Tuesday, April 17, 2012

ICPSR summer workshops at UC Berkeley

As part of Armacost Library's subscription to the ICPSR database of social science data sets, students and faculty at the University of Redlands are eligible to apply for summer workshops in quantitative research methods. This summer, two workshops will be held at UC Berkeley. Here's more information from ICPSR:

UC DATA is proud to be the local host for ICPSR Summer Workshops at UC Berkeley.

Two workshops are being offered:

Causal Inference in the Social Sciences: Matching, Propensity Scores and Other Strategies

Dominik Hangartner, London School of Economics

Marco Steenbergen, University of Bern

July 9 – 13, 2012 (5-day workshop)

This course provides an introduction to statistical methods used for causal inference in the social sciences. Using the potential outcomes framework of causality, we discuss designs and methods for data from randomized experiments and observational studies. In particular, the designs and methods covered in the course include (propensity score) matching, instrumental variables, difference-in-difference, synthetic control, and regression discontinuity. Examples are drawn from across the social science disciplines

The R Statistical Computing Environments: The Basics and Beyond

John Fox, McMaster University

August 6 - 9, 2012 (4-day workshop)

The goal of this four-day workshop is to introduce R and R programming. Each day will combine five to six hours of lectures and demonstrations with two to three hours of hands-on labs. We will begin with a basic overview of, and introduction to, R including statistical modeling - in effect, using R as a statistical package. After that, the workshop picks up where the basic material leaves off, and provides the background required to use R seriously for sophisticated data analysis and presentation. Topics to be covered in the workshop include an introduction to R programming, the design of custom statistical graphs, and unlocking the power of the R statistical programming environment.

More information and registration is at : http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/sumprog/

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Scenes from the ALURA Reception

Dr. John Glover, Bill Kennedy, Dr. James Sandos, Dr. Matthew Raffety, and Dr. Katherine Baber listen to ALURA recipient Bernadette Magallanes talk about her research.

Janelle Julagay, Director of the Library Gabriela Sonntag, and Bernadette Magallanes' parents listen to Dr. John Glover talk about the research process.

ALURA recipient, Bernadette Magallanes, pictured with her faculty advisers John Glover, Matthew Raffety, and Jim Sandos.

Jeff Martinez, Director of Physical Education and Athletics, pictured with ALURA recipient Bernadette Magallanes. Bernadette is a veteran sprinter on the Track & Field team.

Bernadette with members of the ALURA Selection Committee: Paige Mann (Librarian), Katherine Baber (School of Music), Janelle Julagay (Librarian), and Shana Higgins (Librarian).

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Ebsco database access restored

Ebsco announced that they have fixed their system issues, and you should now be able to log in to all databases offered through EbscoHost. When I tested access from my office, I was able to log in successfully, though a couple of my login attempts timed out. Please let our reference desk know if you are still having trouble logging in to Ebsco databases.

Ebsco's president, Tim Collins, sent a letter of apology to users via email this morning. "We have obviously not performed at the level we desire in the past 24 hours," he acknowledged. "At this point, we can only apologize for the inconvenience caused by the outage and assure you that we will be doing a thorough analysis of the situation to identify root cause/s of the problem so that we can make the necessary improvements to insure that this does not occur again. We have already begun this process."


Best regards,
Sanjeet Mann
Electronic Resources Librarian
Armacost Library

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Ebsco database outage

The blank white screen you may be getting this morning when trying to connect to an Ebsco database is NOT a new interface upgrade! :) This is a known error that has cropped up with Ebsco's database products and Ebsco tech support has informed me that they are working to fix the problem. I'll provide an update as soon as it is fixed.

In the meantime, contact our reference desk by phone at (909) 748-8878, by email at reference@redlands.edu, or by instant message (redlandsreference) and we will help you find alternative resources you can use.

Sanjeet Mann
Electronic Resources Librarian
Armacost Library

Celebrate Undergraduate Research @ ALURA Reception

The ALURA Selection Committee would like to announce and congratulate Bernadette Magallanes on being selected as the 2012 recipient of the Armacost Library Undergraduate Research Award for her chapter titled "The Mineral Revolution" from her thesis project titled “And Then There Were None: A Comparative Analysis of Anglophone Displacement of Indigenous Populations in California and South Africa.” Her faculty sponsor was Dr. John Glover, History Department.

The ALURA Selection Committee would also like to announce and congratulate Stephanie Grasso for an honorable mention for her paper, “Predictors of Language Growth in Young Bilingual Children.” Her faculty sponsor was Dr. Barbara Conboy, Department of Communicative Disorders.

Join us on Monday, April 2, 4:00-5:30pm for a reception in the Old Redlands Room (Library, 3rd Floor, South). We have asked Bernadette Magallanes and Dr. Glover to talk a bit about their research processes. We'd like to invite others to share about their research processes as well.

For more information, please contact Shana Higgins (shana_higgins@redlands.edu).

Friday, March 23, 2012

Short Article Linker downtime on Saturday afternoon

Dear weekend researchers,

I've just learned that our systems vendor Serials Solutions will be performing maintenance on their systems tomorrow, Saturday March 24, from 5 to 6 pm, in order to perform a system upgrade.

This means the following services will be unavailable during that hour:
Citation Finder
Index of Full Text Journals
Article Linker (links to get full text in library databases)

If all goes well, service will be restored by 6 pm and you should be able to continue your article linking and full-text-finding as normal.

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Berkeley new music concert to honor Barney Childs next week

The new music series Tuesdays at Tom's Place will host two nights of music by the late University of Redlands professor Barney Childs next Wednesday, March 28 and Thursday, March 29 in Berkeley, CA.

Works scheduled for performance span the range of Childs' career, which included stops at the University of Arizona, Deep Springs College, and the Wisconsin College Conservatory before he arrived at the University of Redlands in 1971. Childs served the University as Composer-in-Residence, taught in Johnston College and the College of Arts and Sciences, was actively involved with the New Music Ensemble and co-edited Contemporary Composers on Contemporary Music, an influential anthology of compositional trends in the late twentieth century. Before he died in 2000 of Parkinson's disease, Childs willed his collection of letters, documents, concert programs and over 140 manuscript scores to Armacost Library.

Tuesdays at Tom's Place takes place at the home of Tom Duff, a Berkeley programmer and music enthusiast who seeks to present "contemporary art music, mostly improvised, in a living room setting," including "anything that surprises and delights us." The music of Barney Childs fits right in, and it's great to see it performed in such a convivial venue.

For more information about Barney Childs, visit the Barney Childs collection website.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

ScienceDirect journal downtime on Saturday

Weekend researchers, be forewarned that five Armacost Library journals will be unavailable on Saturday, March 17 while the journal provider, Elsevier, undergoes an update to their ScienceDirect platform:

Ecological Modeling

Evolution and Human Behavior

Historia Mathematica

Personality and Individual Differences

Journal of Communication Disorders

The downtime will be between 5:30 AM and 6:30 PM PST only. For more information read this press release on the Elsevier website.

Friday, March 09, 2012

A Glimpse of the Future

Toward the end of April, we'll be launching a library catalog ripe with change. We're so excited, we thought you'd like a sneak peak. Take a look and tell us what you think. New features include book cover displays, the ability to create reading lists, rate items, find similar items, and more.

Stay tuned for more!

Patron record and ILLIAD login problems resolved

Dear Armacost Library users,

I'm happy to report that the problems involving patron record logins and ILLIAD authentication appear to be resolved. This morning, I uncovered a systems setting error in ILLIAD and corrected it. Thanks to OCLC technical support, University of Redlands ITS and our own library staff for collaborating to fix these problems! If you have been experiencing problems logging in to your patron record, electronic course reserves, the proxy server or ILLIAD, please try again and let me know about any further problems you encounter.

Best regards,
Sanjeet Mann
Electronic Resources Librarian
(909) 748-8051
sanjeet_mann@redlands.edu

Monday, March 05, 2012

Login problems affecting databases and interlibrary loan

We are currently tracking two problems affecting logins to databases from off campus and to ILLIAD, our interlibrary loan system, and I'm writing to provide an update on our efforts to fix them.

Late Saturday afternoon, we started to receive reports that students were not able to log in to databases through the proxy server. On Monday morning, we traced the problem to errors in login names in the library database of patron records, and globally replaced the erroneous information. I believe this has solved the problem, but please contact the library at reference@redlands.edu or (909) 748-8022 if you are still unable to log in to databases.

A separate problem arose Monday morning after an upgrade to our ILLIAD interlibrary loan software had unexpected consequences for the login page. The page is displaying a "username not found in database" error whenever anyone tries to log in, even though they have valid patron records in our interlibrary loan system. I am consulting with technical staff at OCLC, the vendor that supports this system, in order to get the login page updated. I anticipate the problem should be resolved by Tuesday afternoon. If you need to place an urgent request before then, we will accept requests through email at interlibrary_loan@redlands.edu until the problem is resolved.

I will post an update as soon as these problems have been resolved. In the meantime, I apologize for the inconvenience these outages have caused and hope to have them fixed soon!

Best regards,
Sanjeet Mann
Electronic Resources Librarian
University of Redlands

Monday, February 20, 2012

Registration open for 2012 ICPSR summer program

As you may know, Armacost Library subscribes to ICPSR, a repository of primary source data and resources on conducting, preserving and teaching research using social sciences methods.

One of our membership benefits is that you can apply for the annual Summer Program in Quantitative Methods of Social Research. Two four-week sessions will be held in July and August in Ann Arbor, MI, and three-to-five day workshops will be held in a variety of locations across the country, including Berkeley, CA. Scholarships are available through ICPSR with an April 30 application deadline.

See the full text of ICPSR's announcement below and view the ICPSR website for more details:

Registration for the 2012 ICPSR Summer Program in Quantitative Methods of Social Research is now open! This year’s Program includes 78 courses, 41 in the two four-week sessions, and 37 short workshops. Further detailed information about the 2012 ICPSR Summer Program, including course descriptions, schedule, faculty, registration instructions, and fee structure, is available on our website:

http://icpsr.umich.edu/sumprog/

Registration for courses in the 2012 Summer Program is very easy. Just go to the online portal (located on the “Registration & Fees” page of the Summer Program website), log in to your ICPSR MyData account (if you do not have an existing MyData account, you will be prompted to create one), enter your personal information, select your courses, and make arrangements for payment. That’s all there is to it!

Please feel free to contact us with any further questions you might have about any aspect of the 2012 ICPSR Summer Program (e-mail: sumprog@icpsr.umich.edu; phone: 734-763-7400). We look forward to seeing you in Ann Arbor, or at one of our other course locations this summer!

Bill Jacoby

Director, ICPSR Summer Program and Professor, Political Science, Michigan State University

Dieter Burrell

Assistant Director, ICPSR Summer Program

Sunday, February 05, 2012

Update - Possible fix for Hoovers outage?

I have received an updated access URL to Hoovers Online from their new vendor (Mergent) and we have posted it on the library website under Databases by Subject and Databases by Title. If you've been having trouble accessing Hoovers recently, please try refreshing your browser's cache and try entering Hoovers again. If you are still unable to access Hoovers, please contact the reference desk at (909) 748-8878 or email the reference desk to let us know.

Thanks,
Sanjeet Mann
Electronic Resources Librarian

Thursday, February 02, 2012

World Book Night 2012 Giver Applic Deadline Extended to Monday, Feb. 6th!

There is still time to turn in an application to be a WBN book giver! Consider applying before the Feb. 6th midnight deadline.

For those who have already submitted an application, news of your status should arrive at the email address you provided shortly, if it hasn't arrived already. Be sure to check your spam folder. If you've recently submitted an application, hang tight. The WBN reviewers should get to your application really soon.

Around mid-February, you should receive another email asking you to select a pick-up bookstore or library. Armacost Library should be on that list!

For further assistance, please contact Melissa Cardenas-Dow at Armacost Library: 909.748.8089 or melissa_cardenasdow@redlands.edu.

Wednesday, February 01, 2012

Hoovers outage

We are experiencing problems with the Hoovers Online database of business information. Instead of allowing seamless access from on campus (or off campus through the campus MyRedlands logon), the database is asking for a username and password.

We are currently investigating the issue with Hoovers technical support and will post an update here as soon as the problem is resolved. In the meantime, our librarians will gladly help you find alternative sources of information such as company profiles, market share or industry comparisons that are normally found in Hoovers. Visit the library reference desk, call us at (909) 748-8878 or email or instant message reference@redlands.edu for assistance.

Best regards,
Sanjeet Mann
Electronic Resources Librarian
Armacost Library

Friday, January 27, 2012

Upcoming Database Changes

On Wednesday, February 1, the following databases will experience a makeover.


  • Art Full-Text
  • Book Review Digest Plus
  • Education Index Retrospective
  • ERIC
  • OmniFile Full Text Mega

Resulting from a business merger, these databases will adopt characteristics of the acquiring company. While the database content will largely remain the same, item descriptions, features, and search options may differ. For example, the subject headings assigned to items appear to have been preserved for most, but not all items. Another difference can be seen in the way default searches are handled. As of 1/27/2012, entering the search term "minorities" in ERIC and immediately initiating the search will yield 12,771 results under the retired system and 41,365 results under the new system. Highlighted below are a few more changes.

  • Art Full-Text will provide more visual content
  • Book Review Digest Plus offers additional search options to find similar books and books written by the same author
  • iPhone and Android apps are available, and
  • Icons are used to help researchers distinguish between the different types of publications
For more information, please contact a librarian.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Armacost Library Registered to be a Pick-Up Location for World Book Night-USA 2012

This year, World Book Night comes to the United States for the first time. Armacost Library is supporting this international effort to promote the love of reading. We signed up to be a pick-up location for community members of the University of Redlands and the City of Redlands. We hope faculty, students, staff and administrators of University of Redlands will sign-up to participate.

What is World Book Night?
WBN-USA is an international event that promotes literacy and the joys of reading among teens and adults. It is predicated on the idea of individual volunteers going out into their own communities and sharing copies of a text they had previously read and loved. Intended recipients of WBN editions are, ideally, new or light readers or individuals with limited access to books. WBN-USA book giver volunteers will receive 20 copies of a title they have selected. They will then pick up these books at a pick-up location they select and go out into their communities to distribute them on (or around) April 23rd. It will occur in the US, the UK, and Ireland on this same day.

Interested in volunteering to be a WBN giver?
Great! There is a sign-up process and some terms and conditions. Application sign-ups need to be submitted to WBN by February 1st. Notifications will go out in mid-February. April 23rd, the actual date volunteers go out to distribute books, falls during May term break for CAS students at University of Redlands. Because of this, here are a few helpful tips to keep in mind.

  • Think about where you will be on April 23rd and plan to give out books in that city. You will be asked to provide a mailing and an email address in the online application. The mailing address will help WBN organizers optimize selecting possible pick-up locations for you to consider. The email address is needed to notify you if your application has been approved or not, which book title you will receive, and how to select your pick-up location. Of course, you can still select Armacost Library as your pick-up location and give out books in the city of Redlands before you travel.
  • Think about where you will go to hand out books and why. You will also be asked questions about the location/s at which you intend to distribute books, to whom, and why. WBN will use the answers to these questions to select applicants. While community centers are great places to consider, WBN also suggests distributing books at coffee shops, bus stops, commuter trains, malls, churches, and  hospitals. Do select locations other than libraries.
  • Select books that you have personally read already. WBN has a list of 30 titles from which would-be volunteers can choose 3 books. Should WBN choose you as a book giver, they will select one of the titles you indicated in your application and mail 20 copies of that title to your designated pick-up location. The point of the program is to enable givers to say to a giftee, “I read this book and I really loved it. I think you may enjoy it, too.”
  • Attend the WBN party hosted by Campus Diversity & Inclusion and Armacost Library on April 16, 2012! This will be a good time for Redlands WBN givers to meet other givers, ask questions about WBN’s process, and pick up the books you have signed up to distribute on April 23rd. Exact location and time is yet to be determined. Light refreshments will be provided. Stay tuned!
Have questions? For more information, please visit the WBN-USA website or contact Melissa Cardenas-Dow at 909.748.8089.

Friday, December 23, 2011

A New Look for the New Year!


To develop a consistent look & feel for the library website, we've made a few changes. To see what we've been up to, use the following and tell us what you think. Stay tuned for more!



Wednesday, November 02, 2011

Art @ Armacost Library: Introduction to Sculpture


Armacost Library is very happy to have student art work showcased in our lobby's display areas! Thanks go out to Professor Renee Azenaro's fall 2011 course, Introduction to Sculpture, for loaning us their wonderful pieces. The image shown on this blog does not do the work justice.

The sculpture pieces may be viewed during the hours Armacost Library is open. The pieces will be up for viewing from now till the end of November.

The students and Professor Azenaro will also be holding an art show reception on Tuesday, November 8, 2011, from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. Light refreshments will be provided.

Banned Books Week 2011: Winner of our raffle!

Thanks and congratulations go out to Jennifer Rowlett, University of Redlands class of 2014! Jennifer is the lucky winner of Armacost Library's first BBW raffle. She suggested the book Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes, which will be added to our collection in her honor.


Jennifer is a creative writing major and heard about our Banned Books Week celebration and raffle through Professor Joy Manesiotis's poetry class.

Some more words about banned books and controversial literature from Jennifer:
"Banned books are a vital part of our literary world. How would the people of our society build ideas and opinions if their ideas and opinions were already built for them? Individualism and freedom would be stifled if banned books were to stay banned. I am very happy to see that our library is preventing this by promoting banned books. I am proud to say I read banned books. Do you?"
Thank you, Jennifer!