Studying over the vacation

As the end of term is fast approaching its a good time to post a reminder of how you can access library resources over the vacation.

Firstly, the Central Library is open until Friday 21 December from 09:30 to 17:30 so you can still come to borrow books, use the computers and find a quiet corner to study.

If you want to keep your library books over the vacation please make sure you renew them before you leave College. This will stop you from getting any unexpected fines on your return in January.

Libraries close from Saturday 22 December and re-open on Wednesday 2 January 2008.

All our online resources are still available to you even when the library is closed. The new library website provides the best access to these from the Digital Library page.

Most problems with passwords and access to online resources can be avoided by setting up the Virtual Private Network (VPN) on your home PC or laptop. The ICT website has all the instructions you need to do this, or check the library Password and Access page.

If you’re away from London over the holiday and would like to use other university libraries please see our Using other Libraries page. During the vacations, when it’s a quieter time, many university libraries will allow you access to study and use print resources (most will not allow you access to online resources). I’d advise you to call the library you want to visit in advance, just in case!

Finally, please have an enjoyable and relaxing vacation.
Happy holidays!

Lights out in Central Library 15 – 16 December

Central Library will be closed all this weekend as electrical works mean that all the power will be off.

UNFCCC conference, and finding UN documentation

Those of you following the goings-on of the UNFCCC conference in Bali may find their website useful.

The UNFCCC provides free online access to their official documents, and even offers webcasts of meetings so you can pretend you’re in Bali too.

The United Nations publishes a vast amount of reports and other documentation, and much of this material is freely available online. As it’s the UN many documents can be downloaded in languages other than English.

To help you find your way to the information you want try searching UNBISnet , which is essentially the library catalogue for the UN. You can search by keyword, or browse subject headings. For example, a quick search on ‘clean development mechanism’ gets 169 results.

The UN also produces a number of research guides, including one on environment which details the many UN bodies concerned with this subject.

All the above have also been added to del.icio.us for you. The quickest way to find them is to click the UN tag.