News & Events – St. Thomas Libraries Blog - Page 54

St. Thomas Libraries Blog

Browsing Category

News & Events

News & Events

Find the library content you need with Summon!

(The following Bulletin Today article from Sept 09, describes how UST Libraries offers a new way to find library resources – Summon.)

Summon provides a new approach to searching millions of articles, books, book chapters and catalog records simultaneously. Considered a discovery tool, Summon allows users to get library resources through a familiar, Google-like, single search box; however, instead of searching the free Web, Summon searches library-subscribed resources (academic and trade journals, e-books, books, DVDs, etc.).

How it works: Serials Solutions, the creators of Summon, signed agreements with journal, newspaper and book publishers to index their content. Through UST’s library subscriptions, access is provided to tens of thousands of full-text e-journals and hundreds of e-books. Serials Solutions sees where the publisher’s agreements and St. Thomas’ subscriptions overlap and retrieves results based on what the university has in its possession.

Keep in mind that not all publishers have agreed to have their content indexed by Serials Solutions, and UST does not have subscriptions with all e-resource publishers. Summon is great for bibliographic content but not as good for statistics, country, company or industry information.

Faculty and students alike will benefit from Summon. Researchers who may have their favorite “go-to” databases will discover a greater quantity of relevant content by casting a search across library-subscribed resources. If you don’t know which specialized research databases to use, start with Summon and become familiar with subject-specific resources down the road.

Start finding library content by giving Summon a test drive. Learn more about Summon here.

September 9, 2010 by
News & Events, O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library

New Online Library Reserves Form now available for faculty

Fall semester is just around the corner and putting course materials on reserve at the university’s libraries has never been easier.

Instructors may now add library reserve materials using a new online form. This form is intended for UST Libraries-owned materials; however, faculty also may fill it out, print it and submit it with personal reserve items brought to the library.

Complete course reserves procedures and contact information for reserves coordinators can be found on the Libraries Course Reserves web page.

August 30, 2010 by
News & Events, O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library

Library users invited to review proposed subscription cancellations

Message from Dani Roach, head of  serials in the UST Libraries:

The process of selecting information resources (electronic resources, books and journal subscriptions) for the scholarly needs of the UST community is based on collaboration between library staff and our users.

We continually assess the subscriptions that we have to both print and electronic content to ensure that we are providing access to the best and most useful materials.

To determine what those are, a number of factors are considered: available budget, costs of resources, use of materials and the allocation of resources to specific academic areas.

The libraries are grateful for the continued support of the university as we develop robust collections for the community. Library resources are still being used, and increasingly those materials that are available electronically are the most popular.

We take our role as stewards of the university’s resources very seriously. In making collection development decisions for the coming year, we have:

  • Evaluated the use of all journals (regardless of format)
  • Consulted with faculty regarding their need for and use of journals
  • Determined the full-text availability of journals currently subscribed to in print
  • Minimized duplication between print and electronic resources
  • Minimized duplication among the UST libraries
  • Identified new resources that are appropriate and valuable for our community

For the record, the university’s libraries provide access to 44,791 electronic journals and have 1,252 active print/microfilm journal subscriptions. In addition, we provide access to 254 electronic databases, including several new ones for this academic year.

We invite the campus community to review and comment on the recommendations we have for cancellations. We propose canceling 23 titles for which there will be no exact counterpart available on campus. Please take a moment to examine the list to ensure that we have identified the least-used resources for the campus.

Contact Dani Roach, (651) 962-5408, by Friday, Sept. 10, with comments about titles on these lists or with suggestions for resources that the libraries should consider for purchase.

August 30, 2010 by
News & Events, Recently Read

Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest results

The winning entries of the 2010 Bulwer-Lytton contest are available at now .  In case you are blissfully ignorant of this event, it is a “whimsical literary competition that challenges entrants to compose the opening sentence to the worst of all possible novels.”

 Here’s this year’s grand prize winner (to use the term loosely):

“For the first month of Ricardo and Felicity’s affair, they greeted one another at every stolen rendezvous with a kiss–a lengthy, ravenous kiss, Ricardo lapping and sucking at Felicity’s mouth as if she were a giant cage-mounted water bottle and he were the world’s thirstiest gerbil.”

Yikes!

 If you are a glutton for punishment, the 2009 results can found at http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/2009.htm , and all the grand prize winners since 1983 are at http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/lyttony.htm.

(reposted without permission from an email from Cathy Lutz–hope she’ll forgive me)

July 2, 2010 by
News & Events

Photos from UST Libraries retiree reception

The farewell reception for Earl Belisle, Sheila Hague, Judith Michalski, Jan Malcheski, Lisa Redmond and Mary Lou Schmidt was held from on Tuesday, June 29, in the leather room of the O’Shaughnessy-Frey Library.  The reception was well-attended, and we celebrated their collective 142 years of dedicated service to UST.

You can view photos from the reception on the UST Libraries Flickr site.

Bon Voyage, Earl, Sheila, Judith, Jan, Lisa, and Mary Lou.  We’ll miss you!

July 1, 2010 by
News & Events

UST Libraries bid farewell to six retirees on June 29

The university community is invited to the retirement reception for six staff members who have worked in the Ireland and O’Shaughnessy-Frey libraries.

The farewell reception for Earl Belisle, Sheila Hague, Judith Michalski, Jan Malcheski, Lisa Redmond and Mary Lou Schmidt will be held from 2 to 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, June 29, in the O’Shaughnessy Room of the O’Shaughnessy-Frey Library, with a brief program at 3 p.m. 

For more information please call Julie Kimlinger, (651) 962-5014.

June 21, 2010 by
News & Events

GOOOOAAL!!! Your guide to the World Cup

If you are anything like me you have the vague sensation that there is this incredibly important, emotional event going on right now all across the globe, but you can’t quite put your finger on what it is.  The global event in question of course is the World Cup, and once every four years almost everyone on the planet comes together for this amazing shared experience.  This year I decided that I wanted to join this global party but I have to admit that I am intimidated because I know so little about soccer/football. 

So in order to help myself, and perhaps others, I put together a guide of links to football sites, podcasts, feeds and some funny videos to get me up to speed about things that the rest of the world already knows. 

If you would like to contribute a link or anecdote I would love to add it to the guide and by 2014 I will really *really* ready.

June 11, 2010 by