Leaving (actually, left) City University…

A colleague alerted me to the fact that I had been chastised for not keeping my blog up-to-date - which is a very fair point! However I have a good excuse, as I left City at the end of August this year to take up a post in another university. So far so good!

I hope that anyone who has read this blog has found it useful and for City staff and students, as library staff we always appreciate feedback. If you want this sort of service to continue, or have further ideas about how the Library and subject specialists can support your learning and work please let us know. You can contact the Learning and Research Support team or just drop by the Library and let them know.

Thanks for the positive feedback that I did receive over the last few years and wishing you all the best of luck in your studies and work in the future.

New books!

Over the summer we have been adding to the collection -  in fact, we’ve doubled the book spend so that there are far more titles for you to chose from to support your coursework and projects.

Here’s just a sneak peek at our processing shelves:

IEEE Xplore and Google

A note that we just received from IEEE Xplore…

“Recently we at IEEE discovered something about our IEEE Xplore usage patterns that we want to pass on to you.

We learned that the majority of IEEE Xplore article metadata records had been eliminated from Google search results.  This means that anyone attempting to search for IEEE articles by using Google or Google Scholar would be less likely to find IEEE content.  Because half of all IEEE Xplore traffic comes through Google searches, particularly among our corporate customers, this could result in a significant drop in your IEEE Xplore usage.

In investigating the current issue, we learned that Google had changed its indexing policy regarding IEEE Xplore. In April 2010, Google decided to discard their previous IEEE Xplore metadata index and completely rebuild an index of over 2.5 million IEEE Xplore metadata records.

Unfortunately, this action may have impacted the ability of users to find IEEE Xplore articles in Google and may have affected your IEEE Xplore usage over the past few months.

…

We hope that the entirety of IEEE Xplore metadata will soon be discoverable again via Google.  In the meantime, a reminder that the best way to search IEEE information is to go directly to the IEEE Xplore digital library” which is available through the Library catalogue.  You will need your barcode and PIN to log in.

Compendex and RefWorks workshops

I’ve just done a workshop in our new teaching room for some academics and researchers in SEMS. A lovely group of people, and it was great to show RefWorks and one of our key databases for Engineering, Compdendex, off. Did you know that you can use our resources to save you time and effort?

• Create perfect (and correct!) bibliographies in seconds
• Maintain a list of articles on a website that keeps itself up to date
• Store all your references in one place online (as well as any files and attachments!)
• Get the database to send you relecvant articles (instead of you having to search for them)

And that’s just a few of the benefits!

Of the group that I’ve just seen, 100% (ok, 4 out of 4!) would recommend this session to others…and I didn’t pay them

If any of this sounds like your cup of tea, let me know. I can do 1-2-1 sessions or arrange a workshop for groups up to 20.

A quick catch up…

Has it really been January since I last posted? I had lots of drafts half written and then ‘something’ would come up. So, what’s been happening in the Library since January?

Well, the big thing is 24/7 opening over the exam period. It was a very real possibility that this wasn’t going to happen this year, due to poor uptake and even worse behaviour. However, 24/7 lives on for another year at least: from 26 April to the end of exam period on the 4th June…however this can be withdrawn at any time – so, play nice and if you want to see it continue, use it!

Over February, I did a research skills module for many of the postgraduate courses here at City. We covered an introduction to the library, looked at different types of information and why you should (and shouldn’t!) be using certain types, got some hands on searching on the databases done and then looked at plagairism, citing and referencing – phew! If you missed the session, need a reminder or just are plain interested in what was covered, let me know. And it’s not just for postgraduates! Undergraduates, research students and PhDs are very welcome. Book an appointment and see how you can use the Library and information resources more effectively.

We’ve all started twittering! You can follow us @CityUniLibrary or you can follow me @catdavies. It’s all a bit new but figure with practise I’ll get the hang of it!

RefWorks seminars

The university started subscribing to RefWorks last summer, and it’s great to see some of you using it. RefWorks do some good tutorials to get you started, including basic and more advanced sessions.

For those of you who might have already been using it, you might want to join in the webinars that are being held on some of the more advanced features.

RefWorks 2.0: The new User Interface

This webinar will show you how to easily navigate the primary functions on RefWorks 2.0 -our new user interface. RefWorks 2.0 uses intuitive Web 2.0 conventions and a cleaner layout, making it easier to navigate and find the features that make RefWorks an efficient tool to manage research. We’ll show you what has changed on the new interface, including:

• Adding new references via Direct Export, and importing citations as a .txt file
• Organizing newly imported citations; creating a new folder and accessing the folder list Create a bibliography (stand alone and Write N Cite III)
• Refshare: Now a component of every RefWorks’ subscription

This webinar is primarily for RefWorks administrators, those who train on RefWorks at an institution, and experienced users. However, all are welcome to enrol.

Tuesday, February 02, 2010
2:00 pm GMT Time (London, GMT)
Register
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
9:00 am GMT Time (London, GMT)
Register
Thursday, February 11, 2010
3:00 pm GMT Time (London, GMT)
Register
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
10:00 am GMT Time (London, GMT)
Register
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
3:00 pm GMT Time (London, GMT)
Register
Monday, February 22, 2010
9:00 am GMT Time (London, GMT)
Register

Write-N-Cite III for Windows

This 30-minute session introduces the Write-N-Cite utility in RefWorks. In this brief session we will discuss how to install Write-N-Cite III,, and how to use it to insert citations and create bibliographies in your documents – including while working offline. Attendees should have a basic knowledge of RefWorks functionality.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010
3:00 pm GMT Time (London, GMT)
Register

New resource: ICE Virtual Library

The Library has recently has recently added the ICE Virtual Library collection to it’s range of e-resources. This great resource includes access to all the e-books available, as well as access to archives of journal and transactions of the ICE and ideal for Civil Engineering students.

You can access the ICE Virutal Library here (you will need to log in using your Library barcode and PIN) or if you want a guided tour of getting into the resource check out this talking slideshow taking you through the steps.  Remember, there are lots of other resources that you might find useful (see the Civil Engineering subject guide for more information).

And if you’re not a Civil Engineer? Check the other subject guides and help available on this page to see if there’s anything of interest. And if there isn’t, please email me your suggestions for further resources, or make an appointment to see me.

Engineering Subject Centre Student Award 2010

This essay competition is open to all undergraduate students studying for a degree in engineering. Students are asked to express their views about how they are being taught and have the chance to win £250. This year students are being asked to use their imagination, put themselves in their tutors’ shoes and answer the question ‘imagine you are an engineering lecturer for a day: how would you teach your students?’  Find out more and enter here.

New look catalogue!

If you’ve had a look at our Library catalogue recently, you’ll have noticed that it looks a little different. This is Encore, our new and improved way of searching the Library catalogue!

For a guided tour, have a look at this presentation, where our Social Sciences librarian, Antonella, talks you through some of the new features.

The quick search now brings together the information in a more dynamic screen, with tags to find the information you want, highlighting our latest additions to the collection and quick and easy ways to refine your search to the materials or locations you want.

And never fear, the old version is still available for you to use whenever you want – just search for title, author or use the advanced search.

Need more help getting the most out of the catalogue? Let me know!

What you think of the new Library…

Over the summer, levels 2 and 3 of the Library were refurbished. This is what  students think of it.