Thursday 23 June 2011

Calibre: e-book management

It seems sometimes that there are a myriad of e-book publishing formats, so what happenas when you buy device 'A' and try but fail to read an ebook in format 'B'? The answer? You download Calibre, which is a free open-source e-book library management application, that amongst a wealth of features, will convert from a huge number of formats to a huge number of formats and can automatically detect/create book structure, like chapters and tables of contents. It can also insert book metadata into a "Book Jacket" at the start of the book (I've taken this directly from the calibre website, - go there and read more). Calibre looks to be an indispensible tool for owners of e-reading devices, and it's free. What are you waiting for?

Friday 17 June 2011

OSCOLA on Zotero

The library, as detailed elsewhere, promotes the use of Zotero to manage your bibliographies. It's free and it lives in your Firefox browser, though a stand alone version will be released shortly. Anyway, one thing that Zotero can do is format your bibliographies in a number of different citation styles. Recently added to the list of styles available is the Oxford Standard for the Citation of Legal Authorities or OSCOLA as it is better known. If are you are using Zotero and want OSCOLA formatted citations, you will need to install something, but the process is quite simple. In Zotero, click on the 'Actions' cogwheel and select Preferences. Click the 'Cite' icon and select the 'Styles' tab. Click on the 'Get Additional Styles' link. This will open a new browser window with a list of available styles. Scroll down to OSCOLA or enter OSCOLA in the style search box and click on 'Install'. Click 'Install' again and ...that's it. You can now select OSCOLA from the citation style list that appears when you choose to 'Create Bibliography'. Simples!

Tuesday 7 June 2011

Library survey - Thank you / Winner of the €100 HMV voucher

Thank you to all the 93 students who took the time to fill in the Library survey on the self-issue stations and congratulations to Clare Quille who won the €100 HMV voucher!
Have a lovely summer all!

Thursday 2 June 2011

Bank Holiday Closure

A short note to say that although we are open Sunday 5th June to facilitate study for professional school exams, we will as normal, be closed Bank Holiday Monday 6th June. The building will be open though, so there will be study space available if you need it. Alternatively, it's a bank holiday - why not take the day off?