AVL Databases

From the Alabama Virtual Library Help Desk comes some very good news:

At the AVL Executive Council meeting on Feb. 18th, the council voted to license the following databases for a limited time thru Sept. 30, 2010. Usage of the resources will be monitored, and although these databases have been restored for the remainder of the State of Alabama's fiscal year, we cannot guarantee they will be available next year.  To help secure their continued availability, please contact your State of Alabama elected officials (http://www.legislature.state.al.us/misc/zipsearch.html),
and tell them how the AVL helps you!

Has the AVL helped you finish an important school project, find a job, or start a business?  The more real-life stories we have to share with our elected officials, the greater the likelihood we can maintain and, possibly, add resources.  Please share with us your success stories (Email:  avlhelpdesk@asc.edu).

Databases licensed until Sept. 30, 2010:

    Britannica's Annals of American History
    Britannica's World Data Analyst
    Britannica's Spanish-Language Resources
        Enciclopedia Juvenil
        Enciclopedia Universal en Español
    Wilson's Biography Reference Bank

The University Library will be adding these database back to our web pages.

Mardi Gras

The University Library will be closed on Tuesday, February 16, for Mardi Gras. Laissez Les Bon Temps Roulez! Here's some information from the Library of Congress about the development of the Mardi Gras tradition in Mobile which notes that Mobile is indeed the home of the first Mardi Gras celebration.

http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/legacies/AL/200002665.html

Scopus Day at the University of South Alabama Libraries

The University Libraries are sponsoring SCOPUS Day on Friday, January 29. This day will consist of three separate events:

Librarian Session: 9:00am: All librarians and library staff are encouraged to attend the morning session. This update will highlight new features in SCOPUS following the January 2010 release - particularly the inclusion of new journal and article ranking metrics to aid in research evaluation.

Lunch and Learn Author Workshop: 12:00 noon[Lunch will be provided.]: This free session, in the College of Medicine Conference Room will focus on SCOPUS as a unique solution for authors. It will emphasize the features in SCOPUS that will help authors manage their online publications, find collaborators, and use metrics to make their grant applications more competitive.

A free box lunch will be provided for the first fifty who RSVP. Door prizes and a chance to win an ipod will also be offered.

SCOPUS General Information session: 2:30 to 3:30 PM [Snacks and door prizes will be provided.] at the same location. This session will provide a thorough overview of the unique features that make SCOPUS different from other available tools, including the Author and Affiliation Identifiers and the Journal Analyzer. It will also include an overview of the new features included in the January 2010 release.

RSVP to medlib@bbl.usouthal.edu or (251) 460-7044 specifying the session you wish to attend by Monday, January 25, 2010.

Fellowship opportunity: UNC Chapel Hill

The School of Information and Library Science (SILS) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is seeking applicants for fellowships for a new program called "Educating Stewards of Public Information in the Twenty-First Century" or ESOPI-21. These Fellowships are funded through a grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services.

The fellowships will be for students enrolled in the Master of Public Administration (MPA) and Master of Science in Information/Library Science (MSIS/MSLS) dual degree program between the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's School of Information and Library Science and the School of Government.

The two-year fellowships offer:

* A 15 hour per week position as a Fellow in Public Information Stewardship at the National Records and Archives Administration, the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, Archives & Records Section, and/or the UNC at Chapel Hill University Archives.

* An annual stipend of $16,000.

* In-state tuition and health coverage

* One time enrichment fund of $2,500 which can be used for travel or other resources such as a computer.

* Opportunities to meet experts in public information curation via symposia, conferences and workshops.

As a component piece of the project, two cohorts of four ESOPI-21 Fellows (eight Fellows in total over the grant period) will each combine coursework with internship assignments in one or more governmental digital records environments, leading to a dual master's degree in Information Science or Library Science and a master's degree in Public Administration. The program's goal is to prepare the next generation of public information stewards. It offers Fellowship recipients the opportunity to engage in government records archiving and curatorial duties and to receive supervision and mentorship from senior public records experts in various types of government records management and other information management settings.

About ESOPI-21

The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)-funded project, "Educating Stewards of Public Information in the Twenty-First Century" or ESOPI-21, is a collaboration of SILS, UNC at Chapel Hill's School of Government (SOG), the University Archives (UA) at UNC at Chapel Hill, the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, Archives and Records Section (NCDCR-ARS), and the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). ESOPI-21 seeks to prepare the next generation of public information stewards by building on the Digital Curation Curriculum IMLS-funded projects at SILS and by developing fellowships, curricula, courses, and experiential components designed specifically for the needs of public sector information professionals.

Applying for the Fellowship: The ESOPI-21 Fellowship is provided to masters level students who are pursuing the dual degree program offered by SILS and the SOG. Acceptance into both programs is a requirement for the award.

Steps for application are:

1. Apply to SILS via the regular admissions process found on the MSIS Admission page at http://sils.unc.edu/programs/msis/admissions.html or the MSLS Admissions page at http://sils.unc.edu/programs/msls/admissions.html

Students are encouraged to apply by January 1, 2010 as this ensures consideration of the greatest amount of university funding, but we are accepting applications for this program up to February 15.

2. Apply to the SOG via the regular admissions process found on the MPA Admissions page at http://www.sog.unc.edu/uncmpa/applicants/admission.html. Students must apply by February 1.

3. In addition to the required written statement of your intended research focus, we ask that you write a separate essay elaborating on these goals and how they are related to the goals of ESOPI-21. Please see the ESOPI-21 Web page for more details (http://ils.unc.edu/esopi21/index.html). Please send this essay in an e-mail message to Dr. Helen Tibbo (tibbo (at) email (dot) unc (dot) edu) or Dr. Cal Lee (callee (at) ils (dot) unc (dot) edu) no later than February 15, 2010. Earlier applications are encouraged. Please note that we are only able to accept applications from
United States Citizens at this time.

*******************************************
Wanda Monroe
Director of Communications
School of Information and Library Science
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
100 Manning Hall
Campus Box 3360
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3360
Phone: 919.843.8337
Web site: sils.unc.edu
___________________________________________

Scholarship opportunity: University of Southern Mississippi receives IMLS grant

The University of Southern Mississippi (USM) recently received a grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Studies (IMLS) to recruit ten minority students for its fully accredited, online, master of library science program. Students who are chosen for the grant will receive full tuition waiver, $400.00 per semester for the purchase of books, a laptop computer, and $9,000.00 per year as a stipend. They also will attend special programming and training from the Mississippi Library Commission (MLC), and will attend the American Library Association annual meeting in 2011. The students must take nine hours of classes each semester and work five hours per week at either USM’s Cook Library in Hattiesburg or the MLC in Jackson.

For more information, please visit: http://www.misslib.org/index.php/2009/11/30/university-of-southern-mississippi-receives-imls-grant/

Scholarship opportunity: E-government Librarianship Scholarship Program

The Center for Library and Information Innovation at the iSchool at the University of Maryland College Park in partnership with the Government Information Online Initiative and the University of Illinois at Chicago, is accepting applications for 20 Master of Library Science (MLS) scholarships. The scholarships are for a new online MLS program focused on e-government services and digital government information. Applications are due by 1 February 2010, and the program is scheduled to begin in Fall 2010.

For more information, please visit: http://liicenter.org/libegov

Multiple Database Searching

The USA Biomedical Library has purchased WebFeat, a cross-database search engine, in order to facilitate searching of their electronic books. Because access includes the University Library, we have set it up so that many of our databases, such as Oxford Journals Online, Sage Journals Online, ACLS Humanities E-books, JSTOR and Wiley Interscience, can all be searched using one interface.

You can search by keyword, title, author, abstract, or subject and choose your own databases, or you can enter a search term and choose a general topic, such as Art & Humanities or Business, where the databases have already been chosen for you. WebFeat includes the ability to limit your search to Full-text articles only and/or Peer-reviewed articles.

Check out the University Library's implementation of WebFeat here: http://wfxsearch.webfeat.org/wfsearch/menu?cid=13098&cat=72060

EBSCO Databases Go Mobile

Ever wished you could access the University Libraries' databases from your phone? Well, now you can; at least the EBSCOhost databases, which include Academic Search Premier, Business Source Premier, CINAHL, Medline with Fulltext, PsycARTICLES, SocINDEX with Fulltext, Education Research Complete, and a variety of other databases.

This access is only in its infancy and I've only tested it on two phones -- the iPhone and the Blackberry Curve (mine is an 8320) -- but to try mobile access to our EBSCO databases go to:

http://libproxy2.usouthal.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.asp?profile=mobsmart

You will need to login with your usual remote credentials.

Javascript needs to be enabled to use the libraries' databases. To do this for the Blackberry:

1. Check your Blackberry's OS version first by clicking on the Options icon (mine is a wrench) and then About. Your OS will need to be version 4.0 or higher; older versions do not support JavaScript.
2. Open your Blackberry Internet Browser by clicking on your Internet icon.
3. Click on the button and choose Options.
4. Choose Browser Configuration and scroll down to Support JavaScript. Check that box and save your changes.

The iPhone and iTouch seem to run these databases beautifully; the Blackberry's implementation is much uglier and I haven't been able to open a pdf file as a native pdf -- instead I get an ugly rendering of the text.

Try mobile access on your phone and let me know how it goes (kwheeler@jaguar1.usouthal.edu); be sure to tell me the type of phone you've used and any issues you've had accessing pdf files.

Favorite Banned Book

Thanks everybody for participating in the University Library's vote for your favorite banned book. Here are the results:

The Winner: The Giver by Lois Lowry

Runners Up:

Curses, Hexes and Spells by Daniel Cohen
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling

Honorable Mentions:

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Goosebumps series by R.L. Stine
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’ Engle
Scary Stories by Alvin Schwartz
Bible
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Peterson
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
The Witches by Roald Dahl
And Tango Makes Three by Richardson and Parnell
Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
A Clockwork Orange by Antony Burgess
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
The Great Santini by Pat Conroy
His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman
The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Kama Sutra
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Native Son by Richard Wright
Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs
Where’s Waldo by Martin Hanford

Banned Books Week

Banned Books Week, September 26 - October 3

Banned Books Week is an annual recognition, held in the last week of September, of the importance of the First Amendment to readers and writers. It celebrates the freedom to read what we want to read and emphasizes the significance of open access to information. The American Library Association lists the most Frequently Challenged Books in libraries at http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/banned/frequentlychallenged/index.cfm

Check out the posters of Frequently Challenged and Banned Books at the University Library -- you can't miss them when you come in the doors. Also, don't forget to vote for your favorite banned book at the Circulation Desk.

AVL Databases

The Alabama Virtual Library has been a boon to our state as far as research is concerned. It has provided databases for all ranges and ages of researchers -- from kindergarten to graduate student to general public. Having access to the AVL has allowed the University of South Alabama Libraries to subscribe to very subject-specific databases such as ArtStor and IEEE Xplore, knowing that the general use databases had already been taken care of by the AVL.

Like the rest of the state, the AVL has been affected by the economic situation and finds its funding to be less this year than previous years. Keeping its mission in mind -- to provide information for all levels of researchers -- the AVL recently decided to cut the following databases from its list. Access will not be available after September 31:

OCLC FirstSearch databases

1. CAMIO - Catalog of Art Museum Images Online
2. ArchiveGrid
3. ArticleFirst
4. ClasePeriodica
5. Electronic Collections Online
6. GPO Monthly Catalog
7. MEDLINE
8. OAIster
9. PapersFirst
10. ProceedingsFirst
11. World Almanac
12. WorldCat
13. WorldCat Dissertations

H.W. Wilson's Biography Reference Bank
SIRS Knowledge Source databases

1. SIRS Issues Researcher
2. SIRS Government Reporter
3. SIRS Renaissance

Britannica's add-on databases

1. World Data Analyst
2. Annals of American History
3. Enciclopedia Juvenil
4. Enciclopedia Universal en Español

In addition to the above resources not being renewed, EBSCO's Academic Search Premier will be downgraded to Academic Search Elite.

Fair Use

Determining whether your use of an item falls within Fair Use guidelines can be more problematic than you might think. Luckily, there's a tool that can help with that -- Fair Use Evaluator, from the American Library Association's Office for Information Technology Policy. By providing information about an article and your intended use of that item, the Fair Use Evaluator can provide you with an idea of where on the spectrum from "Fair" to "Infringing" that your use may fall.

The makers of the Fair Use Evaluator are careful to note that this tool is not intended to provide you with legal advice and point out that only "a court of law can definitively rule whether a use is fair or unfair." However, the Fair Use Evaluator does provide you with information that can help, such as a time-stamped pdf document showing your use of the evaluator and the criteria you used to reach your decision about whether your use of a document falls within Fair Use guidelines. Check it out. Try it with the Exceptions for Instructor eTool if you are a faculty member.

Formatting Bibliographies

Sue Medina, the director of the Network of Alabama Academic Libraries, recently sent an email about an article discussing the top five online citation applications. I loved the one called BibMe -- it allows you to save citations for books, articles, web sites and other formats in the citation style you need whether MLA, APA, Chicago or Turabian. You can download these and or save them to a free account.

Check out Bibme at http://www.bibme.org/

Farewell

Jan

"If I didn't believe it with my own mind, I never would have seen it."

Bard College graffiti, 1972.


Or: "If I believe it, I will see it -- wrong."
Or: "Context is all."
Or: "Don't believe much of what you see--it is more complicated!"

Try this:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/06/24/the-blue-and-the-green/

Sorry! Should be http://www.worldcat.org/advancedsearch

Identities: Cool new feature on Worldcat.org

This just released from OCLC WorldCat

"We’ve just incorporated WorldCat Identities into WorldCat.org navigation proper, rather than having to satellite out to a listing and then find your own way back. You can get to a WorldCat Identities page from the “Find more information about” drop-down in the Details section of a detailed record:

WorldCat Identities is one of those fun things we like to play around with, here at OCLC. It showcases things you don’t find many other places–like you can see the most widely held works by a writer, or how one fictional character is related to another one, or get a visual for publication timelines, or audience recommendation levels, or, or, or…there’s a lot of good stuff there."


It took me a few tries to find this info, but it really is cool. Do title search for a book by an author you want to find more about (doesn't seem to work for films and articles) on worldcat.org--the advanced search. Drag down on the page past the libraries that hold the item to the "Details" section and "Find more information about" and click GO.

Much info on your author: most popular titles(library holdings and number of editions); most popular books about; languages; related people; a related items cloud, and several bookcovers.

I love WorldCat and Google Books and Google Scholar--long may they be free! (Keep your fingers crossed about this--most anything of value is ripe for a price tag these days.)js

Best Places to Work in the Government 2009

Still looking for a job? This survey's results might interest you, as they are based on employee satisfaction and commitment in federal agencies. And check out the link for job seekers at the top of the page. Do it for your parents!
http://data.bestplacestowork.org/bptw/overall/large

The Colors of Your College Degree

(OOPs! Graduation is next Saturday, not tomorrow.) With graduation tomorrow, I thought this link to be most appropriate. What do those colors worn by the graduates stand for? http://www.colourlovers.com/blog/2007/11/06/the-colors-of-your-college-degree/ Glad Library Science is lemon yellow and not "drab."
Thanks to Sue Medina for this one.

Best Study Strategy: "Close the Book. Recall. Write It Down"

Excepted from
The Chronicle of Higher Education: The Faculty
From the issue dated May 1, 2009

That old study method still works, researchers say. So why don't professors preach it?
By DAVID GLENN

The scene: A rigorous intro-level survey course in biology, history, or economics. You're the instructor, and students are crowding the lectern, pleading for study advice for the midterm.

If you're like many professors, you'll tell them something like this: Read carefully. Write down unfamiliar terms and look up their meanings. Make an outline. Reread each chapter.

That's not terrible advice. But some scientists would say that you've left out the most important step: Put the book aside and hide your notes. Then recall everything you can. Write it down, or, if you're uninhibited, say it out loud.

Two psychology journals have recently published papers showing that this strategy works, the latest findings from a decades-old body of research. When students study on their own, "active recall" — recitation, for instance, or flashcards and other self-quizzing — is the most effective way to inscribe something in long-term memory.

. . . .