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Ad-Lib: A Monthly for Freshman Advisers adlib(a)fas.harvard.edu
May 2004 Issue 5
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IN THIS ISSUE:
-- Concentration Fest, Part 3
In honor of May 10: 8 more descriptions of how Harvard College
Librarians service departments and programs
-- Readings for Advisers
An article on the necessity of teaching research skills to
undergraduates
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FEATURED CONCENTRATIONS
African and African American Studies, Social Studies, Astronomy,
Literature, Classics, Applied Math, Sanskrit and Tibetan Studies, Germanic
Languages and Literature
*** AFRICAN-AMERICAN STUDIES
Library Research Contact: Barbara Burg, Research Services, Widener Library
[496-4222; bburg@fas]
The dynamic and interdisciplinary nature of African American Studies is
very well-served by Harvard's libraries. While students come to African
American Studies with a range of disciplinary interests, they will find
the necessary breadth and depth of research collections in African
American Studies, in addition to economics, fine arts, government,
history, language and literature, music, sociology, and women and gender
studies.
In my role as liaison to the Department of African and African American
Studies from Widener Library's Research Services, I offer individual
research consultations and course-related instruction to concentrators so
they become conversant with research processes necessary to fully explore
the range of primary and secondary sources available to them.
Advisers can encourage interested students to look at the collection of
electronic resources available for African American Studies in both the
humanities and social sciences through these links to the Harvard
Libraries web site:
http://lib.harvard.edu/e-resources/subject/arts_and_humanities_african-amer…http://lib.harvard.edu/e-resources/subject/social_sciences_african-american…
*** SOCIAL STUDIES
Library Research Contact: Susan Gilroy, Reference Librarian, Lamont
Library [496-5403; sgilroy@fas]
Until this spring, Hilles Library was the central service point for the
Social Studies Program, and over the years, many faculty and students
developed close relationships with (and deep affection for) the Reference
staff there. With plans now underway for the conversion of Hilles into
the Quad Library in June 2005, Lamont Library has assumed responsibility
for library outreach and course-related instruction for Social Studies
concentrators. Students can expect the same high level of service from us
that Hilles provided, including lots of personal assistance with their
papers in the junior tutorials and individualized research help on the
senior thesis. We also hope to continue the Hilles tradition of having a
"Senior Thesis Registry," by which we can keep in touch with concentrators
throughout the thesis process, offer them suggestions, and point them
toward relevant new research that has come our way.
Although I expect to meet them all, in one course or another, in their
junior year, I hope you'll encourage them to get to know me before this
year is out, or even as sophomores; they don't need a "research reason" to
drop by and introduce themselves, and I'm eager to hear about their
interest in the concentration and their academic plans.
For a preview of other kinds of library support they'll have available to
them, your advisees might want to take a look at the excellent resources
that the Hilles Library has produced. They include a guide to finding
primary sources (specifically for Social Studies 98), a web-based tutorial
on using Sociofile (the essential research resource for concentrators),
and a carefully chosen selection of "Web Sites for Scholars." These (and
more) can be viewed here:
http://hcl.harvard.edu/hilles/services/research.html
*** ASTRONOMY
Library Research Contact: Ann Robinson, Science Reference Librarian, Cabot
Science Library [495-5353, arobins(a)fas.harvard.edu]
If you have first years planning to concentrate in astronomy, they'll want
to add _The Encyclopedia of Astronomy and Astrophysics_ to their research
repertoires next year. EAA bills itself as the most complete and
comprehensive reference sources for astronomy and astrophysics, and
Harvard students can use it in print or online. A print copy of this 4
volume is kept in the Cabot Science Library. It's also available online
from the E-Resources page of the Harvard Libraries portal
(http://lib.harvard.edu/e-resources).
The online version of EAA is an amazing feat of scholarly research: it
brings together more than 2500 articles by 800 specialists on everything
from active galaxies to quasars to string theory to zero gravity.
Articles deal with their subject matter at a range of levels: each article
is structured to become more specialized as the article progresses. That
means that the EAA will continue to be useful at any stage of their
Harvard career. Plus, the EAA is continually updated and expanded and it
has several other nice features besides: helpful bibliographies, a section
on "breaking news" in the field, information on current solar and space
weather conditions, a special article and special picture "of the week,"
and a rich list of e-content links.
In addition to the offerings online and in the Cabot Library itself,
astronomy concentrators should also know about the Wolbach Library,
affiliated with the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
(http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/). Your students should also remember that
the science librarians at Harvard will sometimes be their best information
resources! We're eager to work with these students so encourage them to
make our acquaintance early on next year!
*** LITERATURE
Library Research Contacts: Laura Farwell Blake, Research Services, Widener
Library [496-0108; farwell@fas]
Mary Beth Clack, Research Services, Widener Library [496-7465; mclack@fas]
Since literature concentrators pursue an individually tailored program,
librarians offer consultations focusing on particular areas of study and
research, sometimes in concert with other subject specialists. As the
Handbook states, "Literary and cultural theory and other forms of
representation in more than one culture or language are fundamental to the
students' study of literature." We welcome students' inquiries and are
happy to guide them to relevant collections and resources across the
library spectrum, as well as provide them with individual research
consultations and assistance.
*** CLASSICS
Library Research contact: Michael Hemment, Research Services, Widener
Library [496-4548; hemment@fas]
The E-Resource gods have been smiling down upon classics concentrators in
recent years. Among the valuable research tools now in the Harvard
Libraries portal are L'Année Philologique, the Oxford Classical
Dictionary, and the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae. Indeed, being a classics
concentrator means not only mastering Greek, Latin, and a wide-range of
canonical texts, but also a variety of digital resources, CD-ROMs, and
Harvards monumental print collection. Understanding how they all fit
together for a research project can be a challenge. Fortunately, a "deus
ex machina" does exist!
As Widener Library's liaison to the Classics Department and Committee on
Medieval Studies, my goal is to help students evaluate the scholarly merit
of print and digital resources, clarifying their contents and scope, and
maximize their accessibility. To this end, I have created a research
portal called Inter Libros (www.interlibros.net). In addition, I provide
individual research consultations by appointment for classics
concentrators working on course papers and senior theses, develop library
research guides, and teach a variety of library research classes. I look
forward to collaborating on your research project!
*** APPLIED MATH and MATHEMATICS
Library Research Contact: Ellie Clement, Head of Reference, Cabot Library
[496-8442; clement@fas]
Mathematicians rely on a database called MathSciNet to satisfy a wide
range of information needs. Harvard undergraduates often search it, too,
whether they decide to take the pure or applied math route. If they elect
to write an honors thesis, in fact, they'll find MathSciNet indispensable
as a way into the published literature on which their own mathematical
models and research will be built. It's so important that the Math
Department links to MathSciNet directly from its home page!
Produced by the American Mathematical Society, MathSciNet contains
citations and abstracts to the mathematical literature that has been
produced around the world since 1940. It's also very current, and a great
resource for timely reviews of books, journal articles, and other original
documents that have made significant new contributions to the field. Many
of these items are available in full-text.
Your advisee can find out more about resources in the field by consulting
our guide. It's here:
http://hcl.harvard.edu/cabot/Reference_Guides_Basic/MathandStatsBasics.pdf
We want to help, so send your advisees our way!
*** SANSKRIT AND TIBETAN STUDIES
Library Research Contact: Cheryl LaGuardia, Research Services, Widener
Library [496-4226; claguard@fas]
Widener Library collects Sanskrit and Tibetan publications, and
Harvard-Yenching library holds the Tibetan Buddhist canonical texts in
print. These can be located through Romanized records in HOLLIS, the
online catalog. New publications from India and Tibet are added regularly
and are supplemented by a growing collection of older materials on CD-ROM.
The Tibetan collection at Harvard-Yenching Library is historically
centered on Buddhism, but there are also holdings in history and
literature. For more information students may find it useful to take a
look at both the Widener and Harvard-Yenching web sites. Widener's
collections are described here:
http://hcl.harvard.edu/widener/collections/east_south_se_asia.html
Holdings of the Harvard-Yenching Library are described at:
http://hcl.harvard.edu/harvard-yenching/collections/tibetan.html
Please do encourage potential concentrators to get in touch with me if I
can supply them with more information!
*** GERMANIC LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES
Library Research Contact: Elizabeth McKeigue, Research Services, Widener
Library [496-4023; mckeigue@fas]
For an overview of the resources available to students in this department,
tell your advisees about the online guide "Germanic Languages: An
Introduction to Library Resources." It's available on the College Library
web site at
http://hcl.harvard.edu/widener/services/research/german/ger1.html
This guide introduces all the major reference resources for the study of
German languages and literatures. Some of the highlights include links to
the collection of electronic texts for the German masters such as Goethe
and Schiller, links to web sites of interest to German scholars, and lists
of the best print resources in the collections of the Harvard Libraries.
Students who are thinking about concentrating in Germanic languages will
be excited by the wealth of print and online resources the Harvard
Libraries have to offer.
Widener Library is world-renowned for its Germanic collections. The
library collects materials in the humanities and the social sciences from
Austria, Denmark, Flanders, Germany, Liechtenstein, the Germanic-language
area of Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, the German-language
area of Switzerland, and Hungary. At Widener, Germanic Languages and
Literatures concentrators will find that we look forward to assisting them
in their use of these collections, so please encourage them to contact me!
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READINGS FOR ADVISERS
An article on the necessity of teaching research skills to undergraduates
Fister, Barbara. "Reintroducing Students to Good Research." Keynote
address presented to the faculty of Lake Forest College, November 7, 2001.
"The state we are in has been called a frontier, as if we're moving from
print to electronic worlds, from the book to the Internet, from a
nostalgic, dusty past to a new and shiny future. In fact, we're residents
of a rich and diverse border culture, one in which information will come
in a variety of formats, one in which our students must be equally at home
with paper and digital environments."
Read the full article here:
http://homepages.gac.edu/~fister/LakeForest.html
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Ad-Lib is a monthly newsletter for Freshman Advisers, brought to you by
the Lamont, Hilles, and Cabot undergraduate libraries in the Harvard
College Library. We welcome your suggestions, questions, or thoughts!
Send them to adlib@fas OR contact us directly. Here's how:
Susan Gilroy, Lamont Library sgilroy@fas 6-5403
Ellie Clement, Cabot Library clement @fas 6-8442
And if you like Ad-Lib, consider sending it on to a friend!
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