By this point in the term you should be well underway with your module reading and hopefully enjoying the benefits of the Library’s Reading List system. But have you ever wondered what’s involved in preparing the lists for you? The Library’s Reading List team will take you through what happens… By Lizzie Morrison
As all you students out there know, reading is an essential part of your studies, and over the summer a huge number of reading lists were transformed into electronic lists by the reading list fairies (the Library’s Resource Acquisitions and Digital Access team who ordered all of the Library’s print and electronic resources).
So, what’s so impressive about the Reading List system?
Firstly, the Reading List system (called Aspire) doesn’t just list the books and articles you need for a particular module, it helps you find them. This is because it contains real-time links from the list to the Library Catalogue enabling you to see at a glance how many copies of a book are kept in the Library, where to find them, and how many are still available to borrow. The Reading List system also links directly to e-journal articles, external websites, YouTube videos and scanned chapters from hard-to-find publications. All of this means that you don’t waste time searching in different places for your reading list material.
Secondly, each list allows you to add notes to it which only you will be able to see. You might find these annotations helpful when you refer back to the list nearer exam time! Look out for the ‘Add note’ button which appears when you hover over a particular title.
Thirdly, you can give each item on a list a reading intention so that you can identify what you are planning to read, what you are currently reading, what you’ve already looked at, and even what things to ignore (try not to use this label for a course’s core textbook!) Look out for the ‘Read status’ button.
But that’s not all…
We also keep an eye on each and every list we create, ordering new titles, extra print copies of items already in stock and e-versions of existing print material to meet demand and improve access to key texts. We also check and repair the links to all electronic resources, so there’s no longer any excuse for not doing your seminar reading.
With approximately 2,700 undergraduate and postgraduate modules taught at Warwick, we’ve certainly had our work cut out transferring many of these lists onto the Reading List system, and we haven’t finished yet (we’re ready for you term 2!).
Why not take a look right now to see if your reading list is there?
You can access the Reading List system via the Library homepage. You will find the ‘Reading lists’ link under the Library Search box. Click here and search for your list by module code or name.
Happy Reading! From the Library’s Resource Acquisitions Team.
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