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.