Library+ Loyalty Card

Library+ Loyalty Card

“A book is a dream that you hold in your hands."- Neil Gaiman   

Reading is an important past time. Reading a book (or preferably books) expands your mind and vocabulary, and according to a 2014 report from The Reading Agency, there is “clear evidence that reading for pleasure can increase empathy, improve relationships with others, reduce the symptoms of depression and dementia, and improve well-being throughout life.”* However, like a lot of things, the art of sitting down with a book seems to be losing out to catch-up TV and smart phones.

This year, our goal at Library⁺ is to encourage people to read for fun. No, not just stuff for your courses but fiction books.  We’ve launched a Loyalty Card Scheme to encourage reading for pleasure and it’s really simple to get involved! Just come to the Library main desk to sign up for your card, then borrow and read 6 books before June. Once your card has 6 stamps on it you’ll be entered into a prize draw to win an Amazon Kindle!

Library+ Loyalty Card Prize event

Not only will the winner get an amazing prize but we are also holding an awards event for the Loyalty Card Scheme on Wednesday 14^th June. All those who have completed Loyalty Cards will be invited and we will be joined by local author Eva Jordan and children’s fiction writer Alexander Gordon Smith. All these things are great incentives to start reading and there is no closing date for signing up to a card!

Picture/ Poster by Peterborough Regional College

Books! Not sure where to start? Here’s our top picks-

-           I knew you were trouble- Paige Toon  

-          Harry Potter and the philosopher’s stone (illustrated edition)- JK Rowling          The son of Neptune- Rick Riordan

-          Street cat Bob (quick read edition) – James Bowen

-          The Girl of ink and stars- Kiran Millwood Hargrave

-          Lord Loss- Darren Shan

    

The importance of punctuation - the Oxford Comma

Using the correct punctuation

In order to write well and make yourself understood, it is important to use the correct punctuation, but for many of you this can be a struggle (and I suspect there isn't one of us in College that doesn't find themselves at some point not sure when to use a form of punctuation).

Last week, the humble comma was shown to be far more important than the little squiggle it is, when it made headline news in a court case concerning whether drivers in a dairy in the USA were entitled to overtime pay. The whole decision rested on the use of what is known as the Oxford comma. It cost Oakhurst Dairy 10 million dollars. Read about it here.

The Oxford Comma

The Oxford Comma (or serial comma) is an optional comma used after the penultimate item in a list of 3 or more items, before 'and'  or 'or'.

Usually in a list we are told not to put a comma before the final 'and', but in some cases (and the Oakhurst Dairy case is a prime example) putting a comma here helps to make the sentence clearer and better understood.

Bristol University explains simply how this is the case.

It is Bristol University's jelly and ice cream example which helps me remember this (perhaps I'm feeling hungry!)

His favourite puddings were ice apple pie, rhubarb crumble, and jelly and ice cream.

The comma after crumble keeps jelly and ice cream together as one item, one dessert, one dish (albeit made up of 2 items).

Punctuation games/ quizzes

For those of you wanting to brush up on your use of the comma (Oxford or otherwise) or who need some exercises to use in class to help test punctuation, you might find these useful:

BBC Skillswise quiz   -some funny example in here. It does need Flash to work.

How good is your punctuation? - from the Telegraph
Commas game.

Focus on Electronic Resources for Early Years and Child Care

Childlink and Nursery World

Library+ subscribes to a couple of databases which hold lots of useful information for Early Years and Child Care students particularly but may also be useful for Health and Social Care students.
These resources are accessible from our Electronic Resources page under the Library+ section of Moodle.  Both can be used inside and outside College. If prompted, enter your network login name and password.

Childlink

This focuses on legislation, policies and practices regarding children and young people. There are links to new government legislation (e.g. Children and Social Work Bill), research, papers ( e.g. Bounce back from bullying), news (e.g "Schools must do more on mental health") and statistics (e.g. youth custody data). There are also links to trustworthy videos (e.g. How to put your child to sleep properly or What can we do about child abuse?  - see below for the NSPCC video).

There is also a range of practice guides on issues such as Nursery Food and Common Childhood Illnesses. Have a look and see what you can find!

You can access Childlink on your tablet if you have one and there is a Childlink app for your mobile if this is how you wish to access it.

Nursery World

We pay a lot of money to give you online access to back issues of Nursery World so do please use it. Nursery World is very practical and relevant to people working with young children (I've just found an article on dressing up, for example) with ideas that you can use in your work placement as well as use in your assignments. There is health advice, information about special needs, equality and diversity and ideas for play, to name a few.

You can search for what you are interested in using the search box in the top right hand corner or browse through past issues one by one.

Nursery World - available to view in College

If you want any help using these, please come and ask in Library+. We can also come to your lesson and give you a quick demo or training session - tutors just need to arrange this with us.

National No Smoking Day - and how do I know which websites to trust?

National No Smoking Day

Yesterday was National No Smoking Day. Several courses include looking at smoking as a topic in their courses and many use websites. I am often asked by students how to tell which websites can be trusted so I thought I’d use this topic as an example.

Smoking and tobacco websites

So…. if you were doing a project on smoking and tobacco, which of the following websites would you trust and use as a good source of information for your assignment? Not all of these are ideal.

www.ash.org.uk  (Action on Smoking and Health – charity)

www.gov.uk/government/policies/smoking   (UK Government website)

www.bmj.com/specialities/smoking  (British Medical Journal)

www.nicorette.co.uk  (company selling products to help give up smoking)

www.niquitin.co.uk  (company selling products to help give up smoking)

www.bhf.org.uk/smoking   (British Heart Foundation)

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/healthandlifeexpectancies/bulletins/adultsmokinghabitsingreatbritain/2015  (Office of National Statistics)

www.blf.org.uk  (British Lung Foundation)

http://www.givingupsmoking.co.uk/  (E-cigarette company)

https://www.nhs.uk/smokefree   (NHS site)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_smoking  (Online wiki)

How to decide which smoking websites to trust and which can I use in my assignments?

I often ask students if they had a choice between using the NHS site or the Nicorette site, for example, which would they use? 

Most would reply the NHS site and when asked why, would say that Nicorette site want to sell their own products. Therefore they won't give an unbiased or objective view of how to give up smoking. Therefore, I would probably not use this site, even though some of the information may be correct.

www.givingupsmoking.co.uk  is another example where author of the website (which is not very obvious) is promoting e-cigarettes rather than giving a balanced view on smoking and giving up. 

Public domain photo
http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/view-image.php?image=126056&picture=cigarette-butts

Web extensions

Did you know that .co and .com sites can be set up by anyone. That doesn't mean they can't be trusted but there are no checks. You know you can trust .nhs sites. They are British and must be from an NHS institution. Other trustworthy website extensions are .gov (as in Office Of National Statistics), .org (as in British Heart Foundation) and .ac (a school, college or University like PRC) as these extensions can only be registered to genuine government departments, charities and organisations or academic institutions.

Wikipedia

Wikipedia is never a good option for your college work, because anyone can write Wikipedia articles and therefore you cannot tell if the information is trustworthy.

Journal sites

British Medical Journal is a professional journal with articles written for and by GPs, consultants and other medically trained staff.  The content is checked and only qualified people contribute. This site can be trusted – but you might have problems understanding it!

Quitting smoking projects - use the About section

There are lots of different sites for projects promoting giving up smoking and you will notice that a lot of them have a NHS logo on them. This would suggest that the site is approved by the NHS or that they have been working in partnership with them. They can probably be trusted. Read the About section of any website to see who the author of the website is.

With so many good quality sites available, why would you bother with those which may not be so trustworthy or objective? For College work I would concentrate on organisations like charities, the NHS and government websites. PRC Library+also have an e-book on Issues Online about smoking and tobacco - accessible from our Moodle pages.

Whatever you use, remember to put the details of the website in your reference list at the end of your work.

World Book Day

World Book Day

Today is World Book Day and Library+ is celebrating with a quiz which students can complete and return for a chance to win a £10 Waterstones voucher. You need to return your completed quiz to the library by the 13th March 2017 at the latest.

Reading

Do you read for pleasure? If not, why not try something from our selection in Library+? You can borrow some to try. It doesn’t matter if you don’t get in to them, you can bring them back and try something else – all without having to pay anything.

Photo: Peterborough Regional College
Fiction books in Library+

If you haven’t read much before, perhaps try our selection of Quick Reads. These are not too long and can help you get used to reading a story through. Perhaps look for a plot (written on the back of the book) which is similar to the films you like to watch.

For those of us who enjoy reading we know the benefits of reading. There is nothing like finding a book that you can’t put down because it is so good and you just must know what happens.

Here are some of the other advantages for reading:

• ·         It helps you use your imagination (without having to try).
• ·         It gives you an insight into how different characters think and act.
• ·         It subconsciously helps you learn new words and improves your writing (e.g. for college work).
• ·         It helps you escape from reality for a while – ideal for relaxation and your mental health.
• ·         It is something you can do when you are on your own (whilst not necessarily feeling that you are).
• ·         It is great when you find an author or series that you like. You can then go and read their other books – just for enjoyment.

S  So why not give it a try. Just ask the library staff if you aren't sure what to choose. No one is going to check up on you and it is always good to try something new.