Library 101: your guide to find resources in person and online

So we're a few weeks into term, you're settling in, and you're wondering about how the library works and where to find things. Here's a guide to kick-start your studies.

What are the different library buildings for on Campus West?

We have three Library buildings all joined together - you enter through the Morrell, which contains most of the books, then turn right to go to the Burton and left for the Fairhurst. Between them they contain a variety of study spaces for different purposes (for example group work, or silent study) and a huge amount of books, journals, AV equipment, PCs and so on. Here's a video which tells you more about what goes where:

Are there any other Library sites I can use?

There are two University libraries in the heart of York which you can study in, and borrow items from: King's Manor Library, and the Minster Library. They're both in beautiful buildings. Here's the beautiful Minster Library:

A post shared by Uni of York Library & Archives (@uoylibrary) on Jul 21, 2017 at 6:40am PDT

You can find more information including opening hours on our Locations webpage.

I want to find books and journals 

Our catalogue, called YorSearch, will search our collections for you - it will tell you what we have, whether it's electronic or physically available in the Library, and where to find it. Check out this guide to YorSearch, which includes info on the book reservation system.

Finding what you need with YorSearch: #UoYTips from University of York Library

What about databases, where do I find them?

Databases are essential for academic work - they contain collections of high quality articles, reports, data, newspapers and more, which Google can't get to. You'll find them either via our E-resources Guide, where you can search by category or Department, or on our Subject Guides. The Library Subject Guides are curated collections of useful resources for your studies, alongside useful information on how to evaluate and organise sources.

Can I book study spaces in the Library?

There are more than 1200 study spaces in the Library but it still fills up during peak times. You can book single, group or accessible study rooms online here.

What else can I expect from the Library & IT?

Glad you asked. Here's a video which tells you a lot more about what we can provide.

I want to talk to someone about how to use resources... 

There are all sorts of ways to get help with Library services and resources. You can visit the Help Desk, which is staffed from 9am - 7pm on weekdays and 10am - 6pm at weekends. You can use the Library chat service online at any time, day or night. There's some FAQ with the chance to ask your own questions too, via LibAnswers. If you need to alert us to a problem with behaviour or building matters, you can text us on 07919 293133.

When it comes to using resources, it's worth checking out our Skills Guides. These contain useful info and interactive tutorials to improve your digital skills, and details of our training sessions. And you can always speak to your Academic Liaison Librarian, whose contact details you'll find on the Subject Guide for your Department. Here's a brief video about how Academic Liaison can help you.

So best of luck in your studies, and if you need any help from us, please just get in touch.

Ned Potter is part of the Academic Liaison Team 

How do you solve a problem like literature searching? Adding professional value to academic skills development.

David Brown discusses how to ensure that professionals in training have the chance to develop academic study skills.

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What's the point of developing study skills? For some the answer to that question will be very clear (whatever their feelings), but for many students this presents a difficult challenge. This is especially the case for students on professional programmes, where their ultimate goal is registration for a specific career path. Academic skills can therefore seem like simply a means to an end, rather than in themselves proving professionally beneficial.

This is despite the fact that some professional bodies explicitly expect students to develop exactly those skills during their degree. The Nursing and Midwifery Council's Code for Nurses and Midwives, for example, obliges new registrants to maintain robust and effective literature searching skills in order to "practise in line with the best available evidence". The challenge for practitioners and teachers of study skills is therefore to create a link for students between the academic environment of the university and their end goal of professional registration. How do we demonstrate the relevance and transferability of traditionally academic skills? How do we encourage students to view academic skills as a means to strengthen, rather than distract from, professional skills? This post will explore some of my recent work with students on the BSc Nursing programme in Health Sciences to address these issues.

What was the problem?

Health Sciences students are expected to engage with a range of academic skills from an early stage in their programme. Literature searching in particular is a prominent area of attention, especially so given the discipline's focus on evidence-based practice and the inherent need to find and use literature of sufficient quality and academic rigour. This focus means that students will often be expected to develop skills and knowledge of literature searching very quickly, and likely very much sooner than their peers on other programmes.

On the BSc Nursing programme, students receive a range of guidance on literature searching specifically (and digital literacy more broadly) across the three years of the degree. The first of these classes takes place in a first-term module in year 1: Co-operative Learning Group (CLG) 1. CLG modules are designed to provide an open and inclusive environment for discussion and collaboration; students are allocated into groups which follow through the whole programme. The session is designed as an introduction to basic principles of effective searching, and previously included a range of procedural activities related to searching. It did not, however, tackle the broader professional context or sufficiently explain to students why literature searching was such a key focus of the degree. It was also an issue that students were being asked to focus on relatively basic skills, despite this session being timetabled several weeks into the programme when they arguably should have covered many of those skills already.

What did I do to address it?

In October 2015 the session was changed to adopt a flipped-classroom method. Students were asked to complete exercises and read content in advance through the Health Sciences Subject Guide, including an online activity to search YorSearch, the Library catalogue. This left more time in class for group discussion and active learning activities, which was much more closely aligned to the format of the CLG modules in general.

In the classroom activities, students were asked to watch the video below about the importance of literature searching in a professional context, then to comment on scenarios where literature might be used to inform and add value to interactions with patients.

The aim of these activities was to situate literature searching as holding direct value, both for the students as practitioners and the patients under their care. Literature searching therefore becomes a core skill for the students, rather than an optional, overtly academic extra - at least that was my hope!

There was also time in the session for students to explore relevant online resources and to develop basic literature searching skills, in support of their assignments for upcoming modules.

What was the outcome?

Initial feedback from the students and their interest in class suggests that the session's new approach was broadly successful. The true test will be in how students develop their literature searching skills through the rest of the programme. Subsequent sessions in year 1 and beyond are designed to become gradually more complex, with the intention that students have a solid contextual grounding from this first session. In practice it is often in year 3 of the programme that students truly see the need for advanced literature searching skills, when they have to work on a longer project and evidence their searching methodology.

The success of this session could well be replicated across other programmes, especially those with an overt link to specific career paths or where skills development is mandated by a professional body. Disciplines such as Social Work and Law could therefore benefit from a more contextualised approach to academic skills.

How do you solve a problem like literature searching? The answer, at least in my experience, is to make it relevant to students. Skills with a purely academic end will only ever appeal to a limited group of students, but by emphasising how academic development also aids employability and personal development, we can gradually reach a wider audience and create truly skilled professionals, whatever their discipline.