24/6 Library Opening Hours Sunday, 27 November - Friday, 16 December

During the postgraduate examination period, the Library will be open for 24 hours, 6 days a week from Sunday, 27 November 2011 to 22:00 on Friday, 16 December 2011.

Throughout 24/6 the Library is open all the time from 11:00 on Sunday mornings through to 18:00 on Saturday evenings.

For full details of the 24 hour opening times, please see our opening hours web pages.

Please remember you will need your uniCARD to swipe in at all times and third floor is for silent study.

If you have any queries or comments about this, please add them below or email library@aston.ac.uk

Have you discovered Zetoc yet?

The Zetoc database gives access to the British Library's Electronic Table of Contents (ETOC): over 28,000 journals, 45 million article citations and conference papers covering subjects in science, technology, medicine, engineering, business, law, finance, the arts and humanities, covering the years from 1993 to date and updated daily. The database has recently been re-engineered: corrections have been applied, duplicates deleted and additional Abstracts added. In addition, the service has been re-branded, including improvements to the records display.

Some of the most useful aspects of the Zetoc database are the functionalities for Search Alerts and Journal Table-of-contents RSS feeds, offering a convenient way to stay up-to-date in your subject area.  This is an important way for researchers to save time without compromising knowledge of their subject area.  If you would like further advice on making use of these excellent tools, please ask at the Help Desk or contact your Information Specialist.

You can provide feedback on the Zetoc service directly, or let us know what you think by commenting on this post.

Win a £30 Amazon voucher - SCONUL Access Scheme Survey

Do you use other academic libraries? Would you like to? Can you get what you need?

The Higher Education library community wants to provide the best possible service to students, researchers and staff who, for all sorts of reasons, wish to access other academic and specialist libraries.

Please help us to develop the services and access you need by completing this short online survey - it should take 5-6 minutes.

You can access the survey here http://www.sero.co.uk/sconul_access.html

*WIN VOUCHERS* Prize Draw for SIX winners of £30 Amazon vouchers - optionally provide your email address at the end of the survey to be entered in to the random draw.

Data Protection - Sero Consulting is registered with the Information Commissioner and undertakes that your data will be held securerly and will not be disclosed in any way that can be traced to an individual.

The survey closes on Friday 9th December.

Additional message for Aston University students and staff:
If you would like to use other academic libraries, then please request your SCONUL Access card at the Help desk in the Library between 9:00am and 6:00pm Monday to Friday.

Aston e-Library: failed to load custom tile

We have become aware of an intermittent problem with Aston e-Library.  Some users have been getting an error message when searching by topic using the default search box within Aston e-Library.

failed to load custom tile

We have contacted our provider to try to resolve this problem as quickly as possible, but it is only affecting some users, so we have not yet identified the exact nature of the problem.  If you experience this problem, please can you e-mail us to tell us:

• which web browser (e.g. Internet Explorer 8) you are using to access Aston e-Library
• which operating system (e.g. Windows 7) you are using
• which device (e.g. smartphone, laptop PC, Mac) you are using.

In the meantime, we suggest you try using a different web browser to access Aston e-Library.  As the problem appears to be intermittent, this has been an effective solution for some users!  If you are using Internet Explorer, for example, you could try Mozilla Firefox instead.

Are you a final year undergraduate business school student?

Dear final year business school students,

Are you free next Wednesday 23rd November between 2.30pm and 3.30pm?
Then please book a place on a Library Research Skills refresher session to help you locate academic journal articles, company information or market research data.

To book a place email l.a.matheson@aston.ac.uk by Monday 21st November.
Places will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.

Thank you,
Lydia

Lydia Matheson
Business Information Specialist, LIS

Making library resources mobile!

Did you know that many of the resources available to you via Aston University Library & Information Services are available from your mobile device as well?

This summer, we launched a mobile version of the Library Catalogue, making it easier than ever to find books as you navigate the Library shelves. This is accessible through the usual web browser on your mobile device.

Many of our resource providers have developed mobile versions of their interfaces as well.  For example, you can access the Web of Knowledge, EBSCOhost, IEEE Xplore and JSTOR when you're out and about using the mobile interfaces provided.  Sometimes, free registration is required for access to the mobile version.  Comment on this post or ask at the Help Desk if you have any questions about this.

Some of our providers have created apps for you to download.  Elsevier provide apps for ScienceDirect and Scopus Alerts.  To download an EBSCOhost app for iPhone or Android, access EBSCOhost as normal and click the link at the bottom of any EBSCOhost page to email yourself the download instructions, access key and a link to the app store.  The RSC (Royal Society of Chemistry) have an iOS app for their journals and for ChemSpider.

Library Prize Winners

Library Matters Live
1795 of you attended a Library Matters Live Induction session.
Thank you for your participation and feedback.
The following students won prizes:

• Hayley - a £150 Waterstone voucher donated by Scopus.
• Nikol - £50 John Smith's voucher donated by John Smith's campus bookshop.
• Jayniz - £100 Bullring voucher donated by Aston University LIS.
• Nabila - iPad donated by Emerald

Library Laptop Survey
607 of you completed the survey.
Thank you for your participation and feedback.
Findings will be shared soon.

• Anish was the lucky winner of a Kindle, donated by Proquest.

Aston students only: Win a Kindle!

Can you spare 2 minutes to fill in our online survey about library laptops?

If so, then you will get the chance to win a Kindle.

Complete the survey by 09:00 on Tuesday 8th November.

The survey is now CLOSED.