Library News - University of Sydney Library

Rare Books: Centenary of Architecture Exhibition

Posted on 14 September 2018 by Sarah Lorien

The Library wishes the Faculty of Architecture a Happy 100 Year Anniversary! With the introduction of an Architecture degree at the University of Sydney in 1918, opportunities were created for Australians to contribute to the architectural landscape.

We have two small exhibitions featuring the Faculty’s early years:

The SciTech Library displays the academic work of three women graduates – Rosette Edmunds (1924), Marjorie Holroyde (née Hudson) (1924) and Helen Turner (1930).

Fisher Library features the childhood drawings of Leslie Wilkinson, the first Professor of Architecture at the University from 1919 to 1947, as well as his professional architectural plans including a commission for a house in Boambillee Avenue, Vaucluse and his illustration for the Circular Harbour scheme.

The exhibition runs from 4th September to 19th October. Viewers are welcome to draw their own conclusion between Wilkinson’s Punch magazine cover and the gargoyles around the Main Quad.

Library App – your digital library card

Posted on 11 September 2018 by Sarah Lorien

Your device becomes your digital library card with the University of Sydney Library app – when borrowing books scan the digital card within the app at the self service checkout.

Get persistent authentication – you can log in once and then have access to your borrowing, loans and fines information. It also enables you to request items from the catalogue and access our databases without the need to re-authenticate again.

Fast search of our catalogue by scanning any book’s ISBN by using the camera on the phone.
Easy access to our 360 virtual tours, opening hours, study space booking, news & events, social media channels and Chat Now/ Ask Us Now services.
And more…

The app is a free download on the Apple and Google app stores.

The Library app transforms your mobile device into a digital library card

Rare Bites: Something Spanish – A glimpse into the Liturgical Music Manuscript collection

Posted on 10 September 2018 by Dannielle Williams

Since 2002 Sydney University has been building a collection of Spanish Liturgical Chant Manuscripts dating from the thirteenth to the eighteenth centuries. While on the surface these books seem to present just a collection of often barely decipherable dots on parchment they all originally had lives of their own, and hidden within them are stories, contexts and meanings. As we take a glimpse into some of these manuscripts we will rediscover some music of earlier centuries as we interrogate some of these unique artefacts and uncover some of their secrets.

When: 26 September 2018; 1-1.30pm

Where: Fisher Library, Level 2, Seminar Room

Speaker: Jane Morlet Hardie

Rare Bites is a series of informal and entertaining 30 minute lunchtime talks held monthly during semester in 2017 and beyond. If you want to learn about some of the treasures and lesser-known gems within Rare Books & Special Collections at the University Library, this is your opportunity. Audience attendance is free. Please register here.

About the speaker: Jane Morlet Hardie is a musicologist and librarian who has been studying and writing about Spanish manuscripts and their music for more than 30 years. She has published extensively on Iberian manuscripts, sacred polyphony and liturgical chant of the Medieval and Early Modern periods. Following postgraduate study in the United States, she has given guest lectures in Spain, taught at the Universities of Michigan and Sydney and was a Senior Fulbright Scholar at Harvard where she wrote a book on Spanish Lamentations sources and their music.

Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Knowledges series: Art

Posted on 4 September 2018 by Sarah Lorien

Our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Knowledges series continues, with this fourth seminar focusing on Visual Art. It will be held on Friday, September 21, and we will welcome three distinguished speakers – Djon Mundine, Dr Lynette Riley, and Janelle Evans.

Djon Mundine OAM, a member of the Bandjalung people of northern New South Wales, is a distinguished pioneer Aboriginal curator and artist. As a foremost figure in the Australian art world, he is an activist, writer, commentator, and critic. Djon will speak about the concept of art curation within Aboriginal knowledges, and how art was created as a communal, social and political act as a reaffirmation of and commitment to the relationship or participants to each other, to society, to the land-environment and to the spiritual cosmos.

Dr Lynette Riley is a Wiradjuri Gamilaroi woman and Senior Lecturer at Sydney School of Education and Social Work. Lynette is also a highly-regarded artist whose revitalisation and re-production of kangaroo and possum skin cloaks is an essential tool to re-claim traditions lost and as a way of re-affirming cultural identity. Through the process of creating the Cloaks Lynette utilises and shares knowledge from her community Elders and is re-learning Wiradjuri and Gamilaroi symbols to assist in explaining connections to culture and our environment.

Janelle Evans is of Dharug descent. She is an award-winning visual artist who exhibits internationally, and is a current PhD candidate at the University of Sydney, where she also teaches painting. Janelle will be talking to us about the concept of NAANYILI, which means deep looking in the Sydney Dharug language, and how she has applied this to her current exhibition which creatively reinterprets the objectifying photographic practice of nineteenth-century colonial ethnographers, inviting the viewer to find new ways of perceiving Aboriginal women than that projected by the myths and stereotypes formulated during the colonial period.

Seminar attendance is open to all University staff and students and presents a wonderful opportunity for those wishing to learn more about the rich cultures of our First Nations peoples. I encourage you to register early, as spaces are limited.

Detail from work by Artist Dr Lynette Riley, “Wilay, the Dubbo-ga Clan Totem”

Quick Bites: Webinar series

Posted on 15 August 2018 by Dannielle Williams

The Library’s Quick Bites program – a series of short webinars targeted at postgrad researchers – is back for Semester 2.

Quick Bites are designed to make your research practices better, smarter, and faster. We’ll be covering topics such as using social media to increase engagement, publishing for impact, avoiding digital chaos, finding collaborators for your research and more…

Social media for research engagement

How do you get started in social media? How do you engage new audiences with your social media channels? Hear one researcher’s experience with social media, and how you can use social media to support engagement with your research.

Presenters: Dr Cameron Webb, Medical Entomologist & Pat Norman, Academic Liaison Librarian

Date: 14^th September 2018

Time: 1:15-1:45pm

Register

Ensure your audience finds your paper

Join Academic Liaison Librarian Tom Goodfellow and Computational Evolutionary Biologist Simon Ho to find out how to increase the citation rates for your research through clear and effective authoring of titles, abstracts and keywords and improve the community impact of your research with the use of clear, accessible language.

Presenters: Simon Ho, Computational Evolutionary Biologist, & Tom Goodfellow, Academic Liaison Librarian

Date: 21 September 2018

Time: 1:15-1.45pm

Register

Strategic Publishing

Do you want to publish with impact? Learn about how to publish your articles strategically to maximise engagement with your audience. We’ll cover how to create a shortlist using useful tools, publishing in journals for maximum discoverability and more.

Presenters: Dana Slaven, University Library & Vindhya Hettige, Research Portfolio

Date: 28 September 2018

Time: 1:15-1:45pm

Register

Managing images in a manuscript or thesis

Not sure about how to find quality images for your thesis or attribute them? Join us to hear about managing digital images in your manuscript or thesis. By the end of this session you’ll know where to find information on creating a Figure List and attributing your images in line with your preferred citation style and will be able to find, manipulate and insert quality images into your manuscript.

Presenters: Celia Brown, Academic Liaison Librarian & Kayla Maloney, Data Analysis Officer

Date: 5 October 2018

Time: 1:15-2:45pm

Register

How to avoid digital chaos

Have you ever found yourself lost in (digital) paper? This session will discuss the best information management tips and how to avoid the chaos that comes with higher degree research.

We’ll discuss the ability to manage data and evidence to formulate a critical argument, identifying evidence and secondary material that supports independent research projects, managing and using large amounts of secondary material, and how to distinguish vital evidence from large amounts of primary sources.

Presenters: Associate Professor Nick Eckstein, Department of History, & Tess Aitken, Academic Liaison Librarian

Date: 8 October 2018

Time: 2:15 – 2:45pm

Register

Finding collaborators for your research

Why is research collaboration important? Join Academic Liaison Librarian Kamy Ooi, and HDR Coordinator Ben Breeds from the Sydney Business School, to hear about the tools you can use to identify potential collaborators for your work, including SciVal, InCites, ResearchGate and Twitter. We will also provide tips on how to manage your own research profile to promote yourself as a potential collaborator to others.

Presenters: Ben Breeds, Sydney Business School & Kamy Ooi, Academic Liaison Librarian

Date: 19 October 2018

Time: 1:15-1:45pm

Register

Text and Data Mining

Heard about Text and Data Mining (TDM) and wondering if it might be a good fit for your research? Find out what text and data mining is and how it can usefully be applied in a research context. Also learn about data sources for text and data mining projects and support, tools, and resources for learning more.

Presenters: Ryan Stoker, Research Data Officer and Gene Melzack, Digital Curation Officer

Date: 26 October 2018

Time: 1:15-1:45pm

Register

Overcoming the challenges of higher degree research

Being an HDR student can be challenging. Join us at this half hour session, as we chat to a current PhD student about overcoming some of the unique challenges that Higher Degree Research students face.

Date: 7 September 2018

Time: 1:15-1:45pm

Now closed

Discover the Library on Open Day – Saturday Aug 25

Posted on 14 August 2018 by Sarah Lorien

Your Library is so much more than just books. On Open Day visit our study spaces, join us in a tour of Fisher Library and learn how the team will support you through your studies at University. And then there’s ThinkSpace – our technology showcase and creative play space…

Open Day is the perfect opportunity to introduce you to some of our creative and virtual reality technologies proven to spark ideas and provide opportunities for collaboration! Come in to ThinkSpace and try our 3D printer, Carvey and our One Button Recording Studio, or experience the world of virtual reality with Oculus Rift.

Our friendly staff will be on hand to explain the technologies, answer questions and show you some of the other great features of our libraries.

Tours will also be run throughout the day at the Conservatorium of Music.