NORTHUMBRIA UNIVERSITY NEWS
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NORTHUMBRIA UNIVERSITY NEWS 9
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Building a bigger, better library – from the basement up! A dynamic social learning space has opened in the basement at Northumbria’s City Campus Library – already the second highest rated university library in the UK, alongside Cambridge. Northumbria University News takes a look at this outstanding new space which is already proving very popular with students…
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News 1 – 3, 7 – 10, 28, 32 – 33 Feature: Working with Business 4 – 6 Environment 11, 30 Interview: George Marston 12 Research 12 – 15 Science 16, 27 Business 17 – 19 Feature: Best of Conversation 20 Engineering 21 Feature: Gender 22 – 23 Creativity 24 – 25 Society 26 Health 29 Law 31 Sport 34 – 36
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ollowing successful upgrades to learning spaces at the Coach Lane and City Campus Libraries over the last few years, the refurbished basement was created as part of Northumbria’s move towards developing a world-class University Library for learning and research. The learning design of the new basement was directly informed through student engagement and feedback from surveys, including the National Student Survey. Using this feedback and analysing library activity data, Northumbria’s librarians developed new insights into student needs which revealed a demand for new types of learning space to support collaborative study. Interestingly, research also discovered that while the need for greater digital resources has increased, it has done so alongside a sustained appetite for print collections and bricks and mortar spaces. Delivered in partnership with Campus Services, the new basement
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FROM COVER The annual Times Higher Education Awards are widely recognised as the most prestigious award ceremony of the higher education sector, attracting hundreds of entries every year, exemplifying the talent, dedication and innovation of individuals and teams across all aspects of university life. Northumbria University was also shortlisted for the Entrepreneurial University of the Year title for its work to encourage students and graduates to start-up their own businesses. Northumbria is now the number one university in the UK for graduate start-ups based on estimated turnover and fourth based on the number of jobs created by its graduate start-ups, according to the Higher Education Business Community Interaction Survey. The University has supported the development of more than 100 graduate companies since 2009 which
employ almost 950 staff and have a combined turnover of £62.2 million. Most of these businesses are based in the North East but are trading nationally and internationally. Newcastle Business School helps and enables individuals to build leadership, management and career potential. The School offers 70 courses at undergraduate, masters and CPD levels, which are available through full- as well as part-time study, distance learning. They are delivered at Northumbria’s Newcastle and London campuses and via a range of overseas partners in countries including Hong Kong, Singapore and China. Bespoke executive development courses are also available for corporate clients.
DISCOVER MORE northumbria.ac.uk/nbs Students enjoying the new Library basement
has doubled in size, with 100 extra study spaces and eight bookable study rooms. It also boasts large plugand-play screens and lockers. These combine to complement the existing range of facilities and specialised services available across the nine floors at City Campus Library. These services include online reading lists and the Northumbria Skills Programme, which helps students to develop their writing, presentations and research. Professor Jane Core, Director of Student and Library Services, said: “Developing our University Library learning space is critical in ensuring the powerful combination of library space, collections and skills that give our campus based students a leading edge and the opportunity to succeed at every level of study. “This latest learning space design embeds the deepest understanding to date of Library-led co-design for learning with our students, to offer integrated access to our outstanding
online and print collections in a technology rich, professionally supported, 24/7, customer service excellent environment. Student feedback was immediate and remains overwhelmingly positive; we look forward to further similar collaborations to ensure that our students can access the leading edge library services that fuel excellence in learning and research.” The University will continue to invest in its libraries both at City Campus and Coach Lane to successfully build on its national ranking as the UK’s second highest rated library alongside Cambridge. This transformation is part of ongoing improvements the University Library is making to support learning and research at Northumbria and create an outstanding experience for its students.
DISCOVER MORE northumbria.ac.uk/library