Explore Archives

This week is a great time to get involved in archives and special collections that interest you! Have a look at the Explore Your Archive main page to see what’s happening near you, and look at the #explorearchives posts on Twitter and other social media.

Find out about our collections:

Special Collections at Brunel is home to a huge array of material that can support your research. You can find out more by using our A-Z list of collections, or consulting our Special Collections guide, where we’ve highlighted collections of particular interest to English or History students.

You can search our collections by subject or keywords – use the library catalogue for printed material and the archive catalogue for manuscript.

Browse the Special Collections blog, where you can use the tags to find posts on particular themes, such as the First World War or trains.

You can see more about us on Twitter and Instagram too.

If you are looking for collections beyond Brunel you will find a list of resources on our guide.

Using Special Collections

Our collections are kept on closed access, so you will need to make an appointment with the Special Collections Librarian to come and see them once we re-open in January. If you haven’t used Special Collections or archival material before there is a guide on our blog.

 

50 objects 45: The most borrowed book of 2015-2016

A post by Oliver Thompson, Library Assistant.

All kinds of statistical data is whizzing around the library and being recorded, with the ultimate purpose of improving the student experience through increased efficiency. This includes the number of books in stock, the number of students in the building at any time and the number of PC’s being used in any specified area. One of the most interesting uses of statistical data is to record how many times an item has been checked out. This measures the relative popularity of a title and can indicate whether the currently held quantities of a particular title are sufficient or should be adjusted.

During the 2015-2016 academic period the most popular title borrowed from the library was Business Research Methods by Alan Bryman and Emma Bell, which was checked out a total of 684 times. This particular title is currently available from the library in four different editions, having originally been published in 2003 (HD30.4.B78) and most recently in 2015 (HD30.4.B78 2015). Adapted from Bryman’s own ‘Social Research Methods’, according to the blurb this title provides students with ‘a comprehensive introduction to the area of business research methods. It gives students an assessment of the contexts within which different methods may be used and how they should be implemented.’

Alan Bryman is Professor of Organisational and Social research at the University of Leicester, which he joined in 2005 after working at the Department of Social Sciences at Loughborough University for 31 years. He has contributed to numerous research publications and is well-known for his 1988 book Quantity and Quality In Social Research. Emma Bell is Head of the Centre for Economics and Management at Keele University. She is also the current joint Editor-in-Chief for Management Learning, the ‘Journal for Critical, Reflexive Scholarship on Organisation and Learning’.

The rest of the ten most popularly checked out books of 2015-2016 are mainly business research focused, reflecting the strong popularity of this subject and its importance to many Brunel students.

The following table presents the entire top ten most checked out titles from the library during the 2015/2016 academic period:

Author in catalogue	Title in catalogue	2015/16 circulation counts
Bryman, Alan,	Business research methods	684
Saunders, Mark,	Research methods for business students	517
Bryman, Alan,	Social research methods	318
Crane, Andrew,	Business ethics : managing corporate citizenship and sustainability in the age of globalization	310
Banfield, Paul.	Introduction to human resource management	305
Jacques, Ian,	Mathematics for economics and business	274
Rollinson, Derek John.	Organisational behaviour and analysis : an integrated approach	259
Keegan, Warren J.	Global marketing	251
Hall, Susan J. (Susan Jean),	Basic biomechanics	241
Collis, Jill.	Business research : a practical guide for undergraduate & postgraduate students	235

 Going as far back as records will allow to the mid 1990s, the most checked out individual book is a copy of K. A. Stroud’s Engineering Mathematics (item ID 6025957295, call number QA37.S87 2001), which had been checked out 1161 times as of the time of writing. It has sold over 500,000 copies worldwide in its various iterations and is hailed as a classic in its field. Author Kenneth Arthur Stroud was a mathematician and Principal Lecturer in Mathematics at Lanchester Polytechnic in Coventry, England. According to Wikipedia he was ‘an innovator in programmed learning and the identification of precise learning outcomes’. Stroud passed away in 2000 at the age of 91. Engineering Mathematics continues to be updated since his passing, with contributions from Dexter J. Booth, a holder of a PhD in Theoretical Physics and a former Principal Lecturer at the University of Huddersfield.

Using Special Collections for your dissertation

During Undergraduate Dissertation Week, we’re holding a drop in for anyone interested in using Special Collections in their dissertation. Come in to Special Collections (BANN 317a, Level 3 of the Bannerman Centre, accessed via the green staircase) between 12 and 2 on Wednesday 20 January to find out more.

Why use Special Collections?

Your dissertation topic is something you’re really interested in investigating in more detail. Delving into the sources in Special Collections can take your dissertation to the next level by making it more original. Using primary sources means you might discover something no-one has written about before, or find a new angle on your subject.

Develop your research skills

Using primary sources, such as manuscripts and archives, helps you to develop your research skills. Even if you’ve never used this sort of material before, we have resources available to help you. We hold a large number of collections available for research and study by all students and covering a wide range of subject areas. Why not take a look at our history or women’s history pages to get a flavour of what we have? Or try our complete list of collections on our webpages? Some highlights of our collections have also been featured on this blog.

Tempted?

Topics that people have researched using Special Collections include:

• London during the First World War
• Communists in the 1920s and 1930s
• Clothing of the poor
• Historical perceptions of fathers
• Perceptions of fascism in the inter-war period
• Issues surrounding crossing political borders
• Presentation of women in the media
• Feminism in the US in the 1950s
• Equality in the 1968 Olympics

Several of our collections have already been used for dissertation research. The Burnett Archive of Working Class Autobiographies, in particular, has proven to be popular for its detailed life stories and the people behind the history.

Explore Your Archive week

Letter from the Blount Archive

Explore Your Archive week is an exciting national event in which archives all over the country are showcased and promoted; and we at Brunel Library are getting involved.

Here in Brunel’s Special Collections we have an interesting and diverse range of archival collections and we’re inviting you to come along to one of our drop in sessions and find out more about the archival treasures at your fingertips, and how you can access and use them for your essays and assignments.

You’ll find us on Level 3 of the library, accessed by the green staircase/lift.

Drop in sessions:

Monday 10th November 2 – 4 pm English/Creative writing Come and find out more about our literature collections and the different ways in which they have been used in creative writing. We will have items from the collections out for you to see, and then at 2.00, 3.00 and 3.30 pm brief talks will be given from people who have used Special Collections in their research and teaching. These will be interspersed with readings from creative writing inspired by the collections. There will be plenty of opportunities to find out more and ask questions.

Check out these blog posts to find out more about the collections that have been used for English and creative writing: Writing back and Teaching from the archives.

You can also get a flavour of the collections on our Special Collections guide for English.

Tuesday 11th November 10 am – 12 noon Any subject Maybe you can’t make it to one of the subject-specific sessions, or maybe you’re interested in a different subject to English or History? Then why not join us to find out more about what our collections offer for both English and History/Politics, but also other subjects?

There will be collection items out on display for you to see and handle, plus plenty of opportunity to ask questions and find out more.

Wednesday 12th November 2 – 4 pm History/Politics Drop in to discover which Special Collections you might find interesting for your assignments or dissertation. There will be collection items out on display for you to see and handle, plus plenty of opportunity to ask questions and find out more.  There is more information on our Special Collections guide for History and Women’s history.

Next week…

we’ll be celebrating the 20^th anniversary of the official opening of the Channel Tunnel by the Queen and President Mitterand on 6th May.

Look out for our display on the ground floor of the library, featuring images of items from the official opening.

 Further details about our Channel Tunnel Association Archive are available on our webpage, and there is a description of the collection on Archives Hub. Look out for further updates on our blog next week!

Academic and Research Libraries Group visit

A post by Sarah Wolfenden and Katie Flanagan.

On 18^th April, we welcomed members from one of the CILIP special interest groups: the Academic and Research Libraries Group (ARLG) London and South East Division, who travelled all the way up the Metropolitan line to have a tour around Brunel University Library with Sarah Wolfenden and to hear Katie Flanagan talk about the Special Collections. One of them had already spent the morning getting acquainted with the Brunel Library Inter Library Loans system and she’d had such a good time that she’d come back for more!

The visit started off with a tour around the Library with Sarah, the Subject Liaison Librarian for the School of Social Sciences. They were particularly interested in how our reservation system works as well as really liking the idea of the Pod on the ground floor, where students can make enquiries, with one person stating “it looks like you’re offering a really special service to the students”. The group visited the various floors of the Library, trying out the various QR codes dotted about to sounds of “ooh, isn’t that useful”!

After half an hour or so, we made our way to the Research Commons to meet Katie and see her in action. She discussed in detail the collections, the work needed to look after them, how she promotes them both internally and externally and showed us all some of the materials used to package them. We also got to see some of the variety of the collections, (including a chair!), various examples of signage and the downsides of using staplers – if you don’t know, why not pay a visit to the third floor to find out? The visitors asked lots of questions, and we were able to highlight our use of LibAnswers for enquiries. At least one of them will be going back to their manager to try and implement it at their workplace.

The feedback from the group was all positive and comments mentioned that they had learned new things about promotion, about managing reading rooms and had improved their knowledge of Special Collections in general. All in all – a good afternoon was had.