Christmas quiz in the LRC

LRC Christmas Quiz

Can you identify the films/ books/ productions portrayed around the different areas in the LRC? Well done to the LRC staff who put in a lot of time (often their own) and thought to creating these.

Last day for entries are early Friday (14th) so do come in and take part for the chance to win a prize.

As a taster, have a look at the following selection to see if you can guess what they portray. 

 

All photos by Peterborough Regional College.

Time Management

Introducing Time management

At the latest Staff Student Liaison Committee some of the student reps requested some help with time management. This is a life skill relevant to everyone whatever their role. We all seem so busy and have trouble fitting everything in to our week. We've put together some tips and resources you might find useful.


First of all how about finding out how good you are at managing your time using this short quiz? This will help you reflect on how/ whether you manage your time.

Tips and online resources

Plan your week - work out how you typically use your time in a standard week using ARU's weekly time tracker. You can then also use their weekly and termly planners (go to the bottom of the webpage) to plan ahead. See also their time management guide on the Getting Organised page of their Study Skills Plus section.


List your activities - there can be a satisfaction in listing jobs and ticking them off. In an ideal world you do your thinking and planning now and then next week you just do what you've scheduled (or at least you don't spend so much time thinking about what you should be doing). In your time tracker you will have identified how much time is needed for which activity so you can spread your activities out over a week realistically in your planner.


Prioritise your activities/ tasks -Identify which tasks are urgent, which are important, which are optional and which aren't important. If something is difficult (perhaps you just don't want to do it) or needs more attention, allocate time when you are freshest or have the most energy not when you are likely to be tired. See Skills you Need's Priority Matrix.


Don't procrastinate or get distracted - go to the labels on the right and choose study skills and you should find a post we did on procrastination in June 2017. Turn your phone off, work somewhere where there aren't things around to distract you (you may find working in the LRC may be a suitable environment for you to work in with less distractions).

Other resources

The Learn Higher website has various short activities you can do to help with time management.


If you prefer watching videos to learn see the BBC Skillswise video on time management.

Alternatively, you may find this video useful:

There are various TED talks you can watch too of course (but do you have the time?).

Fantastic Beasts event

Fantastic Beasts

See below for photos from our Fantastic Beasts event last week.




Fantastic Beasts craft stall provided by Youth Centre
Photo: Peterborough Regional College

Photograph your Pet competition
Photo: Peterborough Regional College

Animal Care stall (with stick insects etc.)
Photo: Peterborough Regional College

Owl from the Raptor Foundation
Photo:Peterborough Regional College



Thanks to Hair and Beauty students for their face painting creations of fantastic beasts and to catering students for making and selling refreshments. The LRC tombola raised £75 for Wood Green Animal Shelter. Thank you everyone and to the LRC assistants who planned and organised it.

Coming Soon - Fantastic Beasts event

Coming soon - Fantastic Beasts event

Next Wednesday we are holding a Fantastic Beasts event to mark the release of the second film the Crimes of Grindelwald. Various curriculm areas are joining us. The hospitality section are making and selling biscuits, the Raptor Foundation are bringing owls and the animal care section are showcasing some of their insects and reptiles. The youth centre are holding a craft stall and we will have a tombola to raise money for Wood Green Animal Shelter.

We are also giving everyone the opportunity to enter our pet photography competition (open for entries now - send your photos to the LRC) or even win a prize for dressing up in fancy dress for the day!

Fantastic Beasts resources and activities for you to try (with some Google tips) - 

To get you in the mood, we've put together some activities and online resources with a Fantastic Beasts theme. Some will help you learn how to find things on the internet, some will help you learn, some will make you think about the websites you view and some are just fun.

• Use Google's image search to find what a niffler looks like.

• Use Google maps to find out where the place Grindlewald is (slightly different spelling to the film character).

• Find a trailer of the Crimes of Grindelwald on Internet Movie Database. Just put the keywords - (fantastic beasts crimes Grindelwald) - in to your search. You don't need to use the "of" as this will be ignored anyway.                                                                                                          IMDB can also tell you who is in the film and by clicking on their name you can see what else they have been in. Who plays Leta Lestrange and in what other films/ tv dramas will you see her? Was she in the first film?

• Find out when Fantastic Beasts Crimes of Grindelwald is on at the cinema by typing movie: crimes grindelwald in to the search box in Google. It will usually default to your nearest location but if you want to know when it is on in Norwich for examples type movie: crimes grindelwald norwich. You can use this for any film and location.

• Find out how to make baked nifflers:

• Read the BBC's article Can exotic animals make good pets? How many licensed tigers were there in the UK in 2016? Why might you think twice about using this web article in an assignment?

• The RSPCA has advice about keeping exotic pets. Do you think keeping exotic pets such as snakes and reptiles is a good idea? Discuss with your friends the pros and cons or why not ask some of the animal care students at the event?

• Some of you may want to get some advice on taking photos of your pet for our competition (we already have a lot of entries which will be on display on Wednesday). Have a look at these 2 websites and decide who are they written for.Which would you use and why?https://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk/technique/wildlife_photography/photographing-pets-pet-photography-tip-566                                                                              https://www.bluecross.org.uk/pet-advice/how-to-photograph-pets

• Have a look at some animal anatomy in our eBooks Introduction to veterinary anatomy and physiology textbook, Animal biology and care or  The complete textbook of animal health and welfare. You will need to use your network login and password.

• Finally for a bit of fun do the Beano's personality quiz - Which Fantastic Beast are you?

• The Independent also has a Which Fantastic Beast from Harry Potter are you? quiz but you will have to watch an advert first! They also have another more challenging quiz What mythical creature are you?

Be Healthy Stay Safe and Anti-bullying Week

Be Healthy Stay Safe event

This week we had a stand at the College's Be Healthy Stay Safe event. We worked with the College police officer who provided high-viz strips for cyclists for us to give away. Our stand included information about staying safe after dark.

LRC Be Healthy Stay Safe Stand 2018
Photo: Peterborough Regional College

Information and giveaways about being safe and being seen
Photo: Peterborough Regional College

Anti- bullying Week

This week has also been Anti-bullying week. Bullying can affect anyone but is not acceptable (and in some case is illegal) whatever age people are and whether inside or outside work/ College.

Anti-bullying and Safeguarding Resources

Bullying UK have a wealth of resources on cyber bullying, bullying at work and advice for young people about sexting, consent, abusive relationships, mental health and suicide.
The Anti-bullying alliance  also has information and advice. Results from a survey they ran highlighted that 97% of young people (11-16 year olds want adults to show more respect for each other. The NSPCC has a list of resources and reports if you are studying the topic of bullying/ abuse or are just interested.

The LRC subscribes to 3 online resources:- Childlink, Child Protection Online and Safeguarding Adults. All of these will have resources (news, reports, legislation about bullying and safeguarding) which you can use as a student, teacher or other member of staff. You will find links to these 3 resources on our Electronic Resources page. Use your network login and password to access either inside or outside college. Please ask staff in the LRC if you have any problems using these.

Google - tips and pitfalls

Using Google to search

A large number of us use Google as the search engine of choice, but is it really the best way to search for information for your academic work?

Google searches for information using algorithms - a set of automated rules which are applied as it trawls for keywords you've put in the search box. Google does not index everything and there is a lot of good information in the hidden web (not to be confused with the dark web!) which will never find it's way in to Google results. The hidden web includes contents of specific databases and collections held by organisations which haven't made these searchable by Google.

The problem is that Google does not exist first and foremost to bring back the information you require. It exists to make money in advertising revenue and so your top links are likely to be sponsored links (whether they are relevant or not). It will often put the most popular results first and you may not want the most popular - you want the most relevant.

Google tracks your use - either by your login or IP address and remembers what you searched for and this will influence what results are brought back in future. Google will assume you want information  from the country in which you are searching  and in the language in which you typed. It tries to mould it's results to you and so two people can get totally different results from the same search.

That said, its academic arm Google Scholar is a useful tool for students for finding articles and papers, but again does not give access to everything. Also, full text access will still often only be available with your University login.

For more information, see the relevant chapter in Phil Bradley's book Expert Internet Searching. available in the LRC.

Image CC0 https://pixabay.com/en/magnifying-glass-google-76520/

Tips for using Google effectively

• If you want to keep your searches private so your searches can't be tracked, you can apply relevant settings or delete search history.
• Use Advanced search to be more specific about your search. You will find this hidden in the Settings menu.
• Use Google Scholar if you want to search academic resources. You can set it just to search just for sources provided by ARU, for example, but you will need to log in to the ARU Digital library first to read the resources. You may want to try turning off the settings too to see everything else that is indexed.
• Use the image search for photographs and images.
• Put words in speech marks to keep them as a phrase "University of Peterborough", "health and safety"  "prime minister". Google tends to look for words next to each other first anyway, but using speech marks is standard for phrase searching in most databases.
• Save typing by using an asterisk (*) to indicate missing letters. Paint* will search for paint, paints, painting, paintings, painter, painters.
• Type the most important search word first in the search box.
• If you just want to search for sites from a particular country type site:.uk (before your keywords), for example, for UK sites. If you just want results from UK government sites, for example, use site:.gov.uk before your search term(s).

Further resources

Massachusetts Institute of Technology have a useful guide to searching Google (but setting Google Scholar up for MIT is not relevant unless you study there!).
The University of Bedfordshire have some useful Google Scholar tips on their library site.
Google itself has provided some video "power searching" courses which you can work through.

Help with applying to University and careers information

Help with applying to University

Peterborough Regional College is fortunate to have en experienced careers adviser to help all of you looking to apply to study in Higher Education next year. Level 3 and Access students should all have had a visit from Matt about writing your personal statement and using OSCAR to do this.

For this half term, the LRC is supplementing the help given by your tutor and the careers department by offering appointments to those of you who want some initial help with getting on to OSCAR and finding your way around it. We will not be offering careers advice or checking the content of your personal statement but hopefully we can help you make sure that you have everything ready for when you have your appointment with a Careers Adviser. You should ask your tutor if you need subject-related information.

Booking an appointment

The LRC will offer 20 minute OSCAR appointments at these times only:

Tuesdays at 15:00, 15:20, 15:40

Wednesdays at 15:00, 15:20, 15:40

Thursdays at 10:40, 11:00, 11:20

Please book in advance (these are not drop-in sessions) by phoning or emailing the LRC or by coming in and booking with a member of staff. 

You will need to have filled in your OSCAR privacy statement form first, handed it in to the careers office and been given your OSCAR login. 

A few resources about going to University and writing Personal Statements (other than OSCAR).

Which? has a site dedicated to all things Uni. See https://university.which.co.uk/

Radio 5 Live has a short podcast about writing your personal statement.

UCAS has a YouTube channel with numerous videos about applying to University.

Many Universities have also produced their own guides to writing a Personal Statement so check out their websites too.

Online careers information - eCLIPS

Whether you are going to University or not, you have access to an online resource full of information about different careers and jobs which you may be interested in. This is available from Careers pages on Moodle or from the Electronic Resources page found under the LRC menu tab. You will find the login information here too.

National Libraries Week

National Libraries Week

During the week 8th - 12th October we marked National Libraries Week with some activities which focused on Well being (the theme had been chosen nationally due to World Mental Health Day being in the same week).

Libraries Week Wellbeing display
Photo: Peterborough Regional College

At the beginning of the week, beauty students offered hand massages to students studying in the LRC. In the middle of the week, we hosted a cake and green ribbon badge sale with the proceeds going to the Mental Health Foundation. We also promoted our mental health resource leaflet. Thank you to everyone who supported the event - including the Student Union and College Counsellor who had stands at the event.

Libraries Week event cake stand
Photo: Peterborough Regional College

Some interesting facts about libraries

To finish, Reader's Digest (American) put together 10 fascinating facts about libraries which you might find interesting.

National Poetry Day

National Poetry Day

Andrew McDonnell

Today is National Poetry Day and so the LRC marked the occasion with a poetry reading from one of the University Centre Peterborough lecturers - Andrew McDonnell. Andrew is an English lecturer at UCP and has a book of poetry coming out next year.

Andrew McDonnell reads his poetry
Photo: Peterborough Regional College

National Poetry Day display

We also asked staff and students to send us some poetic song lyrics which we added to our National Poetry Day display (on the butterfly).

National Poetry Day display
Photo: Peterborough Regional College

A common poetic device used in songs is personification. This is where a writer describes something which isn't alive with human characteristics. In Sting's Fields of Gold, "the sun in his jealous sky" describes the sun as if it has a male gender and ascribes the emotion of jealousy to the sky. Of course the sky isn't jealous of the sun (as far as we know!), but describing it this way creates more of an atmosphere and sounds more interesting. This idea can be used in descriptive written work as well as poetry. Can you think of other music lyrics which use personification?

Reading and Wellbeing

Reading and Wellbeing

The Literacy Trust has released the findings of their annual literacy survey which explores the link between children's reading and their wellbeing. There seems to be evidence that children and young people with a positive attitude to reading have a higher sense of well being.

You can read the report here.

LRC Loyalty Card

In order to promote reading and literacy, the LRC is running it's annual Loyalty card scheme again this year. Students who read 6 books are entered in to a draw for prizes worth £50. Students wishing to take part can register in the LRC at the main desk. Every time you return a fiction book, your loyalty card will be stamped. A presentation event will be held in the spring next year.

The LRC are also partnering with the English department who are running their Get Lit campaign promoting reading in the classroom. Books read for this can count towards your loyalty card tally too.

Top tips for new UCP students

Welcome to new degree students at UCP

This week we started delivering some inductions and tours to new degree students at UCP. Next week we will have a stand at UCP Freshers.

Once you go to University, the emphasis changes to you doing far more of your own research rather than just being given information. You need to learn how to search for information in a range of different resources.

Some pointers to help you start using Library Services 

• Degree students are allowed to take out 14 books from the Learning Resource Centre at Peterborough Regional College. We are your main print library.
• UCP students have their own PC area (please book at the desk) but can use any computers in the LRC if they wish.
• The LRC is open until 7 Monday to Thursday and in vacations and it's much quieter then if you want to get some work done.
• UCP students have access to books at Anglia Ruskin University but must collect and return them to Guild House. (You can request them online).
• Black and white printing in the LRC is free, but you need to use your PRC login to get on to the computers in the first place.
• The LRC librarians deliver some of the Study Excellence Sessions at UCP on Mondays and Thursdays 1-2 pm. Do come and see us. Topics include Beyond Google, Using images, Evaluating information, E-books and Box of Broadcasts.

UCP student PC area in the Learning Resource Centre

Anglia Ruskin Digital Library

• You have access to a wealth of resources through this online library.
• When you are outside the UCP building, you need to login first to see the text of the resources.
• We strongly advise you look at the subject guide for your course as it will show you key databases and resources relevant to your subject.
• Familiarise yourselves with searching the catalogue and the databases now while you don't have any assignments so that when you come to do some research you can spend time actually researching rather than learning how everything works.
• Follow the instructions on the screen for accessing different resources to ensure you have full access.
• Staff in the LRC can help you if you are unsure or have trouble finding what you need.

Top tips for starting university

To finish I found this article from the BBC featuring their Top 10 tips for starting university

Freshers' Fair 2018

Welcome back!

Welcome to the LRC blog for those who are new to the College and welcome back to everyone returning for another year.

This week, LRC staff have been busy giving tours of the LRC and also manning a stand at Freshers' Fair.

For those of you who have had a tour, we won't have had time to tell you about everything so please ask the LRC staff if you are unsure of anything. For those of you who haven't had a tour, why not have a look at our annotated induction video and then try our quiz. For more detailed questions and answers, you can look at our Frequently Asked Questions document. Both this and the induction video and quiz are found on our LRC 24/7 Moodle page along with lots of other resources to help you with using the LRC and our resources.

Freshers' Fair

This week, we attended the FE Freshers Fair on Tuesday and Wednesday and gave out free books, signed many of you up to our fiction Loyalty scheme. Lots of you took part in our Hook-A Duck game/ competition. We asked you to hook ducks from a bowl of water and those with the highest scores over the 2 days won a prize. Thank you to everyone who took part and we enjoyed meeting everyone who came to the stand. We hope that you come and see us in the LRC too over the year.

LRC Pick 'n' Mix event and planning ahead for next year

Planning ahead for next year

With most of the teaching and exams over for this year, many of you are planning ahead for next year and the LRC is keen to support the curriculum with this.

LRC Pic 'n' Mix Event 12th July 2018

The LRC is hosting this event as part of the Carousel of Learning event run by the Quality team during staff development week. We would love to meet you and help you as you plan

The event includes:

• An opportunity to order new books for the LRC from specialist FE and HE suppliers. This will run from 9am to 12 noon. Come and see the books before you order.  Books chosen at the event will then be ordered once the new year's budget is released.
• A chance to book LRC tours for your new students in September.
• The option to speak to LRC staff about electronic resources/ eBooks and how to use them.
• The opportunity to be the first people to see the LRC's new H5P resources on their Moodle page and give your feedback and ideas for future resources.

Pic 'n' Mix event poster
Image:  Peterborough Regional College

Other ideas for integrating the LRC and different resources into your planning for next year

Why not....

• Add the links to relevant eBooks to your course pages on Moodle. You could create a resources block, for example, at the top of your course or integrate the links in to your modules.

• Add links to useful electronic resources relevant to your subject area on your course pages. 

• Create some clips and playlists on Box of Broadcasts to support the curriculum modules you will be teaching ready to add to your course pages (using the links) as you start each module.

• Plan to show all your students the LRC pages as part of their induction. Why not give them time to view the LRC induction video and complete the quiz as part of introducing Moodle and the LRC? It won't take long. You can book a tour too.

• Show students how to register on Box of Broadcasts so they can view clips and playlists as well as record and watch programmes that interest them throughout their time at PRC.

• Consider how to promote reading and the LRC loyalty card to students who are interested in reading fiction as a leisure activity. Reading helps improve language skills too.

• Consider what stationery students will need and promote the stationery available for sale in the LRC.

• Do your students need to understand plagiarism and referencing? You can plan to use the online package and quizzes on the LRC 24/7 page with your students or LRC staff can come and deliver a short session.

• Do you want to do some research as an activity with your students? The LRC can provide a book box on your topic which you can take and use in the classroom.

• If you teach at UCP, do your students know how to use the Anglia Ruskin Digital Library? Book a demonstration with LRC staff.

This is the last post of the academic year. Blog posts will resume in early September once term starts. 

The LRC is open over the summer if you need to come and see us or work here, but please check Moodle or twitter first if you are making a special trip.

We wish everyone a good holiday and hopefully restful time over the summer!

New Information Literacy Definition

Information Literacy

Earlier this year, the CILIP Information Literacy Group updated the original 2004 definition of information literacy. Teaching and fostering information literacy is something information professionals (e.g. librarians) and teachers collaborate on.

To be information literate means having a range of skills involved in seeking, evaluating, using and presenting information and doing this ethically. More and more it involves digital literacy (e.g. using the internet and digital environments to find information) and is relevant not only to the academic world but also the workplace and in everyday life. It is key to lifelong and independent learning.

To see the definition (less than 4 sides of A4), see the document here.

Some of the skills involved in information literacy are:

• Critical thinking and problem solving.
• Questioning techniques
• Evaluating information including identifying fake news
• Using information/ images ethically (copyright).
• Understanding the limitation of online reviews and information
• Plagiarism and referencing
• Identidying and understanding bias.
• Identifying what information you need before you look and being able to express this in the right way for the tool you use to search for it.
• Understanding where the best place/source is to get the information you require.
• Identifying the best resources for the information required.
• Presenting information in the best way.

Staff in the LRC are keen to help students and staff develop the skills to help them handle information both in the academic setting and also as a life skill for everyday life and in their future employment.

Image used under Creative Commons Licence CC0
 http://www.tes.com.c.timeshigheredprod.ent.platform.sh/news/smart-glasses-teachers-help-pupils-learn

Chester's first year at the Learning Resource Centre

This week’s blog is an interview with everyone’s favourite LRC puffin…Chester!

So Chester, to start why not introduce yourself…

Hi all. I’m really glad to finally be able to talk to you all and introduce myself. My name’s Chester and you’ll usually find me somewhere in the LRC, generally with my beak in a book. If you haven’t met me yet you can ask to see me at the main desk! 

How do you like the LRC?

I love my home here! I’ve been learning to use the LRC all year and I love how many resources I can access. I’ve learnt how to use the catalogues so I can always find what I want and if not the staff are always really helpful.

What’s your favourite area of the LRC?

My favourite place is the fiction area, it’s really cosy and lots of people sit there to read their favourite books. I also like the silent study area though because nobody talks in there.

My Harry Potter "shelfie"

What are your interests?

I like the seaside, reading and most of all fish, especially herring!

What do you think of the rules in the LRC?

I sometimes wish I could eat my lunch in the LRC but I understand that the students don’t want the place to smell of fish whilst they’re studying.

Not everyone is as fond as
my tuna fish lattes as I am!

What has been your favourite event this year?

I liked Star Wars day. It was so much fun and everyone worked so hard. I also really enjoyed dressing up and I got to be a Jedi knight and Darth Chester! Also did you know that Porgs were based on puffins?

What side do you choose the light or the dark?

Tell us a fact about the LRC that you think many people might not know?

The LRC has a returns box just outside the main door, this way you don’t need to return items to the desk. I have even used it myself!

Me using the returns box!

What would your advice be to students coming back/starting next academic year?

Come and explore the LRC early. Find where your books are, look at the PC rooms and just enjoy the space. It’s one of the best resources available in the college.

I love all the different study areas that the LRC has to offer.

Learning Styles - do they matter?

Learning Styles

For a long time, it has been accepted thinking that everyone has a preferred learning style (as originally described by Kolb). According to the Skills you Need website, there are 8 styles (but different models have different numbers of learning styles):

The linguistic learner

The naturalist

The musical or rhythmic learner

The kinesthetic learner

The visual and spatial learner

The logical or mathematical learner

The interpersonal learner

The intrapersonal learner

You can do a simple quiz here to help you identify which style(s) you prefer and the Skills you Need website outlines definitions for the different learners.

Theory of Learning Styles challenged.

However, more recently this accepted theory has been challenged. It is now considered by many to be a "neuromyth". An article published on the BBC last week called Exams 2018: The 'myth' of the visual learner outlines the latest research that matching teaching to a student's preferred learning style doesn't necessarily help them learn any better. If you are taught in the way you prefer, then you may think you've learned better but in fact this may not have any affect on your ability or your resulting marks in an assessment. Research suggests that other factors have an influence on this such as what subject it is or whether we are new to a subject or not.

Carol Lethaby's article "Four reasons to avoid learning styles - and one alternative" on the British Council website summarises the research and recommends helping learners make connections with what they already know.

Photo: CC0 from https://pixabay.com/en/learn-word-scrabble-letters-wooden-1820039/

Learning styles and revision

Some references to the research which is summarised in these articles would be useful so that the argument for both sides could be followed up. There isn't the time to look further in to this here, but some advice from the BBC article for revision may be more useful to finish with:

• Test yourself
• Spread study over time
• Make you revision varied - mixing up problem types and topics. 

Just reading through notes is unlikely to be the most effective way to revise.

Presenting numerical information and misleading graphs

Presenting numerical information/ data.

Information can be presented in many ways and it is a skill to decide which is the best way to do this depending on its purpose. Directions may be best shown on a map, what someone looks like is best shown in a photo (than a written description) and the different parts of the heart, for example are probably best shown in a diagram. Numbers or statistical data are often best shown in graph format.

Numbers on their own can be difficult to interpret and so don't obviously mean something to the reader. See below for a table showing the number of visits we had in the LRC this year so far.

	Sept	Oct	Nov	Dec	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Totals
Totals	14666	16333	20823	11721	18611	13963	17732	10377	16719	140945

On their own the numbers mean little especially if you don't know the College. If you know the College, you may decide that from these figures we have a lot of visitors.

However, if I present this information as a graph like this, you can more obviously see the ups and downs throughout the year.

The information means even more if it is then compared with last year. It becomes more obvious to see that we have been busier in some months but quieter than last year in other months. This can be down to when holidays fall. It is then more useful to look at the total figures to see that this year we have been busier overall than last year. (140945 this year compared with 135101 last year for the months September to May only).

Misleading Graphs

Lots could be written about the usefulness of statistics and graphs and how they can be used to argue anything (that's a blog post for another day!), but have you thought about how the layout of a graph can be helpful or not so helpful. If I include the totals in the graph at the end, the scaling is less helpful and the difference in the bars for each year disappears.

Have a look at this quiz by the BBC on misleading graphs. Can you see what is wrong with how the information is presented and how this can skew how the information is read and understood.

The skill is to be aware of this, not only when presenting information, but also when looking at statistics and graphs as part of research. Check the facts and also check how this has been presented. Would it show a different picture if presented in a different way?

With our figures we have assumed that the people counter has been working properly and that the figures are as near as correct as they can be. Also the figures themselves are just quantitative data and just show numbers/ amounts. We have no information from this on what people do in the LRC, how long they stay, what they do and whether they like it. We have to collect that another way - usually through comments and interviews. This is known as qualitative data. Last week's blog post contained some of this from comments made in the UCP student survey, for example.

The value of University libraries and UCP student survey

End of term at UCP

This week, UCP students finish for the academic year and for many it will be time to say "goodbye" for good. The staff in the LRC wish everyone graduating this year all the best for their future. For those students coming back next year, we'd like to remind you that we are open over the summer holidays and we can also make arrangements for you to borrow books over the whole of the summer too.

New University for Peterborough and the value of academic libraries

This year further progress was made towards establishing a new independent University for Peterborough. Currently the LRC supports UCP students by providing printed books for their courses and also showing UCP students how to use the digital resources made available through Anglia Ruskin University. We run some of the UCP Study Excellence sessions and also offer 1:1 sessions on finding resources mainly for dissertation students.

For any University, the library lies at the heart of supporting students to achieve their qualifications by supporting their research and helping them use of a range of different and appropriate resources. SCONUL (Society of College, National and University Libraries) has published a statement on their website about the value of academic libraries.

UCP student sudy area in the LRC
Photo: Peterborough Regional College

Learning Resource Centre UCP Survey

This term we asked UCP students for their views of the Learning Resource Centre during this term and here are some of the comments we received.

We asked whether you liked the new LRC environment and most of you did. Comments included:

"Spacious and quiet", "very warm and welcoming", "good selection of books", "nice environment and area to study", "helpful staff", "more inviting", "good layout" "open plan and more welcoming" and "looks good, modern and inviting".

Some of you have concerns about the noise from other students. It is not easy for us to be in all places at the same time, but we do walk around the LRC and check noise levels and behaviour. If you are having trouble working please alert the member of staff at the desk and we will address the issue promptly.

We asked if you had had an LRC induction and introduction to the digital resources at the beginning of your course and whether this had been useful. A large number of those who answered said they had had an induction and that it had been useful. Comments on whether it gave you the information you needed included "how to use e-books", "clear to understand" "allowed me to know where the ARU stuff was", "contains more information than the general internet" and "everything is explained clearly".

We also asked about the workshops we deliver as part of the Study Excellence programme over at UCP and which of these you would find useful and when. E-books were the most popular followed by online resources and visual images. You requested a range of times. These sessions are usually timetabled at lunchtime on Tuesdays and Thursdays and were not well-attended so we are unsure if this is because students were unaware that they ran or if they were at the wrong times. The times you gave were very varied.

Thank you for your feedback.

Mental Health Awareness Week

Mental Health Awareness Week

This week is Mental Health Awareness Week and we are launching our new guide to mental health resources in the LRC. In this, we highlight some of our books on topics such as anxiety, confidence and self-esteem, depression, eating disorders and stress which may be of help. We also recommend a list of moodboosting books and some titles about mindfulness. See a quick preview below.

If you would like a copy of the leaflet, please come in to the LRC and pick one up. We will also make this available on our moodle pages as a pdf.

Mental Health Awareness Week display (with new guide)
Photo: Peterborough Regional College

Some organisations with useful resources

BBC3's Things not to say to someone with depression video features young people who suffer with depression talking about responses they don't find helpful.
Rethink.org (Rethink Mental Illness charity) has a student toolkit to help young people look after their mental health.
Student Minds is a mental health charity for University students and has it's own blog.
Mindfulness for Students may be useful for those of you wanting to find out more about this technique to help with stress and building resilience.
Mind is a mental health charity for all ages with lots of online support and advice. You can read stories and experiences here of people who have battled with mental illness and what has helped them.

Finally for those of you studying mental health as part of your course, our e-resource Issues Online (available from our electronic resources page using your network login details) has a range of e-books and articles on issues such as self harm and suicide, body confidence, anxiety and stress and understanding depression.

Exam stress and Mental Health Awareness Week

Mental Health Awareness Week - Stress: are we coping?

Next week is Mental Health Awareness Week and as part of this the LRC will be hosting a meditation session on Tuesday 15th May. There are limited spaces so it is on a first come first served basis.

Stress and Exams

It's that time of year again and for many students doing exams it can be a difficult and stressful time. While stress can't be avoided, there are things we can all do to help manage our stress. Here are some resources available on the internet from reputable organisations which might be of help.

Teenmentalhealth.org has a useful factsheet on stress generally. It explains that

• stress isn't the same as anxiety, 
• most stress isn't bad for you (whilst avoiding it may well be) and
• the key to managing it is to learn how best to deal with it.

It explains that you can change how your body feels by

• changing how you think about your stressful experience
• focusing on the problem and thinking of solutions
• using proven techniques to reduce your body's stress response

Online Resources

Student Minds - the student mental health charity - has five main themes to help with exam stress. 

The BBC website has plenty of advice here and here.

The Student Room gives some practical tips.

Have a look at this light-hearted page on how NOT to cope with exam stress.
If you are a lecturer you may find this newspaper article from the Guardian 2 years ago useful, but the links at the bottom of the article do not lead anywhere.

If you want to try some different ways to revise to make it more enjoyable, have a look at our blog entry 4 weeks ago or click on the revision label on the right hand side of the screen.

Stress: are we coping? book display in the LRC
Photo: Peterborough Regional College