InfoHacks

What's happening at the Library this week?

1. The Savvy Researcher
2. Multilingual Library Tours

THE SAVVY RESEARCHER
To get you started right in your academic path, the library has created the Savvy Researcher, a workshop series that will help you get your information organized. We've added several new offerings including "Where's the Money? Finding and Securing Grant Funding" and "Citation Chasing: The Grad Student's Guide to the Lit Review."

For the week of September 2nd:

Drowning in Data? RefWorks can Help

Learn how to use RefWorks, a citation management software program subscribed to by the University of Illinois Library and CITES that is free to faculty, staff, and students of the University of Illinois. This workshop will cover the basics: how to access RefWorks, search catalogs, import references from library databases, retrieve and manage citations, create bibliographies according to various citation styles (e.g., MLA or APA), and use Write N Cite to add parenthetical references to your work. For more information about RefWorks see: http://www.library.uiuc.edu/refworks/

Tuesday, September 2nd 10-11am

Tools to Stay Current in Your Research

Save valuable research time! Online research resources are pervasive today, making it much harder to stay current in your field. This workshop will introduce several current awareness features including how to set up an RSS feed reader account, creating search alerts from library databases as well as Table of Contents alerts in your discipline.

Thursday, September 4th 3-4pm

How To Be A Better RA/TA

Geared towards Research and Teaching Assistants, this library workshop will introduce several time-saving tips. Topics include the basics of working for others (e.g., proxy authorizations and departmental charge accounts), current awareness services, PapersInvited, how to locate dissertations, and how to use RefWorks, a personal citation database. Can't attend? Check out our online support.

Friday, September 5th 1-2pm

Check out the full schedule at: http://www.library.uiuc.edu/learn/instruction/workshops.html

MULTILINGUAL LIBRARY TOURS
The Library is once again holding multilingual tours of the library in multiple languages. Experienced library staff offer tours in several languages. Learn about the library, its services, and our collections in your language! All tours will meet in the Marshall Gallery, Main Library.

Wednesday, September 3rd
10am French
11am Arabic
1pm Chinese
2pm Japanese
3pm Polish

Thursday, September 4th
10am Korean and Japanese
11am Spanish
1pm Hindi, Urdu and Punjabi
2pm Chinese
3pm Russian

For more information on Diversity and Multicultural Information in the Library, please visit: http://www.library.uiuc.edu/ugl/diversity/

Do you use Google Scholar? Wonder why when you click on the article link it asks you for a login and password? As an affiliate of the University of Illinois (one of the greatest research libraries in the country!), you have access to over 90,000 online titles. If you are using Google Scholar to search for articles, then this InfoHack is just for you.

Now you can set up your preferences in Google Scholar so that you can recognize if the Illinois Library subscribes to a particular journal title where you can download articles at no cost. Just follow these simple instructions:

1. To identify yourself as an Illinois affiliate, click the Scholar Preferences link next to the search box. You should end up here:

2. In the Library Links search box, type "university of illinois at urbana-champaign" and click Find Library. This should result in a "University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (Discover UIUC Full Text)" checkbox.

Make sure this box is checked and click Save Preferences.

3. Now, when you run searches in Google Scholar, you should see UIUC Discover links either alongside or below many of the results:

Upon clicking one of these links, the library's Discover service will attempt to find the full text of the article in the library's online collections. You'll see a screen like this:

Now, isn't that cool?

For more information, please visit: Take Us With You!

The weather is starting to change, fall is creeping in on Central Illinois. To celebrate the seasonal changes, the library offers the University of Illinois community two new exhibits as well as three new workshops in the Savvy Researcher Series.

LIBRARY EXHIBITS

Japan-in-America: The Turn of the Twentieth Century

Description: This exhibit includes images and artifacts from turn-of-the-century Japan -popular cultural materials, including paintings, poetry, and travel literature, postcards, illustrated books, sheet music, magic lantern slides, editorial slides, editorial cartoons, motion pictures, missionary tracts, children's literature, advertisements, etc.

Date: Sep 1, 2008 - Sep 30, 2008
Location: Main Library Hallway, 1408 West Gregory
Sponsor: East Asian and Pacific Studies Center
Contact: Anne Prescot aprescot@uiuc.edu

Literature at the heart of Our Lives: Youth Literature Festival

Description: Nationally known and local authors, illustrators, poets, and storytellers will present their work during this family-focused events sponsored by the UIUC College of Education. All events are free and open to the public and will include readings, book signing,live performances, and gallery tours. This exhibit displays the work of some of the participating authors and artists.

Date: Sep 1, 2008 - Oct 4, 2008
Location: Marshall Gallery, Main Library, 1408 West Gregory
Sponsor: Education and Social Science Library
Contact: Nancy O'Brien npobrien@uiuc.edu

THE SAVVY RESEARCHER

Citation Chasing: The Grad Student's Guide to the Lit Review

Are you sure you found everything for your lit review? This workshop will cover how to find the tough stuff e.g. conference proceedings, dissertations and statistics. Bring your problem citations, we'll sleuth them out!

Tuesday, September 9th 10-11am

InfoHacks

Is your academic pile of information overwhelming? Are you looking for new ways to get organized? Learn from the best! Librarians will give you the low-down on how they organize their own research materials using several different strategies including the GTD method (Getting Things Done), citation management, current awareness tools, social bookmarking and quick tips.

Thursday, September 11th 3-4pm

Where's the Money? Finding and Securing Grant Funding

Are you trying to find grant funding for a fellowship or scholarship? A research project? We can help you find private and federal funding by searching and setting up alerts in the the Illinois Researcher Information Service, IRIS. We'll also cover the top ten tips of how NOT to get your funding approved.

Friday, September 12th 1-2pm

Still getting used to how the Illinois Library is organized? Overwhelmed by the thought of 11 million volumes? You're not alone!

>> Please visit the Library Video Network.

Today's InfoHack will get you going in under 3 minutes. Much of what you need to know about finding materials in the library can be demonstrated through the use of video tutorials. We've created over a dozen quick videos (2-3 minutes!) that you can watch to learn how to do simple tasks like "How to find a book that is unavailable at UIUC."

We also have tutorials on more in-depth topics, such as "Cite a Source: How and why you should do it."

Check them and let us know what you think!

BONUS: >>Videos are also available on our YouTube channel, uiuclearnlib.

Have you heard about the NIH Public Access Mandate? Learn more about how this affects you and your Illinois research on the University Library's Scholarly Communication blog. Or you can check out our Guide to the NIH Public Access Mandate.

THE SAVVY RESEARCHER

How To Be A Better RA/TA

Geared towards Research and Teaching Assistants, this library workshop will introduce several time-saving tips. Topics include the basics of working for others (e.g., proxy authorizations and departmental charge accounts), current awareness services, PapersInvited, how to locate dissertations, and how to use RefWorks, a personal citation database.

Tuesday, September 16th 10-11am

Citation Chasing: The Grad Student's Guide to the Lit Review

Are you sure you found everything for your lit review? This workshop will cover how to find the tough stuff e.g. conference proceedings, dissertations and statistics. Bring your problem citations, we'll sleuth them out!

Thursday, September 18th 3-4pm

Tools to Stay Current in Your Research

Save valuable research time! Online research resources are pervasive today, making it much harder to stay current in your field. This workshop will introduce several current awareness features including how to set up an RSS feed reader account, creating search alerts from library databases as well as Table of Contents alerts in your discipline.

Friday, September 19th 1-2pm

Are you ready for a study break? Today's InfoHack is going to tell you all about our most recent research collection addition - VIDEO GAMES!

I bet you didn't know that the University Library is one of the few academic institutions that uses collection dollars to purchase video games for research. "Why?" you ask? It's simple, people learn best while engaged in active learning and this includes all kinds of games and video games. Researchers all over the world are looking at ways to help people develop lifelong learning skills. There are even several classes offered at Illinois on gaming. You can check out our Guide to Researching Video Games.

If you'd like to check out a Sony PSP or Playstation or Nintendo to use in the comfort of your own home, check out Games and Consoles. If you don't see that game you want to play, make a suggestion! All games are located in the Undergraduate Library and current games circulate for up to 1 week and can be renewed up to 1 month total. Vintage games circulate to faculty for classroom and research use.

Once your break is over, join us next week where we'll give you the lowdown on how to set up database alerts.

This is a great week for workshops at the library! We are offering a week-long series, "Improving Your Library Research Skills." If you're a graduate student and having trouble figuring out how to find books and articles, then this is the place for you! Register for any day this week from 11am-12pm - and don't forget to bring your questions.

Savvy Researcher

Improving Your Library Research Skills

Are you struggling with your research? Having trouble figuring out how to locate books? Peer reviewed articles? We'll go over how to locate items in the library system, including how to find online resources through library databases and when to use Interlibrary Loan. Bring your research paper with you -- time will be set aside to answer individual questions. Can't attend? Check out our online support.

Monday, September 22nd 11-12pm

Tuesday, September 23rd 11-12pm

Wednesday, September 24th 11-12pm

Thursday, September 25th 11-12pm

Friday, September 26th 11-12pm

Where's the Money? Finding and Securing Grant Funding

Are you trying to find grant funding for a fellowship or scholarship? A research project? We can help you find private and federal funding by searching and setting up alerts in the the Illinois Researcher Information Service, IRIS. We'll also cover the top ten tips of how NOT to get your funding approved.

Tuesday, September 23rd 10-11am

Drowning in Data? RefWorks can Help

Learn how to use RefWorks, a citation management software program subscribed to by the University of Illinois Library and CITES that is free to faculty, staff, and students of the University of Illinois. This workshop will cover the basics: how to access RefWorks, search catalogs, import references from library databases, retrieve and manage citations, create bibliographies according to various citation styles (e.g., MLA or APA), and use Write N Cite to add parenthetical references to your work. For more information about RefWorks see: http://www.library.uiuc.edu/refworks

Thursday, September 25th 3-4pm

A Library Introduction to GIS

Curious about how Geographic Information Science (GIS) can enhance your research? Learn about GIS data types like tabular, vector, raster, and geodatabases; and GIS tools such as buffering, overlays, spatial analysis, geocoding, and modeling. GIS is one of the fasting growing research methodologies employed in the sciences, social sciences, and humanities.

Friday, September 26th 1-2pm

Databases Alerts and RSS Feeds

Are you in the middle of your literature review for your dissertation? It's a long process to locate everything in your field, isn't it? Would you like to save yourself some time down the road? When you are ready to defend your thesis, you'll need to be up-to-date on all the literature that's been published since you wrote your lit review months ago! What if you could set up the databases you search most often to let you know when a new article in your field has been published? We've got great answers for you today.

RSS feed technology (the same you've been using to read your favorite blogs and newswires) can help you find scholarly material. Let's talk about a specific example:

EBSCO Databases

When you are satisfied that your search terms are giving you the type of results you need, look for the orange symbol and "Create alert for this search." A pop-up window will provide you with the "Syndication feed" URL that you can copy and paste into your feed reader. Keep in mind that once you set up a search alert, your aggregator will only show *new* articles that have been added to the database. Keep in mind that you will need to set up separate alerts for every search that works for your topic. For example, if you are using different combinations of search terms, set up an alert for each one that was successful during your preliminary research.

One caveat: All databases are different, they are owned by different companies and have different interfaces. When searching your favorite database, look for the orange symbol, or wording such as "Create alert" or "RSS feed". If you are having trouble, feel free to Ask a Librarian for assistance.

If you haven't already found the perfect blog reader for you, check out The Ultimate RSS Toolbox, which lists over 100 different readers for different types of users. Common readers include Bloglines and Google Reader.

Mark you calendars!!

ANNUAL LIBRARY BOOKSALE 2008

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Main Library

In the Charles & Millicent Marshall Gallery
(on the main floor, east entrance)

Thursday, October 30 & Friday, October 31, 9:00 am to 4:00 pm

All proceeds from the booksale help support the library’s collections.

For more information email Nick Hagen: hagen@illinois.edu

Past Writer's Block

Working on a thesis, dissertation, or other lengthy research project? You're not alone! This workshop provides support and helpful tips for doing your research and staying organized as you complete your project. Please register by clicking on your date preference.

Tuesday, September 30th 10-11am

Thursday, October 2nd 3-4pm

How To Be A Better RA/TA

Geared towards Research and Teaching Assistants, this library workshop will introduce several time-saving tips. Topics include the basics of working for others (e.g., proxy authorizations and departmental charge accounts), current awareness services, PapersInvited, how to locate dissertations, and how to use RefWorks, a personal citation database. Can't attend? Check out our online support.

Friday, October 3rd 1-2pm