We’ll still be here over the summer but will be operating vacation opening hours until Friday 30 September as follows:

Monday-Friday: 9:00am-5:00pm

Saturday: Closed

We’ll also be taking some time off as follows to put our feet up and catch up on our holiday reading:

Monday 11 July-Friday 22 July: closed due to staff annual leave

Tuesday 9 August: closed from 1pm due to staff annual leave and sickness

Monday 29 August: closed due to the bank holiday

Monday 19 September: closed due to the bank holiday

There may be over closures in the event of staff absences so you may want to come back here or give us a call on 01223 762939 to check we’re open before making a special journey in to use the Library.

Many thanks and happy summer everyone!

Click and collect appointments (Monday-Friday 3pm-4pm) are also available until that date. 

All being well, we plan to reopen on Monday 10 January but please do check back here for any updates before making a special trip in over the vacation.  

We’ll continue to review the services we’re offering in the new year in line with University and Government advice and will update our website with details of any changes.

If there’s anything at all you need over the vacation, please don’t hesitate to email us at philosophy@lib.cam.ac.uk and we’ll do our very best to help.  We’ll be monitoring our email account intermittently during the closure period but may not be able to respond until we’re back from our holidays on 10 January.

Happy Holidays, everyone!

Next serving of Philosotea on Friday 5 March at 2:30pm

Take a break and connect with other friendly Philosophy folk over a warming brew!  Join us if you can! Further details will be circulated by email shortly.

What do you do to stay happy and healthy?

Tomorrow the library team will be taking to Twitter to share some of the things we do to ease the stresses and strains of everyday life and the additional pressures that the current lockdown and ongoing restrictions are placing on us all. We’d love you to join the conversation and share your tips by using #UniMentalHealthDay.

#ColourOurCollections

Colouring in is a great way to unwind and channel your creativity and it’s no longer just for kids! As part of their annual #ColorOurCollections social media festival The New York Academy of Medicine Library has partnered with libraries, museums, archives and other cultural institutions around the world (including a few in Cambridge!) to share free images from their collections for you to colour in.

New online Wellbeing Collection 

Our friends in the University Library’s new Accessibility Services team have put together this great online reading list of Wellbeing ebooks to complement the those held in many libraries across Cambridge and to make them more accessible off-campus.  The team are very happy to receive your new title and/or new topic suggestions.  Please email email them to ebooks@lib.cam.ac.uk with ‘Wellbeing ebooks’ in the subject line. 

Requesting wellbeing books from the Philosophy Library

Further information about these and other sources of support are available from the Wellbeing tab of our LibGuide.  You can also browse the virtual shelves and, if you are currently resident in Cambridge, request them via our Click and Collect service.  We are very mindful that, due to the sensitive nature of some of these titles, you may prefer to request these books in a more private way. If so, feel free to mail Jo direct at jmh225@cam.ac.uk with the details of the books you would like to borrow and she’ll be very happy to arrange that for you. 

Wellbeing: Modellig Minds and Managing the Cost of Functioning a talk by Dr Hisham Ziauddeen, Clinical Senior Research Associate, Department of Psychiatry

The University Information Service will be hosting the above online talk 4-5pm on Thursday.  Dr Ziauddeen will talk about the impact of work and stress, particularly during the global pandemic, and some ways we can ease them. For further details and to book a place please follow this link: https://www.training.cam.ac.uk/event/3831394.  

 Take care everyone and don’t forget to get in touch if there’s any we might be able to help with or you’d like us to share your wellbeing tips. 

The archive can be accessed directly at tinyurl.com/ASGCambuni (requires Raven authentication). 

The archive is a four-part series of rare primary source material including monographs, newspapers and periodicals, correspondence, and ephemera. It is intended to give voice to LGBT+ groups that weren’t previously well represented in academic resources.  

Part one is the largest, with 1.5 million pages devoted to LGBT+ history and culture since 1940. Part two has 1 million pages focusing on underrepresented communities (e.g. Lesbian nuns) since 1940. Part three provides over 1 million pages of material, going beyond LGBT+ issues to the study of sex and sexuality from the 17^th to the 20^th century, including perspectives from medicine, anthropology, biology, law, and erotic literature. Part four provides international perspectives on LGBT+ activism: mostly dating from 1970-2016, these 0.5 million pages focus on underrepresented populations and regions (such as South African LGBT+ groups).  

Browsing and searching across the archives is easy, with a powerful advanced search tool to pinpoint specific items and numerous filters and facets to refine results. Users can search across all four sections of the archive or limit their searches to a particular one.  

In addition, the archive provides a link to other collections on the Gale Primary Sources platform. This allows users to search the same terms across numerous ranges, in order, for example, to compare the portrayal of specific events between the LGBT+ and mainstream presses.  

If you have any questions or need any assistance with using the Archives of Sexuality and Gender, feel free to get in touch with a member of Library staff. And check out the LibGuide for LGBT+ resources and collections at Cambridge University!  

For the vast majority of our users, the books you have on loan from us will automatically renew and will not be recalled.  If they don’t you will not be charged any late fees incurred due to the impact of Coronavirus.

Please continue to send us your book recommendations by emailing us the details or completing the online form at https://www.phil.cam.ac.uk/library/book-suggestion-form – we’ll buy ebooks wherever we can.

We’re working with our other library colleagues across the School and the wider university to offer other remotes services and we’ll let you know when these are up and running.

In the meantime, below you’ll find links to key information, online academic resources and helpful hints and tips for working remotely and taking care of your mental wellbeing.  If there’s anything we’ve missed or if there are tips, tricks and advice you would like to share email or tweet us @LewyLib.

• Information about cambridge library services during this period is available at https://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/news/coronavirus-faqs. Please note that this refers to the University Library and Faculty and Departmental libraries only, not college libraries
• If you have general enquiries about using or accessing resources, using iDiscover, and much more try http://answers.libraries.cam.ac.uk/
• For a handy summary of the services Cambridge Libraries continue to offer while our buildings are closed go to https://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/research/librarysearch/university-libraries-are-all-open-online
• Go to the Philosophy LibGuide at http://libguides.cam.ac.uk/philosophy/home for information about key Philosophy eresources on offer, advice on researching a topic and referencing
• Ejournals@cambridge have blogged about the wealth of academic resources available online at https://ejournalscambridge.wordpress.com/2020/03/19/access-to-e-resources-during-covid-19-outbreak/
• Advice on finding and using ebooks is available at http://libguides.cam.ac.uk/cambridgeebooks
• For details of additional content publishers are making freely available during the Coronavirus outbreak go to https://www.libraries.cam.ac.uk/access-additional-e-resources-during-covid-19-outbreak
• Go to https://quietlycambridge.wordpress.com/2020/01/13/phdiary-6-how-i-work-at-home-effectively/ for tips on working effectively from home from Katherine, a Cambridge PhD student
• If you’re having trouble staying focused while working from home try https://www.focusboosterapp.com/ or https://www.forestapp.cc/
• To help us through these uncertain times Headspace are offering free access to some of their guided meditations and other ‘Weathering the Storm’ resources at https://www.headspace.com/covid-19

Stay safe, stay well and stay in touch!

Photo by Jametlene Reskp on Unsplash

Please refer to the central University website which contains advice and guidance for staff and students: https://www.cam.ac.uk/notices/news/coronavirus-latest-guidance.

After term ends on Friday 6 December we’ll be operating vacation opening hours until Thursday 2 January as follows:

Monday-Friday: 9:30am-5:30pm

Saturday: Closed

As well as the planned closures below, there may be some other exceptions to this and so we advise you to call us on 01223 335090 to check before making a special journey to use the Library.

Planned exceptions:

Tuesday 20 December closing at 1pm reopening at 3pm

Monday 23 December to 1 January (Christmas break)

Thursday 9 January (due to annual libraries@cambridge conference)

Wishing you all a very peaceful and relaxing festive season from all of us in the Library!

WPD was introduced by UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) in 2002 and is celebrated every third Thursday of November.  The aim of the 2019 edition is “to foster regional dynamics, stimulating global collaboration to address major chaallenges such as migration, radicalization, environmental change, or artificial intelligence.”

Philosotea & special offer

Why not celebrate by joining us for another pot of Philosotea at 11am upstairs in the Old Library!  As it’s a special day we have extra chocolately biscuits and healthy treats too.  Just to make you aware that there will be filming in that area from 11:30am.
For one day only, we’re also offering a 50% discount on our Philosophy tote bags. Get yours for £1.50 while stocks last!

World Philosophy Day display

Come and have a look at our display inspired by the work of the University’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER) co-founded by Huw Price.  The Centre brings together an interdisciplinary community of academics (including philosophers), technologists and policymakers from around the globe to better understand the extreme risks posed by human activity and emerging technologies and how to mitigate them. Jane Heal, Tim Crane, Nick Bostrom, David Chalmers, Alison Gopnik, Dana Scott and Peter Singer have all contributed to this research which focuses on four main areas:

Managing Extreme Technological Risks: Risks associated with emerging and future technological advances, and impacts of human activity, threaten human extinction or civilisational collapse. Managing these extreme technological risks is an urgent task – but one that poses particular difficulties.

Global Catastrophic Biological Risks: Growing biotechnological knowledge and capability will have many benefits – new and better drugs, improvements to agricultural productivity and environmental protection. But it is a dual-use technology, and so can also be misused in ways that cause harm.

Extreme Risks and the Global Environment: The Anthropocene is characterised by the profound and visible impact of human activity and technology. We are increasing risk by placing ever more pressure on natural processes. In particular, climate change and catastrophic ecosystem shifts both pose global catastrophic risks over the coming decades.

Risks from Artificial Intelligence: Recent years have seen dramatic breakthroughs in image and speech recognition, autonomous robotics, and game playing. The coming decades will likely see substantial progress. This promises great benefits: new scientific discoveries, cheaper and better goods and services, medical advances. It also raises concerns: privacy, bias, inequality, safety and security.

Our display celebrates the work of philosophers which underpins this research.

Our Library Assistant, Katherine, has been busy putting together a display in the reading room, showcasing a selection of books covering topics lectured on during your first term at Cambridge. They include topics such as, Knowledge, Ethics, Free Will, Causation. As well as notable authors such as Mill, Descartes, Hume and Plato. We also have a number of Very Short Introduction texts giving you a concise overview of topics.

Please feel free to borrow any books from the display.

We always welcome your recommendations for books to be purchased for the library. Email us the details or complete our online book suggestion form.

Monday-Friday: 9:30am-5:30pm

Saturday: Closed

However, there may be some exceptions to this and we advise you to call us on 01223 335090 to check before making a special journey in to use the Library.

Planned exceptions:

Tuesday 16 July – Thursday 18 July: closed from 1pm due to staff leave

Monday 26 August: closed due to the Bank Holiday

Photo by Vicko Mozara on Unsplash