I pace the halls of Hirsh Library, entreating all who encounter me to heed my words! I was created not of my own volition but out of a sense of necessity, caused by the grief of equipment being turned in way past its due date, if at all.
Alas, I am feared for my hideous appearance, horrifying and revolting to all who have the misfortune of casting their eyes upon me. However, I serve only as warning and reminder, I am not some “abhorred monster” as some may claim. I am here to rescue you, though you may see me as inflicting harm. Rather I serve to guide you toward responsible circulation habits.
I have a right to happiness, and therefore, it’s essential that you return your items on time! Otherwise, I seek revenge! “Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful! I will watch with the wiliness of a snake, that I may sting with its venom.”
At first offense, you will be barred from library borrowing for the span of a day (24-hour block).
The second time you stray from the agreed upon guidelines, this time period shall be expanded to seven days and nights from the point of the item’s return (1 week block).
That unhappy third time, as I have learned to speak and read, thus I must share the stories of your misdeeds with your Dean and inhibit your ability to check out items for one week. (1 week block and intercession with the Dean).
Finally, at a fourth offense, one month will not suffice, and your ability to borrow from these hallowed halls shall span the rest of the semester, and, again, my wretched wailing will once again reach the ears of your dean (Semester block and additional meeting with Dean).
“I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous.” Therefore, I beg of you, please, carefully read Hirsh’s Overdue Items Policy and return all items when they are due to keep me from my cruel fate!
As we head into November, it’s time to start digging into your research projects! This month’s workshop offerings are geared towards helping you go further and deeper into your research. Just like the November leaves, we know that you’re going to fall for these workshops!
Workshops are held on Zoom and registration is required. A Zoom link and password will be sent to registrants. Click on the workshop title to register .
Please note that workshops are open to only Tufts-affiliated individuals.
Beyond PubMed: Scopus and Web of Science – Wednesday, November 1, 2023 (2-3pm)
Description: Learn why Scopus and Web of Science are worth adding to your search toolkit. In addition to extensive coverage of the biomedical literature these databases are a fantastic way to look at journal impact, gain insight into how many times an article has been cited, and identify potential collaborators. This workshop will also compare Web of Science and Scopus to help you decide which database is best for you.
Date: Wednesday, November 1, 2023
Time: 2:00pm – 3:00pm
Zotero: The Basics – Wednesday, November 8, 2023 (2-3pm)
Description: This session will introduce you to Zotero, a free citation management tool. Attendees will learn about and practice:
- Adding references to a Zotero library from websites, article databases, and PDFs
- Generating in-text citations and bibliographies in Word documents
- Setting up Zotero groups to share references with collaborators
While this session is for beginners–no previous experience required!–it’s helpful for attendees to download and install Zotero in advance.
- Date: Wednesday, November 8, 2023
- Time: 2:00pm – 3:00pm
Data Management: Research Notebook, Storage, and Compliance – Wednesday, November 15, 2023 (11am-12noon)
Description: In this virtual data management workshop, we will go over Digital Research Notebook, Storage Options, and Compliance Requirement. First, we will provide an introduction to Labarchives (Tufts supported digital research notebook). Then for research data storage options, we will provide an overview of the available solutions (Box, Cluster storage, RStore drive, and OneDrive/SharePoint). And last, we will then go over data management compliance. This will cover IT language for a data management plan, and responsibilities of researchers regarding data handling, security, and storage whether it is funded or non-funded.
Required: Participants of this workshop need to have login access to Labarchives. If you do not have access, please go to https://it.tufts.edu/labarchives-digital-notebook and “Request Login Access/Activation”.
RCR Credit: Eligible attendees can receive credit (1 hr) in partial fulfillment of Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR) training requirements. In order to be eligible for RCR credit, during the workshop you must: display your full name (first and last), have your camera turned on, and attend at least 50 minutes of the workshop. This workshop addresses subject area:(H) secure and ethical data use; data confidentiality, management, sharing, and ownership
- Date: Wednesday, November 15, 2023
- Time: 11:00am – 12:00pm
We take a moment to celebrate International Open Access (OA) Week October 23rd through 29th this year. We’ve come a long way in the past 15 years of honoring this publishing initiative, which makes research literature freely available on the Internet with few copyright or license restrictions. The common question now is not what is open access? Or even, why open access? Rather, the main question at hand is, which open access?
Many publications tout an open or public access option for your research output, but what solutions are really reducing barriers to publishing, reducing barriers to reading content, reducing barriers to reusing content, promoting equity, and promoting inclusion? Not all OA is the same. Even with all of the pressures faced when choosing where to publish, where to become a peer reviewer, which editorial team to join, which research to cite in your own work, and in all of the other ways we interact with published research and scholarship, we have an obligation to collaborate with publications whose main goals don’t center around maximizing profits for shareholders or gaining the largest sector of the market.
Support publishers and journals who embrace innovative and sustainable business models, such as Subscribe to Open, which converts journals to open when predetermined “fair pricing” revenue targets are met or Diamond Open Access, which charges neither authors nor readers and relies on institutional support As we shift our priorities, we will experience a shift as well in some of the other forces at play, notably which publications are high impact and which are viewed as most prestigious among colleagues.
This general sentiment is summed up in this year’s OA Week theme, “Community over Commercialization,” which you can read more about at https://www.openaccessweek.org/theme/en. Also, please Ask Us your questions about open access or let us know if you would like guidance incorporating these priorities into your publishing decision making.
Post contributed by Judy Rabinowitz
You heard it here first! Hirsh Pumpkin Patch is getting ready to reopen for another festive year. Stop by the Library Service Desk starting at 12pm on Thursday 10/26 and Friday 10/27 and decorate the gourd of your dreams. You can craft at the desk or take supplies to another location to do your decorating–just make sure to bring them back!
Hope to see you there!
Did you know that you can book a fundraising table in the library? Throughout the years we’ve helped host bake sales, raffles, and other types of fundraisers. Just contact us a minimum of one week in advance and we will arrange to have a folding table set up for you near the windows next to the Food4Thought cafe. If you are in the medical school, you can also contact OSA to see about having a table outside of their office. Please note that these are the only locations where fundraisers are allowed, and you must have them either approved by the library or OSA before setting up.
Feel free to email us at hhsl@tufts.edu with any questions or to reserve the table!
Happy fall, everyone!
Despite the recent summery weather, all of us over here at Hirsh are looking forward to sweater weather and, more importantly–Halloween!
We’ve got a few events down the line, but if you’re already excited about Halloween and looking to pregame for a horror movie marathon, come check out our Wretched Reads display in the Hirsh Leisure Lounge. We’ve selected our favorite creepy and not-so-creepy reads, ranging from killer sharks to scary fairy tales. Come and check them out in the Leisure Lounge, where they can be found on display near the printers:
Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice (a repeat again, we know, but it is a classic)
Our Shadows Have Claws: 15 Latin American Monster Stories, an Anthology (for some short YA stories)
Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher (the aforementioned scary fairy tale)
The Gunslinger by Stephen King (less horror, more sci-fi, featuring an adventure in a mysterious and nightmarish world–creepy enough for me)
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (because we love Mary Shelley)
Joyland by Stephen King (sorry to Stephen King you twice, but again, for a reason)
House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski (a creepy and disorienting haunted house book)
Dracula by Bram Stoker (you know we love a vampire)
The Last Seance by Agatha Christie (scary stories from the queen of mystery herself)
World War Z by Max Brooks (for an unconventional take on zombies)
A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness (more fun than creepy, if you want to read about witches and vampires but don’t want to be too scared)
Jaws by Peter Benchley (big shark! big shark!)
And finally, my personal favorite book of all time: The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, the best haunted house novel of all time.
Happy scary reads!
The “Anatomy Roadshow” is baaaack and coming to a TUSM Learning Community near you! For the next few weeks, the Hirsh Library will be taking some bones, and other assorted anatomy resources “on the road”!
What is the “Anatomy Roadshow” you ask? The “Anatomy Roadshow” is an opportunity for TUSM students to learn more about Hirsh Library supported tools for studying gross anatomy. These tools include actual bones (!), online self-assessment modules and exclusive photographic atlases that aren’t available on the web.
When it comes to preparing for gross anatomy, you definitely want to know what resources will be a good bet for you! We know that you’re busy, so we’re bringing these tools directly to you!
Here’s where we’ll be in the coming weeks:
10/17 – Fenway Learning Community (rooms 311-315)
10/19 – Park Street Learning Community (rooms 205-209)
10/26 – Aquarium Learning Community (rooms 305-309)
10/30 – Haymarket Learning Community (rooms 211-215)
In the meantime, you can learn about anatomy resources at Hirsh Library at: https://researchguides.library.tufts.edu/anatomy and https://hirshlibrary.tufts.edu/find/equipment
Hope to see you there!
Join us for a Software Carpentry workshop from October 24-27 from 1-4pm! This workshop is aimed at all members of the Tufts community, and we especially encourage researchers, graduate students, and Tufts Medical Center staff to join us.
In this workshop, we will be learning the essentials of:
- The Unix Bash shell, to help automate repetitive tasks
- Git, for help with collaboration and long-term projects (like your thesis!)
- Python, for data analysis and visualization
This workshop is for complete beginners – if you have no experience with these tools but think that they can be useful to you, please join us! We can also help you set up the software for each session – we will be available for help for an hour before each session, starting at noon each day.
Make sure to register in advance, and keep in mind that you will be registering for all 4 days of the workshop.
In observance of Indigenous People’s Day on Monday, October 9th, the Hirsh Library Service Desk will have shortened hours of 12pm – 7pm with no online chat. Regular hours resume on Tuesday. Building access remains unchanged on Monday, and the service desk will have regular hours on Saturday and Sunday.
Indigenous Peoples’ Day honors the “sovereignty, resilience, and immense contributions that Native American have made to the world,” as stated in a federal proclamation by President Biden, the first president to formally commemorate the holiday instead of Columbus Day. There are many ways to learn more and recognize the day. You can read about how Indigenous Peoples’ Day provides greater context to American history, especially since most curriculums end their study of Native American history before 1900. You could visit Tufts University Art Galleries from 11am-5pm. In Medford, visit Véxoa: We Know (Nós sabemos), a survey exhibition about Indigenous artists of Brazil. In Boston, visit Double Arrows, feature art by Elizabeth James-Perry, an enrolled member of the Aquinnah Wampanoag. You could listen to this NPR podcast on Osage headrights, a system to give Osage people a share of the profits from the resources extracted from their land. Finally, you could find which Native land(s) you are on, through this interactive, searchable map showing Native territories, languages, treaties, and more.
Please join us in welcoming our new staff member, Rachel Partington! Rachel is the latest addition to the Service Desk and is excited to answer student questions here at Hirsh! A southern transplant, this is their first library job, and they intend to pursue their MLIS in the near future. They live in Somerville where they are roommates to a many-thumbed cat named Goose and are in the process of writing a novel set in deep space.
We are thrilled to have Rachel as part of our Hirsh team!
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