WVU Libraries

Consider it Netflix for academia. Films on Demand provides instant access to more than 6,000 films and 65,000 video segments and is now available to WVU students, faculty, and staff.

“More and more faculty have asked about streaming video from our collection,” said Jessica Tapia, Media Services Librarian. “We’re happy to make this great resource available to the WVU community.”

The Libraries offered the streaming video database on a trial basis in March and chose to retain it after receiving a flood of positive feedback.

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Five faculty members will each spend the summer working with a librarian to enhance course curriculum to help students improve their research skills and become more discerning when searching for information.

Their efforts are part of the Information Literacy Course Enhancement Program, a collaborative endeavor between the Libraries and the Provost’s Office. The initiative focuses on fulfilling the University’s 2020 Plan which calls for “engaging undergraduate, graduate, and professional students in a challenging academic environment.” Information literacy is the ability to find, evaluate, and effectively use information.

“During the first two years of the program, we have learned a great deal about designing and teaching discipline-specific lessons that address critical elements of the research process,” said Carroll Wilkinson, WVU Libraries’ Director of Instruction and Information Literacy. “I look forward to encouraging collaboration among participants in the third cohort.”

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The Downtown Campus and Evansdale libraries will remain open for extended hours during Dead and Finals weeks.

On Sunday, the Evansdale Library will open at noon and the Downtown Campus Library will open at 1 p.m., and they will remain open until 10 p.m. Friday, April 29. Both will be open from 9 a.m.-9 p.m. Saturday, April 30.

For Finals Week, both libraries will open at 9 a.m. Sunday, May 1, and remain open until 10 p.m. Friday, May 6.

For more information, check out the Libraries’ calendar: www.libraries.wvu.edu/hours

By Alicia Elkin
The Daily Athenaeum
March 29, 2011

More than 600 books by renowned science fiction writer Isaac Asimov were donated to the West Virginia University Wise Library’s Rare Book Collection.

WVU alumnus Larry Shaver contacted WVU in 2003 to ask if they were interested in the books he had collected by Asimov. Over the years Shaver has donated more than 600 books and more than 50 other items such as games, audio recordings, videos and wall charts, said Harold Forbes, WVU’s rare books curator.

Shaver said he began collecting the books when he was in high school with his first purchase of “The Fountain Trilogy.”

“I was intrigued by the covers mostly I must admit, but once I had read them, I was hooked,” Shaver said.

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The long line outside of a restaurant hints that the food is delicious. A thumbs up from Roger Ebert carries the promise of a good movie. A string of impressive touchdown passes signifies a great quarterback.

Identifying quality research sources online, though, is more difficult.

“It’s not hard to find information; it’s hard to find good information. You have to know the difference and then how to use the good information ethically,” said Megan Oakleaf, an assistant professor at Syracuse University School of Information Studies.

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The initiative between the WVU Libraries and the Provost’s Office will again help up to five faculty members enhance their courses while earning a $3,000 stipend this summer.

The WVU Libraries’ Information Literacy Course Enhancement Program is focused on integrating information literacy into the classroom to enrich student learning. The program began as a response to the 2010 Plan and now addresses “engaging undergraduates in a challenging academic environment,” the first goal of WVU’s 2020 Strategic Plan.

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The WVU Libraries are using QR codes to help students easily connect with a variety of library resources.

“We’re trying to reach users,” said David Roth, Library Associate at the Evansdale Library. “They’re excited about mobile devices, so QR codes are a great way for them to access resources. Increasingly, information is mobile.”

QR codes look like a square version of the barcode. When scanned by a mobile device’s camera and decoder app, the digital link takes the user to a mobile website. The page can offer a coupon, a video, or information about a product.

Miriam Newman, a graphic design junior, uses her iPhone to reserve a study room at the Evansdale Library.

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State and federal tax forms are available at the Downtown Campus Library. Ask for assistance at the Reference Desk. Forms and publications are also available online. For Federal resources: www.irs.gov/formspubs. For West Virginia resources: www.state.wv.us/taxrev/personal.html.

The WVU Libraries now offer dissertations from Proquest Dissertations and Theses Fulltext  (PQDT), providing access from the Library web site at  http://www.libraries.wvu.edu/databases to over one million full-text dissertations, downloadable in PDF format. 

PQDT is an invaluable resource for graduate students and faculty, who until now had to borrow copies of dissertations through the Interlibrary Loan Service.   It includes dissertations from 700 academic institutions, with full-text available online for those added since 1997. 

More than 70,000 new dissertations and theses are added each year.  In addition to full-text, the database includes listings for dissertations from 1861 to the present day, with abstracts for those from 1980 to the present.

Imagine you’re relaxing with friends or eating dinner and remember that you have an overdue library book. No need to rush to a computer or the library. If you have a smartphone, renewing a book is just a few thumb clicks away.

The WVU Libraries’ Mobile Web now enables users to renew books via a Web-enabled phone.

“We surveyed students about what services they’d like us to add to the Mobile Web, and they overwhelmingly asked for the ability to renew books,” said Penny Pugh, Head of Reference for the Downtown Campus Library.

The WVU Libraries launched their Mobile Web site last summer. Available at m.lib.wvu.edu, or through the link on the WVU Mobile Web page, the site provides access to the Libraries’ online catalog, MountainLynx, and mobile versions of EBSCOhost and RefWorks.

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This online exhibit consists of almost 50 early 20th century holiday cards selected from the West Virginia and Regional History Collection at the WVU Libraries.

These are divided into six sections which can be viewed by selecting images from the navigation bar on the left. Select a small image of the card from these pages to display the outside and inside of each card at its actual size.

You can view the exhibit here.

Anthony Larijani submitted a WVU Libraries website user survey and was chosen at random from over eleven-hundred participants to win the drawing for a one-hundred dollar Visa gift card.

The Libraries Web Team ran the survey during October and November. The survey asked the users what they like and dislike about using the Libraries website. The Libraries will use the responses to improve the site for the users.

Larijani is an in-state student from Charleston and the recipient of a PROMISE scholarship, which helped influence his choice to attend WVU. He is a Finance major and enthusiastic follower of the Mountaineers football and basketball teams. Larijani said “I like coming to the downtown library because it provides an excellent study environment. The library provides a place for me to come and study with limited distractions. The libraries website provides access to numerous databases. These databases enable students to use credible sources of information when writing research papers.”

In addition, he appreciates the Libraries efforts to get the students’ feedback about the site in order to make changes and improve library web services: “The libraries survey is a great way to receive feedback from the student community. Students are the most frequent users of the library as well as its website. Their input allows the University to make the necessary enhancements to maintain this great source of information.” Larijani plans “to use the money to do some holiday shopping for friends and family. The extra money really comes in handy this time of year.” He recommends completing library surveys: “Take five minutes out of your day to give the librarians your feedback. You might even be rewarded for your input.”

The Downtown Campus and Evansdale libraries will remain open for extended hours during Dead and Finals weeks.

For Dead Week, the Downtown Campus and Evansdale libraries will open at 9 a.m. Sunday and remain open until 10 p.m. Friday, Dec. 10.  They will be open from 9 a.m.-9 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 11.

For Finals Week, the Downtown Campus and Evansdale libraries will open at 9 a.m. Sunday, Dec. 12, and remain open until 10 p.m. Friday, Dec. 17.

For more information, check out the Libraries’ calendar: www.libraries.wvu.edu/hours

The WVU Libraries are one of five academic libraries from across the nation selected this academic year to participate in a project focused on better assessment of the impact of information literacy programs on student performance.

Carroll Wilkinson, Director of Instruction and Information Literacy for the WVU Libraries, expects a closer examination of what the Libraries’ students are learning about finding and using information following participation in the program. This will in turn help to enhance the academic experience throughout the University.

“Campuses that establish a good assessment plan, including learning outcomes that focus on information literacy, are able to measure learning and prepare for upcoming accreditation reviews. Assessment is a strategic leveraging tool,” Wilkinson said.

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A WVU professor and librarian have written an article about how their partnership in the classroom enhanced the academic environment for students.

Dr. Tim Warner, a geology/geography professor, and Linda Blake, science librarian, were one of five teams to participate in the WVU Libraries’ Information Literacy Course Enhancement Program, a joint effort between the Libraries and the Provost’s Office, during the 2010 academic year. The program’s goal is to incorporate information literacy concepts into the curriculum.

Their results will appear in the Winter 2010 edition of Issues in Science & Technology Librarianship, an online journal published by the Association of College & Research Libraries, Science and Technology Section.

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Ana Pavani, an electrical engineering professor at Pontifical Catholic University, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, will give a presentation about Electronic Thesis and Dissertation (ETD) developments in Brazil and Latin America at 2 p.m. Nov. 4 in the Room 104 of the Downtown Campus Library. A reception will follow in the Robinson Reading Room, Wise Library.

Pavani serves on the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations Board of Directors and has been instrumental in implementing the national Brazilian ETD program as well as in development of the Latin American ETD Consortium. At PUC, Pavani has designed and managed the implementation of an institutional repository. The current collection contains ETDs, senior projects, journals, books, articles, and courseware.

Pavani is interested in evolving the Brazilian national ETD program. During her visit, she will seek advice from WVU Libraries faculty and staff regarding implementation of multimedia applications in ETDs as well as preservation methodologies.

Take the WVU Libraries website user survey and enter to win a $100.00 gift card! The WVU Libraries Web Team invites survey responses from all library website users. Participants will need to take about 15 minutes to answer sixteen multiple choice questions and five fill in a response questions to complete the survey. Then they will have an opportunity to register for the prize drawing. WVU Libraries employees are welcome to take the survey but are not eligible for the drawing. The survey is available at: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/wvulibraries_survey.  The drawing will take place after the November break.

WVU Today

Whether writing about immortality, space, dreams, death, demons, magic or the end of the world, award-winning science fiction author James Gunn has covered it all.

On Oct. 26, Gunn will visit West Virginia University speak about the contributions of another renowned science fiction writer Isaac Asimov. His presentation, “Isaac Asimov: Science Fiction to Science Fact,” will take place at 7:30 p.m. in the Mountainlair ballrooms. The talk is part of the 2010 David C. Hardesty Jr. Festival of Ideas.

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The WVU Libraries will host a discussion on Open Access and its impact on scholarly publishing from noon-1 p.m. Oct. 19 in Health Sciences Library Computer Classroom, LC-1.

Open-access journals are peer-reviewed and provide free online access to full-text scientific and scholarly material. The articles are available to anyone to download, copy, and distribute for research purposes.

The speakers will be Dr. Harold Varmus, Nobel Prize-winning scientist and Director of the U.S. National Cancer Institute, and Dr. Cameron Neylon, Senior Scientist, UK Science and Technology Facilities Council. Their presentations will be pre-recorded.

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 A professional technologist in the Libraries’ systems department has developed an innovative piece of software, the second to be released through WVU’s open source licensing agreement.

 The software, called EngineAPI, lets users rapidly develop web interfaces. An API, or application programming interface, is an interface implemented by a software program that enables different pieces of software to interact.

 “It takes a lot of the tedious work and puts it behind the scenes, so it’s easier and quicker for a programmer to develop redundant applications,” said Mike Bond, the software’s creator. “It allows me to program a whole application in 15 minutes as opposed to a few days.”

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