Infodesk Tip of the Day

How do i search for Film Directors via OPAC?

(a) Basic Search
In the basic search screen, you can do a combined keyword search.  For example, if you’re looking for films by Eric Khoo, you can do a search for “khoo eric and videorecording” under the “words” option.  This will limit the hits to AV materials.

(b) Advanced Search
In the Advanced Search screen in OPAC (click on advanced search from the basic screen above),

1. select “author” and key in the name of the film director
2. under “format”, click on “audio-visuals” from the drop down box

Get more than 3000 Works of Literature Free!

I chance upon this site ClassicReader.com who offers a large collection of free classic books by authors such as Dickens, Austen, Shakespeare and many others. It claims to have a collection of 3066 works of literature (including 1708 short stories) by 320 authors!

Do check out this site as new works are added to the collection on a regular basis. Recent additions –

1. Salvation of George Mackintosh, The by P.G. Wodehouse (added Nov 15)
2. Mixed Threesome, A by P.G. Wodehouse (added Nov 15)
3. Woman is Only a Woman, A by P.G. Wodehouse (added Nov 15)
4. Sundered Hearts by P.G. Wodehouse (added Nov 15)
5. Clicking of Cuthbert, The by P.G. Wodehouse (added Nov 15)
6. Dorothy Dale by Margaret Penrose (added Jul 7)
7. Three Men and a Maid by P.G. Wodehouse (added Apr 4)
8. Sea Fairies, The by L. Frank Baum (added Apr 4)
9. Rainbow’s End by Rex Ellingwood Beach (added Apr 4)
10. Red Pepper Burns by Grace S. Richmond (added Apr 4)
11. Best Sauce, The by P.G. Wodehouse (added Apr 4)
12. Concealed Art by P.G. Wodehouse (added Apr 4)

Yew Boon

Library Humour

Here’s something to brighten up your day…

LIGHTBULB JOKES

How many academic librarians does it take to change a light bulb?
Just five. One changes the light bulb while the other four form a committee and write a letter of protest to the Dean, because after all, changing light bulbs IS NOT professional work!

How many catalogers does it take to screw in a light bulb?
Just one, but they have to wait to see how LC does it first.

How many reference librarians does it take to change a light-bulb?
(with a perky smile) “Well, I don’t know right off-hand, but I know where we can look it up!”

THE PERFECT EXCUSE!
or Why my book has not been returned to the library!

… cuz I left it in my truck and my truck was in an accident and got towed to the garage and I won’t be able to get to the garage in Abbotsford until this weekend.
… my mother took it camping and lost it.
… I didn’t take it out!
… cuz my cat peed on it and it smells too bad.
… it flew out the car window on the 401 Freeway and was devoured by an 18 wheeler!

Check out more library humour at:
http://www.ifla.org/I/humour/humour.htm

Lyssa

Literature Matters!

“Literature Matters” the literature e-zine by the British Council, contains articles on creating writing, exerpts about Welsh literature and happenings in the literary world. Reading this e-zine allows you to travel to the world of fiction writers, books and more. Wales, Ireland and all other places that fans of the U.K can only dream about.

Literature Matters
http://www.britishcouncil.org/arts-literature-matters-newsletter-1.htm

 

Oi May

Plagiarism

Many tools are also available for the detection of plagiarism. Check out the following websites:

1. Turnitin’s Plagiarism Prevention System http://www.turnitin.com/static/products_services/plagiarism_prevention.html     

2. Wcopyfind is a free software to detect plagiarism http://plagiarism.phys.virginia.edu/Wsoftware.html

(but is covered by a license that places certain restrictions on its use, modification, and distribution)

3. CopyCatch Gold – Collusion and Plagiarism detection program http://www.copycatchgold.com/     

4. SafeAssignment™ in NTU https://edventure.ntu.edu.sg/webapps/login/index_frame.jsp 

You could navigate as shown: edveNTUre → Staff, Resources → eLearning Tools@NTU → Assessment and Evaluation → SafeAssignment     

cheryl_kwe

 

 

 

Keeper of the canon

According to an article from the New York Times (Jan 8, 2006) — Keeper of the Canon
by Rachel Donadio — the editor of “The Norton Anthology of English Literature” holds one of the most powerful positions in the world of letters and he is seen as an “arbiter” of the canon.

M. H. Abrams, a leading scholar of Romanticism, will be handing over the editorship of the Anthology to Stephen Greenblatt, a Shakespeare scholar and Harvard professor. How is Bloom a “fearsome undergraduate” according to Abrams? For a good read, check out Lexis Nexis Academic to retrieve the article “Keeper of the Canon” from The New York Times, January 8, 2006 Sunday, By Rachel Donadio.

NTU Library has “The Norton Anthology of English Literature”, “The Norton Anthology of American Literature”. An order for “The Norton Shakespeare” has just been sent out.

 

 

Internet encyclopaedias go head to head

Nature magazine investigated the coverage of science by Wikipedia and Britannica and found many factual errors, omissions or misleading statements: 162 and 123 in Wikipedia and Britannica, respectively.

However the difference in accuracy was not particularly great — only eight serious errors, such as misinterpretations of important concepts, were detected in the pairs of articles reviewed, four from each encyclopaedia!

For more info, read “Internet encyclopaedias go head to head” (Nature 14 Dec 2005)

yew boon

Ever wonder what it takes to digitise a book?

Ever wonder what it takes to digitise a book? See the photos below … Read the Wall Street Journal article “Building an Online Library,One Volume at a Time” for more info

yew boon

Book Scanning Projects

Goggle made the headline last year trying to scan millions of books to make them searchable on the Internet. Rocky Mountain News (24/12/2005) listed more such projects –

Book scanning projects

• Google Inc.: The search company has deals with several publishers to scan and display portions of their works. For millions of other books, Google is working with the New York Public Library and university libraries at Stanford, Harvard, Michigan and Oxford to scan their collections.

• Open Content Alliance: Yahoo! Inc., Microsoft Corp. and others are working to scan thousands of books, mostly out-of-copyright works.

• Amazon.com Inc.: The online bookseller already has deals to display portions of books it sells. Under its new Amazon Pages service, the company plans to let customers buy portions of a book – even just one page – for online viewing. A second program, Amazon Upgrade, will offer full online access to those who have purchased the physical book. Both services are expected to begin next year.

• Internet Archive: In addition to joining the Open Content Alliance, this nonprofit preservation group hosts about a half-dozen scanning programs.

• HarperCollins Publishers: The book publisher plans to scan its entire active catalog of 20,000 titles plus its 3,500 to 5,000 new releases each year.

URL: http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/other_business/article/0,2777,DRMN_23916_4339638,00.html

yew boon

Developing New Industries for S’pore

S’pore poised to ride growth in new sectors

Read today’s Straits Times article that 2 fast growing fields in S’pore will be ENVIRONMENT and water technologies as well as digital and interactive media. “If these sectors develop as anticipated, together with the biomedical sciences, they could account for 80,000 jobs – double the current number – by 2015.” To create successful media products, you need quality content and this probably implies more opportunties for people trainined in humanities and social sciences!

yew boon