News & Events

1) Nominate Undergraduates for Research Award

2) ChaCha Reference Service Launches

3) Have You Been Cited?

4) Brush Up on Your Research Skills

5) Create Reading Lists in Oncourse

6) Read Chronicle of Higher Education Online

7) Major New Resources

8) Quick Clicks

1) Nominate Undergraduates for Research Award

Plan now to nominate an undergraduate for our annual research award. The IUB Libraries will again recognize excellence in undergraduate research projects when the annual awards are made in May.

The Sam Burgess Undergraduate Research Award recognizes two students who incorporate extraordinary skill and creativity in the application of the services and collections of the IUB Libraries. Awards are $1,000 and $500. 

Faculty members must nominate students and write a letter of support. Submissions will be evaluated by a faculty panel that includes members of the Bloomington Faculty Council Library Committee as well as two librarians.

Application deadline is March 7, 2008.

View the guidelines and nomination form.

2) Have You Been Cited? 

Track your influence and find out how many times you've been cited in scholarly research. More than 28 databases, including the expansive Web of Science, offer ways to see if you've been cited, by whom, and in what journal. Build your case for promotion and tenure by finding citations Google will miss.

The Wells Library Reference Department has developed an online guide for finding citations.  Check out the guide and see who's talking about your research.

3) ChaCha Reference Service Launches

A new partnership between IU and ChaCha, an Indiana company that is creating a new way of providing Internet searches, incorporates the collective knowledge and experience of the university's library and information technology staff.  

By combining machine-based searches with input from human guides, ChaCha offers users the ability to receive instant results, just like a traditional search engine, but with expert guidance. 

Initially, IUB librarians are serving as guides, available to help students and faculty conduct searches through a live instant message chat interface, identify exactly what information the user is seeking, refine the search for the user, and then display only the most relevant results (tagged as 'recommended by IU librarians.') As the service grows, librarians from IUPUI and information technologists will also guide searches.

The service builds on many years of offering chat and instant messaging services to students, but grows our online presence in a new direction by pushing our services to the platforms where students work. Library guides will be able to point users to the licensed databases and online resources the IUB Libraries provide to the academic community.

Try a guided search at: http://search.iu.edu/.

4) Brush Up on Research Skills

IUB Librarians are always available to help you with your research needs: Meet with a librarian individually to learn more about specific resources or strategies, or join your colleagues at any of the popular research seminars. Among them:

• Library Resources on the Web: What's New? What Should I Use?
• Advanced IUCAT: Tips and Tricks to Get the Most from Your Catalog Searching
• Do It Yourself E-Reserves
• Keeping Up with New Research: RSS and Current Awareness Services
• Advanced Googling: Finding Scholarly Information on the Web
• WorldCat and Library Catalogs Worldwide
• Digital Sound Analysis in the Sound and Video Analysis Instructional Lab

See the full list, including topics new this semester, and register now: Research Seminars.

Call the Reference Department at (812) 855-8028, or send e-mail to libref@indiana.edu if you have any questions.

5) Create Reading Lists in Oncourse

You can now create citation lists in Oncoure CL, allowing your students to link directly to suggested reading lists without having to leave the Oncourse environment.

Using this new feature, you can search and retrieve citations using OneSearch@IU  from individual databases, such as ProQuest and JSTOR, as well as from groups of subject-specific databases, to create citation lists. You can also easily add citations from Google Scholar search results. Citations contain links to retrieve the full-text or physical location of the articles you identify. 

We've also matched resources for every subject taught on campus. Use the Library Resources link within Oncourse to link to subject-specific resources for your class.

This new Citation List feature in Oncourse, which is also being made available to other universities, was created by IU in partnership with the University of Michigan and with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

For more information, see the Knowledge Base: http://kb.iu.edu/data/avcd.html.

6) Read Chronicle of Higher Education Online

Remember that the popular Chronicle of Higher Education is online and freely available to all IUB faculty and students, thanks to a subscription provided by the IUB Libraries.

The Chronicle is just one of more than 32,000 electronic journals we select, purchase, and manage for the IU academic community.

Read the Chronicle: http://chronicle.com/

7) Major New Resources

The IUB Libraries build collections with your needs in mind, and we're constantly adding new resources to help you in your teaching and research. Keep up-to-date with print and digital acquisitions in your discipline in the following ways:

Review the new books and databases recently acquired by the IUB Libraries.

Recommend library materials for purchase.

Sign up to receive e-mail notification when new titles arrive.

8) Quick Clicks

Have a question? Ask a Librarian.

View a list of online journals about a specific subject.

See our instructional tools. Librarians can assist with custom class presentations, Web pages, tutorials, and exercise preparation.

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Comments or questions about this e-newsletter?

Contact Carolyn Walters, IUB Libraries, Executive Associate Dean

cwalters@indiana.edu or (812) 855-7747