Something to crow about
Black and fond of carrion, crows never attracted much attention until scientists started testing their intelligence. Now we know how smart crows are, people have started to look a lot less special.
Author: David Bennett
Assistant Librarian (Promotions) at the University Library. An enthusiastic advocate of libraries, diversity, inclusion, equity, and social justice for all, inside and outside the workplace.
Postcard from the past
Lost property comes in all forms. While charging cables and umbrellas are the common fare of today, we occasionally turn up some real curiosities from yesteryear, including a postcard post stamped 1968 from someone enjoying their luxury hotel in Cork.
Caring for your University Card
Your University Card is as unique as you are. It identifies you wherever you go on campus. It lets you, and only you, into university buildings and allows you to access a whole range of other services, such as borrowing books from the Library and laptops on campus. If you forget your card and would like to come into the Library, we have alternative ways to allow you access to the building. Just talk to one of our friendly staff at the Reception Desk.Â
You don’t need to use your card to let other people into the Library. Family members and friends are welcome into the Library for most of the year. Please ask them to bring photographic ID and sign in at Reception. If they are a frequent visitor or accompany you to the Library often, suggest that they register for a free external membership, which will then let them scan in 24/7 using their own library card.
Register to vote now!
Are you registered to vote? If you are a UK citizen, this may be your very first opportunity to reshape the country where you live, but unless you register and ensure you have a suitable photographic ID or an alternative to take with you to the polling booth on election day, you will have no voice in national politics for another five years.
Book recalls during the Easter Vacation 2023
We are approaching the assessment and examination period when there is increased demand from students completing their studies. In order to give fair access to books, we will continue to recall loans that have been reserved by other users. You may be asked to return books during the Easter Vacation (3 April – 21 April 2023).
Please check your university email regularly and be ready to return books if they are recalled, by posting them back to us securely if necessary.
Learn about the Holocaust
The Union of Jewish Students is offering a massively subsidised educational experience including a day trip to the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum. Funded by the Lessons from Auschwitz University Project, the course comprises an online seminar about the Holocaust, an in-person seminar on campus focusing on Jewish life and anti-Semitism on campus, a day trip to the Auschwitz-Birkenau, and a concluding online seminar for just £59.
Food for thought
The cost of living crisis is a concern for many students, and as Marie Curie found, trying to complete a difficult academic course while starving is pretty much impossible. Happily, the University and Student Union are working together to offer some additional support, particularly during the colder weather when heating bills are so high.
Cataloguing gender: a very library design problem
From the questionable design choice to include an author’s presumed gender in their global library name authority record to the gendered nature of names in general, society seems to have made some questionable design choices in how we choose to label people that have far-reaching consequences.
In support of the blind leading the blindfolded
Until today, I had blithely assumed that diversity awareness training was an unquestionably good thing that could not possibly ever go wrong.
Then I read a seminal article from way back in 2015 and everything suddenly seemed a lot less certain.
Practical engineering
Did you know that our databases don’t just contain scholarly musings on obscure issues, some of them are intensely practical, like the engineering and materials information database, Knovel, which you can use to build practical things, like bicycles, race cars, …
