Classroom available for study when library closed

Though the vast majority of DBS students have dispersed to Summer pastures, we are aware that some of our hardworking ACCA students still have exams in the pipeline.

Monday to Thursday the Aungier St and Dame St libraries alternate late opening until 8 PM as follows;

Monday - Dame St
Tuesday - Aungier St
Wednesday -Dame St
Thursday - Aungier St

Which brings us to Friday, when both AS & DS CLOSE AT 17:15

However, before you decry the possibility of studying on the street on Friday evenings...
to accomodate anyone requiring study space on Friday evenings we've arranged that a classroom be allocated for the duration of the summer.

Room AS 3.3
will be available from 17:15 until 21:00
every Friday evening until term time hours re-commence in Sept

The Aungier St building closes at 21:30 on Friday evenings so we would ask that students availing of this study space ensure they have vacated the building by this time so security staff can lock up.

We're still here

The academic year may have all but ended; the exams are over and the majority of the student population dispersed to the four corners of the earth, but the library endures. Don't think for a minute we're sitting back with our feet up drinking Earl Grey tea and eating Malteasers (it's actually ordinary tea and toffypops), your hard-working library staff have a variety of projects to keep them busy.

The annual stocktake is under way, in which we elucidate how many books are actually in the library. Allied to this is the weed of old stock, in which we decide whether we need that 1st edition of Exploring Corporate Strategy that was published in 1826. We're also thinking of ditching archiving our print journals to create a little more space in the library.

More ambitiously we're looking into the following (all, some or none of which may actually come to fruition):

RFID in the library. RFID stands for radiofrequency identification and is used for inventory tracking and management. Loathe as I am to link to Wikipedia, here's their article on RFID. For the benefit of the 3 readers of this blog who'll actually click that link, any RFID technology we use will be passive. What this will allow us to do is to expand our self-issue and return options.

PC and Study Room Booking. We are investigating methods of allowing students to book PCs and study rooms online by themselves, without having to call to the Issue Desk.

Virtual Reference Service We are hoping to pilot a virtual reference service whereby you go to the library website and chat with library staff via Instant Messaging. For an example of it in action, visit the UCD library website

Access Management This may be longer term, but we are investigating a single sign-on system for all DBS resources. It's called Shibboleth and sigh, here's Wikipedia's take on it. If implemented you will only need to sign in the one time to access resources such as Moodle, e-books and the library's electronic resources.

There's probably more, but I've either forgotten it, or it's so top secret, that I can't mention it in public.

Any news will appear here and also on the library's twitter account. See you in September! Alternatively, if you have left DBS, but are still interested in using the library, why not investigate our Alumni and External Reader Service

Final year students, show off your skills, get a certificate and maybe win a €100 prize!

If you are about to graduate from DBS and would like an opportunity to get certification of the generic transferable skills developed during your course read on...

HETAC is inviting it's accredited institutions (including DBS) to participate in the Learning Outcomes Assessment.

This assessment will measure essential transferable skills gained during your time at DBS, for example;

• critical and analytic reasoning
  
• Problem solving
  
• Written communication

Skills are measured using several simple computer based tests. Only generic skills are evaluated so there's no need for any advance preparation.

Volunteers are invited to participate in this assessment which will take place on

Thursday May 15th between 2-5 in SWS labs 1.1 & 1.2

Anyone who has just completed (or is about to complete) a HETAC (ie non LJMU) accredited DBS Business qualification is eligible.

Whats the incentive for participants?
All participants will receive an individual certificate of their generic skills, a valuable tool in evaluating your core skills and marketing them to employers. Appointments can be made with the careers advisor to discuss how your scores influence your employability and long term job prospects.

If that wasnt enough, the first 20 volunteers will be entered into a draw for €100! Not a bad way to finish off your time here at DBS

Anyone who's interested can show up on Thursday at the above time and place or if you have any queries contact DBS careers advisor carol.clifford@dbs.ie for more details.

If you're reading this and know of any fellow students who are eligible and would be interested in participating, please do pass on the details.

Good luck to all!

Westlaw scheduled down time - 10pm -10.30 08/05/09

Just a little word of warning to any of our law students planning to burn the midnight oil on legal databases tonight.

Westlaw.ie will be unavailable from 10.00 pm until 10.30pm while they perform some routine maintenance. Full access should be restored after this time, so if you do log in during this down time, try back again after 10.30 and all should be restored.

As always, do let us know if you are having difficulty accessing any of our databases off campus (log in via the 'search all resources' button on the home page of the library website with student details) or if you are having problems locating specific material.

Free access to SwineFlu information on DynaMed via EBSCO

The Swine Flu pandemic has prompted EBSCO publishers (our vendors for databases like Business Source Complete, Academic search complete, Hospitality & tourism complete, Film & TV literature index, PsychArticles & PsycInfo among others) to provide their customers with free acces to Swine Flu information from the DynaMed medical database.

DynaMed offers an up to the minute reference source for medical practitioners and professionals and is a reliable source of practical information on the disease, its causes and diagnosis.

Anyone who wants to access DynaMed's Swine Flu information to learn more about the facts behind the headlines can do so by clicking HERE