What’s the use?: analysing student citations to provide new insights into e-book usage

This article reports on a small-scale user-focused piece of research carried out at the University of Sussex. In an attempt to better understand the impact of e-books on student outputs, citation analysis was performed on coursework to identify the e-books that had been used. Of the students surveyed, 11.6% cited an e-book in their work and, for this particular group, EBL was found to be the most popular collection. However, cross reference with the Library discovery tool and Google revealed that e-books available from the web were cited more than those from library collections. Interviews uncovered a spectrum of usage, leading to the conclusion that a comprehensive e-book strategy is required that makes students aware of their benefits, equips them with the skills needed for effective use and increases the number of e-books available

Using Vine to disseminate library information: a practical guide

There are a number of blog posts recommending Vine to librarians, featuring some excellent examples of how the app is being used by libraries. Despite this, Vine remains an under-used tool. One reason for this may be the absence of a clear guide on how to use Vine. The following article intends to address this issue by equipping practitioners with a short guide to creating Vines. It will begin by introducing Vine, explaining what it is and why it should be considered when promoting certain aspects of the Library. This will be followed by a five-step guide to creating Vines on Android devices and iPhones

Enhancing the Communication and Speaking Skills of Mathematics Undergraduates

In June 2011, the University of Lancaster delivered a substantially-enhanced course in Communication and Presentation Skills to 108 second-year undergraduate mathematicians. The course was delivered jointly by staff in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics and CETAD, the Centre for Training and Development at Lancaster. Funding for the course and its increased staffing requirement came from an MSOR HE Curriculum Innovation Fund grant of £5,000. CETAD is a specialist unit which focuses on providing training programmes in the North West of England. This project was the first time that CETAD had worked with mathematics undergraduates. Students were divided into 24 small groups. During the course, students prepared and delivered two group presentations, the first for formative assessment and the second for summative assessment. The final session focused on a codebreaking exercise. Feedback to students on their formative and summative assessments was given by a group of peers and by tutors. Participants were encouraged to reflect on their performances and their feedback, identifying development points for them to work on. The response from students was very encouraging

Pop-up Library Makerspace: academic libraries provide flexible, supportive space to explore emerging technologies.

The word Makerspace is a general term for a place where people get together to make things, create things and learn together. Antony Groves presents a look at a recent university library experiment hosting a pop-up makerspace. Working with local edtech leaders MakerClub and colleagues the library organised a two-hour workshop which offered the opportunity for students and staff to explore emerging technologies

Understanding e-book usage: using citation analysis to inform study skills teaching

To deliver effective information literacy teaching, an accurate understanding of user behaviour is vital. The increasing availability and use of e-books will impact upon student information seeking behaviour. We need to understand the extent of this if we wish to include the most appropriate content in the teaching that we deliver. This poster will show the findings of a recent piece of research at the University of Sussex that has taken an innovative approach to exploring user behaviour. The research considers the establishment of a more sophisticated measure of e-book usage that will inform information literacy teaching by focusing on user behaviour. Specifically this involves measuring e-book usage based on a new methodology concerning citation analysis and qualitative interviews instead of solely gathering data relating to traditional access counts such as full-text download. By analysing e-book citations in student coursework it has been possible to get a more complete picture of the e-books being used by our students, not just those that are held by the library. In addition, interviewing students directly has helped to uncover the ways in which students are searching for and interacting with e-books. This allows us to see exactly how students are using e-books and their reasons for doing so, as opposed to simply relying on our interpretations of the usage data that we collect. This poster will share our findings. Gathering information about these various aspects of user behaviour will help to identify gaps in practice and enable us to improve the information seeking and evaluation skills of our users. Furthermore it will help us to understand the barriers that our students face in accessing e-books and by highlighting these we can work towards making our collections as discoverable as possible, in addition to equipping our students with the skills needed to discover them

The Great Chicago Fire- October 8-10, 1871

Essay on the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.unpublishednot peer reviewe