WVU Libraries

Thursday, June 23 from 2 – 4 p.m. at the Evansdale Library (Room 130)

Marian Armour-Gemmen, Patent & Trademark Reference Librarian, will present an introductory workshop on the patenting process on Thursday, June 23 at the Evansdale Library. Marian will cover the basics of preliminary patent searching including classification and Public PAIR. There will be an opportunity for hands-on instruction in using the U.S. Patent Office’s online database of patents from 1790 to the present. Please bring your WVU ID to be able to log on to computers.

For more information contact Marian Armour-Gemmen at 293-4696 x5106 or at marmour@wvu.edu.

At the Downtown Campus Library, we are happy to offer the Term Paper Clinic this summer for students in undergraduate research-writing courses.

The objectives of this service are to help students:
— choose a focused research topic that fulfills the scope of the assignment
— formulate a research strategy, focusing on the selection, use, and evaluation of appropriate research materials and resources
— organize gathered information into a structured research paper
— document and cite sources properly.

The Term Paper Clinic will be held during Summer I (May 23rd – June 30th) and Summer II (July 5th – August 11th) Sessions. We will be open Monday through Thursday from 2:00 – 3:00 PM.

At this time, we are accepting students on a drop-in basis. Please note that we are not able to provide proofreading.

If you have any questions, please contact Kelly Diamond – kdiamond@wvu.edu .

-Kelly Diamond

“Women’s Studies Research in the Information Age” is being offered in Summer 1. The course addresses the interlocking topics of women and information. It is designed to help you be an active member of the information society.

You will learn theory and develop applications to solve your information needs. You will acquire knowledge about the scope of the information environment by and about women and its components including: proprietary databases, libraries and their contents, people resources, the Internet, the invisible web, and how to harness your own curiosity.

Upon completion of this course (which will include a mixture of active learning assignments, readings, lectures, oral presentations, class discussions, and guided hands on activities) you will find yourself equipped to make decisions about the selection and application of information now and in the future.

Registration Information:

Register: WMST SPTS 493G, CRN 50955; or MDS 493P 51005

Time: M,T,W,Th 3-4:15pm Summer 1, 2005

Instructor: Carroll Wetzel Wilkinson, Women’s Studies Bibliographer
and Access Services Librarian at the Downtown Campus Library

Where: Room 136, Downtown Campus Library (Instruction Classroom) near
Media Services, lower level

-Carroll Wilkinson

The WVU Libraries continually add new titles to the electronic journals delivered to your desk top. Just this year, we added 141 new titles to the existing collection of over 15,000 e-journals. Some examples of titles added include: American Journal of Sports, Behavior Modification, Comparative Political Studies, Economic Development Quarterly, Gender and Society, International Journal of Music Education, Journal of Composite Materials, Semiotica, and Written Communication.

The journals come from a variety of sources. For example, journals published by Sage Publications were purchased in electronic format for 2005, and all ACM and IEEE journals be added to the electronic journals list in 2004. The Health Sciences Library is making good progress on an ambitious plan to convert all of its journal titles to electronic format, either as collections or on a title by title basis.

Researchers can access all WVU Libraries electronic journals through the Full Text Electronic Journals List .

-Linda Blake

The Morgantown WVU Health Sciences Library is pleased to announcement the implementation of the LinkOut feature of PubMed. PubMed is a database of citations and abstracts to health sciences journal articles developed by the National Library of Medicine.

LinkOut provides direct access from article descriptions in PubMed to full-text articles owned by WVU Libraries Morgantown. LinkOut also shows which articles are available in print journals at the WVU Health Sciences Library in the Robert C. Byrd Health Sciences Center. To utilize the LinkOut feature, connect to PubMed through the the Health Sciences Library, SOLE, or WVU Libraries websites.

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STUDENTS – NEED A COURSE THIS SUMMER?

Sign up for MDS 103 (Introduction To Library Research); it’s entirely online!
Read Lecture Notes at the Pool!
Do Assignments in a Hammock!
Take a Quiz at the Beach!

What you need to know to register:
Course: MDS 103
Name: Introduction to Library Research
Session: Summer I (Begins May 23rd and lasts 3 weeks)
Section: 7D1
CRN: 51044
Credit Hours: 1

Also available in Summer II!
What you need to know to register:
Course: MDS 103
Name: Introduction to Library Research
Session: Summer II (Begins July 5th and lasts 6 weeks)
Section: WEB 001
CRN: 71330
Credit Hours: 1
Instructor: M. Yancey

-Kelly Diamond

To celebrate National Library Week, take advantage of one of the many services and collections available through your campus libraries. We’re not just for studying! The Libraries offer millions of books and journal articles to support research, but many other treasures await you@your library.

Here are some things you may want to try:

1. Leisure reading collections – latest suspense, science fiction, and more…
2. Music to go – blues, jazz, classical – check out a CD from the Evansdale Library
3. Surf the Web – on library computers or your own – wireless or ethernet
4. Expert assistance from reference librarians – for all your research questions
5. Study late – till 2 AM in the Downtown Campus Library
6. Free DVD loans – from our extensive collection of international and classic films
7. Quiet study nooks, desks, comfy chairs, or group study rooms
8. Online help – with email and chat reference services – we’re virtual!
9. Digital senders – scan journal articles and send them by email – it’s free!
10. Term paper help – a clinic for those last minute term paper woes
11. Win $1,500 – imagine the future and win the contest!

The April edition of National Geographic Traveler magazine includes a folded map of Appalachia displaying 356 locations of cultural and historic significance narrowed from a field of 1000 sites nominated by state and local partners.

An interactive map, entitled “Discovering Appalachia,” contains pop-up windows with descriptions and links to Web pages with more information: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/appalachia/. Printed maps are available by calling 1-800-CALLWVA.

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A landmark study released today reveals that approximately 60 percent of the ecosystem services that support life on Earth – such as fresh water, capture fisheries, air and water regulation, and the regulation of regional climate, natural hazards and pests – are being degraded or used unsustainably. Scientists warn that the harmful consequences of this degradation could grow significantly worse in the next 50 years.

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) Synthesis Report is the first in a series of seven synthesis and summary reports and four technical volumes that assess the state of global ecosystems and their impact on human well-being.

Link to report

Library records included in Patriot Act provisions; librarians respond with systematic purging

Civil liberties have become an issue of much debate and concern in recent years due to the passing of the USA Patriot Act in 2001. Library records are an important topic in that debate.

Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act reads, “The director for the FBI, or a designee of the director, may make an application for an order requiring the production of any tangible things (such as books, records, papers, documents and other items) for an investigation to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities.”

Frances O’Brien, dean of West Virginia University Libraries, said libraries should be a place where students can come and find information on any subject they want and not be questioned about it.

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WVU Libraries are among 31 institutions across the nation participating in a pilot program to provide virtual reference services to people seeking government information.

The Government Information Online service allows researchers to go online and ask questions or seek information about state and federal government. Patrons access the service through a link on the WVU Libraries webpage http://www.libraries.wvu.edu or directly at http://govtinfo.org. From this site, users can e-mail a question or engage in a real-time chat session with a librarian.

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New spell checking feature has been added to PubMed to suggest alternative spellings for PubMed search terms that include misspellings. Terms entered with a search tag (e.g., [mh]; [majr]; [tw]) will not generate alternative spellings.
For more information see the article from the NLM Technical Bulletin.

WVU Libraries could serve as the set for a new program in the fall lineup – CSI: 1893. It may be light on the cool special effects, but the story is still interesting.

Long before FBI agents were searching digital files to find a match for a fingerprint found at a crime scene, Sir Frances Galton began studying fingerprints as a means of identification. The result was Finger Prints, an 1892 work that included the first fingerprint classification system.

Galton established two major points. First, an individual’s fingerprints are unique – the chance of two people having the same prints would be 1 in 64 billion. Second, fingerprints stay the same as a person ages.

An 1893 edition of Finger Prints is part of the collection that the International Association for Identification is entrusting the WVU Libraries with for the next decade.

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Penny Pugh, Head of Reference for the Downtown Campus Library, was named president of the West Virginia Library Association during the organization’s fall conference at Stonewall Resort.

In the post, she will guide the group which represents librarians and staff from public, academic, K-12, and special libraries around the state.

“It’s very challenging and humbling to be president of this organization,” Pugh said. “The association represents libraries of all types and gives us an opportunity to work together toward common goals, which ultimately serve the citizens of West Virginia.”

Pugh comes aboard with a full agenda already on her plate. The WVLA succeeded last session in securing funding from the Legislature to acquire statewide electronic database licenses for hundreds of libraries.

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Illustrating the message — Below, Elizabeth Fitzgerald Howard reads from one of her books to a group of children at Westover Elementary during a presentation entitled “Every Family Has Stories.” The author visited the school last week as part of the University’s marking of the 50th anniversary of the Brown vs. Board of Education decision. Howard, who resides in Pittsburgh, was a member of WVU’s library science faculty from 1978-93.

– Mountaineer Spirit

Sophie Bogdanski (right), Monographs Unit Librarian for the WVU Libraries, explains Banned Books Week to Shelia Shurina, an education junior, at a display in the Downtown Campus Library Alumni Lobby.

Banned Books Week, a national event that runs from Sept. 25-Oct. 2, has two goals. First, the annual observance is a celebration of the freedom to read. It is also a chance to educate people about the library’s responsibility to collect, provide access, and archive materials on all points of view and on any given topic without censorship.

“The library is a bias-free zone,“ Bogdanski said. “This freedom is essential on a university campus where students, faculty, and staff need to research both sides of controversial issues such as cloning.”

In spite of differing opinions about what is written in a book, people still have the right to read it. This right is embedded in the First Amendment of the Constitution.

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Research may be a few steps faster and net greater results for many WVU Libraries users. Mountainlynx, the libraries’ online catalog, now includes electronic journals in its listings.

Until now, someone searching for a mix of resources to research a topic had to check Mountainlynx to find books, films and microfilm, then look elsewhere on the Libraries’ Web site to find available electronic journals.

It’s now one-stop shopping.

“If students and faculty know to go to Mountainlynx, then they can find the electronic journals they need,” said Linda Blake, electronic journals coordinator and science librarian.

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Several current and former WVU students probably feel their Spidey Sense tingling while watching Spider-Man 2. The thought that there’s something familiar about one particular scene probably swings through their minds.

As Peter Parker can attest, trust those senses. There is something familiar about the film’s bank robbery scene for anyone who has sat in G-21 of White Hall.

A replica of the Robert Lepper mural covering the front wall of the WVU auditorium adorns a wall of a bank in the latest Spider-Man installment.

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Mountaineer Spirit

The WVU Libraries have launched a new online exhibit featuring an old and fragile book, “Boydell’s Illustrations of the Dramatic Works of Shakespeare.” The illustrations in this rare and delicate book can now be used by scholars and students with access to the Web, and without further wear on the brittle book.

The 1805 book consists of “100 elegant engravings” by several different British artists. The exhibit’s illustrations are accompanied by descriptive paragraphs, with the act and scene, some including brief excerpts of dialog. The exhibit can be viewed at: http://www.libraries.wvu.edu/exhibits/boydell/.

WVU Health Sciences Library is preparing for the construction of the new Health Sciences Library and Center for Learning.

During Phase I, book collections (including reference, new books and oversized) are being moved to prepare for the renovation. Journals published before 1980 are being sent to the WVU Libraries Book Depository http://www.libraries.wvu.edu/depository/index.htm).

Scanned versions of the articles from these journals will be made available upon request from the Web page at http://www.libraries.wvu.edu/systems/callslip.

For more information on the library construction project visit http://www.hsc.wvu.edu/library/construction.htm or
call 293-6810.

While in the library, please inquire about new locations for library materials at the HSL Circulation and Reference
desks. The library staff thanks patrons for their patience.