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Research Bootcamp for RAs, TAs, and grad students

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Research bootcamp image for eventbrite 2018For the 4th year, the Dalhousie Libraries is offering Research Bootcamp, a suite of sessions designed for teaching and research assistants and graduate students. If you or someone you know could benefit from developing effective and efficient information management techniques and literature search skills to support research endeavors, please share this information with them.

Sessions will run from May 14–June 6 and will cover: library basics; literature reviews (searching and writing); citation tools; writing abstracts & grant proposals; copyright, open access & predatory publishers; legal resources; business and competitive intelligence resources, PubMed and other health sciences databases; humanities resources; Canadian data and stats; grey literature; research data management; Excel; data visualization; conference posters. Complete session list and descriptions are available at http://dal.ca.libguides.com/ResearchBootcamp/2018/Schedule

Faculty can recommend the workshops to their RAs/TAs or register on their behalf. Participants can attend most sessions in-person in Halifax (various Halifax Campus locations) or via video conferencing at the Agricultural Campus or DMNB.

Event website, including schedule, session descriptions, FAQs http://dal.ca.libguides.com/ResearchBootcamp

Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon & Discussion with Gaetan Landry (Open Access Week 2017)

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Join Gaeten Landry and Dal Libraries staff members Lindsay McNiff and Margaret Vail for a discussion of Wikipedia followed by a learning session on Wikipedia editing. Participants will then embark on an on-site “edit-a-thon,” working with the aid of facilitators to edit Wikipedia. Participants work independently or in groups to locate and update/edit pages and citatiWikipedia logoons.

Gaeten Landry is a faculty member on the Agricultural Campus, and has been a Wikipedian since 2006. He has created about 175 articles and contributed over 190,000 edits. A member of the Bots Approval Group since 2011, he is responsible for overseeing the operation of bots on Wikipedia. He has written articles in The Wikipedia Signpost and is involved with several WikiProjects.

We encourage you to register for a free Wikipedia account before the event, but you can also register on-site if you prefer. Bring your own laptop if you can; a limited number will be available for use at the event.

Facilitators: Gaeten Landry, Lindsay McNiff, & Margaret Vail
Tuesday, October 24, 12–1:30 p.m. (bring your lunch)
Killam Memorial Library, Room 2902 & MacRae Library, Cobequid Room 

RSVP: lindsay.mcniff@dal.ca

Academic Support Series #7 – Academic & Public Library Work. Friday, March 11, 12-1:30pm

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Please join me for the LAST Academic Support Series workshop of the 2015/2016 year! Community Librarian and SIM grad Amanda Fullerton will be joining Lindsay McNiff, for a discussion on employment issues and experiences in two types of libraries: public and academic. Although we’re meeting in Rowe 4001 for consistency, the session will be discussion-based rather than hands-on. See below for the full description:

Friday, March 11, 2016, 12-1:30pm in Rowe 4001

Is a career in public libraries calling your name? Not sure how to go about getting your foot in the door? Embarking on a career as a librarian can seem daunting, especially if you’ve never worked in a library before, but don’t fret, it is possible. All those years working in customer service may be more valuable than you imagined! Public libraries across Canada are shaking things up by sending librarians to work directly in their communities and these types of jobs require lots of skills beyond those required for traditional library work. Community Librarian Amanda Fullerton, will share her story of working in one of these unique and exciting library positions.

Using her OLA panel presentation as a springboard, Lindsay will discuss and answer questions regarding contract working in academic libraries, beginning with questions such as What’s the deal with contract work? Will I have to work a contract before I get a permanent job? What can I expect from a temporary contract? How can I make the most of contract work? What steps should I take as the contract winds down?

During this session, Amanda and Lindsay will speak to these issues, provide insight from our experiences, and talk openly about some of the realities of public and academic library work.

Free event: Academic Librarians as Successful Researchers (with Kristin Hoffman)

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Kristin Hoffman, Head of Research & Instructional Services at the D.B. Weldon Library (University of Western Ontario), will be joining us for an interactive discussion of her research on librarians in the role of researcher. This will be an exciting opportunity to discuss librarian research endeavors and to talk about a role that many of us find challenging. Please note that there is limited seating and all participants must register (see below). Here is a more fulsome description and event details:
 
Academic Librarians as Successful Researchers

How have librarians successfully embraced the role of researcher? How can we best support and encourage each other to develop as researchers? To help answer these questions, we’ll look at a recently published paper, “Examining success: Identifying factors that contribute to research productivity across librarianship and other disciplines,”* co-authored by Kristin Hoffmann, Selinda Berg, and Denise Koufogiannakis. This is the first phase of a research project investigating factors that contribute to academic librarians’ success as researchers. Kristin Hoffman will lead the discussion about how to build on those successes and encourage continued development for librarians as researchers. The initial findings of her research will facilitate conversation about what it looks like to be librarian-researchers and how we can foster a supportive research culture for librarians.

About the speaker: Kristin Hoffmann is Head, Research & Instructional Services at the D.B. Weldon Library, University of Western Ontario. She began her career as a science librarian at the University of Victoria in 2004, and has been at Western Libraries since 2006. She was the 2013 President for the Ontario College and University Library Association, and in July 2015 will take on the role of President for the University of Western Ontario Faculty Association. She has a keen interest in supporting librarians’ research, serving as a Peer Mentor for the CARL Librarians’ Research Institute and as Program Chair for the 2015 LRI. Her research interests include academic librarians’ professional identity and the role of librarians as practitioner-researchers. Her publications and presentations are available at http://works.bepress.com/kristinhoffmann 
 
When: Thursday, April 9, 2015, 12:30-2pm (arrive at 12:15 for light refreshments; feel free to bring your own lunch/snacks as well)
Where: Halifax Central Public Library, Creative Lab (2nd floor)
Register (this event is free, but registration is required): https://eventbrite.com/event/16082857259/
 
This event has been generously sponsored by the Atlantic Provinces Library Association (APLA), the Canadian Association of Professional Academic Librarians (CAPAL) Dalhousie Student Chapter, the Halifax Library Association (HLA), and the School of Information Management Student Association (SIMSA).
 
Please direct any questions about this event to Lindsay McNiff: lindsay.mcniff@dal.ca
 
* Hoffmann, Kristin, Selinda Adelle Berg, and Denise Koufogiannakis. 2015. “Examining Success: Identifying Factors That Contribute to Research Productivity across Librarianship and Other Disciplines.” Library and Information Research 38 (119): 13–28. http://www.lirgjournal.org.uk/lir/ojs/index.php/lir/article/view/639 

Send in your feedback on the Academic Support Series

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Now that the first run of Academic Support Series workshops has finished, I would like to gather feedback from students to help me with future planning and improvement. I have put together a short survey requesting your input on content, scheduling, and the workshop series as a whole. Your feedback is extremely valuable to me in keeping these workshops relevant to your needs and interests. I encourage all students to take this survey, including students who could not make it to any of the workshops. The first few questions address the individual workshops, but subsequent questions are more general and focused on future planning.
The survey should take a maximum of 10 minutes to complete, and will be available until Monday, April 6th: https://surveys.dal.ca/opinio/s?s=27642

Database trial: Library & Information Science Abstracts (LISA)

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Dalhousie currently subscribes to some of the key databases for library and information science, including Library Literature & Information Science Full Text. From now until April 3, we are trialing one of its competitors: Library & Information Science Abstracts (LISA), and we invite you to experiment with it while it’s available and send us your feedback.

Try LISA now!

A little bit about LISA: A ProQuest product, LISA indexes and abstracts roughly 440 periodicals from around the world. Subjects range from Librarianship to Artificial Intelligence to Technical Services and much more; international coverage is also strong in this database. You can find more information about LISA here.

Feedback about this database is welcome and can be sent to Lindsay McNiff (lindsay.mcniff@dal.ca)

Open Access Week at Dal Libraries

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Oct. 20-26th is Open Access Week. The Dalhousie Libraries will host two events:

Differing Perspectives on Open Access: a panel discussion
Thursday, October 23rd: 4:00–5:30 p.m.
Room 224, Student Union Building

Open Access at MIT Press: OA in a large university press
Friday, October 24th: 1:00 p.m.
Room 2616, Killam Memorial Library

Both events are free of charge, and all are welcome to attend. Further details: https://blogs.dal.ca/libraries/2014/09/events-for-open-access-week-2014-2/​

Also, we will be blogging daily about Open Access topics on the Dal Libraries’ blog, the LibVine.

Innovations in SIM: SIM Subject Librarian office hours & Academic Support Series workshops

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This year, with the help and support of the faculty and staff in SIM, I am truly excited to offer these two new initiatives. I hope students will take advantage of these opportunities, tell me what they think, offer suggestions based on their own needs and experiences as students in this program, and help facilitate an environment where we learn from each other.

Subject Librarian office hours in SIM

Embedded – what does it mean? (Please ignore any burial connotations). In short, embedded librarianship moves the librarian out of the library (either physically or virtually) and places them closer to where their people work and learn. In my role as the SIM liaison librarian, I will be “embedding” in SIM for 90 minutes per week. Every Tuesday from 1-2:30 you can find me in the School of Information Management, where I will be holding office hours in 4018 (right behind the admin area). Please use this time to drop in by yourself or in a group and ask me anything about research, the library, librarianship, etc. If I’m not in my SIM office during this time slot, I am teaching one of the Academic Support Series workshops.

Academic Support Series workshops

These workshops are designed to augment your coursework, introduce you to the resources important to your field, give you some extra information and experience (maybe even something you can add to your resume), and refresh some of your skills. All of these sessions will be held in Rowe 4001 (the computer lab right by the elevators), and please try to register with carol.richardson@dal.ca before attending.

Check out my Subject Librarian page for a full list of office hours and workshops.

Two things to note:

  1. The “External funding” workshop is being offered twice, each time immediately following my sessions on APA citation: Tuesday, Sept. 9th at 1:15pm OR Friday, September 12 at 1:15pm. The pamphlet distributed during Orientation lists the second session as occurring on the 11th – this is an error! My apologies.
  2. I was so glad to be able to talk a little bit about these two brand new initiatives as part of SIM orientation today, and one of the second year students asked a very important question: are these initiatives open to returning students? Absolutely! Second-year students are more than welcome to register and attend the workshops, and I definitely hope to see a mix of first- and second-year students in my office on Tuesdays at SIM. All SIM students are welcome!

Questions? Email me at lindsay.mcniff@dal.ca