The HardiBlog

Your Library PIN is very important to help you get the most of our Library resources. With it, you can sign into E-Knowledge, check your library account online, reserve books online, and a whole lot more. To watch a short and simple tutorial on how to retrieve your Library PIN, just click here If you're having trouble opening the tutorial, you'll probably need to download Macromedia Flash Player. this can be downloaded quickly and for free here . This will be the first in a series of tutorials the Library will be publishing to help you with online life. So visit the blog often, or save yourself the trouble and subscribe! Don't forget to visit the Library Homepage often too, where we'll be shortly unveiling our Virtual Learning Centre.

Google Scholar is essentially a specialised web search engine that searches scholarly resources. It's like the science search engine, Scirus , in that it covers specific scholarly material as opposed to the web in general. Google Scholar uses the powerful Google searching algorithms, and when the results are displayed, it indexes the fulltext of results, links to related articles, and lists who the articles are cited by. So in general, Google Scholar sounds like the definitive cross-resource scholarly searching and linking engine! However, it's not perfect, and there are some very important caveats to keep in mind if you use it It doesn't distinguish between articles you have access to, and articles you don't . So a list of search results might display an article, but that doesn't mean that you'll be able to read it. If the Library subscribes to a database that's listed in the search results, when you click on the link, you'll be brought to the fulltext...

What is RSS? In a nutshell, RSS, ("Really Simple Syndication"), is a way to get information from websites sent to you, instead of you visiting those websites to get updates. So it's basically a web feed. When you subscribe to a website's RSS feed, it delivers the site's latest news directly to you. It's a great time saver, as you have information automatically sent to you instead of spending time visiting each site individually. You can use an RSS feed to get the latest news, weather, updates on hobby sites, blogs (subscribe to our RSS feed on the right of the page!), and loads more besides. So how does it work? It's actually pretty simple, you need: an RSS reader, and a site generates an RSS feed! An RSS reader is just a piece of software that lets you read RSS feeds (the same way you need Microsoft Word to read .doc files, or Microsoft EXCEL to read .xls files) There are loads of free, good RSS readers out there. You can find a list of some of the best h...

The descriptive lists for the various local authorities for Galway City are now available online at the following links: LA2 LA3 LA4 LA2 contains the 8 Minute Books of the Galway Town Commissioners (1836 - 1899). The Galway Town Commissioners were established the under provisions The 1828 Act for the Improvement of Lighting in Towns. The Board of the Galway town Commissioners itself was established by the Galway Improvements Bill which was passed in Parliament in 1836. The Board took over all the local authority functions of Galway Corporation following the Corporation's abolition in 1840. LA3 contains the 6 Minute Books of the Galway Urban Sanitary Authority (1874-1920). The Galway Urban Sanitary Authority was set up in 1874 to manage public health matters in the town. It was setup under the Public Health Act of 1874 and took over responsibility from the Galway Town Commissioners for the provision of sewers anf removal of nuisances. LA4 contains the 4 Minute Books of Galway Urban ...

At the recent IIUG conference in Sligo, keynote speaker Tim Spalding of LibraryThing gave a fantastic talk about his site, and its development from pet project to global success. LibraryThing is really two sites in one. First, it is a tool to catalogue your personal library . Users add books to their catalogue by entering titles, authors, or ISBN numbers. LibraryThing then se arches the Library of Congress, all five national Amazon sites, and over 45 world libraries, and returns with precise book data. Users can then edit the books in their catalogue, tag their books with their own subjects, and use the Library of Congress and Dewey Decimal systems to organize their collections. LibraryThing is also a social space , connecting people with similar libraries. It also makes book recommendations based on the collective intelligence of the other libraries. Check it out, sort out your book collection, meet people with similar interests, and use the recommendations to broaden your mind!

A lot of discussion and hype online has been centered around the future direction of the world wide web. With the advancement of new technologies and new ideas, the perception of the web as just a place to house information has changed to something that is interactive and user-focused. There are literally thousands of articles out there that try to explain exactly where the world wide web is going, and what Web 2.0 really means. You can find some of them here , here and here . One of the best explanations of Web 2.0 is a presentation by Michael Wesch on YouTube (itself a classic Web 2.0 phenomenon). Sound isn't necessary, but it enhances the whole presentation. Enjoy.....

Hi there, and you're very welcome to James Hardiman Library blog. The HardiBlog  is the place to visit for training information on our resources library notices library events links to useful resources handy tips and tricks to make your online life easier quick guides to all the latest web technologies ... and anything else we think you might find useful! So check back often, or even better, subscribe to us using the links at the right of the page. If you've any thoughts on The HardiBlog, or anything else, then please feel free to leave comments.