Our chat service is available 24/7 so no matter when you contact us there will always be a librarian on hand to help. During library staffed opening hours we provide a locally staffed service, where you will chat to a member of Solent Library.
During evenings, weekends, and bank holidays or University closure periods, your chat may be directed to our staffed "out of hours services" in another university library which may be located anywhere in the world. If they are unable to answer your question directly they will be able refer it back to Solent library staff who will be able to respond by email accordingly.
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 the Information Librarians
Celia Forrester Dan Scutt Mike Jones
The Information Librarians can help you with researching for your assignments, conducting literature reviews, referencing and developing all the skills needed to locate and evaluate quality information sources.
Support is available via email or you can request an individual (or small group) appointment.
Please feel free to email library.support@solent.ac.uk and a member of the team will deal with your query or appointment request as quickly as possible (please allow up to 3 working days for a reply).
All undergraduate students can borrow 25 items at any one time. You can also have 15 inter-library loans a year.
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 time for me to deliver a workshop or other type of session sometime during your first year.
You may want to start thinking about your major final year piece of work in the last term of your Level 5 year. You may request inter-library loans in support of this. If you want help in planning your literature search, book an appointment, email library.support@solent.ac.uk
Final year students, postgraduate and research students can borrow up to 25 items at a time.
This a service where the library will acquire a copy of an article or book for you from another library. Articles will most probably be delivered to you electronically within a few days, books have to come by post and will take longer. Before you make a request check to see if there is an alternative online copy in one of our other databases or on Google Scholar . If not, then request the article via our Inter-Library loan service. You may have 15 inter-library loans a year.
You may want to book an appointment to discuss the literature search or referencing aspects of your literature review or dissertation to arrange one, email library.support@solent.ac.uk
Sconul Access is scheme whereby university library users can use books and journals held in other university collections. You need to register here first before using the other library. Also remember to connect your computer or mobile to the eduroam network on campus here. This will allow you to use the network in universities who also have eduroam. More details from the help desk on Floor 2 of library.
If the FAQs don't answer your question, please library.support@solent.ac.uk or the library CHAT
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.
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 email library.support@solent.ac.uk and ask for an appointment
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.