Get more out of your library — key skills

Improve your searches and save valuable time with these useful guides to key library skills.

Searching and study skills

Search our catalogue: An introduction to keyword searching our catalogue updated for the new bibliocommons catalogue.
Searching the previous catalogue.
Our social catalogue: How to use our BiblioCommons catalogue to track your reading and share opinions of books, DVDS, and music.
Search tips: Great tips to help you search online databases.
Dewey Guide: Our libraries use the Dewey Decimal Classification system — learn how it works so that you can find items in the library.
References, citations and bibliographies: Learn about what’s required when doing references for essays and reports and get some simple tools for making citations and bibliographies.

Enabling cookies on your computer: Cookies are small data files stored by web sites on your computer so that they can save and read information such as your log-in.
File types & plug-ins: Learn about different types of files that you will find on our web site and the internet and where to download the software to view them.
Mouse-ercise: An online exercise designed to help you use your mouse.
Printing web pages: Some tips about printing web pages to save you money and time, in particular our pages.
RSS — Really Simple Syndication: Find out about RSS, what it is, how to use it and how to access the libraries’ RSS feeds.
Tools: Find out how to make links to our website or databases, library and technical terms and more.
Viewing fonts on your computer: We use Unicode on our web site to display macrons and languages other than English.

Creating your own online space: These days you don’t need to be a geek to have an online presence as there are a number of simple ways to create your own online space for free.
Exploring online worlds: Explore virtual worlds and massively multiplayer online games.
Internet safety: Some hints for keeping your PC safe when on the Internet.
Podcasts and podcasting: Information on podcasting and podcasts and how they work.
Share your music online