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Service News |
A roving we shall go!
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This year, for the first time, the
library introduced the concept of bringing help out to students, rather
than just sitting at desks waiting for students to come to us.
During orientation week at the end of September, a team of volunteer
'Rovers' got kitted out in eye-catching green shirts and went around the
library to answer queries, give directions, show how to locate material
on the shelves and how to search for books using the library's online
catalogue - generally help everyone settle in.
The good news is (and we have the
statistics to prove it), you seem to have really liked the idea of
getting help when and where you needed it!
We're delighted with the response, and propose to continue 'roving' on a
scaled-down basis for the rest of the year, scaling up again in the busy
pre-exam periods. If you need help, visit our information desk on
the ground floor, email us at
library@dcu.ie or simply look out for those green t-shirts!
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RefWorks proves a big hit!
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RefWorks
is a tool which allows you to store your references online and create a
bibliography. This year, the Library significantly increased its
training on RefWorks so that sessions could be offered to staff,
research students, taught postgraduates and final year students.
Jack Hyland and Michaela Hollywood, our
resident experts, delivered sessions to over 350 staff and students in
semester 1.
The feedback was extremely positive and comments included:
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Pity I didn’t know this existed before now! It’ll
definitely help with my thesis.
I hope that I can access this kind of training more often.
Great invention! Really will benefit from it undoubtedly.
This will be a great help because I am a part time student
with a full time job. It will save me loads of time.
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We now have over 500 active users of
RefWorks and aim to increase this further next year. Jack and Michaela
will be advertising a new series of workshops which will begin early in
Semester 2. Keep an eye on our
News Blog for dates!
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Jack Hyland |
Michaela Hollywood |
Click here for more
information on
RefWorks and online support.
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Keep up to date with our Library Blogs
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The Library introduced it’s first ever
blog
in February 2008. The aim of the blog is simple – to provide an easy way
for the
DCU community to keep up-to-date with library news, developments and
events. We’re
delighted with the response we’ve had to the blog so far and indeed the
number of visits. Visits to date exceed 15,000 which isn’t bad when you
consider it’s only one of a number of ways we communicate with staff and
students.
The most popular posting by far is
“calculate your h-index with web of science”
which has received 2,656 hits to date.
This is followed by our postings announcing Refworks training and our
citing and referencing workshops which we run throughout the year.
One blog of course isn’t enough and following the success of our news
blog, our Business Librarian, David Meehan introduced a subject-focussed
blog in September this year.
The Business Blog
covers developments of interest to staff and students in DCUBS as well
as the wider university.
The Business Blog
provides an easy-to-read news and archive format to keep you up in touch
with new resources and services, e.g. our new company information
database FAME, and LETS, our new online information literacy tutorial.
You’ll also find occasional pieces of interest, like stats on the most
used business databases, favourite journals and updates on library
training sessions. We’re already delighted with the progress of
The Business Blog. At the time of writing we have had well over 700
hits, and we hope to make it the first place you go to for
business-related news from the Library.
We welcome feedback (News
Blog and
Business Blog) on the value of our blogs
and also encourage you to submit comments on individual postings.
You can access our blogs from the
library website and university staff and student portal pages. The
Business Blog is also available from the Library’s Business portal page. |
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Keeping in touch the low tech way...
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We communicate with you in lots of different
ways - for example by email, by phone, via our website, our e-notice
board and now our plasma screen.
In October 2008, we introduced
another, low tech, method to keep you updated on a daily basis
about training events and any other developments we think you
should know about - two large mobile
whiteboards! They
have proved really effective and we plan to continue to use them
for important news items etc. |
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We find them so useful we thought you
might too, so we've added a couple of them to the mentoring suite for
you to use in your group work and study.
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