Vote for the oddest book title of 2009

Posted by Celia Walter | 26 Feb, 2010

"Nazi spoons, murderous cyborgs and the musings of an invertebrate hunter are among the subjects tackled in the books nominated for the latest installment of the Diagram Prize. The prize, which celebrates the oddest book title of the year, received a record number of submissions in 2009, with 90 books suggested...

Voting has opened on the six books at www.thebookseller.com. The winner will be announced on 26th March". The shortlist:

* David Crompton's Afterthoughts of a Worm Hunter (Glenstrae Press)
* James A Yannes' Collectible Spoons of the Third Reich (Trafford)
* Daina Taimina's Crocheting Adventures with Hyperbolic Planes (A K Peters)
* Ronald C Arkin's Governing Lethal Behavior in Autonomous Robots (CRC Press)
* Ellen Scherl and Maria Dubinsky's The Changing World of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (SLACK Inc)
* Tara Jansen-Meyer's What Kind of Bean is This Chihuahua? (Mirror)
From Peter Scott's Library blog

 

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DOAJ Humanities and Social Science Journals

Posted by Celia Walter | 4 Feb, 2010
A new study showed that 78% of the social science and humanities journals listed in the DOAJ are not indexed in any of five major SSH journal indices:  the Arts and Humanities Citation Index (AHCI), Social Science Citation Index (SSCI), Scopus, European Reference Index for Humanities (ERIH), and Agence pour l’Evaluation de la Recherche et de l’Enseignement Supérieur (AERES).
http://www.cybergeo.eu/index22862.html

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Open Access Journals indexed by Web of Science

Posted by Celia Walter | 6 Jan, 2010

Web of Science, covers the contents of 494 peer-reviewed open access journals. That amounts to 4.5% of the roughly 11,000 journals covered by the service, also known by its subsets -- Arts & Humanities Citation Index, Science Citation Index, and Social Sciences Citation Index.

Link to list of these titles:

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/scholcom/accessdenied/206168.html


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US Student Library Research Practices & Skills, a survey

Posted by Celia Walter | 6 Aug, 2009

 Description:

This report looks closely at the research practices and skills of a sample of 400 U.S. college students. The 150+ page report presents detailed data on just how American college students use their library to complete research assignments. The report answers questions such as: which American students are being assigned research papers and which are not? What research sources do students use to complete their research assignments? Which use only major search engines or Wikipedia? Which use print resources? Library furnished databases? How familiar are students with the concept of plagiarism? Are students confident in their research abilities? Do they know how to use citation software? DO they feel that their librarians help them to use the available resources?

The study also gives detailed information on how their professors advise them to use the library, and how comfortable they feel about their research skills and how helpful librarians have been in helping them in their research. Data is broken out by more than 16 criteria including gender, income level, type and size of college, mean SAT acceptance score of the college, and many other variables. Just a few of the report's many findings are that:

- Only about 47% of students are sure that they have ever been required to turn in a research paper exceeding 10 double spaced typed pages in length for any of their classes.

- More than 86% of students say that they understand the concept of plagiarism 'well' or 'very well'.

- 64% of students sampled say that they know how to contact a librarian online.

- 55.2% of the students in the sample had not asked for help from a librarian within the past year.

- Nearly 29% of students say that Google, Yahoo and other major search engine searches were the most important information source for their last research assignment.

- More than 9% of information needed for research papers was sourced from Wikipedia or other wickis.

- The higher the grade point average the less information for research papers was obtained from search engines such as Google or Yahoo.

http://www.researchandmarkets.com/reportinfo.asp?report_id=1054422&t=d&cat_id=

Summary

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Islam Expo SA 2009, 11th -14th June, CTICC

Posted by Celia Walter | 8 Jun, 2009

 

Islam Expo SA 2009 is for everyone.  Come and experience the history, culture and traditions of Muslims. Islam Expo SA from 11th – 14th June 2009 from 10am until 9pm. 

Entry Fee: Adults R20.  Children, scholars, students and pensioners are free.

The broad objectives of the Islam Expo SA 2009 are to:

  • promote a spirit of religious and cultural tolerance;
  • showcase Islamic Calligraphy and Islamic Art;
  • create an understanding about the culture and traditions of Muslims;
  • create an awareness of the role played by Muslims in the history of South Africa;
  • showcase UK Exhibition Islam:  The Science and Heritage Collections
  • focus on Muslim-based financial, arts & cultural, social welfare, economic,
    historical, educational organisations and institutions

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Information literacy - the 'democratic right' of every learner. JISC Podcast

Posted by Celia Walter | 11 Feb, 2009

"Information literacy has become a key concern of many in the education sector and beyond. In this podcast interview John Crawford and Christine Irving, of the Scottish Information Literacy project, talk to Philip Pothen about their work in the education sector, in the workplace, with libraries, and with government agencies and argue that information literacy is the 'democratic right' of every learner, and a central element of lifelong learning"

Podcast link:
http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/avfiles/news/interviews/podcast71johncrawfordchristineirving.mp3

From Peter Scott's Library blog

From Celia: I've "switched" on the Comments function

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ALLPlayer 3.6 [media player] and Foxit Reader 3.0.

Posted by Celia Walter | 12 Jan, 2009
ALLPlayer 3.6
Some media players can play a few formats, but ALLPlayer does many of them one better by playing just about any format imaginable. Perhaps the most compelling feature of this latest version is that users can also watch films with embedded subtitles. This particular function works by linking up to the Opensubtitle website, which then delivers the subtitle to the player. Also, the program contains a subtitle speaker function, which allows users to hear the subtitles. This version is compatible with computers running Windows 95 and newer. [KMG] From Scout Report.
http://www.allplayer.org/index_en.htm

 

Foxit Reader 3.0
Foxit Reader was created to provide an alternative to Adobe Reader, and it seems to succeed quite nicely on all fronts. Foxit Reader allows users to draw graphics, highlight text, type text, and make notes on PDF documents, and then save the entire thing (or print it out). This version is compatible with computers running Windows Me and newer. [KMG] From Scout Report.
http://www.foxitsoftware.com/downloads/index.php

 

 

 

 

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How to Master Screencasts in Seven Steps

Posted by Celia Walter | 30 Oct, 2008

Torley at the Mashable blog has put together a quick guide to How to Master Screencasts in Seven Steps. The author, who has created over 200 video tutorials, shares detailed tips and tricks organized into the following steps:

  1. Understand audio engineering
  2. Indulge in templates
  3. Focus on using eye candy to enhance learning
  4. Learn from the best screencasts in the world
  5. Practice narrating and love your voice
  6. Be codec-smart, context-aware
  7. Continually explore delivery mediums

iLibrarian blog

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The African review of books

Posted by Celia Walter | 5 Aug, 2008
The African review of books
The African Review of Books (ARoB) is an online scholarly publication, which publishes reviews of recent (and some not quite so recent) fictional works which the author considers might be of interest to a South African readership. One might expect that this would focus more on South African publishing than is the case - the country does, after all, have a very strong publishing industry. However, the site is much more wide-ranging than that - there are reviews of books about Africa which are published in Europe, South American novels and short stories from India on the site at the moment (July 2008). None of them are particularly recent, either, although the reviews are. As the reviews are nearly all the work of one person, this would appear to be the result of the site being a more personal collection than the title might suggest. Having said that, the reviews are extremely well thought-out, considered and interesting and the site provides an authoritative investigation into the books which are presented. Intute.ac.uk
http://www.africanreviewofbooks.com/

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Free for All: Open Source Software

Posted by Celia Walter | 4 Aug, 2008

I’ve been waiting for this latest article from Karen Schneider to be published in School Library Journal and I wasn’t disappointed. She provides an even-handed overview of Open Source software tools, the pros and cons, and the current uses in the library field. I’ll be adding this one to my class reading list for next semester.

iLibrarian blog 

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70+ Open Courseware Resources

Posted by Celia Walter | 4 Aug, 2008

Christina Laun at CollegeDegrees.com has compiled The Ultimate Guide to Using Open Courseware: 70+ Apps, Search Engines and Resources for Free Learning. Her annotated list of resources are divided into the following categories:

  • Search Engines and Directories
  • Open Courseware Collections
  • Podcasts
  • Videos
  • eBooks
  • Educational TV
  • Resources, Articles and Guides
iLibrarian blog

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UNESCO. Open Training Platform

Posted by Celia Walter | 27 Jul, 2008
The UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has added a new partner to its Open Training Platform (press release). The Open Training Platform is a collaborative tool to share and promote “open” training materials. The posted materials are free and accessible for non-commercial purposes such as teaching, learning and research. Categories cover the many aspects of UNESCO's programme, and include conversational language courses, information management, and conflict prevention. RSS feeds available for all new content, or specific topics, e.g. ethics or environment.  UN Pulse Permanent Link: UNESCO's Open Training Platform

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Shvoong : the worldwide abstracts - literature and science

Posted by Celia Walter | 10 Jul, 2008

Shvoong : the worldwide abstracts site
'Shvoong', meaning 'momentum' in Yiddish', is a website which offers abstracts whose aim is to 'summarize all that has been written throughout human history in the areas of literature and scientific research'. While this is unlikely to be achieved, this ambitious project aims to reduce the search time spent by students, researchers and others in locating the material they need. Each abstract may be read in a format chosen by the reader, with a maximum of 300, 600 or 900 hundred words, and in a wide range of languages. The site also reviews and abstracts the contents of the daily world press. The site is a free resource, funded by advertising, which offers a fee based on the number of readers for the writing and translating of new material. Therefore, each reader is asked to rate the abstracts they use, thereby maintaining the quality of the site's material. All abstract writers are 'random surfers' and writing is submitted in all common languages, with the option for immediate translation into 12 major languages. As automatic translations can be of variable quality, human translators, also surfers, will work to provide higher quality translations. The site may be searched under the headings of 'Books', 'Science', 'Humanities', 'WWW' and 'Newspapers', and then by details of the text and the level of abstract required. This is an unusual resource, deliberately featuring text-only to minimise download time, which is easily navigated and offers value to a wide range of researchers. Intute.ac.uk
http://www.shvoong.com/

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