The Media & Communication Library blog

Summer reading

Gary — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 01:59:19 +0000

This year the Library set up some blanket orders for either shortlists or longlists of various book awards. These are to be held in our Swanston and/or our Carlton libraries.

We are still confirming these orders, but in the meantime here are some prizewinners and links to our catalogue:

The relevant awards include:

Arthur C Clark Award (shortlist)
ALS Gold Medal (shortlist)
Australian/Vogel Literary Award (winner)
CAL Scribe Fiction Prize (winner)
CBCA Book of the Year (shortlist: older readers)
Commonwealth Writers’ Prize (shortlist)
Costa Novel Award (shortlist)
Hugo Awards (shortlist)
International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award (shortlist)
James Tait Black Memorial Prize (shortlist)
Man Booker Prize (longlist)
Melbourne Prize for Best Writing Award (shortlist)
Miles Franklin Award (longlist)
Ned Kelly Awards for Crime Writing (shortlist)
NSW Premier’s Literary Award (shortlist)
Orange Prize for Fiction (shortlist)
Prime Minister’s Literary Awards (shortlists: various)
Pulitzer Prize (finalists: fiction)
Queensland Premier’s Literary Award (shortlists: various)
South Australian Premier’s Award
The Age Book of the Year Awards (shortlists: fiction and nonfiction)
The National Book Award (US) (finalists: fiction and nonfiction)
Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards (shortlists: various)
Western Australia Premier’s Book Awards (shortlists: various)

New Indigenous Collection database

Gary — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 00:37:20 +0000

The Informit Indigenous Collection brings together a broad range of international Indigenous resources.

Subject areas covered include anthropology, community development, cultural studies, economics, education, health, history, human geography, law and land rights, literature, politics and policymaking, (post)colonial studies, psychology, race studies, sociology and visual and performing arts.

The 11,600+ records are sourced from Australia, Canada, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, North America and The Pacific.

[SOURCE: GSSSP LIBRARY BLOG]

Academic OneFile now available

Gary — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 04:50:22 +0000

After a trial earlier this year the Library now has access to Academic OneFile. This database is essentially an upgrade from the Expanded Academic ASAP database that RMIT University students and researchers have found so useful for many years:

Academic OneFile is the premier source for peer-reviewed, full-text articles from the world’s leading journals and reference sources. With extensive coverage of the technology, social sciences, the arts, theology, literature and other subjects, Academic OneFile is both authoritative and comprehensive. Includes full-text coverage of the New York Times back to 1995.

If you go to the resource from the Library homepage, selecting the databases tab and then choosing Thomson-Gale Infotrac from the ‘Popular databases’ option , you will see that we also have a range of additional subject-specific resources such as

Communications and Mass Media Collection
Fine Arts and Music Collection
Gender Studies Collection
Pop Culture Collection

In addition to drawing together journal content in a more subject-specific form, these collections contain content from reference works not contained in Academic OneFile

Book Citation Index database on trial

Gary — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 01:31:39 +0000

On trial until 14 November 2011

Citation databases allow users to trace citation patterns for authors and their published works. Until now, the main tools and resources have been focussed on journal articles and conference proceedings rather than books. The need to take account of citation patterns for books has been felt particularly in areas within the arts and humanities where books play an important part of the publishing scene.

The Library is currently trialling The Book Citation Index available via Web of Science from Thomson Reuters. Web of Science already includes citation databases such as the Arts & Humanities Citation Index, the Social Science Citation Index and the Conference Proceedings Citation Index. This will mean that users can now use Web of Science to search across books, journals and conference proceedings within one resource.

Other features include:

Coverage of over 25,000 editorially selected books, starting with publication year 2005
Comprehensive cited reference search
Times Cited counts for books and book chapters
Full bibliographies from books and book chapters

For more information and access to this resource, visit the Book Citation Index.

Should we add this database to our collections? Please test this database and use our evaluation form to let us know soon.

New subject guide for Literary studies

Gary — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 02:22:34 +0000

We have just created a subject guide for “Literary studies“. These guides are intended to provide students with a starting point and overview of the different types of resources available to them.

Under the “Find articles” tab, for example, there are links to a range of relevant online subject resources that can be used to find scholarly articles. We have a subject guides for most discipline areas within the School but are always happy to consider adding to this list and including suggestions for resources from academics and teachers.

Sage Research Methods Online

Gary — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 21:00:10 +0000

As a result of a couple of requests from within the School we now have access to SAGE Research Methods Online (SRMO), a new and unique product providing information about research methods. Students and researchers can search for a method and find a range of literature from reference to book, journal and video material to support their query. It helps users answer research methods questions from the beginning of the project, including the literature search, review, and research design right through to data collection, analysis and writing up.

Other features include:

Search and book browse tools.
A highly developed subject structure to assist the user to focus on needed items.
A methods map that allows you to visually explore relations between methods, concepts, philosophies and approaches.
SRMO lists used to maintain favourite content, which can be shared with other users.

Australian Book Review Online Edition

Gary — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 04:00:57 +0000

The October edition of the Australian Book Review has just come out, so it is a good time to remind you that we recently subscribed to the ABR Online Edition. This means that RMIT University staff and students have access to ABR directly from their website.

Look up Australian Book Review in the library catalogue and use the link provided by the Find It button. Once you have connected to the ABR website, use the options on the right hand side to navigate to the latest editions.

The latest edition includes:

Alex Miller’s new novel – Morag Fraser
Bearing witness – Jo Case
History and representation – Sophie Cunningham
The Slap on television – Philippa Hawker
Open Page – Anna Funder
Raimond Gaita: After Romulus – Paul Morgan
Kerryn Goldsworthy: Adelaide – Gay Bilson
The Eye of the Storm – Peter Rose
Elliot Perlman: The Street Sweeper – Don Anderson
A.J. Brown: Michael Kirby – Julian Burnside
Tariq Ali: The Obama Syndrome – Dennis Altman
John Bell: On Shakespeare – Brian McFarlane

Newsbank database

Gary — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 05:05:20 +0000

Newsbank database is on trial until 21 October.

NewsBank Newspapers provides the full-text of all staff-written news stories. These articles are complemented by additional sections, including obituaries, literary criticism, people, editorial pieces, book/film/art reviews, and more. Only notices, classifieds, pictures, and advertisements are excluded.

The database can be subscribed to in two formats: World News, which is the entire collection of 6,000 papers, or the Australian Research Collection, which offers 500 papers and is primarily Australian. This trial provides the World News option.

Newspapers can be drilled down to community newspaper level, showing 38 Victorian Community Publications from the Leader Group.

You can access the Newsbank database from our Library news page. Don’t forget to provide feedback using our database trials page.

[SOURCE: RMIT UNIVERSITY LIBRARY ELECTRONIC RESOURCES BLOG]

Video streaming purchases for the School

Gary — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 07:54:16 +0000

We have mentioned our new Kanopy video streaming service a couple of times recently. See below for a list of the titles we have purchased for the Media and Communication area.

Kanopy allows you to create playlists for your students to view as well as embedd video into Blackboard.

There is a complete list of titles that we have purchased available from the RMIT Kanopy site. There is also a range of different catalogues for you to browse (including one from Ronin films). Feel free to select and recommend titles for us to purchase.

AustLit: The Australian Literature Resource

Gary — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 04:28:05 +0000

One of the key resources for the writing areas within the School is the AustLit database, a resource which aims is to be the definitive virtual research environment and information resource for Australian literary, print, and narrative culture scholars, students, and the public. The site provides authoritative information on creative and critical works by and relating to Australian writers, relevant cultural organisations, and industries.

AustLit is very useful for for finding information by and about older and contemporary Australian authors. Use the Guided Search feature for identifying works from a range of categories, including genres, forms and periods.