Theme: Special Collections

Archives and manuscripts are unique, often fragile and irreplaceable. To avoid damage and deterioration, they need to be handled with particular care. This session will offer a practical introduction to handling archives and manuscript material.

ARTstor Digital Library is the database for images. An image library for the Arts and Sciences of over a million digital images, ARTstor comprises images for education, research and teaching across multiple disciplines in the humanities and social sciences and sciences, including art, architecture, music, religion, anthropology, literature, history, American studies, Asian studies, and classical studies. This course will explore the content on offer in ARTstor, searching techniques, creating images groups and folders, using ARTstor images in presentations, and other tools available from the database.

The course is designed to be "hands-on", so you are warmly invited to bring along any current research topics, interests and queries.

The Map Department contains some 1,100,000 maps, both British and foreign, several thousand atlases and other material. This session, based in the Map Room, is designed to give an overview of holdings and guidelines for accessing and using them.

This session is highly recommended for anyone new to the Pendlebury Library of Music. Even though the Newton Catalogue contains all records of items available for borrowing, limiting searches to specific media (e.g. CDs, DVDs or sheet music) can be counterintuitive. This session will demonstrate some search scenarios and also show how to recall and item which is currently on loan to someone else.

The UL's Rare Book collections include a range of high-quality subscribed online resources which contain a wealth of source material. This hands-on session designed specifically for History students will introduce key online rare book resources for this field. You will also learn about the print research resources available within the Rare Books department.

This session relates to early source material (pre-1900) and is not intended as an introduction to general databases and research sources. Please see the Information Skills strand of the programme for these courses.

The UL's Rare Book collections include a range of high-quality subscribed online resources which contain a wealth of source material. This hands-on session designed specifically for Language and Literature students will introduce key online rare book resources for this field. You will also learn about the print research resources available within the Rare Books department. (Please note this session relates to early source material (pre-1900) and is not a general introduction to LibrarySearch or current article databases.)

An introduction to the UL's Rare Books Reading Room and its collections, which include material from the first European printing presses and from the wider world up to the present day.