What's New

RefWorks Ending June 30, 2012

After much consideration, the Washington University Libraries has decided to terminate its RefWorks subscription on June 30, 2012.

Citation managers have evolved, and there are new, powerful tools available. The Libraries staff has identified two tools, Zotero and Mendeley, as succeeding solutions to RefWorks. You can learn more about either tool on these library research guides:

http://libguides.wustl.edu/zotero

http://libguides.wustl.edu/mendeley

If you use RefWorks, we want to give you plenty of time to transfer all of your citations before it is no longer available. The Libraries will provide support during this time of transition in the form of classes, online guides, and one-on-one support.

To register for a class or to learn more about training classes offered by the Libraries please visit: http://wulibraries.doattend.com/

If you have any questions or concerns, let your subject librarian know. If you are a member of the Medical Campus community, please contact Kim Lipsey for more options; if you are a member of the George Warren Brown School of Social Work, please contact Sylvia Toombs. We're happy to help!

New Ebooks: Oxford Scholarship Online Packages

WU users now have access to 3 ebook packages from Oxford Scholarship Online. Becker Medical Library purchased Oxford Scholarship Online: Neuroscience. The Social Work Library purchased Oxford Scholarship Online: Public Health and Epidemiology and Oxford Scholarship Online: Social Work ebook packages.

Chapters are available as fulltext html or pdf files. Search options include searching every word within the text or just bibliographic information. Additional titles will be added 3 times a year. More info.

Links to Availability at WU Becker Medical Library

Get it! buttons, which are found in most databases, now include an option to "Check if this is available from the Becker Medical Library" when we do not have fulltext online access in the Get it! menu. If you are using databases from Becker Library, their Get It@Becker buttons also include an option to "Check if this is available from the Danforth Campus Libraries."

If you have any questions about this new feature, please contact your subject librarian.

 

Boethius in the Renaissance, Oct. 5

Washington University Libraries present a book talk by Michael Sherberg, associate professor of Italian, at 4 p.m. Wednesday, October 5, in Olin Library (Ginkgo Reading Room, Level 1).

Sherberg’s lecture, titled “Boethius in the Renaissance: What Recent Acquisitions Teach Us,” will discuss three 16th-century translations of Boethius’s influential 6th-century work, Consolation of Philosophy, and what they tell us about the politics and poetics of translation in the Renaissance. The event is free and open to the public, with a reception following.

The Department of Special Collections houses a significant number of early printed editions of Consolation of Philosophy and recently acquired first editions of two additional mid-16th-century Italian translations. Boethius’s book, which he composed while in prison awaiting execution, left a mark on authors in the centuries after him, including Dante and Chaucer. For an introduction to the Libraries’ Boethius collection and Sherberg’s study of it, consult Sherberg’s guest post on our Rare Books blog.

For more information about Wednesday’s event, call Special Collections at (314) 935-5495. To receive updates about the department’s rare book unit, visit our Facebook page.

Blind Spots: Robert Weaver and Juxtapositions of Art and Illustration

Artist and illustration historian Jaleen Grove will speak about the work of illustrator Robert Weaver at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 29, at Olin Library, in the Ginkgo Reading Room, Level 1. Grove’s lecture coincides with the last week of an exhibition of Weaver’s work in Olin Library and will provide a survey of Weaver’s career, with particular attention to his defense of illustration as an art form. The event is free and open to the public, with a reception following.

Titled “Blind Spots: Robert Weaver and Juxtapositions of Art and Illustration,” the talk will consider Weaver’s place in what Grove terms “the controversial middle between gallery and illustration worlds.” Just as commercial art was being held up by critics as illegitimate, Weaver introduced a painterly quality and immediacy to magazine illustration and “berated both illustrators and modern artists for their respective blind spots.”

“Throughout his life he eschewed singularity of vision for juxtaposition, revealing unseen third meanings,” Grove says. “Then, just as Weaver became more interested in the relationship between diachronic and synchronic time and fractured vision, his eyesight began to deteriorate, leaving him seriously visually impaired. Still, he continued making art and speaking out, overcoming his own blind spots.”

Through the end of September, visitors to Olin Library can view Weaver’s work on display anytime the library is open, in the Ginkgo Reading Room and Grand Staircase Lobby. The exhibition showcases the Robert Weaver collection held by Washington University’s Modern Graphic History Library.

MOBIUS or ArticleReach Direct Request Problem

Some users have been getting the following error when placing MOBIUS holds or ArticleReach requests: “Sorry, your ID number is not valid."  We've worked extensively with University systems staff and the vendor of these services, and think we have pinpointed the problem: this seems to happen to people who use a dollar sign ($) in their WUSTL Key password.

While we hope the vendor will be able to fix this problem soon, if you have a $ in your password, and get this error when trying to make a MOBIUS or ArticleReach Direct request, you have two options.  You can change your WUSTL Key password so that it does not have a $ in it (go to https://connect.wustl.edu/login/wulogin.aspx to do that).  Or, there is a workaround that does not require you to change your password; if you are interested in that option, please contact Deb Ehrstein, ILL/Reserves Librarian.

Our apologies for the hassle!