Online Thesis binding service

Just about to hand in your thesis or due to finish a thesis in the next few months?

Thesis Ireland have launched a very competitively priced online thesis binding service which aims to take the legwork out of the final stage in getting all your hard work ready for submission.

Log on to ThesisIreland.ie and you can submit your thesis online, convert it to PDF format, select customization for the cover and pages, make a secure payment using PayPal, credit or laser card and ... best of all arrange to have the finished product couriered to you (or direct to the college) when it's ready. The only thing they dont do is proof read it for you...so make sure all that is done before you send off the final product. A general rule of thumb is to have your work completed a week (or more depending on word count) before the due date so you can do final proofing and editing. Then all you have to do is sit back, crack open a celebratory bottle of something bubbly and let the bound copy come back to you by courier - they will even send you a text message when your thesis has been dispatched with details of the tracking number.

Westlaw Up

I can exclusively* reveal that Westlaw is once again working. Apologies for the delay: the conversation we had with Westlaw went something like:
Us: Westlaw isn't working
Westlaw: Okay, we'll look into that.
Us (later) What's happening?, It still isn't working.
Westlaw: Yes it is; we fixed it.
Us: No you didn't - we still can't access Westlaw
Westlaw: We fixed it; it's working for you.
Us: No it isn't!
Westlaw: Yes it is!...
It's working now. Please let us know if otherwise.

*That is, if you don't follow us on Twitter

FREE referencing tools

To soothe the pain of that post about nasty increases in library fines let me play good cop by drawing your attention to my picks for the best open source (FREE) online reference management tools.

There are lots of bookmarking sites out there (Delicious, Technorati, Reddit) to help you keep track of online items of interest. Most of these dont really do much to help you format article bibliographic details into an accepted academic referencing style.

These two FREE online tools do just that...


Connotea - The oldest of the many online referencing sites started life as a tool for scientists and researchers to manage references. Connotea provides a free online space for you to store, share and most importantly manage all your sources into a range of academic referencing styles.


Zotero - A free Firefox add on (ie you need to be using Mozilla Firefox as your internet browser) developed by the Centre for New Media & History at George Mason University. Zotero allows you to import & export items in a range of formats (including images and presentations) add your own notes and arrange bibliographic citations into your chosen referencing style. The best way to get started with Zotero is to watch the demo videos on the site.

Enjoy!

Exam Period Fines

As the bad cop library blogger (thanks Laura!), it's my sad duty to inform you that fines will be doubled during the forthcoming exam period, which, in DBS Library terms, extends from Monday 6th April to Friday 8th May. We don't do this because we hate you, honestly. We do this to encourage prompt return of books during a period of heavy demand for library books. Hence, if you want to hog books while cramming for exams you will pay the price. Specifically the price you will pay is:

€1.20 / day Main Lending Material
€1.20 / day Week Loan Material
€3 / day Short Loan Material
€1.20 / hour Restricted Access Material

Ouch!

To reiterate, we're not doing this for the hell of it, we're doing this to deter late return of library books during the period in which they are needed most. If it makes you feel a little better (probably not), all income generated by fines becomes part of the library budget and is therefore used to buy new books, DVDs and electronic resources.

Please also note the following:
No award will be issued from the College until all items on loan have been returned to the Library and all outstanding fines cleared.
It is the responsibility of all borrowers to ensure accounts are clear before the vacation period

Good luck with your exams.

Westlaw Down

Was that a film starring Ewan McGregor? Anyway, we have operational issues with Westlaw, which are being addressed even as I type. We hope to have Westlaw restored later today, or early next week. We'll provide an update as and when access is restored.

EBSCO databases off campus issues

Some of you may have experienced some problems accessing Academic Search Complete and Hospitality & Tourism Complete off campus even after authenticating via the 'search all resources' button with your student login. We hope to have the specific issue with these two databases fixed as soon as possible.

In the meantime you can still access these two EBSCO databases off campus by logging in via the 'search all resources' button - clicking on any other EBSCO database (Business Source Complete, Computers & applied sciences complete, Film & television literature index) this will bring up the full list of EBSCO databases DBS subscribes to - then just click on Academic Search or Hospitality & Tourism and you should be able to access the database with no additional password requests.

An update will be posted as soon as the issue with direct off campus access to these two databases has been fixed. If you have any additional problems logging into databases off campus email laura.rooney@dbs.ie and I'll see what I can do to help.

Keep up-to-date with your favourite journals

...or even the journals you don't like. The ticTOCs Journal Tables of Contents (TOC) service makes it easy for academics, researchers, students and anyone else to keep up-to-date with newly published scholarly material by enabling them to find, display, store, combine and reuse thousands of journal tables of contents from multiple publishers (or so their website says). According to one of their press releases, you can find journals of interest by title, subject or publisher, view the latest TOC, link through to the full text of over 250,000 articles (where institutional or personal subscriptions, or Open Access, allow), and save selected journals to MyTOCs so that you can view future TOCs (free registration is required if you want to permanently save your MyTOCs). ticTOCs also makes it easy to export selected TOC RSS feeds to popular feedreaders such as Google Reader and Bloglines

Follow the Library on Twitter

You can now keep in touch with information, events and general dramas at DBS library by following us on Twitter.

You will notice a feed link of our Twitter updates on the right side of the blog.
If you are a Twitterer and want to follow us we are listed as DBSLibraryTwits (a name not at all reflective of our collective level of maturity)

Those of you who are new to Twitter might be interested in this - Twittonary - the Twitter dictionary a comprehensive guide to the argot of Twitter.

Extended opening hours

To facilitate study for the upcoming summer exam sessions the library will operate 7 day opening from March 29th until May 10th.

Sunday and Bank Holiday opening hours are 11 am to 5 pm. Details of open days per library site are listed below.
Portobello students are reminded that they are entitled to access Aungier st library so may avail of facilities there on the Sundays when Portobello Library is not open.

Aungier Street	Dame Street	Portobello
Sunday, 29th March	Sunday, 29th March	Closed
Sunday, 5th April	Sunday, 5th April	Closed
Friday, 10th April (Easter weekend)	Friday, 10th April (Easter weekend)	Closed
Sunday, 12th April (Easter weekend)	Sunday, 12th April (Easter weekend)	Closed
Monday, 13th April (Easter weekend)	Monday, 13th April (Easter weekend)	Closed
Sunday, 19th April	Sunday, 19th April	Sunday, 19th April
Sunday, 26th April	Sunday, 26th April	Sunday, 26th April
Sunday, 3rd May	Sunday, 3rd May	Sunday, 3rd May
Monday, 4th May	Monday, 4th May	Closed
Sunday, 10th May	Closed	Closed

St Patrick's Day closure

The DBS Libraries will be closed for the St Patrick's Day Bank Holiday on

Tuesday March 17th


We will reopen again on Wednesday March 18th

Useful resources for dissertation preparation

As we are aware, many of you are currently in the planning stages of undergraduate and postgraduate theses.

There are numerous valuable resources available online to help guide you through the crucial stages of planning your research design, outlining a theoretical framework, writing a literature review and choosing the appropriate methodology.

Here are just a few recommendations to get you started...


Emerald - Perhaps you have noticed the 'Research Zone' in the panel of options on the left of the Emerald search screen. Here you will find a research 'how to...' section which features guides on writing a literature review, implementing various research methodologies, presenting your research and even help on finding ideas.
Though Emerald is predominantly a management database, arts students should not overlook what is available in the 'research zone' as the 'how to' guides offer practical advise on structure and methodology which is relevant to any discipline.

Bryman's Social Research Methods Online Resource Centre; This is the companion site to the book that many of you who have done a module on research methods will be familliar with (available in DBS library class mark 300.72 Bry). This site features the student researchers toolkit, case studies and podcasts.

Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC) - This site focuses on research in a wider context but the 'Research evaluation' section in the academic area provides links to guidelines for assessing and evaluating research projects so is a good place to get an idea of the criteria on which you should be analysing other researchers work for your literature review.

Another good quick evaluation tool is the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme's '10 tools for evaluating qualitative research' - click HERE to go to the PDF online.

A good guide for writing literature reviews is available on NUI Maynooth's site - click HERE to go directly to the PDF.


Intute - Always a good place to start looking for sources for any project. Intute's Social Science Research Tools and methods portal links to numerous resources on quantitative and qualitative research methods.


Finally... you're all familliar with YouTube but have you ever used it for educational resources?
The University of Hertfordshire have created a video tutorial programme in which students and tutors share their advice and experience on the dissertation writing process. It can be accessed HERE - or search YouTube for 'Stride' project.

WebFeat - A clarification

Just to clarify things: WebFeat, our great federated search and access management system is accessed through the 'Search All Resources' graphic on the library home page or the 'Search All Resources' link on the 'Library Resources' page

Passwords - a reminder

At DBS, there are a variety of resources available to the student. Here's a gentle reminder of how to access what's available.

Moodle: Moodle is a virtual learning environment. Here you might find material pertaining to your courses. What's there though very much depends upon the individual lecturer. What's probably there though is previous year's exam papers for you to cast your eye over. If you're looking for exam papers, don't look on your individual course, click the exams link instead and look at the appropriate area e.g. undegraduate arts or postgraduate business studies. Unlike other resources in this list you define your username and password. To access Moodle, you need to have an active mydbs.ie mail account account. Go here to activate your account. Please remember the answer to your security question and please choose a memorable username and password. Our IT department will love you for it. Here's a nice tutorial on Moodle.

PCs and Printing: To login to a PC and to print, you will need to have a student account. Your username will be your student number and your password will be your date of birth. If you don't have have an account set up, inform our friendly and efficient information desk staff know, and you should be set up soon after.

WebFeat: WebFeat is what we in the library use as an access management system, to allow access to all our electronic resources off-campus. Again, your username is your student number and password is your date of birth. Bulk uploads of new users are done on a weekly basis. If you do not have a WebFeat login, give your student number and date of birth to our issue desk staff or email the library. A temporary login can be supplied.

Dawsonera: Dawsonera is our electronic book platform. This is a bit more complicated, so pay attention! If you started before January, chances are you are set up on Dawsonera with your username being your first initial followed by your surname, or your first name followed by your surname. Thus, if your name is Brian Cowan, your username is probably bcowan or briancowan and your password is your student number. If you enrolled in January or after, your username should be your student number and your password should be your date of birth.

E-book trial

For the next two weeks we have trial access to a couple of collections from Palgrave Connect, a new e-book platform on which can be seen electronic books published by Palgrave McMillan. We have access to the 14 titles in the Economics and Finance 2009, and the 110 titles in the Literature and Performing Arts collection 2007. Your humble author was disappointed to note that 'Excrement in the Middle Ages' forms part of the Literature and Performing Arts 2008 collection. Unfortunately I am unable to post a list of titles and I'm not sure whether this is due to a limitation on my part or that of blogger.com. If you want to see what titles are available, go to the advanced search page and select either 'Economics and Finance 2009' or 'Literature and Performing Arts 2007' in the Collection search box, then click submit. If I've got it right, then this is the Literature and Performing Arts Collection and this is the Economics and Finance Collection

Looking at the ebooks, your options are pretty similar to what is available in Dawsonera. You can browse books online or you can download them. Unlike Dawsonera, there does not seem to be a restriction on how long you are able to look at downloaded books. Printing restrictions are the same as Dawsonera by the looks of things and subject to copyright restrictions in any case.

EBSCOhost Tutorials on your iPod

The lovely people at EBSCO have developed versions of their tutorial guides to the EBSCOhost databases (Academic Search Complete, Business Source Complete, Film & Television Literature index...) which you can download and listen to on your iPod. There are also screencast tutorials which show you how to set up journal alerts, RSS feeds and to use the MyEBSCOhost feature.

So now there is no excuse for not knowing how to get the most out of all of the EBSCOhost services and features.

The full range of EBSCO online tutorials can be accessed through the 'library guides/databases' link on the Library website - click HERE to go directly.

Graduating this year but still want access to DBS Databases?

If you are a student due to graduate this year but still want access to DBS Library's resources including the Emerald and Business Source Complete databases read on...

DBS library's alumni package now includes access to the Emerald and Business Source Complete databases so you can keep up to date with publications and research in your field of study.

• The basic alumni package which entitles you to use the library after graduation and to borrow up to 3 books costs €75 per year
• The enhanced alumni package which entitles you to the above as well as login access to DBS Library's Emerald and Business Source Complete accounts cost €100 per year

See the Alumni section of the library website for an application form or email library@dbs.ie

Arts students, we havent forgotten about you - if you are interested in us adding Academic Source Complete or other arts and humanities databases to our alumni package please contact the library.