All Cambridge University Libraries courses

Effective note making is an essential bridge between reading and writing. When making notes for a long piece of writing, if you paraphrase and interpret as you go along, you will be able to retrieve what you have learned from reading quickly and efficiently and often produce sections that you can drop straight into your work. This workshop will introduce you to the theory of good note making, discuss different note making techniques and offer advice for deciding which approach best suits your practices.

Please note: This session will be offered, either online or in person, in Michaelmas, Lent and Easter terms.

The Critical Reading course aims to improve students' ability to read critically and evaluate sources, as well as giving helpful tips about productive reading, note taking and providing a checklist of questions to help them with their reading going forward. It is suitable for all students but aimed mostly at undergraduates.

This workshop session aims to address the following:

• What is critical reading?
• Reading productively
• Reading critically
• Effective note-taking techniques

The course will be a mixture of front-led instruction and interactive small group discussions.

This session provides an overview of the extensive e-resources available to Divinity Undergraduates, including e-books, e-journals, databases and the use of Moodle.

This session provides an overview of the extensive e-resources relevant to Theology, Religious Studies and the Philosophy of Religion, including e-books, e-journals, databases and electronic legal deposit materials (journal articles and monographs).

This session provides an introduction to the use of IDiscover (the University Library catalogue), for new Postgraduate students and Academic staff, demonstrating the main functions of the catalogue and showing how to make the most effective use of its capabilities for locating books and journals in print and electronic form.

This session provides an introduction to the use of IDiscover (the University Library catalogue), for new Undergraduate students, demonstrating the main functions of the catalogue and showing how to make the most effective use of its capabilities for locating books and journals in print and electronic form.

• Would you like to share your research findings with the international academic community, without paywall restrictions?
• Would you like to boost citations of your work?
• Did you know that funders recognise the benefits of Open Access and most now require it as a condition of their grants?

These are questions for postgraduate students at all stages of their research.

This sessions aims to demystify the UL and its colllections for students of Economics and Development Studies. A brief presentation will tell you all you need to know about finding and borrowing books and will be followed by a tour of the bookstacks.

These 30 minute small group sessions are an opportunity for you to obtain support for searching databases and using referencing software. General advice and support will be offered, and any specific queries will be addressed.

These 30 minute small group sessions are an opportunity for you to obtain support for searching databases and using referencing software. General advice and support will be offered, and any specific queries will be addressed.

These 30 minute small group sessions are an opportunity for you to obtain support for searching databases and using referencing software. General advice and support will be offered, and any specific queries will be addressed.

These twenty-minute sessions are chance to practice searching medical/scientific databases, use referencing software, and have your questions answered about literature searching for your dissertations.

Introduction to Bibliographic Searching in Theology and Religious Studies will give a brief overview of the issues of searching for publications in general, and follow this up with searching the specialist Theology and Religious studies bibliographic database ATLA and Index Theologicus.

Conducting research is an important part of the university experience.

It provides students with practical skills needed to learn how to search using complex databases, critically appraise sources and evaluate materials.

We are running a BoB and TRILT for Academic Research online training session aimed at academics, students, librarians and researchers.

Box of Broadcasts (BoB) is Learning on Screen’s on demand TV and radio service for education. The academically-focused system allows staff and students, to record programmes from over 75 free-to-air channels; and search the archive of over 2.2 million broadcasts.

Box of Broadcasts (BoB) is currently used by over 120 universities and colleges to enhance teaching and learning. Features include:

• A platform working across desktop, iOS and Android devices
• Media records based on our TRILT metadata, supporting powerful searching capabilities
• A permanent archive of content from nine channels: BBC1 London / BBC2 / BBC4 / ITV London / Channel 4 / More4 / Channel 5 / BBC Radio 4 / BBC Radio 4 Extra
• Preview clips before saving
• Label your own clips
• Personalised email alerts when programmes are ready to view
• Detailed citation data

In November 2021 UNESCO announced a Recommendation on Open Science to be adopted by member states. The Recommendation aims to define shared values and principles for open research and outline proposals to help facilitate the dissemination of research results to a wide audience.

As part of our Research Roundup series we will be holding a virtual brown bag lunchtime discussion on the Recommendation and what it could mean for local practice at Cambridge. Join us via Teams for an informal exploration of the Recommendation and share your thoughts with colleagues.

If you have any specific questions or areas you would like to discuss in the session please email Claire Sewell (ces43@cam.ac.uk) prior to the session.

Resources: UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science. You may also like to watch this webinar recording of a session on recommended actions for publishers to take regarding the Recommendation.

The UL is unique: a national, legal deposit library with an amazing collection of around 8 million items in total, and over 1 million maps. This special session consists of a tour to help participants get to know the building, followed by an introduction to the Map Room and its holdings.

Giving a presentation is something everyone has to do whether it is for your course, for an extracurricular activity or society event, or even in the workplace. In this session we'll take you through planning your presentation, how to make everything look good as well as accessible for a diverse range of audiences, as well as introducing you to techniques to present with confidence. And to help finish things off, we'll also give you some tips on how to deal with situations when it all goes a bit wrong.

Most people have online profiles and, as a researchers, your online presence offers many rich opportunities. It is helpful to be aware of tools and tips that can help you boost your visibility online, as well as common mistakes to avoid.

In this course, you will:

• begin to develop your online research profile by making yourself visible to others in a way(s) that suits you.
• learn what an ORCID is and how to obtain one.
• learn what your Symplectic Elements account is for and begin to make it work for you
• review your current visibility and consider the next steps

You will receive the URL for the course in the confirmation email after booking.

An introduction to the various online catalogue interfaces used by the University, presented by members of staff at the main University Library.

The session will cover different ways of finding print and electronic resources held by the University of Cambridge. We will introduce some of the systems you will need to use, and try to explain some of the functions (and quirks!) of these systems.

There will be a presentation covering the various catalogues and web pages, followed by some hands on exercises to give you some useful practical experience.

Narrative CVs provide space for candidates to elaborate on their contributions to the research community that go beyond traditional outputs such as publications. The hope is that, by encouraging candidates to provide evidence for, and selection panels to consider, qualities that promote good research cultures, such as open research practice, we will start to select candidates who demonstrate this in addition to their traditional research contributions. What does this mean for researchers at Cambridge? This session will introduce some of the current formats of narrative CVs being used or considered by funding bodies in the UK and Europe and the implications for researchers, and recruiters and selectors of researchers who might use them. Since the format is still very much under development in the sector, the session will provide an opportunity for participants to discuss and feed back on what they see as the benefits and challenges of narrative CVs. The workshop leaders will feed the outcome of this session into relevant discussions happening nationally around the development and adoption of narrative CVs.

The Chinese collections of Cambridge University Library are among the finest outside China, including inscribed oracle bones dating from the 13th century BC; over 200,000 printed monograph titles, the earliest of which dates from the 12th century AD, and about 3,000 serial titles; about 200,000 digital books; as well as manuscripts, paintings, rubbings and other artefacts. This session will provide a brief introduction to these collections and guidance on how to make the best use of them.

From fair dealing to sharing your research online it seems that nothing with copyright is ever simple. There are few black and white rules about copyright but there can be serious consequences for getting things wrong! This session will cover the basics of UK copyright law and how these impact researchers such as dealing with third party materials, seeking permissions and how to manage risk.

From fair dealing to sharing your research online it seems that nothing with copyright is ever simple. There are few black and white rules about copyright but there can be serious consequences for getting things wrong! This session will cover the basics of UK copyright law and how these impact researchers such as dealing with third party materials, seeking permissions and how to manage risk.

Please note: This session will be offered, either online or in person, in Michaelmas, Lent and Easter terms.

Copyright law is a complex field with direct relevance for researchers who need to protect their own intellectual work and use work written by others, and most importantly must avoid accidentally infringing copyright. This course provides you with basic knowledge you can apply to your research practice.

The course covers:

• fundamentals of copyright and why it’s important
• what to do if you want to use someone else’s work
• how to protect and share your own work
• how licenses can be used to make it easier to reuse works

You will receive the URL for the course in the confirmation email after booking.