Author Archives: Doug Bolden

Earth Day 2016, Research, and Salmon Library

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Earth_day (Image courtesy of: Wiki Commons)

The icon above is a globally recognized symbol for Earth Day, celebrated on April 22nd. Reminiscent of the Greek letter theta (often used as a symbol of death or a warning) this icon is meant to evoke a sense of awareness of humanity’s impact on the environment. Global warming, pollution, water resource limitations; these are but a few examples of issues each of us are impacted by and influence as well.

A lot of time, effort, and money have gone toward research in fields of study related to the environmental sciences. Earth Day is a great time to brush up on your eco-knowledge. Fortunately, UAH has you covered! Check out OneSearch here and do a basic search for earth day. You’ll get a great Research Starter at the top of your list to get an overview of the holiday itself, as well as suggested readings and tips on some major environmental issues. Also, UAH subscribes to a great database literally devoted to the environmental sciences: Greenfile. This offers a collection of scholarly and popular literature, as well as some government data, on topics such as pollution, sustainable agriculture, green construction, and renewable energy. You’ll find this resource listed alphabetically in our primary database guide here, as well as in a few of the Science subject guides here.

Salmon Library has many more databases, books, and articles that can help you beef up your Earth Day knowledge. Visit one of your reference librarians or contact us via chat, phone, LibAnswers to learn more!

ProQuest scheduled maintenance outage: Saturday, March 12th, 2016

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On Saturday March 12, 2016, ProQuest will be installing critical firmware updates to its systems infrastructure. The window is scheduled to begin at 10:00 PM EDT and will last for eight (8) hours. This will effect all of our ProQuest databases, such as the Dissertations tool.

We apologize for the short notice of this maintenance window and for any inconvenience this may cause. Thanks!

UAH Library Catalog down for maintenance this evening, March 7th 2016

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The UAH Library catalog will be down for maintenance this evening, beginning at 4:30 pm. While there is not an exact timetable for the work to be completed, we hope to have access restored in a few short hours. As a partial work-around to this issue, you can also search for books and other materials via the OneSearch tool on the library homepage at uah.edu/library. OneSearch actually allows you to retrieve books in addition to periodical materials, so if you find yourself needing to locate a book (in print or electronic form), OneSearch has you covered. Thank you for your patience!

Let the Library Help Your Students With Access to Course Software

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Do you teach a course using special software your students need for assignments? If you have licenses for the software your students need, or if it is open source, the library can install the software on 20 computers in the public computing lab on the first floor (the Information Arcade). These computers are available until midnight on weekdays, 6:00pm on Saturdays, and 10:00pm on Sundays giving your students extra time to work on assignments for your class.

The deadline for requesting software on library computers for Summer semester is April 15. Check the link to see a list of software currently installed in the public computing lab: http://libguides.uah.edu/pclabs.

For more information or to request software, please contact Jack Drost at Jack.Drost@uah.edu or by phone at (256)824-7407.

Possible eBook download issues today, February 4th 2016

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If you attempt to view or download/checkout any eBooks today from the EBSCO platform, you may get an error and will be unable to do so. This is due to some maintenance taking place for some of their products. The issues should not persist beyond today, however.

As always, contact Michael Manasco, your Electronic Resource Librarian with any concerns: (256) 824-6965 or email at michael.manasco@uah.edu.

 

Zotero introductory session (Refined Researchers series)

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Due to popular demand, we are offering another Zotero citation management workshop  in February 2016.

Flyer for Zotero presentation, February 04, 5:30pm, Salmon Library room 214

On February 04, 2016, I will lead a short, hands-on workshop on the Zotero citation management software (see the Zotero webpage here).  Zotero – like other types of citation management software – can be used to store & manage your citations as you work on your academic research, including adding those references to your papers & assignments.

This presentation is open to everyone.  In addition, current UAH students, faculty, and staff are welcome to bring their personal laptop/tablet, to download & install Zotero.

See you there!

A note on Wiley title availability

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Our chief goal at the Salmon Library is to provide the best possible set of resources to serve our research and education mission on The University of Alabama in Huntsville campus. To this end, the selection of resources to which we offer access is regularly changing as we make decisions to improve the overall quality of our collection and to respond directly to the needs of the faculty and students on the campus while balancing needs of budget and usefulness. It is easy to brag about the new purchases and the expanded collections. It is not so easy to bring up the collections to which we have to reduce access, especially when the collection in question is a “de facto” collection, such as Wiley.

As of January 1, 2016, we have migrated our Wiley collection from a package deal – with which we got hundreds of journal titles for one lump sum – and over to an à la carte system, where we purchase key and well used journals on a title by title basis. The reasons for this are numerous, but can basically be summarized into these two criteria:

  1. The number of uses for the majority of the titles (and we mean the vast majority, over 95%) was very low, ranging from zero to one click all year.
  2. There were other key resources that faculty and students requested more often and would be a much greater value to us.

For example, we have recently been able to expand to complete, unlimited access to ASTM Compass. As anyone who has ever needed to use standards in their projects and research knows, timely access to a library of standards can be vital for grant writing and for research proposals.

In the case of Wiley, we are still monitoring patron feedback about titles that were more vital than statistics can necessarily inform. We understand that there are some titles you only use ten times a semester, but those ten times are a bigger deal than average. If you have any title you would like to see returned, please contact our Electronic Resources Librarian, Michael Manasco, at either michael.manasco@uah.edu or by phone at (256)824-6965.

Thank you.

EndNote introductory session (Refined Researchers series)

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Due to popular demand, we are offering another EndNote citation management workshop in January 2016.

Flyer for EndNote presentation, January 28, 5:30 PM, Salmon Library room 214

On January 28, 2016, I will lead a short, hands-on workshop on the EndNote citation management software (see the Thomson Reuters webpage here).  EndNote – like other types of citation management software – can be used to store & manage your citations as you work on your academic research, including adding those references to your papers & assignments.  This session will focus on the “full” version of the EndNote software (available for a free trial period, and for a cost after that), but we will also discuss of features that are available through the online interface http://myendnoteweb.com

This presentation is open to everyone.  In addition, current UAH students, faculty, and staff are welcome to bring their personal laptop/tablet, to download & install EndNote for the initial free trial.

Thanksgiving 2015 hours

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For the rest of November (including the Thanksgiving holiday), please note the following schedule for the UAH Salmon Library:

  • Mon., Nov-23:  7:30am-12 midnight (normal hours)
  • Tue., Nov-24:  7:30am-12 midnight (normal hours)
  • Wed., Nov-25:  7:30am-6pm (reduced hours / no classes)
  • Thu., Nov-26:  CLOSED (holiday)
  • Fri., Nov-27:  CLOSED (holiday)
  • Sat., Nov-28: CLOSED (holiday)
  • Sun., Nov-29:  1pm-2am (extended hours / end-of-semester)
  • Mon., Nov-30:  7:30am-2am (extended hours / end-of-semester)

A reference librarian will be available during normal hours when the library is open.

For anyone visiting Charger Brew for their coffee & snack needs, Charger Brew will close early on Nov-24 (at 5pm), will remain closed on Nov-25, and will reopen for normal hours on Nov-29.

Electronic reference (incl. chat, email, text) currently unavailable

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The system that the UAH Library uses for electronic reference questions is currently unavailable.  We are working to address this.

What does this mean for you?  The different electronic reference formats that you use – online chat, email, text messaging, Ask Us Anything! – are all currently unavailable.  We are working to address this as soon as possible.  In the interim, you can reach the UAH Library reference desk in person or via phone (824.6529) during our normal business hours (9-5 Mon-Fri, and 1-9 Sun).

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.