Mural Painting Competition Reminder

The deadline for entries for the Gardner-Harvey Library Mural Painting competition is fast approaching. Don't miss out on your chance to leave your mark on the university. The competition is open to all Miami University Middletown students, faculty and staff. Participants have the option of submitting an individual or group design.

Artwork will be judged based on color scheme, design, originality, and ability to express a theme associated with libraries or Miami University Middletown.

All submissions must be returned to the Info Desk in the Gardner-Harvey Library or e-mailed to longjh@muohio.edu by April 1, 2011 at 4:00 p.m. The winner will be notified by email no later than Friday, April 8, 2011 at 5:00 p.m.

Rules and entry forms may be downloaded or found at the Gardner-Harvey Library Info Desk.


*Please note that by entering the contest, you certify that your design is original and does not infringe on copyright laws.

Resource of the Week: IMC

Did you know that the Gardner-Harvey Library has both educational DVDs and Videos as well as popular movies? Our IMC collection offers a range of ever growing titles. Go ahead and take a look and see what we have to offer.

Terrace Repair

Please excuse the noise and the dust. Our terrace is being replaced and there will be a few days filled with construction noise. We appreciate your patience as we work to have our terrace repaired as quickly as possible. In the mean time, we do have ear plugs available at the Info Desk to help block out the noise.

Resource of the Week: Ancestry.com

In honor of Genealogy Day, which fell on Saturday, March 12th, this week we highlight one of our regional databases, Ancestry Library Edition. This database includes a collection of billions of genealogy records in the form of census data, vital records, directories, photographs and more. Go ahead, check out your family heritage.

Library service outage - 5pm March 9 to 5am March 10

Due to an electrical outage at King Library in Oxford, all library servers will be unavailable from 5pm on Wednesday, March 9 through 5am on Thursday, March 10. This will impact your use of the MU library catalog, and your access to all library databases through our Miami subscriptions.

However, you may still search and order materials from the OhioLINK Central Catalog or search databases available through OhioLINK (using your Miami UniqueID and password to login).

We look forward to serving your information needs more fully following the outage. Thank you for your patience!

New materials added in January and February

The January and February new materials list is now available. We added 288 books, DVDs, and other items over those months, thanks to the impressive efforts of our faculty and staff selectors and the library staff.

Have a suggestion of something to order? Use our online request form, email one of our staff members or drop by the library with your request.

Our deadline for ordering this year is coming up on April 1, 2011 (no fooling!).

Thanks!

John

Resource of the Week: OhioLINK

Looking for a book that is not part of Miami University Libraries' collection? Don't get discouraged, try OhioLINK. OhioLINK is a consortium of the libraries of 88 Ohio colleges and universities, and the State Library of Ohio. Search the millions of books in the OhioLINK catalog, find the book you are looking for and request a copy be sent to you here at Middletown. We will e-mail you when your book is available to pick up.

RefWorks will be gone, but easy bibliographies live on!

You may have already heard that RefWorks will be discontinued at Miami on June 30. This tool for gathering and citing sources does have a variety of possible replacements that can be used as a new home for your RefWorks citations or a fresh start for you to collect citations. Three possibilities provided by University Libraries are pasted below:

EndNote Web:  The program that is most similar to Refworks in functionality. Can import citation information directly from select databases, create a bibliography and format a paper.

Zotero: A [Firefox] browser plug-in with web accessibility. Offers ability to organize items via tags and folders, take notes, and share libraries with collaborators.

Mendeley: Features similar to Zotero but with a social aspect - connect to others with shared research interests via the web version. Also offers a mobile app.

A handout to help you move your citations from RefWorks to these services is available here.

If you have other questions about citing sources, you may wish to consult the resources on our Citing Your Sources page, or contact us directly.

Resource of the Week: Biography in Context

In honor of Presidents' Day, this week's Resource of the Week is Biography in Context. This database contains full-text articles with biographical information on people from throughout history, around the world, and across all disciplines and subject areas. A perfect database when looking for information on any of our past Presidents.

Gardner-Harvey Library Mural Painting Competition

How would you like to be part of the new Library Look? Gardner-Harvey Library is having a Mural Painting competition to add some new color and art to the library. The competition is open to all Miami University Middletown students, faculty and staff. Participants have the option of submitting an individual or group design.

Artwork will be judged based on color scheme, design, originality, and ability to express a theme associated with libraries or Miami University Middletown.

Gardner-Harvey Library will begin accepting submissions for our Mural Painting competition on Monday, February 14, 2011, at 8:00 a.m. All submissions must be returned to the Info Desk in the Gardner-Harvey Library or e-mailed to longjh@muohio.edu by April 1, 2011 at 4:00 p.m. The winner will be notified by email no later than Friday, April 8, 2011 at 5:00 p.m.

Rules and entry forms may be downloaded or found at the Gardner-Harvey Library Info Desk.


*Please note that by entering the contest, you certify that your design is original and does not infringe on copyright laws.

Happy Valentine's Day from Your GHL Staff

Happy Valentine's Day, Miami University!

Students

Staff

Faculty

Community




Go Study @ Your Library

24/7 Electronic Access to Resources? Sweet!

Treat Yourself to a Research Consultation!

Libraries are lovely places that have much to offer!

• Talk with a librarian about starting your research paper.

• Checkout a laptop, voice recorder, or digital camera to record memorable moments.

• Connect to loved ones near and far via the Internet! Email, Facebook, or Skype?

• Meet with your study buddies to prepare for exams.

• Collaborate on group projects or practice group presentations in STAR Lounge 1 or 2.

• Interact with minds of today or yesteryear in the pages of books and journals.

• Sit in silence; read, research, and reflect on world issues.

Visit the Gardner-Harvey Library this Valentine's Day and enjoy a candy reminder of
our heartfelt appreciation for your support.

Resource of the Week: Gale Virtual Reference Library

Looking for background information on a person, an event, a culture, a religion, a country or a continent? Why not check out the Gale Virtual Reference Library, our resource of the week. With over 100 reference books, covering a range of topics from biography to religion to technology, which can be searched individually or as one combined source.

In the UK, Save our Libraries Day

February 5, 2011 is Save our Libraries Day in the United Kingdom, which seeks to gain support from across the globe for public library services in the UK, which are in danger of being cut. To see the actions being taken in support of public libraries, check out http://www.cilip.org.uk/savelibraries. You may also want to check out the work of Phil Bradley, who asked the question, "what if the #savelibraries campaign had taken place between 1914-18?" The answer comes in his use of old wartime posters, adapted to show support for saving the libraries.

Resource of the Week: Playaway

Looking for a good audio book? Check out our Playaway collection of digital audio books. "Playaway is the easiest way to listen to audio on the go. Simply plug in the earphones and enjoy." No cassettes, CDs or downloads required.

Come on in and take a look at our Playaway collection in its new location by the Current Periodicals shelf.

Looking ahead, February's Book Discussion

As January comes to a close, we look ahead to our next MUM Book Discussion, The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein. We will meet on February 15th from 12:30-1:30 in the library to talk about everything we liked, or didn't like, about the book.

For more information about our reading group and to see a list of past and future selections check out http://www.mid.muohio.edu/library/bookdiscussion.htm

Resource of the Week: New Books Shelf

Curious about what books the library has purchased recently? Check out the New Books Shelf and take a look. Located at the front of our Periodicals section, the New Books Shelf offers quick access to our most recent additions to the library collection. Why not stop in and take a look?

Resource of the Week: Voice Recorders

Need some extra help taking notes in class? Check out our digital voice recorders. You can use these recorders to capture audio content and easily move that content onto your network drive or other medium. The recorders are available for a three day loan.

Resource of the Week: Textbooks on Reserve

As we embark on a new semester, we focus on a resource that continues to be popular with faculty and students alike, Textbooks on Reserve. Beginning in Fall 2006, the Gardner-Harvey Library, Miami Middletown Student Government (MMSG), academic departments, and individual faculty members brought together a reserve collection of textbooks for Miami Plan and other introductory courses offered at Miami University Middletown. Our aim is to assist students who may not be able to afford the textbooks or who may be delayed in purchasing them, and to give all students in the courses an opportunity to make use of their required texts while on campus.

Check out our Textbooks on Reserve page for a list of what textbooks are available.

Elsevier Journal Backfiles

OhioLINK, a library consortium of 89 Ohio college and university libraries and the State Library of Ohio has just concluded a 3 year negotiated deal with Elsevier, a noteworthy publisher for the sciences and engineering. OhioLINK users have been accessing about 2400 Elsevier journals to date. Now OhioLINK users will have 24/7 electronic access to historic backfiles of Elsevier journals. In some cases, these backfiles run for more than 100 years. Now Ohio researchers may use their institutional logons to access Elsevier scholarly journal articles in the sciences, social sciences, and humanities.

So if you no longer see backruns of favorite Elsevier journals on library shelves, it may be that academic libraries now rely on this new electronic acquisition to minimize storage of print journals and maximize library space for study, group work, and other purposes. Yes, academic library collections are shifting from print to electronic formats where that makes sense and cents.

New materials added in November and December

The November and December new materials list is now available. We added 129 books, DVDs, and other items over those months, thanks to the impressive efforts of our faculty and staff selectors and the library staff.

Have a suggestion of something to order? Use our online request form, email one of our staff members or drop by the library with your request. Thanks!

John