Central Library is closed between 1 July to 16 July 2011

Hi,

The Central Library will be closed for transactions between July 1 to July 16, 2011 for its Annual Stock Verification.

All the members are requested to check their library accounts and return the borrowed books before 30th. June, 2011.

You may check your library accounts here. Enter Employee ID (for staff) and PID (for students) as your login ID.

Survey on Automation Trends in Libraries

About the Survey:

The last two decades have experienced (and are still experiencing) the banes and boons of the library automation era. There has been a constant increase in the number of library softwares - both in-house and commercial ones. Off-late, there has been an increasing trend in the adoption of Open Source Software as an ILS.

This survey (Part A of the series) is an attempt to have an upshot of the Use and impact of library softwares and the merger of electronic resources with the traditional library set-up.

Since it is a public survey, you are requested to direct as many people to the site given below for participation and informative inputs!

Click here for the survey. Your active participation would be highly appreciated.

Chinmayee Bhange

Librarian

SFIT

Springer offers free access to research articles on E. coli bacteria

Over 400 articles on the E. coli bacteria available online free of charge on SpringerLink

Springer Science+Business Media is offering all journal articles and book chapters which deal with the E. coli bacteria free of charge on its online information platform www.springerlink.com. The articles can be found by using the search terms “Enterohaemorrhagic and Escherichia and coli” or by using the link www.springer.com/ehec. A total of over 400 scientific articles are available to print out or download from now until 1 September 2011
Source: http://www.springer.com/biomed/ehec?SGWID=0-1728613-0-0-0
To download, click here

Fantasy Short Story Competition

This year, Fantasy Book Review, in association with Swift Publishers, is delighted to be able to run a short story competition. The writer of the winning fantasy short story will receive an Apple iPad (we are working on also having the winning entry published), the two runner-ups will receive Amazon Kindle. The best news of all is that each applicable entry will receive a free copy of Frank P Ryan’s fantasy ebook THE SNOWMELT RIVER (read our review here). Everybody wins!

For details, visit Fantasy Book Review

Questionnaire on Use of electronic resources

We at Central Library, SFIT have undertaken to study the usage patterns of electronic resources. You are requested to fill up the questionnaire by clicking on the below mentioned link:

Survey

How adequate is your financial record keeping?

In this era which is distinguished from yesteryears by its SPEED, we cannot (even if we desire to!) involve our parents and our spouse in financial decision making. Although financial decisions prove to be a boon or bane at every turn of life, we risk the life of our loved ones by making them ignorant about our investments. A sudden death in a family makes us realize the benefits of financial record keeping.

Here is an article which is written by Vishal Shah (Chartered Accountant) and published in DNA dated June 8, 2011.

Start your record keeping from today!!

Dons fear new credit system will burden their shoulders

Published: Tuesday, Jun 7, 2011, 23:11 IST
By Puja Pednekar | Place: Mumbai | Agency: DNA

While the credits-based choice system will bring cheer to many students as new avenues and flexibilities open up for them, the teaching community is not happy with the new system, which will be implemented from this academic session. They fear that the system, which involves 40 marks for students for project work, will mean additional burden on their shoulders. With a student teacher ratio as high as 120 students per teacher, the teachers will be overburdened with the extra work of assessing number of projects and other activities, say principals across degree colleges in the city. “Such a system works in foreign universities because they have four to five teaching assistants helping the professors. These assistants check projects, papers, tutor students so there is very little burden on the professors. However, the university has no such system in place. How many students’ assignments can one teacher correct?” said Madhu Paranjape, officiating general secretary, Buctu and university Senate member. Paranjape added that before implementing the system the university should appoint adequate number of teachers. “Due to the revised norms that require certain staff members to be PhD holders, we are facing shortage of teachers. There are vacancies that need to be filled.” However, Dr Rajpal Hande, director, board of college and university development said that the system will not add any extra burden to the teachers if followed properly. “It is a tried and tested system in several universities and it will help students in learning. The role of the teachers will be that of a mentor and guide.” Even though the colleges will start their academic year June onwards, the sensitisation workshops launched by the university at different levels are yet to gain ground. “The workshops have not yet begun for many departments,” she added. Courtesy: www.dnaindia.com (Accessed on 07/06/2011)