Archive for May, 2009

“Supporting the learning experience” – speaker programme

Friday, May 29th, 2009

Please see below the programme of speakers for  “Supporting the learning experience”, a joint event by Library and Learning Resources (LLR) and the Centre for Educational Research and Development (CERD):

  • 23rd June 2009
  • 12 noon – 2.30pm
  • EMMTEC building
  • University of Lincoln

 Book your place at https://portal.lincoln.ac.uk/C0/StaffTrainingDevelopment

 

Time

Title and speaker

 

12.30-12.40

Lys Ann Reiners (Senior Academic Librarian) and Rachel Farrow (PAL)

– ‘Peer Assisted Learning in the Library and Learning Resource centres’

 

12.45-12.55

Andy Hagyard (Teaching and Learning Co-ordinator)

– ‘Blackboard: I never knew you could do that…!’

 

1.00-1.10

Alison Sharman (Academic Subject Librarian)

– ‘RefWorks: find out why your students are raving about it’  

1.15-1.25

Open University Press

– ‘A glance at the book publishing world’

 

1.30-1.40

Joss Winn (Technology Officer)

– ‘Collaborative web publishing with WordPress’

 

1.45-1.55

Paul Stainthorp (E-resources Librarian)

– ‘Presenting and enhancing digital library resources’

 

 

2.00-2.10

Helen Farrall (Learning Development Coordinator)

– ‘LearningDevelopment@Lincoln: supporting student success’

 

2.15-2.25

Julian Beckton (Teaching and Learning Co-ordinator)

– ‘The ‘I’ portfolio: using e-portfolios in PDP’

 

DVD OF THE WEEK: Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (you get the idea…)

Friday, May 29th, 2009

As someone who was ardently against the Harry Potter books and films I am now very proud to call myself a hypocrite.

The first three Harry Potter films are probably the best of the heptalogy (or should that be octology since the film makers have decided to split the final book in two?). The actors haven’t grown older than their characters and the plots are short and simple enough to fit into three 2 hour films. Based on J.K. Rowling’s best selling books, the films revolve around an orphan called Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe ) who discovers that he is a wizard. When Harry was a baby, his parents were murdered by the world’s most dangerous wizard Voldemort, yet he survived and brought about Voldemort’s demise. Of course Voldemort isn’t really dead and Harry finds himself fighting the evil wizard and his supporters including a shifty looking teacher (Snape played by Alan Rickman), a giant serpent and a mass murderer.

These may sound like a basic, magical, good versus evil, children’s films but believe me they’re not. The friendships that Harry makes with Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane), Ron (Rupert Grint) and Hermione (Emma Watson) and the relationship he forms with his school’s Headmaster, Dumbledore (Richard Harris and Michael Gambon) make these films real and gives them substance.

Forget what you’ve read, what people have told you and what you’ve seen and give them a go! If you don’t get hooked on the films then I bet, if nothing else, they’ll inspire you to read the books (which as a Librarian, I implore you to do anyway!).

These three Harry Potter films are available to borrow from the University Library and can be found at 791.4372 har. You can find the first book at 823.914 row.

Right, now to test your knowledge of the films, answer this:

Q. What popular team sport does Harry play and what position does he play in?

Reducing book theft at university libraries – new research!

Friday, May 29th, 2009

After the local press reported how a student stole books from the library and sold them on the online marketplace, eBay, it became clear that hardly any research had been undertaken into reducing book theft at university libraries. This article, published in Library and Information Research this month, puts forward some useful recommendations.

Reducing book theft at university libraries

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Fiction Non-fiction money media

GCW Library CLOSED Saturday 20th June

Tuesday, May 26th, 2009

Please note that the GCW University Library will be CLOSED on Saturday 20th June 2009.

There will be no power to the library building on that day, to allow work to be undertaken on connecting a power supply to the new Enterprise@Lincoln building.

  • Temporary open-access I.T. facilities will be available in Newsroom 4 (first floor, MHAC building) on the day.

We apologise for any inconvenience caused.

The LRCs at the other campuses are not affected.

Enterprise@Lincoln building update

Friday, May 22nd, 2009

Construction work on the University’s newest building (next door to the GCW University Library) has reached a significant stage.

Republished from the University message list:

The building is designed to be sustainable and to have minimal environmental impact with an overall aim to obtain a BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method) Rating of “Excellent” for environmental sustainability.

sparkhouseii

New photovoltaic solar roof panels have been installed which allow the building to generate its own electricity to be used by the Brayford Campus.

The system installation, which was co-ordinated by Freewatt from Stow in Lincolnshire, consists of 32 solar panels that will feed the AC current into the building.

Dan Clayton, Environmental & Sustainability Manager, said: “The actual installed system rating is 6.1 kilowatts. This should produce an estimated generated output of 4660 kilowatt-hours per annum. These will save the emission of approximately 2.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide each year.

“The photovoltaic panels also have a monitoring system attached to them which will give a data feed to a local display in the building’s reception and online so staff can monitor the energy generated and saved.”

You say – we respond

Friday, May 22nd, 2009

To help us plan the library services that you need, we carried out a survey to find out which service areas and resources you would like us to prioritise for development. The following is a summary of key results, together with our responses.

Thanks very much to everyone who completed our survey.

Publish at Scribd or explore others: School Work How-to-Guides & Manu Books Fiction ebook Tutorial

Fixed: The Times Digital Archive now working from off campus

Thursday, May 21st, 2009

thetimesThe access problems we have been experiencing with The Times Digital Archive have now been fixed. You should now be able to access the Archive, from on or off campus, via the University Portal:

The Times Digital Archive is an online, full-text archive of The Times of London, covering two centuries of newspaper articles from 1785 – 1985. The entire newspaper is captured, including all articles, advertisements and illustrations/photos, and the archive is searchable by keyword index, by category, and by date.

See also the 19th Century British Library Newspapers service.

New titles added to Holbeach stock

Thursday, May 21st, 2009

new-books

Please see link to a list of new titles added to the Holbeach stock below including e-books relevant to the food manufacture courses.

Riseholme LRC closure Weds 10th June 2009

Thursday, May 21st, 2009

The Riseholme Library & Learning Resources Centre will be closed on Wednesday 10th June, for a staff training awayday.

DVD OF THE WEEK: City of God (Cidade de Deus), 1998

Thursday, May 21st, 2009

Based on a true story, this exhilarating and often mesmerising film, brilliantly directed by Fernando Meirelles and Katia Lund is a Brazilian crime drama about the emergence of organised crime in a Rio de Janeiro housing project and the gifted but ultimately doomed photographer Buscape (nicknamed ‘Rocket’). Spanning the apocalyptic years from the 1960s through to the early 1980s, Rocket acts a filmic narrator capturing the cycle of violence and all-encompassing tragedy that proliferated the favelas and the undiscovered talents that lay within its borders. Cidade de Deus is a story where death is only around the corner for the disenfranchised youth desperate to escape the war-zone or defeat a rival gang.

The filmmakers auditioned 2000 youths from the favelas and enrolled 200 on to acting workshops to achieve authentic representation of gang warfare. The tagline is “Fight and you’ll never survive…Run and you’ll never escape.” In a memorable review of the film, the BBC called it ‘an intoxicating shot of cinematic adrenaline’.

In Portuguese with English subtitles.

Cidade de Deus is available to borrow from the University Library and is located at 791.4372 cit

Q. What’s the name of Rio’s beach, made world-famous by a Bosa Nova song in the 1960s?