Library reopening

Welcome to all of our new students and welcome back to all of our returning students! We’re looking forward to supporting you to use Library resources and services and we wish you a happy, and safe, year.

RGU Library will reopen from 9am on Monday 28th September with initial opening hours of Monday-Friday 0900-1700. These will be kept under review and may be extended later in the Semester.

We’re looking forward to seeing students again, but there are only three reasons why you should come to the Library this Semester:

  1. You have a seat booking – bookings MUST be made in advance via our Seat booking page. We’re sorry but we can’t accommodate walk-in requests for study space.
  2. You have reserved library items and have booked a Click & Collect slot. Collection slots MUST be booked in advance.
  3. You have items to return – no need to book a time to return items. They can be taken to the Library or dropped-off at the Book Return Box in the foyer of the Sir Ian Wood Building. The box is available 0700-1900 Monday-Friday.

When booking Seats or Collection slots please ensure that you have received email confirmation of your time before coming to the Library! We’re finding that some students aren’t completing the process fully and their booking isn’t registered. If you don’t receive email confirmation then we won’t have received your booking.

Please note that there will be no general access to the Library other than for these three reasons. Most Library staff are still working from home and any enquiries should be emailed to library@rgu.ac.uk. There won’t be any on-campus enquiry service or on-campus Library workshops. All of our workshops are available online though, along with 1-1 support appointments. Check out our support guide for more information.

Before coming to the campus for the first time we recommend that you read through the student orientation material available at http://www.rgu.ac.uk/student-campus-orientation

Safety measures have been put in place for your protection so please ensure that you follow the signage and instructions, use the hand sanitiser and cleaning materials, maintain a social distance from others and wear your face coverings at all times. Scottish Government guidance states that face coverings must be worn at all times in libraries so, unlike the rest of the campus, you must wear it even when sitting at your study desk. Medical exemptions do apply but Library staff will ask you about your face covering if you’re not wearing one. If you have one of the sunflower lanyards to indicate medical exemption then please wear it when coming to the Library.

Finally, if you have any Covid symptoms please do not come to the Library or the campus. You should follow the procedure as detailed in the student campus orientation document.

Access to Print Stock!

Exciting news, the print stock at RGU Library is accessible again! The team have been working hard to put in place new systems to ensure that the print books held in the Library can be used alongside electronic versions.

There are three ways to access the print stock:

  1. Click & Collect – reserved items can be collected 10am-4pm Monday-Friday. At the moment access to campus buildings is strictly controlled so please don’t come into the building. The collection point is outside the Sir Ian Wood building.
  2. Article & Chapter requests – if all you need is a single chapter or article, or a few pages from a book or journal, then you can request that we scan and send it to you.
  3. Postal Loans – if you are unable to come to campus then you can request a postal loan. We post the items to you, but please note that you are responsible for paying the return postage and items may be recalled from you.

We’re expecting high demand for these services so please ensure you place your requests in plenty of time. We’ll do our best to get all requests processed quickly but there will be minimal staff on campus.

To find out more about Click & Collect, Article & Chapter requests and Postal Loans see the guide to Borrowing.

Any questions? Get in touch with us at library@rgu.ac.uk

OpenAIR@RGU – monthly update (no.44 – August 2020)

Welcome to the latest update on RGU’s open access institutional repository, OpenAIR. If you have any suggestions for things that you would like to see in these monthly updates, or if you have any questions about the repository service, please get in touch with the Publications Team.

News

As the start of Semester One approaches, we hope that many researchers and students will be able to make use of campus facilities again. We know that the Estates team have been working hard to make the campus as safe an environment as possible. From the library perspective, we are hoping to operate some on-campus services during the semester, so keep an eye on the Library Matters blog for further updates about what services will be available.

Meanwhile, the Publications Team are still working from home and we do not yet have an update on when we may be able to offer training on the use of Worktribe’s Outputs module. We apologise for this continued inconvenience.

As a reminder, we have various information about Open Access in our online researcher guides. You may particularly want to read the following guides:

Content

OpenAIR currently contains 4036 outputs. Some examples of recent additions to the repository include the following:

Each School is currently linked to the following number of outputs on OpenAIR:

(Click image to expand)

Aberdeen Business School – 602
Gray’s School of Art – 257
Law School – 177
School of Applied Social Studies – 156
School of Computing – 528
School of Creative and Cultural Business – 469
School of Engineering – 589
School of Health Sciences – 184
School of Nursing, Midwifery and Paramedic Practice – 303
School of Pharmacy and Life Sciences – 639
Scott Sutherland School of Architecture and Built Environment – 281
Other departments – 26

Downloads

Last month, in June, there were a total of 2971 downloads from OpenAIR. The most-downloaded items were:

The above data were gathered on 27.08.2020.

Library plans for on-campus services in Semester 1

The Library team have been working remotely since March and the majority of Library services have continued almost as normal. Access to Library Search, e-books, databases and online journals has been maintained, workshops and support appointments have been held online and the team have responded to enquiries via email, Twitter and Facebook.

As we approach Semester 1 we’re working to open the Library safely to staff and students and to resume the delivery of some face-to-face services. At the moment access to campus buildings is strictly controlled and plans are still being finalised. That means we can’t give any definitive dates for on-campus services right now, but here’s a couple of things we’ll be doing:

• A Click & Collect service will be launched where you can reserve a print item and then book a time to come in and pick it up.
• The postal loan and digitisation service will be expanded – but please note that if you use the postal loan service then you are responsible for paying the return postage! We encourage you to use the Click & Collect service instead if you’re going to be on campus.
• We’ll be using a Seat booking service to ensure that our study floors don’t get too crowded. Due to social distancing measures our capacity will be severely reduced. If you want to get to the upper floors of the Library you’ll need to book a space in advance. We won’t be able to let you in without a booking!

The safety of Library staff and all of our customers is hugely important. We’ve worked with the University Health & Safety and Estates teams to ensure that the Library is a safe place to be.

When you come into the Library you’ll notice it looks a bit different. Furniture has been moved to create more open spaces and maintain social distancing. There will be enhanced cleaning processes, cleaning materials and hand sanitiser available at multiple points, plexiglass screens at the Library reception desk and face coverings should be worn at all times. There will also be a one-way system to enter and exit the Library.

We’ll make further announcements about these changes over the coming weeks so keep an eye on our Twitter or Facebook pages or subscribe to the Library blog to be kept up to date.

New collections available on Digimap

We are pleased to announce that we now have 2 new collections available on Digimap. Joining the current collections of Ordnance Survey, Historic, Geology, Marine, Environment, Aerial and Lidar, are the Global and the Society collections.

Global provides access to global datasets, including OpenStreetMap and Natural Earth.

Society provides a wealth of census and socio-economic data for Great Britain that is layered over the ordnance survey maps.

You can access Digimap via the A-Z database list.