Associate Lecturers

Online library resources

To support your teaching as an OU Associate Lecturer you have access to a world-class collection of online resources as part of the online library service.

You and your students have access to high quality and trusted online resources to support researching and writing assignments, exploring subjects or carrying out in-depth research. These include:

• over 80,000 academic journals
• UK and international newspapers
• over 500,000 academic books
• Open Research Online, the OU's open access research repository

With specialist resources like statistics sources, law cases, or images and sound collections.

If you or your students would like to know a little more about these resources why not have a look at the Getting started with the online library section?

Supporting your teaching

One of our aims is to help students study successfully and digital and information literacy skills are essential study skills that become increasingly important as students progress to higher levels. They have wider benefits too, such as encouraging students to become independent, lifelong learners, and providing skills that are valued by employers.

The Information literacy toolkit has been developed to help you introduce information literacy to your students so that they feel confident in finding, using and evaluating information. It includes materials for use in tutorials, optional activities, ready-made handouts and advice on how to introduce the concept of information literacy to students.

For students who are new to using the online library or would like to find out how to get the most from the online resources we have developed a number of guides and online training sessions.

Advice and Guidance

If you or your students would like advice about where to find library resources or how to use them have a look at our Help and Support which provides clear answers to the most commonly asked questions.

Library Helpdesk staff are also available to support you and can be contacted by phone, email or webchat.

Accessing print resources

There are a number of ways for you to get access to print resources:

• You and your students (based in the UK and Republic of Ireland) can join the SCONUL Access scheme which allows you to use a local university library.
• Staff and students that are able to visit Milton Keynes regularly can use many of the resources and services in the OU Library building on the Walton Hall campus.