The College Library this morning
Welcome back, Freshers week is in full swing as are induction tours in the College library. It’s great meeting our new students but it’s also great to welcome back familiar faces.
This is a quick update to let you know what has been happening in the library over the Summer and some of the thing that are coming up.
Books, books, books!!!
Over the summer we have undertaken a complete stock check and have been busy scouring reading lists and recommendations across all the subjects. The process of getting in new books begins in the Summer and continues all through the year. We aim to hold as many of the core textbooks for Part I and II undergraduates and where possible multiple copies of many of them. Please let us know if there is anything you are going to need later in term that we don’t currently have and we will look into purchasing it. Last year 30% of the new stock we purchased was based on student recommendations.
Dust busters
If you visited the library in early September you’d have noticed two things:
- Thick cloud of dust
- a lot of laughter
This is because our brilliant housekeeping department spent two weeks dusting every shelf and every book in the library. They did a great job and we hope the library feels a little fresher as a result.
New Resources
Whiteboards –The A4 whiteboards which were really popular last term so we’ve added some more. We’re also trialling a full size flipchart/whiteboard, which can be found in the Benson Reference room.
Laptop stands – we now have three laptop stands, these can be borrowed on request from the library office, we will sign them out to you for use in the library.
MEGA hole punch – We now have a large capacity stapler and hole punch for you to use.
*A polite reminder that these resources are not borrowable, please keep them in the library for the benefit of everyone.*
New Signage
We’ve improved and updated the signage around the library. There are new maps in every room as well as updated Classification Scheme over in right cloister. So when that book you need is in a totally random bit of the library it should now be easier to find.
MagNet & new website
The Library pages on MagNet have been updated, see HERE, including the Classification scheme and new maps as well as FAQs. The new College website which should be up and running later in the term will also now include all the key library information you need.
Coming up!
Are you sitting comfortably?
We will be replacing most of the chairs in left Cloister and any damaged ones in right cloister early this term. We will replace them with a mix of more of the adjustable chairs we got in last year and new wooden chairs.
The BIG change
In January we expect to say goodbye to Heritage and we will instead be signing up with the rest of the University to a new Library System called Alma (someone gets paid to name these things…).
Moving away from Heritage will make life a lot easier for you; your Magdalene books will appear on the same account as your other books and you will no longer need to use iDiscover & heritage to check the availability of our books. We expect the move to Alma to dramatically improve iDiscover as well, something we’ll all be glad for.
The move to Alma will mean several changes to our borrowing rules, which I will write to you about before Lent term, but we will be sticking with the 7 day loan period.
One final benefit of moving to Alma is that we will be getting a brand new Self-Issue machine, the laptop and dodgy barcode scanner will be no more! (Although we might stick in Left Cloister to make it quicker to borrow Law books).
