Great Smoky Mountains: A Park for America

Celebrate the centennial of the National Park Service by exploring WCU's digital collection, Great Smoky Mountains: A Park for America. This collection was "created to contribute to the public's understanding of the forces and ideas that led to the establishment of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park in 1934." The collection features a growing archive of photographs as well as relevant manuscripts.

New Books, August 2016

Check out the newest books and films at Hunter Library: http://researchguides.wcu.edu/newbooks

Hunter Library's 2015-2016 Annual Report

Hunter Library’s 2015-2016 Annual Report is available for viewing.

Get Published: Task Six: Post and Promote Your Work!

So you’ve spent a lot of time researching, writing, and publishing your scholarship.  Wouldn’t it be nice if someone read it?  The final task of Hunter Library's Get Published series focuses on posting your work to the institutional repository (NC DOCKS), which is as easy as sending an email, and the various methods for promoting your work.

http://researchguides.wcu.edu/getpublished/promote

Get Published, Task 5: Negotiate Your Author Rights

When your submission is accepted for publication, there are two things to do right away: 1) Celebrate! 2) Negotiate your rights as the author.  Task 5 will help you work with your publisher to retain your author rights. The guide will explain why this is important and will provide specific instructions (and a sample form) for adding a copyright addendum to your contract.

http://researchguides.wcu.edu/getpublished/authorrights

Get Published, Task Four: Write and Cite

Now that you have some potential publishing venues, it’s time to prepare your manuscript or proposal for submission. This task will walk you through your options for managing and organizing your citations and help you write for persnickety peer reviewers. 

http://researchguides.wcu.edu/getpublished/writeandcite

New Books, July

New books, films, and more at Hunter Library. Browse here: http://researchguides.wcu.edu/newbooks

Get Published, Task Three: Avoid "Predatory" Publishers

The third task in Hunter Library's scholarly publishing series  will help you identify and avoid so-called "predatory" or "bad faith" publishers.  http://researchguides.wcu.edu/getpublished/avoidpredatorypublishers http://researchguides.wcu.edu/getpublished/avoidpredatorypublishers

Get Published, Task Two: Consider Open Access Publishing

Task 2 of Hunter Library’s “Get Published”series is posted here. This week’s task invites you to consider Open Access—a great way to make your work widely available to all researchers. The guide also introduces you to the various methods for Open Access publishing and clears up some of the misconceptions surrounding Open Access. http://researchguides.wcu.edu/getpublished/OA

If you want to be notified any time a new task is published, sign up here.

Get Published! HL's New DIY Web Series

Follow Hunter Library’s series of do-it-yourself, self-paced tasks to:

·         find places to publish your scholarly work, including open access venues,

·         write queries to publishers,

·         negotiate your rights as an author, and

·         avoid “predatory” publishers.  

Every week or so, there will be a new task, with accompanying information, to walk you through the process of getting published.  

Start with Task #1, Find The Right Journal or Book Publisher for You.

To participate throughout the summer, you can sign up to be notified when a new task is available, visit this page at your convenience, or look for new tasks to appear on our News Blog, Twitter feed, or Facebook page.

New Books, June 2016

Not sure what to read next? Browse Hunter Library's new books. New arrivals include fiction, nonfiction, graphic novels, horror, mysteries, cookbooks, romance, children's books, and DVDs.

New Books, May 2016

Ready for some summer reading? Browse through the library's new books page to discover all of our new books, films and audio.

24/5 Library Hours for Final Exams

Hunter Library Open 24/5 Last Two Weeks of Spring Semester

Western Carolina University students who need a quiet place to study for final exams will find Hunter Library open on a 24/5 schedule starting at noon on Sunday, April 24th. The library will be open continuously until 10pm, Friday, April 29th. Library hours for Saturday, April 30th will be 9am until 9pm. Hunter Library will re-open at 9am on Sunday, May 1st and remain open until 6pm on Friday, May 6th. 

Free coffee and other hot beverages will be available every night starting around midnight while the library is operating on the 24 hour schedule.

Students looking for a truly quiet place to concentrate and study should check out the Silent Corner of Hunter Library’s ground floor.

WCU Parking and Transportation Services will extend the Cat Tran shuttle service from Hunter Library beyond its regular 2:30am end time to 7:30am while the library is on its 24 hour schedule. 

Final exams will be Saturday, April 30th, through Friday, April 6th.

NCUR Summer Exhibit: Call for Submissions

Hunter Library would like to invite students who to participated in the 2016 National Conference on Undergraduate Research to be featured in our summer exhibit (June-August).  If you would like your work displayed, complete this form and drop off any poster or presentation materials at the Honors College office or Hunter Library’s Reference Desk by Friday, May 13^th.

If you are graduating and/or would rather not part with your items, we would still love to showcase your work digitally, so please fill out the form and upload your poster/presentation files.  Exhibit participants will be allowed to reclaim any physical items at the end of August when the exhibit is dismantled.  

For more information, contact Elizabeth Marcus at 227-3398 or emarcus@wcu.edu.

New Books and Films, April 2016

New Books at Hunter Library

New books are arriving daily! Check out our new books page. Browse through the carousel of leisure reading books or take a look at the lists of all new books, new films, and new audio.

HUB Library Volunteer Day: April 15

 

You are invited to participate in the next volunteer day at Jackson County School of Alternatives' HUB library on Friday, April 15, from 10am-Noon or 1-3pm.

We need volunteers to weed, sort, catalog, label, and shelve books – no experience needed.

A shuttle will be available behind the UC at 10am and 1pm and return to campus by Noon and 3pm.  Any participants are also welcome to drive themselves.

Please sign up here if you would like to attend and reserve a seat in the van, if needed.

You can read about the project in the WCU Reporter.

Edible Book Contest: April 14

Edible Book Contest

Thursday, April 14

10am- Entries Accepted

10am-2pm- Voting

2:30pm-Winners Announced & Entries Sampled

Prizes for winners include:

$25 WCU Bookstore gift card

Jackson County Farmers Market cooler bag and $10 in market coins

A book about food creations from City Lights Bookstore

Culinary creations inspired by books will be admired, judged and then eaten during the annual edible book contest to be held Thursday, April 14. WCU students, faculty and staff members and other visitors to the library on the day of the contest will cast ballots to choose the winners. Prizes will be awarded in several categories, including best visual, most edibly appealing, most creative and people’s choice.

Entries in the competition should be brought to the library before 10 a.m. on the day of the contest. Voting will take place between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. The entries will be sampled shortly after 2 p.m. and winners announced at 2:30 p.m.

In past years, the edible books contest has drawn entries ranging from pies and cakes to vegetables dishes and fruit salads. Last year’s winner, a pound cake with white and chocolate frosting and topped with melted caramels, looked just like a hiking boot. The entry by Shirley Finegan was inspired by The Appalachian Trail: Celebrating America’s Hiking Trail, a book by Brian B. King.

Any entry that is edible and relates to a book or book title is welcome in the competition. The dishes will be on display on the main floor while the competition is underway.

For more information, visit the Circulation Desk or call 227-7485.

Card Making Classes: April 11

National Library Week Celebration 2016

Card Making Classes

Monday, April 11

2-4pm & 4-6pm

HL245

Sign up at the Circulation Desk.

For more information, call 227-7485 or visit the Circulation Desk.

 All NLW events are free and open to the public.

GIS Workshop- Wednesday, April 6

An Introduction to GIS, with Dr. Rebecca Dobbs

April 6  3-5 PM

Stillwell 354

                    

Why is GIS such a powerful tool for humanities and social science scholarship and for community projects? Find out in this workshop while getting hands-on instruction aimed at absolute beginners, presented by a scholar experienced with historical, qualitative, and social GIS uses. Dr. Rebecca Dobbs  teaches human geography in the Department of Geosciences and Natural Resources. 

Space is limited to the first 25 registrants.

Register here

For registration questions, contact Liz Skene, Digital Initiative Librarian, at emskene@wcu.edu.

For more information about workshop content, contact Rebecca Dobbs at grdobbs@wcu.edu.

Digitization Workshop- Monday, April 4

Are you ready to start digitizing your collection but don’t know where to start? Overwhelmed by file formats, digitization standards, and file storage? This presentation will cover the equipment for digitization, best practices for scanning, file naming conventions, and introductory digital preservation practices. At the end, participants will be encouraged to share their own challenges and success with digitization. 

Elizabeth Skene is the Digital Initiatives Librarian at Hunter Library.

Register here

Zotero Workshop, March 15, 2-3 PM

Zotero is a free citation manager that allows you to save citation information while searching and browsing the Web. With a single click, Zotero saves citations and enables you to create customized bibliographies in standard citation styles, including MLA, Chicago and APA. This workshop will introduce some of the key functions of Zotero such as: installing Zotero, adding citations to your Zotero library, organizing and managing your citations, creating a bibliography, and using the Microsoft Word plug-in to easily insert citations from Zotero into your documents. Participants are encouraged to bring their personal computers so that they may download and interact with the program. Registration is encouraged.

Cara Barker is Reference and Instruction Librarian at Hunter Library.

Register here

If These Halls Could Talk: Film Viewing and Diversity Dialogue

Students, faculty, staff, and community are invited to a free showing of the new documentary, If These Halls Could Talk from Director Lee Mun Wah, who previously directed the documentary, The Color of Fear.  The film will be shown at Mad Batter Food and Film, 617 West Main Street in Sylva on Tuesday, March 1 at 7:00 p.m. as part of The College of Education and Allied Professions’ Diversity Dialog series. 

If you have ever wondered why our students and faculty of color are leaving our campuses; if you have difficulties understanding students from other cultures; if you don’t know what to say or do when a conflict occurs as it relates to a diversity issue, then the film, If These Halls Could Talk will help model for you what it takes to have conversations on diversity that are both authentic and life-changing. This film will provide a glimpse into what is still missing and what is needed if we are ever going to come together in our classrooms, on our campuses and in our communities.

The event will include interactive discussion facilitated by Kham Ward, director of Intercultural Affairs at Western Carolina University.  It is a collaboration of several campus entities including, The College of Education and Allied Professions’ Diversity Committee, Intercultural Affairs, Hunter Library, International Programs, and the Coulter Faculty Center.

If you have any questions about this event, please contact Beth McDonough, research and instruction librarian, at 828-227-3423 or bmcdono@wcu.edu.

New Books & Films, February 2016

Check out our new books page. Browse through the carousel of leisure reading books or scan the lists of all new books, new films and videos, and new audio and CDs.

New Books at Hunter Library, February 2016

Author Rights Workshop- March 2, 4-5pm

Your article has been accepted for publication in a journal, and you want it to have the widest possible distribution and impact. You would never knowingly keep your research from a readership that could benefit from it, but signing a restrictive publication agreement limits your scholarly audience and lessens your impact as an author. Come learn more about your rights as an author and discover how you can retain control of your work through the SPARC Author Addendum.

The workshop, Author Rights in a Digital Environment, will be held Wednesday, March 2nd, 4-5pm. 

Mark Stoffan, Head of Digital, Access, and Technology Services at Hunter Library, will be speaking.

Register here

 

Blind Date with a Book!

Visit the library's leisure reading collection and take a chance on literary love! You can't judge a book by its cover--the brown paper wrapping gives a few hints to help you decide if you and the book are a good match! Books can be checked out at the circulation desk.

Tech Talks Coming February 10: Call for Speakers

Tech Talks: An Evening of Digital Humanities and MakerSpace Lightning Talks

Date: February 10

Time: 5:30-6:30pm

Location: UC Theater

Call for speakers deadline: January 29
Sign up here!

Hunter Library and the Technology Commons are seeking speakers for 7-minute lightning talks on the topics of Digital Humanities, digital scholarship, and the Maker movement. This is a fun, informal event for the WCU community to share and learn from each other. Let’s spark innovation and collaboration on campus!

Not sure what to talk about? How about…

• Map making in the classroom
• Using microcontrollers to collect data
• Creating digital exhibits
• Recording and editing podcasts
• Making infographics and data visualizations
• Other projects that use digital tools or embrace the maker/DIY ethic

What’s a lightning talk? It’s short (less than 7 minutes), the slides are donePecha Kucha style (20 slides, shown for 20 seconds each), and feature mostly images (as few words as possible).

Learn more about digital humanities
Learn more about making at WCU

Questions? Contact Elizabeth Skene, Digital Initiatives Librarian, emskene@wcu.edu. 

New Resource: SAGE Research Methods

SAGE Research Methods is a research methods tool created to help researchers, faculty and students with their research projects. SAGE Research Methods links over 175,000 pages of SAGE’s renowned book, journal and reference content with truly advanced search and discovery tools. Researchers can explore methods concepts to help them design research projects, understand particular methods or identify a new method, conduct their research, and write up their findings. Since SAGE Research Methods focuses on methodology rather than disciplines, it can be used across the social sciences, health sciences, and more.

With SAGE Research Methods, researchers can explore their chosen method across the depth and breadth of content, expanding or refining their search as needed; read online, print, or email full-text content; utilize suggested related methods and links to related authors from SAGE Research Methods' robust library and unique features; and even share their own collections of content through Methods Lists. SAGE Research Methods contains content from over 720 books, dictionaries, encyclopedias, and handbooks, the entire “Little Green Book,” and "Little Blue Book” series, two Major Works collating a selection of journal articles, and specially commissioned videos.

For Tips and Tutorials, please click here.