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October 2015

Photo by Kim Bennett

You can also view this newsletter online.
In this issue
No parking in the Library!
Launch of St Andrews Digital Humanities Network
Illuminating Incunabula PG workshop
How to use referencing software
What are the Digital Humanities, and what are they doing in the Library?
Some new and special acquisitions
King James Library lectures in print
Creating an online reading list for your module

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Cant find a study space? No parking in the Library

from Week 7

You regularly tell us that we need to do something about people reserving seats in
the Library, for example that "Seat-hogging has to stop!", explaining your frustration,
asking us to prevent students 'reserving' study spaces and to clarify our view on this
practice. Weve listened and after consultation with the Students Association, SRC
Education Committee and Student Library User Group, from Monday 26th October we
will be placing tickets on desks left with belongings for more than one hour.
Over the last few years, the University has worked hard to improve study spaces for
students in the Main Library. During 2011 and 2012, 7m was spent refurbishing the

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building which added 400 new study spaces. Further redevelopment of the building is
being planned over the next couple of years, which will improve the caf, toilet and study
facilities as well as providing another 400 spaces. And recently we have increased
opening hours (by 30% during semester and 50% during vacations), added more study
spaces to level 2 and power to a further 260 desks over the summer.
However, surveys conducted by the Students Association, the Library and, more
recently nationally through NSS, PRES and PTES, have all included comments from
students frustrated by a lack of space. In particular, the Library receives regular
complaints from students not able to find a desk because of seat hogging or abandoned
belongings being left for hours on end. This isnt unique to St Andrews; we know that lots
of other university libraries try to manage a situation whereby some students feel they
have no choice but to leave their belongings in order to guarantee a desk for themselves
after a break. St Andrews isnt the first university by any means to establish such a
system and were not breaking any new ground with this tactic.
Ewan McCubbin, Assistant Director of the Library explains how the parking tickets will
work:
Our staff will keep an eye on study spaces and any desk that has had
unattended belongings left on it for at least an hour will have a yellow
parking ticket placed on it. If another student is looking for a study space
and sees a yellow ticket on a desk, they will be able to occupy the space for
themselves. When the original occupier returns to the desk, the ticket
simply states that they should gather their belongings and find somewhere
else to work.
We know not all students will think this is a good idea but feel that in order
to improve the situation for the majority, we need to say to students that
leaving your belongings for any length of time and particularly for half the
day isnt fair on others. Not only is another user being denied a space, the
student is placing their belongings at serious risk of theft.
Tania Strtzel, Postgraduate Convenor added:
We have been working very closely with the Library on the issue of study
space over the past few years and seat hogging has frequently featured in
feedback from students as a problem that should be addressed. The new
parking ticket system aims at alleviating some of the pressure on study
space experienced in the Main Library at peak times. More importantly it will
help raise awareness among students about the issue of seat hogging and
that it is not fair on other students to occupy a seat for hours without using
it. Together with the Library, we will keep the new system under review and
we encourage students to give us feedback through their class reps and
School Presidents.
Library staff will closely monitor the campaign and student reaction in the coming months,
take on board your feedback and continue to work with the Students Association to

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improve the study space experience as much as possible.

If you have any questions, please email us: library@st-andrews.ac.uk

Launch of St Andrews Digital Humanities Network

We look forward to launching the new St Andrews Digital Humanities Network on

Tuesday 3 November with an interesting afternoon of short talks and
presentations. Professor Melissa Terras, Director of the Centre for Digital Humanities at
UCL, will be the keynote speaker with her talk, Joining the Dots: How Building a Digital
Humanities Network can Benefit Individuals and Institutions, and staff from the Library
will explain the range of ways in which we can support staff and students in developing
their Digital Humanities projects. There will also be speakers from Academic Schools
such as History, Modern Languages and Classics.
Full details and free registration online.
- Alice Crawford
Digital Research

Illuminating Incunabula PG workshop

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Illuminating Incunabula: Printed books from the 15th century and what we can
learn from them. A two day postgraduate workshop funded and supported by CAPOD,
the University Library, and the Universal Short Title Catalogue; 16-17 November 2015.
With over 160 incunabula (books printed before 1501), the University of St Andrews
Library hosts some of the earliest extant printed books to arrive in Scotland. Incunabula
specialist Dr Falk Eisermann from the Berlin State Library will lead a hands-on
postgraduate workshop on the production and description of early printed books and their
use for postgraduate research. For registration and further information contact the
organisers: Saskia Limbach (sl649) or Jan Hillgaertner (jh23).
- Daryl Green
Special Collections

How to use referencing software

We are offering sessions on how to use EndNote and Mendeley, two of the most
popular referencing softwares. For information about the different tools on offer and to
sign up for one of our sessions, take a look at our guide.

What are the Digital Humanities, and what are they

doing in the Library?
As part of the Friends of the Library Lectures, Dr Alice Crawford from our Digital
Research Division, will deliver her talk, What are the Digital Humanities, and what
are they doing in the Library? on Wednesday, November 11 at 5.15pm in the Arts
Lecture Theatre. Followed by tea/coffee. All welcome. For information, please see the
University events calendar.

Some new and special acquisitions

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(Blackfaced sheep with wind turbines at Patricia Glennie's farm, Lauder, The Scottish
Borders, January 2013. Sophie Gerrard, 2013, all rights reserved.)
Document Scotland is a non-political collaborative project of four acclaimed
Scottish photographers, who against the backdrop of the Scottish referendum, set out
to record Scottish life, culture and identity, both at home and abroad. The University
acquired the archive earlier this year, and a selection of their work is currently on
exhibition at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery.

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The University Library has acquired, with the generous support of the Carnegie
Corporation of New York, an indulgence printed by authority of the Catholic
Church in Cologne in 1487 which was issued for the financial support of the "war
against the Turks" and the reconstruction of the cathedral in Saintes (France). This
indulgence is printed on vellum and was issued to "Johanes le Bribsot and his wife" on
the 25th of March 1487.

Passport signed by Elizabeth I, Queen of England, at Greenwich, for Sir Anthony

Mildmay, allowing him safe passage for one year to visit healing baths in Germany on
the advice of his doctors, dated 6 June 1595. Bought at Christies in July, using a
generous donation from Michael Buchanan.
- Daryl Green
Special Collections

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King James Library lectures in print

The Meaning of the Library: a Cultural History, edited by Alice Crawford (from our
Digital Research Division), is a collection of essays that has its origins in the Librarys
King James Library Lecture series 2009 2013, and contains contributions by David
Allan, James Billington (Librarian of Congress), Robert Crawford, Robert Darnton,
Stephen Enniss, Richard Gameson, Edith Hall, Laura Marcus, Andrew Pettegree, John
Sutherland, Marina Warner and John Wilkin. Described by Bodleys Librarian Richard
Ovenden as an eclectic and interesting mix of essays, and as a timely and thoughtprovoking compilation by The Independent, this book will be of interest to anyone who
likes libraries and wonders why we continue to fight for their survival in an age when
Google research may make their existence precarious.
More information about the book is available from the Princeton University Press
webpages.

Creating an online reading list for your module

We are running hands-on sessions for teaching staff on working with our Online
Reading Lists platform. With Semester 2 looming this is an ideal opportunity to get
ahead with organising reading for your upcoming modules. Sign up via the Training
Sessions section on our online guide. For information on Online Reading Lists, take a
look at this short video.
- Colin Bovaird
Academic Liaison

Subscribe to our RSS feeds for all new acquisitions: books, DVDs, etc and new
items by subject

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Questions: Please email library@st-andrews.ac.uk

Web: http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/library/
Address: University of St Andrews Library, North Street, St Andrews, KY16 9TR, Scotland
Tel: +44 (0)1334 462331/2
Images: University of St Andrews, Kim Bennett, University Library, Blackfaced sheep with wind turbines
at Patricia Glennie's farm Sophie Gerrard, 2013, all rights reserved.
The University of St Andrews is not responsible for the content of external websites accessed via links in
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