Monthly Archives: November 2023

RSL over vacation

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Term is finishing and vacation is approaching, finally. Whether you’re driving home for Christmas, another holidaym or staying in Oxford here are some tips to access the RSL and our resources.

The staff at the RSL hope you all have a restful and relaxing break.

An old luggage covered in frost in snowy landscape

Opening Hours

The Radcliffe Science Library will move to vacation hours on Monday 4 December.
The Library will be open:
Monday – Friday: 9am–7pm
Saturday: 10am–2pm
Sunday: Closed

Full details of library opening hours can be found at www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/libraries/rsl.

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Book an appointment with your subject/outreach librarian

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Do you have questions about referencing? Not sure where to find key information for your essays or researchers? Perhaps you need help with a specific database? Then you should make an appointment with your subject or outreach librarian. They can talk with you in person, over Teams, over the phones or by email.

Four cartoons together. Top left image shows two cartoon figures reching out of computer screens to shake hands. Bottom left image shows two cartoon figures sitting next to each other in different colored chairs. Middle image shows a cartoon figure talking on an oversized mobile phone. The rightmost image shows a cartoon figure typing on a laptop sitting on a large orange @ sign

You can contact our librarians in whatever way you are comfortable.

Along with helping with your literature search and constructing search queries subject and outreach librarians can…

  • Provide group or 1 to 1 information skills training
  • Discuss Open Access issues with you and help you find the relevant inform ation for you
  • Teach you how to access and manage research data
  • Purchase book recommendations and are particularly interested in purchasing Equality, Diversity and Inclusion titles to improve our collections
  • Provide inductions for new staff
  • Can advise and and train you on reference management software and how to use different styles
  • Teach you how to navigate subject specific databases
  • And so much more…

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Room Booking Tool

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As part of the RSL reopening we have launched the use of a new room booking tool in the Radcliffe Science Library (RSL). We are using this tool as part of a pilot along with our colleagues in the Social Science Library and the Vere Harmsworth Library. The aim is to make booking rooms as quick and easy as possible.

Photograph two students having an interactive video call. The screen shows a man smiling and talking.

photo (c) John Cairns

We recently made a blog post about our 5 group study rooms, including two Teams enabled rooms. Ccheck it out if you want to learn more about our spaces. You can book any of our group study rooms by using our new room booking tool. You can use the search options on this page to check availability and place a booking for your chosen times. Use the Search by Space tab to select a room and browse for available times.

We want your feedback!

Now that you have had a chance to book a room we’d like to hear your feedback. We want to know what you think of our new room booking tool. We have put a poster in each of our group study rooms. Use a sticker to let us know how you feel about our booking tool. The tool should be accessible by screen reader but let us know if you are having any problems using it.

Photograph of feedback poster with three columns. One with a happy face, one a neutral face and one an unhappy face. The happy face column has four stickers under it.

We already have some positive feedback 🙂

You can also give us feedback by replying here, letting staff know at the desk, or emailing enquiries.rsl@bodleian.ox.ac.uk.

Other spaces in Bodleian Libraries

Even though we think the RSL is great there are many other great libraries in Oxford. The Bodleian Libraries website has a page on all the group study rooms availalbe across Bodleian Libraries. It includes seating capacity and information on how to book. Hopefully, that will make finding a space to work with your group easier.

New Ebook series – ACS In Focus

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New ebook collection

Exciting news for all those interested in the field of Chemistry! We have now arranged access to a new ebook series covering a broad range of emerging topics ACS In Focus.

Text reads New resource over a range of scientific, computer and book related images

What is it?

ACS In Focus digital books cover a wide range of emerging interdisciplinary and chemical topics, as well as core techniques from across the sciences. These primers are designed to be four-six hour reads and combine concise and in-depth information to facilitate a swift grasp of fundamental concepts and essential techniques in various scientific domains.  The ACS In Focus digital primers are delivered in a dynamic online platform, and include features such as a pop-up glossary, multimedia, video interviews with top experts in the field, A Day in the Life examples and tutorials, and more.

Cover of machine Learning in Chemistry

One of many new ebooks available from ACS In Focus.

Who is it for?

The ACS In Focus series will be of interest to advanced undergraduates, postgraduate students and researchers in Chemistry and related areas who want to get up to speed on a topic beyond their current competencies. It will also be useful to those students and researchers who want to learn about cutting edge techniques and new topics.

Cover of Metal Nanocrystals

One of many new ebooks available from ACS In Focus.

How can I access it?

Individual ebooks in the ACS In Focus series are available through SOLO https://solo.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/  To access them off campus use the University VPN or sign in to each ebook via SOLO with your Single Sign On (SSO). 

Cover of Astrochemistry

One of many new ebooks available from ACS In Focus.

Reference Managers

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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.

There is a large variety of Reference Managers available on the market. Some gather references and allow you to make bibliographies. Others allow you to do all this and can also insert correctly formatted citations into a word processor. Full details are available on our reference management guide.

Choosing a reference Manager

Choosing the correct reference manager for you can be challenging. Check out our guide on Choosing a Reference Manager to compare major tools and see which is best for you. There are also some reference managers that are freely available to members of the Universirty.

RefWorks

Oxford has the institutional subscription to RefWorks. Create a free account with your University email. Check out our resource of the month post for more information on RefWorks. RefWorks Citation Manager, for Microsoft Word 2016 and later, is compatible with the cloud-based Microsoft Word 365. This can added formatted citations into your word document from your RefWorks library.

EndNote

EndNote can be used as a desktop or web-based application. The desktop version of EndNote has more features and is free for University of Oxford members to use while they are members of the institution. EndNote is available for free download from the IT Services shop website. The word processor plugin Cite While You Write is added to Microsoft Word automatically upon installation of the EndNote desktop software, so you can add references directly from your library to your document.

Zotero

Zotero is a freely available desktop-based reference manager and can be used on Windows, Mac and Linux computers. It is freely downloadable from the Zotero website. The word processor plugin enables you to cite references from your Zotero library into your word processed document.

Latex and Bibtex

LaTeX is a freely available typesetting system that allows you to produce professional looking publications. Many people find that LaTeX is particularly useful for working with long documents or for documents that contain mathematical formulae or equations. It is a popular system for those preparing scientific and technical documents. You can create documents with LaTeX using any one of large number of different LaTeX editors, or even by just using a plain text editor like Windows Notepad.

BibTeX is a program that works with LaTeX to allow you to include in-text citations and a bibliography in your document. Many reference managers offer some level of support for working with LaTeX and BibTeX. You can find out more on the Latex page of our guide and

Training

Along with the details information on our guide there are also training sessions on Reference Managers every term. Why not sign up for one of these sessions:

Online

iSkills: Endnote – Tue 14 Nov – 10.00-12.00

iSkills: Zotero – Thu 16 Nov – 10.30-11.30

In person

iSkills Zotero – Wed 8 Nov – 13.30-16.30
Thames Suite, IT Services
7-19 Banbury Road, Oxon, OX2 6NN