Monday 22 August 2016

August bank holiday closure

The Libraries will be unstaffed on Monday the 29th of August for the bank holiday.

Access will still be available for registered members via our swipe card system at the Berrywood and Richmond libraries (just don't forget to bring your library card!), but Isebrook Library will be closed.

We reopen as normal on Tuesday the 30th at all of our sites.

Wednesday 17 August 2016

New books and journals added to Clinical Key



Elsevier have added new electronic books and journals to Clinical Key this month, including:

Journals
Books

Clinical Key is a fantastic, easy to use resource that contains huge amounts of full text content including:
  • 1,400 topic pages
  • Over 600 electronic journals 
  • Over 1000 electronic books
  • 850 First Consult monographs
  • 17,000 + medical / surgical videos
  • 300 + Procedures Consult videos
  • 15,000 patient education handouts
  • 2.2 million images
  • You can find a full content list here
To access Clinical Key all you need is your OpenAthens password (register online here if you don't have one) to get started.

Monday 1 August 2016

Web site of the month: Qwant - an interesting alternative to Google

Qwant is a European search engine alternative. Like DuckDuckGo (another favourite of ours), and unlike other search engines such as Google, Qwant does not track your activity or trap you in a filter bubble (where you see results based on your previous search history and clicks, rather than those that are most relevant).

When you search Qwant your results are presented in 3 columns tagged Web, News and Social (social media like Twitter). You can also filter your results to just include images or videos, or for shopping or music using the buttons on the left.

www.qwant.com


























You are also able to create a free account and set lots of preferences, including having a list of favourite web sites which can act as a start page (these act like bookmarks and can be accessed from anywhere when you sign in with your account).

Qwant has other useful features including:

  • Opening results in a new tab so you retain your list of search results
  • Searching options like phrase or title searching, excluding search terms or limiting to a particular file type
  • Qwant Lite has minimal graphics on display making it ideal for mobile devices and where there is a slower internet connection
  • Qwick which easily allows you to search the content of a particular site through some clever shortcuts
  • Boards which allows you to share content like pictures, videos, websites and even your own text
  • Qwant Junior: a more heavily filtered search aimed at 6 - 13 year olds, with an education tab which displays results from recognised educational sources 
Qwant has enough interesting features to make it an alternative to Google and other more mainstream search engines. It's approach to privacy and searching mean you get results based more on your search criteria than your previous activities and we think it is well worth a look.