February 3 – 7, 2020 marks International Week here on campus! With events, socials and demonstrations happening all week-long, International Week highlights the cultural diversity that exists in our community and the importance of broadening your experiences to appreciate the beauty of the world around us.
As part of IW, the Learning Commons Thistle display cases feature the International Mobility Program.
A full list of events can be found on the Brock International Website
display
Categories: Featured Collections, Main
Academic publishing is a hugely profitable enterprise, so it’s no surprise that some dubious companies take advantage of researchers by charging publishing fees but then failing to deliver quality outcomes.
These publishers are called “predatory” because of their unscrupulous business practices, which may include:
It can be challenging to avoid these problematic outlets, but a new quick guide from the Library can help.
For further information, check the Library’s Journal Evaluation Strategies or contact your Librarian or Scholarly Communication Librarian Elizabeth Yates, eyates@brocku.ca
Research, Scholarly Communication
Categories: Main
Come explore Omni, our new academic search tool. All students, staff, and faculty are invited to attend one of three hands-on workshops this month.
Learn to:
You are welcome to just drop-in to a session however, students will earn CWC credit if they register first on ExperienceBU
Faculty, Staff, Students, Training & Development, Workshops
Categories: Main, Uncategorised
On Dec. 12, Brock University Library, in partnership with 14 Ontario universities, is launching Omni. Omni is an academic search tool that will allow you to search Brock’s local collections (books, e-books, media, equipment, and more), online journal articles, and coming in 2020 – seamless search and access to physical resources across 14 Omni libraries. With Omni, you’ll have ready access to an incredible trove of scholarly materials from across Ontario, simplifying your research process.
Want more? Omni is making things easier in other ways:
Read more about the collaborative effort behind Omni in the Brock News.
Have questions? Please contact libhelp@brocku.ca or your Liaison Librarian.
The Matheson Learning Commons digital art wall is displaying the cover art of various publications from Brock University since 1964.
From these works, you can see the changing graphic art styles, how Brock promoted itself to prospective students, and special milestones in our over 50 year history.
The originals books can be found in the Brock University Archives & Special Collections located on the 10th floor of the Library.
Are you struggling with citations? Or do you have a great system for managing all your references for essays or scholarly papers?
We want to hear about it! Please take a few moments to answer a short Library survey on citation management, which refers to the use of systems or software to store and organize references and format in-text citations and bibliographies. Results from the survey will be used to help the Library develop a strategy to support users’ citation management needs. Your responses will be anonymous.
Anyone at Brock can respond. Survey participants can enter a draw for one of two $25 Brock cards.
The survey closes Dec. 6 at 5 pm.
Questions? Contact Elizabeth Yates, Liaison and Scholarly Communication Librarian at eyates@brocku.ca or x4469
Citation Management, Faculty, Research, Staff, Student Feedback
Categories: Main
As part of Geography Awareness Week, the Brock University Map, Data & GIS Library (MDGL) will be hosting GIS Day on Wednesday, November 13. Visit the MDGL between 12 and 2 p.m. to enjoy a pizza lunch ($) and a slice of their famous GIS Day cake (free!)
Dare alla Luce by Professor Amy Friend of the Marilyn I. Walker School of Fine and Performing Arts has arrived at a screen near you.
The Dare alla Luce series is Friend’s best known work to date. It has been exhibited internationally, travelling to over nine countries. The series is also presented in two artist monographs, Dare alla Luce (Photolucida Publishing) and Stardust (L’Artiere Edizioni). A selection of this work was included in the stage design for Canadian Jazz Musician Diana Krall’s, Turn Up the Quiet world tour.
Friend notes: “in this series I am not specifically concerned with capturing concrete reality. I aim to use photography as a medium that explores the relationship between what is visible and non-visible. I have continued to work on the Dare alla Luce series over a period of time; initially responding to a collection of vintage photographs, retrieved from a variety of sources. Through hand-manipulated interventions I alter and subsequently re-photograph the images re-making photographs that oscillate between what is present and absent. I aim to comment on the fragile quality of the photographic object but also on the fragility of our lives, our history. All are lost so easily. By employing the tools of photography, I re-use light, allowing it to shine through the holes. In a playful and yet, literal manner, I return the subjects of the photographs back to the light, while simultaneously bringing them forward. The images are permanently altered; they are lost and reborn, hence the title, Dare alla Luce, an Italian term meaning, “to bring to the light” in reference to birth.”
Curator and author Laura Serani describes the imagery in the Stardust monograph by stating, “Throngs of tiny lights with a mysterious provenance seem to emanate from the places and characters themselves, confirming the theory of what is visible and non-invisible. In daylight they penetrate the atmosphere and speak of hope; at dusk they inhabit skies where they seem to project dreams.”
Also playing: Lost Somewhere Between the Earth and My Home, 2018-ongoing
This recent series by Assistant Professor Amy Friend explores the topic of migration. The imagery presented here combines a selection of over 300 letters written between family in Italy and Canada with photographs taken in Havana, Cuba (my husband’s homeland) at the famous Malecón. This location is steeped with an aura of hope, imagination, as well as longing and loss, that is not specific to a Cuban-only perspective. I utilize this place as a carrier of meaning, a literal and symbolic passageway, an ending point, a starting point and, a point of stasis in relation to migration. I felt it necessary to reflect on these personal histories with the aim of connecting people, to stories that relay what makes us human and alike. Some of the photos include folds that mimic those found in the letters written between family, while other folds indicate migratory map routes. The politics of migration are present in this work, through my investigations I do not resist this relationship, but rather offer a place to reflect – on the complex experience specific to these movements in life.
View this beautiful exhibit until Friday, November 15th in the Matheson Learning Commons of the James A. Gibson Library.
Digital Exhibits, display
Categories: Featured Collections, Main
Brock University Library has signed an institutional agreement that provides a 50% discount on article processing charges for Brock researchers who choose to publish with Frontiers, a major international publisher of peer-reviewed open access journals.
This discount is the latest demonstration of the Library’s strong commitment to investing in open access resources, reflecting its mission to enhance access to information and accelerate knowledge production. Recognizing that some Brock authors choose to publish in open access journals which charge APCs, these investments include:
The library also provides financial support to several open platforms such as the Directory of Open Access Journals and partnering with Scholars Portal to offer Open Journal Systems to our users for free. In addition to advancing free, immediate access to scholarly resources for all, the Library thus signals the importance of open scholarship to the Brock community and is pursuing a longer-term goal of reforming a dysfunctional scholarly publishing system.
Brock authors may claim the Frontiers APC discount during the article submission process by selecting ‘Brock University’ as institutional payer in the invoice section of the process. Frontiers will then verify authors’ eligibility with Brock University Library, and if confirmed, 50% of the APC will be paid by the Library upon acceptance. Researchers will receive an invoice from Frontiers for the remaining 50% of the article processing charge.
Questions? Contact Scholarly Communication Librarian Elizabeth Yates ~ eyates@brocku.ca
Open Access, Research, Scholarly Communication
Categories: Digital Scholarship Lab, Main
The He-ART-Istic Journey highlights individual patient experiences of heart disease in a creative and artistic encounter. This arts-informed dissemination presents science and art together in what promises to be a unique glimpse into the lives of individuals who live daily with cardiac disease. We used an arts-based creative research analysis -the ABELE method- [Arts-Based Embodied Layered Exploration] to translate the experiences of 23 individuals’ journeys through symptom recognition of heart disease. Key words and phrases were extracted from the interviews and constructed into 4 poems. Patients’ stories were interpreted and art was created to represent the early warning signs of heart disease and individuals illness experience.
Sheila O’Keefe McCarthy
Assistant Professor, Nursing, Brock University.