All face-to-face meetings have been suspended by the university. I am still available to support you by phone, Zoom, Teams or email during office hours. You can schedule an appointment as before but it will take place by phone or Skype (see the app below my photo). Otherwise my phone number is 023 8201 3986 (diverting to my mobile) and my email is kate.stephenson@solent.ac.uk should you wish to contact me. Online Chat from the library portal page is operating as usual.
Use the tabs on the left to navigate to the information you need. If this is the first time you have visited this guide you might want to spend some time looking at "Finding Information" for tips on how to get the best out of our resources.
If you need any help with finding information or help with referencing, don't hesitate to contact me.
Watch the video Meet Your Information Librarian.
Loans
Level 4 & Level 5 students can borrow 15 items and at Level 6 students it increases to 20.
Support for Assignments & Referencing
You can book an appointment if you are struggling to find information for your assignments or want guidance on referencing. You may want to get together a group and book some time. It is likely that your lecturer will book some classroom time for a workshop or other type of session sometime during your first year.
The library also runs regular referencing drop-in workshops. Please remember that we cannot check your references, but we will answer specific questions.
If we don't have an article or a book we will know a library that does! You can request an inter-library loan. The number of requests you can make depends on your level of study.
If you need more, please contact me. Access the Interlibrary loans form
If you have found the article on Google Scholar or Google try copying and pasting the title into the Articles tab on the library catalogue and following the instructions for off-campus access. This will normally work. If it doesn't work look for the journal title in the catalogue and search for the article that way. It is possible we have access to the journal, but your article may fall outside our subscription (too early or too late). If the article is old you may wish to consider if this useful for your research - is it older than you are or is it a classic piece of research that you would be expected to read?
Finding information isn't always easy and can be frustrating. Have a look in Finding Information tab for more advice on selecting keywords for your search. Use the specialist databases in the databases tab and search those - they will give better results than Google. If you are still struggling, come and see me.
I'm sorry but I cannot check your references as this forms part of your assessment. What I can do is provide advice and guidance on how to reference and respond to specific queries. There is lots of advice and guidance on the library portal. Access Referencing Help You might also want to investigate using a tool such as RefWorks to manage your references for you. Again contact me for additional help
I'm sorry, but I'm not allowed to proof read work. You might want to get a trusted colleague, partner or parent to do it for you.
If you are new to studying or have been away from study for any length of time, then you may find Succeed@Solent helpful:
See succeed@solent for tips and information on planning and writing your essay, managing your work and lots more.
The library also has a good collection of study skills books you may wish to borrow - just type "study skills" into the library catalogue.