Welcome to the new academic year! It is an exciting time of year for Queen Mary and the thousands of new students who will be settling in over the up and coming weeks. It is difficult to imagine the humble beginnings of one of Queen Mary’s predecessor colleges, Westfield College, which opened for the first time on this day 127 years ago, in Hampstead, North London…
Westfield College, one of the first ladies colleges in London, opened its doors on 2nd October 1882, welcoming just 5 students in total! The only teaching staff were the Mistress, Constance Louisa Maynard, and the Resident Lecturer, Katherine Tristram. The numbers gradually increased but it is quite a contrast to today where Queen Mary has a community of over 15,000 students and hundreds of lecturers!
Westfield College merged with Queen Mary in 1989 to form Queen Mary and Westfield College, better known today as Queen Mary, University of London. The Westfield Student Village at Mile End is one of the lasting legacies of Westfield College, making Queen Mary unique in being the only College of the University of London to have on-campus halls of residence. Meanwhile, the original site of Westfield in Hampstead, is now largely occupied by Kings College or has been converted to private flats.
To discover more about the fascinating history of Queen Mary visit the Archives website:
www.library.qmul.ac.uk/archive
or pop into the new Archives Reading Room located on the 2nd floor of the Main Library, due to open on 12th October.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Student volunteers required for web usability session, Monday 21st, free lunch and vouchers
The library is looking for returning undergraduate students who are interested in helping us to develop the user experience (UX) for our new online library catalogue interface, this Monday, 21st Sept. It will involve coming to an afternoon breakout session, in which we will be thinking through typical goal-based scenarios students have when using the catalogue. There are no prerequisites for this session and it will be of especial interest to students who are studying design / marketing / business / online systems / IT. Amazon vouchers, as well as a free lunch, will be given as a token of our appreciation for your valuable input to the library's user experience.
The session is being facilitated by Tony Rose, the UX Manager & Principal Consultant at Endeca. The new library catalogue will be implemented using the "Endeca enterprise search software".
If you would like to take part, please contact Damian Hippisley
The session is being facilitated by Tony Rose, the UX Manager & Principal Consultant at Endeca. The new library catalogue will be implemented using the "Endeca enterprise search software".
If you would like to take part, please contact Damian Hippisley
Thursday, August 6, 2009
The evolving Library: self-service issue and return
Installation of self-service issue and return in Queen Mary Libraries is proceeding on schedule, and should go live in all Libraries in the week beginning the 17th August 2009.
This will mean you can borrow and return books at Mile End, Whitechapel and West Smithfield Libraries with a minimum of intervention from Library staff, using your existing Library barcode and associated PIN.
Your Library barcode is found on the front of your ID/Library card; if you do not know your PIN, please ask at the Library counter.
Library staff will be on hand to offer help and support with the self-service system.
Installation of self-service issue and return adds to the services Library users can already access for themselves, which currently include checking loans and reservations and renewing items.
For more information about these new services, please check the Library website at http://www.library.qmul.ac.uk/
This will mean you can borrow and return books at Mile End, Whitechapel and West Smithfield Libraries with a minimum of intervention from Library staff, using your existing Library barcode and associated PIN.
Your Library barcode is found on the front of your ID/Library card; if you do not know your PIN, please ask at the Library counter.
Library staff will be on hand to offer help and support with the self-service system.
Installation of self-service issue and return adds to the services Library users can already access for themselves, which currently include checking loans and reservations and renewing items.
For more information about these new services, please check the Library website at http://www.library.qmul.ac.uk/
Monday, July 13, 2009
The Westfield College Project
An exciting new project is now under way in the Archives to catalogue and preserve the historical legacy of Westfield College. The project is being supported by a grant secured from The Westfield Trust and will provide users with online access to catalogues of the archives of Westfield College, Constance Maynard (1849-1935), Caroline Skeel (1872–1951), and Ellen Delf Smith (1883-1980). These collections hold a vast amount of knowledge relating not only to the history of Queen Mary, University of London, but also to social history, Victorian values, religion in education and most predominantly women’s education.
To find out more please see Archives News.
-- Lorraine Screene --
To find out more please see Archives News.
-- Lorraine Screene --
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Online access to Sage social science e-journal titles
In addition to our existing portfolio of Sage e-journal titles, QMUL now has online access to the following social science titles published by Sage:
- Accounting History
- Acta Sociologica
- Critical Sociology
- Feminist Theory
- Gender and Society
- Journal of Black Studies
- Journal of Macromarketing
- Memory Studies
- Men and Masculinities
- Sexualities
- Social Compass
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Want to improve your CV?
Need to find a job? Need help with your CV or job application? Come along to a CV clinic!
Mondays to Thursdays
13:00 - 13:45
QMUL Library
All CV clinics take place inside the pink study pods. If you are unsure, please ask at the Main Library reception.
These sessions are run by Queen Mary Careers (Room WG3, Queens Building, Mile End)
www.careers.qmul.ac.uk
Mondays to Thursdays
13:00 - 13:45
QMUL Library
All CV clinics take place inside the pink study pods. If you are unsure, please ask at the Main Library reception.
These sessions are run by Queen Mary Careers (Room WG3, Queens Building, Mile End)
www.careers.qmul.ac.uk
Friday, May 1, 2009
Second JISC Observatory e-book survey 2009 results
Thank you for participating in the worlds largest survey on e-books!
The Library recently promoted a survey on e-books that many of you took part in. This survey was run at universities across the UK and over 23,000 staff and students participated. This was the second survey run as part of the JISC national e-books observatory project http://www.jiscebooksproject.org/ , the first was in January 2008. The surveys were exploring current awareness, perceptions and attitudes towards e-books and looking to see if these changed between 2008 and 2009.
Together, these surveys received over 48,000 responses - the world's biggest e-book survey ever undertaken! We would like to thank you for participating in the surveys. A student at Royal Holloway University of London won the £200 Amazon voucher prize.
Some headline findings from the surveys:
• Use of e-books for study increased for students from 61.4% in 2008 to 64.4% in 2009 but the highest increase was use by staff, which increased from 58.9% to 64.9%.
• Surprisingly, over 63% of respondents said that they read the content of e-books from a screen with only around 6% printing pages out, however, the average time spent reading was only between 11 and 20 minutes.
• Over 54% of respondents said that they dip in and out of e-book chapters with only around 8% reading a whole chapter.
• Encouragingly, the percentage of teaching staff recommending e-books to students and placing direct links to them via the virtual learning environment or online reading lists increased between 2008 and 2009.
• There was no discernable difference between the use of e-books by age groups, although it does appear that men prefer e-books to women.
• Most staff and students get access to their e-books via the university library and dependency on this access had increased by 2009.
• Satisfaction with the availability of print textbooks through the library increased from 2008 to 2009 and this may be due to the availability of more e-books taking the pressure of the print copies.
• The results of the surveys will be used to develop the e-books market to help make sure that staff and students can get access to the books they need either in print or electronic format.
For further information on e-books in the Library please see Library e-books page http://www.library.qmul.ac.uk/e-resources/ebooks.htm
For further information on the JISC national e-books observatory project please see www.jiscebooksproject.org
The Library recently promoted a survey on e-books that many of you took part in. This survey was run at universities across the UK and over 23,000 staff and students participated. This was the second survey run as part of the JISC national e-books observatory project http://www.jiscebooksproject.org/ , the first was in January 2008. The surveys were exploring current awareness, perceptions and attitudes towards e-books and looking to see if these changed between 2008 and 2009.
Together, these surveys received over 48,000 responses - the world's biggest e-book survey ever undertaken! We would like to thank you for participating in the surveys. A student at Royal Holloway University of London won the £200 Amazon voucher prize.
Some headline findings from the surveys:
• Use of e-books for study increased for students from 61.4% in 2008 to 64.4% in 2009 but the highest increase was use by staff, which increased from 58.9% to 64.9%.
• Surprisingly, over 63% of respondents said that they read the content of e-books from a screen with only around 6% printing pages out, however, the average time spent reading was only between 11 and 20 minutes.
• Over 54% of respondents said that they dip in and out of e-book chapters with only around 8% reading a whole chapter.
• Encouragingly, the percentage of teaching staff recommending e-books to students and placing direct links to them via the virtual learning environment or online reading lists increased between 2008 and 2009.
• There was no discernable difference between the use of e-books by age groups, although it does appear that men prefer e-books to women.
• Most staff and students get access to their e-books via the university library and dependency on this access had increased by 2009.
• Satisfaction with the availability of print textbooks through the library increased from 2008 to 2009 and this may be due to the availability of more e-books taking the pressure of the print copies.
• The results of the surveys will be used to develop the e-books market to help make sure that staff and students can get access to the books they need either in print or electronic format.
For further information on e-books in the Library please see Library e-books page http://www.library.qmul.ac.uk/e-resources/ebooks.htm
For further information on the JISC national e-books observatory project please see www.jiscebooksproject.org
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