Half term opening hours

All three LRCs will be CLOSED on Friday 25 October for the staff training day.

Guildford College

The LRC will be open every day in half term.

9.30 - 4.30
Closed for lunch 12.30 - 1.30

Farnham College

The LRC will be closed all week.

mySearch - what is it and why do I need it?

What is mySearch?

mySearch is an online research tool that “pulls together” many of the LRC resources so that they can be explored using a single search box. In other words, rather than searching the Library Catalogue for books and a database for journal articles, you can go to mySearch and get results which include books, e-books, and journal articles in one list. In fact, you could think of mySearch as the Library’s version of Google.

The link can be found on the LRC E-Resources page (you will need to login to Moodle for access) or here on the blog (see links on the right).

It works like this...

Technically-speaking, mySearch provides an integrated index for many of our resources. Although it is an EBSCO product, your search results will also include non-EBSCO resources such as:

• Heritage, the Library Catalogue
• BioOne
• Britannica

Not only does it search most of our resources with one search box, it returns your results quickly and ranks them according to relevancy. It’s powerful and should be of help finding resources for your research. Just keep in mind that, like Google, it may return a large number of results and you will need to use judgment when assessing their value.

I'm having trouble using mySearch...

Well, it’s a new tool for you and for us! So, it may not be obvious how to do some of the things you have grown accustomed doing with the other databases. So we would like to encourage you to explore this resource along with us and give us feedback on your success and frustration with it.

Remember the LRC staff are happy to help if you are having trouble or want some help with searching for information.

Top e-books in September

We start another year with Business back in top spot  in September's top ten e-books by pages viewed with Tourism, IT, Carpentry, Counselling, Childcare and Beauty Therapy all staking their claim. Tourism top the download chart but we also have entries for Arboriculture and Construction.

Here's September's chart:

2977   BTEC Level 3 National Business Book 1
1403   BTEC Level 3 Business Book 2 
267     JavaScript Professional Projects
249     BTEC Level 3 National in IT
126     Learn JavaScript in a weekend
88       Carpentry and joinery Level 1.
69       BTEC National Travel and tourism Book 2   
51       Counselling skills and theory
50       Facials and skin care in essence
43       Working with children
   

The top downloaded books for September were:

5    Travel & tourism for BTEC Level 3 Book 1
3    Doing your research project
3    Edexcel diploma: Construction and the built environment
2    Trees : their natural history
2    Effective organisational communication