Amazon Associates

The University Library is pleased to announce that it has recently become a member of the Amazon Associates program.

Near the bottom of the “Item Details” window in the library catalogue is a small “Buy from Amazon.com” button. When a user clicks on the button, they are directed to the Amazon site where they have the option of purchasing the item for their personal collections. 

The option to buy a title from Amazon presents our customers with a new way to access our resources. Faculty and graduate students in particular may appreciate the ability to review a title in the Library before adding it to their personal collections, and all visitors to our catalogue will now have the choice of borrowing a title from the library or purchasing a copy of their own.

The Library benefits from the arrangement as well, earning a small referral fee from Amazon on each sale. Amazon will pay these fees to us in the form of Amazon gift certificates. All of our earnings will go directly into the Library’s collections, providing additional support for the purchase of new books.

Local Newspaper Publishes Article on Russell Journal

The Hamilton Spectator published an article today on the digitization of the Russell Journal. The journal is our first foray into e-publishing. Congratulations go to Ken Blackwell and Anne Pottier who worked hard to make this happen!

Russell Journal now on DIgital Commons

Congratulations to Anne Pottier (AUL, Collections and Facilities) and all of those involved in moving the Russell Journal from print to electronic. Founded by McMaster Library in 1971, the journal is published by McMaster University’s Bertrand Russell Research Centre with the assistance of grants from the Aid to Journals programme of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and from McMaster’s Faculty of Humanities.

This is a huge accomplishment and is our first foray into digital publishing. All issues since 1971 are now available electronically and fully searchable. The articles up to the most recent four years are also now fully and freely accessible from the Russell Journal site.

See full story

Grant received: Peace and War in the Twentieth Century

The University Library is pleased to announce that we were successful in our recent grant application. The project, which will digitize collections related to Peace and War in the 20th Century, is a collaboration with Hamilton Public Library and the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum. The funding is provided by the Canadian Memory Fund, through the Department of Canadian Heritage’s Canadian Culture Online Program. Special congratulations go to Carl Spadoni and Kathy Garay for leading the application.

New library acquisitions

I am very pleased to announce that the library has made some recent acquisitions.  We are able to make these new purchases through a much reduced price due to federally  negotiated licensing; a three-year purchase plan and donations to library acquisitions.   The result is increased electronic access to significant journal collections, historic newspapers, parliamentary papers, and the holdings of the Center for Research Libraries.  Specifically this includes:

 

1)  Additional Blackwell, Oxford and Springer journal backfiles back to volume 1

 

2)  Several historical newspapers:

• New York Times (1851 - 2003)
• The Times Digital Archive (Times of London) - 1785 to 1985
• Wall Street Journal (1889 - 1989)
• Washington Post (1877 - 1990)

3) House of Commons Parliamentary Papers - 19th, 20th and 21st centuries

I am especially pleased that we will be joining  the Center for Research Libraries (CRL), a consortium of North American universities, colleges, and independent research libraries.  CRL’s mission is to “support advanced research and teaching in the humanities, sciences and social sciences by ensuring the survival and availability of the knowledge resources vital to these disciplines.”  Beginning in July 2007, our membership will allow us to provide “access to extensive and unique collections, opportunities for sharing resources and avoiding unnecessary costs”.  (materials are delivered electronically or through interlibrary loan–with a 3 day guarantee)  Since the Center has “over four million newspapers, journals, dissertations, archives, government publications and other traditional and digital resources for research and teaching” our membership dramatically increases our access to print scholarly literature, some of which is difficult or impossible to obtain through other means.

The libraries continue to work at the local, provincial and national levels to build comprehensive collections that support your teaching, learning and research needs. Please share this announcement in your faculty.  If there are any questions, please feel free to send them directly to me.  Thank you!

Perry Willett, University of Michigan

On November 13, 2006 Perry Willett from the University of Michigan visited McMaster’s libraries. He gave two presentations on digitization and the Google project. PDF’s of his presentations can be found at:

digitization.pdf

google.pdf

Isaac Newton’s Opticks

Last year the library acquired a rare first edition of Isaac Newton’s Opticks, published in 1704, as our 2 millionth volume. On Monday the library and our partners will launch an innovative new “reusable learning object”, an interactive web-based application, that introduces students to Newton and his work. It can be found on the web at: http://www.ltrc.mcmaster.ca/newton/

The project is a partnership between faculty in Arts and Sciences, the Learning Technology Resource Center, and the library. It is a model for our transformation in that it:

• embeds librarians and archivits in support of teaching and learning
• highlights our unique collections and provides access to them in new ways
• creates new learning resources that were previously unavailable
• uses technology to engage learners in new ways

I’m very pleased that we were a part of this and look forward to partnering with other faculty on campus on similar projects.

A rose by any other name

On July 24, 2006, The Chronicle of Higher Education published a story called “E-Book Meets iPods”. The article reports on Apple’s plan to issue an iPod with a screen “big enough to display several paragraphs’ worth of text.

It was reported in Library Journal on May 31 that Harlequin has begun publishing e-books and is also providing e-access to “Harlequin Minis” - 10,000 word short stories that can be downloaded for $0.99 US.

Now…before you make an assumption that since I’m blogging I must be “anti-book”, let me clear things up. I am a book collector. I have a small but growing collection of first editions. However, I also recognize the potential benefits of e-books for students and faculty.

Imagine for a moment just a few of the advantages offered by an ebook iPod:

• Small enough to carry in your back pocket but large enough to read comfortably
• Carry literally hundreds of “books” on one device
• Search the entire full-text for word or phrase
• Compare and contrast works by the same or different authors
• Sort, display, and use your own personal library
• Read anywhere, even in low light
• Convert text to speech
• Easily (perhaps too easily?) share or copy entire works

Imagine a future where every student could, upon registering for class, automatically receive their textbooks, course notes, and other required course readings just as easily as they download the latest song from their favorite artist. Instead of spending time in lines at the bookstore or at the library’s reserve desk they could be spending time on activities related to their coursework - completing assignments, using library resources, collaborative study, etc.

We may not be there yet but today we made progress. I’m pleased to announce that McMaster University Library has purchased EEBO, Early English Books Online. This valuable resource provides full-text access to more than 100,000 titles. For the first time students and faculty will have easy access to these works - delivered directly to their
desktops. It may not be directly to their iPod but it is a step…