A great page with screen shots and instructions is linked above, or you can just follow these easy directions:

1. Find the item in the library catalog
2. Click on the item’s call number
3. Click on the “Request” link on the far right side of the screen
4. Fill in the requested information

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Perkins Library is offering a free introductory EndNote session on Tuesday, May 27 from 3:30 PM - 4:30 PM in Bostock Library, Room 023. We’ll provide an orientation to the software, show you how to set up your personal EndNote library and then teach you to format a bibliography in a couple of keystrokes.

Interested? Register today! And stay tuned for more Intro and Advanced EndNote sessions this summer!

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Perkins Library is offering four free EndNote sessions:

• Wed, Apr 9 from 12:00 PM - 1:30 PM in Lilly Library Training Room (EndNote Advanced–Scieces/Social Sciences)
• Mon, Apr 14 from 2:30 PM - 3:30 PM in Lilly Library Training Room (Introduction to EndNote)
• Tue, Apr 15 from 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM in Bostock Library, Room 023 (EndNote Advanced)
• Thu, Apr 17 from 4:30 PM - 5:30 PM in Bostock Library, Room 023 (Introduction to EndNote)

Interested? Register today — space is limited!

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Then enter your research paper or project into competition for the Libraries’ Durden Prize or Middlesworth Award.

Undergraduates who make exceptional use of library collections (databases count and e-journals count!) are eligible for the Durden Prize.

Undergraduates OR graduate students who incorporate materials from the Rare Books, Manuscript and Special Collections Library are invited to submit papers for consideration for the Middlesworth Award.

All winners will be recognized at a reception at Parents and Family Weekend 2008 and will receive $1000.

Submissions for both awards are due to the library by 5:00 p.m. on Thursday, May 15.

Note: Both awards require a faculty member’s signature, and the Durden Prize requires a short essay on your research process, so you may not want to wait till May 15 to decide to apply!

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Try logging in using any one of these methods:

• Start at the database or e-journal interface, or follow a “GetIt@Duke” link. When you click on a link, a new window will pop up, and you just need to fill in your NetID and password to connect to EZProxy. You should be good to go until you end your browser session or log out!

• When entering the library website from off-campus, you might also notice that there is a Yellow box located to the right of the titled database link(s) saying “Your web browser is reporting an IP address that is not within range of authorized AP addresses”. Just click on the link for signing in with your Net ID/password. Once you’re signed in, you can access any number of databases.

• If you’re still not being recognized as a Duke user, download and install the Duke Virtual Private Network (VPN). Some resources exclusive to Law, Business, or Medical Center affiliates cannot be accessed via EZProxy. Make sure that the the VPN is open when you access the database or e-journal.

If you’re having any trouble Ask a Librarian, or check through some of the connection issues that might cause difficulties with the VPN.

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But what I really want to get at is the human element. There is talk of the future irrelevance of a Reference Desk, if not the actual Reference librarians, whose minds presumably will be accessible in other modes and places. Here’s an excerpt from the TAIGA Forum Provocative Statements:

Within the next five years…There will no longer be reference desks or reference offices in the library. Instead, public services staff offices will be located outside the physical library.

Or, to expand on this line of reasoning:

If the truth be known, as a place to get help in finding information, the reference desk was never a good idea. A reference librarian standing behind a desk waiting for someone to say, “I can’t find what I’m looking for; can you help?” might be justifiable if, as is the case with other service professionals, that librarian was the reason the person came to the building to begin with. But reference librarians have not served so central a function. They have stood ready to help “just in case”-just in case navigating the building isn’t clear, just in case the catalog doesn’t produce wanted results, just in case the collections seem not to contain the desired material or information. In short, reference service-in particular point-of-need reference service-has been an afterthought, something to be considered after the building’s signage or the finding aids or the collections fail the user.
(Anne G. Lipow, “Point of Need Reference Service: no longer an afterthought,” in ALA-RUSA The Future of Reference Services Papers)

Do you come to the Reference Desk for f2f consultation with a librarian? Why or why not?

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• Lockers in Perkins/Bostock, perfect for stashing research materials and stacks of books (stop by the Perkins circulation desk for more info)
• Same check-out times as grad students and faculty (so you can keep books til May 2008!)
• Book and article delivery, or BARD (request that materials in any Duke library be delivered to the library of your choice!)
• One-on-one research consultations with subject and reference librarians
• Access to librarians’ weekly office hours in public policy and history
• Free pencils, pens, notepads (just ask at the Perkins reference desk)

What else can we do to make your months of writing and research easier? Post your suggestions, and we’ll try to make them happen.

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All week, I’ve been working hard on my application for Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval of my project in Ukraine. …Procedures for protecting the rights and welfare of human subjects are the same, no matter who conducts the research; thus, student researchers like myself are held to the same standards as faculty researchers. If an undergraduate at Duke wants to conduct research that involves human subjects in any capacity, he or she must fill out a long, complicated application and send it to the Duke IRB before beginning the study.
..there is a chance that I won’t gain approval until after I arrive in Ukraine. …
Although the form took a lot of time and effort to complete, I’m very glad I did it. It really made me think through my research approach at a level of detail that I hadn’t before.

See her full post here, or check out her Notes from YkpaïHa feed on the right.

And here’s her update:

The Duke IRB liked my protocol a lot. Flattery aside, however, they had “a number” (read - “a million”) suggestions for ways to improve my consent forms and other documents.

..[I must] also prepare a separate consent protocol for the interviewees that are Ark workers/ICARR participants. As the IRB pointed out to me, these people shoulder the most risk by talking to me, so I must take extra precaution to ensure that their interviews are kept confidential.

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“I recently discovered a great feature of Google called Google Alerts. The program allows you to closely monitor specific topics in the news without having to do a manual search. I have it set up so that any news or blog posts containing the words Ukraine, Chernobyl, or Duke will be consolidated and sent to my email account at the end of the day, every day.”

“Although I’ve only been receiving alerts for a few days, I’ve already learned so much about Ukrainian politics, economics, and culture. For example, …my favorite news alert of the week:

‘PepsiAmericas, Inc., the world’s second largest manufacturer, seller and distributor of PepsiCo beverages, and PepsiCo itself, announced a landmark agreement on June 7 to jointly acquire 80 percent of Sandora LLC, Ukraine’s number one juice maker… Home to some 46 million consumers, Ukraine is considered to be one of the fastest growing beverage markets in Europe.’

“I definitely recommend Google’s alert system to anyone who wants to track a topic in the news. But be warned - Google alerts are a big distraction. I really should be studying Ukrainian at the moment, but my mind can only handle so much in one day.”

How about you? Do you have any cool tools to share?

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All the blogs are listed, by student name, in the right column on the Student Research at Duke page; the main part of the page has highlights of recent entries.

These students describe their hands-on research - here’s a teaser on tomato frog DNA from Samantha Perlman:

FINALLY, the moment I have been waiting for…the tomato frog samples came in today!!

Alas, they are packaged in a giant cardboard box with hundreds of other reptile and amphibian samples. Maybe “packaged” isn’t quite the best word…apparently throwing all the little tubes in a box and taping it up is adequate for shipping rare frog samples halfway across the world. Shockingly, the box opened mid-trip, and an undetermined number of little tubes may/may not have spilled out.

Here’s hoping some of them keep up the blogging process as they turn to library research on their topics, or when they are in classes next fall. We’ll be browsing their posts and looking for library hacks to highlight!

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