Author Archives: stong

New Acquisition – National Theatre Collection

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The Library has just purchased the National Theatre Collection which is now available to access on the film platform of Alexander Street Press, Academic Video Online. Direct access to the National Theatre Collection is here.

National Theatre Collection brings the stage to life through access to high definition streamed video of world-class theatre productions and unique archival material, offering insight into British theatre-making and performance studies. The collection contains 30 video performances. As a supplement to the filmed productions, exclusive digitised archival materials such as prompt scripts, costume designs, and more are available to provide behind-the-scenes background and contextual information. The featured 30 performances are:

CNKI Open Access Platform for Chinese literature on COVID-19

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CNKI, provider of our Library subscribed databases “China Academic Journals” and “China Doctoral & Masters Dissertations Full-text Databases”, has just launched an Open Access Platform for all Chinese literature published regarding the current new coronavirus known as COVID-19 – http://cajn.cnki.net/gzbd/brief/Default.aspx (Chinese version). The platform will have an English version very soon. All the articles are in Chinese. New articles are being added every day.

The UTREES Database: University Theses in Russian, Soviet, and East European Studies 1907–

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The UTREES database is the database form of the UTREES project which originated with the print form in 2008, compiled and edited by Gregory Walker and J. S .G. Simmons. It lists details of over 5,800 doctoral and selected masters’ theses from British and Irish universities from 1907 onwards, covering research relating to Eastern and Central Europe, Russia, and the area of the former USSR, including Central Asia, the Caucasus and Siberia. The database is continuously updated and is freely accessible.

  • About the UTREES database, click here.
  • To access UTREES database, click here.

The editor of UTREES has just announced today the good news that, under an agreement with the British Library, UTREES has now begun to provide access to the full text of many of its listed theses by means of links to the BL’s massive EThOS database which provides the full text of thousands of UK Higher Education theses.

  • Access eThOS: http://ethos.bl.uk (registration as members of UoE is required for full-text access)

A high proportion of theses on UTREES already have entries on EThOS. Editor Gregory Walker says:

“… we’re now working to attach links from one database to the other. We’ve already connected all relevant theses added since 2008 (about 2,300 of them), and links to the remaining 2,000-odd will be added in the coming months. For more details, please see the ‘Access to Theses’ section on the UTREES website…. We hope that this enhancement process will be of real benefit to users of UTREES, and will welcome any comments or queries. Please contact me [Gregory Walker] at gpmwalker@btinternet.com“.

For more comprehensive searches of theses awarded in your subject area, use ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global:

 

Database trial – CNKI English resources

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The Library has arranged a free trial of three English resources from CNKI (China National Knowledge Infrastructure): China Data Insight, Academic Focus, and Journal Translation Project, covering all subject areas in humanities, social sciences, science and technology, and medicine.

The trial has been advertised on the Library E-resources Trials website. The trial is valid until 30th Nov. 2019. EASE login is required for access:

CNKI English Resources

Just click on each database in Step 1 as indicated in the screenshot below to gain direct access:

China Data Insights provides access to more than 1,083 statistical yearbooks with 8,446 volumes and 1.49 million tables. There is a linked Chinese version with more data.

Academic Focus contains 262 English journals published in China, English content translated from top Chinese academic journals and over 2400 conference proceedings.

Journal Translation Project features the bilingual full-text content of 140 top academic journals in China with the English and Chinese versions displayed side-by-side.

CNKI is provider of our two important Chinese resources at the moment: China Academic Journals and China Doctoral and Masters Dissertations Full-text Database, both of which are in the Library’s Databases A-Z list and Databases by Subject for East Asian Studies.

Princeton University Library Research Grants

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The following information is relevant to several subject areas in the LLC School: East Asian Studies, Children’s literature, and Portuguese-speaking cultures.

Each year, the Friends of the Princeton University Library, as well as other library and campus funding sources, offer short-term Library Research Grants to promote scholarly use of the Library’s special collections. The award is $1,000 per week (up to four weeks) plus transportation costs. Applications to use unique, not regularly available, East Asian Library materials will be considered as part of these general grants. There is a window of several months to apply each year.

As of Sept. 23, 2019, the 2020-2021 Princeton University Library Research Grants application is open and ready to receive submissions. The deadline to apply is Noon on December 13, 2019. Grants are tenable from May 1, 2020 to April 30, 2021.

Applications will be considered for scholarly use of archives, manuscripts, rare books, and other rare and unique holdings of the Department of Special Collections, including the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library; as well as rare books in Marquand Library of Art and Archaeology, and in the East Asian Library (Gest Collection).  Special grants are awarded in several areas: the Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies supports a limited number of library fellowships in Hellenic Studies, the Elmer Adler Fund supports research in the graphic arts, and the Cotsen Children’s Library supports research in its collection on aspects of children’s literature. The Maxwell Fund supports research on materials dealing with Portuguese-speaking cultures. The Sid Lapidus ’59 Research Fund for Studies of the Age of Revolution and the Enlightenment in the Atlantic World supports relevant special collections research.

For more information, or to apply, please go to http://rbsc.princeton.edu/friends-princeton-university-library-research-grants

Ban Dainagon Ekotob : a premium replica of the late 12th-century Japanese emakimono (picture scroll)

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The Library has just purchased a beautiful reproduction of a late 12th-century Japanese emakimono (絵巻) – a set of 3 illustrated narrative picture scrolls called Ban Dainagon Ekotob (伴大納言絵詞 The Tale of Great Minister Ban). The full-colour painting depicts the events of the Ōtemmon Conspiracy, an event of Japan’s early Heian period. The painting, attributed to Tokiwa Mitsunaga, is over 20 m (66 ft) long and about 31.5 cm (12.4 in) tall. The original art work is considered to be Kokuhō (國寶, or a Japanese national treasure) among six such rare and invaluable picture scrolls. Information about their replica can be found here.

The reproduction was published by Chikuma shobo (筑摩書房) in 1971-1974 in a limited edition of 1000 copies. Our Library copy has the set number ’84’. The 3 hand-scrolls are placed individually in 3 wooden cases, each accompanied with a booklet. The set has been catalogued for the Centre for Research Collections. See the bibliographic record in DiscoverEd here.

The material has been purchased in response to needs for a Japanese Studies course called “Supernatural Japan: doing Japanology through Yokai”. As the course takes a ‘learning by doing’ approach, allowing students to experience Yokai in art, literature to discover the historical and cultural value of Yokai in Japanese society, this set of 3 hand-scrolls will give a rare opportunity of authentic reading experience for students of Japanese Studies or anyone interested in Japanese art, history and culture.

China Families – New Genealogy Website by Bristol University

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This is an edited re-blog of a newsletter from the Scotland-China Association.

Were your ancestors out in China? If so, track them with China Families:

https://www.chinafamilies.net

China Families is directed by Robert Bickers, Professor of History at the University of Bristol. The database platform allows you to search across 60,000 names of men and women who lived, worked or died in China, between the 1850s and 1940s. The information is drawn from ten different sources, and you can search each one of these individually, but you can also search across all of them. There are many Chinese names here, as well as the names of foreign residents.

In the century before 1950, tens of thousands of foreign nationals lived and worked in China. They could be found in large communities in major coastal cities like Shanghai or Tianjin, as well as in tiny countryside missionary compounds, or isolated Customs stations deep in China’s interior. Often thought to be exotic and obscure, these communities created newspapers, and directories, and their lives and activities were widely recorded. But finding out about ancestors who spent time in China can be difficult, for the records are scattered, and even old cemeteries were destroyed in the 1960s. Therefore, China Families helps uncover a hidden past.

Its companion site Historial Photographs of China makes available over 20,000 photographs of the period, many of them supplied by China families.

Referencing Tutorial

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Cite Them Right online, which is in the Databases A-Z list, is a comprehensive guide to referencing almost anything you will come across in the course of your studies or research. It has just launched a Referencing Tutorial.

Direct access to the Tutorial is here. You will have the option to create an account to sign in as an authenticated user so that the Tutorial can remember your progress, or to explore freely without signing in and therefore without remembering your progress.

This tutorial is made-up of 11 short, self-contained topics, which you can explore and revisit at any time.

Content includes:

  • What is referencing and why it matters
  • What sources are appropriate to reference
  • How to avoid plagiarism
  • How to insert citations into your text
  • Incorporating the work of others into your writing
  • Documenting the full reference details

Resource Lists workshop for LLC course organisers

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In response to LLC colleagues’ interest and  requests, the Library Learning Services will provide a Resources Lists workshop specially for staff of the LLC School who are using or planning to use the Resource Lists for their course teaching.

  • Time: 2.00 – 3.00pm Wednesday 17th April 2019
  • Venue: Room 1.02 (Computer Lab), 50 George Square

Library staff will be on hand to answer any Resource Lists-related questions and to tell you about the help available to set up a Resource List for your course. To help us manage the session, if you’d like to attend, could you please follow the link below to make a booking:

https://www.events.ed.ac.uk/index.cfm?event=book&scheduleID=34349

The event is also visible to LLC staff in MyEd and is bookable there. We hope to see many of you at the workshop!

Background information

LLC has the largest number (208 as of Jan 2019) of published Resource Lists among all the Schools of the University, though it only represents 27% of our LLC courses.

What you will learn

By the end of this session you will be able to create and edit your own Resource Lists and understand how the Library is using Resource Lists to manage the purchase of books, provide access to copyright compliant scans and manage HUB/Reserve requests.

Why use Resource Lists?

  1. to improve the student experience
  2. to make it easier for course organisers to manage the provision of library materials for teaching

About Resource Lists

Resource Lists provide students with easy and consistent access to key course reading materials. The Library currently provides 1900 Resource Lists for courses across every school. Lists can be viewed via the service homepage: http://resourcelists.ed.ac.uk  However, most students access their Resource Lists via a link in the left hand menu in the corresponding Learn course.

Resource Lists is the preferred route for Course Organisers to manage the provision of library materials. Once set up, lists are rolled over each June and can be reviewed and edited for the next academic year.

Any resource with a web address can be added to a list, including, books, e-books, book chapters, journal articles and videos. Course organisers assign priority to list items (Essential, Recommended or Further reading) and add notes for students indicating which chapters or pages should be read. The Library uses the priorities and student numbers to inform number of copies purchased and loan periods.

Resource Lists provide students with a number of features to help them manage their course reading. Students can create their own collection, make suggestions for new items to be added to lists and export their lists in their preferred citation style.

There is more information about Resource Lists on the IS website: http://edin.ac/resource-lists

For more information, please contact Library.Learning@ed.ac.uk