Topic summaries

I've blogged before about Credo and the useful mindmaps (they call them Concept Maps) it can generate on subjects like 'Jean Piaget' or 'social exclusion'. (More information here: http://help.credoweb.credoreference.com/search/concept-map.html)

When we were deciding whether or not to renew this resource, the Head of Academic Liaison evangelised about the Topic Pages Credo includes. Full disclosure: I thought that's something I should look at...and then it dropped out of my head. Sound familiar? But, I've just unearthed the notes and - fortified with a nice cuppa - I have finally got round to investigating. They're pretty good for a general overview of a subject. Or, as Credo put it:

Topic Pages are Credo Reference’s approach to organizing and presenting information resources.  They are a dynamic “one stop shop” where you can find much of what your library has on any one topic.  Topic Pages aggregate information from Credo Reference, your other library databases and the open web, all on one screen.

So, it overlaps with what DISCOVER offers but doesn't replace it. DISCOVER would be the main search tool I use for researching assignments but Credo would be a great place to get 'warmed up'. Still love the concept maps though. Really helps see how ideas/people/events connect and evolve.

You can find out more about them here: http://help.credoweb.credoreference.com/content/topic-pages-tour.html or from this YouTube intro.



Link to Credo: http://library.beds.ac.uk/record=b1160670~S20 

A cheeky approach to Turnitin

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/sinister-buttocks-roget-would-blush-at-the-crafty-cheek/2015027.article

Any news story captioned 'sinister buttocks' will draw the eye! But this story of the perils of using a thesaurus is quite astonishing. Wouldn't it have been as quick to write the essay, as do all that looking up? Even if they did it online, that's a lot of clicks.

We won't withdraw our thesaurus collection though, even though it doesn't get many visitors on Level 1 of the Bedford Library. Our digital reference shelf, Credo Reference, has hundreds of dictionaries, as well as the odd thesaurus (Roget's included). One great feature is the mindmap - a great tool for quickly getting an overview of a topic like 'Jean Piaget' or 'social exclusion'.

Are you sitting comfortably?

I realise as I type that question that the reference - to a radio show called Listen with Mother from last century - is ridiculously fusty and antique! [Cue jokes about librarians...]

But, as the gentle voice of my childhood used to continue "Then, I'll begin".

Bedford Library has swish new chairs for the new academic year. Unfortunately, Hurricane Bertha has made the skies so black I can't take a decent shot of Level 1 (or the Training Suites on the top floor). Here's a picture of Luton instead. When the IT Suite there was gutted and refitted, they bought new chairs. And they've proved so popular and robust, we've bought the same ones for Bedford, as well.

IT Suite, Luton

If you're a returning student, you may have had the misfortune last year to find the only spare chairs were permanently locked at an angle more popular on sun loungers. This kit has stood up to heavy traffic at Luton - which is 24/7/365 like Bedford - so your long sessions in the library this year should be a lot more comfortable.

If you're feeling nostalgic for yarns of pirates, steam trains to boarding schools and talking mammals...I direct you to the Teaching Practice room on the Third Floor. We've got everything from hungry caterpillars to high-school vampires. 

BREO>Library: the journey just got better

The library team do not get summer holidays [sad violins] so we've all been very busy working on new things, or improving old ones.

We know a lot of people prefer to navigate to library resources from BREO, instead of LRWeb. So, our web designer has overhauled the Library tab on BREO.

Library tab on BREO

The links to DISCOVER, our Readinglists site, Study Hub and the What's On calendar, as well has many other websites, are now easier to find.

And you will also find a link to the online reading lists in every unit on BREO, so you can jump from your tutor's recommendations to checking the library's stock, reserving a copy, buying from John Smiths or reading online smoothly.

Study Hub: online and on-campus

The Study Hub - accessible from LRWeb and BREO - is a 'hub' of resources providing advice on

• academic skills, like writing, maths, note-taking etc
• how to use Microsoft Office products for academic work (writing long assignments, working with spreadsheets, creating presentations)
• referencing skills
• and which library resources to use in your subject area

It is a collaboration between the Computer Skills Trainers, Academic Liaison Librarians and the PAD (study skills) Team.

As well as the online resources, you can 'drop in' on the Study Hub service every day during term-time at Bedford and Luton site. The times and locations will be posted on the What's On calendar and there will be further information on the plasma screens and noticeboards on campus.

The library is trying to get a feel for whether this kind of service would also be popular 'online', through a voice-over-IP service. Let Adele and Hilary know what you think. The university is trialling a service from the company who produces BREO which is as easy to use as Skype and FaceTime but more with a lot more study-friendly features. 

Classroom as research laboratory

One of the new facilities being developed at Bedford Campus is a teaching laboratory. This classroom will integrate the latest in pedagogic technologies but also function as a typically classroom on the university's timetable. As well as letting being a sandpit for experimental teaching methods, it will also provide opportunities for new forms of research into teaching. With mirrors and cameras, student and staff researchers can use ethnographic and other techniques to observe learning behaviours of all kinds.

The lab-classroom will open during 2014-15 and the project was led by Dr Andrea Raiker.

This is a very exciting development for the university. However, it is common for people to feel inhibited about using these spaces. Even Brown University has a problem getting people to feel comfortable enough to get through the door as this podcast, from the excellent EDUCAUSE series,

outlines. Digital scholarship is a growing into a substantial research field.

New library getting closer

I can't decide whether this looks more Gattaca or The Island; either way, it definitely looks spectacular. There will be lots of new learning spaces and more silent study areas. The bus stop at 0.32 seconds is where you can catch the bus for Putteridge Bury (where Applied Education Studies is taught). Luton's current LRC is considerably older than the library on Bedford Campus and needs to move to allow for the 60s block to be dismantled and replaced. The library's new site replaces the old HR building so it will still be an integral part of the campus. And the library management team will be looking at what works well in the building so we can bring the best ideas into refreshing Bedford's library. Like Bedford, the Luton building will be open 27/7/365.

Get out the bunting

Well, blow us down with a feather! Learning Resources won the Tell Us award and our lovely Sarah Arkle (Reader Services Manager) and Marcus Woolley (Deputy Director of Learning Resources & Student Services - University Librarian) collected it from Colin Salmon. Unfortunately, your correspondent had to leave before the dancing began, but he promised to make the most of the dance floor. 

Colin Salmon compered the evening really well. He has an honorary doctorate from the University and grew up in Stopsley (Luton) "less than three miles from Putteridge, but I never got to see it". He knew a lot about what the university is trying to achieve and the impact it has in Luton, And there was a heartening  'small world' moment, Ine of the other night's winners - Gurch Randhawa (Professor of Diversity in Public Health and Director of the Institute for Health Research) - pointed out that he and Dr Salmon are both involved in the same campaigning organisation to promote organ donation in BME communities; they'd just never met before.

@ACLTcharity @NBTA_UK @NHSBT Colin Salmon - organ donation ambassador at @uniofbeds research awards pic.twitter.com/WTm7zzkBIM
— GURCH randhawa (@gurchrandhawa) June 13, 2014

Student Experience Awards: Learning Resources nominated

Tonight the University's Student Experience Awards are being held at Putteridge Bury site, near Luton. This site is mainly used by the Post-Graduate Medical School and for post-graduate business courses. But occasionally it gets used for internal conferences and other functions.

The Student Experience Awards were founded by Bill Rammell when he became Vice-Chancellor because he wanted to ensure every department puts the 'student experience' at the centre of their activities.

This year Learning Resources are really proud that the Reader Services team have been nominated for their championing of the Tell Us scheme. Although every team in Learning Resources is always looking at ways of improving our resources and services for students, the clearest feedback about 'fixes' and issues comes from students who use the Tell Us (or other feedback routes) to explain what improvements they'd like to see.

Tell Us feedback gave Learning Resources the evidence to get the go-ahead for 24/7 opening in Bedford and Luton and the creation of the Silent Study floor at Polhill. Sometimes Tell Us suggestions are really big ideas like those, but we also get lots of messages about smaller but important issues which are things we can review and quickly fix.

This infographic summarises the Tell Us comments, compliments or concerns the university had in the first half of this academic year. The National Student Survey which has been heavily publicised this Spring is hugely important for the university's rankings but the questions are quite 'big picture' (non-specific) and it is only completed by final year students so Tell Us is a great way to influence the university's policies and facilities whilst you're doing your course.

The World Cup of Everything Else

(c) Nicolas Raymond (http://freestock.ca/flags_maps_g80-cote_d_ivoire_grunge_flag_p1133.html ) This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

 

 

 

The Wall Street Journal has put together a fun stats-based infographic for the 32 countries competing in the World Cup. Sadly, Cote d'Ivoire England for public spending on education. On the upside, our rainfall isn't as copious as it might sometimes appear.

One-day site closure this weekend

Please remember that Polhill Avenue (the road) and the Bedford Campus will be closed all day on Sunday 8th June. This includes the library. This is because of resurfacing work on Polhill Avenue and relocating the electricty substation (which is in the old garages between the Campus Centre and the three-storey building under construction).

Luton's Park Square Learning Resources Centre will be open all day if you desperately need to use university computers.

Looking at referencing afresh

I recently attended an interesting study day on looking at new trends in citations and referencing. There were some really interesting papers from everybody from software providers (http://www.mendeley.com looks particularly strong as a 'free' gizmo), PhD students and librarians working in colleges and universities. Basic citation skills are covered in KS1 but there's a big gap between then and starting uni. And 'attribution' is a form of politeness that hasn't really been adopted by web-users, even though it was such a massive part of print-culture (really since the Enlightenment and beyond).

Storify is one way of amalgamating digital objects on a particular theme. You can pull in elements from blogs, pin-boards, YouTube etc). This event had a hashtage so I just wanted to collect the tweets (you can discard ones you don't need) and left it in a linear template. With something more visual, I'd probably opt for the slideshow view so I could flick through the object-record without scrolling.

Help through the information labyrinth

The Academic Liaison Librarians for Education, Sport & PE are running new workshops four times a week in the summer term in Bedford Library. Get all your queries answered on literature searching, referencing and tools like DISCOVER and RefWorks.  Computers will be provided or why not bring your own device for tailored help? 

For times and dates see LRWeb's What's On calendar: http://lrweb.beds.ac.uk/help/whatson.

These are just some of the regular training workshops and drop in sessions on finding and using information in your subject area, developing your study skills and using Microsoft Office applications. All sessions are run by our ALL, PAD and CST colleagues and are free.  

The building work on campus is juggling along nicely and the old entrance for cars has now reopened. This week's new development is in the quad between P and R blocks, where they're installing a walking labyrinth. The one at Park Square is a beautiful feature but I think our dance students are going to need to find a new grassy patch to rehearse their routines and lifts in the summer. 

Improving student experience: how do reading lists fit?

I spent two days this week attending a conference looking at how different universities are trying to improve the  accuracy, currency and availability of reading lists for their units. There were lots of common themes but also some really idiosyncratic and intriguing nuggets. To help me keep track of what I learnt, I created a Storify; there are lots more excellent tweets on #mtrlc but these were the ones I need to reflect on.

It's probably a bit full of library-geekery to be of interest to you from an education-perspective. However, I'm including it here, in case I'm misjuding you and also because the activity of tweeting a CPD event has some lessons from a learning-perspective.

This was the first event where I totally abandoned note-taking and stuck to tweeting (with a scribble pad to capture actions). The discipline of brevity and the public nature of the form, makes you think much harder about what you want to record. It was enriched by the RT and direct tweet dialogues that evolved during and after papers.

And, after the two days, I felt I had synthesised more information than usual. But, I am more at sea, about connecting which learning point with which paper because you tweet in a stream; if I was typing or writing with a pen, I'd have left gaps/underlined things etc.

It wasn't until I came to do this Storify that I realised you can add in text and headings. Perfect!

Educating Walthamstow

Like everyone who seemed to pass through the library gates or take the uni bus, I was glued to the Educating Yorkshire series so I was delighted to see that Channel 4 is not just running a new series but that it will have two extra episodes.

It sounds like they have picked a good school as well to centre the series over. Frederick Bremer School only opened in 2008. So, the design of the learning spaces to fit the modern curriculum could be interesting. Just having a lighting/windows system that doesn't fight interactive whiteboard displays is a fairly basic!

It will not have the pupil-to-parent history we saw in the Essex and Yorkshire series; they'll have barely seen their first batch of eleven year olds through to GCSE, let alone them pitching up at parent evenings, 10/20/30 years later! And what about the internal community of the staffroom. I knew a lot of teachers who joined the new schools created during Milton Keynes' growth spurts in the 70s-80s. It could be an equally odd experience for people who'd taught for years, elsewhere, or NQTs.

But what has really made me grin, is that this time we'll see a female head this time. The senior management team at both Essex and Yorkshire were wonderful and I really respect them; I just think it will be fantastic to see a women in a city-based Engineering Specialist School. Jenny Smith has only been in post since 2012, herself so it's a bit like the risk our Vice-Chancellor took with the Freshers series here.

Musharaf Asghar (and Mr Burton) will be a tough act to follow. Think I'd better buy some tissues just in case.

Job satisfaction for Friday

I'm happy to see that teachers in primary/early years (13) and secondary (34th) settings come out really well in the Cabinet Office's report on life satisfaction associated with different jobs. Librarians don't do too badly (43) although library clerks and assistants are down at 196. And educators working in higher (61) or further (79) education institutions are a pretty chipper lot as well.

So, I guess that means we love Monday mornings too. (And I won't be dreaming of a little spot in Derbyshire.) Or don't statistics work that way?

The actual report was undertaken by the Legatum Institute as part of a long-term  project looking at wellbeing analysis. The Beeb has put together a quick list, if you want to check out the paths-not-taken.

Five reasons to use RefWorks

I have been experimenting with an online animation tool, called PowToon. There are lots of preset templates aimed at schools and education contexts. These can be easily edited and the whole system is web-based so you don't need to install software or anything. It is very simple; this one took me 55 minutes originally and another 5 to tweak after feedback from colleagues.

The only downsides are the logo (but I gather, like Prezi, if you upgrade you can remove the branding) and that as a Flash-file it doesn't play on iPads. There are some lovely, imaginative examples on the site. Great for introducing topics in a Primary classroom or getting kids to put together their own presentations.

Identity Management

(c) Hiro Sheridan

A plea from the a project group at JISC (the national consortium of experts on digital technologies for education and research) for help. The topic may sound a little like the first line of a William Gibson review, but they basically want your thoughts on 'how can universities help staff and students get more out of digital information sources'.

"As part of the Usability project, we’re investigating the way in which research staff and students in UK Higher Education access online academic resources such as research papers, articles and e-books.

We’ve put together a short online survey to find out more about the problems students and staff may encounter when trying to access these resources and to see what they do if they can’t access the paper they need. The survey is straightforward and shouldn’t take longer than 5 minutes to complete. The URL for the survey is https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/YJ9G2QR If you have any questions about the survey or would like to be involved in further user testing please contact Stuart Church."

Celebrating National Library Day at Bedford

Sharing 'my favourite book'

The library on the Bedford campus celebrated National Library Day. This annual event is celebrated in libraries all over the country, but none of us can remember ever doing anything to mark it at the University so Rachel Bickley, the Sport & Physical Activity librarian, took action to correct that this year.

As well as inviting people to share what they read for pleasure (instead of the torture of assignments) there were freebies and book-themed cupcakes from talented bakers in the Reader Services and Academic Liaison Librarian teams.

NLD 2014

If you'll forgive me geeking-out over library science - briefly, I promise! - we were quite tickled that the cupcakes which were decorated with Dewey Decimal classmarks disappeared the fastest. Bedford must be a hotspot for classification afficiandos.

Hacks to make your reading life easier

Do you have a Kindle? Thorin Klosowski has written a helpful post on the Lifehacker blog called A Student's Guide to Using the Kindle for Research.  It's got some really good tips, like getting the most out of the annotation features which let flag useful sections. That can really save time when you're working on an assignment and moving from doing the reading round to actually writing it up.

Thorin mentions reading journal articles on your Kindle. DISCOVER has a nifty feature where you can send journal articles across to the ereader (through the Bookmark icon).

He also gives some good advice about finding free books. I've always been disappointed by the typography of the 'free' books I've 'purchased' from Amazon - so many layout problems and mis-transcribed characters; the idea of borrowing higher quality texts is therefore very appealing. He mentions OverDrive which is a service Luton Libraries offer. You can manage your account over the web from their ebooks page. Bedfordshire's library service has a different ebooks service, from Bloomsbury, which I've not tried. It probably offers the same options. If you belong to another public library service, look at their website to see what they offer; most counties or unitary authorities have ebook services.

The university's electronic textbooks are generally not compatible with e-readers like Kindles, Nooks and Kobos. But they can be read on devices with a web-browser (like a Kindle Fire) or an app like Adobe Reader (for iPads or Android tablets).

Gizmos like Calibre, which convert ebook formats (from Mobi or PDF to ePub3 etc) should only be used on files where the rights owner has given permission for this to happen or on works where copyright has expired. Or, like I did the last week, I took a long document I'd created as a PDF (so I was the rights holder) and changed the format so it would be readable on my Nook. You could do this with your essays or reports. You stay classy, San Diego.

Lifehacker is a great blog to pick-up tips and tricks for making the most out of pooters, smartphones and other tech. When I switched from PC to Mac at home a few years ago, I found a wealth of guidance on there. I don't read every post, but it's definitely worth checking in once or week or so. Or, if - like my colleague on the desk next to me - you need to find out how to extend the battery life of your iPhone (or whatever), it's a good place to check out (if a link comes up on your Google results).

Half-term help is here

Half-term for Bedfordshire schools falls during the week beginning 17th February this year. Like last term, the Academic Liaison Librarians supporting Education, Sport and PE will be running optional workshops in Bedford. We've had a lot of referencing queries this term so far, so we've added a new session this time around.

• Using DISCOVER
• Going beyond DISCOVER
• Referencing clinic
• Getting started with RefWorks

Computers will be available at all the sessions but you are welcome to bring your own device as well. This is particularly recommended if you would like help installing RefWork's Write-N-Cite tool to MS Word on your laptop, or if you've any problems accessing the Digital Library resources on your laptop/tablet.

Details about where and when are on the What's On calendar on lrweb.beds.ac.uk.

Mathematical Association now on COPAC

When, I say now, I really mean they did it in August but this blog didn't exist then so...that's my excuse for only mentioning it now.

The Mathematical Association started in 1871 with the fantastic name of the Association for the Improvement of Geometrical Teaching but it is still going. The University takes many of their publications. The University of Leicester's Library houses the MA's full collection which goes back to a 1533 copy of Euclid's Elements [shown here].

You can discover what's in the collection by checking COPAC's online catalogue: http://copac.ac.uk/. This includes the holdings of over 70 British and Irish academic and special libraries.

The University of Leicester, like almost all HE libraries, belongs to the SCONUL Access scheme. So, students of UoB can apply for a SCONUL card for Leicester. Depending on what kind of course you get, you'll qualify for different types of membership.

Spot the difference

Over Christmas, Bedford campus has lost the towering chimney to make way for new buildings. With some spectacular wrangling and wrecking by people in hard hats.  Don't fret: the accommodation tower block is still standing so you can still find your way to campus from all angles in Bedford.

 

This was the first Christamas season since the library went 24/365 and four students were in on Christmas day (and there were people around on the other days too.) The campus is back-to-life now and the library is staffed again so if you've got queries about referencing or finding literature for your assignments, we're around.