RGU Library

Workshops and Appointments

The library offers a comprehensive programme of workshops throughout the academic year to help support your studies, covering topics such as academic searching, Harvard referencing and RefWorks. We can also support you on a 1-1 or small group basis.

Academic success is more than just mastering your field of study. Developing key library-related skills will enhance your academic pursuits, research and lifelong learning. We support this through workshops, drop-ins, individual and small group appointments. These take place online (via MS Teams) or in-person, at the library.

We would like to encourage students to sign-up to our workshops, as they are great for learning something new, upskilling, or having a refresher.

Questions? You can get in touch at library.support@rgu.ac.uk.


Timetable and Bookings

Ready to boost your library skills? Explore our timetable to find a session.

Events' days and times vary each week! So, if you can’t make it this week, explore future weeks for more suitable sessions.

Booking a session is easy – just click on it and fill in the registration form.


Workshops

Using library tools, developing effective search strategies to retrieve relevant academic literature, prioritising sources of information, and referencing correctly. It’s all included in our workshops! Our sessions are designed to empower you with essential skills needed for elevating academic success.

Explore our timetable to book a session!

You need to find literature to inform your writing. But where do you begin? What sources of information are most credible? How can you trust any of it?

If you feel lost about where to begin your research this session is for you!

This class includes:

  • prioritising sources of information when conducting research
  • differentiating academic and non-academic sources
  • evaluating information sources
  • spotting untrustworthy sources of information

RGU Library supplies access to millions of materials (books, e-books, journals, and more). LibrarySearch is our information discovery tool, and the first point of contact with our vast collection.

Join this short session to get to grips with how to use LibrarySearch to enhance your literature search and support your academic journey.

Literature searching is much more than a Google search! So, it's important to be aware of the academic searching tools available to you, and how to make the most of them.

This class includes:

  • using key discovery tools
  • developing effective search strategies to find relevant resources
  • keeping up to date with latest information
  • retrieving full text documents

Referencing can be daunting, but during this class we will demystify it. You will gain valuable insight into the principles of referencing, as well as the mechanics of citing and referencing per the University styles.

How do you keep track of all the literature?

RefWorks is a citation manager that allows you to store reference data and generate reference lists in a chosen style (including RGU Harvard). This can be a huge timesaver for your research!

Join us for this practical masterclass where we will show how to use RefWorks! We will cover basic and advanced features and show you how to generate a reference list (using RGU Harvard referencing style).


Appointments

Our workshops and online guidance provide a good introduction to upskilling your academic skills. Still, you may need more tailored support, or have complex questions covering more advanced topics. We can meet with you individually or as a small group appointment.

How we can help

We are here to support your academic skills including literature searching, databases, search techniques, referencing and more. We will:

  • Clarify aspects of referencing that you're finding difficult. However, we can't check an entire reference list at an appointment, carry out a full proofreading service, or write references for you.
  • Support you to use RefWorks. If you’re a beginner looking for RefWorks training, we recommend you sign-up to a workshop instead.
  • Advise on your search strategy, guide you towards searching more effectively and offer suggestions on where to search. We don't carry out searches on your behalf or create search strategies for you.

Drop-In Sessions

Do you have a quick question? You can spend up to 15 minutes with a librarian by attending one of our drop-in sessions! No need to book, just come over to the library Tuesdays or Thursdays between 10am - 12pm.

You can ask us anything Library related (references, research skills, RefWorks).

If your query is more complex, it’s best to book a 45-minute appointment instead.