Commons Knowledge

The staff of the Information & Services Department invite you to stop by and take part in our last day of classes sundae bar. We will have lots of ice cream and all of your favorite toppings to design a sundae just for you. Festivities begin at 11:00 and run till 12:00 noon in the foyer of the Ward Chipman Library, Thursday April 9th.

When you’re starting a class paper, do you immediately dash right to the full-text databases? If so, you might be missing out on a goldmine of material right here at home. Our collection of scholarly books and journals have been specifically chosen to support the topics that you're currently studying in the classroom.

If you have a citation for a book or journal you could really use and we don’t have it here, simply request the item through our document delivery service by completing an on-line form found at www.lib.unb.ca/wcl/requests/docdel.html. The Document Delivery staff will search to find a supplying library who will ship books or other material often within days. Journal articles are always free for students and faculty, and can either be delivered to your desktop as an e-mail link or picked up at the library. There is rarely a cost for book loans these days; but, when there is, the library subsidizes the cost for student requests up to $10.00 and will check with you before ordering something for which you will need to pay to borrow. If you’d like more information on finding relevant research material, please take a moment and drop by our reference desk or call 648-5888. We’re here to help you.

Do you know which ice cream flavour is the most popular? If so send your answer to wcl@unb.ca. All entries will be entered in a draw for a $10.00 UNBSJ Bookstore gift certificate.

When searching for an item in the Quest library catalogue, have you ever wondered who decides which information should be included in the record, how the record should be presented or what call number should be assigned? Just ask Corinne MacDonald, who has worked with library catalogues since her own student days at UNB and as a staff member of the library’s cataloguing department since 1993. Over the years, she believes library services have become more convenient and user-friendly. An example of this has been the transition from the card catalogue to the online catalogue.

When not at work, she has a passion for movies and theatre, and is even known to create a little ‘drama’ of her own. For those of like mind, she recommends the book, Silver Salts, written by Mark Blagrave. The novel is set in early twentieth century Saint John and portrays the glamour and glitz of the silent film industry.

What brings absolute joy to her life is spending time with her two charming granddaughters, Isabella and Brooke. She also enjoys golfing and traveling with her husband, Brian. One of their more memorable vacations has been their cross-country tour in 1992 in celebration of Canada’s 125th. It has given her a lasting impression of the vastness and beauty of this great country.

Exams are underway and for the next three weeks, we need your cooperation to keep the noise level in the library to an absolute minimum. We will be doing frequent rounds to discourage noise and cell phone use, but please let us know if noise is keeping you from studying. During the exam period, we are filled close to capacity, and there are a lot of students in a relatively small space but if everyone does their part we can keep the library quiet. Please respect your fellow students need for quiet. Your cooperation will be appreciated!

The MLA Directory of Periodicals, produced by the Modern Language Association of America, lists over 3,700 periodicals in the areas of literature, language, linguistics, and folklore that are covered regularly in the MLA International Bibliography. The directory provides addresses, advertising rates, and information about submissions for publication. Access the directory at:
http://collections.chadwyck.com/initCritRefSearch.do?listType=dop&searchType=dop

Paul is a familiar face on campus; he has been working as part of the circulation team in various positions since 1986. While working at the Circulation Desk he spends his day serving the campus community by helping people find what they want or need, laptops, books, directions, you name it he’ll try to get it for you. When he is working behind the scenes Paul chases down overdue books and handles the content of the Campus Information Display screens (those video screens mounted above the Tim Horton’s entrance and in front of the Cafeteria).

In his personal time Paul loves to be outside bicycling, hiking, cross country skiing, and honing his nature photography skills. If the weather is bad you’ll find him inside playing guitar and programming synthesizers. If you have a minute, stop by and ask him about the summer he spent hitchhiking across Canada in the 70’s. Paul has also revealed his hidden talent. He can recite the alphabet backwards in about 3 seconds. Don’t believe him--we didn’t either--click on his picture above and hear it for yourself.

Mariel Hunter is our latest contest winner! She knew that vanilla is the hands down favorite ice cream of them all. Check back next week for our next contest and you could be a winner too!

If you have been busy all year with your course work and missed out on a few headlines you can catch up with the Canadian Newspapers Index. This database offers fulltext access to a variety of Canadian newspapers, (coverage dates vary by title). New Brunswick newspapers, The Daily Gleaner, The Telegraph Journal, and The Moncton Times Transcript have coverage from 1998-date. For more information on this index or for any of your reference questions you can contact the Reference Helpdesk by phone at 648-5888, or through our through our Ask a Librarian service.

With just 10 minutes of your time, we can help you score better marks* on your term papers and essays! Find the all information you need quickly and easily as you become an accomplished library “pro”. . . (*Individual results will vary depending on different factors: attendance, study habits, etc)

To make the most of your education, you need all the right tools. And a quintessential skill for academic success is the ability to use your library effectively. To that end, the Ward Chipman Library is proud to present two new video tutorials, developed and produced by David Ross, our Academic Services Librarian. “An Introduction to Journal Articles” explains what journal articles are and why they're so important. The second video, “Using Databases to Find Articles” walks you through the process of selecting and accessing the library’s databases to find articles on your topic. David’s (video) credits include the acclaimed, Anna Prentice goes to the Library and AACR2: The Movie. Note: The videos contain audio tracks, so you’ll need to adjust the volume on your computer or use headphones to truly enjoy! Do it for your GPA!

Summer break is just around the corner and we will all be spending a lot more time outdoors. Be prepared, and check out the Wildlife & Ecology Studies Worldwide. Produced by NISC, it indexes published literature (journals, monographs, proceedings of conferences and symposia, government reports, grey literature, books, theses, and dissertations) on wild mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians. Major topic areas include studies of individual species, habitat types, hunting, economics, wildlife behavior, management techniques, diseases, ecotourism, and zoology.

As the seasons are changing so are the hours of the Ward Chipman Library. Sunday April 26th to Sunday May 3rd, our hours will be:

Monday through Friday 8:15 am to 5:00 pm

From Monday May 4th to July 31st, Spring Session for UNBSJ, our hours will be:

Monday to Thursday, 8:15 am to 9:00 pm
Friday 8:15 am to 5:00 pm
Saturday 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm
Sunday closed