Thinking of popping into the Library but not sure what to expect? Take a virtual tour first from the comfort of your home.
Writing up a dissertation: four tips for success
Writing up a dissertation can feel very different from writing a normal assignment because it is simply so much longer. Happily, there are several tricks and tips to make this Herculean project more manageable.
Start with the end in mind
It is easy to get distracted, add in more and more objectives and things you would like to comment on or investigate, and end up losing the laser-like focus you had at the start of the project. Since you only have time to complete one project, you need to focus in on what you set out to do and focus your efforts consistently towards that narrow goal. I was once told that “there is no such thing as a PhD that is too narrow”. If that goes for a doctoral degree, it applies even more so to undergraduate and masters degree dissertations!
New eBooks – July 2020
What follows is a list of new ebooks received by the Library during July 2020 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.
New Books – July 2020
What follows is a list of new books received in the Library during July 2020 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.
Returning books
A number of you have contacted us asking how you can return books having left Portsmouth. Please don’t worry! We hope to set up a freepost scheme to allow you to return books free of charge from wherever you are living now. We will let you know when it is up and running.
If you are living locally and visiting the Library now it is open again, you can return books in person. Please return books to the Library: now the Library has reopened, you can no longer return books to the the Waterhole Bar.
The Library reopens!
We are delighted to have reopened the Library at midday today (Monday 27 July). We are operating shorter opening hours than usual. Because we have to maintain social distancing and ensure the library service is COVID-19 secure, some services and facilities have been restricted or suspended.
The most noticeable changes include wearing face masks and respecting social distancing, washing hands thoroughly and/or making use of the hand sanitiser available at the clearly marked sanitation stations, particularly on arrival, and following the clearly marked one-way system. We are also asking people not to reshelve any books. If you handle a book, please leave it on one of the book trolleys so we can quarantine it for 72 hours and then reshelve it safely.
Please read the latest guidance before visiting
Please read the full Covid-19 advice on the library website before visiting the Library and remember to bring a face mask to wear. Please check the Library news feed before each library visit, in case the guidance has changed.
The University Coronavirus information page remains the most up-to-date source of information about changes across the University.
The British Library reading rooms have re-opened!
The British Library has now partially reopened its reading rooms at both London St Pancras and Boston Spa in Yorkshire. All visits must be booked in advance using the British Library’s online ‘box office’ system. While you can still get scanned articles and book chapters by email through our interlibrary loan service, the British Library reopening is great news for anyone looking to access books and other content beyond our collections!
Full details and the online form for booking your visit are available on the British Library reading rooms page.
Image credit: Mike Peel (www.mikepeel.net). Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons under a CC-BY-SA-4.0 Creative Commons license.
EDINA Digimap OSNI license expires
Have you downloaded any data from the Digimap OSNI (Northern Ireland Ordnance Survey) collection? If so, Digimap want it back! Or at least, they want you to delete it all by 31 July 2020 because this is when their license to supply the content expires. If you need an alternative source of Northern Ireland cartographic data after the end of the month, please contact your Faculty Librarian for advice.
Working on something over the summer? We’re still here to help!
Whether you are ploughing through your dissertation, working on a deferred assessment or having a second run at something that didn’t go to plan the first time, don’t forget that your friendly library team are here to help.
If you are finding it difficult to find the right evidence to back up your argument or wondering if your lecturer will approve of where you found your information, we can show you how to pick the best resources and use efficient, proven techniques to find high quality, relevant information as quickly as possible. Your Faculty Librarian is also here to help with anything particularly tricky, especially if you are taking on a major project or dissertation.
Just because the Library building is still closed at the moment, please don’t think we have forgotten you. Our enquiry service is open 24/7, almost all our resources are now available online, and we can fetch a scan of almost anything we don’t have available within a matter of days. Please don’t suffer in silence. If you have any difficulties, please get in touch right away!
Here is a link you can use to get in touch. From the Library website, you can just click the chat button on the Library website or the ‘?’ button for a list of ways to get in touch with us.
We look forward to hearing from you soon 🙂
Time to make a backup copy of any DawsonEra ebook notes!
You might have already heard that Dawson have gone into administration. Happily, the rights to the collections of this major ebook supplier have all been bought by another publisher and are being added to their platform as I write. There is just one snag. If you have been industriously making notes and annotating DawsonEra ebooks, none of your notes and annotations will survive the platform migration.
Please make a copy of any notes and annotations you have made in DawsonEra ebooks by Friday 31 July 2020. The DawsonEra platform will cease to be available after the end of the month and any unsaved notes and annotations will be permanently lost.
If you have any questions or concerns, please get in touch.
Recent Comments