Trainee Teacher at RCS? Here's a Helpful Library Reminder

At the beginning of the year, we made a very short animation to summarise some tips about searching for things both IN the library, and electronically.

Here is the 90-second reminder in the version delivered to our Education students.  Watch it again, and see how much you remember!
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Search Tips for Your RCS Literature Search

At a recent workshop with BEdMus students, we explored different ways of fine-tuning your search techniques to retrieve better results in the catalogue and using Catalogue Plus.

Our catalogue offers access to all physical resources in the library (books, music, recordings etc) and also to individual e-book titles.  Meanwhile, Catalogue Plus offers access to all electronic resources - journal articles, databases, sound recordings, etc.
Here's a PowerPoint summary of what we talked about.

Extra free tip!

Don't forget the power of the synonym.  If one word doesn't retrieve what you expect, try another word that means the same thing. 

1. For example, nowadays we talk about "high ability" pupils, but earlier authors wrote about "gifted children".  Or prodigies! 
2. Similarly, sometimes you can get better results with a different version of the word.  If you want to write about Smetana or Sibelius as part of the late Romantic nationalist movement, searching for "nationalist music" may yield different results to when you search on Nationalism, or try Nationalism AND Music.

Repertoire for String Quartet? For 2 Oboes and Bassoon?

Parts for your Ensemble

at the

Royal Conservatoire of Scotland

Did you know you can search the Whittaker Library catalogue for a particular chamber music combination?  So if you want repertoire for your quartet, wind trio, or any other combination, just learn how to enter the ensemble code.

Like this:- 

• Score order, top to bottom
• Instrument immediately followed by number (eg Violin2, Viola1, Violoncello1)
• Cello is entered as Violoncello1
• Cor Anglais is CorAnglais1
• There are more tips via the catalogue homepage.  (Click on More Search Tips)

String quartet music, anyone?  We have heaps of it!  Look HERE.

You can Search the National Archives

Anyone with an interest in history (music, drama or anything else at all!) will be curious to find out what's in the National Archives, and the Archives have a new search interface to help you find out.

We tried searching for Suffrage, Stage Lighting, and Scottish Songs - not all at once!

Results show (a) what's in the National Archives, and (b) what's in other archives.  Very impressive, and very promising.  Do take a look:-

• Search the Discovery Catalogue
• National Archives Homepage

Finding Poetry? Try PoemHunter.com

Looking for a poem?  We came across this useful website:- http://www.poemhunter.com/

There are probably lots more poetry-finding websites out there - do share them with us! 

Academic Integrity, Plagiarism, or Simple Misunderstanding

An article in the Times Higher Education magazine suggests students don't always mean to plagiarise, but actually don't understand what counts as plagiarism.

Read "I'm no plagiarist, I moved a comma", by Elizabeth Gibney (THE 6 June 2013).

There's another Whittaker Live posting about academic integrity, which we posted on 20 May.  Read it here:-

Academic Integrity and Internet Searching

Academic Integrity and Internet Searching

Yesterday, 'Whittaker' found an interesting article online for his own research.   He didn't recognise the name of the place where the author was working.  All was well, though: it turned out to be a department in an American university - the name was just a bit unusual.  The author was bona fide, too; and finally, the article was indexed in RILM - so was likely to be trustworthy.

So, if you're researching a subject, here are two useful principles to guide you on your way:-

1. Check out the source of the information.  Is it likely to be reliable? 
2. Quote the source of the information, so people can see where you got it from!  All a question of academic integrity.

Postscript. Since posting this, 'Whittaker' notes a recent article in Times Higher Education, on this very subject.  Read it here:-

'I'm no plagiarist, I moved a comma'
By Elizabeth Gibney, THE, 6 June 2013.

Google Scholar augments subject-specific finding aids

http://scholar.google.co.uk/

Yes, we've got appropriate music and drama online resources.  And of course, there's Zetoc. But for a small institution, unable to subscribe to all the resources and indices that big university libraries can offer, then sometimes you need to be more - well, resourceful.

Whittaker has blogged about Wikipedia before.  Don't rule it out, but be aware of bias and potential inaccuracies.

So - everyone uses Google.

Here's another idea: Google Scholar.  Find it here http://scholar.google.co.uk/ (or Google it!).  A useful tip, if you're looking for material by or about a particular person, is to put your search term in inverted commas.  For example, "Winston Churchill".  It brings up more scholarly material than a bog-standard Google search.

Give it a go!