March 2013 – Ara Library Blog

10 things about Easter

Here’s a few Easter-related goodies:

1. Easter is a moveable holiday. It is calculated as the first Sunday after the first full moon after the March equinox – I’m glad I don’t have to work that out every year! This means that it can be any time between 22 March and 25 April. This year Easter is particularly early.

2. Traditionally, Easter is a Christian festival, celebrating the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, Good Friday being the day on which Jesus was crucified, and Easter Sunday the day of his resurrection. It is the culmination of the 40 days of Lent.

3. Many of the things we associate with Easter – bunnies, baby chickens, eggs – relate to ancient concepts of fertility and birth. This makes much more sense in the northern hemisphere, where Easter is in Spring, not Autumn. A celebration of new life at a time when the leaves are falling seems like an unkind joke sometimes!

4. In New Zealand, Good Friday and Easter Monday are public holidays (with consequent time and a half and alternative days’ leave), and Good Friday and Easter Sunday are restricted trading days (with consequent news stories about floutings of trading bans). If you do have to work, make sure you know your entitlements.

5. In 1916, Irish Republicans rebelled against British rule during Easter week. After six days of fighting, during which there were many casualties on both sides, the rebels surrendered. 14 rebels were executed, and the ‘Easter rising’ heralded a new era of overt opposition to British rule.

6. Apparently, over 90 million chocolate Easter bunnies are made every year – possibly brought on by the fact that 82% of Americans would rather have a chocolate bunny than a real one!

7. Easter Parade (1948), starring Judy Garland and Fred Astaire, with music by Irving Berlin, is worth seeing – good holiday entertainment. It doesn’t look like it’s being shown on TV this year, but try your local video hire place…

8. The world’s largest Easter egg was over 7.5m high and was made of chocolate and marshmallow. Weighing just over four tonnes, the egg was supported by an internal steel frame. Now I feel ill.

9. A couple of years ago, we posted a really good hot cross bun recipe – try it.

10. CPIT Library will be closed for five days over Easter, from Friday to Tuesday. But remember, all our electronic resources will still be available. And from Friday to Monday, there will be swipe-card access to the Pod, our 24-hour computer room. Tuesday, you get a break – we’re having electrical work done, and there’ll be no access to the buildings at the Madras Street Campus.

Edible Book Competition

Feeling creative?

How about entering our Edible Book Competition which will be run on Friday 5th April.

Prizes will be awarded for the best entries in the following categories:

People’s Choice

Best Interpretation of a Book

Funniest Entry

Most Delectable Entry

Most Imaginative Entry

The first twenty people to like our CPIT library Facebook page and register for the Edible Book Festival competition online will receive a free coffee voucher for our own Visions Pantry here at CPIT.

Here are a couple more ideas we just threw together today in the Library thanks to our inventive art curator, Julie who also excels in the field of culinary arts, much to our good fortune – cake for afternoon tea! yum!

What is a DOI?

1. Some articles come with a DOI or Digital Object Identifier. These are unique to a journal article or other electronic object on the web and so, if available, they are important to be used in your APA reference list.

For example, each article in the Science Direct database has a DOI.

2. To view the DOI in the Science Direct database click on the title of your article

e.g.

3. In this example, the DOI number appears after the http : // dx . doi . org /

e.g. 10.1016/j.socscimed.2010.02.001

4. If a DOI number is present for your article it must be shown in your APA reference list.

e.g. If I correctly add the above title to my reference list it would look like this:

5. For more info on referencing with a DOI, look in your APA guide .

To find or resolve a DOI

6. To find an article where you already have the DOI go to http://dx.doi.org/ or Google doi resolver to find a suitable resolver.

7. Enter the doi of your article and select Go. e.g.

8. Your article should appear.

9. If you’re really keen click here for more background information on DOIs

10. For printable instructions click on How do I find a DOI ? – PDF

For further assistance with DOIs you can:

ask at the Library Service Desk
email library@cpit.ac.nz
ring (03) 940 8366

If you have another question you can visit the How do I …? guide.

How do I find an article in my recommended reading list

1. Start at Primo Library Search which is at http://library.cpit.ac.nz/

2. Circle the name of the journal title on your recommended reading list. – This is the title you search for in Primo Library Search.

2. Type the journal title into the Primo Search box and select GO or press Enter on your keyboard.

3. a. Select View It

b. Select Open source in a new window

4. Now you can :

a. see which issues of this journal are held in which database e.g. Available from 2003 in CINAHL with full text

[Note: You can also see this article is available from 1998 in ProQuest Central. Therefore for the 2006 issue you could select GO for either ProQuest or CINAHL databases]

b. Select Go to view the issues held by year.

journal

5. If you are at home you will be prompted to sign in. If so, sign in in the top right corner. [If you are on a CPIT computer go to number 7.]

6. Use your CPIT username and password to login.

7. From your recommended reading list

a. make a note of the year of publication of the journal e.g. 2006

b. the volume and issue numbers. e.g. 38 (4)

date

8. Note: After you click GO (step 4.b) the issues by year should appear. They are often on the far right and you may have to maximise the new window to view the years. The maximise icon is in the top right of the new window .

9. In Primo click on the year to expand e.g. 2006

10. Click on the correct issue e.g. Vol. 38 Issue 4

11. a. Scroll through the articles to locate your recommended item. e.g. Nurses’ narratives …

b. Select PDF full text to open your article.

12. Now you can choose to save this article to your computer or print it off.

13. Here are printable instructions to help you find articles in a recommended reading list – PDF

If you need further assistance with finding an article in your recommended reading list please :

ask at the Library Service Desk
email library@cpit.ac.nz
phone (03) 9408366

Still have another question? Try our How do I …? guide.

Good karma

In the library, we love the beginning of the year. After a couple of months of silence, the library comes alive again (sometimes a bit too alive, but that’s a topic for another day…)

Everyone’s still enthusiastic about their courses, assignments haven’t yet reared their ugly heads (much) and all is beer and skittles (or whatever it is the kids are saying these days).

The books are in high demand… Actually, that’s about where the love starts to wane.

I found a book yesterday that had 9 requests on it. Nine. We get books like this into the high use collection as soon as we can, but the wait, as I’m sure you know, can still be quite long – even for a three-day loan.

And now we get to the point: Managing your requests.

Once you’ve placed a request, keep an eye on it online, in the ‘My Account’ section of the Primo library search. If you decide you don’t need it anymore, cancel it – so that the next person in line can have a go.

Likewise, if you get an email saying the book is waiting for you, either come in and pick it up, or reply to the email to let us know you don’t need it anymore – so that the next person in line can have a go.

It’s about sharing, and treating others as you would like to be treated, and all that stuff you learned at kindergarten.

Give it a go. Good karma.

Photobooth success

Our photobooth session here in the library on Tuesday 26th February was a great success and great fun was had by students and staff. Check out the photos on Flickr for a giggle!

Find synonyms fast!

Here’s a tip for quickly finding synonyms (i.e. different words that have the same meaning).

Type a word into MS Word or Outlook email, highlight it with your left mouse button, then right mouse click on the highlighted word. A list of options will appear – select synonyms. You’ll often get a list of alternative words but there will also be a link to a thesaurus, so you can click that to see more suggestions.

Another trick is to use Google. Just enter define: (define colon space) followed by the word. e.g. define: thesaurus. If that doesn’t provide enough info, try clicking the extra links below the entry (see image below). The Merriam Webster dictionary even provides suggestions for words that rhyme with your word, e.g. thesaurus – Centaurus, sonorous.

These could be really handy tools if you’re trying to think of synonyms when preparing a database search, or if you want to come up with a different word to use in an essay.

If you want to explore word meanings in more depth, try the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), which contains over 600,000 words and is considered the best authority on the meaning, history and pronunciation of the English language. Bookmark the OED now or add it to your Favourites – it’s bound to come in handy!