Talking in the Library

Citation Linker is the easiest way to find a specific article

Here's a quick timesaver. If you already have the citation for an article, but you don't know how to find it, use the Citation Linker.  Plug in as much of the information as you have, and the Citation Linker will search through our journals and databases to find the full text. If we don't have it online, you'll be able to check our catalog or place a request to get a copy from another library through Interlibrary Loan.

Mind the Gap: What is a primary source?

Primary sources are lovely. Tim Watts, our history librarian, defines primary sources as, "Anything that has been created by a person who witnessed or experienced an event as a contemporary would be a primary source. Examples of primary sources would include letters, diaries, autobiographies, and contemporary documents such as newspaper articles, government documents, and oral histories."

My most engrossing experiences in library school involved days when I delved into the primary source documents of the Japanese-American internment and resettlement files in the National Archives. I read testimony of people who had been interned, studied photographs, and read government edicts like Executive Order 9066, the order that directed the internment of Americans of Japanese heritage.

Unfortunately, as Mary W. George discusses in her blog post: FUNQs: Won't Ask, Won't Tell, there may not be enough conversation between faculty and students about what constitutes a primary source, or how to locate them. And if students are unclear about what a primary source is, the odds of them finding these sources drop to well, just about nil.

Since K-State Libraries is rockin', we have many, many, many primary sources. For those related to K-State, you can check out our University Archives. Students in many classes across campus have already, including Dr. Bonnie Lynn-Sherow's senior history research seminar. You may also uncover primary sources in our Rare Books collections, like the swatch books in the Historic Costume and Textile Collection.

Our microforms collection houses documents like the Papers of Frederick Douglass, the Boston Symphony Orchestra Program Notes,1881-1975, and Albert Einstein's Collected Writings, 1901-1956. 

We've also been adding digitized primary source materials online, through our databases. They're easy to find, just go to the Libraries home page, click on Databases, and then choose "Primary Source" as your subject. 

My current favorite? Well, it's a tie. I'm having fun with the Historical New York Times, especially after working with a patron who recently rediscovered his wife's engagement photo from the 1960s!  But American History in Video has cool features like the ability to watch films like Ken Burn's The Civil War and then to make clips from the video to use in classes, like this one that always gives me chills, the letter from Sullivan Ballou to his wife, Sarah. (Please note, the link will only work for K-Staters.)

If you are introducing primary sources to a class, but aren't sure what resources we have available, please ask your librarian.  Students, if you're searching for primary sources, we're here for you, too! Don't waste fruitless hours, Ask a Librarian! ask your librarian, ask your professor.

Photo Credit: Two Children of the Mochida Family, with Their Parents, Awaiting Evacuation Bus, Dorothea Lange.http://www.flickr.com/photos/usnationalarchives/ / CC BY 2.0

May I suggest the Statistical Abstract of the United States?

Hello to everyone who is searching for historical numbers about the United States, like, say, women in the workforce.  I think you will be delighted with this annual publication, Statistical Abstract of the United States.  We have access to editions going back to volume 1, 1878.  Clicking on the Get It button from the link above will let you link out to the 2009 edition.  Click on Earlier Editions to access, yes, earlier editions!

This should qualify as a "library resource" as it is a book that has been scanned as a pdf and posted online by the publisher (in this case, the U.S. Census Bureau).

PubMed Tips

I've been helping a lot of students with PubMed lately. Huge projects deadlines are just around the corner for some of the Kinesiology classes. Here are some of the questions that I've had been asked recently that may help other people too.

Why aren't my articles in English?

The majority of the articles in PubMed are in English, but X% are in other languages. Two clues that an article is not in English are...

The article title is in [brackets]

The states the language near the source information

You can limit your search to just articles in English (or whatever language you know best) by clicking on the limits tab.

Where is the GET IT button?

If you can't find the GET IT button in PubMed, it is most likely because you went directly to their web page www.pubmed.gov. If you are a K-State student, go to the Libraries homepage-click on Databases-letter P-then PubMed. You should see the GET IT button on each article page. If you did go to the Libraries page first and still don't see GET IT,  Ask a Librarian.

None of my articles are full text!

If it seems like none of the articles you want are full text, get an Interlibrary Loan account. If we don't have it, we'll try to get it for you from another library.

If you need to have something RIGHT AWAY, go to the Limits button, then select “Limit to free full text”.

I'm saying this with my librarian face, right away mean an hour before your paper is due. By limiting to full text only, you could be eliminating the best, most perfect article, just because it is not “free” full text. We may have it in print, sitting on the self. Or we could have it through a journal we pay for. And remember, Interlibrary Loan is awesome and will work super hard to get it for you from another place. It shouldn't take more than four days to get it (and maybe sooner).

If you have any other questions about PubMed, let us know. Especially if  you know it should do something and it isn't. PubMed does weird things sometimes. If it starts acting crazy, let us know. We'll kick it or something.

When Ask a Librarian IM is temporarily down you can still get help

This is how we know something is awesome--because we get so incredibly annoyed when it doesn't work.  Yesterday and today our Ask a Librarian IM service wasn't always working.  We're pretty sure you were trying to send us messages, but we didn't always receive them.  Honestly, we were not ignoring you!  Behind the scenes, we're frantically trying to pinpoint and repair the problems.

So, if ever your IM's to us are going unanswered, you can still call us (785-532-3014), email us (libhelp @ k-state.edu), or visit us in person (any help desk in any of the libraries.)

Thanks for your patience and your questions!

Get It and Google Scholar Snafu

If you are an off-campus user of Google Scholar, and you've brilliantly download the LibX toolbar or set your Scholar Preferences to recognize K-State as your library, you may have noticed lately that the magic Get It button or link isn't always appearing.  I noticed this myself the other day when I was working from home.  It was a bit like flying that airline that always serves fresh chocolate chip cookies mid-flight on the day they forgot the cookie dough.

My workaround?  The unsung hero of the library: the Citation Linker.  Found on the databases page, the Citation Linker is handy if you already have the citation for an article.  I searched in Google Scholar and found an article I was interested in.  The Get It link didn't appear, but I did have all of the citation information for the article.  I plugged that information into the the Citation Linker and voila!  It was just like Get It!  Which makes sense because the Citation Linker is powered by Get It.

So, back to why Get It may not be appearing on the Google Scholar page for you: this is happening at a bunch of other libraries, too, so we're relieved to report that it isn't just us.  It appears that the snafu is at the Google Scholar Preferences end and is rumored to be in the process of being fixed.  We'll keep you posted when the fix (and Get It link) is in sight.

Grad Student Library Day--Guaranteed Research Methods

Grad students--ride that energy wave of first week good intentions this Friday, August 28th, by attending Grad Student Library Day.  Library Day is your opportunity to learn all about finding full text dissertations, storing and citing sources with RefWorks, or finding and using images, sound, and film for your research--or for your classes if you are teaching. But wait, there's more: business, legal, or congressional research, Google, Interlibrary Loan and Get It, plus a Hale tour and overview of very handy tools.

Library Day is designed like a conference with 50-minute concurrent sessions.  To relieve any scheduling conflicts for you, we're repeating the morning sessions in the afternoon.  Come for one session, two sessions, or stay for the whole day.Since your research pulls from many fields, we've developed sessions that feature multi-disciplinary resources and methods.

We held a Faculty Library Day before the semester started and I made a promise to them that I will also make to grad students.  I will guarantee that any session you attend will provide you with one tool, trick, or resource that will save you hours (at least) in the future.  If it doesn't, contact me and I will treat you to your non-alcoholic beverage of choice (skearns @ ksu.edu).

If you can't make this Friday, we have a joint Faculty/Grad Library Day scheduled for Monday, October 5th--the student holiday.  See the schedule and sign up for this Friday or October 5th.  Hope to see you there!

Faculty Library Day: It's all about you

We miss you.  Now that we've made it so easy for you to research online, we don't get to see faculty, staff, and researchers the way we used to. To resolve that, we decided to hold a Faculty Library Day: a day all about you and your research.  Library Day is designed like a conference with 50-minute concurrent sessions.  To relieve any scheduling conflicts for you, we're repeating the morning sessions in the afternoon.  Come for one session, two sessions, or stay for the whole day.

Since your research pulls from many fields, we've developed sessions that feature multi-disciplinary resources and methods.  I may be biased, but I will guarantee that any session you attend will provide you with one tool, trick, or resource that will save you hours (at least) in the future.  If it doesn't, contact me and I will treat you to your non-alcoholic beverage of choice (skearns @ ksu.edu).

Our first ever Faculty Library Day is Monday, August 17.  Check out the schedule and sign up for any sessions that strike your fancy.  It is all free, of course.  If you have new colleagues, this is a great orientation to the Libraries--particularly the Library Tour and Tools session.  Remember, it's always cool to be a library pusher.

If Monday doesn't work for you, we're holding a joint Faculty/Grad Library Day on Monday, October 5  (that's the student holiday)--bring your research team!  The schedule is the same, and you can sign up now.

Looking out for your grad students?  We're holding a Grad Student Library Day on Friday, August 28th.  They can sign up now, too!

Yo grammer is wack

I got called out today for using incorrect grammar. I also got called out for abusing the office plants. Then threatened with the punishment of having to diagram a sentence until I learn to treat the plants better. Why am I sharing this story with you? A) in my head it is a funny story. B) it gives me a reason to share this YouTube video I recently discovered.

So what did I learn? Dumping too much tea into the plants makes the soil very acidic, which is apparently bad. If you are going to do it, don't leave the tea bag in the pot as evidence. And what's most importantly (yeah I wrote that on purpose), check your grammar. Or at least learn to spell.

Infographics

Ah, the power of a really good diagram.  Even we word loving English major types can succumb to the beauty of an image that transforms data into information without wasting words or your time.  

For instance, here's how to know what's in different espresso drinks

 

How does someone go about creating these visual encyclopedias?  Wendy Ding offers a tutorial detailing how she created her infographic "Skirt Lengths on Flickr" over at Digital Arts.

Want to see more? Check out these sites:
information aesthetics
GOOD Transparencies Archive on Flickr
Cool Infographics

Finding infographics is pretty easy on Google--just search for your main concept and infographic, like this: toe infographic.  It works even better if you try it in Google images.  

Flickr has at least two pools of infographics: Info Graphics and Infografia/Infographics

Intrigued by infographics? Try Alberto Cairo's book, Sailing to the Future: Infographics in the Internet Era. He's made it freely available to download from his website.

Infographics are sources of information, just like books and journal articles.  If you are going to refer to one in a paper or presentation and you didn't create it, you may need to cite it or at least give credit. How this is done varies according to disciplines. Not sure how?  Check your style guide! 
Here are a couple of quick overviews:

Citing Images -- APA Examples --CalPoly
Citing Digital Images--Yale

By the way, an infographic I'd pay big bucks for (at least $5) is one that illustrates how to find a book in Hale Library's stacks.

Please note that I went this whole post without once referring to Bread's 1971 hit, If, movingly performed here by the great Telly Savalas.  Please be grateful that I did not post a video of me performing If on the flute, as I can thanks to my flute lessons in 6th grade.

Image source: Espresso Drinks by Lakesh Dhakar, distributed on a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License.