Thursday, May 24, 2012

Seven Year Itch

A peek at the start date for this blog, startled me. I've been writing for seven years.

May 4, 2005, when the library entry was opened up with glass panels replacing the solid wood doors, is the date of my first blogging entry. Our view then was of the passing throng in the hallway. Soon we'll have an expanded view of the Student Area. The renovation begun last fall is coming to a close. Walls have been removed and huge glass expanses have been created. What will we see in the next seven years?

-kss

Citations

Citations are the bane of my existence. My library information spiel tells students the formula for a citation is "who did it, what did they do, how does my reader find it". That formula sets eyes a glowing because it isn't  difficult. It's the punctuation that causes consternation.

To help students with citations, we subscribe to the enhanced EasyBib. I have shown students how it works. Just fill in the blanks with the correct information. That can become tricky but it isn't impossible to do.
Today I learned one can type or scan in an ISBN number. EasyBib will create the complete citation. My mouth dropped open. How easy is that?

It works great with books but what about journal articles? Most students citing an article, have retrieved the article from vendors that  provide a citation. EasyBib will provide a citation for an article that has a DOI number. Finding an article with a DOI number isn't as easy as it sounds. Not every article has a DOI number. Scholarly journals seem to have DOI's while 'regular' articles do not.

Truly, there is no excuse for not citing your sources correctly when you're provided a tool like EasyBib.


-kss