What's New

Libraries offer new "Twitter 201" series

At first glance, Twitter might appear to be just one of many online attention drains. But tweeting often proves surprisingly practical. A number of WU Libraries staff are among those who think so, and an upcoming series of free workshops will help interested members of the WUSTL community explore why.

Titled Twitter 201, the free miniseries is open to all students, faculty, and staff, with three 40-minute sessions on different topics to be held the last Thursday of the month in February, March, and April (Olin Library, Arc Presentation Room, Level A). Register to attend one, two, or all three of the sessions:

• During the first session (4 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 23), librarians Erin Leach and Brian Vetruba will discuss Twitter as a way to develop professionally and foster meaningful professional connections. Twitter has become a valuable networking tool for professionals in a variety of disciplines. It can be used to start conversations with “the experts,” to get help with a tricky professional problem, and to follow conference activities.

• The second workshop (4 p.m. Thursday, March 29) will focus on how writers and readers can tackle Twitter. Staff members Evie Hemphill and Tim Lepczyk use Twitter to share ideas, find inspiration, engage with authors and editors, and keep their writing sharp. The new salon is a hashtag away and open to everyone.

• The third session (4 p.m. Thursday, April 26) aims to help participants understand the power of the 140-character tweet. Librarians Jaleh Fazelian and Makiba Foster will lead a discussion of Twitter’s instrumental role as an unlikely galvanizing tool in various national and global movements. The revolution will not be televised, but it will be tweeted. From Iran to Wall Street, from Tunisia to Egypt, Twitter was and is a part of these recent revolutions.

In addition to the Twitter 201 series, an introductory Twitter 101 session is scheduled for 3 p.m. Thursday, February 9. Geared for the Twitter novice, this hour-and-a-half session will cover account creation, search features, what it means to follow someone, how to construct a tweet, what hashtags and retweets are, and other Twitter basics.

For more information visit http://wulibraries.doattend.com. And be sure to follow the Libraries on Twitter at http://twitter.com/@WUSTLlibraries.

Change to Olin Library Group Study Room Policy

To help ensure that as many groups as possible have opportunities to use the group study rooms, we now ask that your reservation requests do not exceed 4 hours.  More policies and information about Olin Library group study rooms are available here: http://library.wustl.edu/units/circ/reservegroupstudy.html.  If you have questions or concerns, please contact Olin Circulation at circ@wumail.wustl.edu, or stop by the Help Desk on Level 1.

Ask Us Service Improved

The Libraries have offered an Ask Us service on the website for a number of years, which offered assistance via email, chat, phone, and more recently via text as well.  The chat, phone, and text services have not changed, but we’ve made an update and improvement to the email version: we’ve subscribed to a service that makes the questions and answers searchable.  So if you have a question about the Libraries or any of our services, you can see if someone else has already asked about it – and see the answer right away, rather than waiting for an emailed response.    Try it out for yourself!

WU Libraries Join HathiTrust

Membership gives WU users access to millions of full-text volumes

As of January 1, 2012, the WU Libraries joined the HathiTrust Digital Library, whose goal is to digitize, preserve, and increase online access to library collections. The trust derives its name from hathi (pronounced "HAH-tee"), the Hindi word for elephant.

HathiTrust began in 2008 and has grown to over 10 million volumes. Content covers subjects and disciplines in the humanities, sciences, and social sciences in more than 425 languages. 

WU faculty, students, and staff can:

• Download 2.7 million+ volumes in the public domain

• Search the full text of 10 million+ volumes

• Create personalized collections of items in HathiTrust

You can search for HathiTrust items directly from the WU Libraries' website using the eBooks tab. To limit to full-text volumes, check "full view only."

You can also search directly from the HathiTrust catalog. For more information and advanced search options, visit the Libraries' guide at http://libguides.wustl.edu/hathitrust.

For questions, contact Brian Vetruba (bvetruba@wustl.edu; 314-935-4824; IM/chat).

Ebooks Tab Added To Search Box

Locating the thousands of ebooks available through Washington University Libraries just got simpler.

By clicking on the “eBooks” tab on the library homepage, users can limit a search to resources accessible in an ebook format. The newly launched search tab also identifies three different search routes—the library’s discovery catalog, Google Books, and HathiTrust—which together encompass the full range of ebook resources available.

As e-resources continue to grow and evolve, so do digital formats and download restrictions and e-reading devices. To help WUSTL users navigate these varying factors, a research guide is available, along with WU librarians happy to discuss any issues and answer questions.

Shorter Olin Library Hours for Intersession

Olin Library is open these hours until the Spring semester starts: 

Wednesday, December 21                                    7:30a - 8:00p
Thursday - Friday, December 22 - 23                    8:30a - 5:00p
Saturday - Monday, December 24 - 26                   Closed
Tuesday - Friday, December 27 - 30                      8:30a - 5:00p
Saturday - Monday, December 31 - January 2        Closed
Tuesday - Friday, January 3 - 6                            8:30a - 6:00p
Saturday, January 7                                             9:00a - 5:00p
Sunday, January 8                                               Closed
Monday - Friday, January 9 - 13                            8:30a - 6:00p
Saturday, January 14                                           9:00a - 5:00p
Sunday, January 15                                             Closed
MLK Day, Monday, January 16                              Closed
        *Some units have reduced hours.

Check with each departmental and school library for their hours.

New Resources Bring Fashion, Renaissance to Life

In recent weeks, the Libraries have added several fascinating and useful online tools to the growing pool of resources available to the WUSTL community.

The Berg Fashion Library (Oxford University Press) is an online resource now available through the catalog, databases, and Fashion research guide. Featuring fully cross-searchable text and images, it covers world fashion and dress, from pre-history to the present day. The collection includes the Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion online, ebooks, reference works, images, and much more. More information about the content is available here.

Oxford Bibliographies Online (OBO) – Renaissance and Reformation is also newly available online. OBO Renaissance and Reformation is a tool to quickly find significant and reliable resources (reference works, books, journals, archives, websites, and more) on selected topics in history and culture from the 14th through the 17th centuries. Articles are written by well-known and respected scholars, including Washington University’s Barbara Murphy Bryant Distinguished Professor of Art History, William Wallace (see Michelangelo Buonarroti). Updates and new entries will be added on a regular basis. To learn more, visit About OBO. WU Libraries also subscribe to OBO Islamic Studies and OBO Social Work.

Book Collection Contest Marks 25 Years

The annual book collection essay competition sponsored by Washington University Libraries is celebrating its 25th year this winter, offering four cash prizes to students who submit short essays about their personal book collections. The entry deadline for 2012 is set for Wednesday, Feb. 29.

Any current fulltime WU student who has a passion for collecting books can compete in the Neureuther Student Book Collection Essay Competition, which offers first- and second-place prizes of $1,000 and $500 at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. Eligible entrants must supply the following by the deadline:

• a completed entry form
• a two- to four-page essay about the collection
• a bibliography listing the books in the collection

The book collection can be on any subject and should reflect the owner's intellectual or personal interests. Past winners have shown off collections ranging from acting handbooks, to women's memoirs, to Newberry Award-winning children's books, to Mayan literature, and more.

Judges, who are volunteers chosen from among the university community, will consider the collection's scope, thematic unity, personal value to the collector, and other factors.

Entry forms, past winning essays, and details about how to enter are available online at library.wustl.edu/collections/neureuther.html. Entry forms also are available at the Olin Library checkout desk.

Students should deliver their materials to the Department of Special Collections on the main level of Olin Library weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Entries must be received by 5 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 29. Winners will be announced and awards presented in late March and early April.

The Neureuther competition is made possible by the financial contributions of Carl Neureuther, a 1940 WUSTL graduate. The contest is designed to encourage students to read for enjoyment and to develop personal libraries or book collections throughout their lives.

For more information, contact Evie Hemphill at (314) 935-6569 or ehemphill@wustl.edu.

RefWorks Classic Ceasing December 31, 2011

Previously we announced that the Libraries will not renew our RefWorks subscription when it ends June 30, 2012.  Please see this post for the details.

The vendor released a new interface for RefWorks some months ago; since then both the RefWorks Classic and RefWorks 2.0 interface have been available.  As of January 1, 2012 only the RefWorks 2.0 interface will be accessible.  When you connect to your RefWorks account, it will be displayed in the 2.0 interface, even if you had previously chosen the Classic interface.

Please contact the Citation Management Group at WU-LIBCite@wumail.wustl.edu or your subject librarian if you have questions about this.

 

Longer Olin Library Hours for Reading Week & Finals

Olin Library hours are longer for reading week and finals: it closes at 4am every night from December 10 through December 20. Check with each departmental and school library for their hours.