http://internetarchive.wordpress.com/2010/03/05/alice-in-wonderland-a-look-back/

A reminder that Tim Burton’s “Alice” is just the most recent in a number of efforts to bring Lewis Caroll to the big screen. This post from the Internet Archive blog provides links to the first movie version directed by Cecil Hepworth way back in 1903 plus a later version (1915) by W W Young with one of the fiercest white rabbits imaginable! [Source: What’s New at the Internet Archive, 06-03-10]

The THES provides “news and features on policy development for both taught and research postgraduates … plus articles on what makes a good supervisor, improving the structures that support doctoral students, completion rates, changes to masters degrees and the expansion of graduate schools as well as advice to PhD students on topics such as how to survive a viva”.

MMU has online access to the THES via the LexisLibrary.

But the publishers are currently offering postgraduate students (both taught and research) a free three-month trial subscription to the print version. If you’re interested, please contact Kelly Boland at k.boland@mmu.ac.uk in the RED Office. Kelly will provide you with the promotional code and then you just need to ring the THE at 01858 438805 and quote the code to register. Sounds a good deal!

http://www.communities.gov.uk/publications/corporate/ordnancesurveyconsultation

“The document sets out for consultation the proposals made by the Prime Minister on 17 November to make available certain Ordnance Survey datasets for free and without restriction on re-use. It does this in the context of the broad long-term strategic options for Ordnance Survey. The purpose of the consultation is to hear feedback on these proposals. A list of specific consultation questions are in Annex A. Instructions for how to respond to the consultation are at the end of this summary. The closing date for responses is 17 March 2010.”

Recent feedback about the Find It! service suggests that there’s some confusion about what a Find It! link is meant to do. A Find it! icon in your list of search results is not a guarantee that MMU has a copy of the article. A Find it! icon simply provides the opportunity to quickly discover if there is an electronic copy available to you and, if no electronic copy is available, you can then link to the MMU library catalogue plus a number of other library catalogues to discover if print copies are available locally. If no copies are available, you can link to instructions on how to request interlibrary loans to obtain photocopies or electronic copies of journal articles and copies of books from, for example, the British Library.

Finally, clicking on Advanced will reveal additional options, including:
.downloading the record to your EndNote library
.creating a permanent link to include, for example, in your WebCT area or reading lists
.and running a search for similar records in Google Scholar

http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ww1lit/collections/sassoon

“Although it contains photographs and other materials, the collection centers on manuscripts of Sassoon’s poems, drawn from holdings at Oxford’s Bodleian Library and at the University of Cambridge, the New York Public Library, and the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin.” [Source: The Wired Campus, 11-11-09] The collection is headed by text from Sassoon’s Declaration against the War: ‘I am a soldier, convinced that I am acting on behalf of soldiers. I believe that this War, on which I entered as a war of defence and liberation, has now become a war of aggression and conquest.’

Venue: MMU Special Collections Gallery, 3rd floor, Sir Kenneth Green Library, Oxford Road, Manchester. For further information telephone: 0161 247 6107

Dates: Exhibition runs from 14/09/2009 - 29/01/2010
Is open Monday-Friday 10.00-16.00
Thursday 10.00-19.00 (term time only)
Saturday 12.00-16.00 (term time only)

The Story of Things — curated by Carson & Miller

In a museum ‘things’ sit beside one another in sometimes unlikely combinations. They
tell something of their own story but also produce new narratives, just by being
together.

Working with MMU Special Collections, including the North West Film Archive, artists
Carson & Miller have curated an exhibition that explores ideas of narrative, memory and
collections. MMU academic Dr. Patricia Allmer (Research Fellow, MIRIAD) explores the
activities of Carson & Miller in an essay written to accompany the exhibition: On Being
Touched. A new artists’ book by Carson & Miller - Scrapbook (the story of things) - will
be published by MMU Special Collections to coincide with the exhibition.

In tandem to The Story of Things a Righton Press publication will be launched. Stilled
Lives is a new collaborative work bringing together artists, designers, poets and writers
from across MMU. Edited by Carson & Miller this limited edition volume showcases a
striking and thoughtful range of responses to the books held in MMU Special Collections,
provoking further explorations of narrative, memory and collections.

ABOUT CARSON & MILLER: Carson & Miller’s collaborative art practice explores the
impulse to tell and re-tell stories. The artists met whilst studying at MMU and have since
developed a number of ways of working together, predominantly by utilising the artists’
book format but also exploring print and performance methodologies.

ABOUT RIGHTON PRESS: Righton Press is a research-based staff collective led by Professor David Crow. The Press draws on the Manchester School of Art’s facilities and expertise.

[Source: email from Stephanie Boydell, Special Collections, Manchester Metropolitan University, 21-09-09]

If you have an MMU staff network account and are having trouble logging into MMU’s electronic resources, it may be that your password is in the wrong format. In August, the MMU Password Policy changed and the minimum password length is now 6 characters. Additionally, passwords must include at least one upper-case letter, one lower-case letter and one number. Examples of passwords that can now be used include : Example1, Pa55word, M0nkey, Sixty9. The full policy is available on the MMU website.

Use the MMU Self Service Portal to change your password.

Summer is over and the new term begins on Monday. Time to dust the cobwebs off the Bulletin and the Blog! Unlike the Blog, the electronic library never has a holiday so there’s lots of news to send your way.

The Blog is in action from today. The first issue of the email-based Bulletin, a weekly summary of Blog postings, will be sent out to subscribers next Friday morning, the 25th.

As always, contributions from readers are very welcome. If you have a favourite electronic resource or website, news of a forthcoming conference or workshop, anything that you’d like to share with your MMU colleagues, please email details to m.harrison@mmu.ac.uk

Looking forward to the new academic year!
Mary

Feeling creative? Any wild and wonderful ideas for making our library a better place for
research — to encourage collaboration, serendipity of discovery, communication,
discovery? Read on — and feel free to send your suggestions to Mark Stubbs (MMU’s Head of Learning and Research Technologies) — m.stubbs@mmu.ac.uk

Thanks,
Mary

Mark needs your creative ideas on how to make our Libraries more effective research
spaces!

130+ academics applied to join a recent EPSRC “sandpit” on Designing Effective Research Spaces. Mark was one of 24 participants selected from different research backgrounds to attend the intensive 3 day “sandpit” in a country house hotel in the New Forest. The event was a cross between X-Factor boot camp and The Apprentice, and culminated in teams working into the early hours on outline funding proposals. Mark emerged as co-investigator in an interdisciplinary team (including Cambridge, Oxford, Warwick, the Royal College of Art and others) that was invited to work up a full proposal on developing an action-research methodology to design interventions for improving the effectiveness of spaces intended to support research activity.

Mark’s team proposed piloting the action-research approach in 3 different spaces - a research lab (in Cambridge), a research institute (in Warwick) and a library (in MMU). Each space would receive input from ethnographic/workplace studies experts for pre- and post- intervention analysis; space design and movement experts to look at new ways of using the space; IT experts to look at how the digital might complement the physical; specialists in engaging users in design; experts in smart fabrics and creating compelling art exhibits; and impact analysis experts to assess the success of the interventions.

What Mark needs to write the bid are creative suggestions for the type of interventions that the team should consider. If you had 100K and this team of experts, what would you do to make our libraries more effective research spaces?

The EPSRC have hinted that they are looking for radical interventions, rather than incremental tweaks, and the British Library is very keen to be involved. One suggestion has been to use web2.0 concepts to encourage researchers working on similar themes to get together around a Microsoft Surface table in the Library.

Time is tight: a 2 page proposal is needed for September, with the full bid submitted in October. Creative ideas on changes to library space could secure the success of the bid and make MMU a national showcase for library design work. Please do everything you can to help, and don’t reject any ideas for being too wacky - they could be the ones that turn into the real winners. Mark will be looking forward to your emails!

Professor Mark Stubbs
Head of Learning and Research Technologies
Manchester Metropolitan University
All Saints Library
Manchester, M15 6BH
+44 161 247 3739

Unfortunately there is another problem with off-campus access to the Emerald electronic journals service. A temporary solution has been found, this time different from the previous instructions. Please do the following:

1. Use the following web address http://www.emeraldinsight.com/
2. When the Emerald site opens, follow the Athens/Institutional login link
3. Do not choose Institutional: instead select Athens
4. This should take you to an Athens page containing a link to the MMU login screen
5. Input MMU network username/password
6. You will see an Athens Authentication Point screen with the following message: “Please
wait while we transfer you”
7. You should then be redirected to Emerald where the MMU logo, institutional name and the message “Welcome, MMU, you have successfully logged in” will appear as confirmation of a successful login