Home › Student sites▻Academic Skills Hub▻Reading and Research Skills ▻Getting to Know Your Library

Getting to Know Your Library

NUI Galway’s James Hardiman Library is your gateway to information you’ll use throughout your university studies. The core of the Library’s collections continues to be the published results of research being conducted by people at NUI Galway and at universities around the world. Yet the ways that research is conducted and published at universities is changing, as are the ways that people study and do work. The Library is keeping up, by providing spaces for team and collaborative work, and opportunities to enhance digital skills and creativity and to work with rich, unique primary source collections (for example, the Library’s archives).

The most important thing to know about the Library is that there is plenty of support available to help make the best use of its resources. A good way to start getting familiar with the Library is to book a spot in one of its introductory training sessions.

There are a number of contact points in the Library where you can get help, including the Academic Skills Hub desk in the Library foyer. If you aren’t sure who to ask for help, the Library & IT desk, also in the library foyer, is a good place to start.

The Library also offers plenty of online support. The collection of Library Guides and Tutorials offers structured assistance with key information and digital skills. There are also discipline-specific guides that take you through the variety of information sources that you can use when conducting research within a particular subject. Some of this content is quite advanced, but there is plenty there for new students as well.

The Library is active on social media, communicating with the NUI Galway community via Twitter, Facebook and blogs. Feel free to use any of these platforms to send on a request for help, or send an email to library@nuigalway.ie.

Do make the effort to get to know your Library. It might seem like an imposing place at first, but getting to grips with what the Library offers early in your studies will start you off on the right foot and help you to achieve your study goals. 

A good first step might be to take a look at this Library Guide or these short ‘How to’ guides. Or, take out a book from the popular reading collection (you can browse it on the first floor). Or, search the Library catalogue to see if you can find some research by a lecturer on campus that you’re excited to be taking a module with. Or, drop by the Academic Skills Hub desk to get a recommendation on an upcoming training session that might be of use to you.

Downloads

  • Academic reading

    Academic reading PDF (124 KB)

  • Note-making

    Note-making PDF (905 KB)