October/November Hours

Please note that the Library will be closed on the following days:

Monday, 29 Oct
Thursday, 1st Nov
Friday, 9th Nov
Saturday, 10th Nov

For our full opening hours around these dates check our website.  

Open Access Week

This week is Open Access Week, a global event in its sixth year which promotes awareness of and participation in open access initiatives.

When the fancy takes us we like to point out relevant and interesting open access resources here, so for the week that's in it we'll list a couple of our current favourites...

World Digital Library
Created by UNESCO and Library of Congress, WDL is a digital collection and portal for "significant primary materials" from countries and cultures around the world.  Digitised objects vary from a first edition of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass to a map of Ireland from Abraham Ortelius' Theatrum Orbis Terrarum.  

BambooDIRT
A great one-stop shop for digital tools for researchers and teachers. Not all the resources listed are open access but the majority are, and the site itself is a really quick way of seeing what tools or resources can help you in your line of research or work.  They are neatly categorised into typical research tasks such as

• analyse data
• make a dynamic map
• organise research materials
• annotate resources
• write collaboratively

Clicking on a task opens up a list of what online tools are available for that particular aspect of research, along with brief descriptions and links.  The lists can be further narrowed by cost (including 'free'!) and platform (Windows, Apple etc.) so you can quickly see what you're looking for.

Happy Open Access Week!

Booker Shortlist

The 2012 Man Booker Prize winner is announced tonight.  We don't like to leave anyone out so we have all six shortlisted titles available for loan in the Library...

• Tan Twan Eng, The Garden of Evening Mists (Myrmidon Books) 
• Deborah Levy, Swimming Home (And Other Stories/Faber & Faber) 
• Hilary Mantel, Bring up the Bodies (Fourth Estate) 
• Alison Moore, The Lighthouse (Salt) 
• Will Self, Umbrella (Bloomsbury) 
• Jeet Thayil, Narcopolis (Faber & Faber)

Catalogue Access

Our Catalogue is down at present due to a technical problem. This is currently being investigated.
If you want to check whether a book is in stock at present please ask at the issue or information desk or contact us at 8842170 / info.library@spd.dcu.ie.
Our apologies for any inconvenience.
***UPDATE 17/10/12 - Access has now been restored***

Maths Week: Concept of Chaos

As part of the College's Maths Week celebrations we have three videos on display in the Library explaining and illustrating the Mathematical concepts of dynamical systems and chaos.

These videos are not yet released on the web but are available to SPD for Maths Week 2012 by kind permission of Etienne Ghys, Director of Research at the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Lyon.

The films each last just over 13 minutes. The titles on display in the Library are:

• Panta Rhei – Everything Flows
• The Lego Race
• Newton’s Apple

Three more of the films will be shown by the Mathematics Department on Thursday 18th October at 18:30 in D210, SPD. See full details of the Maths Week 2012 events in the College here.

Foilseacháin An Gúm

Tá cnúasacht, beagnach iomlán, sa Leabharlann de na haistriúcháin a deineadh sa Ghúm ó na daicheadaí i leith.

I measc na leabhar seo tá claisicí, mar shampla Árda Wuthering (Emily Bronte) aistrithe ón mBéarla ag Seán ó Cíosáin; Ise (H.Rider Haggard) aistrithe ag Níall Ó Domhnaill; Mná Beaga (L.M. Alcott) aistrithe ag Nioclás Tóibín; Ivanhoe (Sir Walter Scott) aistrithe ag Seosamh Mac Grianna agus Filéad na Banríoghaine (Canon Sheehan) aistrithe ag Séamus Mac Gríanna nó "Máire".

Bhí taispeántas de na háistriúcháin seo sa Leabharlann i mbliana mar chuid de chúrsa a bhí ag micléinn sa 3ú bliain acadúil, cúrsa roghnach faoí stiúir Gearóidín Laighléis.

SAGE Research Tools

For the month of October SAGE are offering FREE access to their set of online research tools:

• SAGE Journals
• SAGE Research Methods
• SAGE Knowledge

You may already be familiar with SAGE Journals through our journal subscriptions or if you have accessed DCU Library resources.  SAGE Research Methods and SAGE Knowledge are two other online tools which allow you to refine and focus your research further and are well worth a look.

SAGE Knowledge - SK - is a social sciences digital library containing more than 2,500 eBook and eReference titles.  The platform allows researchers to cross-search all of these titles and seamlessly access a wide breadth of reference and monographic content from one source.

SAGE Research Methods - SRM - aims to help you create research projects and understand the methods behind them. It retrieves content from various sources - books, journals, reference sources - to provide a single information source for research methods and research design questions.  It contains explanations and definitions of more than 1,400 research methods terms.

If you want to try out any of these tools just go to http://www.sagepub.com/freetrial2012/ and register for free access until October 31.

Banned Books Exhibition

This week is banned books week and we are joining the American Library Association in celebrating the freedom to read. Our headline quotation by Jo Godwin is:

“A truly great library has something in it to offend everyone”. 

Come see our display of once-banned titles that help make our library great!