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Author Archives: mdilwort

Billie Girl

autobiography, books, Programs November 8, 2010 Friends of the Library, Matt Dilworth, Programs, Uncategorized mdilwort

A few days ago we were privileged to hear Vickie Weaver speak and read from her book Billie Girl, which won the 2009 Leapfrog Fiction Contest. Weaver spoke on her journey towards becoming an author, and the challenges of that work. One thing Ms. Weaver has found is that her writing has naturally gravitated to giving voice to the voiceless and underrepresented in society. This awakening began for her in college, as she discovered women’s studies classes, and now flows naturally from her novels. Ms. Weaver is an alumna of IU East, and received her M.F.A. in creative writing from Spalding University. While she is first and foremost a writer, Weaver also teaches composition and creative writing part-time at IU … Continued

New Software in the Library

IUWare, study rooms October 18, 2010 Library Services, Matt Dilworth, Uncategorized mdilwort

If you’re a regular to the library, you know about our study rooms — a great place to watch a video or work on a group project. And now there are even more possibilities. Room 145 has been equipped with the Dragon Naturally Speaking software, a speech-recognition tool, courtesy of our friends in Student Support Services. If typing a paper is difficult or uncomfortable for you, Dragon can ease the problem. You speak into the program naturally, and it figures out word spacing and the commands you give it, translating them into text. The program has a brief setup phase where it acclimates itself to your unique voice – and that profile grows and strengthens as you continue to use … Continued

The Un-Wikipedia

e-resources, reference databases October 11, 2010 Library Resources, Matt Dilworth mdilwort

Have you ever been researching a topic for class and really needed an encyclopedia? We’ve all been there, and often we click to Wikipedia. That sometimes is okay for getting you familiar with a topic, but for academic purposes, that source just isn’t reliable enough….even according to that online encyclopedia’s founder! (http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Wikipedia-Founder-Discourages/2305) Fortunately, the IU East Campus Library subscribes to Encyclopaedia Britannica Online. This is a thorough and reliable encyclopedia assembled, like the old paper version, by the best minds in their fields. Like many of the resources IU East subscribes to, it has been rigorously peer-reviewed and verified for accuracy. Wikipedia is produced by its users – some are quite smart, others not so much. The Encyclopaedia Britannica counts some … Continued

The Right Cite

e-resources, reference databases October 4, 2010 Matt Dilworth, Research mdilwort

So, it’s a third of the way into the semester, and you have some papers coming due. Research papers. And you need to cite your sources. Well, there are many helpful aids to doing that. We have the style manuals at the library’s front desk that you can use. And we, and our colleagues in the Writing Lab, are glad to help you figure them out. There’s the Online Writing Lab at http://owl.english.purdue.edu/, which is great for getting you through MLA or APA style. And there’s RefWorks, a program we subscribe to that will help you generate whole reference lists. But for a lot of things, references are even simpler than all that! For many of our databases, citations can … Continued