All Cambridge University Libraries courses

This optional online drop-in session is a chance for students undertaking their Preparing for Patients project to ask questions about, and gain further support in literature searching, critical appraisal and evaluation of medical research, and referencing. Those who have booked a place will be sent a link to join the online session several days before their scheduled session takes place.

The aim of the session is to outline some tips and tricks for presenting in an academic/research context; how to prepare and plan your presentation, how best to use slides and how to deliver your presentation with confidence

This session will introduce participants to the fundamentals of designing an effective and engaging poster. The session will look at good design practice, where to source free high quality graphics, as well as deciding what you should (and maybe shouldn't) include in your final poster.

Introduction to Public Engagement at Cambridge: Why do you want to engage, who do you want to engage with and why should they care? It’s only once researchers have considered these questions do we talk about what they would like to do. Join us to find out how we support public engagement across the University from activity that inspires to coproduced research with global impact.

This online course follows the whole process of public a monograph or other academic book, from making the initial decisions, to what to do once you have the finished book in your hands.

You’ll learn:

• key considerations when turning your thesis into a monograph
• how to choose the best publisher for you
• how Open Access monographs work
• how to write a great proposal
• what to expect from the peer review and publishing process

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

Publishing journal articles is a key element of a successful research career.

Those starting on this journey may have a lot of questions, such as:

• Where and how should I publish my research?
• How do I maximise the number of readers and citations?
• How should I respond to reviewers?

This online module covers the basic skills you need if you are preparing to publish in academic journals.

It will help you to:

• plan a publication strategy and choose the right journals for you
• avoid the snares of predatory publishers
• navigate the peer review process
• understand Open Access publishing and what it means for your publications

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

An introduction to the UL's Rare Books Reading Room and its collections, which include material from the first European printing presses and from the wider world up to the present day.

As a researcher, you will collect a lot of data. Whether that data takes the form of spreadsheets, recordings, images, bibliographies, or something entirely different, it's crucial that you manage it well throughout your projects. Doing so will help you to work more efficiently, avoid data disasters, and build your professional reputation.

In this course, you'll learn:

• how to store and backup up data
• how to organise data
• what to do with protected data (personal or commercially sensitive)
• why sharing data is important and how to do it
• how to write Data Management Plans

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

Data, Metrics, Key Performance Indicators... these terms are everywhere these days, as we increasingly seek hard data to monitor and improve the quality of many of the things we do. Research metrics can be very useful, but they also come with important caveats, so we need to be responsible in how we use these tools.

In this module, you will learn:

• the meaning of common metrics such as Journal Impact Factor and H-index
• what are the main limitations of metrics
• a better, responsible approach to using metrics

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

Focuses on core study skills to help students plan their learning and revision

Have you ever searched for articles on a topic and returned thousands of results... or none? Are you always defaulting to Google Scholar and wondering if there’s a better way of doing things? Are you starting to look into a new topic and feel overwhelmed and unsure where to start? Then this online course is for you.

We will look at the three stages of a successful literature search:

• planning a strategy and identifying the right key words
• searching using the right tools and maintaining accurate records
• evaluating results and refining search parameters

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

In this informal session you will be able to learn more about various topics and resources, including

• reference management
• text mining
• data visualisation
• tools for structuring long-term writing projects
• resources for legal research
• copyright and Creative Commons

You will be able to rotate between these different areas, exploring tools on the areas that interest you most and how they can help your research, or what you feel you need to learn more about. The session will be led by librarians from across the different Schools in the university, and from the University Library.

Please only sign up for one of the sessions. There are no fixed time slots so feel free to drop in and out as you wish within your allocated hour.

This short interactive module introduces you to Cambridge University Libraries and explains how to find resources for your subject. This module has a focus on the Medical and Veterinary Sciences Triposes, but will be useful for anyone who is new to Cambridge.

This short interactive module introduces you to Cambridge University Libraries and explains how to find resources for your subject. This module has a focus on the Psychological and Behavioural Sciences Tripos, but will be useful for anyone who is new to Cambridge.

This short interactive module introduces you to Cambridge University Libraries and explains how to find resources for your subject. This module has a focus on the Biological Sciences strand of the Natural Sciences Tripos, and is suitable for anyone who is new to Cambridge.

Come to the Library’s Historical Printing Room. Set your name in type and hand-print an illustrated keepsake as a memento of your visit.

On top of the millions of books held at the University Library, we also have a considerable collection of printing artefacts. This began with a decision in the early 1970s to set up a bibliographical teaching press on the lines of those already existing at the Bodleian, University College London and elsewhere. The impetus for this plan came from the late Philip Gaskell, then Librarian of Trinity College. The main aim was to enable students of literature to understand the practical details of hand composition of type and of printing on a hand-press, and thus to appreciate the ways in which both conscious decisions and accidents in the printing house could affect the accuracy of a text.

http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/departments/rare-books/collections/historical-printing-room

Take a break from revision stress with a twenty minute guided tour of the famous UL Tower. An experienced member of staff will take you up one of Cambridge's tallest structures where you can experience dazzling views of Cambridge as well as seeing some of the unique material that the tower holds.

Please be aware that access to the Tower is by lift/elevator only.

Bringing collaboration in early research and research communications squarely into the open research movement has the potential to bring real benefits; from speeding up discovery in research by making more aspects of the production of research available to other researchers; to providing recognition to more component parts of the research process; to helping to disrupt and improve the article publishing model to making interdisciplinary work less challenging and more impactful. But what are the barriers and how can the research community overcome them in partnership with publishers and other stakeholders?

This workshop will have 3 parts:

• An update on how the Press is working to encourage collaboration around big research questions at the intersections of research fields in order to open up a conversation with the University research community. A brief introduction will share examples where the Press is challenging the traditional reward structures around article publishing, facilitating bottom-up interactions in the production of research on their new open research platform Cambridge Open Engage and highlights from recent market research they’ve conducted.

• Generate a list of shared barriers to collaboration across participants

• Discuss how making collaboration more open could tackle some of those barriers, the benefits of making collaboration more open, and specific ways that the stakeholders in the conference (researcher, publisher, library, etc.) could support a move towards openness like this.

Collecting impact evidence from social media of publications, conference papers or any other scholarly output can be complicated and time-consuming. In this session, we'll introduce you to a number of tools that can help to streamline and simplify these processes: IFTTT, Twitter analytics, Altmetric and ImpactStory.

Read and research in an East Asian language? Visit the UL’s Aoi Pavilion with over 300,000 volumes written in Japanese, Chinese, or Korean. You will see the East Asian Reading Room and Aoi bookstacks. You will learn how to find books in the open stacks and how to request them from closed stacks.

This tour will include some main areas of the UL, but readers primarily interested in English or European collections should join an ‘Orientation Tour’ instead.

Cambridge University Library is one of the top research libraries in the world and holds over 8 million items. If you are a member of Library staff at a college, department or faculty library and would like to give your students introductory tours of the UL, then we would love to help you gain the knowledge and confidence to do that.

Email us today (research-skills@lib.cam.ac.uk) to organise a one-to-one tour with an experienced member of UL staff. We will guide you through the orientation tour route that we use for our own tours and can answer any questions that you may have.

Cambridge University Library is one of the top research libraries in the world and holds over 8 million items. If you are a member of Library staff at a college, department or faculty library and would like to give your students introductory tours of the UL, then we would love to help you gain the knowledge and confidence to do that.

Email us today (research-skills@lib.cam.ac.uk) to get started. We can give advice via email or by telephone (including sharing our tour notes and guidance) or we can organise a one-to-one tour for you with an experienced member of UL staff. We will guide you through the orientation tour route that we use for our own tours and can answer any questions that you may have.

Drop in for a chat with a member of the Biological Sciences Libraries Team:

We can help you with lots of things including:

• referencing
• getting to grips with critical reading
• understanding your recommended reading
• finding books and digital content
• successfully executing a literature search
• and much more!

If we can't answer your question in the session, we'll take your details and investigate it further for you!

• Nervous or intimidated about visiting the UL for the first time?
• Don’t know where to begin with a Literature search?
• Can never find the books you need on the open shelves?

Ask a librarian!

Individual or small group supervision style sessions tailored to your needs. Available online or face-to-face.

If you would prefer a different day or time, email readerservices@cam.ac.uk to arrange a session. Tell us what you need help with and we’ll match you with a member of library staff who can show you what you need to know, whether it’s searching the catalogue, using Electronic Legal Deposit, finding open shelf books or something else entirely.

Don't suffer in silence - Ask a Librarian!