Tag Archives: Library Services

Welcome back from the Library!

Welcome back for the Spring Semester. We hope you enjoyed the break, and we are excited to have you back on campus!

Here are a few helpful library tips and reminders:

  • Research Help: Our subject librarians are here to help you find articles, books, and other resources for research projects/papers. Don’t be shy! You can email, chat, text, call, or stop by LIB-233 to connect with one of our librarians.
  • Student Study Rooms: You can reserve a group study room for you and your classmates.
  • Get Items from Other Libraries (ILL): If you need articles or books that the Carney Library doesn’t provide access to, request it through interlibrary library loan (ILL). Our ILL department can get you articles, books, and more from libraries across the country and around the world. The best part is there is no extra cost to you.
  • Equipment Loans: The library loans a variety of equipment including overnight laptops, TI-84 Plus calculators, whiteboard markers, and more. Stop by the 1st floor circulation desk to borrow items.
  • Digital Scholarship Hub (DiSH) Events: Register for free workshops on a variety of digital tools such as the upcoming one on RStudio and the Tidyverse, or add one of the “Research Power Hours” to your calendar.
  • Electronic Theses & Dissertations: You can browse and access many recent UMassD theses and dissertations online.
  • Hours: You can always find the library’s hours at https://schedule.lib.umassd.edu/hours/
  • Website: Our recently redesigned website includes information on many more resources.

If you have questions or would like to share feedback, please let us know.

Welcome to the Digital Scholarship Hub (DiSH)!

The Claire T. Carney Library introduces a student-centric space where workshops will be held to demonstrate online tools and scholarly research methods. Digital Scholarship is a broad concept that refers to using digital platforms and methods to answer scholarly inquiries, conduct research, and create scholarly outputs. The DiSH is a multidisciplinary center that engages with data and digital content. This includes managing data, developing a project, digital mapping, and more. Think statistics, temperatures, product comparisons, finances, rankings – essentially, any scholarly scenario where conclusions can be drawn from organizing and manipulating information in a digital format.  The hub offers an opportunity for students to engage with and create knowledge outside of a traditional class setting. It is also an opportunity for multidisciplinary collaboration across campus.

The DiSH is piloting a data workshop series in November called “Fall in Love with Data” where graduate students in the Data Science program will facilitate workshops intended for an interdisciplinary audience. Please RSVP (emma.wood@umassd.edu) to attend a workshop, and join us for snacks and collaboration in a casual setting, room 135 on the first floor of the library. The facilitators of the first workshop in the series, “The Art of Problem Solving,” are enthusiastic about their area of expertise and about sharing their knowledge with others:

“I fell in love with data only when I realized that data is of no use unless you are searching for an answer or trying to solve a problem. Curiosity is my necessity.” – Vijay Mohan Yeddu, Data Science graduate student

“I believe data is the new oil and refining it wisely will supply an abundance of insights which help solve real-world problems!” – Abhiram Raju, Data Science graduate student

Contact Information for DiSH:
Emma Wood, Scholarly Communication Librarian
Email: emma.wood@umassd.edu
Phone: 508-999-8681

Announcing the Publication of PLCS 36-37: Heritages of Portuguese Influence: Histories, Spaces, Texts, and Objects

We are pleased to announce that Portuguese Literary & Cultural Studies (PLCS) 36-37, “Heritages of Portuguese Influence: Histories, Spaces, Texts, and Objects,” is now available! You can find this issue as well as all back issues available for free on the journal’s website.

Cover of PLCS 36/37. Includes names of guest editors: Miguel Badeira Jeronimo, Anna M. Klobucka, and Walter Rossa.

Situated in the interdisciplinary field of Critical Heritage Studies, this special issue gathers articles originating in diverse areas of scholarship (and in many cases fostering productive cross-fertilizations among them) that deal with the multifaceted postcolonial and globalized heritages of the Portuguese empire and Lusophone diasporas. The contributors discuss “heritage” and “influence” critically, as cultural and political arguments and practices, and as historical manifestations entailing diverse perspectives, motivations, and consequences, formed in colonial and postcolonial situations, imagining the past, the present, and the future.

The Center for Portuguese Studies and Culture’s Tagus Press publishes its electronic version of PLCS on the library’s journal hosting platform.

Announcing the Publication of PLCS 34-35: The Open Veins of the Postcolonial: Afrodescendants and Racisms

We are pleased to announce that Portuguese Literary & Cultural Studies (PLCS) 34-35, “The Open Veins of the Postcolonial: Afrodescendants and Racisms,” is now available! You can find this issue as well as all back issues available for free on the journal’s website.

Making an obvious reference to Eduardo Galeano’s Open Veins of Latin America, this volume proves that the veins of the postcolonial remain open, having prolonged and reproduced themselves over the course of decades. “The Open Veins of the Postcolonial” traces the emergence of epistemological categories and offers thematic analyses of racial and ethnic differences, as well as those arising from sociability, representations, and sociopolitical and cultural dynamics. This volume likewise unmasks the naturalizing discourse of the ideology of subalternity and institutionalized discrimination through various “beliefs” and tacit practices; discusses how to articulate the place of belonging with ethno-racial identity in the twenty-first century; and contributes to the broad discussion initiated by the United Nations’ declaration of the International Decade for People of African Descent, 2015-2024 (Resolution 68/237).

The Center for Portuguese Studies and Cultures’s Tagus Press publishes its electronic version of PLCS on the library’s journal hosting platform.

ILL/ILLiad to be unavailable Thursday morning, May 12th

ILLiad, the software used to make interlibrary loan (ILL) requests, will be unavailable for 1 to 3 hours on Thursday, May 12th starting around 9 am. This downtime is needed for the vendor to make server-side upgrades.

If you have questions or concerns, please contact the Library Systems department at libsys@umassd.edu and/or the Interlibrary Loan Department at libill@umassd.edu.

Library Building Access Information – Fall Semester 2020

The Claire T. Carney Library is open to all current UMass Dartmouth students, faculty, and staff with an active UMass Pass ID. If your ID is not active, you will need to activate it with the UMass Pass Office prior to visiting the library as it is required to scan into the building. If you have questions about your UMass Pass, email umasspass@umassd.edu or call 508-999-8134.

UMass Dartmouth staff have taken many steps to ensure that the library is as safe as possible for our visitors. These steps include:

  • Limiting the building capacity to 275 people,
  • Loaning sanitized keyboards and mice at the Learning Commons Desk,
  • Moving computer workstations to the Grand and South Reading rooms to make social distancing easier,
  • Requiring all visitors to wear masks,
  • Requiring all students who visit the library to be tested for COVID on a weekly basis,
  • Adjusting the room occupancy rules for group study rooms,
  • Hiring students to wipe down tables, keyboards, and other commonly touched surfaces, and
  • Employing the help of “student ambassadors” to help visitors adhere to best safety practices.

You can get information about COVID testing at https://www.umassd.edu/emergency/coronavirus/covid-testing/

You can view the library hours by visiting https://schedule.lib.umassd.edu/hours.

We look forward to supporting your research and learning needs this fall. If you have library related questions, email us at libaccess@umassd.edu or call 508-999-8750.

Announcing a New and Improved Interlibrary Loan!

Beginning Monday, August 24th, UMassD students, faculty, and staff can again request books, dvds, cds, and more through interlibrary loan. We paused this service in March when libraries across the country discontinued book loans due to COVID related closings.

The resumption of physical item loans coincides with the launch of a mobile friendly redesign of ILLiad, i.e., the website you use to submit ILL requests. The new site makes it easier to search your history and to resubmit, edit, and cancel requests. The redesign also includes a new form for multimedia requests.

Watch a four minute demonstration at https://youtu.be/Mqm6lt5nkl0

Here are a couple screenshots of the new site:

Questions or comments? Please email libill@umassd.edu.

New Trial: JoVE Science Education Library

The library is hosting trial access to JoVE Science Education Library through December 15, 2019. JoVE is a unique STEM video collection that demonstrates fundamental concepts and techniques of biology, chemistry and bioengineering in easy-to-understand videos and text. Please share comments on your JoVE user experience with  Sue Raidy-Klein, Librarian for Collections & Acquisitions sraidyklein@umassd.edu.

The library’s trial includes access to the following collections:

Announcing the New Issue of PLCS: Luso-American Literatures and Cultures Today

We are pleased to announce that Portuguese Literary & Cultural Studies (PLCS) 32, “Luso-American Literatures and Cultures Today,” is now available.  You can find this issue as well as all back issues available for free on the journal’s website!

This issue is dedicated primarily to Luso-American literatures and cultures from across the US, Canada, and the Caribbean, incorporating perspectives from both within and beyond the current set of canonical reference points. Articles on the cultures of southeastern New England are joined by others that focus on Montreal, Barbados, and Curaçao. This issue also features literary contributions from urban centers such as Toronto, San Francisco and Vancouver, as well as authors whose work can be said to be in transit between North America and disparate points in the Lusophone Atlantic (continental Portugal, the Azores, Cabo Verde).

The Center for Portuguese Studies and Cultures ‘s Tagus Press publishes its electronic version of PLCS on the library’s journal hosting platform.