Bookish Applications for Facebook January 15, 2008
Posted by Phoebe in : Cool tools, Tips for students , 2commentsIf you spend all your time in Facebook, branch out from Scrabulous and movie trivia quizzes to take a look at some applications related to the library and books.
So far we’ve found:
WorldCat, the closest thing there is to a universal library catalog (for US users, anyway), now lets you search their public site directly from Facebook.
MiniLibrary, which does sort of the same thing except searching European National Libraries.
Books iRead, which allows you to add your books and rate them, and compare them to what your friends have. It’s sort of a simplified LibraryThing for Facebook, basically.
We hear that an application that will allow you to search the Duke Library catalog from Facebook is in the works; we’ll announce it here when it’s ready.
Have you found any useful and/or fun library, research, or book-related applications on Facebook? Give us a link!
Webcast on Zotero: Online Citation Manager January 8, 2008
Posted by Phoebe in : Citing Sources, Cool tools, Tips for students , 2commentsInnovate, Journal of Online Education, is hosting a webcast that looks like a good introduction to Zotero, the free online citation management system that Allen raved about here. It’s Thursday Jan. 10 at 2:00 pm EST. [edited to correct date: Thanks, Brandi!]
It looks like you have to register for the webcast, but it’s free. A good way to get your feet wet if you’ve been thinking about Zotero. And how often do you get to hear from an official Technology Evangelist?
Online Encyclopedias: Wikipedia Alternatives January 7, 2008
Posted by Phoebe in : Database Tip, Research Help, Tips for students , 1 comment so farWhy an encyclopedia?
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Fast overview of a topic
Historical timeline & basic facts
Find out the right keywords for article searches
Find out the main issues in the field
Check for a list of suggested readings to start your real research
Which Encyclopedia?
Wikipedia has quickly become a go-to internet source when you need an encyclopedia. But there have been some concerns about its authority and objectivity, so it should be used cautiously. Use your critical thinking skills - if the article has footnotes, a list of further readings, and feels balanced, it is more likely to be comparable to what you would find in a more traditional encyclopedia. And Wikipedia can be a wonderful source of arcane information: when you really need a list of original air dates for episodes of The Brady Bunch, Wikipedia is the right source!
When your needs are less Florence Henderson-centric, there are other excellent encyclopedias available online. This post will cover the big general ones:
Encyclopedia Britannica online (available by Duke subscription) replicates the authoritative print version but adds web-only tools, including historical timelines and country comparisons.
Enciclopedia Universal en Espanol is also produced by Britannica, but in Spanish and with a focus on Spain and Latin America.
The Columbia Encyclopedia (6th Edition) is available via InfoPlease.com and Bartelby.com; this is a shorter, one-volume encyclopedia in its print version. Both sites also have various other dictionaries, thesauruses, and almanacs - as well as ads (InfoPlease’s interface is far more busy and annoying, IMO).
Browse the list of Reference resources here for more useful starting places for research - and watch this space for highlights of some excellent subject-specific encyclopedias online.
