Author Archives: Helen Young

Spring to the British Library

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Photo pf British Library gate by pshabIf you are down in London between 1 – 5 March, why not pop into the British Library or sign up to attend some of the events at the British Library’s Spring Festival.  This year it is a celebration of fashion, design and film.

Highlights include a Fashion-themed LATE on 1 March, in partnership with the History of Fashion department at Central Saint Martins. Hear from Dylan Jones, (editor-in-chief of GQ Magazine) and fashion illustrator Tanya Ling and watch its exclusive ‘paper fashion show’ of specially commissioned designs by the Central Saint Martins Print Design students and leading designers such as Giles Deacon and Osman. Try out a new look in the styling area where you can get a make-over with Chantecaille, or for men, Pall Mall Barbers. Take part in live costume drawing and dance to music by iconic British DJs, Princess Julia and Jeffrey Hinton.  Lastly, there will be a pop-up exhibition showcasing a series of postcards from some of the most influential figures in the fashion world, including Gareth Pugh, Alex Fury and Adam Selman, telling us about their favourite item in the British Library.

To find out about all of the different events and book your place, go to: http://www.bl.uk/spring

Image by pshab used under a Creative Commons Licence. From: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pshab/5771179476/

Refreshing research skills and raising research visibility

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Gold open access; the green route; Academia.edu; Researchgate; Google Scholar profiles; h-index; impact factors… 

Are you a member of academic staff or research staff and these terms are a mystery to you? Or would you like to know more about how to make your research more visible? Or would you simply like to discover how to find information for your own research more effectively? If so, why not take some time out of the office or lab and come along to one of the Library workshops for Academic and Research Staff in March or July. They are all designed specifically for staff and research associates, with excellent feedback from attendees in previous years.

 “Really useful to understand impact of research”

“All great!”

“Practical session and useful advice.”

“Good pace and nice to try things straight after being introduced rather than all at end.  This was a very good session introducing a range of different resources.”

This year’s workshops are:

  • Finding research information;
  • Assessing your research impact with bibliometrics;
  • Increasing the visibility of your research;
  • Improving your research impact through open access.

To find out more about the sessions and book, please visit the Library’s Staff Workshops page.

Journal TOCs the easy way

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At the end of March 2012 we said a fond farewell to the journals’ table of contents service, TICTOCs. Training in how to use TICTOCS had become a regular feature of the Library’s workshop for PGRs on ‘Keeping alert to new information’, with many appreciative users, and so we glad that the service has been replaced by JournalTOCs. The benefit of the service is that you can add the RSS feed of your favourite journal to a newsfeedImage of journals reader service, such as ‘Google Reader’, and it will keep updating with details of the latest issue without you having to do thing!  You just go and look at it, when you have time, and find out about all the latest articles.

If you would like to know more about JournalTOCs, then why not visit its website or if you are a PGR student come along to the next ‘Keeping alert to new information session’ on 17th May.  If you are not a PGR student but would like advice about how to keep up-to-date with developments in your research field, why not arrange to meet with your Academic Librarian for some one-to-one advice?

 

Latest journal citation data now available

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With citation counts increasingly being viewed as important for assessing the impact of research in many disciplines, we are pleased to let researchers know that the 2010 journal data has just been made available in Thomson Reuters’ Journal Citation Reports (JCR).

MIMAS stated that “The 2010 Journal Citation Reports® (JCR) has even more regional content than ever before! JCR provides a combination of impact and influence metrics, and millions of cited and citing journal data points that comprise the complete journal citation network of Web of ScienceSM.  The 2010 JCR includes:

 •             More than 10,000 of the world’s most highly cited, peer reviewed journals in 238 disciplines

•             Nearly 2,500 publishers and 84 countries represented

•             Over 1,300 regional journals

•             1,075 journals receiving their first Journal Impact Factor”

Loughborough University staff and students can access JCR via Metalib and if Academic and Reseaerch Staff would like to find out more, then the Library is running a workshop, including JCR, on ‘Measuring and improving your research impact with bibliometrics and friends’ on Tuesday 5th July, 10-12.30 in N004.  To sign up for this session, please contact Staff Development: sd@lboro.ac.uk

Help Bee to reach her CROS target

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Calling all Research Staff! Your views are being sought in the Careers in Research Online Survey (CROS). CROS provides researchers with a valuable platform to share their experience of working for Loughborough University by anonymously gathering data about working conditions, career aspirations and career development opportunities.  The survey is aimed at all of Loughborough’s 340 research staff and in 2009, 97 research staff engaged with the survey.  This year Bee Narga Martin’s target is for at least 150 researchers to engage with the survey, so if you are a member of Research Staff, please follow the link below to help her reach or beat this target:

https://www.survey.lboro.ac.uk/cros2011 

You can find out more about CROS at: http://www.cros.ac.uk

[Image by BlueRobot provided under a Creative Commons Licence from http://www.flickr.com/photos/bluerobot/5472868801]

Effective Researcher 2

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Effective Researcher 2 – Research Staff only

3rd & 4th March 2011

http://pdwww.lboro.ac.uk/eventdetails.asp?run=10024

This is a cross institutional development; colleagues from other Midland Universities are invited to attend.

The programme is aimed at early career research staff (whether having a doctorate, experience, or other qualifications) within the first 3–15 months of a research contract with project management responsibility. The programme has been designed to integrate self-awareness and learning across a number of key areas, which include:

  • project management – for the researcher’s own projects, and in assisting others with their projects, and including the creativity of developing new projects
  • people management – managing others (students, technicians, etc) and being managed (PIs, department heads, etc)
  • prioritisation of competing tasks and managing complex, diverse workloads
  • orientation within a longer-term career

Growing knowledge

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    How is research evolving?

This is the question that a British Library exhbition is exploring both physically and virtually.  If you are going down to London before the 16th July 2011, pop into the British Library (next door to St Pancras Station) to see the physical exhibition, which includes a wide variety of new teachnical tools to help researchers.  You might also be able to attend a discussion group. 

The debate is also available online, however, via Twitter and various websites.  The British Library’s own site for Growing Knowledge contains a number of thought provoking videos where researchers, librarians, consultants from different disciplines and countries discuss topics such as ‘Good research’, ‘New Challenges’, ‘Digital Research’, ‘The Modern Library’, ‘Scholarly Communications’, ‘Information Overload’ amongst many others.  You can also particpate in the ‘Growing Knowledge’ Survey via the BBC’s own ‘Growing Knowledge’ website.  Whatever your thoughts are currently about research and how you think it is going to evolve, prepare to have those thoughts challenged!

(Image provided by Kaptain Kobold under a Creative Commons Licence and accessed from Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kaptainkobold/386350652/ )

Make your research even more effective!

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Do you know about all the resources that the Library provides in your research area? Do you know how to identify the journals with the highest impact? Can you easily locate and manage all those potentially useful references that you have found in databases or on the web?  If the answer to any of these questions is ‘no’, then you and your research would benefit from attending the following courses offered to Academic Staff and Research Associates this summer:

Finding Research Information for Academic Staff and Research Associates
Thursday 1st July, 10-12 (Library Training Room 2)

Keeping your research up-to-date (Academic staff and Research Associates)
Tuesday 10th August, 2-4pm (Library Training Room 2)

RefWorks for Academic Staff and Research Associates
Monday 16th August, 2-4pm (Library Training Room 2)

You can sign up for all of these courses via the links above or by searching the Staff Development database.

Please note, that there are other specific courses arranged by the Graduate School and the Library for research students.  The courses above are reserved for Academic Staff and Research Associates only.

Before the leaders' debates…

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…read the manifestos!

Before Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Nick Clegg take to the stage in Manchester tonight for the historic first  televised leaders’ debate, why not take the opportunity to read the party manifestos.  All three of the big parties have their manifestos online in various guises.

Labour’s ‘A future fair for all‘ can be downloaded and read as a PDF or read on the website.  They have also embraced YouTube with animated videos too, although it can be quite tricky to spot the genuine ones amongst all the spoofs around!  The Conservative Party has a Flash version of its manifesto on its website, plus high and lower quality PDFs and a useful audio version.  The Liberal Democrats also have opted for Flash and PDF versions on its website.

To see a full profile of the leaders themselves, as well as details of the other parties with candidates standing in the election, have a look at the BBC’s ‘Parties and Issues‘ page.  Election coverage within the media might seem overpowering at times, but in the 2010 General Election, there is really no excuse for voters not to be able to escape from the bias of the  media magnates and journalists and make up their own minds based on the information that is being presented on the web for free.  And if you would prefer to read a paper copy, then the Library will soon have paper copies of the manifestos of the main parties in stock too!

[All images from Flickr and provided under creative commons licence – Conservative Party, World Economic Forum and Liberal Democrats]

Take time out to refresh your research skills at Easter

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Academic staff and research associates are encouraged to take some time away from the office this Easter vacation to refresh and refine their information research skills.  Three courses are being offered by experts in the Library.  Please click on the links below to find out more and sign up.

Finding Research Information for Academic Staff and Research Associates
Tuesday 13th April, 10-12 (Library Training Room)

Keeping your research up-to-date (Academic staff and Research Associates)
Wednesday 14th April, 10-12 (Library Training Room)

RefWorks for Academic Staff and Research Associates
Thursday 22nd April, 2-4pm (Library Training Room)

Please note, if you are a research student that there are other specific courses arranged by the Graduate School and the Library for you.  The courses below are reserved for Academic Staff and Research Associates only.

Happy EasterImage provided by Faith Noble under creative commons licence on Flickr

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