Space to breathe

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3rd Space

3rd Space – escape your home from home

If the Library is fast becoming your home from home, don’t forget that you can also escape to 3rd Space on the first floor of the Students’ Union next door.  The diverse seating available supports relaxed groupwork and quiet study equally well.  Designed as a less formal study space, 3rd Space offers a varied extension to the Library experience.  Take a look and see if it suits you!

 

Student reading at a deskThe TARDIS like Library

Students have been telling us for years that competition for study spaces and computers at peak times of year makes study uncomfortable at a time when you most want to concentrate.

We have worked hard to create comfortable study spaces within the limitations of the Library building footprint. We have increased the number of study spaces every year and now offer more desktop computers and loanable laptops than ever before.  Last year alone we created 30 new study spaces, varying from comfy seating to individual study tables and installed lockers for another 100 loanable laptops, and we’re not stopping the search for extra study space any time soon! This brings us to a total of 410 fast, modern, full-sized laptop computers for you to use anywhere in the Library.  With fast and regularly upgraded wifi support to keep all your mobile devices working smoothly, you can study how and where you want without interruption.

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Giving you what you want

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Student sat on a library sofa, using a laptop Judging from feedback in successive NSS surveys, those graduating each year seem to be telling us that after years of student led change building on your suggestions and working to solve challenges that we saw caused you difficulties, we have finally begun to deliver a library service that meets your needs.  This is great to know but expectations are always rising and we are keenly aware that there is still much for us to do to satisfy the diverse needs of all our clients.

You told us that one of the things that concerned you most last year was the competition for study spaces and computers at peak times of year.  We have worked hard to create comfortable study spaces within the limitations of the Library building footprint. We have increased the number of study spaces every year and now offer more desktop computers and loanable laptops than ever before.  Last year alone we created 30 new study spaces, varying from comfy seating to individual study tables and installed lockers for another 100 loanable laptops. This brings us to a total of 410 fast, modern, full-sized laptop computers for you to use in the Library.  With fast wifi support for all your mobile devices, you can now study however and wherever you want.

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Leaving us next Summer? Help shape your university

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NSS - National Student SurveyThe National Student Survey (NSS) is carried out each year with all final year undergraduate students in UK Higher Education having the opportunity to take part. This is around 300,000 students, including over 4,500 from the University of Portsmouth.

How your answers help

The NSS is your opportunity to give your opinions on what you liked about your time at Portsmouth as well as things that you feel we could improve.  Your feedback from the survey will be used to improve the University’s courses, influence investment in University facilities and guide how your experience at the University is delivered.

How to fill out the National Student Survey (NSS)

If you are in your final year of undergraduate study, You will receive an email from the independent research company who run the NSS, Ipsos MORI, containing a personalised survey link.  When you follow this link you will be asked to enter your date of birth and it will then take you directly into the survey.   Read more ›

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Rethinking referencing for the modern age

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Part of the duty of a librarian is to reflect critically on what we do in education and as an information society as a whole and question whether everything we do is still fit for purpose, and suggest what new things we should be doing, what we should arguably stop doing because it is not longer useful or when a once efficient process has become so mired in the trappings of tradition that it warrants a comprehensive revision to make it once again fit for purpose in the modern world.

In this blog post, a summary of which first appeared on the CLA Schools blog, I consider how referencing systems have become cluttered with conventions that have come to hinder more than they help education, analyse what has gone wrong with referencing, and put forward both the case for and an attempt at a simpler, future-proofed referencing system for use in education and even across scholarly publishing. Read more ›

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Student led change

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Suggestion postcard being posted into the Library Student feedback and suggestions have shaped the library we have now and we love to listen to all you have to say. It’s not just the NSS survey filled out by those about to graduate that we listen to! If there is anything that would make your study easier or more enjoyable, something you would like to see introduced, changed or taken away, or just something you think we should be aware of, please let us know.  

Have your say.  Comment anonymously using our online suggestion form or post a suggestion card into our retro red suggestions post box on the ground floor.

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Not just there to look pretty

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Our glass cabinet display isn’t just there to look pretty and stop people falling into the book returns sorter, although it admittedly does both rather well.  You can borrow any of the books in these cabinets.  We just put them behind glass for their own protection because they are delicate, have loose parts, or are boxed games or card sets that would fall apart rather quickly if left to the mercy of our open bookshelves! 

Just ask someone at the Library Help Desk to unlock the cabinets so you can get hold of anything you want to look at or take home.

Frank Lloyd Wright building pop-up book accompanied by a sign advertising glass cabinet books for loan.

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Planned downtime for Ebook Central ebooks, ProQuest ejournals and Oasis

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Our largest ebook platform Ebook Central, the ejournals from ProQuest and (for academic staff) the Oasis book ordering platform will all be unavailable while scheduled maintenance takes place on the evening of Saturday 5 January from 5-7 pm.  Further maintenance is scheduled for both resources later this month, between 3-11 am on the morning of Sunday 20 January.
 
We apologise for any inconvenience this might cause. Please plan your work accordingly. If you experience any difficulties using these resources outside these maintenance windows, please let us know!
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New eBooks – December 2018

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What follows is a list of new electronic books received by the Library during December 2018 ordered by title. More complete details, as well as listings from previous months, are available on our website’s New Books page in the form of downloadable Excel spreadsheets.

Read more ›

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New Books – December 2018

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What follows is a list of new books received in the Library during December 2018 ordered by classmark. More complete details, as well as listings from previous months, are available on our website’s New Books page in the form of downloadable Excel spreadsheets.

Read more ›

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See you in the new year!

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Christmas Tree 2018Library staff are heading off to rest and recharge for a few days, starting tomorrow.  We’ll be back on Wednesday 2 January.  Check our holiday opening times from now until 6 January 2019: 24/7 opening restarts from 8am on Monday 7 January.

In the meantime, have a great holiday and we look forward to seeing you all again very soon.  If you have any questions or anything goes wrong in the meantime, you can still call 023 9284 3228 or chat online to someone day and night throughout the holiday season.

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