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Category: Agriculture

A Convocation Message from the Dalhousie Libraries

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 has been particularly challenging, 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

Open Access Week 2020

Open Access Week header by Nick Shockey licensed under CC 4.0.

International Open Access Week is an opportunity for the academic and research community to continue to learn about the potential benefits of open access, to share what they’ve learned with colleagues, and to inspire wider participation to make open access the norm in scholarship and research. The Dalhousie Libraries celebrates OA Week annually with a variety of initiatives in support of open access.

Atlantic Canada Research Data Management (RDM) Day
The day will consist of a series of webinars ideal for librarians, decision makers, data managers and researchers. Topics covered will include research data management plans, a general overview of research data management, and local initiatives. Speakers will also provide updates on federal infrastructure initiatives and ethics in research data management. Sponsored by CAUL-CBUA (Council of Atlantic University Libraries/ Conseil des bibliothèques universitaires de l’Atlantique) a collaborative partnership of 18 post-secondary libraries in Atlantic Canada.
Wednesday, October 21, 9 a.m.–4:15 p.m.
Agenda & RSVP

Open Access at Dalhousie
The following stories highlight faculty members, faculties, and departments who are doing open
access work at Dal.

Open Books, Open Education: conditions are perfect for open educational resources to become the next big thing in post-secondary education

Improving Access: These psychology instructors created a free textbook that has saved students thousands of dollars

Saving the World with Open Access: Starting a global conversation with the Schulich School of Law’s Lucie Guibault

Evening Hours for GIS Help

The GIS Centre is offering a pilot service this term to extend the GIS Centre’s online hours for help. Starting this week, we are offering extended hours from 7–10 p.m. Atlantic time, on Mondays and Thursdays, ending on Monday, December 7.

Caitlin Cunningham, an experienced PhD student, will be handling the requests during these extended hours. Caitlin has worked in the GIS Centre and taught students how to use GIS, particularly in the School of Resource Environmental Management, during the past few years. She can be reached through email or Microsoft Teams at GIS@dal.ca.

Caitlin can answer all of your GIS questions, including but not limited to, “I’m having problems with a GIS Tool,” “I need help planning my project,” “I need suggestions on where to find data,” and of course, the ever-favourite, “Can you help me make a map?”

If you are not familiar with Teams (where to chat, have voice conversations, or do screen sharing) then please check out our remote access instructions: https://cdn.dal.ca/content/dam/dalhousie/pdf/library/gis/RemoteAccessToTroubleshootArcGISatDAL_UsingTeams.pdf

We are doing our best to support students learning how to use geospatial data and ArcGIS software. We hope and anticipate that these extended hours will help support online learning activities in current courses, particularly for those students living outside the Atlantic region where time zones have been an issue.

If you have any feedback, please let us know.

Cheers from the GIS Team!
Jen Strang, James Boxall and Gwen MacNairn

Records Management Sessions (Virtual): How Long Do I Keep This Stuff? and Email Management

Records Manager Courtney Bayne is offering several virtual sessions this fall on the topics of retaining records and email management. If you are overwhelmed with multiple versions and drafts of documents or if your email is bursting at the seams with old messages, these sessions are for you. You have two chances to catch each session.

How long do I keep this stuff? DalCLASS can help with that!
Are you over whelmed with documents and have multiple versions, drafts, or duplicates of stuff? And are not sure what to keep and what can be gotten rid of? Then this session is for you!

Using DalCLASS and other records management tools can help you figure out what information has institutional value and what can be securely shredded or deleted.

This session will help you figure out what information is a record that has to be retained (in accordance with the Records Management Policy), and what can be securely shredded or deleted. You will be shown;

  • Records management resources,
  • How to navigate DalCLASS to figure out what to keep,
  • When to get rid of what & why.

What is DalCLASS?

DalCLASS is the main records management tool that supports the Dalhousie Records Management Policy. It is the authority for organizing, retaining and disposing of Dalhousie University Administrative Records. It describes records series by noting its purpose and the scope and contents of the records generated in the course of the related business activities. The description also notes the primary office(s) responsible for the records. It also contains a retention rule and disposition instructions that have been approved by the University Records Committee

Register for: Thursday, October 8, 10–11:30 a.m.
Register for: Thursday, November 19, 10–11:30 a.m.

 

Email Management Best Practices

In this session, we will be reviewing email management best practices regarding the creation and management of emails, and how best to manage shared email accounts.

Register for: Thursday, October 15, 10–11:30 a.m.
Register for Tuesday, November 17, 10–11:30 a.m.

GIS Centre’s Lunchless Learn (Virtual): Cartography – Maps – The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

What is a Lunchless Learn? It’s a hands-on tutorial, held around lunchtime, but 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 an easy and fun way to look at the world differently.

To register, for Cartography – Maps, the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly on Tuesday, October 13, from 12–1:30 p.m., visit: https://dal.libcal.com/event/3578220

For more information about Lunchless Learns, as well as considerations before you start, tips and tricks watch this video!

 

J.A. Wainwright Virtual Book Launch: This Cleaving and This Burning

Please join us for J.A. Wainwright’s virtual book launch for This Cleaving and This Burning
Wednesday, October 21, 7:30 p.m.
Join via Microsoft Teams

Inspired by the lives and work of American literary giants Ernest Hemingway and Hart Crane, This Cleaving and This Burning is a story of creative passions stoked by unspoken desires within the mind and heart. Two unrelated, aspiring writers, born on the same day in the same year to parents with the same first names, grow up together and eventually gain national prominence as authors. But their complex sexual identities undermine their intense private relationship as the years pass, inflicting damage that cannot be undone by their public reputations or the excellence of their fiction
and poetry.

J.A. Wainwright is McCulloch Emeritus Professor in English at Dalhousie University. He is the author of five books of poetry and five novels.

Presented by the Dalhousie Libraries Literary Events Committee. Books will be available for purchase at the Bookmark on Spring Garden Road.

 

Document Delivery Is Filling Your Requests for Physical Materials Again!

We will endeavor to fill all requests, but please note that many libraries across the country and around the world are still not lending from their print collections. Many of the libraries that are loaning materials will be operating at reduced staffing levels (as are we) so it may be more challenging to locate certain materials and it may take longer to get requested items.

Thanks for your patience. We look forward to filling your requests! Questions about Doc Del? Get in touch.

Alternative Sexton Library Space Opening on September 21

On the recommendation of Dalhousie’s Health & Safety Office related to concerns about insufficient ventilation, the Sexton Library will not be opening for student and faculty use this fall. Instead, the Dalhousie Libraries will be offering alternative study space on the Sexton campus in the classroom across the hall from the Sexton Library.

The space will offer 10 socially distanced study tables for three-hour bookable time slots. In addition, a printer workstation will be available for 30-minute bookable time slots. 

Starting September 21, bookable hours in the alternative Sexton Library space will be:

Monday–Friday
9 a.m.–12 p.m.
1–4 p.m.

Please note: The space will be closed for cleaning between morning and afternoon appointments.

Please bring your DalCard and wear a non-medical face mask. Enter via 5260 DaCosta Row (main entrance to B building).
To speak with staff, contact the Sexton Library Service Desk:  902-494-3240

Update, Sept 20, 9:51 a.m.: Bookings for the week of September 21 can be made now.

 

Streaming Video at the Dalhousie Libraries

The move to online teaching this fall presented a number of new challenges for everyone. One area where the Dal Libraries have seen exponential growth over the past few months is in the number of requests we’ve received for streaming videos.

Since classes have moved almost exclusively online, we have received over 280 requests for videos. Even if a film is already held as a physical copy in the Dal Libraries’ collection, we still must find a streaming source of the video for the online teaching environment.

To support online teaching and learning, the Dalhousie Libraries have recently added several streaming video collections: Audio Ciné, Criterion, Curio, Films-on-Demand, and Kanopy. (The content on Kanopy is limited to a selection of films purchased to support specific classes.) All of the videos found in these collections can be used in online teaching.

Despite the now thousands of films and documentaries that are available through the Dal Libraries in these new streaming video resources, faculty members often require videos that are not held in one of the streaming collections we subscribe to. When that happens, the Dal Libraries need to find the distributor of the video and acquire a licence for that video.

Tracking Down Videos
Films are a particular challenge to locate. Unlike books and journals, we don’t have access to a standardized and comprehensive list to locate a distributor. Sites like IMDB offer clues but the information is not always complete, up-to-date, or accurate. Once we do locate the distributor, we then explain that a professor at Dalhousie University wants to screen their film to a class online and ask if they have the option of providing us with an educational streaming licence.

Sometimes the distributor does not have a streaming service or digital files they can share with us, or we learn that the distributor we located no longer holds the rights and we have to conduct another search. Sometimes, the distributor can’t acquire Canadian streaming rights.

When we do find the correct distributor who has a version of the video available for educational purposes with Canadian streaming rights, our Copyright Office then reviews the licence. If all is well, we sign the licence. Staff on the Resources team then make the video accessible through the Novanet catalogue and we notify the faculty member that the video is ready.

Timelines and Costs
The process to acquire a single title can take a week to over a month and on average costs $200–$300 for a licence. A licence usually lasts for 6–12 months. Within these ranges, there is much variation. One distributor was charging as much as $4,000 US for a one-year licence. Some licences last for only two weeks.

What about Netflix and YouTube?
Services such as Netflix, HBO, and Crave only sell subscriptions to individuals for household use and do not offer educational licensing. If the video you are seeking is exclusively available through one of these commercial subscription services we are not legally able to provide access to the video.

Additionally, for students living and studying outside of Canada, content across these services will vary depending on where the user lives. For example, the content on Netflix in Canada is not the same as the content on Netflix in the US. YouTube raises similar problems — some countries have completely blocked access to their residents.

Start Early
We encourage faculty to start their search for streaming videos in our existing subscriptions before placing a request, but we recognize there will be times when a specific film or documentary is needed. As the timeline to locate the distributor and review and sign the licence can take up to a month for a single video, the earlier these requests can be submitted, the better. If it turns out the video is not available for streaming in Canada, the faculty member will be informed as soon as possible so they can adjust their syllabus accordingly.

Dalhousie faculty and staff can complete this form to request a specific streaming video to support 2020/21 online teaching. A Dalhousie login is required.

Streaming Video Subject Guide
The Dalhousie Libraries’ Streaming Video subject guide provides links to the streaming video services we subscribe to and copyright guidance as it relates to using video in online teaching.

These subscriptions provide access to thousands of feature films, documentaries, educational films, and video clips covering a wide range of subject matter and genres, available to Dalhousie and King’s faculty, students, and staff. The guide also includes listings for a number of sources that are freely available on the internet.

New Streaming Video Collections at the Dalhousie Libraries

  • Aclands Video Atlas of Human Anatomy
  • APA Clinical Training Videos: psychotherapy demonstration videos.
  • Audio Ciné: mostly recent feature films from major studios
  • Criterion-on-Demand: a mix of recent and older feature films and documentaries
  • Curio.ca: CBC video and audio materials in French and English
  • Digital Theatre Plus: British theatre productions
  • Films on Demand: a wide-ranging mix of educational films and documentaries
  • Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE): added biology, chemistry, and immunology materials
  • Kanopy: limited number of titles licensed to support specific courses.

Having a problem with an eResource? (films, journals, books, databases)

Please use this form. It collects the information we need to solve the problem.

Book Some Time in a Dalhousie Libraries Space

The following spaces are open by appointment for limited and safe access to Dal Libraries spaces for current Dalhousie faculty, instructors, students, and staff.

Locations not listed (Sexton Library, Sir James Dunn Law Library) are not yet ready to be booked. Weekend hours will roll out in the coming weeks.

Please note: The spaces will be closed for cleaning from noon–1 p.m. and  from 4–5 p.m.

 

After you log in to the booking system, choose the location you want (or express printing) from the drop-down menu to see which time slots are available. Depending on the space, a study table, study room, or a computer can be booked for three-hour time slots. Computers can also be booked for 30 minute express printing.

Bookings should be made a minimum of 24 hours in advance by completing this form.

  • You will receive an email to confirm your booking has been received and an email when your booking is confirmed.
  • You must bring your DalCard to gain entry to the space.
  • The wearing of non-medical masks is mandatory.
  • Furniture in the spaces has been adjusted to encourage social distancing. Library staff will perform some cleaning between time slots.
  • If you want access to materials from the Dalhousie Libraries’ collections, please continue to request items through the Curbside Pickup service.

 

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