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Research Bootcamp: 2021 edition

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For the 7th year, the Dalhousie Libraries is offering Research Bootcamp, a suite of modules designed for teaching and research assistants and graduate students. It’s also open to faculty and staff. If you know of someone who could benefit from developing effective research and writing skills, please share this information with them.

This year, Research Bootcamp will occur completely online via Brightspace. From May 3–June 4, this 5-week program will include asynchronous modules on the following topics:

  • Getting started with research
  • Writing literature reviews, abstracts, and grants
  • Citation management
  • Copyright
  • Searching in various subject areas: PubMed, humanities resources, grey literature, legal resources, and Canadian data and statistics
  • Mastering Excel
  • Research data management planning
  • Research synthesis methods
  • Open Access & predatory publishers
  • Creating conference posters

Participants are not required to complete all modules, but can pick and choose modules based on individual interest and skill level. Faculty can recommend the program to their RAs/TAs or register on their behalf. All module content will remain accessible to participants until July 1, 2021.

A complete list of modules and descriptions is available here.

Program website, including schedule, module descriptions, FAQs: https://dal.ca.libguides.com/ResearchBootcamp

Register at: https://dal.libcal.com/event/3604004

 

Curbside Pickup Service

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Circulating materials from the Dalhousie Libraries are once again available to Dalhousie and King’s faculty, staff, and students as well as alumni and off-campus borrowers. We’re pleased to offer this curbside pickup service for library items from Novanet that are not available electronically.

Please place your request through the Novanet catalogue and we’ll notify you by email when your items are ready for pick up. More information about the curbside service is available here: https://libraries.dal.ca/borrow/curbside-pickup-service.html

Updated October 7, 2020

A Convocation Message from the Dalhousie Libraries

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On behalf of the Dalhousie Libraries, I’m offering heart-felt congratulations to you all. We know the hard work and sacrifice it took for you to get to this day and we are very proud of you!

This year ended on a particularly challenging note, but even through these unusual circumstances, it has been our honour and our pleasure to support your academic needs, most recently providing access to e-books, e-journals, LiveHelp reference support and assistance in Brightspace for students and professors, and before that with the full range of services in our beautiful library spaces.

Regardless of your faculty, we in the Dal Libraries consider all Dalhousie grads to be our graduates. We hope that as you become alumni, your relationship with the Dalhousie Libraries continues. We look forward to supporting your life-long learning journey and that you consider getting an alumni benefits card. I invite you to keep in touch and let us know how the Dal Libraries can support you.

Donna Bourne-Tyson
Dean of Libraries
donna.bourne-tyson@dal.ca

All Dal Libraries Locations Closing at 5 p.m tonight (Monday, March 16)

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The Dalhousie Libraries are closing Monday, March 16 at 5 p.m. and will reopen from 9 a.m.–5 p.m. on Tuesday, March 17.

This reduction in hours is due to precautions we are taking as a result of the COVID-19 virus.

More information about our hours will be forthcoming. Thank you for understanding.

Dalhousie University Libraries Joins Scholars Portal Dataverse

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Dalhousie University, along with a number of members of the Council of Atlantic University Libraries (CAUL) and other universities across Canada, has entered in to a Service Agreement with the Ontario Council of University Libraries (OCUL) to host an institutional Dataverse on the Scholars Portal Dataverse. Dataverse is an open-source web application used to deposit, share and cite research data. It was developed by the Institution for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University.

Why deposit data in Dataverse?

There are many benefits for a researcher to depositing data in the Dataverse repository. Research Data Management Librarian Erin MacPherson suggests that Dataverse can help you to effectively manage your data and save time. “There are useful features such as the ability to assign roles and permissions and licenses. Publishing your data in a data repository helps to meet emerging grant and funding requirements. Finally, publishing your data can help increase research visibility,” observes MacPherson.

Benefits of an Institutional Repository for Dalhousie University on Scholars Portal Dataverse

Dean of Libraries Donna Bourne-Tyson notes, “One of the biggest benefits with having an Institutional Dataverse on the SP Dataverse is that we are contributing to the effort for a robust national data repository. We already have a strong collective effort to develop research data management tools and resources through the Canadian Association of Research Libraries’ Portage Network, and this will further assist these endeavors.”

Some of the other benefits include:

  • Institutional Dataverses (Dalhousie has its own Institutional Dataverse on the site).
  • Canadian data hosting
  • Powerful visualization tools
  • Persistent identifiers (DataCite Canada DOI minting)
  • Open discovery on the web (Google SHARE and FRDR harvesting)
  • Bilingual Interface (English and French)

What happens to the Dalhousie’s existing Dataverse?

The Dalhousie Libraries currently hosts a local instance of Dataverse; however, from this point onwards, all new datasets and users will be directed to use Dalhousie’s institutional Dataverse hosted on the Scholars Portal Dataverse site. Over the coming year, the data management team will be in touch with existing users about migrating their data to the Dalhousie Institutional repository hosted on Scholars Portal Dataverse site. A decision will be made about maintaining a locally hosted instance at the end of the year.

Want to learn more?

If you are interested in using Dataverse to publish your data or would like a demonstration, please contact data.management@dal.ca and have a look at some of our training materials:

Holiday Hours

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Most of our locations are now running on holiday hours. We will close at noon on December 24 and reopen on January 2, except for the Killam Library, which will be open for reduced hours on December 28 and 29. Please check the hours widget on libraries.dal.ca for exact hours before heading to any of our locations this week. Happy holidays from all of us at the Dalhousie Libraries! Happy Holidays ecard instagram

GIS Centre’s Lunchless Learn Series Fall 2019

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GIS lunchless learnsWhat is a “Lunchless Learn”? It’s a hands-on tutorial, held around lunchtime, open to all on campus — without the food.

A GIS, or Geographic Information System, is “a computer system for capturing, storing, checking, integrating, manipulating, analyzing and displaying data relating to positions on earth’s surface.” In other words, it’s a way at looking at the world differently.

This is a series to give people a taste of what GIS is and how it can be used. To accommodate more people we are offering the same session at different locations. These sessions are meant to be self contained. After the intro session, take only the topics that are important or of interest to you.

Due to the high level of interest in this series, we ask you to sign up for session(s). To sign up, contact gis@dal.ca

Intro – First Encounters of the GIS Kind
Wed., Sept. 18/1–2:30 p.m. | Killam Library, Room G70 (Studley Campus)
Mon., Sept. 23/1–2:30 p.m. | C Building, Room C300 (Sexton Campus)             
Tues., Sept. 24/1–2:30 p.m. | Killam Library, Room G70 (Studley Campus)

Data: so you want to make a map – where and how to find data
Mon., Sept. 30/1–3 p.m. | C Building, Room C300 (Studley Campus)
Tues., Oct. 1/1–3 p.m. | Killam Library, Room G70 (Studley Campus)

Raster: how to become a raster master
Mon., Oct. 7/1–2:30 p.m. | C Building, Room C300 (Sexton Campus)
Tues., Oct. 8/1–2:30 p.m. | Killam Library, Room G70 (Studley Campus)

Carto: maps — the good, the bad, and the ugly
Tues., Oct. 15/1–2:30 p.m. | Killam Library, Room G70 (Studley Campus)
Mon., Oct. 21/1–2:30 p.m. | C Building, Room C300 (Sexton Campus)

ArcGIS Online – GIS that’s in the cloud(s)
Mon., Oct. 28/1–2:30 p.m. | C Building, Room C300 (Sexton Campus)
Tues., Oct. 29/1–2:30 p.m. | Killam Library, Room G70 (Studley Campus)

An evening with Lisa Moore

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Moore_Lisa_and cover

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 5TH, 7 P.M.
PAUL O’REGAN HALL,
HALIFAX CENTRAL LIBRARY

Every year, we host the winner of the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award. Congratulations to the 2019 winner Lisa Moore for her short fiction collection Something for Everyone. 

Lisa, born and based in Newfoundland, is the author of four books of short fiction and four novels. She has been nominated for the Giller Prize, the International Dublin Literary Award, and the Man Booker Prize. Lisa won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize Best Book Award, Caribbean and Canada Region for her novel Alligator and the Atlantic Canadian Alistair MacLeod Short Fiction Prize for Something for Everyone.

The stories in Something for Everyone pulsate with raw energy and a fierce, searching intelligence. In a series of unconventional tales that explode off the page, Moore ushers her reader into a familiar but fractured and anything-but-straightforward reality. Her characters’ anxieties mirror our own: family, love, employment, finances. But from these commonplace lives she conjures spellbinding mini-dramas, drawing us in from each story’s opening line, generating great suspense and fully engaging our sympathies. The writing is vibrant, uninhibited and packed with sensual detail. (From the juror’s citation.)

This reading is presented in partnership between Dalhousie Libraries, the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia, and Halifax Public Libraries.

The Cochrane Library – Access for All Through Regional Collaboration

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by Cynthia Holt, Executive Director, Council of Atlantic University Libraries (CAUL)

Cochrane_Library_LogoAll residents of Atlantic Canada now have full access to The Cochrane Library thanks to the Atlantic Health Knowledge Partnership. Led by the Council of Atlantic University Libraries / Conseil des bibliothèques universitaires de l’Atlantique (CAUL-CBUA), this partnership includes post-secondary institutions, health authorities, and hospitals in the Region and was struck with the goal of supporting healthy communities.

The Cochrane Library is a collection of databases in medicine and other healthcare specialties which summarize and interpret the results of medical research and are a key resource in evidence-based medicine. Plain language summaries are also available.

To access The Cochrane Library from within Atlantic Canada, go to https://www.cochranelibrary.com/ and start searching.* Access to The Cochrane Library when outside of Atlantic Canada is possible through your home institution (CAUL-CBUA member, health authority, hospital) or local public library website.

Tutorials, webinars, and guides for using The Cochrane Library are available here: https://www.workcast.com/ControlUsher.aspx?cpak=9621168547619827&pak=5334253650203132

Region-wide access is made possible by financial contributions from Dalhousie University, Cape Breton University, St. Francis Xavier University, Mount Saint Vincent University, the Nova Scotia Community College, Memorial University, the University of Prince Edward Island, the University of New Brunswick, the Nova Scotia Health Authority, Horizon Health Network, Réseau de santé Vitalité, and the IWK.

*When you access the Internet from your home, some Internet Service Providers (such as Bell, Rogers, or Xplornet) assign IPs (Internet addresses) that might be from outside of the Atlantic Region. Your provider usually assigns you a new IP each day, and as a result, some days you may have an IP from the region and other days you may have an IP from outside the region. If you are physically located in the region and are having difficulty getting to the full text of the articles, please go to https://www.iplocation.net/find-ip-address to see if the IP you’ve been assigned that day is from the region. If it is not, you’ll need to access The Cochrane Library through your home institution or local public library website.

University Librarian’s Message to Graduates

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baim-hanif-89800-unsplash (2)On behalf of the Dalhousie Libraries, I offer heart-felt congratulations to all graduates. We know the sacrifice and hard work it took to get to this day and we are bursting with pride for all of you. Regardless of your faculty or area of study, in the Libraries we consider all Dalhousie grads to be our graduates.

We’ve enjoyed supporting your academic needs, and as you become alumni, we want your relationship with the Dalhousie Libraries to continue. We offer a number of services to alumni, and we encourage you to explore the possibilities with an alumni benefits card.

I would also like to thank you for any feedback you’ve given to the Libraries over the years. We always learn something valuable when we talk to students and we continue to improve based on what we hear from you. Let’s keep the conversation going – please get in touch at donna.bourne-tyson@dal.ca .

We look forward to supporting your life-long learning journey.

Congratulations!

Donna Bourne-Tyson
University Librarian

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