Category Archives: Electronic resources

Boldly Returning From Where No Man Had Gone Before…

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Fifty years ago today John Glenn made a successful return to Earth after his Mercury space capsule Friendship 7 completed three orbits of the Earth.

Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin was the first man into space on April 12 1961, and Alan Shepard the first American into space three weeks afterwards, but Glenn had made history by becoming the first NASA astronaut to achieve and hold orbit. Three more successful Mercury missions followed before NASA switched their attention to a more ambitious goal – landing a man on the Moon. Successive Gemini and Apollo space programs saw the culmination of this goal with the successful lunar landing of Neil Armstrong’s Apollo 11 mission in July 1969.

The Library possesses a large range of material about space flight and the history of astronautics, including access to NASA’s Scientific & Technical Information (STI) web site among our extensive array of Aeronautical databases. But if you’re more into the historical and social side of manned spaceflight rather than the technical stuff, you can find day-to-day press chronicles of every astronautical feat from the 20th century among our newspaper archives such as The Times Digital Archive and The Daily Mirror Archive. 

Pictured is the launch of John Glenn’s Friendship 7 capsule on February 20th 1962, from the NASA Collection reproduced  under CC License from Flickr.

Free RefWorks workshop

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Yellow symbol with computer printout Working on a piece of coursework , a dissertation or a research project? Need to keep track of all the references you have found?  Then drop into :- SMB109, Stewart Mason Building   from 2pm – 2.50pm on Thursday 23rd  February for the Know-How course – RefWorks: Getting Started and learn how to use Refworks  to create and manage your own personal bibliographic database. 

Book a place on the Get the Know-How module on Learn LBAOO1

More information to help you use RefWorks effectively can be found via the RefWorks webpage.

Icon courtesy of alessandro rei at www.iconfinder.com. 

Who Says Crime Doesn’t Pay?

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Crime’s all the rage in Britain’s public libraries… fortunately, it’s not because books on the subject matter are nefariously disappearing from shelves, but because they’re the most popular brand of fiction borrowed!

The Public Lending Right last week released the annual statistics for book borrowing from public libraries for 2010-11, revealing that the prolific American thriller writer James Patterson was, for the fifth consecutive year, the most borrowed author with 17 entries in the top 100 borrowed (including five in the top 10), totalling a staggering. 2.3 million total borrowings all told.

Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol was actually the most borrowed book of the year, with Julia Donaldson’s Gruffalo the most borrowed children’s book.

Although we ourselves don’t currently possess any of Mr Patterson’s books, we do have quite a substantial range of other novels among our English Literature collection, including not just the classics of Bronte, Austen & Dickens, but contemporary prize winning fiction by the likes of Julian Barnes, Cormac McCarthy, and yes, even a couple by Dan Brown!

If you’ve a passion for literature, don’t forget that we have access to several dedicated databases on the subject, most particularly Literature Online (LION). ‘Recreational Reading’ is also tagged on Library Catalogue Plus, if you fancy taking a break from your textbooks too.

You can find the full details of the Public Lending Right’s figures from their website here.

Image copyright freefotouk, reproduced under CC Licence from Flickr.

Happy 200th Birthday, Charles Dickens!

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Charles Dickens c.1865, copyright the Penn State Special Collection Library, reproduced under CC Licence from Flickr

February 7th 1812 marked the birth of the Victorian era’s most popular author – Charles Dickens. And to celebrate the occasion, a new website has been set up exploring his life, his works and its influences.

Dickens 2012 is an international collaboration between institutions and organisations from all over the world who are working together to deliver a programme of events and activities to commemorate this anniversary. These include a celebration at Dickens’ birthplace in Portsmouth and a special exhibition – Dickens and London - at the Museum of London which runs until June.
 
The Library possesses a wealth of material by and about Dickens in its main collection, as well as access to a vast store of information through our many literature orientated online databases, such as LION (Literature Online).
 
And for the more tech-savvy among you, the bulk of Dickens work is freely available to download and read through Project Gutenburg.
 
For more details about the Dickens 2012 project, visit the website here.
 
 

From Tree-Top to Throne… Sixty Years (and Counting)

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Her Majesty Queen Elzabeth II, image copyright the National Archives, reproduced under CC Licence from Flickr

Sixty years ago today marked a momentous occasion in contemporary British history – Princess Elizabeth succeeded her father, King George VI, to become Queen Elizabeth II.

But, long before the days of satellite communication and the internet, the Princess did not discover about the fateful event until the following morning, as she was on safari near Nairobi in Kenya on a Royal Visit, and indeed spent the night in a game lodge situated in a tree-top!
 
A glittering range of celebratory events are planned throughout the course of 2012, including an extra Bank Holiday in June, and already the media have been filling column inches, air waves and digital screens in honour and in celebration of an eventful reign which has already encompassed 11 British Prime Ministers.
 
But if you want to take a look back at what the papers were saying at the time of the accession, why not dip into one of our online newspaper archives? We have access to full-text facsimile editions of the Times, Guardian and Mirror newspapers, so you can see what else was going on in the world at the time as well.

Fair VAT on E-Publications for the Academic Community

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Please take a moment to consider signing Eduserv’s e-petition urging our Government to reduce the VAT burden on e-publications.

Universities and colleges are obliged to pay VAT at the full standard rate, which is currently 20%, on their subscriptions to electronic academic journals, books, newspapers and magazines.

We believe that they should be treated in the same way for VAT as printed publications. Printed versions of the same resources are zero-rated in the UK; in the rest of Europe VAT is applied at the reduced rate, currently 5%.

This extra VAT burden means that libraries have less to spend on electronic publications making it very difficult for them to move towards e-provision.

Electronic publications are greener, save valuable storage space and offer increased availability for the majority of users. 

Sign our e-petition to urge our Government to do one of two things:

  1. Introduce zero-rated VAT on electronic academic publications.
  2. Or, if it is not feasible to add electronic publications to the list of zero-rated goods then to follow other European countries and apply VAT at the reduced rate now and consider reducing this to 0% as soon as possible.

We need 100,000 signatures for the topic to be debated in the House of Commons. Anyone can sign:

• You will need to provide your name, address and email
• You can choose to receive email updates from the government about the e-petition

Sign here http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/28226

Thank you.

PhD training session on Keeping alert to new information

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When? Wednesday 8th February
Time? 9.30 – 12 noon
Where? Room B.0.25 in the Business School

This session provides an overview of a wide range of electronic current awareness services that enable you to keep up-to-date with newly published information.

For more information please contact Staff Development

http://www.lboro.ac.uk/service/sd/index.html

NUS Charter on Academic Support

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The National Union of Students have just released a new charter addressing the provision and function of Academic support in Higher Education facilities.

Academic support is necessary for students not only in helping them complete their courses, but also for the vital role it plays in helping students develop their academic skills. The charter based on what good practice in academic support could look like, and is drawn from research from the NSS, HEFCE and the Paul Hamlyn Foundation and current good practice from around the sector.

The Library is very much committed to helping provide such support, primarily through liason with our team of Academic Librarians. The workshops, online tutorials and advice sheets they provide can help you enhance your study and information literacy skills. We call these ‘Skills to Succeed’ and they can help you with all manner of activities, like revision, time management, and literature searching. Check out the Know-How page for details of these workshops and more!

Last month we also launched a new ‘Academic Practice’ module on Learn, containing 10 tutorials on a variety of topics such as ‘Using the Library’, ‘Being Aware of Plagiarism’,  ‘Referencing Right’, ‘Essay writing’ and ‘Information Online’. Each unit has been designed to be attractive and informative – providing ‘bite sized’ information on a topic – with the added advantage of allowing the user to progress at their own pace.

The new charter is available for download from the NUS site here.

Visit the Library stand at the E-learning Showcase on Wednesday 1st February – Win A Kindle!

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If you would like to discover how the Library can help your students further develop their academic skills, avoid being a plagiarist or undertake more effective reading to suport their studies, then visit our stands at the annual staff E-learning Showcase, E-learning Essentials on Wednesday 1st Feb from 11.00 am – 2.00 pm in Keith Green Building.

Prior registration is NOT required and a buffet lunch including hot and cold drinks – and wine – will be provided.  In addition to the Library, there will be a  range of stands, poster presentations and live demonstrations on other e-laerning trends, so whether you’re interested in finding about more about the ReVIEW lecture capture system, or you have a specific query about Learn, this event is for you.  As you may be aware, the University is planning to migrate Learn this summer from Moodle Version 1.9 to Version 2 which is a major upgrade, so there will be colleagues from the E-learning Systems team in IT Services on hand to answer your questions and give you a sneak preview of some of the new features.

Professor Chris Linton, Provost and DVC, will be giving a welcome at 11.30. At 1pm there will be a half-hour debate on the future of e-learning in HE in the context of rising fees and student expectations. The debate will be introduced by a short ReVIEW video presentation by Jayde Savage, VP Education of the Students’ Union.

And in case the subject of this announcement caught your eye – if you come along with your business card and have it stamped by 5 or more stands, you can enter a prize draw for a new Kindle e-book reader!

Scotland’s Favorite Burns Night Poem Is…

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Portrait of Robert Burns from the Library of Congress, reproduced under CC Licence from Flickr

… Tam O’Shanter. Or at least, it is according to a recent YouGov survey!

 
Over a thousand Scots were asked to select their favourite poem for Burns Night, and Tam O’Shanter came first, collecting almost a quarter of the total vote,  followed by A Man’s A Man for A’ That and Address to a Haggis.
 
Burns was born on the 25th January 1759, and the occasion has been marked on that day since the 19th century by Burns Night, which is celebrated through traditional ‘Burns Suppers’  in honour of the Scottish Bard, whose life and work occupies a special place in the hearts of Scots around the globe.
 
We have a multitude of books by and about Burns in our collection in the Library, plus you can find full-text copies of his work (including the winning poems in the survey) via LION (Literature Online).