The document provides information for medical physics students on the resources available at the UCL Science Library, including details on library sites, hours, borrowing policies, and how to access materials like books, journals, databases and electronic resources. Students can find materials for their coursework through the library catalog, databases like Knovel, and get help from the science librarian or at the science library reference desk.

1. Library Essentials – Medical Physics
Lynne Meehan Room 314, UCL Science Library
Email : l.meehan@ucl.ac.uk ☎: 020 7679 2634
UCL Library Services
There are 16 library sites across UCL which you are entitled to use. For information on all
the sites and their collections:-
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Library/sites.shtml
Science Library
Your main base will be the Science Library is in the DMS Watson Building on Malet Place.
To enter the Science Library you need your ID card and to borrow books and check your
account you need your PIN.
Opening Hours
During term time, the library opens at 8:45 and closes at 22:30, Monday to Thursday,
8-45-19.00 Friday. It is also open 11:00-21:00 on Saturday and Sunday. The assistance
desk and Self-service machines have shorter hours. Please note that opening hours
change throughout the year. For more details:-
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Library/science.shtml#open
Contact details
Telephone: 020 7679 7795
Email: library@ucl.ac.uk
Blog: Library news for Engineers http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Library/blog/engin/
Twitter www.twitter.com/_uclsciencelib_
Library regulations
Respect Quiet study
Please switch mobiles to silent mode
No food in the library
No drinks except bottled water
For more details :-
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Library/regs.shtml
Studying in the Library
On the ground floor their are several areas for group work including the group study
rooms, which have computing facilities and white boards
For more details:-
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Library/rm_intro.shtml
1

2. Photocopying
A common re-chargeable copycard is available and works in most of the UCL libray sites.
The card costs £1.00 which does not include any copy credit.
For more details:-
www.ucl.ac.uk/Library/photocopy.shtml
Borrowing
As an undergraduate you can borrow up to 10 books.
To borrow the book use the self-service machines or visit the Assistance Desk
Loan type Loan period Fine if overdue
Standard 8 weeks 20p per day
1 week 7 days 30p per day
2 day (short loan) Mon-Wed 50p per HOUR, or each part of an hour
Wed-Fri
Fri-Mon
DUE BY 10 am
3 hour (short loan) 10.00-13.00 50p per HOUR, or each part of an hour
13.00-16.00
16.00-10.00 (next day)
Overnight 16.00-10.00 (next day) 50p per day
Reference NOT FOR LOAN
 The standard loan (8 week) period will be shortened if somebody else requests the
item. You will be advised of a new return date by email (see below).
 One week loans are non-renewable if somebody else has requested the item.
 If you have fines outstanding, or overdue books you will not be allowed to continue
borrowing.
 Short loan collection is for providing maximum access to the most heavily used
material

Renewing
Standard and 1 week loans can be renewed if nobody else has requested them.
How to renew:
 In person at the Issue Desk
 At the Science Library - at the self-renewals terminal
 Via your library account
 By telephone, during opening hours:
For more details on Borrowing, renewing and reserving go to:-
www.ucl.ac.uk/Library/borrow.shtml
2

3. Source of Information (or where to look for stuff for your coursework)
Assignment Search engine (e.g. Wikipedia Library Catalogue Database
Google)
Writing a short - Look for news items An overview of Find a book on Look for references to
assignment on climate change your topic climate change journal articles if you
- Google Scholar that you can use had time to do it.
Writing a long - Look for news items - An overview - Find a book on You might try using a
assignment on climate change of your topic climate change database of journal
-Google Scholar - Suggested that you can use articles to look for what
- Finding organisations keywords you - Possibly find research there has
linked to climate can use when conference been over the last few
- Political policies searching the papers years into climate
relating to climate database's. change.
change
Type of Information Useful for Examples
Journals Up-to-date research -Nature
Usually published monthly or developments within the field, or -Scientific american
quarterly, and contain a selection rports on technological -Science
of articles providing details of innovations, current affairs,
recent research. business matters, conferences,
practical experience 'in the field
Books Useful to provide an introduction -Textbooks as part of your course
Take a general approach to the or overview of a topic or building material
subject, typically covering basic on research published in journal -Knovel is our largest collection of
principles, facts and theories articles. engineering books.
Technical data Quick and convenient retrieval of -National Institute of Standards
Traditionally found in printed facts and figures and Technology's NIST WebBook
handbooks or manuals, many of http://webbook.nist.gov/chemistry/
these are available online now -Knovel
Standards are accepted current Standards represent a level of -British Standards Online for full
methodologies and technologies quality that manufacturers and text of British Standards
relating, for example, to service providers can work toward -IEEE Xplore for full text of over
dimensions, quality, testing, achieving. 1000 standards in electronics,
terminology and codes of telecommunications, robotics,
practice. automatic control and computer
science.
Patents are Intellectual Property Patents provide up-to-date -esp@cenet for european patent
protecting working parts and comprehensive information about -UK Patent Office is responsible
processes. They are a great technological innovations that is for Intellectual Property in the UK.
source of scientific, technological often not available elsewhere. -US Patent and Trademark Office
and competitor information for US patents
Web Useful for official information, Librarians’ Internet Index -
specialist organisations, statistics www.lii.org
and data, news, journal articles. -Intute – www.intute.ac.uk
Official publications Governments are involved with -Directgov website provides
Publications issued by the most areas of society, and there access to a wealth of government
government and its departments. are few subjects that are not information and services online.
covered. Official publications will -Department for Business,
ultimately affect corporate strategy Enterprise and Regulatory
to a greater or lesser degree. Reform website is a good
example of an government
website
Reference material Useful for providing specific -CRC Handbook of Chemstry and
Such as dictionaries, directories, pieces of information (i.e. facts) Physics
and encyclopedia quickly. -Dictionary of image
technology / BKSTS
Looking for items on your reading list
3

4. In order to locate references from a reading list you first need to look at the reference to
see whether it is a reference to a book, a chapter in a book, or a journal article. The
following will help you to decide;
WHOLE BOOK
Example:
Smith J M, Van Ness H C. Introduction to Chemical Engineering Thermodynamics.
7th ed. New York: McGraw Hill, 2005.
This is a typical way of listing (citing) a book on a reading list. Some lecturers may use
slightly different styles.
Some clues that it is a book:
 there are publishing details
 there are NO volume or issue details
BOOK CHAPTER
Example:
Chua, David KH., "Value improvement methods", IN The civil engineering handbook.
Edited by W. F. Chen and J. Y Richard Liew. 2nd ed. CRC Press, 2003, pp. 7/1-7/23
Some clues that it is a book chapter:
 there are publishing details
 there are NO volume or issue details
 there appear to be two titles - use the book title to search in the catalogue
 there appear to be two authors - use the book's author/editor to search in the
catalogue
 the word "in" appears after the first title, indicating that the material appears in some
other item
You will find this book in the catalogue under the names of the editors (Chen and Richard
Liew). If you look up the author of the chapter (Chua), you will not find this item.
JOURNAL ARTICLE
For example:
Hart, Gary C., Srinivasan, Mukund. "Typical costs of seismic rehabilitation of
existing buildings", The structural design of tall buildings, 17(2), 2008, p. 445-469
Some clues that it is a journal article:
 there are no publishing details
 there are volume or issue details
 there seem to be two titles - use the journal title to search the catalogue
There are a number of different ways this information can be written, the two most widely
used formats are called ‘Harvard’ and ‘Vancouver’
Library catalogue (http://library.ucl.ac.uk/)
4

5. Books
To find a book that you know the author and/or title of:
 Use the Quick search
 Enter the author surname and key words from the title
 No need for diacritic marks like commas
Results
By clicking on the blue “Library site” links on the right hand side of the “Results List”
page you can see which UCL Library the book is kept in as well as:-
‘Item status’ = how long the book can be borrowed for
‘Due date’ = displays as “Available” if it isn’t out on loan
‘Location’ = where it is shelved
The Science Library has its own scheme for arranging books on the shelves. A typical
Engineering location (or classmark) looks like this: PHYSICS S 5 BEV . This is the
classmark for Contemporary health physics : problems and solutions / Joseph John
Bevelacqua where:
 PHYSICS is the book collection;
 S 5 is the classification (all books with S 2 are about Medical Physics);
 BEV is the first three letters of the author's surname.
Reservations
You can ‘request’ books if all copies with the same loan status are out on loan. To reserve
an item, find it in the catalogue and display the holdings information. Select one of the
copies which are on loan, and click the ‘Request’ option on the left-hand side of the
screen. You will then be prompted to enter your barcode and PIN. Click ‘Go’ to confirm.
For more information on finding books please look at the UCL Library Services leaflet
“Finding books etc” available to download from
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/library/prints.shtml.
Journals
 Use the Quick search
 Type in the words you know e.g. Medical Physics
 Select “All journals”
 Click on “Search”
 Click on the (copies/on loan) link for location information, or, if available
electronically, click on the SFX link to go the full text
TIP: The library catalogue only lists which journals UCL has, and does not list the
individual articles within those journals, therefore when looking for journal articles
ONLY look up the FULL NAME OF THE JOURNAL on the Library catalogue
SFX
5

6. SFX is a tool to link all UCL electronic library resources, including the catalogue and
databases, straight to the full text of journal articles and books.
For more information on finding journals please look at the UCL Library Services leaflet
“Finding journals” available to download from http://www.ucl.ac.uk/library/prints.shtml.
Your library record
 Click on “My account” (on the top tool bar).
 Enter your barcode – the 10-digit number located on your UCL ID card.
 Enter your PIN number which will be the first 4 digits of your date of birth, DDMM –
not the year, just the date/month.
 Click on ‘Sign-in’. Your name should now be displayed at the top of the screen, with
a list of books on loan, reservations, etc.
 Always click the “Reset” option (located at the top right-hand corner) after looking at
your personal information, so that no one else can see your personal details or
borrow books using your account.
TIP: Renewing books – when you have borrowed any books from a UCL library, it is
possible to renew your books yourself from within your personal record – select
‘loans’ followed by ‘renew’. You are not able to renew if you owe the library more
than £20 or if your books are reserved by other library members.
Tutorial
For an online tutorial on the library catalogue, go to http://www.ucl.ac.uk/moodle, log in,
click on WISE, and select Engineering and the Built Environment.
Knovel
Knovel is an interactive e-book and database package which gives searchable access to
the full text of a range of text and reference books. It covers all aspects of engineering and
applied science. Link to Knovel from the Library’s databases list:
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Library/database/.
 You can search for terms within all of the subscribed titles or browse the available
resources by navigating through the subject areas.
 For help with using Knovel, see section 3 of WISE (Finding information): go to
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/moodle, log in, click on WISE, and select Engineering and
the Built Environment.
Citing Sources
It is important to include references in your work in order to indicate that you have used
relevant information resources, to avoid plagiarism and to allow readers of your work to be
able to find the information sources for themselves. You should remember to list all the
details of the books/journals that you consult so that you can reference them correctly.
Failure to cite your sources constitutes plagiarism and you may be penalised!
Citing acknowledging within your piece of work the source from which you
obtained information.
Reference full details of the source from which you obtained your information.
Bibliography a list of the references you have used, usually placed at the end of
your text.
For help with citing sources,
6

7.  See section 5 of WISE (Working with information): go to
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/moodle, log in, click on WISE, and select Engineering and
the Built Environment.
 Read Neville, C. (2008). Complete guide to referencing and avoiding plagiarism.
Milton Keynes: Open UP held at MEDICAL SCIENCES A 9 NEV (2nd floor) and
GEOGRAPHY A 9 NEV (1st floor)
 Try Internet detective - http://www.vts.intute.ac.uk/detective/
 Library guide to references, citations and avoiding plagiarism available online at
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/library/References_and_Plagiarism.pdf and at enquiry
desks
For more information, please go to
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/current-students/guidelines/policies/plagiarism for more
information.
Access to electronic resources
UCL users are advised to access resources through the lists of ejournals
(http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Library/ejournal) and databases
(http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Library/database) available on MetaLib. This will guarantee that
you get free access to all the resources to which you are entitled as a UCL member. If you
are on-site you will not need to log in to resources. If you are off-site, you will be prompted
for your UCL userid and password automatically.
Further information
For more information on access to e-resources, visit
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Library/e-res.shtml. To report a problem with access, please fill in
a problem report form at http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Library/e-res_prob.shtml.
Further help
• Library website http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Library/
• WISE: go to http://www.ucl.ac.uk/moodle, log in, click on WISE, and select
Engineering and the Built Environment.
• Science Enquiry Desk: located on the ground floor of the Science Library. It is
staffed from 09:30-18:00, Monday, Wednesday and Friday and 09:30-17:30
Tuesday and Thursday. Telephone on ext. 37789 or 020 7679 7789.
• Lynne Meehan (science subject librarian) contact me on l.meehan@ucl.ac.uk or
020 7679 2634 or come and see me in Room 314, Science Library.
• Links to slides and resources used in this course:
http://delicious.com/LynneMeehan/medphys1
Evaluation
Please fill in the evaluation form about your session at
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CX3NHHH
7