Library Help Guide for Library Staff: Key Research tools

The best place for you to support a student or member of staff looking for subject resources is show them how to access Library Online, and to find their Subject page. 

1. Give students the Library Online URL. It is easy to remember - library.bradfordcollege.ac.uk
2. On the homepage, students will see a number of options and links. The easiest way for them to find their subject page is to choose either the FE or HE option, depending on their course, and then find their subject in the list
3. Each subject page will include information and links to their key resources, which might include reading lists or key texts, shelf numbers, how to find their books in the library, any useful journals or databases.
4. It will also include the contact details of their Academic Liaison Librarian.  They can ask for help via email, phone, or via Chat on Teams. They might also want to arrange a one-to-one either in the library or over Teams. 

If a student would like to find journal articles or reports, you can show them Discover.

DISCOVER Search is our online search tool and is a quick and easy way to search the College Library’s resources, print and electronic, and find full text information.  DISCOVER is a bit like using Google but the results are higher quality.

Show the student the links to Discover on the home page of our Library Online guide. 

• If the student wants to search across a number of journals for a topic, demonstrate Discover and type in your keywords
• If the student knows the article title, show the Advanced Search in Discover and choose the Title search. 
• If the student wants to browse a particular journal, go to our A-Z journals list and type in the title of the journal. The link to the A-Z journals list is also on the Library Online homepage. 

Students will often ask for books on their reading list. 

One quick way to help is to show students how to find their reading lists online, which will give real time information on the location of an item, whether it is in stock or on loan, and whether it is available as an e-book.

There are three ways to find reading lists:

1. Go to the Library Online subject page and look for the link to reading lists

2. Go to the Library Catalogue.  You can then search for one of the books on the reading list. Under the title of the most recent edition, you will see a link to the reading list. Click on this to see the full list. 

3. Go to the Library Catalogue. Click on Lists and then click on Public Lists. All the reading lists are listed alphabetically. If the student knows the name of their degree and course, you can find their reading list here. 

If a student only wants links to online books, the best way to find these is via the Library Catalogue which can be found at librarycatalogue.bradfordcollege.ac.uk.

Advise students to search for their key terms, and then go to the Refine Your Search options and choose Item Types and E-Books.

For more information on using E-Books including accessibility, direct students to the Library Online guide to e-books at https://library.bradfordcollege.ac.uk/ebooks. 

All our Study Skills resources are collected in our LIbrary Online guide

https://library.bradfordcollege.ac.uk/studyskills.

Students can also contact their Librarian for any help with Study Skills.