The History Faculty Library and the Bodleian Libraries have a packed timetable of training sessions in Hilary Term to help Researchers and Undergraduates make the most of Library Resources in Oxford. Aside from highlighting some of the key resources available locally, these sessions will also provide opportunities for refreshing and upgrading information searching skills. There will be chances to explore databases, e-journals and web portals, along with advanced searching in SOLO and the benefits of using reference managing databases such as RefWorks to help you with your citations during dissertation research. Staff will be on hand to provide step-by-step demonstrations as well as hands-on time in most sessions.

Highlights include:

• Research Skills Toolkit
  Need to brush up on your IT and information skills for research?  Why not come to a Research Skills Toolkit? These free 2-hour workshops introduce key software and online tools for your research, hone your searching and information skills and introduce you to subject specialists. Topics on offer include:
  • Finding articles, papers, conferences and theses
  • Keeping up to date and current awareness
  • Using Endnote to manage your references
  • Manipulating images using Gimp
  • Managing your thesis with word
  • Analyzising data with Excel pivot tables
  • Podcasting with Audacity
  • Plagiarism and how to avoid it
  • Your thesis, copyright and ORA
  • Finding highly cited journals and measuring research impact
• RefWorks Referencing Software for Historians
• RefWorks Referencing Software for Humanities
  RefWorks is an online tool which allows you to manage your citations/references, insert them into your work as footnotes or intext citations, automatically generate bibliographies and easily switch between citation styles.
  Other referencing software courses are available – please see the iSkills workshop timetable for further details.
• Getting started with Oxford’s Libraries
  An introduction to Oxford Libraries including guidance on which libraries to use; accessing e-journals and other online resources; SOLO and other finding aids and making the most of Library services.
• Getting Information to come to you
  Keeping up to date with new research is important but time consuming! This session will show you how to set up automatic alerts so that you are notified about new articles and other publications and when key web sites are updated. Participants will have the opportunity to set up RSS feed readers and/or email notifications during the session.
• Researchers will also benefit from briefings on Act on Acceptance as part of moves towards Open Access – more information can be found here.
• Expert, personalised help can be accessed in the form of bookable one-to-one sessions with the History Librarian, Isabel Holowaty. These are running throughout Hilary Term; dates and sign-ups can be found here.

This is just a brief taster of the wide range of courses available to our readers at any stage of their studies. Further details can be found on the iSkills Libguide pages, and History-specific courses can be found on the Training pages of the History Faculty Library website.

Library staff look forward to welcoming you and introducing you to the wide range of resources on offer in Oxford.