MyAthens no longer works – use GUID instead

In the summer of 2009 the University of Glasgow moved from the MyAthens to the GUID service.

Your GUID  has replaced the Athens username and password for access to many e-journals, e-books and databases. If you go to the MyAthens home page, as shown above, it will no longer recognise either your Athens or your GUID log-in details; although you may still see an ATHENS link on some database, e-journal or e-book web pages, this will no longer work for you if you are a student or member of staff at the University of Glasgow.

A good way to find and access databases is via the Library web pages, you can search directly by title of a database or browse databases related to your subject.

To read more about this change go to the Spotlight on GUID Library web page.  Students will already have a GUID & password Read more about GUID for students.  Staff must register for a GUID associated password. Read more about GUID for staff.

New Image for February

This months image of the Library was kindly supplied by Mat Kowalski and highlights the crisp lines and textures formed by the trees against the buildings. Mat is an MSci Software Engineering student in the Computing Science Department.

If you have an image of the Library with a Spring theme that we could use for March we’d like to hear from you via a comment on here.

Iraq Inquiry – live evidence stream and videos of past hearings

View the live stream of evidence, watch videos or read transcripts of previous hearings (such as Tony Blair on 29th January) or find out more about the inquiry via the official site:  http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/

Ask staff in the Maps, Official Publications and Statistics Unit on Level 7 for further info about the Iraq Inquiry or any other Government materials.

SCHEDULED DOWNTIME ALERT – Alexander Street Press

Please note that there may be distruption to some Alexander Street Press collections on Saturday, January 30, 2010. Between the hours of 9:00 AM and 5:00 PM EDT / GMT-5.

If you experience any problems after the times listed, please contact the Customer Support at support@alexanderstreet.com

News from Westminster, Holyrood and Brussels

Westminster news

data.gov.uk – a new website (beta version) which opens up Government data to the public, part of “Putting the Frontline First: Smarter Government” initiative

EU compact for jobs and growth – HM Government  – Gordon Brown met with the new President of EU Council, Herman Van Rompuy, to discuss ways to increase growth in Europe

Going for Growth: Our Future Propserity – Dept. Business Innovation & Skills – the Government’s plan to restore long term growth

Intoxication and criminal liability (Law Commission Report 314/Cm 7526) – Recommendations from the Commission which would prevent defendants escaping criminal charge due to being in a drunken state at the time of offence

New opportunities: Fair chances for the future (Cm 7533) – measures to support people at key stages in life, particularly in employment and entering work

Policy options for geographic information from Ordnance Survey: Consultation – Proposals to make Ordnance Survey data freely available

Safe. Sensible. Social. Selling Alcohol Responsibly: Government response to the consultation on the code of practice for alcohol retailers – the Government has set out 5 key conditions to tackle alcohol crime in England and Wales

Social indicators (House of Commons Research Paper 10-002) – provides a wide range of statistics such as crime, education, health and population. Also includes a section on the recent cold weather

Study of the impact of changes to court rules governing media attendance in family proceedings – Summary of responses to stakeholder feedback – Ministry of Justice – a study looking at court rules which were implemented in April 2009  

Holyrood news 

Accident and Emergency Statistics During the Period of Severe Weather – shows the numbers of attendances and the waiting times at Accident and Emergency sites

Learning in Custody: Report of the Offender Learning in Custody Workstream – reports on how successful this initiative has been

Pleural Plaques Legislation – Judicial Review Update (SPICe Briefing 10-02) – a look at the judicial challenges made to The Damages (Asbestos-related Conditions) (Scotland) Act 2009 since coming into force in June 2009

Public Attitudes Towards the Scots Language – results of a recent study commissioned by the Scottish Government looking at the percentage of the adult population who use the Scots language and their thoughts on it

Scotland’s Budget Documents 2010-11: Budget (Scotland) Bill: Supporting Document for the year ending 31 March 2011 (SG 2010/2) – this booklet is provided as an aid to understanding the bill which was laid before Parliament in January 2010

Unemployment (SPICe Briefing 10-03)  – recent unemployment data at Scottish parliamentary constituency level

Brussels news 

2010 European Year for Combating Poverty and Social Exclusion – dedicated website – aims to raise awareness of these issues in the member states 

Equality between women and men – 2010 – Report from the Commission to the Council (COM (2009) 694 final) – the Commission renews its committment to promoting equality between women and men in 2010 by adopting a gender equality strategy

Monitoring the CO2 emissions from new passenger cars in the EU: data for the year 2008 – Report from the Commission (COM (2009) 713 final) – Annual report from the Commission to the European Parliament and Council

Poverty and Social Exclusion – Eurobarometer Report 321 – recent survey of public attitudes

My experiences as a graduate trainee

For the past four months of my archive traineeship I have been part of the cataloguing team at GUAS which has taught me a range of skills and allowed me to work closely with two main collections. The first, was a new Glasgow University Archaeological Society accession, composed mostly of minutes, draft minutes, agendas, publications, lecture programmes. The second was a collection of records of the Chemistry Department. My task was to arrange and catalogue both collections according to recognised cataloguing standards such as ISAD(G) and EAD.

As part of my traineeship I am also based at the Glasgow NHS Archive at the Mitchell Library for two days a week, where I have a variety of responsibilities and have been working on many ongoing tasks. I greet new readers, help with their research and also accessing the catalogues and handling records. This is a great chance to work in another archive and gives me an opportunity to interact more with readers.

Through the co-operation of the head archivist I hope to have a small display area, exhibiting some of our most interesting and informative records from the NHS archive. I proposed the idea of an exhibition in order to raise the profile of the NHS archive and inform family historians visiting the city archives that our records are a valuable resource in their research.

At the beginning of December I started my document delivery placement which has taken me out of my comfort zone and will provide me with a whole new set of skills that I am very much looking forward to gaining.

Cheryl Brown

If you are interested in becoming an archivist and would like to find out what our current trainees are working on just now please see our website.

ScienceDirect Downtime Overnight on Saturday 23rd – Sunday 24th of January.

ScienceDirect will be unavailable due to scheduled maintenance for approximately 12 hours from 1pm on Saturday, 23 January to 1am Sunday, 24 January. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause.

To read about the benefits that will be released following this shut down go to the Science Direct Releases page.

Briefly these will include:

• a better reading experience
• an extension of graphical abstracts for chemists
• an improved books search
• advanced and expert search being made available off campus
• more search refinements being released

What’s new from Holyrood, Westminster and Brussels?

Westminster news

Autumn Performance Report 2009 – HM Treasury

Building Britain’s Recovery: Achieving Full Employment (Cm 7751) : Dept. for Work & Pensions – restates the Government’s response to the recession and signals the start of the programme to return to full employment

Legal aid: funding reforms – consultation paper  - Min. of Justice -  consultation seeking views on proposals to reform the fees paid to litigators and advocates in publicly-funded criminal cases and measures to reduce spending on experts’ fees in all legal aid cases

The relationship between rights and responsibilities - Min. of Justice – A study examining the idea of constitutional responsibilities within the context of the current debate on a new British Bill of Rights and Responsibilities

Risk, reward and responsibility: the financial sector and society – HM Treasury – discussion document on possible international options to reduce the cost to taxpayers of financial sector failures 

Holyrood news 

“Advocacy makes you feel brave”: Advocacy support for children and young people in Scotland – presents findings from a recent study into advocacy support

Scottish Government’s Response to Professor Alec Spencer’s Report “Balancing Risk and Need” – looks at the recommendations made by Prof. Spencer and how the Government plans to take them forward 

Societal Cost of Alcohol Misuse in Scotland for 2007 – an independent study shows that alcohol misues could be costing the taxpayer £3.56billion a year

Wind farm schemes approved – 2 wind farm schemes near Thurso which will provide approximately 45000 homes with electicity gets the green light – News release

Brussels news 

26th Annual Report on Monitoring the Application of Community Law (2008) – Report from the Commission (COM (2009) 675 final)

Equality between women and men – 2010 – Report from the Commission to the Council (COM (2009) 694 final) – the Commission renews its committment to promoting equality between women and men in 2010 by adopting a gender equality strategy

Euro area unemployment up to 10.0% – figures released by Eurostat show 0.5% increase

European Council conclusions – 10-11 December – last meeting of the Swedish presidency and first under the Lisbon Treaty

Spain takes over the Presidency 1st Jan – 30th June 2010 – Spain is the first to take the new format trio presidency, where an 18 month work programme will be produced

United Nations Climate Change Conference – Copenhagen, 7-18 December 2009 – read about the conference, the documents produced and the decisions taken

Archive Services refurbishment – new photos

Click here for the latest pictures of our new visitor facilities under construction.

Where is the January book of the month?

Avid followers of the Special Collections book of the month series may be disappointed to notice that there is no posting for January 2010.

Instrument showing the motion of the moon from the first book of the month (August 1999)

We are currently hard at work creating a new website for Special Collections. This is giving us the opportunity to revise and update our current site, and will harmonise the look and feel of our pages so that they follow the same layout and structure as the main library website.

We are aiming for the new site to be launched in the Spring. In the meantime, we will not be adding any major new content to the current Special Collections website. We are therefore taking a break from producing books of the month!

Our book of the month feature has now run for over ten years and all the previous entries remain accessible on our book of the month archive page.  Browsing through these is a great introduction to the wonderful resources of Special Collections. We would be interested to hear your views on whether or not you think we should continue this series once the new website is up and running.

Meanwhile, we will continue to use the library blog to highlight books of interest and provide information about what is going on in Special Collections – so watch this space.