Today we have officially renumbered all the floors in the Univ. Library. We had to. You will enter the new building (when its done) on the first floor. Makes sense. The ground Floor in the old building from now on is the First floor; the Reference floor is the Second, Current Gov. Docs desk is on Three and the top floor is now the Fourth. (Which is where the ref. desk is till sometime in January.) The library staff will need time to adjust all the signs, handouts and mostly our minds! Bear with us.

Here's a nice, simply-stated article about online piracy/sharing issues with which I want to leave 2002. Piracy is Progressive Taxation, and Other Thoughts on the Evolution of Online Distribution

A good book is the most thoughtful gift! Have a happy and peaceful holiday. JS

Blog will be back Jan. 6th, 2003

Factoid:
"Google Future Plans
December 04, 2002: Jeff Dean, Distinguished Engineer at Google, gave a keynote address yesterday at Online Information 2002 in London. [. . . Some] interesting numbers that he mentioned: only about 3% of searches use the advanced search form so they do not spend much development dollars on it and about 10% of queries have misspellings."

From Search Engine Showdown

Weds. Dec. 4th

This web exhibition combines two of my special interests--art/graphics and freedom of expression on the Internet. Read the disclaimer too!

Illegal Art: Freedom of Expression in the Corporate Age
"The laws governing "intellectual property" have grown so expansive in recent years that artists need legal experts to sort them all out. Borrowing from another artwork--as jazz musicians did in the 1930s and Looney Tunes illustrators did in 1940s--will now land you in court. If the current copyright laws had been in effect back in the day, whole genres such as collage, hiphop, and Pop Art might have never have existed."

Mon. Dec. 2nd

University Library Newsletter

Just before thanksgiving I put up the latest Library Newsletter where you can find out about our newest service (which you will love if you ever use reserve material) and what's happening with the library addition. For the past year Dr. Wood and I have taken pictures of the progress of the library addition linked from the Library's homepage--check out last week's photos.

Here's the Table of Contents:

Electronic Reserves
New Construction and Renovation Update
Geobase Returns
NEW: Web of Science
Britannica; AVL Changes
Foundation Center Online

Here's another article on how people use the Internet for finding information--and it's not very encouraging. Are you sure that what you are looking at is not just a "sponsored" site--one that shows up at the top of a results list, because a business paid for it to be there?js

I've just created an instructional webpage, Web Evaluation Practice Sheet, that contains websites selected to illustrate some of the important criteria that you need to consider when looking for information on the Internet. Check it out.

FYI
Feds shutting down free websites

For links to free electronic books [mostly out of copyright, therefore more than 95 years old] go here: Online Books Page

For 2500 free electronic books written with government sponsorship go here: NAP

Thurs.
Nov. 14th

Scholarly Publishers Aim to Woo Librarians Away From Self-Published Research Oh, those journal publishers--don't they know that we librarians just love 7%-10% price increases every year! How about saving the PR campaign money and reducing our subscription rates?js

Information Literacy Item

Check out Biomed Central, a new model of journal publishing. This is what the guys above are worried about. "Biomed Central is an independent publishing house committed to providing immediate free access to peer-reviewed biomedical research. All the original research articles in journals published by BioMed Central are immediately and permanently available online without charge or any other barriers to access. This commitment is based on the view that open access to research is central to rapid and efficient progress in science and that subscription-based access to research is hindering rather than helping scientific communication."

Now we need something like this for the humanities and social sciences.

This is a repeat from May 26th--thought it might be useful right now. js
Information Literacy Item
•Did you know that there are free citation-makers on the web for students OR faculty to use.

Always check the product with your Style Book--remember free services don't give you your grades and I, personally, abjure all responsibility! Here are a few to try. js

Information Literacy Item
The confidentiality of your library records is guaranteed by Alabama law [unless overridden by the new U. S. A. Patriot Act]. js

TITLE 41.  STATE GOVERNMENT  
CHAPTER 8.  ALABAMA PUBLIC LIBRARY SERVICE  
ARTICLE 1.  GENERAL PROVISIONS
 
GO TO CODE ARCHIVE DIRECTORY FOR THIS JURISDICTION
Code of Ala. § 41-8-10  (2002)

§ 41-8-10. Confidentiality of registration records   

 It is recognized that public library use by an individual should be of confidential nature. Any other provision of general, special or local law, rule or regulation to the contrary notwithstanding, the registration and circulation records and information concerning the use of the public, public school, college and university libraries of this state shall be confidential. Registration and circulation records shall not be open for inspection by, or otherwise available to, any agency or individual except for the following entities: (a) the library which manages the records; (b) the state education department for a library under its jurisdiction when it is necessary to assure the proper operation of such library; or (c) the state Public Library Service for a library under its jurisdiction when it is necessary to assure the proper operations of such library. Aggregate statistics shown from registration and circulation records, with all personal identification removed, may be released or used by a library for research and planning purposes. Provided however, any parent of a minor child shall have the right to inspect the registration and circulation records of any school or public library that pertain to his or her child.

HISTORY: Acts 1983, No. 83-565.
CROSS REFERENCES. --This law is referred to in: § 41-8-9.

Freshmen in EH 102, pay attention! If you need good reliable information to get you going on your controversial issue paper, check out CQ Researcher. We have a trial e-subscription till Nov. 15th. We have the print copies in the Reference section of the library, but they are not half so easy--or as much fun. Go to Fulltext Journal and Indexes on our homepage, then click on the link shown here:

Then make the choice shown below:

Each issue contains background information, vocabulary, important people, issues, charts and graphs, chronology of the issues, a pro and con debate, and a bibliography for further research. Browsing through some of the issues may give you ideas about ways to focus your topic. The debate section is always framed in the form of a question--a great way to frame your research too. When you've absorbed all of this, then hit Infotrac and Ebsco's academic databases to fill the gaps in your focused topic.

If you plan to spend any time in the University Library these days, bring a sweater, or even better, a fleece jacket. Yesterday I had two sweaters and still had cold hands. js
......................................................................................
Bestsellers a bit low-brow these days. You ain't seen nothin yet! How about this: the parent company ofThe Star and The National Enquirer is starting a book publishing venture. "We have lots of research and materials that never make it into the magazines," according to Val Virga, the president of AMI Books.

Just think whole books of "research" not valuable enough for the
Inquirer! The premiere monograph is on Chandra Levy and Gary Condit, to be followed once a month by books on: JonBenet Ramsey, Michael Jackson, Rosie O'Donnell, Liza Minelli, O.J. Simpson, Princess DI, the Kennedys and the Clintons. Just look for these great research tomes at your grocery check out lines very soon. js

Nov. 1st

How Do People Evaluate a Web Site's Credibility?
Results from a Large Study

Table 1: How often participants commented on various issues when evaluating the credibility of Web sites.

Halloween

"They are subversive. You think they're just sitting there at the desk all quiet and everything. They're like plotting the revolution, man. I wouldn't mess with them."

Michael Moore [Bowling for Columbine] talking about librarians
(Buzzflash, March 2002).

Oct. 30th

Lots of students are writing--and many more are thinking--about the proposed war on Iraq. I just found a super website developed by the gov docs librarians and a political science class at the University of Michigan. It appears to be a well organized gateway to the background, issues, and scenarios surrounding a war on Iraq.

http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/iraqwar.html

[Many of the items marked with "UMich only" are items to which the USA Library also subscribes.]

Citing databases using APA style

Citing database articles using MLA style

Students: Always chose the pdf printing option if it is available--you will get page numbers which are not available on the html text option. You need exact page numbers in order to do internal cites or footnotes. js

What if everyone had a little stash of knowledge about some special topic. What if they wanted to contribute to society, but had no money. What if they secretly liked to organize things. Well, it seems their are lots of people like that. Go to the Open Directory Project to see what cooperation can produce on the "Republic of the Web." js

Last week I mentioned MIT's OpenCourseWare. This week I thought I'd point out another wonderful site that offers both faculty and students free instructional materials created by academics. It's called Merlot. Free educational materials-it must be those leftist academics again! js

"MERLOT is a free and open resource designed primarily for faculty and students of higher education. Links to online learning materials are collected here along with annotations such as peer reviews and assignments."

Oct. 17th

Information Literacy Item

A research study just came out about how faculty and students find and use information, and how their needs change and develop as they become more focused in their disciplines. It includes 158 tables of data, part of the 659 data tables produced by the research. This one is online, done by the Digital Library Federation and Council on Library and Information Resources and is entitled Dimensions and Use of the Scholarly Information Environment.

Maybe not the most thrilling read, but worthy of a good browse, especially by librarians and faculty responsible for information literacy of our students. js

Observations and Implications

"These data characterize key segments of the higher education population-faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates-from several perspectives, enabling us to view behaviors and preferences in terms of different roles and functions. The information needs of the faculty are represented in terms of the functional roles of researcher and teacher, and both roles are then considered independently relative to the library. Similarly, the students' views, whether graduate or undergraduate, are treated independently, making it possible to see how information needs may evolve as intellectual interests become more focused and more sophisticated. In this regard, graduate students occupy a telling middle ground: at some times their information preferences and behaviors are generally aligned with those of undergraduates; at other times, for example, in their roles as instructors, the graduate students' interests and preferences converge with those of the faculty. It is a point that might yield interesting results from further study. "

Oct. 16th

MIT debuts its OpenCourseWare.

Free course materials for the use of faculty and students developed by MIT faculty and given away (read conditions below) to "stimulate and enhance the deeply human, person-to-person endeavor of education." js

Copyright Notice, License and Terms of Use

The Licensor, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, grants you the rights contained herein in consideration of your acceptance of the terms and conditions herein. Except as noted below, course materials contained in the MIT OpenCourseWare Web site ("OCW Materials") may be used, copied, distributed, translated, and modified, but only for non-commercial educational purposes, provided that resulting works and derivations be made freely available to other users under the same terms contained herein.

All uses, reuse, and distribution of OCW material, including works derived from OCW material, must be attributed to MIT OCW and to the original authors where identified on the OCW Materials you distribute. Acceptable form for attribution to an individual is: "This material was created by (or is adapted from material created by) MIT faculty member (Name), (Title), (Year). Copyright © (Year) (Faculty Name)."

Read the whole thing at Legal Notices

Just got an email question from a faculty member who wanted to know how to find videos for her class. Thought others might want to know the easy way to do it on our SOUTHcat catalog.

Go the the catalog. On the bottom red line you will see the word "limits." Click on that and the fourth box down is called "medium." Drag down on the dialog box next to it and find videorecordings--leave your cursor on it. Do not click any other words. Go to the top; click on "Set Limits". From then until you close the session or until you "clear" the limits(on the red line also) you will be searching only for videos.

Try different words as a keyword search (do keyword so you get the most recent first). But also try "feature films" and see what you might want to check out for those long hurricane weekends. IMC (3rd floor) will check 'em out for a week. js

Oct. 10th

Information Literacy Item

Live From Eldred v. Ashcroft

"the most important argument in years about intellectual property" (L. Greenhouse, NYT, today)

Read a report of the arguments placed before the Supreme Court yesterday on the constitutionality of extending copyright (BLOG, Oct. 9) from two people who attended. They were not allowed to take notes and so must report from memory. Corporate interests are at odds with the public's right to use material freely after a reasonable amount of time. js

Oct. 9th

Information Literacy Item

High Court Debates Copyright Case

[From today's New York Times] By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 11:48 a.m. ETWASHINGTON (AP) --

"The Supreme Court debated Wednesday whether Congress was wrong to block public access to Mickey Mouse and other classics.

In a case with appeal for many people, the court is considering whether it was unconstitutional for Congress to give writers and other creators a 20-year copyright extension. Hanging in the balance are huge profits for companies, like The Walt Disney Co. and AOL Time Warner Inc., which benefit from copyrights."

Read more about this case in our archives at
Blog Archives

Oct. 8th, 2002

I had a student in a class yesterday who bought the book she needed from Amazon and admitted that she hadn't even checked the library catalog to see if we had anything relevant. I hear publishers rejoicing and librarians crying!

Instructors, remind your students to get there bodies over here—we're wonderful, we're free and they can get expert help by just looking confused! Where else does this exist!

Students, if you are now getting anxious about finding information for your termpapers. Be aware that the librarians have created guides to library information in every different field and about many topics—maybe one of them will help you get started. Check out the "Topic Guides" a link on our homepage and also the "Course Related Guides" for specific classes under the Instruction link on the homepage. And there is always the reference librarian at the ref desk (460-7025) available to help you figure out where to start and what to do next. js

Oct. 4th

Information Literacy Item
Finally two Congressmen have introduced a bill to ameliorate some of the more egregious—protect-corporate-profits/forget-Fair-Use—items contained within the Digital Millenium Copyright Act of 1998.

Reps. Zoe Lofgren and Rick Boucher yesterday introduced into the House a "digital fair use bill", the Digital Choice and Freedom Act of 2002. Boucher is scheduled to hold a press conference today at 11 A. M. Washington time. Please support their efforts--write your congressman. This is truly important legislation both for teachers and for libraries. js

Oct. 3rd

From Today's Chronicle of Higher Education:

Students and Faculty Members Turn to Online Library Materials Before Printed Ones, Study Finds

"Almost 90 percent of researchers said they went online first, then consulted print sources. About 75 percent of students said they used the Internet first, then went to a professor or librarian for assistance, and consulted print sources last."

Information Literacy Item

The Politics of Research by Brian Martin

As a library teacher I teach our students the value of "academic research" over other forms and formats of information which may be less objective. Perhaps I need to be less dogmatic about the differences between scholarly and non-academic info. This is a section of Martin's book which explores the influence of funding, disciplines, hierarchy and competition on scholarly research. JS

The entire book is available at http://www.uow.edu.au/arts/sts/bmartin/pubs/98il/

4 P.M. --The University Library building will close at 5:00 today(Wedsnesday) and will reopen on Friday morning, Sept. 27 at 7:45.

Try some weird librarian humor:
http://warriorlibrarian.com/ROFL/opac.html

Also try the new Google News Search which is still in Beta testing:
http://news.google.com/ It claims you can "Search and browse 4,000 continuously updated news sources."

Sept. 23

"This Week in the Library" from Mary Engebretson

1. 2nd floor will be noisy -- crews are hammering holes in the north wall for the future connections to the addition.

2. 3rd floor is being wrapped in plastic -- We have had so many roof leaks that plastic sheets are being placed over all the book ranges just in case.

3. There is elevator access to the Reference area, but it is dark and awkward. So the signs are still up that tell people to take the stairs. Take the stairs (up or down) to the 1st floor/lobby level.
   The elevator should, of course, be used by the disabled, people with booktrucks, etc.

Sept. 13,

$

Information Literacy Item
ScienceDirect journal users may want to read this Chronicle of Higher Education article about the pricing practices of one of the largest for-profit academic publishers in the game--Elsevier (also know as "El Severe"). Electronically published journals, infinitely cheaper to publish than the old tree/paper/ink/delivery methods, are bundle-priced and sold like used cars, the license price negotiated --including a pledge of silence.

Information Literacy Item
UCITA
Never heard of it? Librarians are shaking in their boots(Keds?). You should be too.

"This proposed legislation would change the rules for purchase and use of computer software and information products for businesses, individuals and non-profits. [. . .] In essence, the UCITA legislation validates a "shrink-wrap" or "click-on" approach to electronic licensing, superseding consumer protections, copyright law, and privacy protections." Click here to find out what one group sees as the ramifications of this legislation should it become a law.

2:00 P.M. --Problem fixed

****12:30 in the afternoon--The Proxy Server seems to be malfunctioning, so many of the online databases are inaccessible. The techies are working on it--try again later. Sorry!
----------------------------
Information Literacy Item Working the Reference Desk--A Librarian's View.

Fri. Sept 6th

Information Literacy Item

If you think that you are having trouble stretching your paycheck to cover your expenses, click here to find out what you could enjoy for the cost of some library subscriptions to academic journals! js

Weds. Sept. 4th

My friend, my friend, I was born
doing reference work in sin, and born
confessing it. This is what poems are:
with mercy
for the greedy,
they are the tongue's wrangle,
the world's pottage, the rat's star.

"The real purpose of books is to trap the mind into doing its own thinking." Christopher Morley

Latest construction pictures: http://www.usouthal.edu/univlib/libbuilding33/index.htm

Tues. Aug. 27th

Problem fixed--Don't worry, be happy! :N.B. If you are a Macintosh user and a LexisNexis fan, you may have had trouble in the past two weeks, ever since Lexis did its "improved" interface. The Quick search works, but the good, old-fashioned Guided search gives Mac users[like me] a Javascript error. The LN techies assure me that they are working on the problem.

Information Literacy Item Never made a webpage, but know how to use Microsoft Word? Here's a website from George Mason Univ that will show you how easy it is to make a webpage using just Word and it will walk you through the steps.

All you will need then is a webserver on which to mount your page. If you are faculty, check with the techie in your department or academic computing. Students check with your Internet Service Provider--ISPs often reserve 5MB of space for their users webpages.

http://www.archiva.net/mstutorial3web.htm

"The best way to get a good idea is to get a lot of ideas."
Roger von Oech

Information Literacy Item For a seminal article about intellectual property rights in a digital age go to:
A Politics of Intellectual Property: Environmentalism For the Net? by James Boyle

Information Literacy Item
THE ASSAULT ON THE PUBLIC'S RIGHT TO KNOW
by Marylaine Block.

One librarian's powerful statement on current government decisions and the encroachment of special interest power into our rights as citizens and the effects on libraries and librarians. js