The search commands, AND, OR, NOT, (also known as Boolean operators, named after its British mathematician inventor, George Boole) can be used to combine your words in many search engines and research databases. Here’s a short video that explains how to use AND, OR, NOT when searching:
I found this brief video, which clearly explains why Googling your topic is not enough when you need to do research for a paper:
Are you busy writing term papers now? I have been receiving more reference questions about seeking the full-text article with a known reference. Other than relying on the Library Catalogue, we could also use Google Scholar for this purpose. You could set up a library link to McGill University in Google Scholar in order to quickly locate the full-text.
Go to Google Scholar and click “Settings” on the top-right corner. Then click “Library links” on the left side of the Scholar Settings screen and enter McGill University in the “Show library access links for” box. Save this setting, and you will be able to see the Find it at McGill link on the right side of the Google Scholar results page for your next search. Follow the Find it at McGill link and you will get to the full-text article available in McGill Library’s collection. Don’t forget to turn on VPN or log into EZproxy if you are off campus.
Last week it was announced that George Lucas sold his company, Lucasfilm, to the Walt Disney Company. This means that Disney now owns the Star Wars franchise. Disney plans to release a Star Wars movie every two to three years, starting with Episode 7 in 2015. With a rabid fan base, this is good news for Star Wars devotees. Next we’ll be keeping our ears open for news of who plans to direct. In the spirit of this announcement, here’s a link to a short video that explains light beam technology.
Image from www.nasa.gov
Do you love trailers as much as we do at The Turret? This one is advertising the Impact Measurements Demystified webinars that begins next Tuesday at lunch hour.
Enjoy the kicky music!
I recently had to learn some basics about LaTeX, which is free software used to create professionally typeset documents. Its strength lies in formatting technical and scientific documents that contain mathematical notations.
Below are links to some short videos that are useful for learning how to use LaTeX:
Image from Microsoft Office Clipart
This is Open Access Week. Watch this video to gain insight about why people in different fields love Open Access.
If you have heard about EndNote and would like to know what is (or you need to explain it to someone else), here is a brief and entertaining video that may help:
See also: Why Citation Management Software Matters
To download EndNote, visit: http://www.mcgill.ca/library/library-using/citationsoftware/endnote
The Council of Canadian Academies recently released a report entitled, The State of Science and Technology in Canada, 2012. It reveals the 6 research fields in which Canada is among the best. These are:
For more information, read the report or watch the video below:
This is one of my favourite TED Talks from Arianna Huffington: How to succeed? Get more sleep. It was recorded live at TEDWomen in December, 2010. She knows something about the value of sleep, having fainted from exhaustion and broken her cheekbone on her desk. If you feel exhaustion creeping up, this short pep talk may be just the thing.
Schulich Library will be closed this Thanksgiving Monday so I plan on taking her advice and getting the most out of the long weekend with a few good sleeps.
Sweet dreams!
