Talking in the Library

Talk to the author of "Fourth Star"

Need a study break? Too cold to go out? Gregg Jaffee, military reporter for the Washington Post and co-author of the recently-released book “The Fourth Star” will be appearing via teleconference at the meeting of the K-State Libraries / Ft. Riley Professional Reading Group. The meeting begins at 6:30 PM, Monday December 14th in Room 123 Hale Library, and everyone is welcome.

Free Coffee at Hale Library Sun-Tue night

We know you've been working hard, studying for finals. If you are studying in Hale Library Sunday through Tuesday 10 pm - 12 am, be sure to stop by the 5th floor for some coffee. If you're not a coffee fan, we'll also have tea, cinder, and chocolate. If you need a break, feel free to play a little Wii. Sometimes that helps your brain retain information better. I'm sure I read that somewhere...

Don't worry about forgetting, we'll make an announcement when we're ready to serve it up.

Good luck on finals!

Something to read over break

OK, we know you feel buried just trying to get through the end of the semester, but you have to believe us when we say that soon, very soon, you'll have tons of free time on your hands.  How better to spend that time than with a great book?

You can pick one up for a very low price, and keep it forever, at the Friends of the K-State Libraries' annual Holiday Book Sale this Tuesday and Wednesday in Hale Library from 9am to 4pm. 

We'll have a wide selection of gently used books of both the fiction and non-fiction varieties, spread attractively around 2nd floor near the entrance. Proceeds from the sale go to support the efforts of the Friends, who support the Libraries, who support your quest for education, so in essence, you're getting a book and paying yourself at the same time.  Who could pass up a deal like that? 

Feeling sad, blue, or stressed?

I discovered this fellow a few months back. He's way better than the "Surprised Kitty" that has been making the rounds on the series of tubes.

Image source: Baltimore Sun

You're welcome.

If this little one delights you, then you may also enjoy the rhino featured in The Gods Must Be Crazy. 

To interject a more serious note, if you are a currently enrolled K-State student and feeling sad, blue, or stressed, please remember that we have an excellent Counseling Services Center on campus. Their office is conveniently located next door to Hale on the 2nd floor of the English/Counseling Services building. Like us librarians, they are here to help you. Contacting them is much easier than trying to deal on your own.

If you are doing ok now (he is cute, isn't he?) but are anticipating a little stress starting, say, Sunday  December 13, then you may be happy to hear about Caffeine Fix. If you are studying in Hale Library the Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday nights of Finals Week, listen up for an announcement around 10 pm-ish.  We'll give away free caffeine (coffee or tea) and snacks while they last. Be sure to bring your mug. Oh, and we'll have games like Guitar Hero and Wii.  Tara Coleman, Caffeine Fix Coordinator Extraordinaire, is also looking for music video suggestions to play in the background. 

I'd be happy if we could watch this all evening, but Tara says, "No." She never lets me have any fun.

What's your favorite music video?

What's your favorite music video, song, or artist? I'm making a YouTube playlist to show during our next Caffeine Fix and need your suggestions! Don't be shy, I'm looking for variety. I'll play any (legally uploaded) video :-)

We're having a party

We're kicking off our comfortable shoes, pulling on our party frocks, and our smiles are set to "dazzle".  Hale Library's Great Room has been transformed into a banquet hall with silver plates, candles, and a dance floor.

Other than the fact that everyone needs a good party once in a while, why a party in the library? Well, it's  the Friends of K-State Libraries 22nd annual Gala,"What So Proudly We Hale." Every year, the Gala has a different theme and this year's celebrates our military history collections and academic programs. General Richard Myers will join us as our featured speaker.  General Myers and his wife, Mary Jo Myers, are also our Honorary Gala Chairs.

In addition to good company, good food, good music (the First Infantry Division Jazz Combo will be performing), and good dancing (our Dean likes to boogie), selections from the K-State Historic Costume and Textile Museum and K-State Libraries' Department of Special Collections will be on display.  Here's a sneak peek:

If you miss your favorite study table in the Great Room, no worries, we'll take care of it for you tonight and we should have the detritus cleaned up for you to resume normal studying by Sunday.

We've got game(s)

If the number of questions we've been getting recently is any indication, K-Staters are hitting the books pretty hard. But what's that they say about all work and no play?

This Thursday, we'll be celebrating National Gaming Day @ Your Library here at K-State Libraries (yeah, we're celebrating it a few days early; we're just that excited!). Join us on the 2nd floor of Hale Thursday between 12:30 and 5 for games of all kinds. Take a study break and play some Wii Sports, or flex your musical muscles with Guitar Hero World Tour. You can even go old school with some classic Atari games. If you're too young to know what that means, that just makes it more fun! If video games aren't your thing, we'll also have tables set up so you can play Battleship, Yahtzee, Boggle, Star Trek Uno, and more.

Come celebrate National Gaming Day with us. Don't you deserve a break?

Shout out to all the Veterans

Today is Veteran's Day, so I'm going to take this time to abuse my posting powers and give a shout out to my Little Brother. Or Sgt. David Coleman, as he prefers to be called. 

If you are fuzzy on the history of Veteran's Day, here are a few links you can check out for more information.

History of Veteran's Day, United States Department of Veterans Affairs

History of Veterans Day

Veterans Day-Military.com

Feel free to give a shout out to your own veteran.

Open Access Week 2009: Open Data

The internet has opened new potential in many areas of the research and scholarly process: open access journals, institutional repositories, open source software – and now, open data. Do you ever stop and think about the datasets that are the foundation of scholarly journal articles? What happens to all that data? Is it ever seen or re-used by other researchers? Is it preserved somewhere?

New programs like the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) DataNet program are beginning to address the enormous challenges of managing and sharing research data in order to drive networked, collaborative and innovative science. The challenges involve building infrastructure and setting standards for storing data, encouraging researchers to deposit their data for others to see and use for new purposes, and creating fewer restrictions on licenses, patents and copyrights.

In the past raw data was not considered for publication primarily because it was not affordable or feasible to include in print journals. But, the predominance of online journals has changed that model. Also, large federal funding agencies such as the NSF and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) are having a tremendous impact on the publication of data. Since 2003 the NIH has required applicants seeking $500,000 or more in direct costs to follow their data sharing policy  by submitting a plan for sharing their final research data with their application. Some NSF units also have published policies on data sharing and management.

This trend could accelerate if the Federal Research Public Access Act of 2009, S. 1373 (FRPPA) becomes law. This bill would require researchers funded by one of eleven federal departments or agencies to submit an electronic copy of their final, peer-reviewed manuscripts to a repository for public access. Although this bill does not currently apply to data, many believe it is only a matter of time before other federal agencies develop data sharing policies similar to those at NIH and NSF.

Data can be big like the Human Genome Project or small like thousands of datasets created by individual or small group researchers at universities and research institutes each year. No matter what the size, the potential for sharing and reusing this knowledge is huge.

Wondering what this is all about?  See our four earlier posts on Open Access Week 2009.

Open Access Week 2009: K-State Open Access Success Stories

We’ve been going on all week about the benefits and importance of Open Access (OA), but now we want to give you some real-world success stories from right here at K-State. Here are a few example of how OA has affected students and faculty who have deposited their work in K-REx.

Ann Elliott’s dissertation, Developing accessible museum curriculum: the research, development and validation of a handbook for museum professionals and educators, was discovered on K-REx by a librarian at the Smithsonian Library. The librarian contacted Ann to request permission to share her work with scholars at the Smithsonian by posting the dissertation on their website. On another occasion, a graduate student from the University of Wisconsin contacted Ann to let her know how useful her dissertation was as she worked on her own advanced degree.  Thanks to research in K-REx being open access, Ann's work has been recognized and used by others in the field.

Jana Hawley, head of the Apparel, Textiles and Interior Design department, offers this comment: “My work in textile recycling is rather obscure, but was discovered by colleagues at Washington University in St. Louis and Hansei University in South Korea. Both resulted in invited lectures. The Washington University lecture partnered with Fashion Group International and the keynote lecture focused on the importance of textile recycling as part of the eco-fashion movement. The Hansei University lecture was the keynote lecture at the Eco-Fashion Conference. Without the open access platform through K-Rex, I doubt I would have had this opportunity.”

One of the most heavily accessed items in K-REx is Carcass disposal: A comprehensive review.  Authored by a host of faculty from several different departments at K-State, this book examines food security and economic issues resulting from widespread livestock deaths; certainly a topic of global interest.This is evident in the number of times this book has been viewed online: over 1200 times since it was added to K-REx in May 2008. Even more amazing is that over 950 of these views have been from users outside the US. Many developing countries lack the libraries to provide traditional access to research materials, but OA offers a simple and direct way to obtain essential information. If you're curious about which items in K-REx have had the most downloads, check out the top downloads by month.

By far the most popular item in K-REx has been the thesis submitted by Matthew Vanden Boogart, Uncovering the social impacts of Facebook on a college campus.  Matthew’s 2006 paper has been viewed over 2200 times in K-REx since we started counting in May 2008. On his blog, Matthew mentions his thesis has been cited in three books, and reflects on the impact open access has had on his research: “I’m …excited to see my research is starting to make an impact on society and is being used beyond what I intended it for. This is very exciting in the area of social network research and the sociological and psychological implications it has. I made a few conclusions at the end of my thesis on the impacts Facebook carries, and look forward to seeing that theory expand as others add to the field.”

Congrats, Matthew. We couldn’t have said it better.

Wondering what this is all about?  See our three earlier posts on Open Access Week, and watch for one more tomorrow, and even more information on our Twitter feed.