Introduction to ESDS - hands-on workshop

Following the event ESDS - what's in it for librarians? at the Royal Statistical Society on 13 February 2009, ESDS received an invitation from a participating Academic Liaison Librarian to give a hands-on workshop for academic staff at the University of Kent before the new academic year started. It was anticipated that this would be of interest to staff in various subject disciplines. Indeed the subject specialisms of the workshop participants held at the University of Kent on 8 September 2009 ranged from biosciences, medicine and health sciences to modern languages, economics, sociology, archaeology, history, theology and philosophy.

The workshop focused on which data and services are available via ESDS, and how to find, access and use the various resources. The online analysis tools Nesstar and Beyond 20/20 played a special role in the live demonstrations and were followed with huge interest. This provided the perfect preparation for the final hands-on session where the participants could explore the ESDS web site and online systems, searching for resources related to their specific areas of interest and finding answers to their own questions.