Improve your search skills

There are still places on this Saturday's Library workshop on Improving Your Search Skills. This session will cover the general principles of preparing a search strategy and carrying out a literature search, together with useful hints and tips on how to get the best out of online databases.


Book your place now at http://www.bbk.ac.uk/lib/news/infoskills

Learn new skills - come to a Saturday workshop

The programme of Library Saturday workshops is now available on the Library web site at http://www.bbk.ac.uk/lib/news/infoskills. This term our workshops are mainly aimed at postgraduates, but all are welcome. If you would like to:

• Improve your search skills
• Find and access theses 
• Find out more about EndNote and EndNote Web
• Keep up to date in your subject area
• Learn to make the most of the Citation Indexes

book a place on a Saturday workshop. We look forward to seeing you there.

New books on scientific communication and how to be a successful scientist

Dissertation to write? Presentation to give? Here are some new books in the Library on scientific communication:

Successful science communication : telling it like it is. Edited by David J. Bennett, Richard C. Jennings.

The Craft of Scientific Presentations Critical Steps to Succeed and Critical Errors to Avoid by Alley, Michael.

The Craft of Scientific Writing by Alley, Michael.



Add interest to your writing or presentation with quotations from famous scientists - Gaither's Dictionary of Scientific Quotations or try the online Oxford Dictionary of Scientific Quotations

Want to be a successful scientist? Get some tips from those that have done it:

How to succeed as a scientist : from postdoc to professor by Barbara J. Gabrys and Jane A. Langdale.

Becoming a successful scientist : strategic thinking for scientific discovery / Craig Loehle.

The art of being a scientist : a guide for graduate students and their mentors / Roel Snieder and Ken Larner.

Good Luck in the exams

Exams are now upon us, so here are some web sites with good advice on how to give your best and relieve stress during the examination period.

Some useful information from The Exam Skills Handbook, plus a free audio download
http://www.palgrave.com/skills4study/studyskills/exams/techniques.asp

The Exam Skills Handbook is also available in the Library
http://aquabrowser.lib.bbk.ac.uk/ablbirkbeck/?q=exam+skills+handbook


The Birkbeck Student Centre have put together some online tutorials to help you - on exam preparation and managing coursework and exam stress

Cambridge University Students Union has a web site with some useful dos and don'ts, and a section specifically for Science students.
http://www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/academic/exams/

Revision and Exam Skills Top Ten Tips video from University of Leicester
http://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/careers/ld/resources/study/revision-exam-top10
and also a lot of good advice on their web site
http://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/careers/ld/resources/study/revision-exam

Don't forget that the Library is open from 8.30am to 11.45pm 7 days a week (apart from the Bank Holdays on 7th May and 4th/5th June when it will be open 10am to 8pm)

Good Luck!

Writing your Science dissertation this summer?

If you're writing a science dissertation this summer, you might be interested in the books the Library has on scientific writing. They're not in the science sections of the Library so you may not have come across them. They are mainly at 808.0665, up on Level 2.

Some of the titles you may find useful are:

• Successful scientific writing : a step-by-step guide for the biological and medical sciences by Matthews, Janice. http://ipac.lib.bbk.ac.uk/hipres/info/permalink.html?395834
• The craft of scientific writing by Michael Alley. http://ipac.lib.bbk.ac.uk/hipres/info/permalink.html?220567
• Writing for science and engineering : papers, presentations and reports by Heather Silyn-Roberts. http://ipac.lib.bbk.ac.uk/hipres/info/permalink.html?309497
• Enjoy writing your science thesis or dissertation : a step by step guide to planning and writing dissertations and theses for undergraduate and graduate science students by Daniel Holtom & Elizabeth Fisher. http://ipac.lib.bbk.ac.uk/hipres/info/permalink.html?253922

and many more - see the full list here

Some new ebooks for Earth and Planetary Sciences

Some new ebooks on Earth & Planetary Sciences recently added to the catalogue:

Life In The Universe: A Beginner's Guide

Lewis Dartnell

Invertebrate Palaeontology and Evolution

Euan Clarkson

Life in the Solar System and Beyond

Barrie Jones

Geological and Soil Evidence: Forensic Applications

Kenneth Pye

 

 New Theory of the Earth

 Don L. Anderson

 Tectonics of Sedimentary Basins

 Cathy Busby

  

Sedimentology and Sedimentary Basins: from Turbulence to Tectonics

Mike Leeder

Geological Field Techniques

Angela Coe

Electronic Resource of the Month - JISC MediaHub

JISC MediaHub is a multimedia platform offering a wealth of digital image, video and audio collections. It gives you access to images, video and audio content, all licensed for educational and research use, via an easy-to-use interface.

You can browse by collection or search across all the collections.

To see what's there, click on Explore, and choose By Subject. Then select Science and you'll see the number of resources available in categories such as Biology, Chemistry, Earth Sciences, etc. There's lots of Biomedical-related film on there too, from organisations like the Wellcome and St George's Hospital Medical School. Explore JISC MediaHub now