Paley rest room renovations begin April 11th

Posted on April 8, 2005 by

Both the men’s and women’s restrooms on the 2nd floor of Paley Library will be renovated by Temple facilities staff April 11-22, 2005. During initial days of this short project, there will be noise in the immediate vicinity as old, deteriorated tiles are removed. We apologize in advance for any temporary inconvenience this may cause. Public restrooms on the lower level, 1st, and 3rd floors of Paley Library will be available during this time. These other restrooms were renovated in 2004 through the same central facilities renewal funding. These and other renovation or maintenance projects now underway are modest but important steps toward the University Libraries’ goal of providing convenient, comfortable, well-equipped spaces where the University community reads, studies, conducts research, and participates in educational and cultural activities.

Online Tools for Managing Your Research Papers

Posted on April 5, 2005 by Fred Rowland

Temple University offers a number of different tools for the successful online management of research papers. These tools originate in different departments around campus but taken together help cut down on preparation time and improve your final product.

First, there’s My Backpack, accessible through the toolbar of TUportal after logging in. My Backpack allows you to store your paper in one central place so that you can access it from any computer on or off campus. Each time you want to work on your paper, you download it to your computer from My Backpack. When you’re finished working on it, simply upload it until you decide to work on it again. Since TUportal is regularly backed up, you don’t have to worry about forgetting to have a backup copy.

For managing your bibliography and in-text citations, there’s RefWorks to which the university has a site license. Simply go on to RefWorks and set up an account. RefWorks allows you to enter references manually or download them from databases. RefWorks produces bibliographies in any number of styles, including APA, MLA, Chicago Style, and Turabian. If you are writing a group paper, RefWorks can be shared so that you can build and use a bibliography collaboratively. For more information about RefWorks, see the Refworks Tutorial page.

For help on the mechanics of writing, The Writing Center offers “Handouts, Tipsheets, and Writing Guides”. These online guides cover a wide range of topics, including the writing process, argumentation, revising, proofreading, grammar, punctuation, plagiarism, and citing sources.

Finally, the library has access to over two dozen EBSCOhost databases, including Academic Search Premier, ATLA, Business Source Premier, ERIC, Humanities Abstracts, MLA International Bibliography, and PsychInfo. If you set up a personal account with EBSCOhost (it’s free), you can save and store article records to My Folder. This allows you to search and store records until you are ready to print, delete, email, or download them. This functionality works across EBSCOhost databases so that you can save records from, for instance, Academic Search Premier, ERIC, and PsychInfo, and store them all in one place, My Folder.

For more information on any one of these important tools, please contact Derik Badman, David Murray, or Fred Rowland.

Temple Harrisburg Librarian featured with Oral History Series Participants in National Association of Social Workers Workshop

Posted on April 4, 2005 by

On Friday April 1 2005 Dr. Iren Snavely, the librarian for Temple’s Harrisburg campus and archivist for Temple’s Central Pennsylvania Social Work Archives, spoke about the new archives, started in 2003, at a workshop at the annual conference of the Pennsylvania Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers. Temple University-Harrisburg Oral History project is the Human Service Practitioner’s Oral History series, and three of its participants, Lewis Crippen, retired administrator of the Dauphin County Area Agency on Aging, Ann Lyon, Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Social Work at Harrisburg Area Community College, and Theotis Braddy, Executive Director of the Center for Independent Living of Central Pennsylvania, challenged the audience with reflections and stories from their social work practice and experiences.

Web of Science access now available back to 1974

Posted on March 31, 2005 by

Our Web of Science coverage has been expanded! With the use of one-time funds, the library has just purchased 15 more years of access to this premier database. Indexing is now available from 1974 to the present. The Web of Science database covers over 8700 scholarly peer-reviewed journals from three major indexes: Science Citation Index covers 5900 journals Social Sciences Citation Index covers 1725 journals Arts & Humanities Citation Index covers 1144 journals It also provides access to current and retrospective bibliographical information, abstracts, our online catalog, and cited references in all the above subject areas. You may search by author, keywords, journal title, and institutional affiliation. Researchers may also track a known relevant author or paper and find more recent papers that cite it, thus discovering who is doing current research on the topic of the older article. Expanded search options include the ability to: locate all cited authors (not just first authors), track times cited information, and follow hot links to cited references. Entries are linked to the library’s holdings in our online catalog, Diamond. The index is updated weekly. Note: This database is licensed for 10 concurrent users, so please hit the “Logout” button when finished to free up access for other Temple colleagues.

Temple’s Book Club

Posted on March 29, 2005 by

The Temple Book Club was created in February of 2003 when the “One Book, One Philadelphia” program began. Since then, the Book Club has met once a month to discuss books recommended by the Club members. EVERYONE is invited to come to the discussion: students, staff, faculty, administration, and the community at large. The group meets on the fourth Thursday, during the lunch hour, from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. The Book Club is coordinated and sponsored by the Urban Archives, Paley Library and notices are sent out announcing the books that the club has decided to read. A Temple Book Club listserv has been established and if you wish to be included on the list, please send your information to Margaret Jerrido at mj@temple.edu or call 215-204-6639.

During its January meeting, a list was collected of books to read for the coming months. The club is trying different ways to encourage a larger audience to participate and it is hoped that this will be one way. Please share this list with colleagues, friends, and family.

April 2005: “The Shadow of the Wind” by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Paley Library Lecture Hall, April 28th, 1 p.m. – 2 p.m.

May 2005: “The Night Inspector” by Frederick Busch
Paley Library Lecture Hall, May 26th, 1 p.m. – 2 p.m.

June 2005: “Hell at the Breech” by Tom Franklin
Paley Library Lecture Hall, June 23rd, 1 p.m. – 2 p.m.

Library Opening for Early Birds

Posted on March 29, 2005 by

Starting March 17, Paley Library began experimenting with a “soft opening” Monday through Friday in response to students and researchers who eagerly await entrance before the official 8:00am opening time. Now students will be allowed entrance weekdays as soon as the security guards take up their positions in Paley and Tuttleman, up to an hour before opening. Patrons will be able to study, return books, check out books (using the self-check terminals), and search library databases using the Paley Reference Area computers. If you need help from Paley Library staff, however, you’ll have to wait until they start arriving at 8:00am. This is part of an overall attempt at Paley to make the library more available to Temple’s growing number of highly motivated undergraduates, graduates, and researchers.

Other important Paley and Tuttleman hours to keep in mind:
* In fall and spring semesters, the Tuttleman Scholars Information Center (SIC) is open 24 hours between Monday, 8:00am, and Friday, 7:30pm.
* For final examinations, Paley will be open 24 hours between Thursday, April 28 at 8:00am and Wednesday, May 11 at 10:00pm.
* Service Desks close at regular times during extended hours.

Paley Library Elevator Renovation Project

Posted on March 25, 2005 by

Paley library includes three passenger elevators. They are original building equipment dating from 40 years ago, and have proven quite difficult to keep in full, proper operation due to their advanced age and heavy traffic.

On February 21, 2005, Temple’s Facilities Management Division began a major project to renovate all three passenger elevators. In addition to replacing controlling equipment, the hydraulic drive systems including cylinders and pistons, will be fully replaced.

The approximate schedule of work is:

February 21 – May:
Elevator #2 out of service.
During this time, use elevators #3 and #4.

May – July, 2005:
Elevators #3 and #4 our of service.
During this time, use elevator #2.

During this project we strongly encourage library users to:
1) take the stairs when possible to avoid delays and queuing
2) report promptly any malfunction or failure of elevators that should be in service.

Should you need further information or wish to report an immediately occuring elevator problem, please call Facilities at 1-1818 (Monday-Friday 8-4) or 1-1234 (evening/weekends or in case of emergency).

[Comments or suggestions concerning this project update should be directed to Jonathan LeBreton lebreton@temple.edu
Content last reviewed: 3/22/05.]

Welcome to our New Blog

Posted on March 21, 2005 by

Welcome to Temple University Libraries’ new blog. We started this to improve communication with you, providing news on library events, new acquisitions to our collection, information on useful resources, tips on researching, and whatever else we’d like to tell you about.

You can leave comments on any of the entries (beneath the entries is a link), or you can email one of the contributors directly (we are listed to the left). As this is a new and ongoing development, we’d appreciate any feedback: comments, criticisms, or suggestions.

New to blogs? Blog is short for weblog, and the Oxford English Dictionary (one of our many fine online resources) defines it as:

“A frequently updated web site consisting of personal observations, excerpts from other sources, etc., typically run by a single person, and usually with hyperlinks to other sites; an online journal or diary.”

That’s a fairly general definition. For a much more detailed look, see the Wikipedia entry on weblogs.

We’ll be adding posts regularly, so please stop back in.

Amazing New Biographical Resource

Posted on March 18, 2005 by Fred Rowland

Have you ever been confused by titles of nobility in British history? Who was The Earl of Gloucester, or The Duke of Lancaster, or Lord Buckingham? What were their real names and what role did they play in the rough and tumble events of British history? Just how many Earls of Gloucester were there anyway and which centuries did they live in?

You can discover this and much, much more in print or online in the recently available 2004 Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. The 60 print volumes are available in the Paley Reference Stacks (1st Floor: DA28 .O95 2004). The online version is available from the library’s alphabetical list of databases for a one year trial period. More commonly known as the Dictionary of National Biography, or DNB, this amazing resource contains over 50,000 biographies and 10,000 images of important British men and women from the 4th century C.E. through 2001, living persons excluded. The online version includes additional functionality for researchers, like the ability to search the references and images of each entry, or the ability to search by gender, profession, and religion. Looking for the Hogarth portrait of 18th century patron of the arts Mary Edwards? Wondering if there is any information on 19th century Quaker women scientists? Trying to identify a few good sources for the study of botany in Elizabethan England? The answers to these questions and more are only a few clicks away.

Remember, the online version of this amazing resource is available for a one year trial period, so if you like what you find, please be sure to tell your local Temple librarian. Faculty and student input is taken very seriously.

Cooperation and outreach between Philadelphia research libraries

Posted on March 18, 2005 by

Cooperation between the libraries of Temple and the University of Pennsylvania are alive and well, judging by a joint presentation given by librarians David C. Murray and Nick Okrent during the 2005 Temple-sponsored James A. Barnes Club Graduate Student Conference. The Conference, held February 17 at Temple University Center City Campus, attracted history graduate students and faculty from throughout the U.S., Canada, and even Great Britain. David and Nick are the history librarians at their respective institutions. The handout for their presentation, titled “Teaching and Researching History: Local History Librarians Weigh In,” is available for download (see attached). Two minds really are better than one! Download file

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