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Enabling research

One of the Cardiff rare book collection

 

Information Services provides a wide range of facilities and services to aid research projects at Cardiff. Facilities include a large collection of electronic resources and databases; diverse research collections and many computing initiatives.

Some of these facilities are listed below, for more details please see the for researchers section of the Information Services website.

 Special Collections and Archives (SCOLAR)

SCOLAR aims to support the research and teaching programmes of Cardiff University, via specialist information services, digitised resources, historical library collections, unique archives, and related facilities which it provides for staff, students, and visiting researchers.

SCOLAR collections include:

  • Archives / Manuscripts, 500,000 items
  • Pre-1899 volumes, 100,000
  • Other special book collections, 100,000
  • eBooks, 250,000 titles
  • Microfilm titles, 100,000
  • Prints / Illustrations, 2,000,000 items
  • Maps, 10,000 items

Prioritised strengths amongst our subject coverage and current research interests include:

  • Welsh and Celtic Studies
  • Journalism and the Media
  • European Music Studies
  • History of Medicine and Biosciences
  • Business / Finance history
  • English Literature
  • Architecture
  • British Historical studies
  • Industrial and Engineering history
  • International Religious studies

We have state of the art facilities for using our historical collections, including: online library and archives catalogues, a digitised resources repository, major collections overviews via our website, and digital scanning Microfilm reader printers. We also have the latest Turning the Pages digital touch screens which showcase, in 3D, a selection of rare and antiquarian books from the 15th to the 20th century, which were originally collected by Cardiff County Council Library. 

Further information and contact details are available at the Special Collections and Archives web pages.

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 ORCA - Online Research @ Cardiff

ORCA is a digital repository of research publications from Cardiff University. ORCA is being developed to become a complete repository of work by Cardiff University researchers, helping to raise the profile of the University through the wider availability of research that has already been, or will be, published elsewhere.  

 Support Unit for Research Evidence (SURE)

The Support Unit for Research Evidence (SURE) is a team of experienced information specialists and systematic reviewers. The team identifies, evaluates and summarises current, reliable evidence and teaches systematic review methods. 

SURE has undertaken nationally funded research in a wide variety of areas; specialising in the field of health and social sciences. The Unit has a wide range of partners both within and outside Cardiff University. 

Amongst the Unit's new projects is SysNet: the Cardiff University Systematic Review Network, which has been established to encourage collaborative working between researchers carrying out systematic reviews. It is funded by the healthcare schools, but is open to all members of the University. 

For further information, please visit the SURE web pages or email sure@cardiff.ac.uk

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 Advanced Research Computing @ Cardiff (ARCCA)

The ARCCA division runs a number of services to support Advanced Research Computing across all the Schools in the University. These include: 

  • A High Performance Computing (HPC) supercomputer, Merlin, which enables leading-edge computational research
  • Condor, a High Throughput Computing system which allows researchers to harness the spare computing capacity of Windows Workstations across campus.

To support a broad spectrum of users, from new to experienced computational researchers, ARCCA provides a range of training and support services to complement the technology, assisting in our mission of enabling ground-breaking and compute-intensive research. 

In accordance with the University's mission of research enablement, ARCCA is dedicated to the University's research agenda and operates under the strategic oversight of the Research Committee. 

On behalf of Cardiff University, ARCCA is a key partner in the £40m HPC Wales initiative, funded through the UK Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), ERDF and ESF European funds channelled through the Welsh European Funding Office (WEFO) and the Welsh Government / HEFCW. The HPC Wales project will develop a pan-Wales computational service to promote the benefits of High Performance Computing to Welsh businesses, via a programme of outreach, training and knowledge transfer. As a result, ARCCA will be one of two main technology hubs for the project, and will be the first hub to host one of the new HPC Wales systems. 

If you are a researcher at Cardiff University and are interested in using Merlin or Condor resources or would just like more information about ARCCA services, please contact arcca@cardiff.ac.uk.

For further information please visit the ARCCA website.

 Current awareness services

To keep yourself up-to-date with newly published articles, many databases allow you to save your searches so that you can rerun them at a later date. Many will also enable you to create a profile and set up automatic alerts should articles in your subject, new issues of relevant journals or citations to your work be added to the database. Some examples of databases covering a wide range of subjects and which offer alerts are ZETOC, Web of Science and Scopus.

Visit the current awareness web pages for further information.

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