Using the Library
If you have registered with Disability Services, you can access a number of services we have put in place to support you. This could include offering longer loan periods, and the ability to reserve books on the shelf.
If you do not use Disability Services, we can still support you.
The Librarian responsible for liaising with Disability Services is Lakshmi Banner who can be contacted at the Library Information Desk or emailed at askalibrarian@bradfordcollege.ac.uk
Borrowing.
If you register with the Library you can borrow most items for 3 weeks and the Library will automatically renew these for you up to 25 times.
Items can be reserved by other users which will stop your loans renewing. Make sure you check your Library Account or college email every week to see if you need to return your items.
If your books are overdue and you have any problems returning them, please ask your Learning Support Tutor/Assistant to contact the Library on your behalf.
You can also reserve items on the shelf. We will find the book for you and have it waiting at the Library Information Desk for collection. Alternatively, you can just come into the library and ask for help finding items.
Alternative formats - e-books
Many of our books are available online as e-Books.
To find e-Books, go to the Library Catalogue. Type in your keywords or the book title and click on search. From the results screen, click on Item Types in the Refine Your Search bar, and select on E-Books. This will narrow down your results to the online books which can be accessed from any computer or device with Internet access.
E-Books - accessibility modes
If your e-book is provided through Ebook Central, this includes an accessibility mode for use with screen readers which will enable the use of keyboard shortcuts and the provision of PDFs in a screen reader friendly format. More information is available from the Help button on the Ebook Central website. Additionally the e-books can be downloaded and read using Adobe Digital Editions on any compatible device.
If your book is provided through VLE books, you can download the book to eReader software such as Adobe Digital Editions. However, there are lots more accessibility options you can use within the VLeBooks site.
If your book is through Bloomsbury Social Work books, there are a number of accessibility options, though it can depend on which book you are reading.
RNIB Bookshare.
If you have a visual disability you can join the RNIB Book Share scheme which provides some titles in more accessible formats. Visual disability can also include dyslexia.
You can register yourself with the scheme and request a book; or you can ask the Library or Disability Services to try and get hold of particular title for you.
Go to https://www.rnibbookshare.org for more information.
We have a small selection of Large Print books in the Reading Collection. Large print books can usually be spotted by the Large Print icon at the bottom of the spine. A list of our large print books is available here or you can ask at the counter.
Most of the Young Adult Fiction is published in dyslexia friendly font with cream coloured paper. A full list of dyslexia-friendly books is available here.
There are also a small but growing collection of books using the Dyslexie font, which you can find here.
EBSCO Discover doesn't have many inbuilt accessibility options.
To change the font size - use the browser's own controls. For a list of these, click here. You can also change the background colour within many browsers now - for example click on the three lines in Firefox and go to Settings.
Text-to-Speech feature for Online full text and PDF full text.
Locate a full-text article that you would like read to you and click the Access now button to select either Online full text or PDF format .
In the Online full text or PDF viewer, click the Headphone icon in the tools menu to open the Listen panel on the right and click the Play button to listen. More information here.
You can make an appointment with a Librarian. Librarians are available from 8:30 am to 8 pm Tuesday and Thursday, and 8:30 - 6 on Monday and Wednesday. We close at 4:30 on Fridays.
If your book isn't available as an e-book or through the RNIB, we may be able to order an e-book version or ask the publisher to supply an electronic file. Under copyright, you are also able to scan the whole of one of our print books. This will mean that the book is readable through other software.
If you do not need read aloud software, but would like to have the pages enlarged, you can ask at the Learning Support helpdesk on the third floor.
