Courtesy of James Clay’s e-learning blog comes news of Wellcome Trust’s Creative Commons Image project that provides free access to two thousand years of images on the subject of mankind and medecine: Wellcome Images. In a word: awesome.
Tara

Hello all,
Some of you may already be aware of this, but I just found out that a number of photo archive collections from the Library of Congress is available on Flickr. To find these, go to www.flickr.com and type “library of congress” in the search box. Neat!
Tara

Hi all,
I just did a tutorial for the UVIC Library website and found this great list of RefWorks export/import directions for a number of databases, complete with screen shots.
The RefWorks cite does, of course, have directions for this, but I found the screen shots much easier to follow and it may help when talking patrons through it during those fun RefWorks phone calls we get at the reference desk.
Tara

If you take a close look at the bottom of this blog entry, you’ll notice a new feature. I’ve added a bit of code that will allow us to email blog entries. Just click the link that says “email this to a friend”, fill in the details, and off it goes!
This may be useful for emailing time-sensitive postings such as new assignments or hot topics at the desk to the HSS-desk listserv, for folks who don’t check the blog regularly. We’ll have the benefit of a quick, wide-reaching email plus an archived posting to refer to at the desk.

Hi all, just a reminder that we have a large collection of governmental CDROMs that may be useful to you. They are easy to overlook. If you go to GovInfo and select “Format type” CDROM, you will see a complete list.
Some of the interesting titles include:

GAAs expressed interest in this, so am posting for all.
There are field codes that allow you to search in specific fields while using the Keyword Boolean search option.
nkey – keyword searching in the author field
tkey – keyword searching in the title field
skey – keyword searching in the subject field
seri – keyword searching in the series field
jkey – keyword searching in the title field for journals only
You can do nested searches using these codes, for example
(skey encyclop? or skey dictionar?) and tkey “british columbia”
or
nkey gorman and (skey librar? or skey archiv?) and tkey lib?
or very useful to find titles in series such as…
(seri comparat? and seri polic?) and skey environment?

I love the article Susan found on practical advice for new reference providers. Here is their mnenomic for remembering the Library of Congress Classification
A=Anything (general works, encyclopedias, almanacs)
B=Bible (religion, psychology, supernatural, philosophy)
C=Classical Stuff (auxiliary sciences of history such as classics, archaeology,
genealogy, heraldry, archival science, civilization, biography)
D=Datelines (history of Europe, Asia, Africa, Gypsies)
E=E Pluribus Unum (general U.S. history)
F=For every other kind of history (history of U.S. localities, Canada, and Latin America)
G=Geography (atlases, anthropology, fashion, costume, human culture, holidays, sports)
H=How Society Works (sociology, social statistics, social work,
criminal justice, women’s studies, social pathology, social classes)
J=Jurisdictions (political science and government)
K=Kourts (Law)
L=Learning (preschool-college education)
M=Music
N=Fine Arts (artists, painting, drawing, architecture, pottery, antiques, handicrafts)
P=Poetry and Stuff (language and literature)
Q=Quest for Knowledge (hard sciences)
R= Rx (medicine)
S=Seeds (agriculture)
T=Technology
U=Uniforms (army, air force)
V=Voyages (navy, marines, coast guard, shipping)
Z=Bibliographies and Librarianship

Just discovered a neat article with practical ref desk tips for GAAs and other new reference providers. On Kimberley’s suggestion, I’m posting to the blog as well as the GAA list. The citation is:
Spencer, D. B., et. al., Striving for Success: Practical Advice for Reference Graduate Assistants (and Other New Reference Providers). The Southeastern Librarian v. 53 no. 1 (Spring 2005) p. 26-34 (available online)
One of the tips I liked:
Make a list of “magic” words:
GAAs and new librarians sometimes “feel like magicians trying to pull information out of a hat, particularly when searching OPACs for specific types of information such as primary sources, literary criticism, pictures, or speeches.” Compile a list of these “magic words” and synonyms that can be used as keywords to get you to the appropriate subject headings.
For example:

Anyone else? Add your comments here – I’ll compile them and make a list for the desk.