Check out our Resource of the Month for September

Posted on 18 September 2023 by rachelscanlon

The RSL has a huge collection of physical and electronic materials. We have so much that we wanted to shine a spotlight on some of our items whether recently added or an existing collection item. The resources are recommended by our knowledgeable subject librarians who are excited to show off parts of the collection for their subject.

This month’s selector is:

Karine Barker

Karine has selected the ClinicalKey Student database Elsevier.

Brief Description

ClinicalKey Student is an online education platform for students and faculty providing access to:

Over 200 textbooks including those recommended for the pre-clinical and clinical courses.
Over 850 associated videos.
Over 85 000 copyright cleared images for visual learning and enhancing lectures.

Recently acquired with our subscription is ClinicalKey Student Assessment, an extensive bank of single best answers (SBA) with case studies, tools and analytics for students to test their learning progress while also assisting teachers in preparing teaching content. The questions progress from basic sciences to clinical sciences and are graded from easy to difficult within each category.

Who is this useful for?

Pre-Clinical medicine and Biomedical Sciences Undergraduate students will receive the most benefit from this database, as well as clinical medicine students. It will also be useful to faculty teaching medical courses.

How can I access it?

This resource is available through SOLO. If you have signed into SOLO, ClinicalKey will create an account for you based on your Single Sign On (SSO) details. If you have not logged into SOLO you will be asked to log into ClinicalKey with your Single Sign On (SSO). You will need to create an account to use ClinicalKey but this will allow you to save books and resources to your shelf.

Books moving back to the RSL

Posted on 29 August 2023 by rachelscanlon

After being out of the building for over two years the books and staff of the Radcliffe Science Library (RSL) will be returning to our newly refurbished building for October 2023. Can you tell we’re excited?

Moving the books from the Vere Harmsworth Library (VHL) will take some time so we’re going to begin packing up our books in early September. From 4th September until the end of the month we will be packing and moving books from the VHL to the RSL.

Book fetching service

During that time the book you are looking for may not be on our shelves. To help with this we will be operatine a fetching service. You can ask the staff at the desk or email enquiries.rsl@bodleian.ox.ac.uk to get our staff to fetch a book from the boxes for you. As this is a time consuming process, it will be faster for readers to order books from Offste or get them from another library so we will not fetch books that meet those criteria.

Disruption

During the book move there may be some noise disruption in the VHL particularly on the 2nd floor. We will try to keep the disturbance to a minimum.

Apologies for the inconvenience.

Bank Holiday Weekend closure

Posted on 23 August 2023 by rachelscanlon

The RSL at VHL will be closed for the upcoming August Bank Holiday weekend from Saturday 26 to Monday 28 August inclusive.

We will reopen on Tuesday 29 August at 9.00am.

Have a restful Bank Holiday!

Improving our websites with your help

Posted on 7 August 2023 by rachelscanlon

The Research Data Oxford and Open Access Oxford websites both provide University members with essential information and resources to help with publishing and managing research. We are currently undertaking projects to improve both these websites so that information is shown in a more user-friendly way and that the content on both sites is aligned with the needs of students, researchers, administrators and academics.

At this stage, we would particularly like to invite researchers and research support staff for their feedback on both websites. Participants will meet with an external consultant via videoconference. The usability testing does not involve technical questions, and it is not a test of your knowledge or skills: it is about understanding how the websites help (or hinder) researchers and research support staff in their work. It doesn’t matter if you have little or no experience of Open Access and/or research data management: it’s important to get feedback from people who are new to the topics as well as those with more expertise.

The aims of the tests are to:

Understand what users want and what’s needed in order for them to meet Research Data Management/Open Access obligations
Determine how well the websites fit into established workflows
Consider and prioritise enhancements to the websites to improve the user experience

The user testing sessions will be recorded, and these recordings will be securely stored for a reasonable time by the Bodleian Libraries for future reference to support website improvements.

When is this happening?

There are two rounds of user testing:

1st round in September 2023
2nd round in November 2023

You will be needed for one round of user testing only – i.e. September OR November, at a time convenient for you. The testing session will take a maximum of 90 minutes to cover both websites.

If you are interested in participating, please email Tony Langley.

Check out our resource of the month

Posted on 24 July 2023 by catherinedockerty

This month’s selector is:

Rachel Scanlon

Rachel has selected the Lyell Collection.

Brief Description

The Lyell Collection, created to mark the Geological Society of London’s 200th anniversary in 2007 and named after Charles Lyell, the eminent nineteenth-century geologist, represents one of the largest integrated collections of online Earth science literature available. It comprises the Society’s journal titles, Special Publications and key book series and allows cutting edge science to sit alongside important historical material with full-text archives back to 1811.

Who is this useful for?

This is an essential resource for researchers and students in the field of Geosciences including geochemistry, geology and petroleum geoscience.

How can I access it?

This collection is available through SOLO. To access it off campus use the VPN or sign in to the journal platform with your Single Sign On (SSO).

3D printing downtime

Posted on 24 July 2023 by rachelscanlon

Unfortunatrly due to staff shortages and moving equipment back to the Radcliffe Science Library we’ll be unable to take orders for our 3D printing service after 31 July. Any orders paid for on or before 31 July will be printed though it may take a few days depending on how busy the service gets.

We apologise for the inconvenience and we’ll have the service up and running again when we reopen the RSL. Our guide will still be avilable for information on 3D printing.

If you have any questions please let us know.

Height adjustable desks

Posted on 17 July 2023 by rachelscanlon

The RSL collection and staff are in the VHL for another few months before we move back into the RSL after the refurbishment is finished. You can check out our blog for updates on how the refurbishment is going. Luckily the VHL has great facilities including Height Adjustable Desks.

Photograph of two height adjustable desks

There are two desks in the library, one with a chair and one without. Both are electronic and fully adjustable so they can be raised to standing desk height or lowered to suit someone in a wheelchair, or someone who needs to sit lower than the other desks.

There is no booking required, you can just come in and use them if they are free.

ILL Deadline

Posted on 10 July 2023 by rachelscanlon

Our free InterLibrary Loan (ILL) is a great way to access articles and chapters that are not available in SOLO. Just fill out the online form and we’ll try and get a copy of what you need from another UK library: https://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/services/borrow/inter-library-loans.

For books the items can be ordered to the vere Harmsworth Library (VHL), where the RSL collection is currently located. For journal articles or individual chapters you can be sent an electronic version.

You can make requests until 15 August this year. After that the service will be unavailable for a short time, until 23 August. Still plenty of time to get your orders in.

Disability Pride Month

Posted on 5 July 2023 by rachelscanlon

In the United States, July is disability pride month and it is being acknowledged in more places. Bodleian Libraries offers a range of services to disabled readers.

Our webpage Services for disabled readers, details the services we can offer including:

Guide to physical accessibility in Bodleian Libraries
ARACU can provide alternative formats to printed materials
SensusAccess a fully automated service that converts your documents into alternative formats

All Bodleian Libraries have a local disability liaison, who can discuss access and specific arrangements for you at that library. Marija Babić is the liaison for the Radcliffe Science Library.

Reference management

Posted on 3 July 2023 by rachelscanlon

Whether it’s writing essays, gathering research or doing a literature review reference managers can be a huge help in organising your references. They can help you collect information about everything you have read and allow you to easily add citations and bibliographies to your documents.

The word "Reference" written on a notebook on blue marker.

Image by Nick Youngson CC BY-SA 3.0

Knowing which reference manager to use can be confusing but we have made a guide to help you look at several different reference management tools. We also have a guide on using Reference Management packages with Latex.

If you are creating your references manually or just want to know more about different referencing styles, check out Cite Them Right! An online referencing tools which gives examples and generates citations from a choice of 7 referencing systems for print and electronic formats.

Science and Medicine

A Bodleian Libraries blog