October 2009 Archives

Here are the new physics and astronomy books received at Walter. As always you may check our new books list for all the new books received in Science and Engineering subjects.

QB471.A1 W67 2008
Science with the new generation of high energy gamma-ray experiments : proceedings of the 6th edition : bridging the gap between GeV and TeV : Abano Terme, Italy, 8-10 October 2008.
Melville, N.Y. : American Institute of Physics, 2009.
viii, 244 p. ; 24 cm.
Link to MnCat Record

QB539.P58 S65 2007
Solar Polarization 5 : in honor of Jan Olof Stenflo : proceedings of a workshop held at Centro Stefano Franscini-Monte Verita, Ascona, Switzerland, 17-21 September 2007
San Francisco : Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 2009.
xxiv, 553 p.
Link to MnCat Record

QB755 .C65 2009
Cokinos, Christopher.
The fallen sky : an intimate history of shooting stars
New York : Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, c2009.
517 p. ; 24 cm.
Link to MnCat Record

QC1 .N335 2008
National Society of Black Physicists. Day of Scientific Lectures (35th : 2008 : Washington, D.C.
Proceedings of the National Society of Black Physicists : 35th Annual Day of Scientific Lectures and 31st Annual Meeting : 2008 joint Annual Conference of the National Society of Black Physicists and the National Society of Hispanic Physicists, Washington, D.C., 20-23 February 2008 / editor, Hakeem M. Oluseyi.
Melville, N.Y. : American Institute of Physics, 2009.
xxiv, 200 p.
Link to MnCat Record

QC7 .G65 2009
Glasner, Ruth.
Averroes' physics : a turning point in medieval natural philosophy
Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2009.
ix, 229 p. ; 23 cm.
Link to MnCat Record

many more...keep reading!

Source: http://library.otterbein.edu/Information_literacy/images/infolit.jpg

The University Libraries group for Information Literacy address the ways in which students learn how to find, access, synthesis, and ethically use information to become life-long learners. As part of their work, they have released 10 Tips on how to incorporate Info Literacy into your class assignments. More information on their work can be found at :https://wiki.lib.umn.edu/AP/InformationLiteracy

Ten Info Lit Teaching Tips:

1. Less is More. Avoid too much content. Remember the brain can only remember 5 to 7 bits of information--after teaching content include a short activity to help refresh student's brains and allow them to take in more information. Include additional details in a handout or CourseLib page for students to refer to.

2. Write 3-5 learning objectives as you prepare materials for an instructional session. They will help focus your teaching in the limited time you have available. Also ask faculty and instructors for their syllabi or assignment description so you can tailor the objectives.

3. Add a 5-minute "Think-Pair-Share" to help students process. For example, 1.) Ask a question (What are your biggest challenges with doing research? Let's say you are working on a project on health care reform-what is the best place to start? How can you avoid plagiarism? ) and 2.) have student think for a minute then talk to a fellow student for 2 minutes and 3.) then have a couple students share with the group.

4. Make content available after the instructional session such as with a CourseLib/PageScribe page, department blog, handout, PPT, etc. Ask the instructor to forward an email with the material to the students or post it in the course site.

5. Refresh your use of PowerPoint. Look for examples of good PowerPoint usage or presentation tips:
* Presentation Zen: http://www.presentationzen.com/
* How NOT to use Powerpoint: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cagxPlVqrtM (Warning: Humorous)
*Doing a 15 Minute Presentation in 10 easy steps: http://otherlibrarian.wordpress.com/2009/04/09/doing-a-15-minute-presentation-in-10-easy-steps/

6. Start with an open-ended question ( "What are your questions about the library and research?" "Where do you start your research?" "Do you think research is easier or harder than it used to be?") to get the students engaged in the material.

7. Try a small-scale experiment with technology such as the clickers (https://wiki.lib.umn.edu/SEDP/EquipReservations). Instead of trying to redo your whole presentation just add three questions at the beginning or at the end.

8. Students learn by doing--build short hands-on activities to help students practices what you are teaching.

9. Analogies and stories are powerful teaching tools. Write down a couple or ask colleagues about analogies or stories they use in instruction.

10. Here are a few more readings and resources:
* Eric's Top Ten Teaching Tips: http://www.lib.umich.edu/instructor-college/teaching-tips
* Adventures in Library Instruction Podcast: http://adlibinstruction.blogspot.com/
* 10/20/30 Rule of Powerpoint: http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2005/12/the_102030_rule.html#axzz0QjSrFeG9
* Less is More: Making Your Presentations Zen-tastic: http://mscofino.edublogs.org/2009/03/01/less-is-more-making-your-presentations-zen-tastic/

As the semester rolls on, its a good time to remind you that Walter Library's SMART learning Commons offers tutoring help in many areas including Physics/Astronomy, math, writing, and more. See their website for a schedule of learning consultants and subject areas.

(For those who have not heard, IT will no longer offer tutoring services out of Lind Hall, they are referring their students to the Walter SMART commons) More on the move here

Also New this year: Peer-Learning Consultants hold weekly study session throughout the academic semester. These session are taught by trained undergraduates and are a great opportunity to ask questions in a friendly, fun group.
View their Fall 09 schedule here.

-Tony

AIP recently unveiled their social networking platform called: UniPHY. This network runs on a Collexus-based collaborative virtual environment. Collexus also runs www.biomedexperts.com.

According to AIP UniPHY enables physical scientists to connect with over 200,000 colleagues from more than 100 countries. The site:
• Enables physical scientists to analyze the profiles of more than 200,000 colleagues
• Allows researchers to explore their personal networks - starting with their direct co-authors and moving on to the co-authors of their co-authors
• Lets researchers identify and connect directly with individuals whose expertise they may need in future collaborations

Take a look at this platform for connecting with colleagues. I think the one main drawback is this network only combines articles, references and authors which have published in AIP journals. Therefore all of your work outside of these will not be added to your profile automatically. And "puni" is in the url...not sure they saw that :)

Also, check out the interview AIP conducted on YOUR physics and astronomy librarian:
There you will get an idea of some of the things I've been working on!

From the Stacks: An interview with Lisa Johnston, the Physics, Astronomy and Geology
Librarian at the University of Minnesota

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!

• 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. Please share the link liberally! http://www.lib.umn.edu/scholcom/openaccessweek.phtml

• Public poster campaign
  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.

• Poster your own libraries and departments!
  You can print your own copies of the public posters, or additional posters detailing the NIH Open Access policy, the top 5 Open Access myths, and Open Access publications produced here at the University. Post them in your departments, in staff areas at your libraries, or out in public view!
  All OA Week posters - thumbnails.pdf
  

Update: Nov 1st there will again be outages of library services do the OIT upgrade:

Notes are being posted in all systems affected by this work and the
System Status page at http://systemstatus.umn.edu . Thank you for your
support while OIT makes improvements to their infrastructure.

******************
As many of you are probably aware, there is a scheduled downtime for many Library and Campus Systems on October 24 and 25, 2009.

A significant downtime period affecting many library systems (ie. MNCAT, UThink) and nearly all enterprise and university-wide applications (ie. Email, UMcal) supported by the Office of Information Technology (OIT) is scheduled to start at 2:00 am on Saturday, October 24, 2009 and conclude at 12:00 pm on Sunday, October 25, 2009. This outage is being scheduled so that OIT can increase the amount of utility and emergency power to the University's primary data center, which is located in the West Bank Office Building (WBOB). This will provide for a much-needed increase in the reliability, availability, and capacity of this data center.

A complete listing of library systems and their expected availability status can be accessed at: https://wiki.lib.umn.edu/IT/Downtime . In order to maintain availability of key library systems - such as MNCAT (search only) and Find It (SFX) - one to two hour downtimes are scheduled to begin in the late afternoon of Friday, October 23, 2009. These details will be provided on the wiki page referenced above. We ask that you plan accordingly and ask for any clarification and additional information as needed.

Our Digital Library Development Lab has created a mobile version of the University Libraries web site: http://www.lib.umn.edu/mobile/ . Expertly coded by John Barneson, this beta release features a compact version of our web site including MNCAT Plus search, our most popular database offerings, access to ejournals, library hours, and more.

Before we release this to a wider audience please take a moment to try it out (especially on your mobile phone!) and provide us with feedback.

Notes provides by
Martha Bishop, Observatory Librarian
National Radio Astronomy Observatory

The IAU Division XII Commission 5 Working Group Libraries business meeting at the IAU General Assembly was held Monday, 3 August 2009
Session 4 (4:00 - 5:30 p.m.)

The topics and presenters were:

1. The Librarian's Brave New World - Panel of Librarians; Moderated by Uta Grothkopf
1. Jill Lagerstrom
• Library as place: renovating and downsizing
• Metrics: The new HST Bibliography
2. Chris Erdmann
• Metrics: Facility identifiers -- how they are (or aren't) used
• Showcasing FUSE: the ESO library full-text search system
3. Marsha Bishop
• Data curation: Keeping data over time
• Brave New World: Strategies for survival
2. Linking - Alberto Accomazzi

In attendance were:

Marsha Bishop, Bob Hanisch, Uta Grothkopf, Jill Lagerstrom, Arnold Rots, Miller Goss, Alberto Accomazzi, Chris Erdmann, Marion Schmitz, rep from Cambridge University Press, Masatoshi Ohishi, a few others unidentified

Full meeting notes and presentation pdfs and handouts are available at http://www.eso.org/sci/libraries/IAU-WGLib/iau09/

The libraries offer a great workshop on the various citation managers that are available and recently we've posted this workshop online as a concise comparison chart.

So whether you manage you literature references as a personal library or through a collaborative group, you can choose the right tool. And new with RefWorks, university alumni may take their account with them when they leave the university.

• Citation manager Comparison