24/7 Library Opening from Monday 10th April

24-hour library opening begins on Monday 10th April and will continue until 8:00pm on Friday 5^th May. That’s 4 weeks of the Library being continuously open. If you need a safe and quiet space to study at 3am then we’ve got you covered!

Security staff will be on duty overnight and the self-service book issue kiosks and returns machine will be available as usual. Library staff will be at home asleep (zzzzzz….) but if you have any questions during the overnight period please email library@rgu.ac.uk and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can. Library staff will be on duty for the usual 90 hours per week of our standard opening hours.

Costa Coffee on Level 2 will be open normal hours but from 10:00pm we believe a complimentary drink station will be available near the SIWB reception area with free tea and coffee available. Microwaves are available in the refectory area on Level 2 and the vending machines should be stocked with a variety of soups and snacks. The vending machines can be found on Level 2 of the building (to the left when exiting the lift).

Our rules about eating and drinking still apply, as blogged about previously. You can bring hot or cold drinks, and cold snacks, but please don’t bring in any hot food. This should be consumed outside of the library. Floor 8 is bottled water only to allow for those with allergies, who are fasting, or who do not like the smells! Please help our cleaning staff by tidying up after yourself and placing all rubbish in the appropriate bins.

Whilst studying overnight in the Library, please take regular breaks and look after yourself. Sleep is just as important as study for good exam results so go home when you feel tired and get some rest.

Please stay safe and make travel plans for getting home. If you’re struggling to get home and don’t have money to pay for a taxi then the Student Union operate a Safe Taxi scheme where you can use your student card to guarantee payment.

We hope you find these extra opening hours useful and look forward to hearing your feedback

Accessibility

Although we are always proud to show off our books and electronic resources in the library, we are aware that these are not always easily accessible to everyone.  Some students have visual impairments, or the added obstacle to reading of dyslexia or being on the autism spectrum.  Reading is something which most of us take for granted, but it is not easy for all.

Luckily, we can give to support to any students with a designated ‘Print Disability’ and can often provide resources in alternative formats.  To qualify for this, and keep within copyright law, a student must have officially notified RGU’s Inclusion Centre of their disability.  RGU are members of a scheme called RNIB Bookshare, run by the Royal National Institute of Blind People, and the Library can use this to try to obtain your essential reading in a variety of different formats. Not every book is available through this scheme but we’ll do our best to support you and source what you need.

Height adjustable desk

As well as this, the library is equipped with a height adjustable desk on each floor, lifts to all the floors and a wheelchair accessible toilet.  Our Welcome desk on Level 5 always has someone willing to help and there are often staff at the Help Points on each floor as well.  These desks are all fitted with an induction loop.

Help point

We’re always looking for ways to make our services more accessible.  Last year we relaunched our Harvard Referencing Templates to be more accessible to screen readers, but we know we can do more.  If you have any suggestions then please get in touch.  Whilst we can’t guarantee that we can fix everything, we always guarantee to take your comments seriously and see what we can do to help.

Maria Robertson is the Library’s accessibility support contact.  She can be contacted via email or by telephone on 01224 263730, and will be happy to discuss your individual needs in confidence.  No help provided by the Library or Inclusion Centre is recorded on your student record so please do not hesitate to let us help you get your best results possible.

OpenAIR@RGU – monthly update (no.74 – February 2023)

Welcome to the latest update on RGU’s open access institutional repository, OpenAIR. As usual, please get in touch with the Publications Team if you have any questions about this update, or if you would like to speak to us about your research outputs.

Training

We run monthly online training sessions for staff, where we demonstrate how new outputs are added to Worktribe and to OpenAIR. Our forthcoming sessions are as follows:

• March – Tuesday 21st March, 15:00-16:00
• April – Wednesday 19th April, 09:00-10:00
• May – Thursday 18th May, 11:00-12:00

If you would like to register for any of these sessions, please contact the Publications Team.

Content

OpenAIR currently contains 6172 outputs. Some examples of recent additions to the repository include the following:

• https://rgu-repository.worktribe.com/output/1848971 = OCHEI, N.V., EZEANI, E.C. and ANDERSON, C. 2023. Mechanisms used by multinational oil companies to derail human rights and environmental litigations arising from the Niger Delta. African journal of legal studies [online], Advanced articles. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1163-17087384-bja10075

• https://rgu-repository.worktribe.com/output/1866788 = PEDERSEN, S., MUELLER-HIRTH, N. and MILLER, L. [2023]. Supporting victims of domestic violence at a distance during COVID-19: the impact of the pandemic on service providers in remote, rural and island communities in North-East Scotland and Orkney. Island studies journal [online], (accepted).

• https://rgu-repository.worktribe.com/output/1893937 = DE CLERCQ, D., DAYAN, M. and NG, P.Y. [2023]. When performance demands enable change: how employees can overcome emotional dissonance and organizational underappreciation. European management journal [online], In Press. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emj.2023.02.004

• https://rgu-repository.worktribe.com/output/1861584 = MESJAR, L., CROSS, K., JIANG, Y. and STEED, J. 2023. The intersection of fashion, immersive technology and sustainability: a literature review. Sustainability [online], 15(4), article number 3761. Available from: https://doi.org/10.3390/su15043761

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

(Click image to expand)

Aberdeen Business School – 802
Gray’s School of Art – 341
Law School – 261
School of Applied Social Studies – 261
School of Computing – 935
School of Creative and Cultural Business – 598
School of Engineering – 961
School of Health Sciences – 325
School of Nursing, Midwifery and Paramedic Practice – 475
School of Pharmacy and Life Sciences – 957
Scott Sutherland School of Architecture and Built Environment – 392
National Subsea Centre – 180
Other departments – 94

Downloads

Last month, in January, there were a total of 7324 downloads from OpenAIR. The most-downloaded items were:

• https://rgu-repository.worktribe.com/output/1369587 = CHEN, R., ZHENG, Z., YU, Y., ZHAO, H., REN, J. and TAN, H.-Z. 2021. Fast restoration for out-of-focus blurred images of QR code with edge prior information via image sensing. IEEE sensors journal [online], 21(16), article 103048, pages 18222-18236. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1109/JSEN.2021.3085568

• https://rgu-repository.worktribe.com/output/928703 = ELYAN, E., JAMIESON, L. and ALI-GOMBE, A. 2020. Deep learning for symbols detection and classification in engineering drawings. Neural networks [online], 129, pages 91-102. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neunet.2020.05.025

• https://rgu-repository.worktribe.com/output/244770 = MOHAMMED, A.I., OYENEYIN, B., ATCHISON, B. and NJUGUNA, J. 2019. Casing structural integrity and failure modes in a range of well types: a review. Journal of natural gas science and engineering [online], 68, article ID 102898. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jngse.2019.05.011

The above data were gathered on 27.02.2023.

Bloomsbury Scots Law titles on Lexis + being removed

We have recently been informed that from 1st April 23 the Bloomsbury Scots Law titles will no longer be available on the Lexis + platform and we are in discussions with both companies about this change.

This includes core titles such as Contract Law in Scotland and Employment Law in Scotland.

Access to titles in this collection will be made available in April on the Bloomsbury platform but after that point they will no longer be accessible.

Information about access to the Bloomsbury platform will be made available in March but you can still access the titles on Lexis + until 31st March 23.

The titles and links to the records to give you access can be found by following this link:

Bloomsbury Titles on Lexis for students Feb 23

Please continue to follow Lexis terms and conditions and copyright restrictions when accessing these titles.

OGEL off campus username and password updated 17th February 23

Due to some access issues the ID and password used to access the OGEL (Oil Gas and Energy Law) database off campus has been updated today to a new password. If you require the new details, please email the Library at library@rgu.ac.uk.