AberSkills. Your skills hub

Do you want to develop your academic writing skills, learn about using the library and its resources, get to grips with referencing, or improve your employability skills?

Good news! These topics and more are covered in the Semester 1 AberSkills programme, which is available for free for all students at Aberystwyth University.

AberSkills Workshops take place throughout the academic year and are a mixture of face to face and online sessions. Most sessions are offered in both Welsh and English.

All workshops are listed on the AberSkills website. Take a look to see what’s available and book your place in a click.

If you miss a session and want to catch-up, academic skills and library workshop teaching materials for 2023-2024 are available on Blackboard under Organisations. 2024-2025 workshop teaching materials will be uploaded soon after the session.

AI and the Library – Week One. Our New Guide and Blog Post Series

Your Subject Librarian team have been hard at work over the “summer” (seriously, did it ever stop raining?) to bring you a newly updated AI Guide which outlines how you can use AI to get the best out of the library’s resources.

AI and the Library

Screenshot from the new AI and the Library LibGuide

The Guide offers advice on:

  • How you might use AI.
  • Some of the AI tools that might be useful for you.
  • The benefits of using AI over traditional search engines.
  • The appropriate and ethical use of AI tools.
  • Effective prompt building.
  • Some of the potential risks of using AI (including issues around copyright infringement, bias, and data protection).
  • The impact of AI on academic integrity.

Links to the Guide can be found here:

As a companion to the Guide, we are going to offer a series of blog posts which will look at the advice given in the guide in more detail and offer some practical tips for using AI.

Here’s a sneak peek of what you can expect in the coming weeks:

  • Reviews of AI tools.
  • Practical advice on effective prompt building.
  • Developing smart keyword searches.
  • Discovering resources related to your area of study.
  • Evaluating AI outputs by applying the CRAAP test.
  • The risks of using AI.

We hope that you will find our Guide and the series of blog posts useful. It is important to stress that you must follow the guidelines on the use of AI issued by your department (where available).

Get to know your librarians

Subject Librarians provide information skills training, look after your reading lists and subject guides and offer support and advice on using the libraries, finding resources for your assignments and referencing.

Aberystwyth University Libraries has 7 Subject Librarians, each with their own areas of expertise.  

You are very welcome to arrange a MS Teams meeting with your Subject Librarian if you have any questions about using the Library or would like advice – you can do this online here, or by e-mail. Or just drop them a message to say hello!  

Simone Anthony – sia1@aber.ac.uk

Simone is our Subject Librarian for Healthcare Education.

When I was fourteen, I volunteered at my local library to gain work experience. I honestly enjoyed spending hours alphabetically sorting the cardboard library cards into the beautiful oak drawers. The desire to travel later drove me to pursue a career in dance. I returned to libraries by graduating with an Education and Information & Library studies degree, at the age of thirty-three, having studied part-time around a full-time job as a dance instructor at the Aberystwyth Arts Centre.

I’ve been employed at the Hugh Owen Library since 2017, and I consider it an honour to be Aberystwyth’s first subject librarian for Healthcare Education.

Joy Cadwallader – jrc@aber.ac.uk  

Joy is the Subject Librarian for Theatre, Film and Television Studies, Modern Languages and English and Creative Writing.  

I was a school librarian and worked at the Aberystwyth public library in the 1980s as part of a job creation scheme. Since then I have had roles at the University as computer operator and IT help desk advisor before becoming a subject librarian. In my spare time I love visiting local wildlife projects, listening to e-audiobooks, keeping fit and watching professional road cycling on TV. 

Simon French sif4 Simon French – sif4@aber.ac.uk 

Computer ScienceGeography and Earth SciencesInternational Politics, Maths and Physics are Simon’s areas of expertise.  

As a child, I was a keen reader and collector of books. As an adult, I worked for many, many unhappy years in the second-hand and rare book trade before becoming a librarian here at Aberystwyth University. All of this might lead you to think that I’m a bit of a one-trick-pony, but I want to make it abundantly clear that I do enjoy things other than books, like…um…! 

Anita Saycell aiv Anita Saycell – aiv@aber.ac.uk 

Anita looks after Business, Sport and Exercise Science and Information Studies.

I started volunteering in libraries at the age of 14, then secured my first paid Saturday library job at 16 and everything has come from there.  When I’m not out cycling on the rolling Ceredigion hills, I really enjoy teaching and being able to help, so please do get in touch with any question however big or small! 

Sarah Gwenlan ssg Sarah Gwenlan – ssg@aber.ac.uk  

Sarah is our Subject Librarian for Education, the International English Centre and Psychology

Prior to working at Aberystwyth University I taught English Language in Spain, the Czech Republic, Italy and Poland. I’ve also worked in the Careers Services at SOAS and Newport, so you could say I’m familiar with working with students! Please get in touch if you need help, that’s why I’m here!

Lloyd Roderick glr9 Lloyd Roderick – glr9@aber.ac.uk  

Lloyd is responsible for Art and Art History, Law and Criminology, Welsh and Celtic Studies and History and Welsh History 

I wanted to work in libraries after spending a lot of time hanging around the music collection in Llanelli public library after realising they had Sonic Youth’s back catalogue available to loan. After university I worked at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies Library, University of London, then studied an MSc in Information and Library Science.  I later worked at Newport public libraries and the Courtauld Institute of Art library.  Later I produced a PhD studying art collections at the National Library of Wales…. all of which has given me a good background for supporting students and staff in the departments I work with as a Subject Librarian at Aberystwyth University. 

In my spare time I’m an assessor on the Professional Registration Panel of CILIP (Chartered Institute of Librarians and Information Professionals) and have curated exhibitions on modernism and contemporary art in Wales.  

Non Jones nrb Non Jones – nrb@aber.ac.uk 

Non’s subject areas are ASVS: Aberystwyth School of Veterinary Science, Life Sciences, and Lifelong Learning.  

Ever since I got work experience at my local public library here in Aberystwyth when I was a pupil in secondary school (… and I’m going back several years now!), I knew I wanted to be a librarian.  I joined Information Services in 2001 and a few years later received a postgraduate degree in Information and Library Studies here at the University as a distance learner.  In my spare time – in between looking after the family, cats, chickens and hamsters – I enjoy reading and being creative with art, craft and calligraphy.

Protecting your research: avoiding publication scams 

Journal hijacking and fraudulent journal sites are becoming an increasing problem for journal authors, publishers and readers. Publishing scams aim to exploit researchers, promising quick publication but charging excessive publication fees. These sites can often be a clone of an established journal, set up to extract fees from unsuspecting authors. 

Publishers are becoming more increasingly aware of the problem and have taken steps to combat this new trend. Scopus academic database had 67 hijacked journals on its database by 2023 (Challenges posed by hijacked journals in Scopus – Abalkina – 2024 – Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology – Wiley Online Library ) To help alleviate this problem, Scopus removed URLs to all journal homepages that it indexes, although the problem persists (Retraction Watch, 2023 Elsevier’s Scopus deletes journal links following revelations of hijacked indexed journals – Retraction Watch

Many authors and readers are unaware of this practice and the following resources might be useful to consider. 

Evaluating journals: 

 
Support from your library: 

 
Contact us: librarians@aber.ac.uk  

Jisc Historical Texts has ended

Jisc no longer provides Jisc Historical Texts. To compensate for the loss of this service:

Early Modern Books covers material from the British Isles and Europe for the period 1450-1700. An integrated search across both Early English Books Online and Early European Books allows scholars to view materials from over 225 source libraries worldwide. EEBO’s content draws on authoritative short-title catalogues of the period and features many text transcriptions specially created for the product. Content from Europe covers the curated Early European Books Collections from 4 national libraries and London’s Wellcome Library.

Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) is a vast eighteenth-century library at your desktop—a fully text-searchable corpus of books, pamphlets and broadsides in all subjects printed between 1701 and 1800. It currently contains over 180,000 titles amounting to over 32 million fully-searchable pages.

Titles in the Jisc Journal Archive are available via other providers through Primo, the library catalogue.

Contact librarians@aber.ac.uk or your subject librarian if you have any questions.

2024 Graduates – Thursday 18th July

Congratulations to our PhD and MPhil graduates today! Take a look at their theses on the links below

Tomos Fearn. Smart Wheelchairs: Semantic mapping and correct selection of goals within unconstrained environments http://hdl.handle.net/2160/455e10cb-6063-4685-a95d-d86bfe59b068

Arshad Sher. Automating gait analysis using a smartphone http://hdl.handle.net/2160/1fde6f15-4d5c-4336-ad77-49c163a95d9f

Kieran Stone. Predicting Hospital Length of Stay for Emergency Admissions to Enhance Patient Care http://hdl.handle.net/2160/563695e9-c555-42a1-b904-5cee0c3d863f

Joanne Hopkins. Coercive Control, Displaced Syrians and the Failure to Act http://hdl.handle.net/2160/c3011baa-7083-4443-8ef8-5efca3515710

Hannah Parry. Variation in issue prominence on the global health agenda: a comparative case study http://hdl.handle.net/2160/9e6deb5d-a540-450b-b889-dfe37dec85f2

2024 Graduates – Wednesday 17th July

Congratulations to our PhD and MPhil graduates today! Take a look at their theses on the links below.

Keziah Garratt-Smithson. Crime and Daily Life in Early Modern Cardiganshire 1542-1659 http://hdl.handle.net/2160/fd352c07-f357-4257-b7ae-a50f123b4ba9

David Lees. Identities in Twelfth Century Cornwall http://hdl.handle.net/2160/55866ef8-aefb-408f-bb36-bdec8cacb515

Dewi Richards. Sut mae ymwneud â rhaglenni chwaraeon mudiad yr Urdd yn annog defnyddio’r Gymraeg ymhlith pobl ifanc? http://hdl.handle.net/2160/b83a342c-6a9e-486d-8a18-9adf5c418530

Elizabeth Titley. A Critical Examination of Pupil and Teacher Perspectives on the Revised Qualification and Curriculum Arrangements in Wales http://hdl.handle.net/2160/5e535c5f-9969-4f4d-a674-42322639928a

Rashed Aldhaheri. Moving towards Artificial Intelligence (AI) and planning of youth for future livelihood: Perspective of Public Sector Employees in UAE http://hdl.handle.net/2160/e87a3568-df9a-4d0c-94b2-6f1c2b8c9333

Harry Rowland. Enviro-eye : Identifying fuel oil leakage to mitigate environmental impact http://hdl.handle.net/2160/9fbc2caf-9417-4d57-b8d7-37c661153dcd

Chloe Sumner. The Impact of Plasma Inflows on Magnetic Twists Along Prominence Threads http://hdl.handle.net/2160/c38a4e5d-c807-49d4-ad57-15c24bb0b44b

Trinh Vu. The Determinants of a favorable crowdfunding project http://hdl.handle.net/2160/52bd508a-f829-4454-bedf-056b1a986e3c

2024 Graduates – Tuesday 16th July

Congratulations to our PhD and MPhil graduates today! Take a look at their theses.

Keegan Burrows.  Utilising steel production waste material for low pressure and passive carbon sequestration http://hdl.handle.net/2160/a81d6f66-e029-455c-9e8a-52ad70c3291b

Ruby Bye. Exploring the epigenetic response of Larix kaempferi to Phytophthora ramorum infection http://hdl.handle.net/2160/8274c660-2f95-4d85-aa71-c8849d615d76

Sebastien Chognard. Evaluation of Independent Reference Datasets for Validating Land Cover and Change http://hdl.handle.net/2160/a5f64ec9-251e-4a6b-8d49-90422c6aca48

Sam Grinsell. Prevalence of Canine Helminths in Aberystwyth, Wales: Introduction of the FECPAKG2 http://hdl.handle.net/2160/afd2a54e-11c6-43db-8395-85f12aa0db59

Wititkornkul Boontarikaan. Horsing around with Anoplocephala perfoliata: Polyomic Investigation of the Host–Parasite Interface http://hdl.handle.net/2160/23cc5686-43cc-402f-bbb0-3458ca8a6043

Suzanne Black. Iffy women and existential ink: a dual-focus phenomenological and Foucauldian discourse analysis of how women with extensive tattoo histories have experienced the resurgence of tattoo culture known as the tattoo renaissance  http://hdl.handle.net/2160/82552902-6896-42ac-a3f6-d97b9755131d

Marion Longshadow. Belonging to university: the experience of undergraduate students who are parents http://hdl.handle.net/2160/474a2702-d96a-4719-993d-d88caaf0ea44

Rune Murphy. ‘Being one of the “boys”’: understandings of how young heterosexual male students construct their experiences of the Night Time Economy http://hdl.handle.net/2160/f7c40188-5436-4989-aeff-c0894ee6ca5f

Clio Owen. Development and Validation of a Retrospective Visual Scale of Attachment: Adaptation of the Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment (IPPA; Armsden and Greenberg, 1987) http://hdl.handle.net/2160/8067d1bf-6409-48fa-994b-9898c1f2b13b

Salvatore Verdoliva. Investigation of new techniques to improve quality and resource use efficiency in soilless protected horticulture http://hdl.handle.net/2160/71dc01ab-7b4e-4cd1-b410-a476fb24e0f0

Reading List Update for Teaching Staff

Create / update your module reading lists for 2024-2025

Advice for adding library resources to a new Aspire list and updating an existing list

Empty reading lists are being created in Aspire for new and returning modules requiring a list. Once you have added some content to your reading list, it will be linked to the appropriate Blackboard module by Library staff.

Remember you can also add links to sections in your reading lists.

When updating your Aspire reading list content for the coming year, be sure to update the 2024-2025 edition of your reading list. If you add books to 2023-2024 reading lists they will not be purchased. FYI 2023-2024 Aspire reading lists will remain visible in 2023-2024 Blackboard modules until the end of August when they will be archived.

Contact

Please contact librarians@aber.ac.uk or your subject librarian if

  • there is no reading list in Aspire for your module
  • you would like a reading list appointment with your subject librarian
  • you have any questions

Subject LibGuides

The Subject LibGuides have been updated to ensure that all the links are working and all the books listed are their most recent edition, meaning they are better than ever! Each LibGuide has been tailored to a specific subject, meaning that the information is specialised to what you are looking for. This is where you can be directed to and book a meeting with your subject librarian, find out about which books you should read, referencing help, and much more! If you are struggling with referencing, assignments, or your dissertation, this is the place to go. The LibGuides are very easy to use, with clear signposting and information layout.