Support for teaching and learning

Department librarian service

All departments have a designated librarian who acts as the main point of contact for all Library queries. We support academic staff, students, researchers, and Professional Services staff.

Department librarians can:

Meet new and current academic and Professional Services staff in the department.
Attend department meetings eg, SSLCs.
Discuss a department’s information resource and training needs.
Consult on new resources for research and teaching, particularly for new courses.
Provide bespoke Library and information skills training for staff and students, including literature searching, referencing, and using archives in teaching and learning.

View contact details for department librarians

Supporting teaching

Reading lists: The online reading list system enables teaching staff to create online reading lists so students can easily access their readings, whether online or in print. We will use this information to acquire the readings needed for your course. To ensure resources are available for the start of each term, please update your reading list by 20 August and 30 November. Your department librarian can provide support for online reading lists, and you can also use our Support for Online Reading Lists Moodle course.
Teaching content: All essential texts are provided as ebooks, where available. This includes high-demand textbooks used for taught course content. If no online version of the title is available, multiple copies of print books are acquired for the Course Collection on the first floor of the Library and are made available solely to LSE students. The Library obtains digital scans of book chapters, and journal articles not in our subscriptions, complying with the terms of our copyright license.
Support and training: We support students, staff, and researchers to make the most of Library resources and tools – using the Library’s collections (both print and online), creating online course reading lists, using our archives and special collections in your teaching, and more.

Supporting student learning

Research, information, and digital skills support: We work closely with LSE LIFE and provide a programme of seminars, workshops, and online resources where students can enhance their research and information skills, which will enable them to excel in their studies, research, and subsequent careers. This includes:

Searching and finding literature for classes, assignments, and dissertations, by empowering students to develop the skills to use library catalogues, databases, and search engines effectively. This includes:
- Developing effective search strategies.
- Advanced systematic and literature searching for researchers, undertaking various review types.
- Researching primary sources and archives, drawing on our own extensive special collections.
Understanding and evaluating sources, assessing their relevance and value for academic work, including books, journal articles, news, blogs, archives, films, images and more.
Data research– supporting students, staff and researchers conducting research for country, financial, company and market data, social science data, and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) data.
Citing and referencing sources in academic writing and encouraging academic integrity.
Managing information and data:
- Data management for research projects, including guidance on ethics, security, and storage.
- Using tools to manage references, eg, EndNote and Zotero.