Activity 3: Search your library

0:07   

Let me introduce you to Alana Bardill, our collections manager. I wanted to chat with Alanna to highlight some of the collections you may not be so aware of as you approach your research project. 

0:19   

Hi Alana. Firstly, could you introduce yourself?  

0:24   

Yes, I am the library collections manager. I work as part of the content and discovery team. I manage the collections the journals collections, part of my role is liaising with suppliers to get the best kind of deals for resources for the library. I also work closely with the academic liaison team and sourcing materials for the library and making sure that we get what the students need what's particularly what's on the resource list and what's available for research.  

0:57   

Thanks, Alana. 

0:59   

Now, I dare say most students will be aware of our huge collections of books and journals, which are available but there are some parts of our collection which they may not have discovered yet. And I was hoping to chat with you about some alternatives to print sources, which students might not have encountered yet. So I wondered could you share some starting points for exploring some of our other collections? 

1:26   

Well, yes, I mean, I've worked in the library now for more years than I care to remember. I've worked in lots of guides, it's my, my previous role to this. I've been doing this role for a couple of years just under a couple of years. So before that, I was a multimedia librarian. So I kind of know quite a bit about the multimedia collections. And I think sometimes you don't always find stuff from reading material. So sometimes you might find interesting items in the video and DVD in streaming collection. We've got a huge DVD collection. of documentaries, animated films, World Cinema, all sorts of subject areas. It's a hugely diverse collection. So that's one that can be tapped into. We also have an archive going back to the 1980s with the videos. Some of the collections now are quite rare. Particularly. I think, actually in the 1980s. For instance, there was a channel four, there was an editing Commissioner, who commissioned unknown animators to produce work for television, and this was something that was had a lot of funding so we have a great collection that we've managed to stream most of it to Libplayer.  

2:50   

That's what I was going to talk to you about. So how people can access many things online.  

2:54   

So yes, I mean, live player is the library's own streaming platform. And it's the titles are discoverable within library search itself. So all of the items are, gosh, over 8000 items, which people can access, and it's all available via the library search because we catalogue each item as well so it's discoverable through the collection for your general searching when you're searching for all items.  

3:24   

There's also a collections button on the library service that gives you access to all 8000 If you wanted to browse that shelf collection is available on all platforms, on all browsers, from all devices, internet enabled, so that works really well it's really good quality video playback. External fast. Yeah, they can. It's very good for if you want to do some presenting using that material it's really good for because it's good quality. It's good. It doesn't over pixelate when you're watching on a big screen, for instance, in in a lecture theatre, or some other video resources.  

4:09   

Yeah, there's something else that we subscribe to called Box of broadcasts and that's available for all students and staff. They just need to log on. It's searchable through Library Search and also database lists as well from their lovely website and you can find on there it's it gives you kind of three things that you can do. You can search an archive, which goes back to 2007 or, I believe, but actually box of broadcasts have just acquired the BBC archive. So it's not all on there, but you can request on putting us to do that through the library. Just use the library chat or send an email and we can sort that out. So So box book has we call it Bob for short. So Bob allows you to actually have your own personal Bob so you can have your own personal playlists. You can also make clips as well which is really good. And the beauty as well off of Bob is that it's your own collection. So you're kind of developing your own collection you can also each each recording has a transcript so you can search a transcript. So if you're looking for a particular subject, you can search that and what it will do is quite clever, it'll go to that piece in the way that word is spoken in the video plays from that point, which is great as well. And you can just make it your own kind of personal and also because we pay a licence. We pay an ethical educational recording agency licence fee each each year. And that allows as students for instance, if they don't have a TV licence, they can use us proper personal TV. And it's also radio broadcast as well.  

6:03   

So yeah, I think that's very popular.  

6:05   

It is very popular actually is one of our most popular databases. If we were to look at all the analytics. Yeah, definitely. 

6:12   

And are there any other resources or collections that you'd recommend for students? Like visual sound collection? 

6:19   

I can I can think of a couple of other so we've got the Alexander Street Press, films collection and audio as well so you can search that from one of the date. Just look up on the street press on the migraine search though you can be able to find that which has got quite a few films and documentaries and such on that. And also, if you come across a title that definitely haven't got you can always request it and we can look into it and access to because you buy sort of a year's worth of streaming, so you can access it for you, that kind of thing. So that's really good if you've got a particular piece of research that your subject that you're looking at, and you can't find anything else but you find something. So it's always worth asking anyway, if you discover something and we haven't got it in the library we can look at getting access to it for you.  

7:14   

And we do have a guided subject guide for the video, image and sound. Uh, yes, we do. There's definitely a guide to all the other sort of databases and so that's a good start. It's a really good starting point. Yes.  

7:32   

And finally, can I ask you a bit about accessibility in the library? So if you wanted to access resources in a more accessible way, how can you go about that? If you've got any tips? Yeah, there's there's all sorts out there kind of software wise to help with accessibility. So we've got reading out software there. There's something on there's a section on the studyhub but is was probably the best place to go because it's got an up to date list of suggestions in there as well. We have a library reader in the library as well. And that can sort of read, read aloud, any print content, and digitise chapters, etc. People have gotten queries on that they can just ask them ask away. Yeah, absolutely.  

8:27   

Yeah. Well, thanks. That's been really interesting. And I hope that's given students a few other places to look when there's, they're doing their research project. 

8:37   

So So Thanks My pleasure. Okay.  

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