The University Library is running a large number of trials of online resources at the moment. You can access them here:
http://www.ed.ac.uk/information-services/library-museum-gallery/finding-resources/library-databases/e-resources-trials
Our current trial databases cover a vast range of subjects and types of information, from contemporary Chinese politics, to history, philosophy, feminism, visual arts and popular culture. Please take a look at the trials on offer and explore these resources, and don’t forget to give your feedback so that we can decide whether to subscribe to them!
Thank you.
e-resources
Free open access book: Drawing Futures: Speculations in Contemporary Drawing for Art and Architecture
UCL Press has launched a brand new open access book: Drawing Futures: Speculations in Contemporary Drawing for Art and Architecture, edited by Laura Allen and Luke Caspar Pearson.
Drawing Futures brings together international designers and artists for speculations in contemporary drawing for art and architecture.
Despite numerous developments in technological manufacture and computational design that provide new grounds for designers, the act of drawing still plays a central role as a vehicle for speculation. There is a rich and long history of drawing tied to innovations in technology as well as to revolutions in our philosophical understanding of the world.
In reflection of a society now underpinned by computational networks and interfaces allowing hitherto unprecedented views of the world, the changing status of the drawing and its representation as a political act demands a platform for reflection and innovation. Drawing Futures will present a compendium of projects, writings and interviews that critically reassess the act of drawing and where its future may lie.
Drawing Futures focuses on the discussion of how the field of drawing may expand synchronously alongside technological and computational developments. The book coincides with an international conference of the same name, taking place at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, in November 2016. Bringing together practitioners from many creative fields, the book discusses how drawing is changing in relation to new technologies for the production and dissemination of ideas.
A limited number of print copies of this book are also available from https://goo.gl/kmCXs1.
It will also be available as an open access title via OAPEN library and JSTOR.
Download free: https://goo.gl/kmCXs1
JSTOR launches open access ebooks platform
JSTOR has introduced a new program to make Open Access monographs available on its platform. At the moment, 63 monographs across the Humanities and Social Sciences are available from UCL Press, Cornell University Press, University of California Press, and University of Michigan Press. JSTOR are planning to announce additional partners and hundreds more Open Access titles in the coming months.
The ebooks are freely available for anyone to use, and carry one of six Creative Commons licenses. The titles are DRM-free, and users will not need to register or log in to JSTOR to access the titles.
For further details and the full list of titles, please visit:
http://about.jstor.org/open-access
You can also access ebooks via DiscoverEd, the library catalogue, and by exploring some of our databases such as Berg Fashion Library. The best route into our subject specific databases is via the library subject guides webpage or the databases by subject page.
Change of look for WGSN website
WGSN* is our trend forecasting tool for fashion and design. Recently the website for WGSN has changed in appearance. Now when you log in (on campus) you will see a website called homebuildlife. WGSN is still accessible from this new parent website.
You can still find the WGSN pages when in homebuildlife: from the homebuildlife Main Menu choose “Design & Inspiration”, then choose “Fashion Connection” then you will see the WGSN options.
Do tell the Library if you have any problems accessing what you need.
Please note that WGSN is available on-campus only.
*WGSN: The leading online fashion trend-analysis and research service providing creative and business intelligence for the apparel, style, design and retail industries.
Win an i-Pad mini!
Would you like to be in with a chance to win an i-Pad mini? Do you use Jisc MediaHub? If so, a new survey has just gone live to gather views on Jisc MediaHub:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/FKMQKVL
As part of Project Enriched Playlists, a new Jisc-funded project, Jisc is looking into how audio-visual collections in Jisc MediaHub might be developed for Higher Education (HE) into ‘enriched playlists’:
http://bufvc.ac.uk/projects-research/project-enriched-playlists
This project will help Jisc understand and document how HE would like to use and get the most out of Jisc MediaHub’s moving image, audio and stills collections.
EDINA would be grateful for your help: please do complete the survey by 13th June 2014.
All participants who submit a completed survey will be entered into a prize draw to win an iPad mini 16GB (Wi-Fi).
To find out more about the project or this survey, please contact Hetty Malcolm-Smith, Jisc Project Manager (Content), Project Enriched Playlists (020 7393 1520 / hetty@bufvc.ac.uk).
Berg Fashion Library online goes live!
Our new subscription to the Berg Fashion Library is now live, on and off campus!
Berg Fashion Library: “the authority on world dress”: an extensive online portal which offers fully cross-searchable access to a large and growing range of Berg content collections – including the Berg Encyclopaedia of World Dress and Fashion online, e-books, reference works, and images.
Access this amazing resource via the A-Z list of all University Library databases here:
http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/information-services/library-museum-gallery/finding-resources/library-databases/databases-a-z
Or via the Art & Design list of databases here:
http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/information-services/library-museum-gallery/finding-resources/library-databases/databases-subject-a-z/database-design
To find out more about what is included in the Berg Fashion Library see:
http://www.bergfashionlibrary.com.ezproxy.is.ed.ac.uk/page/whatsinbergfashionlibrary/whats-in-the-berg-fashion-library
Exploring comics collections online
A new exhibition at the British Library, Comics Unmasked, is the UK’s largest ever exhibition of mainstream and underground comics. Featuring such iconic names as Neil Gaiman (Sandman), Alan Moore (Watchmen, V for Vendetta), Grant Morrison (Batman: Arkham Asylum) and Posy Simmonds (Tamara Drewe), this exhibition traces the British comics tradition back through classic 1970s titles including 2000AD, Action and Misty to 19th-century illustrated reports of Jack the Ripper and beyond. The exhibition is open at the British Library, London, from 2nd May to 19th August 2014.
You can see another review of the exhibition here.
By happy coincidence ECA will soon be subscribing to the excellent Alexander Street Press Underground Comics Volumes 1 and 2 database. As soon as full access to these is arranged, this post will be updated.
You will be able to access the database via: http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/information-services/library-museum-gallery/finding-resources/library-databases/databases-subject-a-z/database-design
We already have online access to the British Cartoon Archive from the University of Kent.
You can also access Comic Book Plus, a free online resource at http://comicbookplus.com. We found Comic Book Plus on http://openglam.org/open-collections/ which gives free access to the online collections of galleries, libraries, archives and museums, and is worth exploring!
Thousands of years of visual culture available free through Wellcome Images
Over 100,000 high resolution images including manuscripts, paintings, etchings, early photography and advertisements are now freely available through Wellcome Images.
Drawn from the Wellcome Library’s vast historical holdings, the out of copyright images are being released under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) licence.
This means that they can be used for commercial or personal purposes, with an acknowledgement of the original source (“Wellcome Library, London”). All of the images from the Library’s historical collections can be used free of charge.
The images can be downloaded in high-resolution directly from the Wellcome Images website for users to freely copy, distribute, edit, manipulate, and build upon as you wish, for personal or commercial use.
For more info see:
http://blog.wellcomelibrary.org/2014/01/thousands-of-years-of-visual-culture-made-free-through-wellcome-images/
Finding full text theses and dissertations
The Library offers access to a wide range of online dissertations and theses via the Theses Databases webpage which you can access via http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/information-services/services/library-museum-gallery/finding-resources/subject-guides/theses
Our theses databases include ProQuest Dissertations and Theses Full Text online. This resource contains millions of searchable citations to dissertations and theses from around the world from 1861 to the present day, together with over a million full text dissertations that are available for download in PDF format. Around 70,000 new dissertations and theses are added annually. It is available on and off campus using your EASE log-in.
The Theses Databases webpage mentioned above also gives guidance about how to submit a thesis, how to find theses by University of Edinburgh students and what the Edinburgh Research Archive (ERA) is.
More help can be found at the Scholarly Communications webpage:
http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/information-services/services/research-support/publish-research/scholarly-communications
New content added to Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive
The latest update to the Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive (EIMA) includes new Melody Maker content.
More than 300,000 pages have been added to EIMA in the most recent data update. Further content for thirteen periodicals, including three brand new titles, is now available to search and browse.
Highlights include:
- Launched in 1926, Melody Maker was the world’s first weekly music newspaper and was widely regarded as “the musician’s journal”. It appealed to a more mature audience than its long-time British rival NME (New Musical Express, also available) and devoted more coverage to “minority” interests such as jazz and folk and prided itself on a consistently serious and balanced critique of populist movements such as grunge, indie and dance. Over 1,400 issues are now available, representing more than 30 years of content, from 1968 right up to the magazine’s final issue in 2000.
- Following up on the addition of The Billboard last year, there is now even more content from this essential publication for the study of the theatre and early cinema. Over 800 issues have been added, providing unbroken coverage of the years 1963-1969 and 1976-1986 as well as filling gaps throughout the publication’s entire run.
Nearly 1,000 further issues of Variety are included in this update. In addition to filling gaps in the existing range, these issues contribute to offering complete coverage for the 1940s.
To access the ProQuest Entertainment Industry Magazine Archive, go to:
http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/information-services/services/library-museum-gallery/finding-resources/library-databases/databases-a-z/databases-e
Enjoy!
