Author Archives: Miggie Pickton
British Library Doctoral Open Days
It’s that time of year again… the British Library are once again advertising their open days for new doctoral students. This is your opportunity to learn about the British Library’s unique research collections and how to access them.
This year the dates and subjects on offer are as follows:
Finch report: progress review published
In June of last year the Working Group on Expanding Access to Published Research Findings (or ‘Finch Group) published the ‘Finch report‘, describing ways and means of increasing access to UK research outputs. Amongst its recommendations it controversially argued that the sector should adopt the ‘gold’ route to open access (OA), where necessary paying article processing charges to publishers to ensure immediate access to research publications.
Within a month the Department for Business, Information and Skills (BIS) had announced its support for the Finch Group’s recommendations and Research Councils UK (RCUK) had published a new open access policy. Both parties quickly followed through with financial support – BIS made available £10 million to pump prime the system whilst RCUK announced a block grant scheme to support 107 organisations over the following two years.
Interlibrary loans: online requests now available
Submitted by Georgina Dimmock, Head of Academic Liaison, LLS
Library and Learning Services has launched a new online interlibrary loan form, making it quicker and easier for you to apply for and receive Interlibrary Loans. Using the new form you can submit online requests for books and journal articles for your personal use. To use the form, just follow the Inter Library Loan link from the Library catalogue and login with your usual library account details (user name and four digit PIN).
Unpicking social enterprise: the great debate
Date: Wednesday 27th November
Time: 12:30 to 13:30 (refreshments will be served from 12:15pm but feel free to bring your own lunch)
Place: Park Library TPod
In the first of our relaunched series of ‘Lunchtime in the library’ events, LLS have invited two eminent speakers to share their perspectives on social enterprise.
Mapping the landscape of child health and wellbeing research and development
Submitted by Dr Sarah Neill
Mapping the landscape of child health and wellbeing research and development at the University of Northampton
If you are working in the field of child health and wellbeing research, development or knowledge transfer, you are invited to a meeting to map the landscape at the University of Northampton in this area.
Please click on this Doodle poll to enter your availability.
We will advertise the best date and time plus the location of the meeting in the week beginning 4th November.
For more information please contact Sarah Neill or Jane Callaghan.
Weekly help desk service for researchers from LLS
The dates for this term’s ‘help desk’ slots are now up on the university website.
These slots provide you with the opportunity to drop in with your questions for the LLS Research Support team (Miggie and Nick). We’d love to chat with you about:
’23 things’ for research
Dr Scott Turner has just drawn my attention to this latest iteration of the ’23 things’ programme: 23 things for research.
The original ’23 things’ programme was designed by Helene Blowers at the public library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County in North Carolina. Its purpose was to introduce participants to new and emerging technologies. The programme involved a series of 23 tasks or ‘things’, each related to the use of a new tool or service, and lasted nine weeks. As they used the new tools, particpants were expected to maintain a reflective blog on their experiences (Wilkinson and Cragg, 2010, p.29).
This version, ’23 things for research’, is organised by the University of Oxford and aims to “expose you to a range of digital tools that could help you in your personal and professional development as a researcher, academic, student or in another role” (Bodleian Libraries, 2012). It is open to non-Oxford folk.
Understanding Agency and Resistance: Children in situations of domestic abuse
Dr Jane Callaghan writes:
The UNARS research team was at the University of Northampton this week. This 4 nation project, funded by the European Commission through it’s ‘Daphne’ funding stream, focuses on young people’s experiences of domestic abuse. This week, we began the analysis of our interviews with children, carers and professionals who work with domestic abuse. Our researchers from Italy, Spain and Greece explored the complexities of young people’s lived experience of domestic abuse, and the creative and resilient strategies they deploy to cope with these situations.
Find out more about the project here.
Digital Object Identifiers: what they are and where to find them
FAQ: What is a DOI and how can find out if my work has one?
A Digital Object Identifier, or DOI, uniquely and permanently identifies an object. Although the ‘object’ in theory may be any entity (physical, digital or abstract), in practice the most frequent use of DOI names is to describe the location of electronic journal articles, data sets and other digital documents. To date over 84 million DOI names have been assigned (see DOI Factsheet), each with a set of basic metadata and a pointer to the full content.
The principle behind the DOI system is that clicking on a DOI name will take you straight to the definitive copy of the item, irrespective of whether its web address (URL) has changed.
Symposium success at BPS conference
Submitted by Dr Helen Owton
British Psychological Society’s Qualitative Methods in Psychology (QMiP) conference
4-6 September 2013, University of Huddersfield, UK
At the recent British Psychological Society’s Qualitative Methods in Psychology (QMiP) conference, we are pleased to report of the University of Northampton symposium’s success that was notably well received.
UON Graduate School Blog 