As the University is a very large organization, it is often tricky to find the right email address when wanting to send someone an email. There are quite often instances with people having the same name, so it is important to make sure that you have the right person.
There are two main ways of finding someone
The Online Directory is available at the following website: http://directory.ncl.ac.uk
By default you can only search for staff, however if you select Advanced Search you can also search for students
The GAL is present in Outlook and OWA and shows every mailbox on the Exchange servers. You can do lookups from the GAL in a number of different ways and offers quite a bit of flexibility in how to search.
In OWA click on the Address Book icon, a new window will appear that allows you to search. You can also click the TO: button in a new message. Importantly, you can see which course/school/service that they are a member of to help determine the correct recipient.
Outlook 2007 and 2010 are a lot more sophisticated in fields that you can search for however the general search box pattern matches the display name left to right.
If you click the More Columns button, you can search just for surname.
If you click the Advanced Find link you will be able to search for specific fields.
Fortunately, there is a much quicker way of finding someone in Outlook. In a new message enter what you are searching for (surname for instance) and then press the Check Names button (alternatively press CTRL-K). A box will appear with all matching results. Use the scroll bar to see more information about each result.