Welcome back! In the first part of this blog, we took a tour of all the exciting additions to our library collections that you may have missed during the summer break. With 258 new journal titles subscriptions, 1,200 journal backfiles purchased, and access to an additional 55,000 e-books in the first half of 2023 alone there’s plenty to catch up on! 

In this blog, we’re rounding up everything from changes to our library spaces to improvements in our services and the support we provide.

New Learning Skills Hub modules

The Learning Skills hub contains a collection of short and interactive modules on the topics students often book tutorials for, such as academic writing, critical thinking, referencing and time management. The modules are made with you in mind and are easy to dip into at any time to develop your skills and you can assess your learning at the end of each module to check you are on track. We’re always developing new modules based on your needs and the questions you ask us. We’ve launched new or updated modules on

• Transitioning to university study – A new module that will help you develop good study habits of focussed reading, evaluating and critiquing, and moving from descriptive to analytical writing. 
• Spelling, punctuation and grammar – In this new module, we explore techniques for improving your spelling, punctuation and grammar.
• Presentations – Learn how to create a presentation that meets your brief and engages your audience, develop a narrative to communicate your key message within the time allocated for your presentation, design and build effective visual aids to support your verbal delivery and plan your speech and develop confidence to control your nerves.

Say goodbye to library fines – August update

Following on from the success of saying goodbye to library fines, we have been looking at further ways we can reduce potential library costs for students. 

We appreciate losing or accidentally damaging a library book can be stressful, especially as it results in the receipt of an unexpected bill. To help make this unfortunate event a little easier we are removing all administration fees from our replacement costs. This usually totals £5.00 of the replacement cost per item which we will now absorb, so it doesn’t get passed on to you. 

It’s not a situation you’re likely to find yourself in, but we hope it’s reassuring that we’re taking steps to make any replacement costs you may have to pay as low as possible.  

Find out more.

Free Document Delivery

Following a successful pilot throughout the 22-23 academic year, we’re pleased to announce that the document delivery service will remain a free service permanently. This removes the previous £2.00 charge for each document delivery request.  The number of requests you can make each year remains unchanged and charges are still liable on late, lost or damaged document delivery items. For more information about the document delivery service please see our website. 

Printing

We’ve been working with our colleagues in IT to test the new print server PaperCut which went live in September.  This brings lots of improvements to printing, including:

• A handy app and online portal to help you print from any of your devices, including MacBooks and smartphones.
• Scanning documents directly to your student OneDrive accounts.
• A new Fair Use printing policy. Print what you need when you need it, and say goodbye to print credits!
• Access to a full history of your printing, and how much paper you have used so far. Let’s save some trees!

Find out more – Printing services – Canterbury Christ Church University.

LibrarySearch updates webpage

To help keep you informed when our services are unavailable due to scheduled maintenance or if we’re experiencing technical difficulties, we’ve created a LibrarySearch status updates page where we can let you know precisely what’s happening and when. If there are alternate routes to accessing online resources we’ll let you know and you’ll be able to see what services are affected at a glance.

Augustine House

First up a couple of updates where we’ll look at some changes you’ll find in Augustine House.

Group Study Room Booking

Based on your feedback we’ve made changes to how group study rooms are booked. The

• Rooms can be booked no further than 14 days in advance.
• Bookings can be of a maximum of 4 hours in length.
• Each student can make one booking for the group study rooms per day.

Find out more

New-look information boards

We’ve started a project revamping our information boards across Augustine House. The first updated one is in the Curriculum Resources section of the second-floor quiet zone.  You can grab a little A5 guide to the subject area you’re interested in and use the map to find the resources you’re looking for.

Drill Hall Library

We’ve got plenty of updates from the Drill Hall library too. Let’s take a look!

Family study room

The family study room has been moved and updated. The room includes baby change facilities, picture books, toys for pre-school children and colouring pens/pencils, as well as PCs for parents and carers to use. The room is designed for use by student parents who need to bring young children to the library while they study.

Improved facilities

• Bring your own device spaces – We have added many extra “bring your own device” spaces with charging facilities for phones, tablets and laptops.
• Microwaves – There are now three microwaves available to use for students to heat their own food in the library cafe, in order to help with the cost of living. Please note that hot food may only be consumed in the cafe – please don’t take it to study desks elsewhere in the library.
• Laptops – The borrowing period for 3-day loan laptops has changed to 7-days.

Our Lifestyle Collection cosy nook

The Lifestyle Collection of non-academic books includes fiction, self-help, cookbooks, biographies and more. This summer it has been moved and refreshed to create a comfy reading nook.

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We’ve made it! A busy summer whilst you’ve been away and we’re glad to have you all back! I hope that brings you up to speed with some of the changes that have been made over the last few months. In particular, I hope the changes to printing, library fines and document delivery really help during the cost of living crisis.