Library

HCA’s specialist libraries are dedicated to all aspects of the creative arts. With libraries on both the College Road and Folly Lane campuses, they jointly offer access to over 30,000 books, subscriptions to journals and magazines, audio-visual materials, and access to thousands of online resources.

This invaluable resource is entirely student-focused, whether it be supporting your written work,  inspiring your practical pieces or developing your creative process. These bright and open spaces provide a friendly and relaxed environment in which to learn and study your practice and hosts a range of workshops, talks and societies throughout the year.

To find out more email library@hca.ac.uk or keep up to date with the library on Facebook and Instagram.

Take a look at our College Road library here.

All of our professional staff have backgrounds in art and design and share your passion for the creative arts. Whether your looking for a specific book or don’t really know what you’re looking for, they will use their extensive knowledge and expertise to help you find what you’re looking for, and even some things you didn’t know you needed.

We subscribe to a number of specialist electronic resources, which are also available off-campus via the ATHENS single sign-in service, including; JSTOR, EBSCO’s Art and Architecture Collection (over 1000 international art and design journals), the Bloomsbury Design Library, Applied Arts, Popular Music and Cultural Studies platforms, Vogue archives back to 1892, e-books and e-journals.

The Library’s page on StudentNet also provides students with a range of links to additional resources such as recommended websites, research tips and referencing tutorials.

HCA Library’s online catalogue can be viewed from any PC, tablet or mobile. Access the catalogue directly at http://hlcollege.cirqahosting.com

As a member of The British Library’s Inter-library Loan and Document Supply Service, students also have access to books and journals from a network of libraries across the country for a small fee. Meaning that if we don’t have it, we can find it.

HCA libraries have quiet study spaces, colour printing, scanning and photocopying as well as access to college wi-fi and open-access computer suites installed with the latest creative software.

As well as subscribing to a wide range of magazines and journals HCA is home to an extensive back catalogue of printed material. So if you want to keep up with the latest trends or track the styles through decades of publications it’s all possible at HCA.

Digital Skills Centre

The Digital Skills Center is home to all the digital art, design and media processes at HCA.  Whether it’s step-by-step technical demonstrations of the latest design software, printing your final projects on our industry-standard printers or independent practice, this is the place.

  • Open Access IT Digital Design Suites (no bookings needed, open 9am – 4:30 pm, Monday- Friday)
  • Dedicated design suites (Learn through step-by-step software demonstrations)
  • Specialist Apple Mac Suites for specialist software demonstrations
  • Quiet study areas in the Library with Assistive Technology.
  • Industry-standard large format printers and print materials for giclée printing
  • Sound & video production areas.
  • Stop-motion and digital animation suites.
  • An online resource hub for easy access to tutorials and design resources.
  • Access to full Adobe Creative Cloud design software
  • Free subscription to  Microsoft 365 with all Office applications and 1TB of cloud storage.

All of our Technical Demonstrators have backgrounds in art and design and share your passion for creative arts. Whether you’re designing print products or creating animations all of our Technical Demonstrators have a range of industry knowledge to share with our students.

These professional suites give you the opportunity to explore new software and develop skills, during guided sessions from our professional technical demonstrators. Learn through a hands-on approach and build designs, step by step, while discovering new tools and exploring every detail of each professional software.

Our dedicated Mac suite is well equipped for a range of specialist software and skills, allowing students to explore Graphic Design, Photography, Illustration and Music on industry grade equipment.

 

Our wide format printing studio enables you to produce exhibition quality (giclée) digital prints up to a meter wide and four meters long. Print banners, professional standard photographs, or custom illustrations on a range of media including matt card, canvas, transparent film, fine art papers, photo paper and fabrics such as silk and cotton. Students learn to work to industry lead guidelines on colour management while all monitors are specially calibrated to ensure accurate printing.

 

Our wide range of creative courses demands a wide range of software skills. All our students get the opportunity to leave HCA with the knowledge to jump straight into the there chosen industry.

learn the latest software in Adobe Creative Cloud for screen and print as well as a range of software for 3D design, music production, game design, interactive media, and virtual reality.

 

  • Adobe After Effects
  • Adobe Animate
  • Adobe Bridge
  • Adobe Character Animator
  • Adobe Dimension
  • Adobe Dreamweaver
  • Adobe Illustrator
  • Adobe InDesign
  • Adobe Lightroom
  • Adobe Lightroom Classic
  • Adobe Media Encoder
  • Adobe Photoshop
  • Adobe Prelude
  • Adobe Premiere Pro
  • Adobe Premiere Rush 2.0
  • Adobe Substance 3D Suite
  • Adobe XD (Experience Design)
  • Microsoft Excel
  • Microsoft PowerPoint
  • Microsoft Word
  • Tag Tool
  • Madmapper
  • Dragonframe
  • Autodesk Fusion 360
  • Blender
  • Spark AR Studio