Ebooks On Demand Is Back...

Over 33,000 ebooks are now available for preview via the Library Catalogue and DISCOVER.

These are VLeBooks made available through Askews and Holts – our new general ebook platform.

Staff and students will be able to preview each VLebook they select for a limited time. Thereafter, they will be asked to request access by clicking on a button and filling in a form. This will enable them to "rent" the book for seven days.

Each student has a limit of three rentals. If another customer were then then to request access after previewing the book, it would automatically be purchased.

Secondary Referencing

Recently I've had a few enquiries about Secondary Referencing. This is when you want to reference something that the book or journal article you're reading has referenced but you haven't read the original source.

You can find out more about secondary referencing in our online Referencing Guide. However, Secondary Referencing is not something that is encouraged.

It's considered bad academic practice to habitually use secondary referencing and whenever possible you should use the original source of the information. Of course, sometimes it will be impossible to get hold of the original source (e.g. because it's out of print) and in this case it's acceptable to use a secondary reference.

Children In Care Get "A Raw Deal" Say MPs In New Report

Children in care "get a raw deal" and the government is not doing enough to help them, MPs have said in a new report.

The report by the Commons Public Accounts Committee "Children in Care" says that in particular, the Department of Education shows "alarming reluctance to play an active role" in improving the lot of these children.

The report comes a day after Ofsted found child social care inadequate or requiring improvement in three quarters of the English local authorities it inspected last year, with services under "intense pressure".

The report says that 62% of children in care have suffered abuse and neglect but "too many still do not get the right placement first time, too many are moved too often, and too few are placed close to their homes."

In 2012-13 more than a third of children in care had more than one placement during the year, while a third of children in residential care and 14% of fostered children were placed more than 20 miles from home, it found.

The MPs say such instability can have a long term impact on emotional and physical health, social development, education and future employment prospects. They describe the gap in educational attainment between children in care and their peers as "shockingly wide".

The report urges the Department of Education to take an interest in the outcomes of its initiatives, evaluate progress and share successful practice.

It also urges the setting up of a national database of missing children, arguing that without such a register it is harder to find children who go missing from care, including victims of sex exploitation.

MPs also want the DfE to set out how it will attract more high-quality people into social work, to allow Ofsted to inspect council children's services more frequently and involve the watchdog in improvements between inspections.

Rights of Trafficked Children Recognised

The welfare of trafficked children has taken a giant step forward, with the passing of the Modern Slavery Bill. The Bill will receive Royal Assent soon.

The research team from the University of Bedfordshire has seen its work play a key role in shaping the new legislation. Clause 48 of the Bill defines the role of independent specialist advocates who will make sure trafficked children’s rights are respected by public authorities.

In July 2014, the research team at the University was appointed by the Home Office to independently evaluate a Child Trafficking Advocate (CTA) trial run by the children’s charity Barnardo’s.

The team from Bedfordshire is evaluating Barnardo’s work to establish what difference the specialist advocate scheme makes for trafficked children, compared to the existing provision, run by local authorities.

Professor of Child Welfare, Ravi Kohli, who leads the team from the University said: “The University is at the cutting edge of research in enhancing the protection of trafficked children. We are proud to be working with the UK Government and Barnardo’s in doing all we can to make sure that these children are safe.”

The team’s interim evaluation findings are based on the first four and a half months of the trial in which 59 children were allocated to the child trafficking advocates trial. The findings focus on the process of early implementation of the trial and early lessons learned about the role of advocates. So far, there is good evidence of advocates safeguarding children’s rights and meeting their needs.

The final evaluation report will be published after the trial ends in September and will draw on a wider range of data.

Free Research Tools On The Web

The libraries own resources should, of course be the starting point for your research. However, there are some free research tools out there on the web which may help you to uncover some useful material. Here are some of the main ones for the social sciences.

Social Care Online is a free database maintained by the UK Government backed Social Care Institute for Excellence. It covers all aspects of social work, social care and social welfare and provides links to many full text reviews, briefings, legislation and policy documents.

The Campbell Library free systematic reviews on education, crime, justice and social welfare.

The Cochrane Library free research on all aspects of health and healthcare. 

Trip Database online search tool designed for health professionals with an emphasis on evidence-based medicine.

COPAC free access to the merged online catalogues of many major, specialist and national libraries in the UK and Ireland. COPAC doesn't give you the full text of books but will help you to identify useful titles which you can order using our document supply service.

Google Scholar - specialist search engine from Google which searches for only academic research on the web. Google Scholar doesn't have all the features to help you to refine your search like DISCOVER does - so you will probably find yourself having to trawl through many pages of results...and not everything will be available in full text.

free access to the merged online catalogues of many major University, specialist and national libraries in the UK and Ireland, including the British Library. - See more at: http://lrweb.beds.ac.uk/applied-soc-studies/core-ab-indexes#sthash.29LWjuqi.dpuf

free access to the merged online catalogues of many major University, specialist and national libraries in the UK and Ireland, including the British Library. - See more at: http://lrweb.beds.ac.uk/applied-soc-studies/core-ab-indexes#sthash.29LWjuqi.dpuf

free access to the merged online catalogues of many major University, specialist and national libraries in the UK and Ireland, including the British Library. - See more at: http://lrweb.beds.ac.uk/applied-soc-studies/core-ab-indexes#sthash.29LWjuqi.dpuf

free access to the merged online catalogues of many major University, specialist and national libraries in the UK and Ireland, including the British Library. - See more at: http://lrweb.beds.ac.uk/applied-soc-studies/core-ab-indexes#sthash.29LWjuqi.dpuf