PowerBlog

The library's book collection is growing all the time. Below are some of the latest additions. If there is something here you think you would like to look at during your well-deserved break, simply copy and paste the title into the Novanet catalogue to find out more about it. The course of recognition/ Ricoeur, Paul Giving an account of oneself/ Butler, Judith Why life speeds up as you get older: how memory shapes our past Applications of nonverbal communication Us and them: understanding your tribal mind/ Berreby, David Basic instinct: the genesis of behaviour/ Blumberg, Mark Gender, nature, and nurture/ Lippa, Rchard Imagination and play in the electronic age/ Singer, Dorothy Religion online: finding faith on the Internet/ Dawson, Lorne Culturally-conscious worship/ Black, Kathy The psychology of demonization: promoting acceptance and reducing conflict/ Alon, Nahi Interacting with the dead: perspectives on mortuary archaeology for the new millennium/ Rakita, Gordon Appropriate...

...for university students. Papers are due and exams are right around the corner. The holidays can seem a long, long way away. So this is a good time to remind you about some of the things the library offers which might help you in the days ahead: Extended Hours - We always increase our hours at the end of the term to give you more research and study time. Here's what they look like for the next few weeks: December 1- 3 Friday 8:00am-11:00pm Saturday 8:00am-11:00pm Sunday 10:00am-11:00pm December 4-10 Monday-Thursday 8:00am - 11:00pm Friday (Note: December 8 is the Patronal Feast of the university) 9:00am-11:00pm Saturday 8:00am-11:00pm Sunday 10:00am-11:00pm For our hours for the remainder of the term, go here . Quiet Study Space - sometimes silence is golden. You just want a place where there are no distractions, where you can finish reading that novel or get ready for that exam. Remember that the Reserve Reading Room on the main floor of the library is just such a place. It...

Because Remembrance Day is tomorrow, this is a good time to remind you that the library will be keeping its usual hours throughout the weekend, including Monday. Below is the schedule for this weekend and the rest of the term..... November 10- November 26 Monday-Friday 8:00am-11:00pm Saturday 10:00am-7:00pm Sunday Noon-11:00pm Note: Remembrance Day, Saturday, November 11 Regular hours 10:00am-7:00pm Note: Monday, November 13 Regular hours 8:00am-11:00pm November 27-December 3 Monday-Friday 8:00am-11:00pm Saturday 8:00am-11:00pm (extended) Sunday 10:00am-11:00pm (extended) December 4-10 Monday-Thursday 8:00am - 11:00pm Friday (Note: December 8 is the Patronal Feast of the university) 9:00am-11:00pm Saturday 8:00am-11:00pm (extended) Sunday 10:00am-11:00pm (extended) December 11-17 Monday-Friday 8:00am-11:00pm Saturday 8:00am-7:00pm Sunday Noon-11:00pm December 18-21 Monday-Wednesday 9:00am-5:00pm Thursday 9:00am-Noon December 22-January 1/07 CLOSED Tuesday, January 2/07 9:00am-5:00p...

Below are some of the latest new books added to the library's growing collection. A pretty impressive list-there are a lot of bright people doing great work out there. As usual, to find out more info about any that you want, just copy and paste the title into the Novanet Catalogue . Philosophy and friendship Psychology of gender identity The Handbook of evolutionary psychology Islam between culture and politics Christians and Muslims Islam and politics in the contemporary world The transformation of British life, 1950-2000 German scholars and ethnic cleansing, 1919-1945 Understanding the contemporary Middle East Getting Haiti right this time Tourism, religion and spiritual journeys Geographies of globalization Ethnicity, nationalism, and minority rights Bridging research and policy in development The Democratic Republic of Congo Globalization for development Helping people help themselves Researching conflict in Africa Understanding the European Union Intercultural communication i...

APA got you down? MLA a mystery? Then you'll be glad to know that the library has just acquired Refworks - a web-based citation management tool that allows you to collect, edit, and organize your bibliographic citations. Refworks takes the headaches out of creating your bibliography, reference list or works cited page. It's easy: when you are searching one of the library's journal databases, you simply mark the citations you want, export them to Refworks and they will be automatically converted to the style you have selected (MLA, APA, Chicago, Turabian or dozens of others). No more trying to remember if the journal title is underlined or italicized, if the page number is included, where does the date go? Everyone at Saint Mary's can create their own free Refworks account. For help in getting started, look for the Refworks link at the top of the style guides page on our web site. In addition, there will be a Refworks instruction session this Friday (October 27) from 1...

Some of you have been waiting for this. Saint Mary's faculty, students and staff now have the option of doing a Google-like "quick search" to find out what books or journal articles the Patrick Power Library has on a particular subject. Let me explain... If you look near the bottom of the library's web site you'll find two new search boxes. The Novanet Quick Search box does a keyword search of the Novanet catalogue. For example, if you're writing a paper on women's work in Canada, just type the words women work canada to get a list of all the books in the catalogue which deal with all three terms. It's fast and it's easy. Of course, you can still go in to Novanet and search the "old-fashioned" way but now you have a choice. Even better, the Article Quick Search box allows you to simultaneously search seven of our most popular journal databases , including ABI, Ebsco and Sage. No more searching one database at a time (unless you ...

They just keep coming and coming... Women, men and language: a sociolinguistic account of gender differences The dragons of Tiananmen: Beijing as a sacred city Candy from strangers: kids and consumer culture Accordion crimes (fiction, Annie Proulx) State of war: the violent order of 14th cent. Japan Scotland, the Caribbean and the Atlantic world, 1750-1820 Nation of rebels: why counterculture became consumer culture Citizenship revisited: threats and opportunities of shifting boundaries On beauty: a history of a Western idea The Fire Ant Wars: nature, science, and public policy in twentieth-century America The Sauropods: evolution and paleobiology Knowing poverty: critical reflections on participatory research and policy John the Painter: terrorist of the American Revolution Philosophy 9/11: thinking about the war on terrorism Guns and butter: the political economy of international security Missing mom: a novel (Joyce Carol Oates) Light, freedom and song: a cultural history of modern I...

For many turkeys (and probably a few chickens and some very unlucky ducks), Thanksgiving seems to come around awfully fast. Because it's now just a few days away, and because homework doesn't go away, we wanted you to know exactly when the library will be open, or not, over the Thanksgiving weekend. So here's the schedule: Saturday - open 10:00am-7:00pm Sunday - open noon-11:00pm Monday - CLOSED Homework or not, turkey or not, try and have a great weekend.

The library adds new books to the collection all the time: history books, political books, religious books, biology books - every conceivable topic. From now on we will use this blog to let you know the latest titles. To find out more about a book that interests you (call number, status, etc.), just use your mouse to copy the title and paste it into the Novanet catalogue . Happy reading! Here are some of this week's hot new titles... Outlaw culture : resisting representations / bell hooks An atlas of Irish history Homeric conversation Visions of nature: studies on the theory of GAIA Critical globalization studies Staying power: the history of Black people in Britain The WTO: a very short introduction Afrikan alphabets: the story of writing in Africa Margaret Laurence's epic imagination Math and Bio 2010: linking undergraduate disciplines Justifying blame: why free will matters and why it does not On Canadian literature Islamic perspectives on the new millennium Design: history,...

...who like to do research on Sunday mornings. If you are one of them, this message is for you. This Sunday (September 17) the library's computer servers will be down between 8:00am and noon for some maintence/repair/upgrade. This means that off-campus access to our journal databases will be unavailable for those few hours. We are confident you will be able to think of some other way of entertaining yourself during this time, assuming you are even awake.

....but not many. And here you sit, wondering whether you'll ever see Maria (if that's her real name) again, whether the toilet in the hostel has been fixed, what your friends back at Saint Mary's are doing right now. It seemed like a good idea at the time: take a term off, see some of the world, let the others go to Phuket without you... Too bad you can be homesick anytime, anywhere. You start to think about home, family, school, the library where you spent so many pleasurable hours. The Web really shrinks the world. You can be in a pounding Thai club, or a dusty cantina in Tijuana, but you're never far from some place that has a five-year-old compaq in a corner where, for a few bucks, you can get on the Net and reconnect virtually with things familiar. With that in mind, we decided we should offer a virtual tour of the Patrick Power Library. Whether you've been here many times or whether it's your first time, just go to www.smu.ca/library/tutorials to see/...

Want to become a better researcher? Want to unlock the mysteries of the library? Beginning next week, we will be offering students the chance to learn how to get the most out of everything the library has to offer. Library Essentials are informal 1/2 hour workshops which will show you how to use the catalogue to find the books you need, how to easily get the best journal articles and how the Reference Department can help you with your assignments. The sessions are offered at various times throughout the week of September 18-22. usually in the morning or early evening. There are posters and handouts in the library which give the exact schedule and more information. No appointment is necessary - just drop in! Do yourself a favour - this is time well spent and it could save you many hours of wasted time and frustration down the road. See you next week!

Yesterday I predicted that the university's computer systems would be alive and kicking when a new day dawned. Unfortunately, many of the system failures which have been plaguing the campus this week are still with us. For example, there is no printing available in the library. Rest assured that ITSS, which oversees computer operations on campus, is working very hard to resolve these problems. Here's what they have to say on their web site : "Various Issues with Tools Such as P: Drive, File Shares and Activate Start: 2006-09-07 11:05 am Stop: Unknown at this time Planned Duration: Unknown at this time Due to technical difficulties, some users may experience issues accessing their P: Drive, their file shares, network printing or the Activate system. We are working to rectify this issue, and we ask that you continue to monitor this page for updates. Contact Email: helpdesk@smu.ca Contact Phone: 496-8111" Oh well, at least it's Friday....

Do computers sometimes let you down? Do they crash when you're writing a paper due in a few hours? Does your printer run out of ink at 2:00 in the morning? Have you ever longed for the good old days, say 1998, when you could register, change courses or get your class schedule with a pen and paper? Have you felt that way this week? Computers are wonderful things - when they work! But for the past few days the computers at Saint Mary's have not been working too well. Here at the library we've seen a fair share of frustration/frustrated students struggling with slow or unresponsive Account Activation systems, Banner, SMUPORT, Web CT, wireless access not accessible and an alphabet soup of brokendown drives. It got so bad a software glitch in the Security Office automatically locked the library's front door at 5 o'clock yesterday-only 6 hours early! Still, the first few days of Frosh Week are always eventful and we know that the university's computer systems will be ...

The first week of school is always a shock to the system - whether this is your first time here at Saint Mary's or whether you're an old pro. Just remind yourself that the anxiety, uncertainty and fear you're now experiencing will eventually be replaced... by sweat, drudgery and hard work. Also remind yourself that the library is here to help. Not only can our staff make doing research a whole lot easier, the library is also a great place to read, study or just hang out (plus we have about 60 computers you can use). So buckle up, take a deep breath and have a great year!

The library is a great place to work. And Saint Mary's students especially like working here part-time while they go to school. Great environment, flexible hours and so on....So much so, that I'm afraid that we now have more than enough applications to fill all our needs. If it helps, there are sometimes vacancies after Christmas so, if you are interested come December, get in touch with us then.

Many of you will have noticed that we've been battling some problems with Novanet for the past few weeks. What started as an electrical problem quickly became a major disruption to the entire Novanet system, affecting the catalogue and circulation systems of academic libraries throughout the province. Thankfully things are pretty much back to normal now but if you notice any "gremlins" in the catalogue please let us know.

Faculty and students who were here last year will recall the extensive survey we carried out during the winter term. LibQual enabled us to gather much-needed feedback from you about our resources, our services and the environment we provide. We were thrilled that so many of you ( more than 1500 !) took the time to complete the survey and that more than 700 of you felt strongly enough to provide us with your personalized written comments (you didn't need to do that to qualify for the iPod draw). We are still analyzing all of the information gathered but we'll use this space to let you know what action(s) we will be taking in response to your opinions and suggestions. Watch this space!

Last year, only the Reference Room and a few other pockets of the library were wireless. Not now! Over the summer we made sure that the entire building has wireless capability - so bring a laptop along with you the next time you drop by. For information on registering with ITSS, go to http://www.smu.ca/administration/itss/wireless/

Here's how it looks till Labour Day... August 21 - September 3 Monday-Friday 9:00am-4:30pm Saturday and Sunday CLOSED And for the first week back... September 4 - 10 Monday CLOSED Tuesday 9:00am-5:00pm Wednesday-Friday 8:00am-11:00pm Saturday 10:00am-7:00pm Sunday Noon-11:00pm

We will be using this blog to let you know what's happening at the Patrick Power Library and in the wider world of academic research. We hope to make it informative and informal. As with all blogs, everyone should feel welcome to submit their comments, express their opinions and share their ideas. At this point we're not too sure where this will lead but we're willing to go along for the ride....