April 2015

Volume 1, Issue 1

On Shelf The University of Malta Library Newsletter

Reaxys: A New Research Tool at the Library Attention academic staff and students within the Faculties of Science, Medicine &

Surgery, Dental Surgery and Health Sciences!

The University of Malta (UoM) Library has recently licensed Reaxys!

You can access this research tool through the Library‟s online portal HyDi.

To locate Reaxys:

visit the Library website

click on HyDi

select the „Find Databases‟ option (top right hand corner)

type Reaxys in the Name field, or click „R‟ under the All Databases tab.

2

OAR@UoM and Open Access:

Martin Lochman - ERASMUS Intern

Open Access (OA) is one of the six basic principles of Open Science - a movement which strives to make all kinds of scientific research information freely available and accessible to all interested parties, including both professionals and amateurs. Michael Nielsen, a renowned Australian physicist and a promoter of this movement, defines Open Science as “the idea that scientific knowledge of all kind should be openly shared as early as is practical in the discovery process”. The main purpose of OA is to ensure the immediate and unlimited access to scientific publications and knowledge on the Internet, and in doing so, offers an alternative to the traditional model of the scientific publication process. The OA movement gained substantial popularity at the beginning of the 21st Century, and to date, many scientists across multiple disciplines all over the world have adopted this concept. Its main principles have also become an integral part of the biggest European Research and Innovation programme, Horizon 2020. In September 2014, the University of Malta Library successfully launched the first Institutional Repository (IR) on the island - OAR@UoM. This IR serves as an online archive that collects, preserves and disseminates scholarly material produced under the auspices of the University of Malta. Most of the content deposited on OAR@UoM is freely available in OA. Despite being initially launched as the University of Malta repository, Maltese national output and heritage will also be accepted for submission on OAR@UoM. OAR@UoM is set up on DSpace, a versatile open source software package commonly used for creating OA repositories. DSpace offers various features which enable long-term storage and preservation of the digital content as well as easy access and search capabilities including simple, advanced searching and browsing. It also provides additional services such as Rich Site Summary (RSS) feeds to notify registered users of new material relevant to their particular field of research. By using the repository‟s user friendly interface, scholars and researchers can easily create the metadata record by filling in the basic fields such as author, title, date, type of material, language, abstract and subject keywords, and then upload the electronic copy of their work. The platform is capable of accommodating a variety of different types of items and formats, such as articles, books/book chapters, theses/dissertations, conference proceedings, presentations, audio-visual materials, 3D objects and computer programmes.

3

Once approved by OAR@UoM Team, the material becomes immediately identifiable and accessible by both the academic community and the general public. The advantages and benefits of adapting the principles of OA are numerous. These include increasing the visibility, readership and impact of the academics‟ works and current research carried out at the University of Malta; increasing the readers‟ ability to find relevant literature; creating new avenues for discovery in digital environment; enhancing interdisciplinary research and accelerating the pace of discovery and innovation.

Future Events Open Access and its Impact on Research and Scholarship – Training event

being held on Friday 29th May 2015 at the Dolmen Hotel, Qawra, St. Paul’s Bay

The University of Malta Library in collaboration with FOSTER (Facilitate Open Science Training for European Research) will be organising a one day training event on Friday 29th May 2015 at the Dolmen Hotel, Qawra, St. Paul‟s Bay. The main objective of this event is to raise awareness and highlight the benefits of Open Access (OA) amongst researchers, scholars and post-graduate students. The event will include presentations about copyright issues in relation to OA publishing, training on how to submit research onto the University of Malta Institutional Repository - OAR@UoM and the importance of developing and implementing OA policies. The presentations will be delivered by local and foreign experts in the field.

For more details about the training event, kindly visit the Library website or the Library Facebook page.

Branch Libraries

The Health Sciences Library (HSL)

The Health Sciences Library (HSL) is situated at Mater Dei Hospital and holds a wide variety of publications related to medicine, health and dentistry including psychology and medical management. One can also find an interesting Melitensia collection comprising of publications related to the medical and health literature.

The HSL caters mainly for academics and students within the Faculties of Medicine and Surgery, Dental Surgery and Health Sciences. Undergraduates, casual staff and paramedics can borrow up to 4 books for a period of 3 weeks, while postgraduates and full-time academics can borrow up to 6 books for 3 months.

The entire hall of the HSL is a silent study area and has a seating capacity of 57. The HSL offers 4 workstations, 1 OPAC, 1 scanner and 2 photocopiers for the use of academics and students. WiFi is also available by signing in with the UoM IT Account.

Librarians Ms Rachel Grixti, Mr Ivan Portelli and Mr Gordon Carter are always ready to assist patrons with their information needs.

“If you only read the books everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.”

Haruki Murakami

4

From left to right: Gordon Carter, Rachel Grixti, Ivan Portelli

Training Workshops

The University of Malta (UoM) Library is committed to provide first rate instruction sessions and workshops for academics, students and support staff. The scope of these sessions is to teach patrons how to effectively use information resources and services provided by the Library. By accessing the Training Workshops webpage, you can view the schedule

which is updated monthly and book a place. The duration of each workshop is

approximately 1 hour.

HyDi HyDi (Hybrid Discovery) is your one stop search gateway to both print and online

Library resources. Library patrons have found HyDi as a very useful and powerful tool

for their research. By attending a workshop you will learn how: -

simple and straightforward it is to use HyDi

you can search through all the Library‟s print and online resources at the

same time

you can meet your needs and expectations in terms of speed, ease of use

and relevance of results

you can save search results and access them anytime you want

So what are you waiting for? Call or send us an email to book your place now!

It’s Easy! It’s Exciting! It’s what you Expect!

RefWorks RefWorks is a software that will help you compile your bibliography just with a click of

a button! During the workshop you will learn how to: -

add references manually into your personal RefWorks account

export references from online sources such as Google Scholar and online

databases that the Library subscribes to

save references in different folders according to your assignments and

research

create a bibliography in your preferred output style

use Write-n-Cite - a tool that will help you insert in-text citations and

footnotes in your assignments, dissertations, long essays, projects or

articles, etc.

Compiling your bibliography can be tedious and frustrating, therefore why not

book your place now!

5

OAR@UoM OAR@UoM is the UoM’s Institutional Repository. Its aim is to collect, preserve and disseminate online scholarly material produced at the University of Malta. This workshop is designed for academics, researchers and technical staff who are involved in research and publishing, and for Project Managers who are steering European-funded projects. During the OAR@UoM workshops, you will learn how to: -

create a submitter account and edit your profile search through the different communities, sub-communities and collections

available on the Institutional Repository deposit content using the two submit options (mediated or self-deposit) fill in the submission forms using appropriate metadata

If you want your research to be more visible and to support the Open Access Initiative, join us for this workshop!

Electronic Theses & Dissertations (ETDs) ETDs workshops are designed for final year students who are preparing to submit their dissertations. In the session, you will learn how to: -

organize the dissertation add headings, tables and figures create a Table of Contents and bookmarks name the file save the content in PDF format, etc.

ETD workshops for groups and one-to-one sessions are organised on request. To reserve a place or need assistance, send us an email!

Contact Details:

Email Address: library@um.edu.mt

Contact Number: 2340 2541

URL: www.um.edu.mt/library

www.facebook.com/uom.libraryservices

6

Cannot attend our sessions? Ask us for one-to-one sessions that fit your schedule or visit our video tutorial!