h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: How to Get the Best Out of a University Library - A1007344
Author: David B, the Dewey Demon - U201818

I hope this will be considered useful.

Useful, definitely.
Also, I reckon, a model of clarity and structure.
Very enjoyable read

Why thank you, sir. [or madam]

Very good, and of course sound advice.

Very interesting and well written. AS a hish school student, though, I can't judge the quality of the advice.

Very good - can't think of any criticism whatsoever!

(although I'm wearing my Scout's hat rather than my sub-editor's one right now...)

Excellent article.

Another very good thing about university libraries is that they are often heated, whereas student accomodation is sometimes not, and this facilitates work.

Amen to the comments on hide and seek and book hogging. Selfish and disrepectful to your peers. Looking beyond the reading list can become essential when the reading list books are all sat neatly in someone's bookcase not being read, in the hope their contents will enter by osmosis.

In a Law Library, return the case reports to the stack after you've read it. Quite often a large number of students will all be reading about the same case at the same time, which is difficult if you've left one of the few copies on a desk somewhere.

Another tip is to try and do your photocopying off peak - for some reason, there are never enough machines in university libraries.

You can also often read the papers and also foreign papers in a university library, which is a good way to improve language skills without shelling out a couple of quid for Le Monde or its equivalent.

Sprout

Good point, Sprout... that's made me remember another thing about my University Library - for reading or viewing off the course, you couldn't beat it.

The literature and film collections were, of course, inherently superior to anything you'd get in an ordinary public library, and although I didn't quite make the *most* of it, I reckon I did quite well. I mean, if you want the latest airport-bookshop potboiler or Hollywood blockbuster, you're going to struggle - but I found loads of books I'd been meaning to check out for years, and the range of foreign films was particularly good (but then my University had a Media Arts course, although of course most do these days...)

Thanks for the comments, people. I will have a look soon and see what best to say about photocopiers (oh, the joy of photocopiers!) and journals/newspapers/case reports and the like.

David

A very good article, full of very useful information. As a first year student I think this article should be made widely available. In fact, it should probably be made compulsory reading for any student, as it is full of good advice.

Great clarity and structure.

All in all a good read.
Clairybell

hello

Just to let you know I've recommended this.

Researcher PSG

If only this entry had been about three years ago, I would have used the university library more than I did (spent more time in the place in my final year than I did in the first two combined, which was mostly for the free 24 hour internet access )

Thanks for all the kind comments, people (and the recommendation Researcher PSG). I know from my own experience as a student that it's hard to get the best out of the library, and now that I work in one, I obviously want the students to get the best out of the place - well, apart from the evil one who shatters all the rules and had the cheek to accuse me of not knowing how to do my job...

How dare he, good entry!

Hi David,
There are a couple of typos that I spotted:

"One you have mastered the correct way of asking the OPAC" should be "Once..."

"Tutors tend to like it when you use books which aren;t on their reading list" should be "Tutors tend to like it when you use books which aren't..."


Where I went to university we had separate libraries for science and the arts. The science library carried all the scientific journals (eg Nature, but wierd and wonderful ones too) and it was possible to search for articles within these journals using the BIDS (can't remember what this acronym stands for) system, or other database system. You could search for keywords in the title or abstract, author's names etc. Once you found some relevent articles you would then go and find the appropriate journal and (most often) photocopy the article including the list of references. You could not remove journals from the library and you had to return them to the shelf yourself once finished with.

For many science subjects (definitely the biomedical sciences) this is where the vast majority of library time went - it was pretty rare to use books as references as tutors preferred to see evidence that you had gone to read first-hand source materials. One of the reasons for this is that you could find the cutting-edge stuff that hadn't made it into the reference books yet.

I'm not sure if this sort of system is still in place for science/medical libraries (I graduated in 96) , or if this is done over the internet somehow now, but getting to know how to search the database to find reference publications (rather than books) was the most important aspect of lirary use for me.

Bravo - this is great!

I realise that this has already been picked and it might be too late, but would it be worth saying a bit more about ATHENS and the UK Libraries Plus scheme?

Otto BA(hons) MPhil(pending)

Oooops. How did I miss post 11?

Oh well, I'm sure your sub can fix the typo's. I'll just come back and post my about science libs on the entry when it hits the front page

Well you can search artilices in medical journals using medline, and I'm assuiming other subjects have similar facitilites.

Medline! *smacks forhead*

That is the other one I was trying to remember!

Looks like I've still got time to incorporate more information. I'll mention ATHENS by name in the internet section and will add UK Libraries Plus (which I administer at my library along nwith overseeing inter-library loans, so not sure how I left it out).

(and the evil student is a she)