Tools for Back to School August 26, 2009
Posted by Michael in : Cool tools, Tips for students , 2comments
Now that classes are definitely back in full swing, we wanted to share some help with some of those consistently vexing issues for students. Refer to previous posts for some information on data backup, free video lectures, and electronic sticky notes.
Finding textbooks – Most know Amazon, but there are some other options out there for online textbook shopping. Bookfinder searches across many online book retailers, making it easy to compare prices. Chegg is a big textbook rental site, allowing for use of books for only a short time.
Lifehacker tips – This site helped inspire the name of this blog and is a great source for little ways to make life better, often with technology, but often without.
- Sleep better: Includes alarm clock suggestions and napping strategies
- Take better notes: Taking notes seems simple enough, but there are three methods here for getting more out of those scribbles
- Memory Hacks: Ten tips for remembering all you’re learning
For a large list of all types of web apps that could be helpful for students, check out this list from readwriteweb. This list is a couple years old, any new apps on the scene since then?
**Photo Credit:
Student raising his hand in a classroom, 1970
William Gedney Photographs and Writings
Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library
http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/gedney/
Enhanced Homepage goes Live Monday August 21, 2009
Posted by Debra in : Duke researchers, Librarians, Life in the library, Research Help, Tips for students , add a commentThe Digital Projects Department is pleased to announce that the enhanced homepage will go live before classes begin on Monday. Thanks to all the Libraries’ staff who helped collect and interpret user input. The focus of the Libraries’ homepage is first to facilitate research, teaching and learning and second to promote our services and resources.
Here is a brief summary of enhancements based on that focus statement:
- Digital Collections are now searchable from the homepage via a new tab in the ‘Search Our Resources’ section.
- Links were reviewed and edited down to only those most used as was identified by statistics and a circle maps exercise.
- Links to services and resources are given priority and located in the top portion of the site.
- Help links (How Do I?…) are located under links to resources and services.
- News headlines are now each aligned with a corresponding image. Clicking an image will bring you to the related story. Two news items display at a time; more can be accessed without leaving the homepage by clicking the left & right arrows.
- Recent posts from the Libraries’ various blogs (including the professional school libraries) are displayed; use the left & right arrows to browse through posts without leaving the homepage.
- In an effort to give greater prominence to the Libraries’ exhibits, an image and link for a current Library Exhibit is visible in the lower right portion of the screen.
You can preview these changes at the following URL while the DPD works to put them in production:
We will review these changes this fall and make adjustments as necessary. Please watch for invitations to participate in assessment activities for the Libraries’ web resources.
Have a great semester!
Notice anything different about your Bb site? August 19, 2009
Posted by Emily in : Duke researchers, Research Help , add a commentIf you’re a Blackboard user, you may have noticed an addition to the left-side menu this past spring.
The new Library Guides button automatically directs you to a page of research tips and resources developed, in many cases, by a librarian who specializes in a subject area related to your course.
See a general research guide or a page that doesn’t reflect the goals of your course? Contact your subject specialist, who will replace the Library Guides link with a more appropriate page or work with you to design a guide specific to your objectives and assignments like the one below, which was created for a Writing 20 course:
Still have questions about this CIT/Libraries collaboration? Email Emily Daly, or check out CIT’s Blackboard support for more info.
Finding your way using GIS August 14, 2009
Posted by Mark Thomas in : Research Help , 2comments
If people are at all familiar with geographic information systems (GIS) software, they typically think of it as a tool for commercial cartographers or for government agencies needing to illustrate dry scientific reports. But GIS software offers students and researchers in any field (sciences, humanities, and social sciences) a powerful (and often, a remarkably simple) analysis and presentation tool whenever they’re dealing with information that has a locational element.
The Data & GIS Services Department at Perkins Library supports ArcGIS software as well as Google Earth Pro. The Brandaleone Family Center for Data and GIS Services on the second floor of Perkins Library has this software installed. ArcGIS software is also site licensed for faculty and staff at Duke, and is available in OIT labs on campus, while basic Google Earth is free to download. Duke affiliates who want the Pro version of Google Earth can contact Joel Herndon or Mark Thomas.
ArcGIS is great for analyzing any sort of data with a spatial element (for instance: data organized by county; associated with addresses; or containing latitude/longitude coordinates, such as GPS data).
You don’t even have to make a map … you might just want to answer questions about distance (example: what are the closest stores that sell tobacco to each school, and how far are they; or which such stores are within a certain distance from each school), location (example: for a set of crime data, identify the census tract that each crime is in, if you want to study socio-economic characteristics of the neighborhood); or network analysis (example: least-cost routes along roads and rivers to bring logs from tree plantations to mills). These are only a few of many possibilities (examples reflect real projects done here).
If you do want to build your own map for a paper or publication, ArcGIS is great for creating one that shows just the features you need, starting with a simple basemap and editing or adding more layers to created a customized presentation.
Google Earth has fewer analysis capabilities, but has a short learning curve and a large database of online geographic layers ready to go. Some sorts of data are easy to add (such as addresses or latitude/longitude coordinates). The map creation is less customizable than ArcGIS, but there are a lot of options for novel visualization. Some Duke users, for instance, have found it useful for creating attention-getting maps for poster sessions.
A few of the more focused interactive mapping databases (often dealing only with US Census data) that have GIS analysis or presentation features, or GIS layer download capabilities, include SimplyMap, Social Explorer, National Historic GIS, and Neighborhood Change Database.
A ramble to foreign libraries August 3, 2009
Posted by Heidi Madden in : Foreign languages, Librarians , add a comment…Or, how to browse full-text collections of books and more in foreign libraries without leaving your chair. Contrary to popular belief, there is no single starting point for browsing open access Digital Collections for Western European Studies –the Europeana is as yet more of a vision than a reality.
Today’s spotlight is on finding digital libraries of full-text materials in German Studies as one example of browsing what is available from libraries abroad. Your best first stop is this excellent list of digital production centers dealing with German language materials: Digitale Sammlungen [Dr. Klaus Graf]. Add to this a website on Digitalisierung und Digitalisierte Bestände that lets you browse digital libraries by subject or by geographic area: you will find materials for the study of witchcraft , travel literature , this includes travel in the Americas , and cook books for immigrants, to highlight just a few themes.
Digital Collections add international materials previously unavailable in US libraries. Take the debates of the Reichstag as an example: I remember well standing in the stacks at the Historisches Seminar Tübingen combing through the heavy volumes of the Reichstagsprotokolle to write a paper on the German politician Eugen Richter. These volumes are not held in US libraries, but today, I could search all of these volumes from my desktop through the free digital library of Reichstagsprotokolle.
A combination of free online content hosted abroad and Duke Holdings can add dimension to your syllabus. Contact me for help with Western European Studies: Heidi Madden
