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The LibVine

What's going on at Dalhousie Libraries

Category: Architecture, Engineering & Planning

More Than a Makeover: The New library.dal.ca

This Wednesday the Dalhousie Libraries will be launching our new website as part of “Wave One” of Dal’s web revitalization project. We’ve used this timely opportunity to rethink the way we present ourselves and our information based on usability testing. Much more than a new look, our site is being streamlined and reconfigured to make it more user-friendly. Key features include:

  • a single search box with multiple drop-down options
  • a “Using the Library” tab to get you started
  • library Hours link front and centre
  • a central “carousel” highlighting our most popular resources and services
  • a Research tab with links to tools and new discipline-specific resource pages
  • a Writing & Style Guides tab
  • a more dynamic library news and events section

We hope you like what you see, but even more—we hope you find the new library site much easier to use than our old one. A website is always a work in progress. We’d really appreciate your feedback so please use that red feedback buttonat the bottom of the page to let us know what you think!

Announcing RefWorks 2.0

The RefWorks you’ve learned to know and love just got better.

Dubbed Refworks 2.0, the newly launched interface offers an improved user experience featuring a cleaner layout, easier navigation, and a number of back-end technological improvements. This interface is still being fine-tuned, so will be running in tandem with the current version for a while.

Care to try it out? Log into your RefWorks account (or create a new one), and you’ll see a link at the top right of the screen that says “RefWorks 2.0”. Clicking on that will convert your account to the new version. You can toggle back to “RefWorks Classic” any time using the link at the top of the 2.0 page (top right, in small letters).

View a video of RefWorks 2.0 that highlights the new features and explains how to use them.

Please note: Write n Cite is currently available only in the ‘Classic’ interface and not yet in RefWorks 2.0.

Know Thy WorldCat

Okay, so you’re pretty comfortable using the search box on our homepage. But are you aware of all the value-added features this user-friendly “discovery tool” has to offer you? WorldCat Local:

  • is accessible on mobile devices
  • is forgiving with searches and offers suggestions – “Did you mean…?”
  • offers relevancy-ranked searches
  • searches across multiple sources such as online catalogues, databases, full text journals, digital collections, etc.
  • allows you to mark, save, email and view citations in selected formats, or export individual citations or lists to RefWorks or EndNote
  • contains user-contributed reviews, ratings and cover art for some items
  • allows you to sign up for a free account to create personalized lists and bibliographies and to contribute reviews
  • lets you choose the interface language: Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, or Spanish (at bottom of search pages)
  • provides links to Amazon or other third parties if you wish to purchase your own copies

Live Help Now on Safari

Are you part of the 19% of the Dalhousie community who use Safari as their primary browser? If so, now you too can take advantage of the Dal Libraries’ “Live Help” chat reference service.

You’ll see the chat widget on our homepage and when you’re in the Novanet catalogue, during hours of service. If there’s no one online in your hour of need, just leave a message (be sure to include your email address), and they’ll get back to you.

Libraries Green Team Wins Sustainability Award

Linda Bedwell, Leigh Smith, Michelle Paon, Sandy Dwyer with trophy

Linda Bedwell, Leigh Smith, Michelle Paon, Sandy Dwyer with trophy

The Dalhousie Libraries are tickled green to announce that our Green Team–Linda Bedwell, Sandy Dwyer, Michelle Paon and Leigh Smith–have won the Office of Sustainability’s inaugural ReThink! Program Green Team Award. Michelle Paon accepted the award on behalf of the team at an official ceremony on April 7 in the Rowe Building.


The Libraries’ was the first sustainability team on campus to register in the ReThink! program. Their initiatives to date include a sustainability audit of the Killam Library, a Lunch ‘n Learn for staff, placement of sorting bins in staff areas and a successful pilot project to remove garbage cans from the 2nd floor Killam atrium and replace them with sorting bins.

Trophy created by Architecture student Shyronn Smardon

Trophy created by Architecture student Shyronn Smardon

The award comes in the shape of a sculpture designed and created by Shyronn Smardon, a Masters student in the School of Architecture. This unique piece is made entirely of materials salvaged from around campus. For more photos see our Facebook album.


The Libraries are very proud of our Green Team and look forward to seeing what new projects they have up their green sleeves!

RSS Feeds for New Acquisitions

Do you want to know what new items the libraries are acquiring in your field of study?

Keep up to date on our latest print and electronic books and journals, multimedia, other e-resources, reference materials and more by subscribing to one of our “New Acquisitions” feeds. You can subscribe by library or by subject (Humanities, Sciences and Social Sciences), or subscribe to the Electronic Resources feed for all the Dal Libraries.

Choose your feed!

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