Confucius Institute display

For those who missed this recent display - this is what it looked like. The guy in the pic is the new Professor of Mandarin in the Institute at the School of Languages, Prof Ma Yue.

Chinese Leader Gives 200,000 E-Books to U. of Cambridge

Chinese Leader Gives 200,000 E-Books to U. of Cambridge
http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/article/?id=3629&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

Fee-Based Journals Get Better Results

Fee-Based Journals Get Better Results, Study in Fee-Based
Journal Reports
http://chronicle.com/news/article/?id=6026&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

The Hollywood Librarian

The Media Education Foundation has acquired the rights to The Hollywood
Librarian: A Look at Librarians through Film, and is bringing out the film
on DVD.
They are now taking orders from both US and international customers
through their web site at
http://www.mediaed.org/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=actionkey=138
The Hollywood LibrarianA Look at Librarians Through FilmAn Overdue Productions FilmThey have more cardholders than VISA, more customers than Amazon, and more outlets than McDonald's. Meet America's librarians. The Hollywood Librarian: A Look at Librarians Through Film is the first comprehensive treatment of the subject of librarians. A vivid blend of factual documentary, feature film and storytelling, it reveals the history and realities of librarianship in an entertaining and appealing context of American movies. Interviews with actual librarians, intercut with film clips of cinematic librarians, examine such issues as literature, books and reading, censorship, library funding, citizenship and democracy. For the first time, we see and understand the real lives and real work of American librarians who for decades have been a cultural force hiding in plain sight.This film's subject is librarians: who they are, what they do, why they do it, and the impact of their work in people's lives. The underlying meaning is how we express our own humanity, how we listen to ourselves and one another in the realm of the written and read word -- a uniquely human privilege.Audiences will be surprised and delighted by the fascinating librarians in this entertaining and enlightening film, and will emerge with a greater appreciation for the range of literature and materials available to them thanks to our nation's librarians.

Web 2.0 use by librarians

(Interesting article which include questionnaires which we could perhaps use at RUL???)
Web 2.0 use by librarians / Noa Aharony
Library & Information Science Research Volume 31, Issue 1, January 2009, Pages 29-37
Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lisr.2008.06.004
Abstract
The current research explores whether librarians, whose main work focuses on information, are familiar with new technological changes and innovations, and whether they make use of different Web 2.0 applications. The research examines whether personality characteristics (resistance to change, cognitive appraisal, empowerment and extroversion or introversion), as well as computer expertise, motivation, importance and capacity towards studying and integrating different applications of Web 2.0 in future, influence librarians' use of Web 2.0. Different questionnaires were distributed to 168 randomly Israeli librarians throughout the country. The research revealed that personality characteristics as well as computer expertise, motivation, importance and capacity towards studying and integrating different applications of Web 2.0 in the future, influence librarians' use of Web 2.0. These findings have theoretical as well as practical implications.

In Search of a Better Search Engine By Steve Kolowich

As college sites grow to millions of documents and balloon in complexity, officials turn to Google and other vendors for help

Read the article from the Chronicle of Higher Education

http://chronicle.com/free/v55/i24/24a01501.htm?utm_source=at&utm_me

E-books: the digital future

AT PUBLISHERS' CONFERENCE, THE DIGITAL FUTURE IS (ALMOST)
NOW:
Scholarly publishers who met in Washington last week learned
that interest in electronic monographs has surged and that
they should prepare to have their books read on smartphones.
http://chronicle.com/daily/2009/02/11057n.htm?utm_source=at&utm_med
ium=en (user name: rulibrary password: ru2007)

"The people who gathered here last week for the Association of American Publishers’ Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division's annual conference did not waste a lot of time worrying whether print is going the way of the dodo. As Matthew Nauman, director of publisher relations at Blackwell’s, put it, “A book sale is a book sale, and we don’t care what the format is.”"...

More RUL Subject Guides

2 more guides have been completed and added to the growing list: Pharm and Journ (developed by Thandiwe and Caroline respectively)

Do have a look and give us some feedback/comments/suggestions/criticisms???

http://oldwww.ru.ac.za/library/electronic_resources/dept/

New FirstSearch Database documentation available (booklet code: PRM2857)

The latest edition of OCLC FirstSearch Service Databases is now available, in online and printed formats. This 20-page booklet contains all the essential information you need to make full use of the 78 available FirstSearch databases.

The online version of the booklet can be accessed at the FirstSearch Documentation page at: http://www.oclc.org/us/en/support/documentation/firstsearch/default.htm

Scroll down to the Databases section, and click on the area of information that best meets your needs.

The online documentation is updated continuously whereas the printed booklet is updated in January and June every year.

New from the Internet Archive

The Internet Archive is a non-profit that was founded to build an Internet library, with the purpose of offering permanent access for researchers, historians, and scholars to historical collections that exist in digital format. No longer in copyright, and submitted by the University of California Library:

British South Africa; a history of the colony of the Cape of Good Hope, from its conquest 1795 to the settlement of Albany by the British emigration of 1819-- ; with notices of some of the British settlers of 1820 (1897) / Colin Turing Campbell. London; Cape Town: John Haddon & Co.: Juta, 1897

Read the book in searchable flip format You can read the book online in other formats or download. Or read the original in Cory Library!

Cory Library is adding links to these resources, as we discover them.

Read more texts at the Open Text Archive.

Interesting website: The Art of African Exploration

The Art of African Exploration


Especially for the armchair explorer, the Smithsonian Institution Libraries has selected materials for this web exhibition from its Russell E. Train Africana Collection. Documenting European explorations of Africa from the late 18th through the 19th century, some of the artifacts pre-date photography. At that time, it was important for expeditions to include an artist, who could record what was seen. For example, Samuel Daniell was the artist for a British expedition into the Cape interior in 1801. The web site includes printed plates from a book based on his field drawings of the African rhinoceros, in contrast with examples that look quite different, drawn by Dutch naturalists who had never been to Africa. In the 19th century, David Livingstone and Henry Morton Stanley became celebrities for their African adventures, and a section of the web site includes items produced for armchair explorers of that era - a souvenir teacup, lantern slides, book jackets, and photographic cartes de visite (photographs mounted card stock that were popular in the 1860s) - with images of Dr. Livingstone and Mr. Stanley.

Digital Research Tools wiki (DiRT)

Digital Research Tools
Great site!


As more and more scholars grow interested in the world of digital research, this tremendously useful wiki will be one that they will tell their colleagues about. Created by Lisa Spiro, the director of the Digital Media Center at Rice University, this collaborative wiki collects information about tools and resources that can help scholars conduct research more efficiently or creatively. Visitors can browse through topical headings that include "Authoring", "Blogging", and "Data Mining", among others. Within each heading, visitors can read short descriptions about each resource. Under the "Types of Tools" section visitors can search for specific tools that can help them collect data, edit images, make a dynamic map, and so on. Additionally, visitors can sign up to join the wiki here and also learn more
about Spiro and her other projects.

Is e-publishing affecting science?

Is e-publishing affecting science?
"As the world of publishing continues its relentless march towards the electronic medium, researchers in various fields are trying to understand what this means for science – specifically, how this is affecting citation patterns and reader behavior......."

From Research Trends (a Scopus publication) January 2009

Research Trends is a bi-monthly newsletter providing objective, up-to-the-minute insights into scientific trends based on bibliometric analysis.

Head of British Library Warns of 'a Black Hole' in the Digital Record

Head of British Library Warns of 'a Black Hole'

in the Digital Record

http://chronicle.com/http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/article/?id=3583&utm_source=at&utm
_medium=en

Exciting development in physics publishing

PHYSICISTS SET PLAN IN MOTION TO CHANGE PUBLISHING SYSTEM: One signature at a time, national research agencies and university libraries have pledged to support a new system of publishing in high-energy physics that would replace expensive subscriptions to journals with membership in a nonprofit group.

In what some are calling a peaceful revolution, researchers have mounted a takeover of high-energy-physics publishing. One signature at a time, national research agencies and university libraries have pledged to support a radical new system that would replace expensive subscriptions to leading journals with membership in a nonprofit group. The new organization would then dole out money to journal publishers, while pushing them to distribute all articles free online and to keep their prices in check.

read more on the Chronicle of HE webpage:
(user name: rulibrary password: ru2007)
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v55/i21/21a00104.htm?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

University Presses report fall in sales

BOOK DROP: UNIVERSITY PRESSES REPORT FALL IN SALES: Net
sales
for books published by university presses fell more than 9
percent in the last half of 2008, compared with the same
period in 2007, a survey found.
http://chronicle.com/daily/2009/01/9765n.htm?utm_source=at&utm_medi
um=en

SOCIAL BOOKMARKING' SITE FOR HIGHER EDUCATION DEBUTS

SOCIAL BOOKMARKING' SITE FOR HIGHER EDUCATION DEBUTS: A new
Web site, its founder hopes, will change how students and
professors learn and teach. Skeptics are not so sure.
http://chronicle.com/free/2009/01/10124n.htm?utm_source=at&utm_medi
um=en

Providing Academic Support Services from a Learning Commons

Connecting 24/5 to Millennials: Providing Academic Support Services from a Learning Commons (from The Journal of Academic Librarianship)

Abstract:

This study investigates user preferences for reference and technical support, services, and facilities featured in an academic library and Learning Commons through a 23-item questionnaire distributed to building entrants during one 24-hour period on March 14, 2006. Results revealed a strong preference for face-to-face assistance (including roving), suggested enhancements, and documented user demographics.

At first, funny videos. Now a Reference Tool

Using YouTube as a research resource. New trend and interesting statistics.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/18/business/media/18ping.html?_r=1&_r

Article about Library 2.0 in an African library

Title:
Development of a Library 2.0 Service Model for an African Library
Author(s):
Heila Pienaar, Ina Smith
Journal:
Library Hi Tech News
Year:2008 Volume:25 Issue:5 Page:7 - 10
Abstract:
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to describe the development of a Library 2.0 service model for an African library. Design/methodology/approach – The paper focuses on the academic library at the University of Pretoria (UP), South Africa. Findings – The UP is well on its way to becoming a Library 2/0 library. Originality/value – This case study may pave the way for other academic libraries to integrate Library 2.0 within their service offering to the benefit of all.

Article URL:
www.emeraldinsight.com/10.1108/07419050810901933