Congratulations to Swansea's Wembley Winners!

Whether you're a sports fan or not, if you live in Swansea you couldn't have escaped the football frenzy of the last 24 hours! With a nailbiting 4-2 victory over Reading at Wembley yesterday Swansea City Football Club finally acheived their hard earned promotion to the Premier League. As fans prepare to welcome the team home with a victory parade through the city tonight, why not keep up-to-date with all the latest developments in the local news via our Newsbank database, which includes Welsh regional publications such as the South Wales Evening Post and the Western Mail.

Congratulations to the Swans from all at Swansea Met Libraries!


Image: digitalart / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Library opening hours over the Spring Bank Holiday weekend

If you are looking to use our libraries this long weekend, tomorrow (Saturday May 28th) all three will be open as normal from 10.00am - 4.00pm.

On Sunday and Bank Holiday Monday, both the Owen and Townhill Libraries will be open each day from 12.00 midday through to 5.00pm. So you are welcome to come in and use our facilities!

All we need now for the long weekend is some nice weather...

SMU Library & Learning Resources service is now on Facebook!

If you have a Facebook account, and would like to follow SMU Library we now have our own page! You can find us on Facebook as Swansea Metropolitan University - Library and Learning Resources

SMU Library Satisfaction Survey - Prize Winner!

Thank you to everyone who responded to our annual library satisfaction survey back in March! We're currently working through the responses and noting your comments.

As part of the incentive to give us feedback, we offered SMU students and staff the chance to win a USB flash drive, and Richard Madigan was chosen at random from all the completed entries. He can be seen in the photograph receiving his prize from Philippa Price, Assistant Librarian!

Are you missing Teachers TV?

Teachers TV was a government funded service that supplied free, downloadable videos on professional development and classroom resources. The Department of Education decided to discontinue the service and it closed down last month. However, all is not lost, since TES has just announced that all 3,500 programmes in the Teachers TV archive will soon be available from the Resources section of the TES website. Twenty of the most popular programmes are already available to view and download.

The Teachers TV archive will also be available from SchoolsWorld.TV (http://www.schoolsworld.tv/) and Teachers Media (http://www.teachersmedia.co.uk/).

SMU Library & Learning Resources service is now on Twitter!

If you are a fan of Twitter, you can now follow us on our newly created Twitter account at: http://twitter.com/LibrarySwansMet

Olympic torch date for your diary!

The route the Olympic torch will take on its destination to London next summer has been announced, and Swansea has been revealed as one of the locations it will stop at overnight! Saturday 26th May 2012 is the scheduled date, and more details about the route will be announced later on in the year.

If you are interested in finding out more about the Olympic Games, whether it's the history of the event, the environmental impact, or you just fancy watching 'Chariots of Fire' take a look at our library catalogue for a comprehensive range of titles. We also have e-resources on the subject, for example both journal and newspaper articles are available through the databases JSTOR & Newsbank, and images through the Bridgeman Art Library Digital Image Database.

If you won't be in Swansea next May, you can view the other UK destinations where the torch is heading via the BBC news website - in total it's estimated that it will travel 8,000 miles before reaching London on 27th July, 2012!

Are you looking for past papers?

You can access a selection of previous years’ exam papers from our web pages. From the library homepage (www.smu.ac.uk/library), just scroll down to the Choose Your Subject Area section and click on your subject. The page you’re taken to will have a link to Past Papers on the left hand side (you might have to scroll down a bit to see it).

Don’t forget, the library has lots of books to help you with your study skills too! Just come in and have a look.

Fed up of revision?

Looking for something nice to read between study sessions? Then come and have a look at the Teaching Practice collection in Townhill Library. Our Junior Fiction section has a range of books suitable for ages from children to young adults, so you’re sure to find something to your taste. We have books by Terry Pratchett, Philip Pullman, Anne Fine, Joan Aiken, Mark Twain... The list goes on! Discover a new writer, or revisit an old favourite from childhood. You might find just what you need to unwind and de-stress during this period of assignment deadlines and exam revision. However, if you feel you can’t tear yourself away from your textbooks just at the moment, don’t forget that at the end of term, students who are returning next year will be able to borrow books over the summer vacation. That’ll give you enough time to read the whole series of the Chronicles of Narnia!

What are your favourite books from childhood? Let us know! I Capture the Castle, by Dodie Smith, is a favourite of mine from our collection. It's a wonderful story of a girl growing up in a dilapidated old castle, surrounded by her eccentric family. I first read it as an adult, though, so I'm not sure it counts!

Best of the Web

Image: Salvatore Vuono / Freedigitalphotos.net

With so much information available on the Internet it can be like searching for a needle in a haystack when you're looking for something specific. It's also difficult to judge the quality and currency of a lot of the information you come accross. This is where your SMU library can help you! Did you know that our library webpage has a listing of recommended websites that you can trust? We've done the leg work for you and made a complete A-Z listing of some of the best sites around...we've even divided them into subject areas for you! Here's just a small sample:

London 2012 Visit Britain Office for National Statistics Department of Health

So, if you're struggling to find your way through a maze of online information why not let us point you in the right direction!