UCMK - opening hours

Request for longer library opening hours at Milton Keynes please. It would help immensely

UCMK is open for the maximum number of hours available and appropriate to the teaching on Campus.  We are currently open until Mon-Thurs 8.30am-8pm; and Fri 08.30am – 7.30pm in response to Tell Us comments last year. We are unable to open later without incurring significant costs as the whole building shuts at this time. As the Campus develops the opening hours will be reviewed as a part of that development.

I would encourage you to use Luton LRC or Bedford Library outside UCMK opening hours as they are open 24/7 x 365

Oxford House - computer room

Students should be quiet in the computer room.
Library staff tell them to be quiet but when they have gone the noise goes up


Thank you for taking the time to write to us. We appreciate the opportunity to clarify what the position is. Oxford House LRC has a quiet study area at the top of the library and consideration will be given to putting some PCs there. PCs do create noise so that move may well be counter productive. Everywhere else is open access and available for students to study in the way they think fit. Group work is a recognised part of the University's curriculum so students "chatting" is a very legitimate practice.

The staff are all too aware of conflicting student needs and try to maintain a reasonable noise level through out the library. They can’t station themselves in the computer room all the time. They do walk through regularly and monitor the noise and if necessary the students are asked to be quieter.

It is down to the students to monitor and behave appropriately.

Please remember that what one person thinks is quiet another person will find unacceptably noisy. It also has to be remembered that often this week’s worker is last week’s (or next) talker.

I am sorry for any frustration you may have experienced. May I suggest that you study oin the quiet room in future? 

Putteridge Bury Education Collection

as I am sure you are aware of the fact that we (Applied Education Studies) have limited library access at our Putteridge Bury Campus. It seems that none of us were given any formal warning of this or real reasons why. Only a piece of paper stated that the university can not man the library. While it may seem simple for us to collect books from another location I can assure you it is not. I work fulltime and have a family which adds extra demands on my time. I do not have any spare time which allows me to travel to another campus. I chose to study at this campus due to it being convenient to my home, work and children and pay a lot of money for a service that I will now not be benefiting from fully. It seems at the moment we can still borrow books from the library I suspect these will get fewer and fewer as time goes by. How is a library service incorporated into university fees? Surely we are entitled to a fully functional library. This is our final year at university and could really do without the added pressure of having a very limited library. If I need to contact somebody else regarding this matter please let me know, alternatively forward the email on to the correct person. I look forward to hearing your response.


I understand your frustration - please understand this decision has not been taken lightly and we are trying to put some restorative measures in place. Please be clear the Education Collection is available on a self service honour basis Monday - Friday 9am - 6pm. It will remain open while we solve the staffing issues. When new staff are in place the facility to collect reservations will be restored. In the meantime should you need to collect a reservation the nearest location is Butterfield (just across the dual carriage way from Putteridge) or, the most convenient location is Luton which is open 24/7 x 365

External Customer - Guest WiFi

 I was not able to use the Guest Wifi on 22/9/14 due to issues with the network. As a paying member this was both an inconvenience and not acceptable as I needed to use it. This has also been an issue before

Thank you for letting me know your concerns
May I point out that you do not pay specifically for WiFi access it is a bonus of LRC membership. Nonetheless I agree that it should be working.If you experience problems again please talk to the staff on duty so they can check your authentication process and the location of your work station
http://lrweb.beds.ac.uk/libraryservices/availableservices/wifi

Putteridge Bury - Reservations service

 I am sure you are aware of the fact that we (Applied Education Studies) have limited library access at our Putteridge Bury Campus. It seems that none of us were given any formal warning of this or real reasons why. Only a piece of paper stated that the university can not man the library. While it may seem simple for us to collect books from another location I can assure you it is not. I work fulltime and have a family which adds extra demands on my time. I do not have any spare time which allows me to travel to another campus. I chose to study at this campus due to it being convenient to my home, work and children and pay a lot of money for a service that I will now not be benefiting from fully. It seems at the moment we can still borrow books from the library I suspect these will get fewer and fewer as time goes by. How is a library service incorporated into university fees? Surely we are entitled to a fully functional library. This is our final year at university and could really do without the added pressure of having a very limited library. If I need to contact somebody else regarding this matter please let me know, alternatively forward the email on to the correct person. I look forward to hearing your response. 

Due to circumstances beyond our control we can no longer staff Putteridge Bury library. This means that Putteridge Bury stock cannot be reserved and Putteridge Bury is no longer a reservation collection point. When you reserve other materials from the library catalogue please select the next most convenient campus to collect your books from ie Butterfield LRC, Luton LRC, Bedford Library, Aylesbury LRC or UCMK

Access to the print stock is offered for a limited time and the University would ask you to issue and return your items without staff help. If you get stuck please ring 01582 743895 for assistance

You are advised to take advantage of Luton LRC or Bedford Library as they are open 24/7 x 365

We are trying to work on an interim solution so we can re-introduce the reservations service so in the meanwhile please select the next most convenient campus to collect your books from ie Butterfield LRC, Luton LRC, Bedford Library, Aylesbury LRC or UCMK

Putteridge Bury - reservations service

I am feeding back that me and the students on my Applied Education course at Putteridge Bury are no longer able to reserve books from Polhill Library to be collected at Putteridge Bury Library. Whilst many books are available as ebooks there are many I have needed for my research proposal that are only available at Polhill. I think it is unreasonable to expect students to travel to another campus when we are part time students, most of us working and many whom live a long way away. Currently I am lucky enough to have been able to visit Polhill but many of my fellow students cannot make this journey and I do feel this is not giving them an equal opportunity to access reading materials. I would appreciate this matter being reviewed with some urgency.

Due to circumstances beyond our control we can no longer staff Putteridge Bury library. This means that Putteridge Bury stock cannot be reserved and Putteridge Bury is no longer a reservation collection point. When you reserve other materials from the library catalogue please select the next most convenient campus to collect your books from ie Butterfield LRC, Luton LRC, Bedford Library, Aylesbury LRC or UCMK

Access to the print stock is offered for a limited time and the University would ask you to issue and return your items without staff help. If you get stuck please ring 01582 743895 for assistance

You are advised to take advantage of Luton LRC or Bedford Library as they are open 24/7 x 365

We are trying to work on an interim solution so we can re-introduce the reservations service so in the meanwhile please select the next most convenient campus to collect your books from ie Butterfield LRC, Luton LRC, Bedford Library, Aylesbury LRC or UCMK

Putteridge Bury - Reservations service

I am writing to express my concern and disappointment to recently discover that, as part time evening students at Putteridge Bury campus, we are no longer able to reserve and collect books from our library here at Putteridge Bury.
As we are beginning our final year at university, I am sure that you can appreciate how crucial our access to resources is in order to support us in achieving our best. Although we have been offered the option of reserving books to Luton campus, for those of us that do not live in the area this option is unfortunately of little help. As I am sure you recognise, time is very precious in order for us to complete all of our studies on time. Therefore, being able to collect books from our campus while we are attending our evening lectures is very helpful towards enabling us to spend our study time at home reading and researching literature, rather than making an additional journey to collect it.
Therefore, I am appealing on behalf of my fellow students that you might reconsider the recent change and return to offering us the option to reserve and collect books to our Putteridge Bury campus library.
I thank you for your time and look forward to hearing from you.

Due to circumstances beyond our control we can no longer staff Putteridge Bury library. This means that Putteridge Bury stock cannot be reserved and Putteridge Bury is no longer a reservation collection point. When you reserve other materials from the library catalogue please select the next most convenient campus to collect your books from ie Butterfield LRC, Luton LRC, Bedford Library, Aylesbury LRC or UCMK

Access to the print stock is offered for a limited time and the University would ask you to issue and return your items without staff help. If you get stuck please ring 01582 743895 for assistance

You are advised to take advantage of Luton LRC or Bedford Library as they are open 24/7 x 365

We are trying to work on an interim solution so we can re-introduce the reservations service so in the meanwhile please select the next most convenient campus to collect your books from ie Butterfield LRC, Luton LRC, Bedford Library, Aylesbury LRC or UCMK

Putteridge Bury Reservations service

I am one of the course representatives on the evening course for education studies at Bedfordshire library. We have just begun our third, and final, year of our studies and have been informed that we can no longer reserve books from other libraries for collection at our site.
Due to the course being part time, we are only on campus once a week, many of us have full time jobs, children to care for and live some distance from all of the Bedfordshire campuses. Not being able to collect books from putteridge bury is going to be particularly problematic as until now we were able to collect books within our session and return them the following week. Having to travel to another site on a different day means that this would cut into our already busy schedules. I hope you can help us with this to continue the brilliant experiences we have had so far

Due to circumstances beyond our control we can no longer staff Putteridge Bury library. This means that Putteridge Bury stock cannot be reserved and Putteridge Bury is no longer a reservation collection point. When you reserve other materials from the library catalogue please select the next most convenient campus to collect your books from ie Butterfield LRC, Luton LRC, Bedford Library, Aylesbury LRC or UCMK

Access to the print stock is offered for a limited time and the University would ask you to issue and return your items without staff help. If you get stuck please ring 01582 743895 for assistance

You are advised to take advantage of Luton LRC or Bedford Library as they are open 24/7 x 365

We are trying to work on an interim solution so we can re-introduce the reservations service so in the meanwhile please select the next most convenient campus to collect your books from ie Butterfield LRC, Luton LRC, Bedford Library, Aylesbury LRC or UCMK

Sconul Access

I heard that there are some ways to get access to the libraries of another universities (external from the University of Bedfordshire). For example, I frequently spend time in London, and want to use library services of the universities there, but they obviously do not let any random people inside...

Do you have any agreements for mutual use of the library facilities between UoB and any other universities?

Can you provide any formal document that I can use to get access into one of them?

Looking forward for your advice.

The University of Bedfordshire is a member of a Higher Education library co-operation scheme called Sconul Access. Sconul Access allows students from one member institution to visit the library of another member institution

Details and links are on our website

http://lrweb.beds.ac.uk/libraryservices/visiting

http://lrweb.beds.ac.uk/libraryservices/visiting/sconulaccess

Book search

Students were looking for copies of a particular book, but their course wasn’t listed on the reading lists and they just had part of a title to go on - “Be safe” – which their tutor had told them there were lots of copies of on the 2nd floor of the library

First stop is the Library catalogue, you can search by author, title or keyword: library.beds.ac.uk

Second stop check the information with your lecturer

After that: There is a wealth of information on LRWeb to help you http://lrweb.beds.ac.uk/libraryservices/availableservices

 Why not try our FAQs to see if they can help?

 http://lrweb.beds.ac.uk/faq

 Your course is supported by Adele Robinson - Academic Liaison Librarian

 http://lrweb.beds.ac.uk/help/ALLs/Adele_Robinson

 she will help you by email or on a 121 basis with any research queries you may have.

 Adele has created support pages on LRWeb for your course and you may find these useful

 http://lrweb.beds.ac.uk/education

 If you’d like to take advantage of the on-line support offered by Learning Resources check our Study Hub section of LR Web

 http://lrweb.beds.ac.uk/studyhub

 Support also includes:  Academic Liaison Librarians,  Computer skills training and Professional and Academic Development teams: http://lrweb.beds.ac.uk/studyhub/study-hub-teams

 The Study Hub What’s On? Calendar lists our FREE regular training workshops and drop in sessions on finding and using information in your subject area, developing your study skills and using Microsoft Office applications http://lrweb.beds.ac.uk/studyhub/whats-on

 There is a series of on-line guides which may be helpful to you too: http://lrweb.beds.ac.uk/studyhub/self-help-guides

Reservations for Putteridge Bury

I am a student at the Putteridge bury campus and it has come to my attention that I cannot reserve books to be picked up from the Putteridge bury library as that option is not available when reserving online. As I am a part time student and live quite a way away from the other campuses, I was wondering if there was a way to order books to be sent to the Putteridge Bury library.

Hope you can help!

Thank you for taking the trouble to write to me about your situation.

I am terribly sorry but there are no staff at Putteridge Bury who can administer the Reservations collection service. The message on LRWeb says:

Due to circumstances beyond our control we can no longer staff Putteridge Bury library. This means that Putteridge Bury stock cannot be reserved and Putteridge Bury is no longer a reservation collection point. When you reserve other materials from the library catalogue please select the next most convenient campus to collect your books from ie Butterfield LRC, Luton LRC, Bedford Library, Aylesbury LRC or UCMK

Access to the print stock is offered for a limited time and the University would ask you to issue and return your items without staff help. If you get stuck please ring 01582 743895 for assistance

You are advised to take advantage of Luton LRC or Bedford Library as they are open 24/7 x 365

http://lrweb.beds.ac.uk/opening/pb

Butterfield Campus is not far from Putteridge Bury (although there is no direct route across the dual carriage way to Butterfield) and Luton is 3 miles away. As Luton Campus LRC is open 24/7 x 365 this may be the best option for you to choose to collect your reservations.

I am sorry I cannot help you further

Researchers' Libraries

I am a PhD student at the IHR​ .I would appreciate that if you could help me to how I can get a SCONUL Access card in order  to access THE BRITISH LIBRARY at London.

Thank you for your enquiry. The answer has two strands – well maybe 3. As a researcher you have access through the University of Bedfordshire, to a variety of other libraries to enrich your research

Sconul Access: SCONUL Access is a co-operative venture between most of the higher education libraries of the UK and Ireland. It enables research students to borrow material from other libraries. Check the list of member libraries which are available to you

http://www.sconul.ac.uk/sconul-access

British Library: Researchers such as yourself may find it necessary to use the British Library for research purposes once all other alternatives have been explored and exhausted.  You may apply for a Reader’s Pass

http://www.bl.uk/reshelp/inrrooms/stp/register/stpregister.html

in addition there’s the M25 consortium: If you wish to access the collections at

  British Library

  British Museum

  Horniman Museum

  Imperial War Museum

  Institute of Development Studies

  Natural History Museum

  Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

  Royal Society of Chemistry

  Science Museum

  Victoria and Albert Museum

  The Wiener Library Institute of Contemporary History

  Wellcome Library

You will need to complete an application form: http://www.search25.ac.uk/pazpar2/access

I hope this helps

Education Journals

I would like to read journals online. Does the uni have access to the TESOL Journals?

I would like to read journals on L2 Lexical Inferencing, inferring skills. 

For example: 

L2 Vocabulary Learning From Context: Strategies, Knowledge Sources, and Their Relationship With Success in L2 Lexical Inferencing

Edited By: Brian Paltridge and Ahmar Mahboob

ISI Journal Citation Reports © Ranking: 2013: 41/169 (Linguistics); 64/219 (Education & Educational Research)

Online ISSN: 1545-7249

Associated Title(s): TESOL Journal

Is there anything in the university library that you could recommend, because I have not found anything useful so far?

Thanks for your enquiry. The first point of research is always the University library catalogue or DISCOVER. You may use these research tools to search by author, title (article or journal title) or keyword

http://lrweb.beds.ac.uk/digital/discover

I would advise you to start there rather than the internet. If you cannot find what you want please contact your Academic Liaison Librarian who would be happy to assist your research methodology.

I have tried to answer your question as thoroughly as possible. If you need me to expand further or if I have missed anything out please get back to me.

There is a wealth of information on LRWeb to help you http://lrweb.beds.ac.uk/libraryservices/availableservices

Why not try our FAQs to see if they can help?

http://lrweb.beds.ac.uk/faq

Your course is supported by Adele Robinson - Academic Liaison Librarian

http://lrweb.beds.ac.uk/help/ALLs/Adele_Robinson

she will help you by email or on a 121 basis with any research queries you may have.

Adele has created support pages on LRWeb for your course and you may find these useful

http://lrweb.beds.ac.uk/education

If you’d like to take advantage of any of the training offered by Learning Resources check our What’s On page

http://lrweb.beds.ac.uk/libraryservices/whatshappening/events-calendar

This programme includes computer skills – you need an update/refresher our Computer Skills Training (CST) team run workshops on a regular basis at Luton and Bedford Campuses

There is a series of on-line guides which may be helpful to you too:

http://lrweb.beds.ac.uk/help/it-training/materials

Our Professional Academic Development (PAD) team can help you with any writing or numeracy support you require.

http://lrweb.beds.ac.uk/help/pad