Month: February 2023

New resource: OverDrive

Head of Discovery and Digital Futures

ACCESS TO A growing collection of eBook, audiobook and magazine content is now available to Nottingham Trent University students and staff through the OverDrive platform.

Rather than traditional academic disciplines, materials made available via OverDrive instead focus on well-being, self-help and resilience, and leisure and recreational reading. The Magazine Collection, to which LLR has subscribed, additionally provides access to full electronic versions of thousands of newsstand titles, grouped into themes such as: Celebrity; Entertainment; Cooking & Food; Home & Garden and Politics and Current Affairs.

Accessing OverDrive content

Access to OverDrive materials is through the OverDrive web site and also through the Libby app (available for Android and iOS devices).

Authentication to OverDrive content is by university username and password. NTU staff and students need to register an OverDrive ‘library card’ which then entitles them to ‘borrow’ eBooks and audiobooks from the platform (up to 30 at any one time, for an initial seven day loan period). Once registered, the loaning of magazine issues is unlimited.

Because the way that OverDrive provisions electronic material is different to the normal academic publisher model, LLR is providing an illustrated walkthrough guide to: how to register an OverDrive ‘library card’; how to loan, renew and return items; and how to place holds, through both the OverDrive web site and Libby app.

Discovering OverDrive content

New entries for the main OverDrive platform and for the OverDrive Magazine Collection have been added to the Find Databases service.

Individual titles from LLR’s OverDrive subscription are also discoverable through Library OneSearch and Library OneSearch Pro, including:

New content purchased by LLR will also be immediately discoverable on both the OverDrive platform and through the Libby app.

New resource: Bibliography of British and Irish History Online

Lee Houghton - Resource Applications and Discovery Team Manager

A NEW LISTING for the Bibliography of British and Irish History Online has been added to the Find Databases service.

This resource provides bibliographic data on historical writing dealing with the British Isles, and with the British empire and commonwealth and is described as follows:

As well as providing details of publications, the bibliography offers links to online catalogues to help you find the items that it lists in research libraries in Britain and Ireland. It also provides links to online text where available. The bibliography is a guide to the work of historians – it does not contain original sources, unless they have been edited and republished by historians (except for a selection of key sources published before 1901). The bibliography lists books, articles in books and articles in journals. Some 800 journals and series are regularly checked.

Access to the resource is by university username and password.