“Dear Ms Lach, here is my bibliography and I would need the articles in it in downloadable format …

…  and I hope you can help me”

These or similar words were sent to me by a proseminar student recently. And help I could, not by sending any links to downloadable articles or pdfs, but by sending an e-mail to explain how the student could find out himself whether or not these texts are available and in what format. I hope he was not too disappointed but will be able to locate most material now. (And at least the first article is available, I checked )

Why did I not simply send links or pdfs? Not only do student numbers mean that it would be simply impossible for me to provide students with links or pdfs of their articles, but proseminars in our English  Department here in Vienna are about learning how to do research and my philosophy is that it is much more helpful to be shown how to locate material yourself than to be given it. After all, this will very likely not be the last time this student will be looking for material …

I would like to add I actually really liked receiving this student’s request for help, by the way, because it means (a) he has no intention of giving up but is willing to find help,  (b) it gives me the chance to explain to him what he can do to help himself  and (c) it made me realize this is a question other students might be asking themselves.

Okay, and so in case anyone reading this is currently wondering how they can locate journal articles at Vienna University, here we go:

1. If at home, first connect to the university network via VPN; if you are at university with your laptop computer connect via eduroam (rather than u:connect; or if you do, also connect via VPN); if you are using a university computer, go to step 2 directly
2. You can either look for the article with the help of u:search, or  – and I would recommend this –  use the tool SFX citation linker, which can for example be found at the bottom of the u:search page or from the English and American Studies Library homepage, under resources.
3. Enter the journal name, the year, the volume number and possibly also the issue number and the first page of the article you are looking for into the search mask. You will be either connected to the full text (if the library provides one), to the online catalogue (OPAC) to check for a print copy of the journal or be provided with other links that might help you to gain access (e.g. the German journals database ZDB, for finding out which German library has this journal in its holdings so that you can order the article with the help of interlibrary loan)
4. If you are connected to the online journal or a database which provides the full text of the article, you may still need to go to the right year/volume and the right issue before you can access the article itself.

And what if the article is a book article? Well then the strategy is to locate the book with the help of u:search, which will provide you with information on any books held by Vienna University Library. For books not held here, you can use the Austrian Union search engine or catalogue or the KVK, to find another library in Vienna which holds the book or a library outside Vienna (in which case you can order the book as an interlibrary loan).

Hope this helps.  KL

“How to know what a book is about if it is not on Google Books or Amazon”?

This is one of the questions I was asked to address by students in a recent workshop. Many of us have become used to getting a quick look at at least a few pages of books with the help of Amazon’s “Look Inside” or Google Books (full access or preview) even when we are working at our desks far away from any library or bookshop shelves. This is helpful, to be sure, but should not become the only way we judge what a book is about. My guess is that the question revolves around the issue whether a book is worth pursuing and when you are on a tight schedule it is extremely useful to get some help in this respect. Here are a few thoughts on this, some more obvious than others:

• the title (and subtitle) of the book is meant to give a clue; however, this does not always work as it should;
• most databases (e.g. the MLA) and library catalogues include information on what a book is about by the subject headings/descriptors/topic words added to the bibliographic record; depending on what database/catalogue you are using these differ; e.g. in the Austrian and German library catalogues German terms are used from a list of controlled vocabulary  the MLA bibliographers use a very complex system to ensure that researchers and students who use the bibliography are given relevant information on what a book, dissertation or article is about. (See more on MLA descriptors);
• in addition to descriptors you can also use classifications added to records to find out what a book is about, although it depends on the depth and complexity of the classification whether or that information is really useful. Classifications you might come across in library tools include the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC, also DDC Deutsch), the Regensburger Verbundklassifikation and the BK  classification;
• it is also worth finding out whether library resources include a link to a table of contents for a book; this is increasingly the case;
• for recent publications, it might be worth your while to check the publisher’s website for more information; it is standard practice among major academic publishers to include tables of contents and at least some information on the contents of a book. Publishers’ catalogues and electronic newsletters/new book alerts are another way of receiving this information for books that may not even have been published yet.
• another option, which, however, involves leaving your computer for some time, is to see whether the book is available from an open access library that allows you to browse library shelves and simply look into the book to see what it is about (with the help of the introduction, the table of contents and the index, obviously). Especially in libraries like ours, the fact that books are placed according to a classification system means that you can also browse the library shelves for similar books. This browsing library shelves is a time-tested method for discovering relevant literature, by the way.

That’s all I can think of at the moment. Maybe more some other time. Hope this helps.  KL

 

Reference management – what’s best?

Lots of research support workshops recently. In one with M.A. and PhD graduate students the perennial question has come up: which of the many reference management programmes to pick… Not knowing all that are out there and having myself worked with two of them quite happily without feeling the need to try anything else out, I do not really feel in a position to say anything except: that depends, e.g. on what computer system you work with, on what your needs are, what your financial circumstances allow and what your  institituional context is, on personal preferences, on your work style etc.etc. Best to try out what suits you best. What might be helpful is the reference management programme comparison by Imperial College London Library, which I came across when researching this issue. Sound advice and a really good overview, it would seem.

KL

New year, new term

The new term has just begun here, so it is high time to begin thinking about information literacy again. One of the things I have increasingly noticed is how students try to find help and information on study related issues from other students via a number of facebook groups that exist for English and American Studies here in Vienna. Now, on the one hand, I think this is a really good idea. I also like asking colleagues or people from my social network (in person rather than via Facebook, though) for information if I think they may have the answer. However, I have noticed that some information would be available in a more reliable form from the Studienservicestelle or other offical university websites. They should definitely be consulted when matters concerning exams, applications etc. are concerned. Some questions may already have come up before. It is always worth checking the FAQ pages therefore.

• Studienservicestelle
• Studienservicestelle FAQs

Wishing everybody a good semester start

Karin Lach

Dictionary of Old English Plant Names

I was sent an interesting link today by a colleague who runs the botanical library at Vienna University. This may be old news to the historical linguists among you - researchers from a University of Graz  and the University of Munich have published an online dictionary of Old English plant names. The dictionary is based on earlier publications by Peter Bierbaumer, which can be accessed in pdf format as well as the work of Hans Sauer from Munich. The dictionary itself is copyrighted by the Creative Commons license ‘Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Austria and if you use it, you need to attribute the work accordingly, e.g. after the MLA style as Dictionary of Old English Plant Names. Eds. Peter Bierbaumer and Hans Sauer with Helmut W. Klug and Ulrike Krischke. 2007-2009. http://oldenglish-plantnames.uni-graz.at.

In the preface to the dictionary, you can get an idea what the dictionary project is about:

Quite in contrast to earlier, negative assessments of Anglo-Saxon medicine, research in the past thirty years has shown that it was in fact by no means backward, but should be ranked on the same level as contemporary medieval medicine on the Continent. However, a special characteristic of Anglo-Saxon medico-botanical literature is the fact that in England (as opposed to the primarily Latin literature on the Continent) many texts were written in the vernacular, i.e. in Old English. Some of the texts include the Old English Herbarium Apuleii, the Laeceboc, Lacnunga and Peri Didaxeon, all of which were edited as early as 1864-6 by Oswald Cockayne in his monumental three volumes titeled Leechdoms, Wortcunning and Starcraft of Early England. The Anglo-Saxon’s interest in medico-botanical writings is also witnessed by the enormous number of more than 6000 Latin-Old English plant glosses.

It goes without saying that one of the most important aspects of a re-evaluation of Old English medicine is the correct identification of the plant names in the respective texts. Other aspects which are not well represented or sometimes entirely ignored in the existing dictionaries and studies are the etymology, the morphology (including word formation) and the semantics (including motivation) of the Old English plant names. A systematic treatment of the Old English plant names with regard to identification and linguistic analysis is the aim of our dictionary project.

The dictionary team is based at two universities: part of the work (mainly the collection of the material and the identification of the plants) is carried out at the University of Graz (Austria) under the direction of Peter Bierbaumer with the assistance of Helmut Klug, and the other part (mainly the linguistic analysis with respect to etymology, morphology and meaning) is carried out at the University of Munich under the direction of Hans Sauer with the assistance of Ulrike Krischke.

I find the dictionary extremely fascinating and, with Christmas being so close, I looked up mistletoe to see what it was in Old English, which led me to the results mistel (misteltoe, Laubholz-Mistel, Viscum album L.) and mistel-tān (misteltoe, Laubholz-Mistel, Viscum album L.) (Dictionary of Old English Plant Names. Eds. Peter Bierbaumer and Hans Sauer with Helmut W. Klug and Ulrike Krischke. 2007-2009. http://oldenglish-plantnames.uni-graz.at , s.v. ‘mistel’ and s.v. ‘mistel-tān’ ).  I must admit that one feature I really enjoyed is that the dictionary includes historical images of the plants in question (not historical in sense of being Anglo-Saxon, of course, but still very nice).  Instead of searching you can also browse the dictionary, looking for modern English, German and botanical plant names as well as for Old English or Latin Lemma and categories related to plants. Fascinating stuff, both for historical linguists and for botanists.

Seasonal greetings to all. And if you have time why not see what holly and ivy are in Old English …

KL

Native American (Literature) Resources on the Net

I had an interesting class concerning finding sources for Native American literature the other day. Thanks to some helpful American librarians who pointed me in the right direction I was able to share some quality online resouces with students. Here are some of these resources, for you to browse:

• Internet Public Library’s Native American Authors page
• The Association for the Study of American Indian Literature
• Native American Authors Online
• Native American sources link list from Voice of the Shuttle
• Native Web

KL

Austrian copyright law

In recent articles in the print version of the Austrian paper Der Standard, the topic of photocopying from school books in the context of schools has come up and the idea to use anti-plagiarism software to discover illegal use of multiple photocopies from schoolbooks in schools has been vented and rejected. The issue of when, in which form and to what extent academic and professional literature can be copied is a confusing one to many people, also because the legal situation is a different one in different national legislations and scholars used to copyright regulations in the US or the UK may erroneously apply them when working in Austria. Here are a few key points relating the law in Austria, the Bundesgesetz über das Urheberrecht an Werken der Literatur und der Kunst und über verwandte Schutzrechte (Urheberrechtsgesetz), StF: BGBl. Nr. 111/1936 (StR: 39/Gu. BT: 64/Ge S. 19.), which can be found in the RIS online, and is, of course, in German. The relevant paragraphs are § 41ff. (Beschränkungen der Verwertungsrechte. 1. Freie Werknutzungen.)

• Reproduction of a work is allowed for personal use and for research purposes that are non-commercial
• It is explicitly stated that the format of this reproduction is to be on paper or in a similar format
• Schools and university can create multiple copies for teaching purposes but not of works explicitly created for school or teaching purposes (e.g. school books, workbooks/textbooks for teaching)

This means that students, teachers, scholars and, indeed, anybody else, may photocopy material for their own personal use. It also means that teachers can photocopy material for their classes but not if that material is from a school book. It finally also means that the distribution of pdfs via the internet or even a learning platform does not fall under the right for reproducing a work for personal, research or teaching purposes.  Of course the distribution rights holder can agree to such a use of their material, e.g. under a creative commons licence. It is, however, always possible, to send a pdf to an individual should they need it for research purposes.

Should you like to learn more about this issue, why not take part in the Vienna University Library workshop on plagiarism and copyright (in German) in January.

KL