Here is something from Google on the addition: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/finding-laws-that-govern-us.html
and here is one other blog post from a law librarian who reviewed it: http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/law_librarian_blog/2009/11/testing-google-scholar-for-legal-research.html
In response to a recent blog post and story on said blog post in Inside Higher Ed (Furor Over Anti-Gay Blog) our data services librarian, Amy West, broken down his arguments and supported counterclaims with data (In response to the "Economic case against homosexuality").
This would be a good model for students to break down an argument paragraph by paragraph and systematically give counter points with evidence. It also would help students learn how to use arguments that go against their own viewpoints effectively. We often talk to studnets who are only looking for information at support their own viewpoints--getting them into arguments in this manner may help.
What: Mixed Media, an evening with Lewis H. Lapham
When: Thursday, December 3, 2009, 7:30 pm
Where: Elmer L. Andersen Library
Free and open to the public.
Reservations requested by November 25 at 612-624-9339 or stangret@umn.edu.
The New York Times has likened him to H.L. Mencken; Vanity Fair has suggested a strong resemblance to Mark Twain, and best-selling author Tom Wolfe compared him to Montaigne.
Lewis Lapham is Editor Emeritus of Harper's Magazine and the Founding Editor of Lapham's Quarterly, a journal of the history of ideas. The author of thirteen books, among them Theater of War and Money and Class in America, Mr. Lapham is the host of Bloomberg Radio's weekly program, "The World in Time."
On December 3rd, Lapham's speech "Mixed Media" will account for the tribulations of the printed word in the wilderness of cyberspace. Dessert reception and book signing follows, with books available for sale courtesy of the University of Minnesota Bookstores.
"Going Wireless is the first edited collection on wireless and mobile technologies in the field of rhetoric and composition. The contributors offer rhetoric and composition teachers, scholars, and administrators a range of practical and theoretical insights on wireless and mobile technologies. This collection serves as a resource for theoretical explorations on wireless and mobile technology use as it relates to computer and composition teaching and research and acts as a reference for those in the rhetoric and composition community charged with the responsibilities of integrating, supervising, and evaluating wireless and mobile technologies. Going Wireless is organized into five major sections and an appendix of key mobile and wireless technology terms. In each section, authors represent a range of perspectives as they articulate the roles of students, teachers, administrators, and researchers working with and through mobile and wireless devices. The book provides readers with ways to understand the influence of wireless and mobile technologies by critiquing the corporate and IT perspectives that inform mobile and wireless development and integration and seeking out new tropes for learning, teaching, and researching. Drawing on interviews and surveys, rhetorical analyses, and theoretical explorations of wireless and mobile devices, the authors enact a range of methodologies to make claims for reflective approaches to research and teaching with wireless and mobile devices. The contributors share their perspectives on the impact of these technological shifts and situate their experiences in relationship to rhetoric and composition as a field. Authors in this collection argue for complex articulations of histories, deployments, integrations, and social factors affected by and affecting mobile and wireless technologies."
Contents: INTRODUCTION, Amy C. Kimme Hea.
REFIGURING WRITING, TEACHING, & LEARNING THROUGH WIRELESS & MOBILE TECHNOLOGIES.
The Changing Shapes of Writing: Rhetoric, New Media, and Composition, Johndan Johnson-Eilola and Stuart A. Selber.
Learning Unplugged, Teddi Fishman and Kathleen Blake Yancey.
EXAMINING TEACHER & STUDENT SUBJECTIVITIES IN THE AGE OF WIRELESS & MOBILE TECHNOLOGIES.
"A Whole New Breed of Student Out There": Wireless Technology Ads & Teacher Identity, Karla Saari Kitalong.
ReWriting Wi-Fi: The Surveillance of Mobility and Student Agency, Ryan M. Moeller. Reterritorialized Flows: Critically Considering Student Agency in Wireless Pedagogies, Melinda Turnley.
CUTTING THE CORD: STORIES ON WIRELESS TEACHING & LEARNING IN THE COMPOSITION CLASSROOM.
From Desktop to Laptop: Making Transitions to Wireless Learning in Writing Classrooms, Will Hochman and Mike Palmquist.
Changing the Ground of Graduate Education: Wireless Laptops Bring Stability, Not Mobility, to Graduate Teaching Assistant, Kevin Brooks.
A Profile of Students Using Wireless Technologies in a First-Year Learning Community, Loel Kim, Susan L. Popham, Emily A. Thrush, Joseph G. Jones, and Donna J. Daulton. Security & Privacy in the Wireless Classroom, Mya Poe and Simson Garfinkel.
TEACHING & LEARNING IN MOTION: MOBILITY & PEDAGOGIES OF SPACE.
Perpetual Contact: Articulating the Anywhere, Anytime Pedagogical Model of Mobile Composing, Amy C. Kimme Hea.
Writing in the Wild: A Paradigm for Mobile Composition, Olin Bjork and John Pedro Schwartz. Metaphors of Mobility: Emerging Spaces for Rhetorical Reflection and Communication, Nicole R. Brown.
TEACHING & RESEARCH IN MY POCKET: MOBILE GADGETS & PORTABLE PRACTICES. The Genie's Out of the Bottle: Leveraging Mobile and Wireless Technologies in Qualitative Research, Clay Spinuzzi.
Winged Words: On the Theory & Use of Internet Radio, Dene Grigar and John F. Barber. Dancing with the iPod: Navigating the New Wireless Landscape of Composition Studies, Beth Martin and Lisa Meloncon Posner.
HathiTrust Launching Full-Text Library of Books
by Barbara Quint
With all the controversy still swirling around Google Books and its post-settlement offerings, an alternative route to the millions of digitized books and journals supplied by leading Google Book Search library partners has arrived. The HathiTrust (www.hathitrust.org) is a collaboration of 25 research libraries already participating in Google Book Search to produce a shared digital repository for preservation and access to a curated collection. By mid-November, the HathiTrust Digital Library will have a full-featured, full-text search service for 4.3-5 million items. The searches will retrieve bibliographic citations and page references, including those for in-copyright books. Content will extend beyond the digitized copies of books returned to early library partners by Google. HathiTrust is pushing to acquire other digitized special collections from its members, as well as making arrangements for opening access to university press books.
http://newsbreaks.infotoday.com/NewsBreaks/HathiTrust-Launching-FullText-Library-of-Books-57575.asp
One of the questions under debate is the size of the armies during the Battle of Agincourt during the Hundred Years War.
The article below describes briefly some of the methods they used to develop new theories about the size of these armies. It would be great if we could impress upon students how they historical records can be use and then re-born in a digital format--leading to new scholarship.
"Ms. Curry, the Southampton historian, said she was comfortable with something close to that lower figure, based on her reading of historical archives, including military pay records, muster rolls, ships' logs, published rosters of the wounded and dead, wartime tax levies and other surviving documents."
"And an extraordinary online database (http://www.icmacentre.ac.uk/soldier/database/)listing around a quarter-million names of men who served in the Hundred Years' War, compiled by Ms. Curry and her collaborators at the universities in Southampton and Reading, shows that whatever the numbers, Henry's army really was a band of brothers: many of the soldiers were veterans who had served on multiple campaigns together."
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/25/world/europe/25agincourt.html
The project created three new online tools (http://www.icmacentre.ac.uk/soldier/database/):
1. Muster roll database
"The online muster roll database currently holds just under 90,000 service records. These are taken from muster rolls, housed in The National Archives (TNA), for the years 1369 - 1453."
2. Protection database
The online protection and attorney database currently holds just under 20,000 records. These are taken from the treaty rolls, housed in The National Archives (TNA), for the years 1369 - 1453.
3. Garrison database
The Garrison database is in draft form at present. This is in order to stress test the database, as it contains over 110,000 service records. The records are drawn from mainly French repositories and record service for the English crown, in the occupation of Normandy from 1415 - 1453.
Selecting a topic...
This used to be one of the steps in the research process that I would breeze over--mention that students should select a topic they are interested in and then go right into keywords and finding sources. A couple of weeks ago I co-lead a session on research and writing and I have now been rethinking this attitude.
I realize there are many challenges in picking a topic--especially for first year students or those new to a discipline:
--might not know enough background information
--might not know how to identify or narrow a topic by different facets of a topic
--don't want to spend time researching a dumb topic (but don't know it might be dumb until they do searching)
--don't know any good journals or authors on the topic
--topic selection is very personal and reflects on them (FY students often want to make "safe" choices) to the other students in the class
If I was asked to do a paper on an engineering topic or on greek history (two things I don't know much about) it would be very difficult. Certainly harder when you add in procrastination.
One idea is to create research communitites. Group students based on their initial topic or even assign broad topic areas (e.g. higher education, sports, history, local issues, gender issues, etc.). Ask this group to collaborate on their preliminary research--maybe create a group concept map [learn more] on the broad topic. Ask them to help narrow their topics and connect those in the concept map.
Later on this research community can share how they are doing research and where are they successful finding sources.
This ideas recreates the same research communities that most faculty and instructors are involved in. Your peers and other sholars form both a formal and informal community--we take this for granted.
Are you involved with a research community? What do you gain from it? How can you recreate such things in your class?
If you are interested in learning more about Open Access or working with your students on open access research or projects, please let me know (katep@umn.edu).
----
STUDENT COALITION FOR OPEN ACCESS SOLIDIFIES,
NOW REPRESENTS OVER 5 MILLION STUDENTS INTERNATIONALLY
Washington DC - The student Right to Research Coalition, a group of
national, international, and local student associations that advocate
for governments, universities, and researchers to adopt Open Access
practices, has now grown to include some of the most prominent student
organizations from the United States and across the world. The recent
addition of 8 new organizations brings the number of students
represented by the coalition to over 5 million, demonstrating the
broad, passionate support Open Access enjoys from the student community.
Additions to the coalition since its launch this summer include: the
United States Student Association (USSA), the National Association of
Graduate-Professional Students (NAGPS), the National Graduate Council
of the Canadian Federation of Students, the International Association
of Political Science Students, the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology Graduate Student Council, the University of Minnesota
Graduate and Professional Student Assembly, the University of Nebraska
- Lincoln Graduate Student Association, and the Student Government
Association of St. Olaf College.
"Our core mission is to protect and enhance students' access to
education," said Angela Peoples, USSA's Legislative Director, noting
her organization's motivation for joining the coalition. "We believe
Open Access plays a crucial role in ensuring that all students have
access to the academic research on which their education depends."
Read more: http://www.righttoresearch.org/
An ecotone is a transition area between two adjacent ecological communities, and it's a concept that Ann Pendleton-Jullian (Director, Knowlton School of Architecture, Ohio State University) uses to propose a new way to approach education in the 21st century
http://president.asu.edu/node/705
"The argument against the blending of teaching and research has revolved
around several key assumptions: that information delivered through teaching
unquestionably leads to the building of knowledge, and therefore authoritative
teaching is the most assured way to knowledge building; that the most efficient
way to build knowledge from information is through a disciplinary structure;
and finally, that building knowledge systematically is a necessary prerequisite
to any new thought on a subject, implying a strictly linear sequence from
teaching what is known to finding new things."
"I would like to suggest that the linear route is no longer effective in a time of
exponential increase in information. Today, massive amounts of information
can no longer be sorted into distinct disciplinary territories. Nor can they be
comprehensively learned or assimilated within the traditional educational
structure and time frame of degree-granting, even within one given field."
"A twentieth-century approach to education holds fast
to the notion of teaching as a systematic delivery of knowledge--knowledge
that is vetted and sanctioned and delivered in discipline-based packages from
expert teachers to students. It is education in which one learns about specific
stuff and how to do specific things. In contrast, twenty-first century learning environments are about learning that extends far beyond the classroom (it scales), which in turn promotes
elasticity and agency."
"This is a second paradigm shift in how we think about knowledge, action,
interaction, and agency. It is about learning to manage a complex network of
informational resources and skills so as to develop the capacity to assimilate
them, internalize them and then access them under a variety of situations--
changing, adapting and innovating in different situations and circumstances."
"Project-based environments like the design studio are an excellent example
of scaleable learning because in order to engage the problem, the students
must first decipher it and then determine what they will need to work through
the problem--what skills and information they will need to move forward,
including elements outside the specific domain where the work began. And
then they engage in work that, as it progresses, continually reforms the problem, its constraints, and information + skills needed. Information-rich courses can also operate in this entrepreneurial manner and there are many well proven examples,11 as well as more experimental ones still under development."
October 19-23 is the first International Open Access Week.
Open Access is an idea, a movement, and an approach to distributing information and research. Open Access publications make their contents freely available online to all.
The University of Minnesota Libraries are marking Open Access Week with a public awareness campaign. Celebrate with us!
Posters
You will soon see orangey-yellow Open Access posters all over campus. They are aimed at students, researchers, creators, soon-to-be graduates, and everyone else, and are intended to get people thinking about how open access might affect them personally.
If you spot one of these posters out in the wild, let us know - or better yet, snap a quick picture! - we'll be collecting them to share with others celebrating Open Access Week around the world.
Visit the Open Access Week website
Watch Open Access 101 and "Voices of Open Access" videos; learn some myths about open access; read "Piled Higher and Deeper" comics, and more.
http://www.lib.umn.edu/scholcom/openaccessweek.phtml
I will be co-presenting with Kurtis Scaletta on:
10 Tips to Become a Better Blogger (Sponsored by the Digital Media Center/University Libraries)
When? 12:00 to 12:30 p.m.
Where? 101 Walter Library (no pre-registration is necessary)
5 Tools to Write & Cite (Sponsored by the Digital Media Center/University Libraries)
When? 12:45 to 1:15 p.m.
Where? 101 Walter Library (no pre-registration is necessary)
Learn more about the National Day on Writing.
Register at: http://www.lib.umn.edu/services/workshops/registration
RefWorks: Basics
Learn the basics of using RefWorks, the Web-based citation manager that is available to all U of M Faculty, students and staff. Adding references to RefWorks will be covered, as well as exporting them to Word, and selecting a style (MLA, APA, etc) for your bibliography. See http://www.lib.umn.edu/refworks/ for more details about RefWorks.
Mon, 10/19/2009 - 2:00pm - 3:15pm
Location: Magrath Library Instruction Room (Room 81)
Free Music, Images and More: An Introduction to Creative Commons
This workshop will give you an introduction to the copyright alternative, Creative Commons. During the time we will discuss the various licenses, how you can use Creative Commons materials and why you may want to license your own work! We will also look at come CC resources to locate and integrate CC media into your lectures, presentations, podcasts, and papers.
Tue, 10/20/2009 - 1:00pm - 2:00pm
Location: Magrath Library Instruction Room (Room 81)
Grant Funding - Search Tools and Resources
Learn how to use IRIS, SPIN, and Community of Science and the Foundation Directory to search for grant opportunities. Setting up e-mail updates on specific subjects will also be covered, as well as how to find internal U of M funding sources. Resources for the course are listed on the Web site of the Office of the VP for Research, http://www.collaborate.umn.edu/explore/searching.html
Tue, 10/20/2009 - 3:00pm - 4:15pm
Location: 310 Walter Library
Formatting Your Dissertation or Thesis in *Word 2007*
Focus on your research instead of your formatting! In this workshop, you'll learn how to use Microsoft Word features effectively and efficiently. We'll cover inserting images and charts, getting your page numbers in the right place, generating tables of contents and figures; and more. Please note that this workshop covers the basic formatting you'll need to comply with Graduate School guidelines. Participants should have basic experience using MS Word. Note this version of the workshop specifically uses Office 2007; an instruction manual is available for Word 2003. We will be using a template and not be working with individual dissertations. Class materials can be found on the Moodle page, at: https://moodle.umn.edu/course/view.php?id=5102
Tue, 10/27/2009 - 10:00am - 12:00pm
Location: Magrath Library Instruction Room (Room 81)
Extreme Googling: Collaboration Tools
Google offers much more than a search engine. We will introduce to you free, online tools from Google to help you work collaboratively, stay current, get organized and be more productive in your personal and professional online lives. Tools covered will include: Google Docs, iGoogle, Google Notebook, Google Reader, Google Groups, Google Calendar, and Google Sites. Note: Searching Google will NOT be covered in this class. If you are interested in search tips, please attend Extreme Googling: Tips and Tricks for Expert Searching or Google IS a Research Tool.
Mon, 11/02/2009 - 2:00pm
Location: Magrath Library Instruction Room (Room 81)
Grant Funding for Graduate Students
Find out more about funding opportunities available to graduate students. Learn how to use IRIS, SPIN, and Community of Science and the Foundation Directory to search for grant opportunities. Setting up e-mail updates on specific subjects will also be covered, as well as how to find internal U of M funding sources. Resources for the course are listed on the Web site of the Office of the VP for Research, http://www.collaborate.umn.edu/explore/searching.html.
Wed, 11/04/2009 - 3:00pm - 4:15pm
Location: 310 Walter Library
Google for Researchers
With Google, you already search the web, share photos/movies/music, map directions and discover new things...but there are some tools you may have missed. This web search engine is on a mission to "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible." So let's explore the new tools and technology that pair Google-efficient tools with library-quality results to weave together a rich information web that goes beyond just the World Wide Web. We'll look at tools such as, Google Docs, RSS Reader, Google Scholar, and iGoogle Research Gadgets that will help you access, evaluate, and share information in an easy collaborative environment.
Wed, 11/11/2009 - 2:30pm - 3:30pm
Location: 310 Walter Library
We have been creating a number of new Courselib pages for Writing Studies courses. These pages are created in collaboration with instructors and librarians, like me. Generally an instructor will send me their ideas for a page and their syllabus. I will create a page based on the collections of the library. Then we make adjustments as needed.
The Courselib page can be a great starting point for students doing research--especially for interdisciplinary topics or assignments or if they are new to the resources of the library. 
Take a look at the new offerings:
WRIT 1201: Writing Studio (Stansbury)
WRIT 1301: University Writing (Moses)
WRIT 1301: University Writing (Oleksiak)
WRIT 1301: University Writing (Pawlowski)
WRIT 1910W: Fashioning a World: Magazines in American Culture
WRIT 3381: Writing and Modern Cultural Movements
If you are interested in getting a Courselib page for your class, send me an email (katep@umn.edu).
We are pleased to announce the availability of the Peer Research Consultants. Please encourage your students to drop in for one-on-one help with their research. Students can get help narrowing a topic, finding articles and books, selecting academic sources, evaluating and more. The PRCs are familiar with the Unravel workshops and will help build on the skills learned in these sessions. The PRCs are focused on teaching students as they help them with their research questions.
For Fall 2009, during our pilot phase, we are concentrating on supporting First Year Writing (all of the PRCs have completed WRIT 1301 with a grade of B or higher), SEAM (Student Excellence in Academics and Multiculturalism) and as part of MCAE's Academic Resources.
Fall 2009 Walk-in Hours:
Monday: 10:30 to 1:30 (Walter Library-SMART Commons)
Tuesday: 1:30 to 4:30 (Wilson Library-SMART Commons)
Wednesday: 1:30 to 3:00 (Walter Library-SMART Commons)
1:30 to 2:30 (MCAE in Appleby Hall)
Thursday: 12:00 to 2:00 (MCAE in Appleby Hall)
Friday: 1:30 to 4:00 (Wilson Library-SMART Commons)
1:30 to 4:30 (Walter Library-SMART Commons)
Students can drop in during walk-in hours without an appointment. If students would like to make an appointment they can be arranged directly with our consultants. For more information and to meet our consultants go to the PRC website: http://www.lib.umn.edu/services/prc or blog: http://blog.lib.umn.edu/ceslib/prc/.
If you are interested in print flyers, please let us know (grayjl@umn.edu or katep@umn.edu) and we will send enough for your class through campus mail. The PRCs are also available for short class visits (around 5 minutes) to promote their services--If you are interested, let us know (grayjl@umn.edu or katep@umn.edu) and we can schedule.
This program was developed in partnership with the University Libraries, MCAE: Multicultural Center for Academic Excellence and the SMART Learning Commons.
