This month the Penrose@Driscoll book display, Women’s Rights across the 
Globe!, highlights the diversity of women’s experiences around the world.
Come check out the display to find out about global feminisms, anti-feminisms, raunch culture, international women’s rights, female revolutionaries, and enjoy some graphic novels featuring leading ladies, plus much more! And don’t forget about International Women’s Day March 8th, 2012.
In honor of African American History Month, Penrose@Driscoll is celebrating the rich history of African Americans in the West.
Come check out our February book display, African Americans and the West, and learn about local history, Buffalo Soldiers, African American settlements, western writers of the Harlem Renaissance, and much more!
As you build a personal library of books and other resources at home, you can take advantage of some websites that will help you keep your personal collection organized. Just as the University subscribes to RefWorks so you can keep your scholarly articles and other readings organized, there are several free websites that provide the same function for popular reading materials.
LibraryThing – This website “is an online service to help people catalog their books easily. You can access your catalog from anywhere—even on your mobile phone. Because everyone catalogs together, LibraryThing also connects people with the same books, comes up with suggestions for what to read next, and so forth.” LibraryThing is very popular with librarians and other bookish people.
GoodReads – From their about page, they say that “Goodreads is the largest site for readers and book recommendations in the world. We have more than 7,000,000 members who have added more than 240,000,000 books to their shelves. A home for casual readers and bona-fide bookworms alike, Goodreads users recommend books, compare what they are reading, keep track of what they’ve read and would like to read, find their next favorite book, form book clubs and much more.” As you can see, book readers also enjoy using this service.
Shelfari by Amazon is another popular service. They say it “is a community-powered encyclopedia for book lovers. Create a virtual bookshelf, discover new books, connect with friends and learn more about your favorite books – all for free.” If you are a heavy user of Amazon, you should consider using Shelfari.
If you need any more information, there are plenty of good reviews of these three services from librarians and other readers.
Recently, Google released a new service called Google Scholar Citations. This is a good way to follow the publication and citation trail of an author. Here are some user profile examples for Richard Feynman and Albert Einstein. Many scholars from the University of Denver have accounts.
If you are an author of any scholarly publication, you can set up a Citations account to see if there are any citations to your papers.
One of the items you will see for authors is an h-index number. Be wary though, the data used to calculate this h-index may not be 100% accurate. The Google Scholar Citations h-index number may differ from other sources. One can also find an h-index for an author using the Web of Science database. There are several short YouTube videos that explain the process. The videos are done at other universities, but the process is the same.
Do you love it when the weather outside is frightful? Throughout the month of December, Penrose@Driscoll is featuring “Let it Snow”, a book display featuring a variety of books and DVDs focused entirely on the subject of snow. From the Killer Monster Snow Goon creations of Calvin and Hobbes to polar exploration narratives to the history of snowboarding and skiing, come check out all that this wintry precipitation has to offer! To see a full list of items on display, as well as relevant e-books and subject guides, see our Research Guide for more information.
We recently added to our collection a database called Archives Unbound- Journaux de la Révolution de 1848 (Newspapers of the French Revolution 1848).
Publishers Description:
“This series captures the British Library’s holdings of all newspaper and periodical titles published in France during the revolution of 1848. Coverage is continued through the coup d’état in 1851 to the establishment of the Second Empire in 1852. Some titles represent continuations of national dailies and weeklies which published through the unrest, offering a base-note of news coverage from experienced journalists, while many others sprang up in direct response to the political situation, and witnessed events from very partisan perspectives. George Sand is just one of the famous literary voices here commenting on the unrest and uncertainty.
While the revolutions are second only to World War II as research areas in French History, specific titles also address those studying many aspects of 19th-century French life, including: women’s periodicals, literary, musical, theatre and opera reviews; medical and trade titles; regional papers; and newsletters. There is also a strong strain of illustrated satirical and humorous titles, and pamphlets held at the main British Library rather than being classed as newspapers.”
To access this collection, click on the Databases tab on the library’s homepage and look under the History (World) subject area.
In celebration of Open Access Week from October 24-30, 2011, we invite you to learn more about open access resources and open educational resources. We have a Research Guide on the topic of open access and scholarly communication issues. There is a growing movement of scholars who desire to have their work accessible to a wider audience through Open Access (OA) methods. Some authors understand that more visibility and greater citations come with greater access to their works.
There are two main avenues for providing greater access to journal articles, books and book chapters. Many scholarly articles are provided in an open access format from the publisher. The publishers of these journals do not charge readers or subscribers to read their content. They receive funding through other means. The Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) is a great place to find freely available scholarly articles and journals.
Scholarly authors can also archive their work in local digital repositories, such as Peak Digital. However, the publishers of articles have different restrictions. Some publishers allow the authors to post the PDF versions of articles, while other publishers only allow the pre-print or post-print versions to be posted to a local website. Authors can check for various publisher restrictions at the SHERPA/RoMEO database.
Some publishers provide free backfile access to their articles, but they limit current content to subscribers. Many of the publishers at Highwire Press provide free access to older articles in this fashion.
Most scholarly authors are concerned about citations to their work, and one of the measures of the quality of a journal is the “Impact Factor”. This number is calculated by Thomson Reuters using data derived in their Web of Knowledge product. They publish impact factors in the Journal Citation Reports. As more and more authors and readers find, use and cite OA content, then they will receive higher impact factors. Most of the major article indexing databases (such as the Web of Science) include many OA journals. The world’s largest journal is also an OA journal, PLoS ONE, and that journal has a solid impact factor.
Thanks to the DU Law School Library, the entire campus now has access to ProQuest Legislative Insight. We have had ProQuest Legislative Histories (a component of ProQuest Congressional) for many years. Because of the success of tracking federal legislative histories from 1969 to present through this interface, ProQuest has undertaken the task of creating older legislative histories. When completed, this database will have legislative histories for all major pieces of U.S. legislation from 1929 to present.
For seven years DU students, faculty, and staff have been able to manage bibliographic citations using RefWorks. By clicking the RefWorks 2.0 link at the top of your RefWorks page, you can switch over to the new interface.
RefWorks 2.0 provides a more modern facelift, with navigation facets on the right. All features from Classic RefWorks have been integrated into the new look, with additional functionality available. Key functions are easily available through buttons and navigation toolbars. If you want further information, you can see a slide show with audio here.
You can switch back to the “RefWorks Classic” by clicking the link at the top of the page. The Classic interface will be supported by RefWorks through 2011. Beginning in 2012 all users will use the 2.0 interface.
Questions? Feel free to contact the Research Center.
During the renovation, take advantage of the library catalog’s features that allow you to browse the collection virtually by call number or to examine the contents of a book via the table of contents or Google Preview.
Virtual browsing allows you to see the collection in call number order, whether the item is checked out or available, whether it is a print book or e-book or DVD, and whether it is located in the regular collections or in Special Collections.
The library catalog provides two methods for browsing by call number, both available in the Classic Catalog, which is accessible via Summon@DU or the default keyword search under “Books & More.”
Below is a search in Summon@DU on the topic frankenstein film adaptations:
When you find a book title that is of interest to you, click on the title:
Once in the Classic Catalog, click on the either the call number or the virtual shelf browser to see the items in call number order:
Here are the results in text version by call number order:
and in the virtual shelf browser:
To access the record for the item, click on the call number or the book cover, depending upon which way you choose to browse. Use the “Request It” button in the catalog record to order the item you wish to see. You can order as many items as you wish, and then can decide which you want to check out once you examine them in person at Penrose@Driscoll.
Under “Books & More,” you can search using the default keyword search box, OR click on the “Classic Catalog” link to go directly to that version of the catalog:
To access the Classic Catalog record via the Books & More keyword search, click on the title of the item you wish to see and then click on Classic Catalog on the left side of the screen:
Whenever possible, we also include the tables of contents of the book, as well as links out to Google Preview. These features are available both in the default keyword search screen and in Classic Catalog:
If we have the book both in print and online, browse the e-book and then, if you wish to use the print version, use “Request It.”
RSS Feed