Resource Lists at GCU drop in sessions

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The Resource List team will be running a series of drop in sessions for staff in the run up to Trimester B resource list submission deadline (16 December).

Resource Lists at GCU Drop in sessions, Come and ask us a question, We can help with: Creating and updating your resource list Duplicating your list Updating your module codes

If you have any questions about using the resource list platform, creating or updating your resource lists or would like to know more about how the library can help, please drop by. The sessions will be held on MS Teams and will run at the following dates and times:

  • Friday 18 November at 10am – 11am
  • Thursday 24 November at 2pm – 3pm
  • Monday 28 November at 3pm – 4pm
  • Wednesday 7 December at 11am -12pm
  • Tuesday 13 December at 12pm -1pm

You can join the drop in here: join the drop in now

If you would like to learn more about the Resource Lists at GCU service, please visit our website. Alternatively, you can contact the resource list team directly at resourcelists@gcu.ac.uk

Read&Relax book club

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On Thursday 17th November, at 4 pm, join us for the first meeting of our themed book club Read&Relax in the Relax&Renew area.

Every month, we will choose a theme/topic and read books about it and discuss them at the following meetings.

The reading group is aimed at boosting international students’ English skills through reading, however we encourage any English speaker to join us, as we believe that the best way to learn is through collaboration and shared knowledge.

That is to say that EVERYONE is welcome to join us! All you need is to think of a book that you really liked, so that we can start from there together. We will play bookish games and fun activities to learn together.

Feel free to bring your own snack and drink.

Click here to register.

Read&Relax book club poster

Do you like reading and talk about the latest books you have read? Join our monthly book club: Read&Relax Thursday 17th November at 4pm. In the library – Relax&Renew area.

Research Cafés at GCU

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Image of two people sitting and talking. Image contains three arrow shapes that contain text: 1 Join the conversation... Research Cafe, Relax and Renew; 2 Introducing... a new opportunity to share your research, 3 Nurture connections and generate ideas in a relaxed environment.

Image of two people sitting and talking. Image contains three arrow shapes that contain text: 1 Join the conversation… Research Cafe, Relax and Renew; 2 Introducing… a new opportunity to share your research, 3 Nurture connections and generate ideas in a relaxed environment.

Next week sees the launch of a series of Research Cafés at GCU. A Research Café is an informal opportunity for staff, students, and the public to meet and talk about GCU research. 

Each Café will have two contributors, who will each give a short talk and then lead a discussion about their area of research. The other participants – other researchers, staff, students, or members of the public – can join the conversation at any table, choose to change to another table, or leave at any time. Research Cafés are informal events that won’t bring any additional admin to contributors or participants – you need only turn up for the hour, and enjoy a free coffee, or tea, and biscuit!  

The Cafés are part of a wider University ‘research sandscape’ initiative intended to seed and nurture connections between researchers from different disciplines and encourage them to generate novel ideas for the Mission Oriented Research support call MORE@GCU.

The Cafés will be held in the Relax and Renew Space in the Sir Alex Ferguson Library and the dates and times for the first 4 are: 

  • Monday 31 October @ Noon – 1pm 
  • Wednesday 16 November @ Noon – 1pm 
  • Friday 2 December @ 10am – 11am 
  • Wednesday 14 December @ 11am – Noon

Lexis Plus – how to migrate your personal account

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LexisLibrary have recently upgraded GCU to their new Lexis Plus UK platform.

Any users who may have had saved searches, bookmarks or alerts set up in the older version of LexisLibrary can migrate their preferences to the new platform. Please follow the instructions below if you wish to migrate any personal preferences. Continue reading →

Urban Legend: Why the Sandy Hobbs Collection? – guest blog by Sandy Hobbs

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Alexander (Sandy) Hobbs is a significant donor and friend of GCU Archive Centre. In July this year, he received the Linda Dégh Lifetime Achievement Award for Legend Scholarship by the International Society for Contemporary Legend Research. His research in this area is part of the Sandy Hobbs papers. Congratulations to Sandy from the Archive Centre team.

My long association with “Urban Legends” starts in my childhood in Aberdeen, when my grandmother told me a story generally called “Downie’s Slaughter”. At the time it was just something my granny talked about, but later I came to see it as an example of what I came to realise people mean by the name “Urban Legend”.  

Let us put the story aside and move on to 1954 when, at the age of 17, I entered Aberdeen University, planning to study Psychology. My choice of this subject was based on a quite inadequate understanding of what Psychology was as an academic discipline. It became clear to me that there was a strong movement, particularly in the United States, to make Psychology an experimental science. Teaching on the course included taking part in demonstration experiments. One which particularly interested me was called Serial Reproduction. 

Continue reading →

New ebook collection – CIPD Advanced

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The library is happy to announce access to a new collection of ebooks from Kogan Page.

The CIPD Advanced ebook collection gives access to 21 core textbooks and further reading for all CIPD qualifications and HR courses, covering human resource management, learning & development, employment law, reward management and more.

Users can find the ebooks directly on the Library’s Discover platform, by searching for “CIPD ebooks” in the Database A-Z or by clicking here.

Zetoc service to be retired

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JISC and the British Library have taken the decision to retire the Zetoc service from 1 August 2022.

This decision has been taken due to a progressive decline in its use and a diminishing number of users. In addition, the emergence of alternative services and changes to the way information is typically searched, means there is no longer a viable strategic case for Jisc to continue delivering this service.

Any users who are currently signed up to Zetoc should have already been contacted by Jisc and informed of their plans. From 1 August 2022 alerts from Zetoc will automatically stop and users will no longer be able to carry out searches.

If you have any particular queries, please contact help@jisc.ac.uk.

As an alternative to Zetoc, you may wish to use the online resource BrowZine. You can find out more information on this resource as well as help guides on our website.

Resource Lists@GCU feedback

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The library recently ran a survey of staff and students on the performance of our Resource List at GCU service during the 2021-22 academic year. Gathering user feedback has been an integral part of growing the service since it was launched in 2019 and our wish is to use the feedback to improve the service for the upcoming academic year.  

We wanted to circulate some feedback we’ve received from our users in order to share some more information about the Resource List service and platform.  

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Scottish Marxist: blending politics and the arts – guest blog by Cameron Wilson

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Our guest blogger, Cameron Wilson, is a member of our Library’s Collection & Discovery team. Cam joined us for a two week project working with the Scottish Marxist. Here he gives us his personal reflections on its value as a primary source.

“The function, as it seems to me,  
O’ Poetry is to bring to be   
At lang, lang last that unity…”

  • Hugh MacDiarmid

As part of my library assistant graduate trainee program at Glasgow Caledonian University’s Sir Alex Ferguson Library, I was afforded the opportunity to intern in the library’s archive centre for two weeks. This internship has involved working with one of the most rewarding and valuable pieces of print media I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading – Scottish Marxist. For these two weeks I have worked on a comprehensive index of Scottish Marxist’s political articles, arts and culture articles, and original illustration and poetry.

Continue reading →