Borrowing has just got easier

Information Services have just launched a new intersite loans service, allowing you to pick up books from a preferred library location, no matter where it resides on campus. Simply request the item on UNLOC and select your preferred pickup library from the drop-down menu. This service applies to ordinary loan books which may also be returned to any library.

Welcome from the new Faculty Team Leader

I just wanted to take this opportunity to introduce myself as the new Library Team Leader for Science and Engineering. I am temporarily replacing Chris Middleton whilst Chris is covering the post of Head of Academic Services, based at Kings Meadow. This agreement is in place until Christmas in the first instance and I am based in Chris' old office on floor C of the George Green Library.

Just to give you a little bit of background. I actually started my career here at Nottingham as Senior Library Assistant in the George Green Library, in what was then the engineering team, about 8 years ago. I then moved over to the Greenfield Medical Library, before moving to the James Cameron Gifford Library as Team Leader for Biosciences and Veterinary Science. So, I have experience in working in many of the subject areas offered within the Science and Engineering Faculty. Most recently, I have been based in the Hallward Library.

Other team members remain the same but I outline below the different subject specialities that each team member looks after:

Engineering: Jenny Coombs and Shona Pullen
Chemistry, pharmacy, biology, environmental science: Dinah Northall and Alison Johnson (job-share)
Maths, physics and psychology: Liz Day and Jane Maltby (job-share)
Biosciences and veterinary medicine and science (based at Sutton Bonington): Suzanna Rogers (part-time)

Staff members can be contacted directly or we have 3 team email contacts as follows:
library-engineering-enquiries@nottingham.ac.uk
library-science-enquiries@nottingham.ac.uk
library-biosciences-enquiries@nottingham.ac.uk

Please do contact us and I hope that you enjoy and find this blog useful.

We need U - IS Student Communications Panel

Information Services communicates information about library and IT systems to over 40,000 users at the University of Nottingham, using a number of different methods. There is always room for improvement and the department is recruiting student volunteers to join a panel that will provide feedback on the way it provides information.

The IS Student Communications Panel will consist of up to 20 student members reflecting: Undergraduates; Postgraduates; International students; Students with disabilities; Part-time students. It will meet once a term. Panel members will be provided with £10 worth of print credits for each meeting they attend. The first panel meeting is planned for the middle of November.

Please email is-communications@nottingham.ac.uk if you are interested in joining the panel.

Returners - Summer Stock Shuffle!

Returning students to George Green Library, will find that we have moved our stock around so it is easier to find:

Floor D (top floor): Has all science & engineering periodicals in one A-Z alphabetical sequence.
Floor C (middle floor): Holds all book stock, oversize and pamphlets - classmarks Q-TX
Floor B (ground floor): Still stocks our short loan and reference collections
Floor A (basement): Now stocks our Engineering dissertations and reports in addition to our store based periodicals and books (older material)

Floor D is now a research space with silent study expected whilst all other floors offer more social learning spaces

Nature - a bursting resource!

Have you come across this resource yet from Nature Publishing Group. It's bursting at the seams with useful links, databases and gateways to all sorts of scientific information

http://www.nature.com/databases/index.html

NEW - Interactive Ebook - for New Students

Two of Information Services’ main student publications on using library and IT services have been published as interactive eBooks, available via the IS website or via links below. The guides are:

Library and IT Services

Using IT Facilities

This new format should provide 'handy' access to information to help students get started and up and running within our libraries and computing centres.

Big Bang Day - rewriting the laws of physics?

TODAY, September 10th 2008, CERN - the largest centre of particle physics research in the world, will switch on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and in the process begin the most ambitious science experiment ever undertaken. Conditions just a billionth of a second after the big bang will be recreated in the search for answers to some of the most profound questions about our universe and how it all began. Mysteries such as: What is mass? What is dark matter? Why is there no antimatter ? Are extra dimensions and parallel universes science fact rather than science fiction? may shortly become solved. To find out more about the pertinent questions or rather answers we hope this experiment will reveal, check out: BBC Radio4 coverage; BBC News comment; CERN website or BBC Guide to LHC.

Meanwhile...... Can you think of a better name for the Large Hadron Collider? Email ideas to edwardsj@rsc.org to win £500 from the Royal Society of Chemistry.