Welcome to the Canterbury Christ Church University, Library Services blog

Whether you’re a student, a member of staff, or a visitor, we are proud to deliver an outstanding and enriching library and learning experience—one that inspires and empowers you to discover, research, and disseminate knowledge.  We are also proud to have received Customer Service Excellence accreditation for the sixth consecutive year, recognising the quality of the services we provide.

Our team is here to support you and help you make use of the different services and facilities on offer. We will show you how to navigate the collections and identify the information you need. We also provide specialist support. A team of dedicated Learning Developers and Librarians provide tutorials, workshops and tailored resources to help you develop the research and study skills you need to succeed. The modules on the Learning Skills Hub are designed to you support before, during and after your studies. The hub is an open resource, which means you do not need to be a CCCU student to access these modules. You can also look at the Skills section of this blog for more information.

We’ve seen some new additions this year to the library service including the installation of the new Reading list system, which is now live!

ReadingLists@CCCU is the University’s online reading lists system, designed to support your learning by bringing key resources together in one place.  It links directly from your course modules in Blackboard, making it easy to access recommended readings alongside your learning materials.  Each reading list highlights the core resources for a module, which may include books, journal articles, videos, images, websites, and other media. These lists are intended to help you organise your study, focus on priority readings, and make the most of the resources available to you.  The service is continuing to develop, and new reading lists are being added on an ongoing basis.

We also have some news regarding the repository: Library Services administers the day to day running of the Canterbury Christ Church University Research Portal (Pure). The portal is a gateway to research produced by Canterbury Christ Church University researchers, including over 17,000 journal articles, conference papers, videos and more. The repository provides full text access where permitted, and full citation details where restrictions apply. You can find out more about the repository by going to this page Canterbury Christ Church University Research Portal (Pure)

We have three libraries in locations across Kent. Our libraries are not just places to take out textbooks. They are places to learn and become inspired. They are thriving and friendly communities. They are places you’ll want to be. You’ll get to know our community if you read our blog; we passionately support events such as LGBT+ History Month, Black History Month, Disability History Month and more. It’s not just our staff who write on the blog; you’ll find posts written by our students too. If you are interested in writing for us, please get in touch (steve.peters@canterbury.ac.uk).

Our design award* winning Library in Canterbury, has an array of facilities to suit everyone’s working style, from group study spaces to silent study zones. There is wi-fi coverage available throughout the building. There are over 350 dedicated PCs, 200 laptops available to borrow, printing services and a faith space, as well as over 340,000 books and 11,000 print journals. We frequently write about discoveries found in our special collections and archives which you can keep up to date with through this blog. 

We also provide a academic campus bookshop which stocks 20,000 books and can obtain any title currently in print -often for next day delivery. Our University Bookshop price-matches titles recommended in your module handbooks and supports many events from individual book launches to book festivals throughout the year.

The library at the Salomons Institute (Tunbridge Wells), holds a specialist collection covering clinical psychology and mental health care. It offers a variety of study spaces, an IT suite, wi-fi coverage, PCs, loanable laptops and printing services.

The Drill Hall Library at the Medway campus provides you with silent, quiet and group study facilities. There is access to high-tech equipment, long opening hours, PCs, books and journals.

All our staff and students have access to LibrarySearch, our online discovery tool through which you can access over 150 databases, 10,000 e-books and 60,000 journals, newspapers, reports and conference proceedings. For visitors we have made some of our online resources available through two dedicated visitor PCs at Augustine House in Canterbury. We’ll often post about the Digital Library and we’re passionate about supporting you make use of all the online resources available.

We are always striving to deliver the highest quality service to our users and constantly looking for ways to improve. Your feedback is a vital part of this. We value your views and opinions on everything; whether it’s about the resources, borrowing, support, the library spaces or the facilities. We welcome all suggestions and constructive feedback – positive or negative. Visit the feedback section of the blog to get involved in upcoming feedback activities or to see how we’ve taken feedback to make improvements.

*SCONUL Design Award 2013

Find out more

If you are student, please visit the libraries section of the current student webpages.

If you are a staff member, please visit the Library and Learning Resources on StaffNet.

If you are a visitor and thinking of visiting one of our libraries or becoming a member visit library services.

Don’t forget a Visit the Bookshop website, is a must!