We’re helping a lot of students find the books they need for their course. While we always enjoy meeting you, it occurred to me that perhaps some of you might need a helping hand getting started finding books for yourselves. It is easier to show someone how to find a book than describe how to do so in writing, in fact it’s easier to actually find a book, but I’ll try to spell everything out anyway…

In July 2022 some changes were made to the authentication (login) system for Ebook Central which resulted in some students and staff losing access to their digital bookshelves and notes. This has now been fixed and items added to bookshelves prior to 31 July 2022 should now be visible again. If you created a second bookshelf or added notes to ebooks on Ebook Central between the update and the fix that have subsequently disappeared, you can now contact the library and ask for your bookshelves and notes created before and after the update to be recovered so that they are all visible. To do this, we just need you to let us know you would like your bookshelves merged and supply a couple of pieces of information, as explained below.

Reading for pleasure for just 30 minutes a week is associated with many benefits, from increased life satisfaction, self-esteem, better sleep, creativity, and happiness to improved social skills. It helps us rediscover all of who we are as we recognise feelings and situations faced by characters, reminding us of our common humanity and helping us remember and reconnect to all that we are and not just those aspects of ourselves we feel reduced to by the doubts and anxieties of the moment. So where can you most easily find things to read for pleasure?