Rothermere American Institute Postgraduate and Undergraduate Travel Awards

Are you hoping to travel to the United States over the coming year to carry out primary source research for your thesis? The Rothermere American Institute is currently accepting applications for their 2014 Travel Awards, and you have one week left to apply!

Awards are open to current postgraduate or undergraduate students at Oxford who are writing theses or dissertations in American history or politics. Full details and information on how to apply can be found at http://www.rai.ox.ac.uk/travel-awards

WISER coming up: Reference management, Geospatial data

wiserIn Week 5, Bodleian Libraries are running the following workshops:

WISER: Mendeley for Reference Management (Tue 27 May 9.15 – 12.15) (wk 5)
Mendeley is a reference management package that helps you build libraries of references and then add citations and bibliographies to word processed documents.
Who is this session for? Postgraduates, researchers, academics and undergraduates wishing to use reference management software.
Presenters: Oliver Bridle and Owen Coxall
Venue: IT Services, 13 Banbury Road > Book your place

WISER: Finding and Converting Geospatial Data (Tue 27 May 2.00 – 5.00) (wk 5)
This course covers how to find and convert geospatial data and prepare it for digital mapmaking in ArcGIS. This is the preliminary stage of GIS work – see ArcGIS Desktop for training in mapmaking itself.
Who is this session for? Postgraduate students, researchers, academics and anyone else interested in finding and converting geospatial data.
Presenters: Kelly Schultz and Michael Athanson
Venue: Radcliffe Science Library > Book your place

RefWorks for Humanities (Wed 28 May 9.15 – 12.15) (wk 5)
RefWorks is an online tool which allows you to manage your citations/references, insert them into your work as footnotes or intext citations, automatically generate bibliographies and easily switch between citation styles. This introduction is open to all, but the section on importing references will focus on Humanities examples.
Who is this session for? Postgraduates, researchers,  academics and undergraduates wishing to use reference management software.
Presenters: Bethan Jenkins, Nora Khayi and Angela Carritt
Venue: IT Services, 13 Banbury Road > Book your place

Keeping up with Bodleian Libraries training opportunities: Why not follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/oxwiser or visit the BodWiser blog at http://bodwiser.wordpress.com
Questions? – Please contact usered@bodleian.ox.ac.uk

WISER: Sources for US History, Monday 12th May

I’ll be running a course on sources for US History as part of the WISER series next Monday (12th May) at 11am. This session is designed to provide an overview of the sources available in Oxford and online for those researching US history, and is a good general introduction for those either starting their research on US topics or for those who want to know more about the range of print, microfilm and electronic resources we offer.

The session will begin with guidance on locating books, journals, articles and theses, but the bulk of the time will be devoted to primary sources, covering a wide range of topics, periods, and formats. I’ll also spend some time giving tips on how to start identifying useful sources from the vast amount of digitised material increasingly freely available on the internet. There will be time for you to ask questions and have a look at particular sources of interest yourself.

The session will take place in the Abbot’s Kitchen training room at the Radcliffe Science Library. Please register at http://courses.it.ox.ac.uk/detail/TZE9 if you wish to attend.

If you are unable to come but want more information and guidance on finding sources for your research in US history, I’m always happy to arrange individual meetings – feel free to get in touch! Our online guide to US History sources is also a good place to start.