Sunday, October 31, 2010
Happy Halloween!
Here is a treat from Armacost Library's collection! It is a cartoon from the October 31, 1949 issue of the Redlands Daily Facts, our local newspaper. Enjoy, and have a spooky Halloween!
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Open Access week in review
Thanks to all of you who attended Kevin Driscoll's talk last Monday night at the Casa Loma Room, stopped by one of our information tables, attended the Ubuntu Launch Party, or otherwise participated in our celebration of Open Access Week 2010.
For a look at what other universities did to commemorate the occasion, here's Heather Joseph and Jennifer McClennan's letter reposted from their blog on Open Access:
http://www.openaccessweek.org/profiles/blogs/the-conclusion-of-open-access
<<
The largest, most successful International Open Access Week yet has just come to a close. With just under 900 participants in 94 countries, this year’s event was no less than three times larger than it was just a year ago. Hundreds of videos, photos, blog posts, and more were released to promote and highlight the benefits of Open Access to research and take the conversation even more deeply into the research community – and they absolutely did.
We could celebrate the week as a success in numbers like these alone, but the numbers really only tell part of the story.
The increase in diversity of participants is even more telling. Started as a student-driven event in 2007 with support from SPARC and the library community, Open Access Day was at first a library-centric affair. Having grown in recognition and participation every year since, in 2010 we truly began to make deep inroads into the academy.
The student stake in the conversation on access continues to grow more firm, but this year participants from the academy – including humanists, climate change scientists, provosts, research funders, Nobelists, and lawyers – really took advantage of the occasion to share their insights on how Open Access has had an impact on their work and lives.
Nobel prize-winning scientist and director of the U.S. National Cancer Institute Dr. Harold Varmus participated in the official OA Week kick-off event, saying, with respect to where open-access publishing has reached and what’s now possible: “All of these adventures are tremendously exciting because they markedly enrich the experience of being a scientist, of reading the work of others, and of exchanging views with others in the scientific community.” Dr. Varmus’s comments are online at http://vimeo.com/15881200.
In his video, Dr. Nico Sommerdijk, associate professor of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry at the Dutch Eindhoven University of Technology, expresses a need for moving beyond traditional publishing approaches to share data. He made his research data openly available so that now, “Everybody can access [the data set] directly with one click of your computer mouse. People may use the same data set for things that we were not looking for and so generate new science with the same scientific data set.” (http://www.openaccessweek.org/video/open-access-of-data-generates)
The stories that were shared are inspiring, but so was the creativity of the delivery.
In Portugal, the Polytechnic Institute of Santarém held a portion of their Open Access Week program in Second Life. (http://www.openaccessweek.org/xn/detail/5385115:Event:9662?xg_source=activity)
Students at Boston University made a video to illustrate that studying without access to the resources you need is like having half a sock to wear, half a hotdog to eat, or half a book to read (http://www.openaccessweek.org/video/open-access).
And, in Open Families (http://www.arl.org/sparc/openaccess/openfamilies), scientists relate in personal and compelling terms how Open Access to the research and data they produce, as well as that produced by others, is not just a professional cause for them but a family affair.
All these contributions to the conversation – in writing, photo, and video – are a fantastic resource that will help us all to continue the conversation over the course of the year and beyond, and are a sure sign of the growing momentum behind Open Access Week. Of course, the growing size and power of the global network also continues to impress.
Open Access Week 2010 was also a great reminder to us of the work and opportunities that lie ahead. We’ve isolated a need to dig deeper into the academy and find ways to meet faculty on their own terms – to find ways to bring Open Access Week, so to speak, to campus every day of the year. While we’ve made crucial advances, we’ve only just started to make the inroads needed to engage the community of scholars and researchers.
We’ve made fantastic progress, with awareness-raising around Week and with advancing Open Access as a new norm in scholarship. Congratulations to every single person who worked so hard to ensure the success of the event – locally, regionally, nationally, and globally. And, thank you.
SPARC also extends special thanks to the members of the 2010 Open Access Week program advisers (http://www.openaccessweek.org/group/programadvisers), SPARC members (http://www.arl.org/sparc/member), and everyone we’ve had the pleasure in working with this year. Thank you.
Naturally, there’s more to come. Watch for more OA Week round-up materials from SPARC, including more videos, throughout the week. And, course, there’s Open Access Week 2011 to look forward to! We'll look forward to seeing you at www.openaccessweek.org then.
Warm wishes,
Heather Joseph, Executive Director
Jennifer McLennan, Program Director for Open Access Week
>>
For a look at what other universities did to commemorate the occasion, here's Heather Joseph and Jennifer McClennan's letter reposted from their blog on Open Access:
http://www.openaccessweek.org/profiles/blogs/the-conclusion-of-open-access
<<
The largest, most successful International Open Access Week yet has just come to a close. With just under 900 participants in 94 countries, this year’s event was no less than three times larger than it was just a year ago. Hundreds of videos, photos, blog posts, and more were released to promote and highlight the benefits of Open Access to research and take the conversation even more deeply into the research community – and they absolutely did.
We could celebrate the week as a success in numbers like these alone, but the numbers really only tell part of the story.
The increase in diversity of participants is even more telling. Started as a student-driven event in 2007 with support from SPARC and the library community, Open Access Day was at first a library-centric affair. Having grown in recognition and participation every year since, in 2010 we truly began to make deep inroads into the academy.
The student stake in the conversation on access continues to grow more firm, but this year participants from the academy – including humanists, climate change scientists, provosts, research funders, Nobelists, and lawyers – really took advantage of the occasion to share their insights on how Open Access has had an impact on their work and lives.
Nobel prize-winning scientist and director of the U.S. National Cancer Institute Dr. Harold Varmus participated in the official OA Week kick-off event, saying, with respect to where open-access publishing has reached and what’s now possible: “All of these adventures are tremendously exciting because they markedly enrich the experience of being a scientist, of reading the work of others, and of exchanging views with others in the scientific community.” Dr. Varmus’s comments are online at http://vimeo.com/15881200.
In his video, Dr. Nico Sommerdijk, associate professor of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry at the Dutch Eindhoven University of Technology, expresses a need for moving beyond traditional publishing approaches to share data. He made his research data openly available so that now, “Everybody can access [the data set] directly with one click of your computer mouse. People may use the same data set for things that we were not looking for and so generate new science with the same scientific data set.” (http://www.openaccessweek.org/video/open-access-of-data-generates)
The stories that were shared are inspiring, but so was the creativity of the delivery.
In Portugal, the Polytechnic Institute of Santarém held a portion of their Open Access Week program in Second Life. (http://www.openaccessweek.org/xn/detail/5385115:Event:9662?xg_source=activity)
Students at Boston University made a video to illustrate that studying without access to the resources you need is like having half a sock to wear, half a hotdog to eat, or half a book to read (http://www.openaccessweek.org/video/open-access).
And, in Open Families (http://www.arl.org/sparc/openaccess/openfamilies), scientists relate in personal and compelling terms how Open Access to the research and data they produce, as well as that produced by others, is not just a professional cause for them but a family affair.
All these contributions to the conversation – in writing, photo, and video – are a fantastic resource that will help us all to continue the conversation over the course of the year and beyond, and are a sure sign of the growing momentum behind Open Access Week. Of course, the growing size and power of the global network also continues to impress.
Open Access Week 2010 was also a great reminder to us of the work and opportunities that lie ahead. We’ve isolated a need to dig deeper into the academy and find ways to meet faculty on their own terms – to find ways to bring Open Access Week, so to speak, to campus every day of the year. While we’ve made crucial advances, we’ve only just started to make the inroads needed to engage the community of scholars and researchers.
We’ve made fantastic progress, with awareness-raising around Week and with advancing Open Access as a new norm in scholarship. Congratulations to every single person who worked so hard to ensure the success of the event – locally, regionally, nationally, and globally. And, thank you.
SPARC also extends special thanks to the members of the 2010 Open Access Week program advisers (http://www.openaccessweek.org/group/programadvisers), SPARC members (http://www.arl.org/sparc/member), and everyone we’ve had the pleasure in working with this year. Thank you.
Naturally, there’s more to come. Watch for more OA Week round-up materials from SPARC, including more videos, throughout the week. And, course, there’s Open Access Week 2011 to look forward to! We'll look forward to seeing you at www.openaccessweek.org then.
Warm wishes,
Heather Joseph, Executive Director
Jennifer McLennan, Program Director for Open Access Week
>>
Monday, October 25, 2010
Database tip - advanced searching in EbscoHost databases
Did you know you can use advanced search commands in the library's EbscoHost databases, including Business Source Elite, ATLA, and Education Research Complete?
Each type of search (author, title, subject headings, company name, etc.) has a two letter "search tag" that allows you to search the database through that particular type of access. To run a search, type the search tag in ALL CAPS, followed by the equals sign and your search phrase in quotations.
Each database offers a slightly different set of search tags. They are listed in that database's help file and in the drop down menu in Advanced Search (see picture above). For example, the tag to search by author in Business Source Elite is AU, by title is TI, by subject is SU, etc.
The search tags could be useful when you want to use Boolean searching (AND, OR, NOT) to narrow or expand your result set.
For example, suppose you are looking at the impact of technology on outsourcing from a managerial perspective, and have identified several search terms relevant to your topic. To find articles at the intersection of these subject headings, you could try:
SU="business process outsourcing" AND SU="information technology" AND SU="management"
To run a search for articles on the Pepsi or Coca-Cola soft drink companies published in the Wall Street Journal, you could try:
(CO="Pepsico Inc" OR CO="COCA-Cola Enterprises Inc.") AND SO="Wall Street Journal"
The parentheses here are important - they ensure that the AND operator is applied to both Coke and Pepsi, instead of just to Coke.
At this point, you may be wondering, how did I know what terms to search for in quotes? In part two of this post, I'll share some tips on how to use a database to identify the "authoritative" term to use when searching for a company, subject heading, person, etc.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Open Access week continues...
Stop by the Open Access table during lunch hour today to pick up pins, pens, stickers and CDs from UOR Open Sound, and get your questions answered about Open Access!
Thursday, October 21
Naslund Study Lounge, inside Jones Computing Center
12:00 pm to 1:30 pm
Librarians: Bill Kennedy and Melissa Cardenas-Dow
Take a look at our slideshow on Openaccessweek.org:
Find more photos like this on Open Access Week
Thursday, October 21
Naslund Study Lounge, inside Jones Computing Center
12:00 pm to 1:30 pm
Librarians: Bill Kennedy and Melissa Cardenas-Dow
Take a look at our slideshow on Openaccessweek.org:
Find more photos like this on Open Access Week
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Open access resources at the University of Redlands
On this second day of Open Access Week we're turning the spotlight on a couple tools you can use to tap into the universe of open access scholarly publishing.
Open access is commonly considered to have two "roads" for you to take as a researcher looking for a way to access the literature.
The "green road" of institutional repositories contains texts and other resources that scholars post themselves, often on a website or in an institutional repository.
The "gold road" of open access journals mimics the for-profit journals that Armacost Library subscribes to, often including rigorous peer review. Funding mechanisms vary, including - but NOT limited to - fees paid by authors or their home campus.
With that in mind, here are the tools:
The Directory of Open Access Journals (http://www.doaj.org/) lists over 5,000 open access journals. You can browse the journals across 17 subject areas to find a journal covering the field you are studying, or search the articles by keyword. This resource is useful when you are looking for open access journals to publish in, or to browse through, and you don't know the journal by name already.
DOAJ is also part of the library's Index List of Full Text Journals, available from the right side of the library home page. If you search for a journal by title and it happens to be an open access journal, chances are that access will be listed through the Directory of Open Access Journals or Freely Available Journals collections.
The Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (BASE) will soon make its appearance in our list of databases by title. This resource is hosted by a European research library and allows you to search at the item level through over 1700 content providers, including open access journals as well as institutional repositories and digital collections. Several content providers index non-textual materials as well. Preliminary testing shows it is even useful at retrieving those elusive theses and dissertations hosted in campus repositories. Give it a try and let us know what you think!
Open access is commonly considered to have two "roads" for you to take as a researcher looking for a way to access the literature.
The "green road" of institutional repositories contains texts and other resources that scholars post themselves, often on a website or in an institutional repository.
The "gold road" of open access journals mimics the for-profit journals that Armacost Library subscribes to, often including rigorous peer review. Funding mechanisms vary, including - but NOT limited to - fees paid by authors or their home campus.
With that in mind, here are the tools:
The Directory of Open Access Journals (http://www.doaj.org/) lists over 5,000 open access journals. You can browse the journals across 17 subject areas to find a journal covering the field you are studying, or search the articles by keyword. This resource is useful when you are looking for open access journals to publish in, or to browse through, and you don't know the journal by name already.
DOAJ is also part of the library's Index List of Full Text Journals, available from the right side of the library home page. If you search for a journal by title and it happens to be an open access journal, chances are that access will be listed through the Directory of Open Access Journals or Freely Available Journals collections.
The Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (BASE) will soon make its appearance in our list of databases by title. This resource is hosted by a European research library and allows you to search at the item level through over 1700 content providers, including open access journals as well as institutional repositories and digital collections. Several content providers index non-textual materials as well. Preliminary testing shows it is even useful at retrieving those elusive theses and dissertations hosted in campus repositories. Give it a try and let us know what you think!
Monday, October 18, 2010
Open Access Week at University of Redlands
This week the University of Redlands joins many academic institutions around the world in celebrating Open Access Week from October 18-22. This event brings together a diverse coalition of students, faculty, researchers and other global citizens interested in promoting equitable access to scholarly information.
Access to scholarly journals and articles is a major focus of Open Access Week, and rightly so. But Open Access, and the innovation it makes possible, has broader implications for our society beyond the halls of academia, as the events we've scheduled this week make clear.
At tonight's keynote lecture, DJ, activist, Students for Free Culture board member and USC Annenberg School graduate student Kevin Driscoll spoke to the UoR community in the Casa Loma Room about intersections between the Free Culture movement and Open Access. We'll post more information about the event here for those who had to miss it.
SPARC, a Washington-based international library alliance, has put together a short video introduction to Open Access Week and the Open Access (OA) movement, featuring several renowned scientists including Dr. Harold Varmus. Take a look!
Are you curious about the OA movement now? Want to know how you can put the power of Open Access to work in your own research, scholarship or everyday information-seeking? Stop by the Open Access Week booth during lunch hour and talk with our librarians.
Wondering how open source software fits in with all of this? Attend the Ubuntu 10.10 Launch Party hosted by Mark Holmquist in CLS 99, Jones Computing Center this Thursday, October 21 from 12-6 pm to find out.
Keep watching this blog for more information on the Open Access movement throughout the week!
Access to scholarly journals and articles is a major focus of Open Access Week, and rightly so. But Open Access, and the innovation it makes possible, has broader implications for our society beyond the halls of academia, as the events we've scheduled this week make clear.
At tonight's keynote lecture, DJ, activist, Students for Free Culture board member and USC Annenberg School graduate student Kevin Driscoll spoke to the UoR community in the Casa Loma Room about intersections between the Free Culture movement and Open Access. We'll post more information about the event here for those who had to miss it.
SPARC, a Washington-based international library alliance, has put together a short video introduction to Open Access Week and the Open Access (OA) movement, featuring several renowned scientists including Dr. Harold Varmus. Take a look!
Open Access Week 2010 from SPARC on Vimeo.
Are you curious about the OA movement now? Want to know how you can put the power of Open Access to work in your own research, scholarship or everyday information-seeking? Stop by the Open Access Week booth during lunch hour and talk with our librarians.
Wondering how open source software fits in with all of this? Attend the Ubuntu 10.10 Launch Party hosted by Mark Holmquist in CLS 99, Jones Computing Center this Thursday, October 21 from 12-6 pm to find out.
Keep watching this blog for more information on the Open Access movement throughout the week!
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Omnifile access restored
UPDATE: As of Monday, October 18, our Omnifile access appears to be working normally.
We discovered a problem with our Wilson Omnifile database preventing access from off campus. The link from the library lists of databases by subject and title (http://80-hwwilsonweb.com.library.uor.edu/) took a long time to resolve. Finally, it returned a "Bad Gateway" error message.
We're sorry for any inconvenience this caused you.
Thanks,
Sanjeet Mann
Electronic Resources Librarian
Armacost Library
We discovered a problem with our Wilson Omnifile database preventing access from off campus. The link from the library lists of databases by subject and title (http://80-hwwilsonweb.com.library.uor.edu/) took a long time to resolve. Finally, it returned a "Bad Gateway" error message.
We're sorry for any inconvenience this caused you.
Thanks,
Sanjeet Mann
Electronic Resources Librarian
Armacost Library
Monday, October 11, 2010
UoR Open Sound 2010: Votes Are In!
The UoR Open Sound 2010 poll has closed. See below for results.
A big “thank you” to all those who participated! We will now burn the selections made onto CDs that we will be distributing during Open Access Week, starting Monday, October 18th. Look for them at Armacost Library’s circulation desk, the Fletcher Jones Foundation Computer Center main lab, the Campus Diversity and Inclusion main offices, and the information tables Armacost Library will have around Hunsaker Plaza during Open Access Week. CDs will be available only while supplies last, of course.
And...on Monday, October 18th, 7-9 p.m. at the Casa Loma Room, CDI, Armacost Library and ITS will be hosting a talk by Kevin Driscoll. Kevin is a board member of Students For Free Culture. He will speak about Open Access, Free Culture and why these issues matter to us all, especially undergrads. We hope to see you there!
A big “thank you” to all those who participated! We will now burn the selections made onto CDs that we will be distributing during Open Access Week, starting Monday, October 18th. Look for them at Armacost Library’s circulation desk, the Fletcher Jones Foundation Computer Center main lab, the Campus Diversity and Inclusion main offices, and the information tables Armacost Library will have around Hunsaker Plaza during Open Access Week. CDs will be available only while supplies last, of course.
And...on Monday, October 18th, 7-9 p.m. at the Casa Loma Room, CDI, Armacost Library and ITS will be hosting a talk by Kevin Driscoll. Kevin is a board member of Students For Free Culture. He will speak about Open Access, Free Culture and why these issues matter to us all, especially undergrads. We hope to see you there!
Wednesday, October 06, 2010
So…where did they go?
Maybe you noticed. Or maybe you didn’t. The tracks provided to us by UoR student band Overeasy were withdrawn last week. Why? Well, there are a number of reasons.
1) Creative Commons, Free Culture and Open Access are newer concepts of understanding ownership and authorship, so can be difficult to grasp.
2) Free Culture and Open Access is all about creators having control over their creations. Not someone else.
Armacost Library realizes and honors both of these points.
And chief among the rights artists and creators should retain, we believe, is the right to decide what they want to happen with their work. Overeasy made the brave and honorable decision to take the time necessary to understand Creative Commons copyright before committing them to Open Access.
1) Creative Commons, Free Culture and Open Access are newer concepts of understanding ownership and authorship, so can be difficult to grasp.
2) Free Culture and Open Access is all about creators having control over their creations. Not someone else.
Armacost Library realizes and honors both of these points.
And chief among the rights artists and creators should retain, we believe, is the right to decide what they want to happen with their work. Overeasy made the brave and honorable decision to take the time necessary to understand Creative Commons copyright before committing them to Open Access.
Tuesday, October 05, 2010
California Library Snapshot Day 2010
This week the library will be participating in a state-wide event, the California Library Snapshot Day. Academic, public, and special libraries all over California will be collecting photos and feedback from their patrons to capture life at the library.
Please come in to Armacost Library anytime this week to let us know what the library means to you, and we will welcome your digital photographs expressing the same. Click!
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