Christmas closure

A reminder that the Continuing Education Library closes for the Christmas break at 3pm on Tuesday 22nd December and reopens at 9am on 4th January.

Please note that the Department for Continuing Education is closed for this period, so the Reading Room will not be available.

Electronic resources will be available through SOLO and OxLIP+ as normal through the closed period, although any problems may not be dealt with as quickly as usual.

Recent additions to the Library

A list of all additions to the Library, whether purchased or donated, for November 2009 is now available on the Library website

The list also includes new electronic resources purchased by OULS and significant content additions to existing electronic resources

Christmas vacation opening hours

Friday 11th December - Tuesday 22nd December
The Library will be open:
Monday - Friday 9am - 5pm (Closing 3pm on Tuesday 22nd)
Closed Saturday and Sunday

Books borrowed or renewed from the week beginning 7th December will be due back week beginning 11th January

Christmas/New Year closed period
The Library will close at 3pm on Tuesday 22nd and reopen at 9am on Monday 4th January.
Please note: the whole Department is closed during this time, so the Reading Room will not be available

Monday 4th January - Friday 8th January
Open 9am - 5pm

Term hours resume on Saturday 9th January

Full details of term dates and opening hours can be found on the Library website

Access to Times Higher Education

Times Higher Education is usually received in print format in the Library. During the postal strike, the publishers are making a digital version available at www.nxtbook.com/nxteu/tsl/THE on the day of publication, starting with the edition published today, 22nd October

Colour photocopying now available

The Continuing Education Library has a new photocopier which offers colour copying. The charge is 45p for A4 and 90p for A3

Disruption to OLIS 18th-20th September

Message from Oxford University Library Services:

OLIS (www.lib.ox.ac.uk/olis), Oxford University’s online library catalogue, will be unavailable from 5pm on Friday 18 September – Sunday 20 September inclusive (estimated timing) while the server is fitted with a new and faster disk array.

SOLO (http://solo.ouls.ox.ac.uk) will be available throughout. Please note however that it will not be possible to check library holdings, place stack requests or reservations or to access patron records during the downtime.

We apologise for any inconvenience caused by this essential upgrade.

Recent additions to the Library

A list of all additions to the Library, whether purchased or donated, for August 2009 is now available on the Library website

The list also includes new electronic resources purchased by OULS and significant content additions to existing electronic resources

Library closed week 24th-28th August

The Continuing Education Library will be closed for stock checking from 24th-28th August, reopening after the Bank Holiday on Tuesday 1st September.

During the closed week, the reading room will remain open as usual and books may be returned to the returns box there. If you have access to Student Computer room at Rewley House you can access all library electronic resources there.

If you use other Oxford University Libraries, please note that many of the smaller libraries have closed periods in August, eg.

• English Faculty Library: closed 17th August - 4th September
• History Faculty Library: closed 17th -31st August

However all major libraries are open throughout the summer (except August Bank Holiday, 31st August), eg Bodleian Library, Radcliffe Science Library, Sackler Library, Social Science Library.

Full details of all opening hours can be found on the OULS website

Disruption on Friday 3rd July

Essential repair work to the library staircase is being carried out on Friday 3rd July.

The Reading Room, Upper Library and Library Desk will be open and operating as usual. It is inevitable however that there will be noise, dust and a certain amount of smell.

The Lower library will not be available for study and the two reader PCs will be out of use. It will however be possible to obtain books from the lower library stacks by using the fire exit. If you need books from the lower floor, please ask at the Library Desk and staff will either fetch books for you or show you the way down.

We apologies for any inconvenience caused by this work, which is necessary for safety reasons

Electronic books for Historians

Oxford University has subscribed to Oxford Scholarship Online History, the online collection of scholarly history monographs published by OUP. This expands the original collections for Philosophy, Religion and Political Sciences.

Individual titles can be found on SOLO or go to OxLIP+ to view the complete collection. E-books can be freely accessed from any computer on the Oxford network. Readers with a full University card can also access e-books from any location using the Single Sign On.

The History Faculty Library has compiled a very useful guide to the full range of e-books available to Historians

New online newspaper archives available

New electronic resources:

Guardian (1821-2003) and Observer(1791-2003)
Scotsman (1817-1950)
Irish Times (1859-2007) and Irish Weekly Times (1865-1950)

Accessible via SOLO or OxLIP+. Single Sign On (available to full members of Oxford University) required for access from outside the Oxford network

Would you like to become WISER?

If you are in Oxford and free during the lunchtime period there are some excellent 1 hour sessions delivered by Oxford librarians as part of the WISER (Workshops for Information Skills and Electronic Resources). Most sessions are held at Oxford University Computer Services in Banbury Road and are free, but should be booked in advance. Highlights for this term include:

• Managing Your References, Friday 8th May - looks at software available for recording and formatting your references


• The First World War Digital Poetry Archive, Tuesday 19th May


• Early English Books Online (EEBO) Friday 29th May


• Maps and Mapping, Tuesday 2nd June


• Manuscripts, Tuesday 9th June - a look at the Bodleian manuscript collections and how to locate them


• Online Resources for Historians, Monday 15th June

For further details of these and other sessions, and for information on how to book, please see the WISER website

For all Local Historians!

You can now find a collection of Oxford University's electronic resources relevant to Local History on OxLIP+ , Oxford's gateway to electronic resources. From the OXLIP+ home page, click the Subject tab, then scroll down to select History in the box on the left. You will then see Local History in the box on the right. Select and click Go to view the list of resources which have been selected by the Continuing Education Librarian in collaboration with academic colleagues.

All resources can be accessed from any computer on the Oxford University network. For remote access to most of the resources (marked with a gold padlock symbol if viewed from outside Oxford) you will need your Single Sign On, available to members of the University with a full University card. Some freely available resources such as the National Archives are also included. A fuller list of freely available resources can be found on the Continuing Education Library website

Term time hours

As from Tuesday 14th April, we're back to term time opening hours. Full details of opening hours and term dates can be found on the Library website

Advance warning: the library is closed on the two May Bank Holidays, Monday 4th May and Monday 25th May

Easter weekend closure

A reminder that the Continuing education library is closed from Friday 10th April until Monday 13th April inclusive.

Normal term hours resume on Tuesday 14th April

Full details of opening hours and term dates are available on the Library website

Recent additions to the Library

A list of all additions to the Library, whether purchased or donated, for March 2009 is now available on the Library website

The list also includes new electronic resources purchased by OULS and significant content additions to existing electronic resources

21st century plans for Bodleian Library

OULS has announced the purchase of land near Swindon for a new book storage facility for low use material. This is will facilitate the redevelopment of the New Bodleian and the consolidation of some faculty libraries into the planned new Humanities Library on the Radcliffe Obervatory Quarter.

More information about all these developments can be found on the OULS website

Recent additions to the Library

A list of all additions to the Library, whether purchased or donated, for February 2009 is now available on the Library website

New! The list also includes new electronic resources purchased by OULS and significant content additions to existing electronic resources

New electronic resources blog

The OULS electronic resources team have just launched a blog which may be of interest to those wishing to find out more about using electronic resources.

The blog will provide information about new electronic resources available to Oxford University, as well as information for the general internet user. It may therefore be of particular interest to those who are new to using the internet.

Recent posts deal with questions such as 'How can I make the most of a Google search?', 'How can I use Google Scholar effectively?', 'What is my screen resolution and how can I change it?'

To see the blog go to http://oxforderesources.wordpress.com/

New on ARTstor - Magnum Photos

A significant photo collection has recently been added to ARTstor. The Magnum Photos collection comprises around 73,000 photographs of world events and personalities from the lates 1930s to the present day. More information can be found on the ARTstor website

ARTstor is available to all Continuing Education Library readers in the Library or on other computers on the Oxford network via SOLO. Readers with a full University card can access ARTstor remotely using their Single Sign On

On this day - Charles Darwin

Today, 12th February 2009, is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin.

To mark the event, a digitised version of the 1st edition of 'On the Origin of Species' using the copy held by the Plant Sciences Library has been released by Google Book Search For more information, please see the OULS website

You may also be interested in visiting the freely available Darwin Online website. Here you can find online versions of most of his works, find biographical material, listen to a reading of 'Voyage of the Beagle', view Darwin's papers and much more.

Recent additions to the Library

A list of all additions to the Library, whether purchased or donated, for January 2009 is now available on the Library website

Oxford University Library Services - have your say!

You may have received an email inviting you to take part in the OULS survey which library staff will use to assess the effectiveness and appropriateness of library services. If you haven't already responded, please consider doing so before 8th February as it is a chance to have your say.

If you haven't received an email but would like to take part, you can find the survey on the OULS website until 8th February

20,000 years of journal publishing added to OULS e-resources

Thanks to generous funding from the University in support of the Library’s academic programme, OULS has been able to acquire the largest number of e-journal backfiles in its history. Readers in Oxford now have access to an additional 20,000 years of journal publishing from their desktops which was previously only, if at all, available as physical volumes on the shelves of their libraries.

Some examples of backfiles now available include English Studies (1919-), Historian (1938-) and Nature (1869-) .

Full details can be found on the OULS website

Recent additions to the Library

A list of all additions to the Library, whether purchased or donated, for December 2008 is now available on the Library website

Sunday 11th January

Please note that the Continuing Education Library will NOT be open on Sunday 11th January. It will however be open on Saturday 10th January from 9.30am - 5.30pm.

Normal term time hours resume on Monday 12th January. For full details please see the Library website