Christmas is coming!

This nursery rhyme captures the spirit of Christmas throughout the centuries, though its author has been lost to time. Edith Nesbit Bland composed music to accompany the words in the late nineteenth century. The words are simple yet encompass the spirit of Christmas, inviting charity at a time traditionally marked by gluttony and consumption.

Still, that's more of a distraction from what I was writing this blog to remind you about.  Before the Christmas vacation period is upon us, please make sure you are set up and ready for the holidays.  The University closes for several days between Christmas and New Year, and so it is important to ensure you have everything you need ahead of time if you think you might need to do any study over the holiday period.

Checklist before the holidays

• Setting up the VPN - if you are studying off campus, having the GlobalProtect VPN installed and checking it is working before the holidays can be invaluable.  Check you can get the VPN up and running on your computer while IT Helpers are still here to help resolve any difficulties
• Requesting interlibrary loans - since librarians everywhere are going home for Christmas, if you want to request an interlibrary loan that you want to read over the holidays, please submit it as soon as possible
• Requesting scans of our books and journals - so long as the book or journal you ask us to scan is available, we expect to scan  and email out anything in stock requested on or before Thursday 18 December 2025
• Click & Collect - you need to request anything you want as soon as possible, particularly if it is currently on loan to someone else and especially if you wanted it posted to you to arrive before the last post before Christmas
• Library Christmas opening hours - the Library closes for several days between Christmas Eve and New Year's Day, but Security will still open the Library periodically so you can borrow and return books, spend time studying away from home, and make use of our other facilities over the vacation period.  Check our Opening Hours page before travelling in to make sure we are open.  We don't want anyone making a wasted trip!