Biological Sciences Library

Laptops, harder to get than 7’s!

Justin Clark — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 02:49:49 +0000

It must be that time of year again where the demand on laptops is even greater than normal, something we didn’t think possible. It seems no sooner than we open the doors than the laptops go screaming out of them, sometimes even in the hands of a student.
So if you want a laptop for the day it is a very good idea to get in and grab one before 9:00am. But if you desperately need one and there are none left then there are certain periods through out the day when they sometimes come back. This is around lunch time and late afternoon, generally on the hour. Check with desk staff around, 12:00, 2:00 and 4:00 and if your get a little lucky then you might get your hands on one of these most rare of species.

Open Access, what’s it all about?

Justin Clark — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 06:49:00 +0000

You may or may not have noticed the library has had displays about Open Access in regards to scholarly journals recently. If you are uncertain what Open Access is or if it applies to you or just want to know a bit more about then the library has developed a website designed to fill you in on the major issues surrounding Open Access and the key resources you need to find out more about it.
Feel free to check it out under the Toolkit link in the top navigation bar on the library’s home page, or follow this link, Open Access.

Circulation study

Justin Clark — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 23:51:16 +0000

For any student especially tuned into the inner workings of the library, at last count there were 3 of you, you may well have noticed a vast increase in the amount of popular books now available as holdable items instead of short term loans. This is because we are looking at whether or not having more holdable loans is better and provides easier access to items rather than short term loans. This means more general loans and fewer 3 and 7 day loans.
We hope this change will allow students not desperately in need of a textbook to have more copies they can place holds on therefore lowering the size of some of the hold queues for our books while those students who do desperately need a textbook should still be able to come in to the library and find a 3 or 7 day copy on the shelf.
What the codes mean:
3 and 7 day loans: can only have the item for 3 or 7 days, cannot place a hold on the book, cannot renew the book, book cannot be recalled, $2.00 a day late fees for the first 4 days which becomes $4.00 a day after that.
General loans: can have the item for 14 days, if undergraduate, 28 if postgraduate or staff, can have for a semester loan on request, can place a hold on the book, can renew the book, book can be recalled, $0.20 a day late fees which becomes $0.95 a day if the item has been recalled.

Please let us know if you like the idea of more general loans, hate it or if it is completely irrelevant as you get all your information from the Internet.

The Library’s top books

Justin Clark — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 04:37:45 +0000

Ever wonder why you can never find that text book you are after? It is probably because someone else has it out. Listed below are our top 5 most borrowed books for this year.
As can be seen some of these books are incredibly popular and have been in and out of the library more often than a Post Grad who has just lost all of their thesis references.

Biology / Neil A. Campbell. - QH308.2 .C34 2006 - borrowed 961 times.
Fundamentals of anatomy & physiology / Frederic H. Martini. - QP34.5 .M27 2006 - borrowed 881 times.
Human physiology : from cells to systems / Lauralee Sherwood. - QP34.5 .S48 2007 - borrowed 585 times.
Pharmacology / H.P. Rang. - RM300 .R35 2007 - borrowed 498 times.
Clinically oriented anatomy / Keith L. Moore. - QM23.2 .M67 2006 - borrowed 394 times.

While we have plenty of copies of these books if there is a book that you feel the library should buy or does not have enough copies of then feel free to suggest a purchase using the online suggestion form.

Happy reading.

New library home page, what’s it all about?

Justin Clark — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 04:25:41 +0000

If you are scratching your head about the new library home page and are not sure how to find things in the library catalogue then we have designed a quick tutorial to help out. It should only take a couple of minutes and is designed to give a very brief overview of a couple of its features.

New home page tutorial

If this doesn’t relieve the confusion then feel free to ask staff at the information desk, email or call us or use the new ask a librarian service featured on the new home page.

What’s new in the collection

sohojo — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 00:10:20 +0000

The fruits of our labour have been arriving at the library over the last month or so. Yes, I’m talking about all the new books and journals we ordered in the last half of 2006. To see what has been recently added to our collection, click here. Recently received journals and books can be found in the display area on Level 2.