Category Archives: Tools

Research Skills Toolkit for graduate researchers

swiss army knife

(c) Flickr: AJC1

Need to brush up on your IT and information skills?  Why not come to a Research Skills Toolkit in 8th week? These free 2 hour workshops introduce key software and online tools to streamline your research, hone your searching and information skills and provide opportunities to  meet subject specialists.

Topics on offer include:

  • Finding articles, papers, conferences and theses
  • Keeping up to date and current awareness
  • Using Endnote to manage your references
  • Manipulating images using Gimp
  • Managing your thesis with word
  • Analyzising data with Excel pivot tables
  • Podcasting with Audacity
  • Plagiarism and how to avoid it
  • Your thesis, copyright and ORA
  • Finding highly cited journals and measuring research impact

These workshops are open to Oxford graduate researchers in week 8 of Hilary Term. Please attend the session for your division or subject area.

The History session is on Wed 7th March 2.30-4.30pm and the general Humanities session is on Tues 6th March 12.00-2.00pm.

> Find out more and book your place (Oxford University members only, single sign on required).

Toolkits take place at Oxford University Computing Services and are run jointly by the Bodleian Libraries and Computing Services.

New SOLO now live: Information on passwords and training

The new improved version of SOLO has gone live this morning. You will now be able to place stack requests, renew books and see your library account all from within SOLO. 

How do I log into my account?

Oxford University members should log in to SOLO using their Single Sign-On username and password (this should be the same as you use to log-in to your University email account). This will then allow you access to your library account and functions such as renewals, holds and stack requests as well as giving you access off-campus to the subscription journals and databases available through SOLO.

You will still need to use your University card barcode and associated password to access Library PCs and to log in to the Bodleian Libraries wireless network (this is the same username and password you used to use for OLIS).  If you can’t remember your password or need to reset it then you can now do this by going to https://register.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/cgi-bin/rescue

Further help and training

The new online guide to SOLO is now available to give you further help and instructions.

The Libraries are also running several training workshops to help readers find their way around new SOLO. Details of which are available here: http://www.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/services/training/solo-workshops

New Resource: Dr. J. L. Todd Thematic Guide

The first thematic guide to international archival collections relating to Dr. J. L. Todd (1876-1949) has been completed and is now available online at the Osler Library of the History of Medicine web site. J.  L. Todd was Canada’s first professor of Parasitology and a noted pioneer on the subject. He was also involved with tropical medicine research in Africa, the Canadian Army Medical Corps, the development of the Canadian pension administration, and an investigation of Poland’s typhus outbreak in the 1920s. The guide consolidates holdings information about all known collections relating to Todd’s medical career as well as his personal papers and includes institutions in Canada, the United States, and England. It was prepared by researchers at McGill University’s Osler Library and Redpath Museum with support from Associated Medical Services Inc. (Toronto).

Information skills courses for historians this term

The following information skills courses may be of interest to historians. For more details on any of these courses please see the HFL training page or the WISER programme.

RefWorks for Humanities

Wednesday 18 May 14:00-17:00, OUCS – Book Here

Presenters: Valerie Lawrence and Shona McLean

WISER: Manuscripts

Wednesday 25 May 15:30-17:00, OUCS – Book Here

Presenters: Mike Webb

WISER: Information Sources for African Studies

Tuesday 31 May 10:45-12:00, OUCS – Book Here

Presenter: Sarah Rhodes and Lucy McCann

WISER: Online Resources for Historians

Wednesday 1 June 09:30-10:45, OUCS – Book Here

Presenter Isabel Holowaty

WISER: Sources for US History

Wednesday 8 June 15:30-17:00, OUCS – Book Here

Presenter: Jane Rawson

WISER: Sources for Medievalists

Wednesday 15 June 13:45-15:15, OUCS – Book Here 

Presenters:  Charlotte Goodall, Isabel Holowaty, Susan Usher, Hilla Wait

Early modern history: Discover Early English Books Online (EEBO)

Friday 17 June (week 7), 14:15-15:30, IT Room, History Faculty – Book Here

Presenter: Rebecca Price (ProQuest)

Read all about it!: Making the most of online Historical Newspapers

Monday 20 June (week 8), 14:00-15:15, IT Room, History Faculty – Book Here

Presenter: Rebecca Price (ProQuest)

Modern historians: Find your way through House of Commons Parliamentary Papers

Monday 20 June (week 8), 15:30-16:45, IT Room, History Faculty – Book Here

Presenter: Rebecca Price (ProQuest)

Fihrist: Oxford and Cambridge Islamic Manuscripts Catalogue Online

Fihrist was developed by the OCIMCO project and aims to improve access to the valuable Islamic texts held in the Bodleian Libraries and Cambridge University Library.

The catalogue entries in the Fihrist catalogue are quite basic at the moment as the project has focused on the retrospective conversion of existing descriptions taken from printed and card catalogues.  It will eventually provide detailed manuscript descriptions though that will include digital representations of the manuscripts themselves.

The combined holdings of Oxford and Cambridge form the second largest collection of Islamic manuscripts in the UK and are of considerable intellectual significance. Both libraries have been collecting Islamic manuscripts since the 17th century and still continue to acquire manuscripts by donation or through purchase.

There are many early and rare items with broad subject coverage including:

Medicine
Mathematics
Astronomy
Literature
Religion
Philosophy
Poetry 

For information on ordering copies or to make appointments to study manuscripts in the collections see the Bodleian Libraries or Cambridge University Library web pages.