All Cambridge University Libraries courses

A hands-on session exploring music databases and bibliographies available for research in Cambridge. This session offers the opportunity to focus on your own specific topic

A tour of the University Library Music Department, including a visit of our closed access materials behind the scenes. We will also give you lots of practical tips on getting the most out of the University Library Music Collections.

This tour will show you how to find your way around the music collections at the University Library. We will provide tips on how to find and use the various materials relating to music, and demonstrate finding aids for notated music collections in the Anderson Room.

A display and short talk about the music collections showcasing the variety within the collections, with some of our most notable and more unusual items on display.

A tour of the University Library Music collections. A short tour principally for non-music students, but with an interest in all things musical! Open to all.

This session will cover how to find historical and current newspapers for research.

The first half will focus on searching and accessing historical newspapers. This includes referencing, copyright restrictions and finding print and digital collections.

The second part of the session will focus on searching and accessing current news, including registering for the FT.com.

Note making (as opposed to note taking) is an active practice of recording relevant parts of reading for your research as well as your reflections and critiques of those studies. Note making, therefore, is a pre-writing exercise that helps you to organise your thoughts prior to writing. In this module, we will cover:

• The difference between note taking and note making
• Seven tips for good note making
• Strategies for structuring your notes and asking critical questions
• Different styles of note making

You will receive the URL for the course in the confirmation email after booking.

This session will provide an opportunity to learn about the Official Publication (OP) collections available to students and researchers in Cambridge. The first part will be an introductory talk on how to find government and official publication material in both print and electronic formats. You can also choose to stay for the second part which will run as a clinic where staff will be available to talk one-to-one about your chosen topics and how to start your literature search.

This class will focus mostly on official documents from the UK, but will also provide general guidance that can be applied to searching for international documents.

Open access long-form scholarship is an increasingly important area of scholarly communication. New business models have been devised to support the publication of open access monographs, while funders continue to implement OA policies for the books that they fund (such as the recently announced UKRI policy). Yet one possible roadblock to a sustainable open access future is the book processing charge. As open access books require significant up-front investment for publishers, BPCs have rapidly become one of the dominant models for funding open access book publication. In the humanities, where funding is limited, BPCs have the potential to make open access a preserve of only those that can afford to pay, potentially excluding junior scholars, unfunded researchers and colleagues from universities outside the Global North. Alternative models are therefore needed for any wholesale move to open access for books.

In light of the recent UKRI policy requirement for open access books, this session will discuss the challenges around open access book publishing and the alternatives to the book processing charge that publishers have developed, highlighting experiments in funding no-fee open access book publishing. It will feature leading experts and practitioners in open access book publishing and a discussion with members of the Cambridge community.

What’s new in Open Access for 2022?

Open Access is a fast moving area and it can be hard to find the time to keep up with the latest developments, especially if you don't work in this area day to day. This webinar offers a brief update on the biggest changes to OA that library staff need to know about. It will looks at changes both within Cambridge and the wider open research world.

Join us for this interactive session and a chance to ask questions of the experts.