End Of An Era…

Posted on March 14, 2012 by Steven Lake

Nearly 250 years after the publication of its first edition, the publishers of the Encyclopedia Britannica have called time on the print edition of the venerable reference tome, and are going to concentrate purely on its faster, sleeker online twin.

The publishers have made this decision in order to compete better against online reference resources such as Wikipedia, and after customers declared they preferred using the online version of their books.

The Encyclopedia was first published in Edinburgh in 1771 as a three-volume set. It had since risen to 32 volumes by the 15th and now last edition last revised in 2010.

The Library still owns a print copy of the 15th edition, among our many other resources in our Reference section. But for more up-to-date browsing, we have a wealth of encyclopedias, directories and handbooks among our electronic Reference Book collection on Library Catalogue Plus, including the multi-faceted Oxford Reference Online.

So really, you don’t need Wikipedia at all… do you?

Image copyright Shishberg, reproduced under CC License from Flickr.

Do books have a future? You decide…

Posted on March 12, 2012 by Lizzie Gadd

Humanities and social science researchers – can you spare twenty minutes to help unearth the future of the monograph? You could win one of several £100 Amazon vouchers by completing the OAPEN-UK Researcher Survey at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/oapenukresearcher

OAPEN-UK is an Arts and Humanities Research Council and JISC funded project exploring the issues impacting upon the publishing of scholarly monographs in the humanities and social sciences (HSS). The project is working with various stakeholders to move towards an open access publishing model for scholarly monographs. Further information on OAPEN-UK is available on the project website:

If you’d like any further information, please contact Ellen Collins (ellen.collins@researchinfonet.org)

PhD training session on RefWorks Advanced

Posted on February 24, 2012 by Christine Hallam

Date: Wednesday 29th February 2012

Time: 2.00 – 3.30 pm

Place: Stewart Mason Building, room 1.09

This course is designed for mid-career PGRs and Academic/Research Staff wishing to develop their knowledge of RefWorks further. You should already have a good working knowledge of RefWorks including importing references and creating bibliographies.
This course will highlight how to change citation and bibliography styles, share accounts and use the more advanced features of Write ‘n’ Cite.

Participants are encouraged to come to the session with practical queries with which we can help them or copies of their work on which they can practice.

To book a place please contact Staff Development, http://www.lboro.ac.uk/service/sd/

Or just turn up on the day to see if there is a place.

Boldly Returning From Where No Man Had Gone Before…

Posted on February 21, 2012 by Steven Lake

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.

Who Says Crime Doesn’t Pay?

Posted on February 10, 2012 by Steven Lake

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!

Posted on February 7, 2012 by Steven Lake

: 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)

Posted on February 6, 2012 by Steven Lake

: 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

Posted on February 3, 2012 by Steven Lake

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:

Introduce zero-rated VAT on electronic academic publications.
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

Posted on February 2, 2012 by Christine Hallam

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

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Category Archives: Electronic resources