St. Patrick's Weekend

The Library is closed on Monday, March 18 for the Saint Patrick's Day bank holiday.

Our opening hours over the weekend are:

Friday - 9am-5pm
Saturday - 10am-1pm
Sunday - Closed
Monday - Closed
Tuesday - 9am-10pm

Cambridge E-books Trial

We have obtained trial access for one month to Cambridge's complete online collection of e-books.

Cambridge Books Online contains thousands of e-books titles in the humanities, social sciences and education.

Chapters can be downloaded in pdf format and titles are indexed in such a way that they are easily discovered through commonly used search tools such as Google Scholar.

While the trial is live, why not dive straight in to http://ebooks.cambridge.org/ and browse or search your own areas of interest.

If you want to check a particular title or search for a term you can start right away by typing your terms in below:

• 
• Widget Search Keyword
• 

This trial is obtained for the purpose of assessment for any future purchase.  We'd be glad to hear from staff or students about how relevant these collections are to you or your department.

Remember to check our Trial Databases page on our website to see what is currently available in addition to our existing resources.

School Placement Resource

World Book Online is an excellent online resource primarily aimed at children and those working with or teaching children.  It is currently available on trial access to all SPD staff and students.

Click here to access the collection - it's also available via our website.

To access this resource you'll need our trial login which will be emailed to your College account.  If you haven't received this, please just ask in the Library or Resource Centre and a member of staff will help you.

This site is presented in four sections - World Book Web, Speciality Sites, World Book Digital Libraries and World Book Classroom.

Together these contain children's literature, encyclopedia articles, primary source collections, educator tools, student activities, pictures, audio, and video, complemented by current periodicals and related websites.

As with all of our trial subscriptions we invite feedback from staff or students, so please let us know if you like it!

Catalogue Down - Update

Please note our Catalogue is not functioning properly today due to the wider network issues.  Issues at present include:

• no availability/shelfmark displaying
• no access to 'my account' features

Users looking to renew loans or reserve items may do so at the Issue Desk or by contacting us info.library@spd.dcu.ie | 01-8842170.

Update 10am, 28th Feb - All features have now been restored.

Swetswise E-journals Access

Please note that the Swetswise journals platform will be unavailable from 11am until 5pm this Sunday (February 24) due to essential maintenance work.  Any links on our Journals A-Z which bring you to this platform will not work during this time.

Often e-journals are available via more than one platform or database.  A really handy of way of checking this is to use DCU Library's SerialsSolutions tool - just enter the journal title and it will return you a complete listing of the different platforms it is available on along with information on how many issues or years are available (this can vary from one database to another).

Books for School Placement

If you’re about to head out on school placement and are wondering which books to bring with you into the classroom, we can help!

Check out our LibraryThing account @ www.librarything.com (username: StPatsJLibrary / password: farmerduck).

Click on a curriculum strand (see tags) or on a theme (see collections). Then check availability of anything you find interesting in the Catalogue.

This is a work in progress so all comments welcome!

Cameras for Loan

Digital cameras are now available in the Library for students and staff to take out on loan. In addition we  have three tripods which may be taken out with cameras or on their own for use with any camera type.

The loan type is for 3 weeks (memory cards, batteries and charger packs are all part of the camera package).

This initiative is the result of funds from the Quality Promotion Fund for St Patrick’s College. The initiative was sparked by the Art Education staff member Andrea Cleary as a first step towards promoting a culture of recording good quality children’s art works.

It was initially intended for the use of students on the B Ed when out on teaching practice. This semester a group of students will be asked to record their art teaching experience through images of the children’s work. The long term aspiration is that the resulting images would become available for all as a visual resource.

This first step could not have come to fruition without the opportunity to apply to the fund, secondly the vision of the Quality Promotion Committee for approving funds and thirdly the Cregan Library for agreeing to house and manage the loan of the equipment.

Thanks to all involved and those that are about to contribute!