Library Blog

Over the last couple of years we have been talking with student representatives in the Students Union about how to encourage people to return their library books so that they are available for other people. Here are a few changes we have made from their suggestions which we hope will improve your access to books in the Library:

• You thought that our fines on books which have been recalled were too low and did not encourage people to return them.
  • We raised the fine from 20p to 40p per day

• You would sometimes miss our emails telling you that a book you have out has been recalled and so got unnecessary fines.
  • We now text recall messages as well as emailing them where possible

• You said that we took too long to tell you that your books were overdue and so you got more fines.
  • We have shortened the timings. You will now get 3 overdue reminders followed by an invoice over 25 days rather than 50 days

• You felt that stopping people from borrowing after they owed £10 did not discourage them from getting fines by returning their books late
  • We have changed this block to £5

• You thought that our notices were not clear enough and too intimidating and so made you worried about coming into the Library with overdue books.
  • We have made our notices easier to understand and will phone or text you when you are going to receive an invoice so that you know how the process works

The Library has developed a suite of customer-focused service standards and measures our performance against these standards. Our performance during 2015-16 and targets for the year ahead have now been published.

If you have any feedback or comments, please let us know via our Customer Feedback Page.

We are particularly interested to hear if you feel that there are other important areas of service delivery that we should focus on.

Are you a researcher recently accepted for publication in a journal or a conference proceedings with an ISSN?

If so, you are subject to Research England’s new rules requiring the upload of accepted manuscripts to Pure within 3 months of early online publication in order to be eligible for submission to the next REF.

It is important that all researchers understand exactly what is meant by uploading the accepted manuscript.

In each Pure record created, you can use the following button to add files and links:

If you are publishing via the Green Open Access route, use the Add Document button to upload your accepted manuscript to the Pure record and satisfy HEFCE requirements. The accepted manuscript is the finished accepted article, including any changes from peer review, but prior to publisher formatting being applied.

Papers published via the  Gold Open Access route are exempt from the 3 month deposit requirement, but you are still encouraged to upload your final paper via the Add Document button as a best practice and a way of enhancing your online research profile.

You should also add your accepted paper’s unique DOI (Digital Object Identifier) when available. In the absence of a DOI, addition of the abstract page URL is a helpful alternative. Either will point users of the Research Portal towards the online published version of the paper, though full access may be restricted exclusively to the host journal’s subscribers.

In summary, if you want to make sure you’re REF-ready:

–always use ‘Add document/DOI/URL’ and upload your accepted manuscript no later than 3 months after publication.

–for best practice, also use ‘Add document/DOI/URL’ to provide a DOI or URL.

For a step-by step guide to uploading documents to Pure, please visit our Deposit Guide.

If you need more information on open access at Queen’s, please see our webpages, email us at openaccess@qub.ac.uk or follow us on Twitter.