Public scanner available in the library!

The library has just purchased (and Technology Services has installed) a scanner in the library for anyone to use. It's located on the wall with the copiers and printers, just before you get to the STAR Lounge.

It does a great job with photos, documents, and other items (even cell phones - I tried it 8-) ). You can save scans in a variety of file formats, including PDF.

There is no charge for the service, and we're happy to help you get your scanning done.

Extended open hours on Saturday

The library is open for extended hours this coming Saturday, May 2, from 11:00-5:00 if you need help or a quiet place to study. Our IM reference service will also be up and operating during this time.

Good luck on finals!

February/March New Materials

The February/March new materials list is now available. We added 210 books, DVDs, and other items over the last month, thanks to the impressive efforts of our faculty selectors and the library staff.

I expect that April will be a big month for new items as well - many books and DVDs are appearing in the back room each day and heading out to the shelves.

You can find our current and previous new materials lists on the left hand side of our web site under "New Materials Lists."

Have a suggestion of something to order? Email one of our staff members or drop by the library. Thanks!

John

Celebrate @ Your Library!

National Library Week, April 12-18, 2009

The Gardner-Harvey Library invites you to celebrate National Library Week with us. We will hold a Wednesday Wii Tournament On April 15 for all-comers in the STAR Lounge throughout the day. Prizes will be awarded to the 3 top bowlers. We will also run a Quotations Quiz to identify the author/speaker of a number of quotes from Monday, April 13 to Thursday, April 16 at noon. Prizes will be awarded to 3 winners. Throughout the week, we will offer lifesavers, bookmarks, and pens for those who visit the Miami University Middletown Library. Join in the fun and find a good read while you are here.

EJC is back!

The good folks at OhioLINK have notified us that the Electronic Journal Center (EJC) is now up and running with all publishers' journals included. As you work through our databases and click on the Find It! link, full-text articles that are located in the EJC will now click through correctly (please let us know if you see any remaining issues). You may also search the EJC directly. Thank you so much for your patience with this situation.

GHL Librarians Go West

While some head south to bask on sunny beaches, the Gardner-Harvey Librarians will be heading west over spring break! Destination: Seattle to attend the Association of College and Research Libraries biennial meeting over four days. Why would they travel so far? "To Push the Edge: Explore, Engage, Extend!" Naturally they will return with wild, wild west ideas to implement right here at Miami University Middletown. Watch and see.

New Playaway Titles Added

Now is the time to see our new list of Playaway digital audio devices! We have added 41 more titles to our collection, taking us toward 212 titles in the collection.

Read more on what these devices are and how they work, or take a look at the new list (just click on the titles for a summary of the digital audio book and to request us to hold one for you).

EJC Restoration Update

From the good folks at OhioLINK:

While content in the Electronic Journal Center remains unavailable, OhioLINK is working diligently to provide access to the same content on each publisher's Web site. Available publishers’ sites are listed here and we continue to update this list as needed. Project Muse has been added to the list today and their content is now available. Links to the listed publisher sites work for both on and off campus users.

Over the weekend OhioLINK staff were able to restore EJC content from 2008-2009 for most publishers, except Elsevier, Springer and Blackwell. We continue to work to restore the remaining EJC content as quickly as possible, but do not have all the reload processes in place yet nor the experience to provide a useful time line for full EJC restoration. We hope to be able to share a schedule in the near future.

Since we have a growing body of available content, we restored the alphabetical title links on the EJC home page. These links show only those journals that are currently available, for other journals or issues please continue to visit the publishers’ sites.

New materials for December/January

The December/January new materials list is now available. We added 61 books, DVDs, and other items over the last month, thanks to the impressive efforts of our faculty selectors and the library staff.

You can find our current and previous new materials lists on the left hand side of our web site under "New Materials Lists."

Have a suggestion of something to order? Email one of our staff members or drop by the library. Thanks!

John

The Ways the Publishing World Is Changing

How knowledge is organized is often overlooked or assumed, but it is foundational in terms of storing and retrieving knowledge and information throughout the centuries. This has been the challenge libraries and "keepers of the book" have faced since ancient times. (Yes, valuable books were once chained.)

We benefit from understanding how information comes to be published and how much or little editing is done before it becomes available to the public. Then we are in a better position to evaluate its worth.

Currently the world of writing, information, and publishing is undergoing upheaval. Historically we have come from handwritten scrolls, to the Gutenberg printing press, to the wide distribution of printed materials by publishers, and now self-publishing online through Web sites, wikis, and blogs. Creators of content need no longer wait for the journal editor or publishing house agent to approve, edit, and publish their work. See this thought-provoking article in Time Magazine to learn more about the ways the world of publishing is changing.
Grossman, L., & Sachs, A. (2009, February 2). Books Unbound. Time, 173(3), 71. Retrieved February 7, 2009, from MAS Ultra - School Edition database.

Electronic Journal Center problems

Important Message to the OhioLINK community of students, faculty, and staff:

Beginning Wednesday afternoon, February 4, the OhioLINK computer disk storage system suffered a widespread, and supposedly not possible, multiple component failure affecting all major services with the exception of the OhioLINK Library Catalog. We have restored all services except the Electronic Journal Center (EJC). Restoration of the EJC remains under vigorous analysis, but unfortunately we know that any solution will not be immediate. In light of this, we are taking immediate steps to provide alternative access to the resources of the EJC through the various Web sites of the EJC journal publishers.

As noted on this page, we have immediate access to many EJC publisher sites and are working to expand access to the rest as quickly as possible. While the EJC is down, we will continue to improve this site to direct you to the proper publishers. We will also work to adjust our systems that link article citations to full text in the EJC by redirecting links to the publisher sites. We are examining every possibility to keep you connected to resources you need and to improve that connectivity as quickly as possible, while the EJC is not available.

We will keep you up to date through this Web page and the “New at OhioLINK” announcements at www.ohiolink.edu.
Your local library will also always know the latest news.

The OhioLINK staff is sincerely sorry for this significant disruption in services. We remain committed, as we have since 1992, to providing high quality information resources on a consistent and reliable basis to the Ohio higher education community.

Sincerely,

Tom Sanville, Executive Director, tom@ohiolink.edu
February 8, 2009

Textbooks on Reserve: Ready for Spring!

The library's collection of Textbooks on Reserve (TOR) has been revamped for Spring 2009 courses. You can see the full list of books that we have on reserve here. We provide the main texts for 87 Miami courses, in addition to the many textbooks and additional readings placed on reserve individually by faculty members..

Last fall, the TOR program was heavily used, with 341 individuals checking out a book from the collection during the semester. The ten most popular textbooks checked out by students at MUM are the following (based on lifetime checkouts):

- ELEMENTARY AND INTERMDIATE ALGEBRA (MTH 102)
- MATERIALS AND PROCESSES IN MANUFACTURING (ENT152)
- ENGINEERING MATERIALS - (ENT 151)
- HOLE'S HUMAN ANATOMY & PHYSIOLOGY - (ZOO 171)
- PREALGEBRA (MTH002)
- PSYCHOLOGY (PSY 111)
- New perspectives on Microsoft Office 2007 : first course (CIT 154)
- BASIC COLLEGE MATHEMATICS (MTH001)
- ART THROUGH THE AGES (ART 187)
- CONTEMPORARY MANAGEMENT (BTE 111)

Remember that the textbooks are available for two hour checkout during the day, but may also be taken home overnight if checked out within two hours of the time we close that day.

Blackboard Embedded Librarian Pilot Program Starting Spring Semester 2009

10 Miami University faculty members teaching 19 sections of 13 different courses will be participating in the Spring 2009 Blackboard Embedded Librarian Pilot Program through the Gardner-Harvey Library, Miami University Middletown. This faculty-librarian collaboration to address the information literacy needs of students enrolled in Blackboard courses, whether online, off-campus, or the traditional classroom is currently being implemented nationally and internationally at public, private, and for-profit colleges and universities. The pilot program represents the first Miami University partnership. Once the faculty member and librarian agree upon the specifics of their instructional collaboration, the embedded librarian has the opportunity to interact with students directly. The embedded librarian is able to offer students much more than the typical fifty minute instructional session permits by creating course-specific links to electronic reference sources, full-text databases of scholarly articles, authoritative Web sites, digital media, and promote electronic tools like RefWorks to manage bibliographic citations or Reference Universe to locate reference essays. Further, the embedded librarian will address students’ individual research concerns; suggest search terms and strategies, and appropriate electronic resources. Better research projects and papers with less frustration on the student’s part are the expected outcome. It’s a win-win approach to learning in the 21st century.

Information Literacy Forum Starting in January 2009

Participants will interact with a series of articles, podcasts, and digital videos on information literacy and its impact on teaching and learning. Reading, listening and watching will introduce key concepts in a way that mirrors the 21st century information environment. Dialogue will take place during spring semester 2009 in two face to face meetings, at the start and conclusion of the project, and on a blog in between. The intended outcome is to increase awareness of the current state of students’ information literacy and research skills. This enlarged understanding may alter expectations of students’ abilities and classroom instruction methods to better meet students at their current level and introduce them to efficient academic research methods and resources. Today’s information problem solvers benefit greatly from knowing how information is produced, organized, distributed, searched, and accessed at no charge through academic libraries as opposed to other information channels. These skills are learned and not intuitive. Miami University Middletown faculty/staff, please consider joining the Gardner-Harvey librarians by contacting either fryesm@muohio.edu or tumbleb@muohio.edu by January 20, 2009.

Get it Together in the STAR Lounge

With all our announcement of the Wii, we really haven't fully mentioned the STAR (Space for Technology, Academics, and Recreation) Lounge on its own this year.

The Lounge is equipped with:
- a 47" LCD TV
- a DVD player/VCR unit
- cable TV
- a Nintendo Wii gaming system
- a computer with a wireless keyboard and mouse
- work tables by the TV
- a small round table
- a 4' x 6' white board
- six chairs (and more are available to bring in)

The Lounge may be used to:
- watch a DVD, a videotape, or a live TV program with a group
- create a presentation of write a document or work on software with a group
- practice a presentation before giving it in class
- work with a small group for training or group review of information using the computer and TV or the white board
- have a meeting using the white board, TV, or just talking to one another
- play a game on the Wii (see the list)
- record a podcast (using one of our digital voice recorders, or a microphone and Audacity)

We have some ideas about how you can use the room. How will you use it? Take a look today and imagine how it might work with your study group or class or ?

The room may be used for two hours at a time. We are also happy to reserve it for you ahead of time. Be sure to check in at the InfoDesk before using the STAR Lounge.

Attention All Music Fans!

Have you heard of Pandora Internet Radio?
If not, keep reading!

Pandora Radio is an internet radio player which allows users to create, blend, and share stations based on the music they like. From the Pandora main page, users have the option to type in the name of a favorite song or artist; Pandora then generates an internet radio station by compiling songs with similar musical qualities. Users can create as many stations as they like for free, or browse Pandora’s selection of genre stations. While listening, users can indicate whether they like or dislike a particular song to hear it more often, less often, or never again on a specific station. By creating an account, users can listen to their stations any time or place they have internet access. Stations can be blended for more diverse listening or shared with friends through email.

Pandora is based on the Music Genome Project, “the most comprehensive analysis of music ever undertaken.” The project studies various elements of music such as “melody, harmony, instrumentation, rhythm, vocals, lyrics ... close to 400 attributes!” Using this information, Pandora connects listeners to the music they love and helps users explore a wide variety of related new and lesser-known music.

What does this have to do with the library, you ask? Librarians are always looking for ways to share good information with our users and improve the overall library experience. This site is just FUN and we thought you would enjoy it. Stop by the library for a demo, or to ask for help navigating the site. We provide headphones, so you can listen while using the library computers for homework, research, or just surfing the net!

For more information, check out http://pandora.com/

New Materials for November

The November new materials list is now available. We added 99 books, DVDs, and other items over the last month, thanks to the impressive efforts of our faculty selectors and the library staff.

You can find our current and previous new materials lists on the left hand side of our web site under "New Materials Lists."

Have a suggestion of something to order? Email one of our staff members or drop by the library. Thanks!

John

Library Services Delivered to Distance Users

If you are or will be teaching off-site, online, or VOALC courses, consider collaborating with an information specialist who will bring library resources and services to you and your students.

What?
We would like to collaborate with you to empower your students and enable them to undertake academic research effectively and efficiently. We are searching for ways to partner with you in order to provide library services to Miami students enrolled in off-site courses, at the VOA Learning Center, and in online courses.
Why?
You expect university students, upper division and graduate students, to know how to undertake research papers and projects using academic resources specific to your discipline. Librarians find students are unfamiliar with today’s electronic resources and services and do not know how to proceed:
• to locate authoritative academic resources, print and electronic

• to understand copyright issues & cite sources properly using APA or MLA

• to narrow a topic and select search terms best suited to the research topic

• to utilize full-text databases, eBook collections, and digital media

• to understand the difference between popular and scholarly sources

• to evaluate Websites

Typically most instructors assume these information literacy skills are in place and do not take class time to teach students how to search for information. Sadly, many students do not possess these essential information literacy skills, although they surf the WWW, download music, and text wonderfully well. Moreover, the information world is ever changing. New tools are released such as Reference Universe, new database interfaces are released as was the case of for all EBSCOhost databases in July 2008, and then specialized, subject-specific databases are available about which students know next to nothing.
Students become anxious and overwhelmed by research assignments, but may say little to you, the Professor. Who wants to admit such things to one’s professor? We librarians see these students at the library, wondering and wandering.
How?
Gardner-Harvey librarians are adopting a proactive approach to information literacy for students who may never walk through the doors of our Library. We are offering MUM Faculty who are teaching off-site, online, or VOA courses a suite of library services to strengthen student achievement. See the list below and determine which ones would work best in your class. Then contact one of GHL Librarians to create the services selected. Let’s work together to ensure your students have the research skills they need to succeed.

1. We will come to your classroom and provide information literacy instruction, customized to your student research project or paper. Typical sessions last from 45-75 minutes.
2. We will create research guides listing research strategies, full-text databases, and citation tools to assist students in completing research assignments for Nursing, Botany, Computer Info Tech.
3. We offer individual research consultations by appointment, using an online form
4. We have built a series of brief screencasts covering essential information literacy concepts and skills which you may link to from your Blackboard course.
For example: “The Ins and Outs of Searching for Information”
5. We will build new Captivate screencasts if one is not already available.
6. We will post reference works and authoritative Websites relevant to a specific course on Delicious.com See one example for Nursing 105
7. Pilot Program: Embedded Librarian in Blackboard, Spring Semester 2009
Because Gardner-Harvey librarians teach credit courses using Blackboard, we are able to work with students in your Blackboard course as an instructor or course builder. We will partner with you during the research component of the course or throughout the semester if you prefer, by answering students’ questions dealing with research in the discussion board, blog, announcements, or email. We will suggest sources, research tips, and new ways of working efficiently. We are eager to connect your students with the many and ever-expanding collection of electronic resources available to Miami University students.
When
To ensure January 2009 Library Services are in place for your course and students, contact the Gardner-Harvey Librarians now to discuss the most effective suite of library services for your course requirements.

Blackboard Embedded Librarian Pilot Program

What is a Blackboard embedded librarian?
An embedded librarian partners with faculty members in the Blackboard environment as an instructor or course builder. One of the Gardner-Harvey librarians will assist with your class research endeavors. These research efforts may include links to library resources, methods of narrowing a topic, explaining how to identify search terms, or using RefWorks to manage bibliographic citations. Today’s students possess technology skills, but may feel uncertain when embarking on the “Research Voyage” alone. A knowledgeable, available navigator may be welcomed to address students’ questions and concerns. Through the Discussion Forum, Blog, Email, Announcements, Library Resources Button, or FAQ the librarian will interact with individuals or the class as a whole. In this way the librarian may comment on the student’s selected research topic, suggest relevant academic resources, and provide strategies of solving information problems, explain confusing concepts like intellectual property and plagiarism, administer online information literacy quizzes, and generally encourage academic scholarship among your students. You remain the subject expert but collaborate with a professional librarian versed in current academic research methods.

Why would I want an embedded librarian turning up in my Blackboard course?
Academic librarians are passionate about instructing students in information literacy. We want to develop these essential 21st century skills in your students so they become effective, efficient researchers. These skills are learned and cannot be assumed to be in place. Sometimes students survive on a slim set of research skills. When they encounter the semester term paper, the capstone project, or the graduate thesis, which all require subject specific resources and research strategies previously unknown, they falter. So many sources of information; so many questions… Enter the librarian, proposing this joint venture with you.

How long would this relationship last?
Gardner-Harvey librarians are willing to engage your students during the research component of your Blackboard course for several weeks or throughout the entire semester. If you prefer, we will assist at start-up only to spotcheck your research assignment from a research perspective, to build a library resources page customized to the course to include reference works, databases and collections, authoritative Web sites, supply controlled vocabulary and subject headings, links to screencasts teaching core skills we have created or endorse, and our contact information. You tell us which collaborative arrangement best fits your needs.
Contact us by December 15, 2008 to set this working relation in motion so as to be ready for the January 2009 Pilot Program.
Contact:
Gardner-Harvey Library, Miami University Middletown
http://www.mid.muohio.edu/library
John Burke, Director burkejj@muohio.edu 73293
Beth Tumbleson, Assistant Director tumbleb@muohio.edu 73232
Sarah Frye, Public Services fryesm@muohio 73291

What College Faculty Say Freshmen Students Don't Do

At a recent state-wide conference for academic librarians, I was introduced to the following list titled “What College Faculty Say Freshmen Students Don’t Do.” This list highlights many skills which librarians at the Gardner-Harvey strive to teach Miami University students. Take a look at the list – if you are a student, do you think that this list accurately describes your skills abilities? If you are faculty or staff, do you think this list accurately describes your students or even yourself?

Librarians revel in sharing their knowledge on these topics and at GHL we eagerly seek opportunities to work within the campus community to debunk lists of things which students “Don’t Do.” We encourage you to challenge yourself! If you notice unfamiliar terms or concepts in this list, stop by the library and see what your librarians can do for you!

Albert Einstein said it best: “If we knew what we were doing, it wouldn’t be called research, would it? :o)


What College Faculty Say Freshmen Students Don’t Do

GENERAL
- Know what they don’t know
- Know who to ask for research help
- Understand library jargon, ex. “full text”

RESEARCH PROCESS AND QUESTIONS
- Follow research process steps, ex. information literacy model
- Estimate time required for research, ex. Interlibrary loan
- Define a research question or topic that’s not shallow or ‘pop’

SEARCHING FOR INFORMATION
- Find different formats of information
- Understand that web search engines rarely locate college-appropriate information
- Distinguish between OPACs and online databases
- Conduct effective searches using
o Keywords, alternate search terms
o Boolean terms, ex. AND, OR
o Controlled vocabulary, subject headings
o Field searching, ex. author, title

- Interpret search results
- Find full text of articles
- Find books using Library of Congress (LC) classification, not Dewey
- Use reference books in the library
- Regroup when first attempts to find resources don’t work, ex. try a different database

EVALUATING INFORMATION
- Weed through search results to find adequate and accurate information
- Evaluate information using standard evaluation criteria
- Distinguish between popular and scholarly articles
- Disregard inadequate or inaccurate information

USING INFORMATION
- Synthesize, communicate, and argue a thesis using evidence
- Analyze data and statistics
- Represent, analyze, and critique the ideas of others ethically
- Write without plagiarizing (accidentally or otherwise), ex. use in-text citations - Cite sources properly using multiple citation styles, ex. Citation Builder

P. Owen & M. OakleafUsing Evidence to Bridge the 12-13 Gap OELMA 2008