Book: Research Question

Richard Andrews, Research Question is a 89-page book. I consider it as a "guidebook" of research methodology. This tiny book is divided into 9 chapters:

Chapter 1: The nature of questions
Chapter 2: How questions emerge from topic areas or "problems"
Chapter 3: Formulating research question
Chapter 4: Distinguishing main from subsidiary questions
Chapter 5: Contributing questions
Chapter 6: How research questions determine the methodology
Chapter 7: Problems with research questions
Chapter 8: Other ways of starting research
Chapter 9: Summary

If you are looking for a quick reference book, this is one of those you should look for.

Tornado in Syracuse!

Believe or not, we had a tornado warning yesterday afternoon. During our pro-seminar class, one person suddenly said, "there is a tornado warning until 10 pm tonight." Everyone "stopped" and said, 'what?" - tornado warning in Syracuse!

In the past weeks there are more than 100 tornado visits in Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma - the midwest states. It's the first time I heard that there is a tornado warning in upstate New York.

Theses and Dissertations Links

Dissertation links

Dissonline

http://www.dissonline.de/

The electronic dissertation repository of the German National Library. It contains more than 50,000 full-text doctoral dissertations and post-doctoral theses. The website is in German only but many of the dissertations were written in English. It supports full-text searching. CLick "recherche" to start searching.

British Library ETHOS: Electronic Theses Online Service

http://ethos.bl.uk/Home.do

A "single point of access" where users can search the theses produced by the higher education institutions in the UK. Full text is available for download it the institution supports open access.

Australian Digital Thesis Program

http://www.caul.edu.au/caul-programs/australasian-digital-theses

Provides access to thesis information from over 30 universities in Australia. Users can limit their search to digital theses only and access the full-text.

National Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations in Taiwan

http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/cgi-bin/gs32/gsweb.cgi/login?o=dwebmge&cache=1303673290437

Provides searchable access to all available abstracts approved by the Ministry of Education of Taiwan

Chinese Electronic Theses and Dissertations Service (CETD)

http://www.cetd.com.tw/ec/index.aspx

Provides free access to citations, Chinese and English abstracts, table of contents and references of theses and dissertations from universities in Taiwan and University of Hong Kong. Full-text is also available for many titles, but users need to pay for downloading some of them.

CNKI

http://search.cnki.net/

A search engine for searching across four databases from CNKI, which indexes about 8,000 journals and magazines, theses and dissertations from 300 universities, conference papers, and articles from around 1,000 newspapers covering all subjects.

HKUST

http://lbxml.ust.hk/mail.html

Contains full images of the doctoral dissertations and master's theses of postgraduate students of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

DSpace@MIT: MIT's Institutional Repository

http://dspace.mit.edu

MIT's online institutional repository containing MIT Research in digital form, including over 20,000 MIT theses, preprints, technical reports, working papers, conference papers, images, and more.

Hong Kong University theses online

http://sunzil.lib.hku.hk/hkuto/index.jsp

Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD)

http://www.ndltd.org

Links to universities, organizations, and companies that provide electronic theses and dissertations on the Internet. Some dissertations can be viewed online, others with detailed bibliographic information.

Other Taiwan and worldwide theses and dissertations

http://www.lib.nccu.edu.tw/thesis/eng/links.html

Provides links to Taiwan postgraduate students' theses and dissertations. It also provides links to worldwide theses links.

These Canada Portal

http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/thesescanada/index-e-html

One can search for a specific thesis in the Library and Archives Canada's collection and access full text of Canadian theses and dissertations.

Japan LIS theses and dissertations

http://www.slis.tsukuba.ac.jp/grad/thesis/current/index-e.html

Provides free access to theses and dissertations of postgraduate students in the field of library and information science

CiNii

http://ci.nii.ac.jp

Provides Japanese dissertations - most are Japanese; some of them are in English

Japanese Theses and Dissertations

http://www.mita.lib.keio.ac.jp/reftool/right_dissertation.html

http://www.tulips.tsukuba.ac.jp/pub/dl/thesis/th-042.html

http://www.gsld.nagoya-u.ac.jp/service/library/guide/dis.htm/#search

"Invisible college" and distance education

I learned something today - The meaning of "invisible college." The concept of invisible college can track back to 17th century Royal Society. It is described as a group of scholars who were in geography proximity and had common interests.or the informatl affiliation of scholars from many institutions often in distance geographic locations. - It is probably the earliest idea of distance education.

A wonderful children book about chickens

McMillan, Bruce's The problem with chickens. It is a chicken story up in north Iceland. The story is humorous and funny. This colorful book is illustrated in a folk-art style. It makes you laugh and it makes you smile in your heart. I love it! [even though I am not a kid]

It is a wonderful story about chickens - it is also New York Times best illustrated book!
Check it out!

Book on Institutional repositories

Are you looking for a book about insitutional repositories?

Are you looking for a book on the current institutional repositories related issues?

Are you looking for a real life experience of open access and institutional repositories?

If you answer these question "yes", then you need to read this book:

Catherine Jones, Institutional Repositories: Content and Culture in an Open Access Environment.

I like this book because it is written and it is driven from author's own work experience.

New form of cyberspace attack?

It is hard to believe that I am one of the victim of the cyberspace attackers.

Virus attack is not a new issue about Internet. I have been very careful NOT to download anything from the Web. Yet I found that there is a new kind of virus attack. I was surfing on the web and suddenly a pop up meesage came up, informing me that my computer has been infected, totally 35 infections. Then it gave me a choice to "clean up" or "ignore" the offer. I was panicking when I saw 35 infections on my computer; thus I click on the "clean up" - Once I clicked on the OK, then I was caught by the fake virus clean up site. It is too late to realize that it is a fake virus protection program. By clicking the OK button, I actually allowed the person intruded to my computer and get my personal information. As a result, my computer was severely "damaged". I have a virus protection on my computer; but it was also disabled because of this new form of virus attack. Where is the safety of cyberspace? Where is the cyberspace police?

BE AWARE!!!!!

The disappearing of magazine racks at the library

With the new technology and the use of digital resources, the journal racks at the library are disappearing! Libraries continue cutting their printed journal subscription. The racks are so "empty." So are the microfim and microfiche collections. We are not only using less and less printed journals; we also are not utilizing less the microfilm and microfiche collections. The micro format reader machines are very "lonely" at the library compared to the other side of the library where the computers are located. -: ))

Role of public library in the digital age

Someone asked me the other day whether the public library is "dead" - less people visit the local public library. Yap! Most people requested their materials via the library online systems and do not have PHYSICALLY in the library to look for reading materials. Well we have to remember that the local public library provides some services that users cannot get via "online" such as library programs, storytime, computer classes, book discussion groups.

I won't say that the public library is "dead" - it is just the role of library has changed from "ownership" to access. Yet there are so many services that library users still need to be physically at the library. The public library is a place of "gathering" for the community.

There is one thing that has certainly changed at the public library - librarians do not say "shhh" anymore.

Open access e-journal articles and printed articles

With the new technology advancement, most researchers are embracing the convenience of using electronic publications for therir studies and scientific works. I am no exception. Yet there are two advantages of printed journal over electronic publications.
(1) In the electronic world, i is difficult to replicate the serendipitous discovery of useful articles which is very easy to do so by browsing a physical journal issue. In order to perform a search, you need to have use keywords and subjects. You cannot just browse and discover useful journals.
(2) For the library standpoint, it is hard to trace collection usage.

Having mentioned these two disavtanges, I still feel that the electron publications offer more that printed journals, for instance, electronic publcations are able to link to simulations, graphics, and underlying data which print medium cannot offer. it is much faster to deliver e-journals than printed journals, electronic access allows for multiple concurrent use of the same subscription so the journal is always availablefor users.

Reference librarian and digital libraries

On my way to work this early afternoon, I turned on the radio and listened to an interveiw of a reference librarian in Massachusetts. The host and the reference librarian discussed the changing role of a reference librarian at the public and academic libraries in the past decade. Only a few minutes, I have an impression that the reference librarian who was on the air, does not even want to hear the term "digital library." (?) She pointed out so many unrealistice negative points (in my opinion) about the library's role, new appearance and services in the digital era.  -:)) Sadly I ended up to turn off my radio

Well ... getting people to change certainly is NOT easy. But I am very surprsied to hear a "resistance" from a reference librarian! I hope that the radio listeners know that those comments are from ONE reference librarian and her opinions definitely do not represt all reference librarians - probably only a very feww librarians agree with her.

Books on animal cruelty/animal rights

Ihave pet chickens and I buy organic food from a local farmer. I usually go, get the grains, and leave. But this time I had a little time so I chatted with the farmer and walked around his farm. He showed me his chicken coops and chickens. ... I wish I did not visit the coops. The living condition of the chickens on the farm is heartbreaking... I understand that he is the fifth generaions of his family who runs the farm. There is nothing I can say to him. On the other hand, I guess, it is nature for farmers do NOT attach to the farm animals. What do I expect?

You can find books on animal cruelty with a second; but here is a very useful link about books on anilam rights:

http://www.veganism.com/books.html

MLS/MLM program in Hong Kong's university - Finally

There has not MLS program in any Hong Kong universities for decades. FINALLY, HKU is now offering a MLS program. It is the one and only one program at the universities in Hong Kong. I am glad. The "official name" of the program is called Master of Library and Information Management. It is designed for working professionals - classes are in sessions during the evenings. The program consists of three modules. For details, visit the HKU Faculty of Education web site:

http://web.edu.hku.hk/programme/mlim/

Blogs - scholarly communication?

I have read a few articles about digital scholarly communication in the past few days. Blogs are considered a type of digital scholarly communication; yet it is the one which lifecycle can be very short because of lacking contributions from readers. The creators of the blogs will soon lose their interests to maintain the blogs. The blogs then become "orphan blogs." It is interesting how people used "orphan" to portray inactive blogs.

Some university libraries used blogs to communication to their students, staff, faculty, and library users. Most of these blogs are "informative" and they do not necessarily receive feedbacks from the readers. I do not see those blogs as "orphan blogs."

There are so many types of blogs on the web. Some of them are created just for disseminating information to certain readers, not for receiving feedbacks or comments.

May Fourth Movement - May 4, 1919 五四運動

The May Fourth Movement was a Chinese anti-imperialist, cultural, and politcial movement. On that day mass university students rallied on the streets in Peking, protesting against the government's response to the Treaty of Versailles that imposed on China.

It is a day to remembered.

Bravo! The King's Speech

I have heard so many positive comments about this movie; yet I haven't see it until last night - I got it from the local library after waiting for months.

It is a story of Prince Albert who "accidentally" became the King of England because his brother gave up the kingdom for a woman he loved. It is a well-known story. This movie successfully portrayed the principle story. The messages I got from this Academy Award movie are:

(1) The powerful of love - Prince Edward's love for Mrs Wallis Simpson, an American divorced woman. He chose his love over the throne of England. It was the love story of the century which I heard since I was a child.

(2) The King's speech therapist, Lionel Logue - he did not have any qualifications and credentials; yet he helped King George VI overcome the obstacles - made public speaking.

(3) It's a slice of history with a very real problem that many people deal with: stammering or stuttering.

Fascinating and powerful story!

Revisited: The Emperor's Club

I was sleeplessly last night. I turned on the TV and found this inspirational movie, The Emperor's Club (2002). It has been nine years since I watched this movie.

This is a teacher-student relationship story. A passionate and classic studies teacher, William Hundert found his world was shaking when a new student came to his class - a Senate's son Sedgewick Bell. Sedgewick is a typical American teen - he fooled around and paid no attention in the classroom when he first arrived. Mr Hundert made an appointment to meet Sedgewicks' father.... The meeting did not go as Mr Hundert expected. When Mr Hundert addressed the behavioral problem of Sedgewick, and stated that he has an intention to "mode" Sedgewick. Mr Bell instantly replied, "you are not going to mode my son. Your  job is to teach..."

I found that's a very compelling statement - Teacher's job is NOT to mode student but to teach students.

Considering for going to library school?

I spotted this link - For anyone who is interested in going to library school or someone who is intersted in the rankings.-

http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-library-information-science-programs

I am glad that Syracuse is rated number three. (smile)