With spring just weeks away, the air will soon be filled with birdsong. And what better way to identify birds and their calls than the Birds of North America database? Wesleyan students, staff, and faculty have access to the full online database here. Whether you’re a biology major or simply enjoy birding, we encourage you to check it out!
Source: Paul Lowry (Flickr) https://www.flickr.com/photos/paul_lowry/2266388742
Yesterday, journalist Marcus Banks published the provocatively titled “Ten Reasons Libraries Are Still Better Than the Internet” for American Libraries. As he states in his opening line, you’ve probably heard some form of this argument before: “Thanks to the internet, we no longer need libraries or librarians.” But is there any truth to that statement? After all, information abounds on the internet—information that previously you often had to seek out in a library.
As you probably know if you’ve been been a student in one of our instruction sessions, you can’t find everything on the internet. The full text of many academic articles is shrouded behind paywalls; copyright laws prevent you from reading more than a few pages of a book on Google Books; and complex search-engine algorithms bury the piece of information you need on the fifth (or in some cases, fiftieth) page of search results where you won’t see it. Don’t get us wrong; we love the internet. At The Ames Library, however, you never have to pay for the book, article, or e-resource that you need.
Librarians at Ames are also on hand to assist you with points #7 and #8 in Banks’ essay:
7. Librarians can help you sort the real news from the fake. While a plethora of useful, accurate, and engaging content is available online, the web is filled with inaccurate and misleading information. “Click bait” headlines get you to click on the content even if the underlying information is superficial or inaccurate. Misinformation is the spread of deliberate falsehoods or inflammatory content online, such as the Russian-backed ads placed on social media during the 2016 US presidential election. Librarianship has always been about providing objective, accurate, and engaging information that meets the needs of a particular person. This has not changed, and it is why librarians are experts in information literacy.
8. Librarians guide you to exactly what you need. Google is an impressive search engine, but its results can be overwhelming, and many people do not know to filter them by content type (such as .pdf) or website source (such as .gov). Google offers many search tips, which are useful but generic. A conversation with a librarian can clarify exactly what you are looking for and figure out the best way to use Google—or many other resources—to find it.
To learn more about why libraries and librarians are more important than ever, check out the rest of Banks’ article here—or stop by The Ames Library and talk to one of our subject librarians about how to get the information you need to be successful in your classes, grad-school application, and beyond!
With winter break just around the corner at Illinois Wesleyan, it’s a great time to catch up on your reading. If you’re looking to unwind with a book, but you’re not sure where to start, The Reading Lists might just be the perfect website for you.
What’s it all about? Says project founder Phil Treagus:
From my experience, it’s extremely rare to find someone who has achieved great success without reading a great amount of books. But now it’s time for these brilliantly wonderful people to give back, to share their wisdom. What are the books that changed everything for them? Which books have had the biggest impact on their success? Well, I’ve decided to take on the mission of unearthing the world’s most inspiring, life-changing and important books. How will I do this? I intend to go right to the source, the world’s most successful humans. I will be interviewing amazing guests, and they will be compiling their own reading list.
Some of the guests so far interviewed include astrophysicist Margaret Geller, actor and rapper Doc Brown, musician Henry Rollins, comedian Ahir Shah, robot ethicist Kate Darling, and philosopher Adrian Moore.
Once you’ve decided on a book or three, we’ve got you covered at The Ames Library. We have e-books galore for Kindle and hundreds of titles in our Popular Reading Collection, located on the main floor of the library between the Library Services Desk and the Writing Center. You can borrow a Kindle or titles from the Popular Reading Collection for up to three weeks. Books from the Popular Reading Collection can be renewed two times.
Those of you who use The Ames Library regularly know that we offer a variety of equipment for checkout: MacBooks, Kindles, audio recorders, and so on. All you need in order to borrow this equipment is your student ID and you’ve got it for five days.
Did you know that we now have a GoPro, though?
That’s right! The Ames Library recently acquired a GoPro Hero5 Session with 180 minutes of recording time. You can shoot video in 4k resolution and take photos up to 10 megapixels. The GoPro comes with a curved adhesive mount, a flat adhesive mount, and a mounting buckle. It’s also submersible in water to a depth of 33 feet.
Whether you need to make a short film for an end-of-the-semester project or just want to capture some unique shots of campus life, the library’s GoPro is your new go-to.
(View our equipment checkout policies here and then drop by the Library Services Desk on the main floor to grab the GoPro. Just make sure to bring your student ID with you!)
You may have noticed a headline in the October 23rd Campus Weekly reading “Digital Commons @ IWU Exceeds 3 Million Downloads.” Digital Commons is Illinois Wesleyan University’s institutional repository, and it is here that students can deposit faculty- or peer-reviewed research. Additionally, Digital Commons also contains selected works from faculty, staff, and university departments, offices, and programs.
So what kinds of materials are available for download through Digital Commons?
“Student work deemed outstanding will be included in DC@IWU. These include honors theses, work presented at the John Wesley Powell Undergraduate Research Conference, works published in peer-reviewed IWU student journals and outstanding creative works as determined by faculty in a sponsoring department. Acceptable formats include text, images, video and audio files.”
http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/student_guidelines.html
“The DC@IWU accepts a wide range of materials including text, images, video and audio files. Examples of content include, but are not limited to:
- Articles, pre-prints and post-prints (distribution rights permitting; please see SHERPA/RoMEO for more information
- Book chapters (distribution rights permitting; please contact publisher for permission. Templates with suggested language for communicating with publishers are available for your convenience.)
- Audio files
- Conference papers
- Dance performances
- Datasets
- Faculty course related output
- Musical scores and composition recordings
- Poetry and creative writing
- University produced journals
- Video files”
http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/faculty_guidelines.html
Student work has comprised much of the 3 million downloads between 2008 and 2017. If you’re interested in making your own research available through Digital Commons, you can find the guidelines for submission here.
A live map of the downloads in real time is located at the bottom of the Digital Commons homepage: http://digitalcommons.iwu.edu/. In the past week alone, users from places as far-flung as India, China, Africa, Finland, and Australia have downloaded IWU student research!
Read more about the 3-million download milestone here: https://www.iwu.edu/news/2017/digital-commons-at-iwu-exceeds-3-million-downloads.html
The Ames Library is proud to announce the publication of a new book, Undergraduate Research and the Academic Librarian: Case Studies and Best Practices, co-edited by our very own Scholarly Communications librarian, Stephanie Davis-Kahl.
Published by the American Library Association and available both in print and as an e-book, this new collection explores research as an integral part of undergraduate learning.
“In 25 chapters featuring 60 expert contributors, Undergraduate Research and the Academic Librarian examines how the structures that undergird undergraduate research, such as the library, can become part of the core infrastructure of the undergraduate experience. It explores the strategic new services and cross-departmental collaborations academic libraries are creating to support research: publishing services, such as institutional repositories and undergraduate research journals; data services; copyright services; poster printing and design; specialized space; digital scholarship services; awards; and much more. These programs can be from any discipline, can be interdisciplinary, can be any high-impact format, and can reflect upon an institution’s own history, traditions, and tensions.”
Source: http://www.alastore.ala.org/detail.aspx?ID=12283
Illinois Wesleyan students will no doubt find the book a vital resource as they undertake original research during their four years on campus. Similarly, faculty overseeing that research will benefit from the book’s detailed case studies. As we’ll mention in an upcoming blog post tomorrow, one of the many advantage of The Ames Library is that outstanding undergraduate research can be deposited with Digital Commons @ IWU. Stay tuned to find out more! In the meantime, Davis-Kahl’s edited collection will soon be available for checkout through Ames, so be sure to keep an eye on our catalog.
Ames Library is currently evaluating two databases for future subscription, African Americans and Reconstruction: Hope and Struggle, 1865-1883 and African Americans and Jim Crow: Repression and Protest, 1883-1922. Together, the databases comprise approximately 2,400 printed works on the post-Civil War and Post-Reconstruction periods in African-American history. The works are drawn from The Library Company of Philadelphia’s Afro-Americana Collection.
African Americans and Reconstruction: Hope and Struggle [and African Americans and Jim Crow ] offers a comprehensive survey of the black experience during the crucial post-Civil War period [and during the period from post- Reconstruction through the early 1920s]. Using this multifaceted collection researchers can easily uncover patterns of thought and compare points of view comprehensively. Students will find numerous new topics for term papers, group study and oral presentations, and teachers and faculty will discover multiple paths for classroom study. And by using helpful features such as “Suggested Searches,” users at all levels can drill into the content by topic, time period, theme or subject matter. (Readex)
The databases are searchable by subject, each of which includes subcategories such as African-American Women Authors, Antislavery Literature, Economic Conditions in the South, Miscegenation, White Supremacy Movements and Groups, African-American Churches and Clergy, African-American Colleges and Universities, and so on.
This 30-day trial is good until November 12th, 2017. You can access the databases using the links above or by visiting our A–Z Resources page (http://libguides.iwu.edu/az.php). (New and trial databases are located on the right-hand side of the page and are also searchable by title.)
What do we want from you? Check them out! Tell us if you like them. The Ames Library regularly signs up for trial subscriptions each year and we love to get your feedback on resources that could strengthen our collections. We have a virtual suggestion box here: https://www.iwu.edu/library/information/Suggestion-Box.html
Washington Conference on the Race Problem in the United States. How to Solve the Race Problem : The Proceedings of the Washington Conference on the Race Problem in the United States (Washington, DC: Beresford, Printer, 1903)
Keckley, Elizabeth. Behind the Scenes, or, Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House (New York: G.W. Carleton, 1868)
Griggs, Sutton E. Unfettered: A Novel (Nashville: The Orion Publishing Company, 1902)
Ames Library readers may be interested to learn about Ukiyo-e.org, a digital collection of over 223,000 (and counting) Japanese ukiyo-e woodblock prints. Ukiyo-e is defined in The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Art Terms as
‘pictures of the floating world’ … referring to transient everyday life, [which provide] a major source of imagery in Japanese art from the 17th to the 19th centuries, particularly in the work of printmakers such as Hiroshige, Hokusai, and Utamaro. Typical subjects included theatre scenes, with actors in well-known roles, and views of the night-life of Edo (as Tokyo was then called). The resulting brightly coloured woodcut prints were imported into Europe from the middle of the 19th century and had a great influence on many avant-garde artists, including the Impressionists and Post-Impressionists, who were particularly attracted by the bold compositions and striking colours of Ukiyo-e prints (M. Clarke and D. Clarke, “Ukiyo-e”).
According to Ukiyo-e.org’s About page, the website includes hundreds of thousands of images from 24 museum and art collections as well as the following features:
- A database of Japanese woodblock print images and metadata aggregated from a variety of museums, universities, libraries, auction houses, and dealers around the world.
- An indexed text search engine of all the metadata provided by the institutions about the prints.
- An image search engine of all the images in the database, searchable by uploading an image of a print.
- Each print image is analyzed and compared against all other print images in the database. Similar prints are displayed together for comparison and analysis.
- Multiple copies of the same print are automatically lined up with each other and made viewable in a gallery for easy comparison.
- The entire web site, and all artist information contained within it, is available in both English and Japanese, aiding international researchers (Ukiyo-e.org).
Ukiyo-e.org is definitely worth browsing and bookmarking!
