Library & IT at Bucknell

Faculty: ITEC has added a new feature to Blackboard that allows instructors to post podcasts to their courses. Podcasts are audio recordings to which people can subscribe, and are typically created as mp3 audio files. Students can listen to the podcasts on their computers, and (if they subscribe to the podcasts), they can download the audio files to their portable audio device (iPod, or other mp3 players) for listening offline as well.

If you record lectures for your courses, or if you have audio materials that you want to make available to your students, you can upload those materials into Blackboard as podcasts. (Please note that copyright restrictions limit what materials you can publish in digital form; podcasts are generally intended for materials that you have created.)

If you are interested in publishing audio materials as podcasts, please get in touch with ITEC to find out more information.

Special Collections/University Archives is happy to announce a new exhibit, "Exploring the Past: WWII Posters, A Visual Adventure," available for immediate viewing. This unique exhibit features research completed by the students of Professor David Del Testa's History 100 class using original posters from the University Archives WWII collection.

We invite you to experience this interesting, historical journey and to appreciate a fine example of student collaboration and research highlighting the World War II era. The exhibit is located on Lower Level I of the Bertrand Library, adjacent to the Library Lab.

Ever wondered how your office computer's data is backed up?

CommVault Galaxy is software that regularly backs up all your important files to a secure network server. Galaxy replaces Veritas Netbackup for Windows computers and Retrospect for Macintosh computers. Galaxy backs up the Documents and Settings folder on Windows computers, which includes your Desktop folder and your My Documents folder. On Macs, Galaxy backs up the Users directory, which includes your Desktop and Documents folders.

More information about Galaxy is available in Ask ISR

The Bertrand Library has study carrels available on Lower Level 1 for use by Bucknell students who do extensive research using the library collection. Priority is given to graduate and honors students. Carrels are equipped with a desk, chair, and bookshelves.

Please click here for more information on reserving a study carrel this semester.

Students: Working in the library? Want to take a break and leave your desk for a few minutes? If so, don't leave your laptop unattended. There have been some recent thefts of laptops in the library.

To secure your laptop, consider checking out a laptop locking mechanism from the equipment desk. There are 20 locks available at the desk, and approximately 50 carrels equipped with security devices on Lower Level 1 of the library!

Questions? Ask at the equipment desk!

ISR is pleased to announce that we have begun a subscription to CQ Political Reference Suite. The URL for this resource is: http://library.cqpress.com/prs/index.php

CQ Political Reference Suite is an electronic collection of reference books and other material from CQ. The following titles are included in the subscription:

• Congress and the Nation Series 1945-2004 (more information)
• Historic Documents Series 1972-2005 (more information)
• Political Handbook of the World 2005-2006 (more information)
• CQ's Politics in America 2006 (more information)
• Supreme Court Yearbook Series 1989-2005 (more information)
• Vital Statistics on American Politics 2005-2006 (more information)
• Washington Information Directory 2006-2007 (more information)

A link to CQ Political Reference Suite has been created in ISR's Databases page. In addition, records for CQ Political Reference Suite and records for each of its individual components will be added to the library catalog.

Please contact the library's reference desk with any questions.

The following was taken from a press release:

Dear Historical Abstracts and America: History and Life Subscriber,

We’re pleased to announce that the following enhancements became active in the databases on January 3, 2007, with the release of Version 4.2.

• Tagged search result records are now maintained across multiple searches within a session
• “Untag all” functionality is now available on the results page
• A single-term search may now be conducted from within a browseable index
• The use of ANDing/ORing logic is now an option for subject terms in a displayed record
• Search results are now pre-sorted based on publication date and, secondarily, on chronology scope
• Search pre-processing now handles commonly misspelled words and those with American, British, and Canadian spelling variations
• The “No Results Found” page now provides additional search assistance for the user, including single-click re-search of individual terms from the original query

Go to the America History and Life database.

Go to the Historical Abstracts database.

ISR is pleased to announce that Bucknell now has access to "Journal Citation Reports (JCR)" from Thompson ISI. JCR can be accessed at: http://isiknowledge.com

The following information is taken from ISI's website:

Journal Citation Reports is a comprehensive and unique resource that allows you to evaluate and compare journals using citation data. JCR is published annually in two editions. JCR Science Edition contains data from over 5,900 journals in science and technology. JCR Social Sciences Edition contains data from over 1,700 journals in the social sciences.

Journal Citation Reports can show you the:

* Most frequently cited journals in a field
* Highest impact journals in a field
* Largest journals in a field

Citation and article counts are important indicators of how frequently current researchers are using individual journals. By tabulating and aggregating citation and article counts, JCR offers a unique perspective for journal evaluation and comparison.

Please contact the library's reference desk with any questions about JCR.