Have you been told by your professor to use scholarly or peer-reviewed articles for your research paper? Wondering what that means and how to get them?
Peer-reviewed (or refereed) journals send submitted manuscripts to other experts in the same discipline so that they can assess the quality of the potential article before it’s accepted for publication.
Many article databases offer a check box that limits results to scholarly/peer-reviewed publications. However, the results may include book reviews, etc., that you would not want even though they were published in scholarly journals.
Look for the characteristics of a scholarly article, which are listed on the Library’s guide “Scholarly Journal vs. Popular Magazine Articles.” There’s a YouTube video from another library called “Magazines vs. Scholarly Journals” to view: 
You also can look up a publication’s title in UlrichsWeb, which describes journals, magazines, etc.
If in doubt, ask a librarian for help!
How’s your financial IQ? According to the executive summary of the FINRA Investor Education Foundation’s 2009 report “Financial Capability in the United States,” respondents to a national survey demonstrated a low level of financial literacy. Here are couple of places to test yours:
You can search HALCat (Andersen Library’s online catalog) for materials about personal finance, investments, or financial literacy. Some titles are intended to guide and educate you, such as The road to wealth: A comprehensive guide to your money (2nd-floor Browsing Books, HG179 .O758 2008). Others are about better educating our children, such as Financial literacy education: What do students need to know to plan for the future?: Hearing before the Subcommittee on Education Reform of the Committee on Education and the Workforce, U.S. House of Representatives (online or in print in the 2nd-floor Federal Documents collection, Y 4.ED 8/1:108-39) and Planning curriculum in personal financial literacy (2nd-floor Wisconsin Documents collection, ED 6/2:C 87/P 47/2009). The latter title is intended to help Wisconsin teachers implement the state’s standards for students’ personal financial literacy.
Search article databases for information also, and find articles such as “Integrating Personal Finance Concepts into the Financial Accounting Course” (Business Education Forum, Oct. 2009, vol. 64:no. 1, pp. 17-22 — available in the 1st-floor Periodicals Collection) and the Sept. 4, 2009 issue of CQ Researcher on “Financial Literacy” (which includes a discussion of whether courses that cover personal finance should be mandatory in schools).
There also are a number of web sites for improving your financial knowledge. Here are just a few:
Please ask a librarian for assistance with finding materials.
The University Library is a federal depository with many federal, state, local, and international documents on a variety of current and relevant issues available to you in print, microfiche, CD-ROM, and electronically. Come check out your government at the University Library!
Charles Wheelan will speak about “Naked Trends: What Can Basic Economics Tell Us About The Future” on Mon., Feb. 15 @7pm in the Young Auditorium. This talk is part of the 2009/2010 Contemporary Issues Lecture Series sponsored by the College of Letters and Sciences.
Charles Wheelan is a faculty member at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy and a former Midwest correspondent for The Economist. He writes Yahoo! Finance’s “Naked Economics” column, and he also has written for various publications such as the Chicago Tribune, New York Times, and Wall Street Journal.
His 2003 book, Naked economics: Undressing the dismal science, attempts to make economics more accessible for nonexperts. UWW students and staff may borrow it from other UW libraries via the free Universal Borrowing service. The article “Of pies and men” (Across the Board, Jan/Feb 2004, vol. 41:no.1, pp. 7-8) provides a brief excerpt from the book.
Were you awake for the quake on Wednesday morning? Have you been following the news about the ongoing recovery from the January 12th earthquake (and its aftershocks) in Haiti? Are you interested in learning more about earthquakes?
Andersen Library has information, and so does the federal government.
Search HALCat, Andersen Library’s online catalog, to find titles such as Apocalypse: Earthquakes, archaeology, and the wrath of God (3rd-floor Main Collection, CC77.N36 N87 2008) and After the Earth quakes: Elastic rebound on an urban planet (3rd-floor Main Collection, QE539.2.E42 H67 2006).
Search Library article databases to find articles such as “Geologists to evaluate future Haiti risks” (Nature, January 21, 2010, vol.463:no.7279, pp. 276-277) and “Effects of recent environmental changes on global seismicity and volcanism” (Earth Interactions, 2008, vol. 13:no.4, pp. 1-14).
The U.S. Geological Survey has materials on earthquakes, such as Earthquake hazard in the heart of the homeland (including a shaking-hazard map for the U.S.), and there’s even a “Did You Feel It?” web site for you to report whether you felt Wednesday’s earthquake.
Please ask a librarian for assistance with finding materials.
The University Library is a federal depository with many federal, state, local, and international documents on a variety of current and relevant issues available to you in print, microfiche, CD-ROM, and electronically. Come check out your government at the University Library!
UW System libraries are testing bX Recommender until Feb. 28. Try it and tell us what you think of it!
bX Recommender is a scholarly article recommender service. It suggests additional relevant articles, similar to “More Like This” or “If You Liked This, You’ll Also Like…” on sites such as Amazon. Recommendations are based on article usage by nearly 2,000 users at research institutions around the world. Learn more about it on our database trials web page.
How do you use it? After doing a search in a database or SuperSearch, just click the 
button! However, not every article will have recommendations for additional articles, especially newer articles that not many researchers have looked at yet! See a screenshot below.
How do I provide feedback? Complete a survey at https://milwaukee.qualtrics.com/SE?SID=SV_6tfBduAXuyTqroo&SVID=Prod
Thank you!!
On Feb. 1st in 1884, a portion of the first Oxford English Dictionary (OED) was printed. This venerable dictionary is going strong today. UWW students and staff have online access to it, and can even sign up to receive the “Word of the Day” by RSS feed or click on “Lost for words?” to get a random word and its definition.
Is there a hot topic you want to learn about fast? Or do you want to know what some current hot topics are?
Wikirage tracks the topics in Wikipedia that are being edited the most (during the last hour, 6 hours, day, 3 days, week, and month). The web site refers to it as “monitoring the hive mind through Wikipedia edits.” you can even follow it on Twitter.
Some of it makes absolute sense, if you follow the news. Topics getting a lot of editing earlier this week included “Nancy Kerrigan,” “Conan O’Brien,” “2010 Pro Bowl,” and “Ethiopian Airlines Flight 409.” But “Attachment theory”…hmmmm.
The Spring 2010 Fairhaven Lecture Series “Tell Me a Story: The Narrative Tradition in the Arts and Media” will look at our understanding of the world through story. All of these free and informative lectures are on Mondays at 3:00 p.m. in the Fairhaven Community’s Fellowship Hall (435 W. Starin Road, Whitewater).
- Feb 1: Beer, Guillotines, and Sunrises: Musical Storytelling in the Late Romantic Period (Mike Allsen, Music Dept.)
- Feb 8: Putting the Bayeux Tapestry in its Place (Chris Henige, Art Dept.)
- Feb 15: Competitive Speaking Examples from the UW-W Forensics Team (Jeanine Fassl, Communication Dept.)
- Feb 22: Narrative in Music from Around the World (Alena Holmes, Music Dept.)
- Mar 1: What Costumes Say to an Audience, Part 1 (Marshall Anderson, Theatre/Dance Dept.)
- Mar 8: What Costumes Say to an Audience, Part 2: The Collaborative Process between Choreographer and Costumer and the Resulting Costumes (Tracey Lyons, Theatre/Dance Dept.)
- Mar 15: “Once Upon a Time…”: The Power of Storytelling in Public Speaking (Anne Mancl, Communication Dept.)
- Mar 29: That’s My Story, But I’m Not Sticking to It: Compositional Conversations (Robert Mertens, College of Arts and Communication)
- Apr 5: Digital Storytelling: How Journalists Are Adapting to the Internet (James Kates, Communication Dept.)
- Apr 12: Works on paper: Whitewater to Oaxaca, Mexico–A Cultural Narrative (Art Dept. faculty panel talking about their cultural exchange)
Videos and podcasts of previous lecture series are available:
Fall 2007 “Big Ideas at UW-Whitewater”
Spring 2008 “Our natural Wonders”
Fall 2008 “Election 2008″
Spring 2009 “My Favorite Lecture”
And if you are interested in doing research on these topics, Andersen Library may have materials! Look for books using HALCat (Harold Andersen Library’s catalog) and look for articles in article databases. Please ask a librarian for assistance.
Welcome (back) everyone! All of us at Andersen Library hope you have a good semester, and that you enjoy those extra minutes of sunlight we’re gaining daily. (Didja know? “Sunrises are seen with light created thousands of years ago in the core of the sun.” See how easy it is to learn something every day?)
Please let us know if there’s anything we can do to help you. Questions for Circulation (re due dates, renewals, interlibrary loans, reserves, etc.): call 262-472-5511. Questions for reference (re research help, databases, instruction, etc.): call 262-472-1032 or email/chat.
Spring semester hours:
Mondays-Thursdays 7:30am-Midnight; Fridays 7:30am-6pm; Saturdays 9am-5pm; Sundays 1pm-midnight (Exceptions, e.g., for Spring Break and Exams, are on the hours web page.)
Andersen Library hours for Winter Break:
Mon.-Tues., Dec. 21-22: 8am-4:30pm
Wed.-Sun., Dec. 23-27: CLOSED
Mon., Dec. 28: 8am-4:30pm
Andersen Library hours for Winterim (Dec. 29-Jan. 15):
Mon.-Wed.: 7am-6pm
Thurs.-Fri.: 7am-4:30pm
Sat.: CLOSED
Sun.: noon-8pm
Exceptions:
Thurs.-Sat., Dec. 31-Jan. 3, 2010: CLOSED
Sat.-Mon., Jan. 16-18, 2010: CLOSED
Spring Semester hours begin on Tuesday, January 19, 2010.
