Library News

ACI Scholarly Blog Index: Research Powered by Social Media

Academic bloggers work hard to get new research in the sciences, engineering, the humanities and social sciences out to the world as quickly as possible.

So how do you keep up with so much interesting and important scholarly material? Try taking a look at ACI Scholarly Blog Index, a very new resource that the Northeastern University Libraries is currently beta-testing. ACI Scholarly Blog Index was created with students and faculty in mind as a tool to help you spend less time looking at irrelevant material on the web.

Looking for the best bloggers in economics, medicine, or politics? Try a search in the ACI Scholarly Blog Index. You’ll learn about the authors of the blog and what kind of academic work they are engaged in. Want to know who is writing about chemistry from a particular university?  ACI Scholarly Blog Index is also perfect for that.

All of ACI’s blogs are individually chosen by researchers with expertise in that blog’s topic or field of study.  If you are the author of a scholarly blog, and would like to suggest your blog or one your read regularly be included, there is a recommend a blog form.

You can easily create an account to search and save material you locate via ACI.  Use your Northeastern e-mail address and then create a password, of your own choosing. Why else should you try creating an account with ACI? You will see the full text of the blogs, not just an abstract.  Blog records can be downloaded and saved and your citations can be exported to Mendeley, EndNote,  or Zotero. Without logging in, the default is MLA.

Watch this helpful video for more information about logging in.

To find out more about using ACI, see the Support site here.

Let us know what you think!  Review ACI Blog Index here!  
Photo: support.newstex.com/support/articles/201150-how-do-i-perform-a-search-in-the-aci-scholarly-blog-index 

NASCAR Fans and Pinterest

I bet you, like me, have been wondering: ‘How many NASCAR fans use their tablet to follow a sport on Pinterest?’ I’m not going to tell you how many, but I will tell you this: You can find out using SBRnet. SBRnet provides market research for US sports – you can get information about fan participation, venues, teams, logo apparel, sport sponsorship, and more. This table created by SBRNet shows the percentage of fans using Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, Pinterest and Tumblr on their mobile devices while attending a game in 2014:   Interested in learning more? You can browse through their newsletters, or go directly to SBRnet to start exploring.  

February 23-27 Is Fair Use Week!

        What is fair use? It’s a right granted to us that allows us to use copyrighted materials without permission from the copyright holder, under certain circumstances. The central purpose of the doctrine of fair use is to encourage creative expression and innovation through the transformative use of intellectual property. Fair use is not unusual—quite the contrary: it’s applied every day, in a variety of circumstances. Have you quoted an author in a paper for class? That’s fair use! Have you watched “The Daily Show,” or “South Park”? You’ve enjoyed the humor of parody that fair use allows! Have you DVRed those shows to watch later (or do you remember the dark ages of recording TV shows on your VCR)? Even though you’re technically making a copy, that kind of copying is also fair use. But fair use is sometimes mischaracterized as being too difficult to determine and thus advised against out of fear of infringement. So, the organizers of Fair Use Week hope to increase awareness and understanding of fair use, and emphasize its importance to the creation of new knowledge. There are several online events taking place as part of Fair Use Week:
  • On Tuesday, February 24, from 2:00-3:00, Kevin Smith of Duke University will be presenting a webcast on fair use.
  • On Wednesday, February 25, from 3:00-4:00, Brandon Butler of American University will be hosting a “tweetchat” on Twitter about fair use and audiovisual materials, at the hashtag #videofairuse.
  • Several videos about fair use are scheduled to be released next week.
You can read more about Fair Use Week—why it’s important and what it all means—at this link: http://fairuseweek.org/. I also recommend checking out the Fair Use Week Tumblr, organized by Kyle Courtney at Harvard University. He and his colleagues are posting interesting stories and snippets about Fair Use Week. You can follow @FairUseWeek on Twitter.  (And, if you haven’t seen it, we have a page about fair use on our library website.) Finally, check out this great infographic that has been created about fair use! (click for full image)  

2015 Call for Proposals: The DRS Project Toolkit

Call for Proposals Deadline: March 30 Apply here

  The Digital Scholarship Group is now accepting proposals for pilot projects to test the DRS Project Toolkit: a new user-friendly set of tools for building digital scholarly projects and publications using the Northeastern University Libraries Digital Repository Service. With the DRS Project Toolkit, Northeastern University members can use Omeka and WordPress to create projects that draw digital materials such as images, texts, and video dynamically from the DRS. Through the development of the DRS Project Toolkit we hope to establish a simple process to serve project materials using various web publishing tools. During this pilot phase we focus on establishing a base set of features supported by the Toolkit, and we will also work with each individual project to discover unique Toolkit features could be developed and shared with other projects, like interactive maps or timelines. The inaugural round of development for DRS Project Toolkit will be a collaborative endeavor and a great opportunity to experiment with publishing your project’s materials. If you have a project idea, we’d love to hear from you! Just answer a few questions about your project to apply.       To see an example of the Toolkit elements in practice, check out the Terp Talks video series portal from the National Consortium of Interpreter Education Centers. The site itself is built using WordPress, but the video content and metadata are stored in the DRS.   For more information about the DRS Project Toolkit, view the Call for Proposals, or contact us at DSG@neu.edu to set up a meeting.   Written by Sarah Sweeney, Digital Repository Manager, Digital Scholarship Group.  

Welcome to Snell Library’s Spring 2015 Co-ops

  Snell Library is proud to welcome four new co-ops this semester:   Marketing and Events Co-op: Emily Nehme My name is Emily Nehme and I am the Marketing and Events Co-op in Snell Library’s Communications Office. I will help to promote and organize events hosted by the library. I am currently a second year Business Administration major with a concentration in Marketing. I really enjoy traveling and have had the chance to visit and live in some amazing countries. I look forward to being a part of the library community!             Graphic Design Co-op: Amanda Winfield My name is Amanda and I am a 3rd year Animation major with a double minor in Art and Interactive Media. My artistic interests are broad and I am always excited to acquire new knowledge regarding art & design. My hobbies include: painting, sewing, drawing, and occasional video gaming.                 Digital Media Commons Studios Co-op: Lucas LaScala
My name is Luke LaScala but people call me Zander.  I am currently a third year Music Industry and Business Administration double major here at Northeastern and I am working at the DMC Studios in Snell!  I am a singer songwriter who makes relatable hip-hop music and I have been working in or around studios for the last two years.  I love writing songs – making a vision come to life – because I find it very rewarding. I am very excited to host the upcoming audio and video workshops this semester and to teach others how to use the studio and record their songs/videos! We have some great things planned.         3D Printing Studio Co-op: Russell Butenhof My name is Russell and I am a third year digital art student in the animation program from New Hampshire. I started studying at Northeastern back in the Fall of 2010 as an engineering major. During my third semester in the engineering program I decided to take a year off to explore my passions. During that time I rediscovered art, which was a childhood passion of mine, and decided to leave the engineering college to pursue a career in animation. This is my first co-op. In my free time I enjoy composing songs on my computer, writing lyrics, playing video games, and binge watching television series on Netflix.       Best of luck for a great co-op experience!