

Details of the scheme can be found on the Study Break tab within our Library Essentials LibGuide, and we’ve anticipated some of your questions below. If we haven’t answered your question please email us on library@sgul.ac.uk

Why are you introducing this scheme?

We know that all of our users have different study preferences and meeting these needs can be a real challenge for Library staff. This issue is often made more difficult when other library users have left their belongings unattended to ‘reserve’ a desk. We hope that the cards will indicate which study spaces are actively being used and empower users to move belongings that are unattended. In essence, we want the scheme to encourage and maintain fair use of our study spaces.

We’re also keen to promote healthy study habits. Many of you are spending longer hours in the Library and will need to take a break from time to time. We hope that these cards will encourage you to “study healthy” and take regular breaks, without worrying your belongings might be moved.

Where can I find the study break passes?

When you need a break, you can collect one of the passes from the Library Helpdesk or the RED. Just write down the time you left your desk on the card and make sure it’s visible to anyone passing by.

The passes have been designed for multiple uses, so once you are finished with one, please return it to a member of staff.

What spaces are covered by the study break passes?

At the moment, the scheme will apply in the main Library study spaces and not the computer rooms. This also includes the seating in the Library foyer by the Helpdesk. The scheme will run all year round – it won’t be restricted to busy periods.

What if I forget to leave a pass on my desk?

This is a new initiative in the Library, so you may well forget from time to time. However, if belongings are left without a study pass, fellow Library users, staff and security will have no way of knowing how long they have been left there. Therefore it’s possible that they may be moved (or removed) before the 30 minute time limit.

If the time indicated on the pass has been exceeded by a reasonable time, or there is a lack of study space available, then belongings may be removed and placed behind the Helpdesk.

What if I don’t feel comfortable moving someone else’s belongings?

That’s understandable. If you don’t feel comfortable moving someone else’s belongings, you can ask a member of Security or Helpdesk staff for assistance.

It has always been they case that any belongings left in the Library are done so at the user’s own risk – the Library does not take responsibility for any items that are unattended.

You should always take valuable belongings with you when you leave the Library (e.g. purses, phones, devices, laptops etc.)

What if I just need a 5 minute toilet break?

It’s worth your while noting a time on a study pass anyway, even if you only plan to be away for a few minutes. While it’s unlikely your belongings will be moved, as we mention above, other users or staff will have no way of knowing how long you plan to be. Besides, we know all too well how easy it is to bump into a friend en route, or add a coffee stop on to your journey . This way, you’ll be covered if other events get in the way!

Can I report belongings that have been left been left unattended?

Yes you can. Our daytime security staff are back and will be patrolling the spaces during the day, so please feel free to let them know. You can also let a member of Library staff know at either the main Helpdesk or the RED during staffed hours.

---

The information featured here can also be found on our Library Esssentials LibGuide, under Study Breaks. If you have any questions about the scheme, please email us on library@sgul.ac.uk