Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year from all the Library staff.

The Library is now closed for Christmas and New Year. We will re-open on Monday 5 January 2009.

Animoto.com

Library party, Xmas 2008

Enjoy the Christmas vacation

The Library staff wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Remember to return or renew all your books before you leave for the vacation. You can check which books you have on loan, and renew them, through the catalogue – select Patron Functions to see your details.

Both Libraries will be open during the vacation; in common with the rest of the University, we will be closed between Christmas and New Year and will re-open on Monday 5 January.

We look forward to seeing you in 2009.

Gill McDonald
Deputy Librarian

More on social networking in academia

A while back I wrote in this blog about social networking in academia, and a bit later I mentioned IET Discover, an example of a well-supported network.  There’s a lot of developments in this area of social networking - too much for me to keep up with, so I was interested in a post on the Sciencebase blog about Social Media for Scientists which contains quite a long list of social media sites and networks for scientists.  Some others are reviewed on the SciTechNet blog.  Sciencebase writer David Bradley is still following the social media trail, with an update to which I contributed some thoughts, and there’s probably more to come in the future.  I’ve also noted this article from Research Information on social networking.

With so many different social networking/media services in existence, covering different subject areas, there should be at least one to suit everyone.

Roddy MacLeod
Senior Subject Librarian

Business information systems, the cinema, taxation, molecular modelling – and other new books in the Library

Added to the library recently were books on Business information systems, the cinema, taxation, molecular modelling, and several other topics.

For the full list of new books, go to the New Books section of the Catalogue.

 

Selected titles added to the Edinburgh campus library at Riccarton Library include more copies of Business information systems: technology, development and management, by Paul Bocij, Andrew Greasley and Simon Hickie, and a copy of the 3rd edition of The cinema book, edited by Pam Cook.   Additional information for this title is available.

Information on how to place a reservation for a book is available.

Information on suggesting books for the library is also available, or you can let the Subject Librarians know if you have any suggestions for new titles.

Roddy MacLeod
Senior Subject Librarian

Easy journal tables of contents from hundreds of publishers

Keeping up to date with what has been published in scholarly journals is vitally important for almost all researchers. Here’s a new service which can make the process much easier.

ticTOCs is a new scholarly journal tables of contents (TOCs) service. It’s free, its easy to use, and Heriot-Watt is one of the fourteen partners who’ve developed it.

ticTOCs helps you find and view the most recent table of contents of over 11,000 scholarly journals, from over 400 publishers. It’s therefore an easy way to keep up-to-date with what’s being published in journals on almost any subjects.

You can find journals of interest, view the latest TOC, link through to the full text (where our institutional subscriptions allow), and save selected journals to MyTOCs so that you can return to the site and view future TOCs (registration (free) is required if you want to permanently save your MyTOCs.

ticTOCs requires a lot less effort than setting up email alerts or an RSS reader and finding appropriate feeds, though if you already know about RSS, ticTOCs can also help you find and export journal feeds to feedreaders such as Bloglines or Google Reader.

Keep up-to-date with ticTOCs – it only takes a tick or two.  There’s also a News from ticTOCs blog.

I can thoroughly recommend this service.

Roddy MacLeod
Senior Subject Librarian

What’s new in engineering information

If you’re interested in what has been happening in the engineering publishing world over the last year, you may find my presentation of use:

Keeping current: What’s new in engineering information?
R.A.MacLeod:  Paper presented at Online Information 2008, STM Information in Focus, London, 3rd December, 2008.

The presentation (6.4Mb) reviews a selection of news sources, and then looks at new services, new eBooks, new journals, open access developments, social networking developments and RSS.

Roddy MacLeod
Senior Subject Librarian

European politics, corporate strategy, fashionable technology – and other new books in the Library

Added to the library recently were books on European politics, corporate strategy, fashionable technology, and several other topics.

For the full list of new books, go to the New Books section of the Catalogue.

 

Selected titles added to the Edinburgh campus library at Riccarton Library include copies of the 2nd edition of Researching and writing a dissertation: a guidebook for business students, by Colin Fisher and others, and  a copy of Politics in Europe, by M. Donald Hancock and others.  Additional information for this title is available.

Added to the Library at Galashiels was a copy of Fashionable technology: the intersection of design, fashion, science, and technology, by Sabine Seymour.  Additional information about this book is available.

Information on how to place a reservation for a book is available.

Information on suggesting books for the library is also available, or you can let the Subject Librarians know if you have any suggestions for new titles.

Roddy MacLeod
Senior Subject Librarian

Final reminder – your Standard Loans are due today

Undergraduates, Masters & Diploma students

All Standard Loan books which you have borrowed this semester are due for return by the end of today – Friday 5 December.

If you wish to keep them for longer, you can renew them at any time before midnight by logging on to your Library record (via Patron functions) in the catalogue. Simply select the books you want to renew, and then click on the “Renew Items” button. Remember – you cannot renew a book if someone else has reserved it, if you have any overdue books, or if you have more than £2.00 outstanding in unpaid fines.

All Standard Loan books borrowed or renewed now are due for return in the first week of next semester – by Friday 16 January 2009.

If you need help renewing your books, or of you have any questions about borrowing, contact the Service Desks in the Riccarton or Galashiels Libraries.

Gill McDonald
Deputy Librarian

Good luck with your exams – need some tips?

The Library has lots of books with good advice for exam revision. Look on our shelves at classnumber 371.3 for titles like:
How to pass exams / by Fred Orr.
Good study guide / by Andrew Northedge.
Revision strategies.
Student’s guide to exam success / by Eileen Tracy.
Sail through exams! : preparing for traditional exams for undergraduates and taught postgraduates / by Peter Levin.
and lots more…..

Good luck!

Gill McDonald
Deputy Librarian