2015

Snell is full of Fanjimiles

Hey aspiring musicians! Check out the colorful and moving music of Anjimile and read about their journey on recording and releasing Human Nature, their new album inspired by the wonders of the human body, mind, and soul. Human Nature was written, recorded, and produced by these band members, who also happen to be Northeastern students: Anjimile Yvonne on vocals and guitar, Drew Wilcox on percussion, Jason Smith as a featured bass guitarist, and Lee Schuna who produced this album at The Ivy Basement

Here’s the deal: Anjimile, an indie band from Boston, is raising money for their first ever full-length album, Human Nature. It’s always been their dream to release a a full-fledged studio album, but now they need the help of fellow musicians, indie fans, kind-hearted souls… anyone, really, to fund a campaign with this pre-sale. In return, you’ll get a digital version of Human Nature and the chance to call yourself a true “Fanjimile”.

So, what does this have to do with the library? Human Nature has musical features that were recorded in the Digital Media Commons (DMC) Audio Recording Studio at Snell Library.

Anjimile shared their recording experience with us and said they enjoyed the environment of the studio and felt comfortable recording there. The state-of-the-art equipment eased the recording process and the studio was always readily available to them when they made appointments. Let’s think about why the DMC met the needs of Anjimile and how it can meet your needs:
  • Anjimile has an in-home studio where the majority of their album was recorded. However, acquiring equipment and soundproofing the space requires spending a lot of time and a lot of money, which not everyone can do.
  • Another option would be renting studio space somewhere in the city… yeah, right! Again, that requires a lot of time and a lot of money.
  • Finally, Northeastern does offer another audio recording studio in Shillman. Unfortunately, it’s only for music majors.
It’s a no-brainer! The DMC Audio Recording Studio is free, easy to book, and available to any student, faculty, or staff member at Northeastern. Book now and record or edit your own soundtrack! Or if you don’t have experience but are interested, check out the Audio Recording Workshop Series in April.

In the meantime, show your support: help Anjimile raise money for their new album and check out their next show on March 21st at 8 pm at NU afterHOURS where they will be performing with Massachusetts-based, nationally renowned indie band Speedy Ortiz.

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)  

New collection: JoVE Science Education videos

Hey science students!  We’ve subscribed to a new resource to help you with your lab courses.  Check out the JoVE Science Education Database to watch experts perform lab techniques before starting your own experiments.     Northeastern affiliates now have access to these collections:
  • Essentials of Neuroscience – including videos on tissue staining, water mazes, patch clamp electrophysiology, fMRI, and neuroanatomy
  Here’s a sample of the videos the JoVE Science Education Database has to offer:  Making Solutions in the Laboratory   We hope you find these video collections useful in your work.  Let us know what you think of them!