The University is committed to student and staff wellbeing and recognises that taking time away from study and work is important. To that end, the University will be closed at 4pm on Tuesday 23rd December 2025 and will reopen at 9am on Monday 5th January 2026. This applies to all campuses. Please see the Support over Christmas page for more details.

Whilst the core University services will be not be available during the University’s period of closure, the Student Enquiry Point is available to signpost you to useful resources. Please note, that if you submit a query to the Student Enquiry Point, you will receive a response after the university reopens on Monday 5th January 2026. 

Please check our Library Opening Hours and Contacts page before visiting campus. 

17 December 2025

We now have access to an engineering database called Engineering Source, which contains articles from over 3000 journal titles in all aspects of engineering. 

The articles will also be searchable via Onesearch.

09 July 2025

Dates for Webinars from September onwards are now live on Webinars: Library and Academic skills

There are a variety of topics and timings so check out the table for details. 

If you cannot make the dates for a specific topic check in the blue banners if we have a pre-recording of the key points from that webinar. 

Details of how to join the session will be sent to you by email at the time of booking and a reminder one hour beforehand.

Here is what some students had to say after attending a webinar: 

• "Thank you very much for today! It's been very reassuring and helpful"
  
  
• "Thank you. I am feeling a bit more confident after being out of the academic loop for a while!"
  
  
• "The redraft has just given me a lightbulb moment as to where I'm going wrong with my own academic writing!"

10 September 2025

We now have a new 13th edition of Cite Them Right, our referencing guide. Copies are in our libraries to borrow.  You can also access the online version and our guides via our referencing page.

Two key updates are:

1. Referencing print & ebooks: no need for place of publication:

   Burns, T. and Sinfield, S. (2022) Essential study skills: the complete guide to success at University. 5th edn. SAGE.

2. Generative AI guidance - updated guidance on formats
   For guidance and examples of how to format both publicly and personally available generative content, go to our Gen AI page . NB. Do refer to guidance in your assignment briefs about use of generative AI. 

Skills@cumbria resources like the Quick Guide to Referencing and Referencing webpage have been updated. A new resource for students has also been created: A guide to academic integrity & how to avoid malpractice.

A reminder that, as well as Harvard, Cite them Right also covers other referencing styles, such as APA 7^th, IEEE, MHRA 4^th, OSCOLA

Any questions, or for help formatting tricky sources or to have your referencing formats checked, email skills@cumbria.ac.uk 

10 September 2025

Tullie, the Carlisle based museum and art gallery, have updated their display at Fusehill Street Library. 

Several interesting artifacts have been loaned to us to help promote their current exhibitions

See the images below for more details. 

Why not pop into Fusehill library to take a closer look.

14th July 2025

Give yourself a break from academic reading!

Pop into your campus library to see what we have in stock in our Reading for You collections.
We have quite a range now and you will get an idea of what we have in stock on the displays in the libraries.   The collections contain a good range of both fiction and non-fiction titles, and we highlight some on here. 

If you spot something in stock at another campus you can put in a request for that title to be delivered your own campus library. We welcome suggestions of titles to buy too!

Happy Reading!

11th September 2025

You use critical thinking and reading skills every time you access a piece of information. That could be the news, something on social media, or an academic source like a textbook or journal article. Join the Library and Skills@Cumbria Team to develop these skills. You may be increasingly aware of bias and the term “fake news”. But what do they mean?  

Find out how digital and online misinformation, disinformation and malinformation works, and how you can protect yourself and others from it. 

Attend our webinar: Stop, Verify, Correct on Friday 28th March at 13:00. This is part of our Enhancement Week programme
Access our tutorial  
Upskill your critical approach
Access the handout about Misinformation and StopVerifyCorrect. 

21 March 2025

We know students like to use Google Scholar to search for journal articles as part of their literature searching journeys.

But did you know you can set up Google Scholar to link easily from your results to the full text resources we provide for you?  

Find out more on our updated video or click here to read up about it.

Any questions please email skills@cumbria.ac.uk 

27 August 2025

 Two videos to help you with using Refworks.

Refworks is a reference management tool to help you manage your references, create reference lists and even help when writing your assignments in Word or Google Docs.

For an introduction to Refworks click here.

To use Refworks in Word using a tool called Reference Citation Manager click here.

Did you know we run webinars on Refworks? Check out dates on our Webinars page

Any queries email skills@cumbria.ac.uk 

12 September 2025

Check out our Quick Guides to searching on Onesearch

Two guides to help you to get the best out of using Onesearch:

Basics - to get you going see our Quick guide to OneSearch - basic

Advanced Search - check out further tips and more complex searching on our Quick guide to OneSearch - advanced

Any queries about searching email skills@cumbria.ac.uk 

2 September 2025

Thinking about writing a journal article and wondering how to choose a journal to submit to?  We have created this guide about choosing which journal to aim for when there are so many titles to choose from! 

 For staff there is a more detailed guide on Sharepoint

For any queries please email skills@cumbria.ac.uk in the first instance and we will signpost you to the right place to answer your query.

26th July 2024 

Our Ask a Librarian Chat Service is available online 24/7.  

9am to 5pm - you would be chatting online with staff from the University Library

5pm - 9am - overnight you will be helped by a librarian based overseas, mostly in the USA. 

Use the form on the link above or look for the orange 'Ask a Librarian' tabs on Onesearch and selected library webpages.

You can also pop into a campus library too, and ask for help at the library desks. 

09 September 2025

The Accessible study room has been very popular!  You can see more below about what is contains. We would love to hear what you think of it and how you have been using it on our feedback form

In the room on the 1st floor you will find:

• an adjustable height desk with ergonomic chair
• a double-screen PC with accessible software and adjustable desk lighting
• variable LED lighting and a sensory projector, both with remote controls to change colours, brightness and lighting effects
• a desktop book stand and perspex writing slope 
• a yoga mat, balance cushion and fidget toys
• a soft seat for breakout and relaxation
• adjustable blinds to filter natural light

You can book the room on our website here.

01 September 2025