Theater Arts 61A "Ancient & Medieval Drama" assignment

Here are a few Cruzcat subject headings for an assignment for Theater Arts 61A "Ancient & Medieval Drama". They have to find a medieval play (500-1500) and then a modern production of it. It would probably be helpful for them to have some context for the medieval version.

• Drama, Medieval
• Theater--History--Medieval, 500-1500
• Theater--England--History--Medieval, 500-1500
• English drama--to 1500 (there is one subheading for "modernized versions"
• Christian drama, Latin (Medieval and Modern)
• Theater and society--England--to 1500

Reference material:

A companion to the medieval theatre
McH Ref PN2152.C66 1989

Quick guide to finding film reviews

This post is not an exhaustive guide, but provides a couple of tips and quick strategies to get you out of a jam with a question.

Search tips:  

• A "contemporary" film review is one that was published around the film's release date.
• If you don't know a film's release date, Wikipedia is quick and handy for this task.
• Always put the title of your film in quotes to keep the words together.
• If the film title was also a book, add the word "film" or your keyword search.

Here are two quick strategies using the film "American Graffiti" (released: August 1973) as an example:

Academic Search Complete:

• in the top search box type: "american graffiti"
• in the 2nd search box type: review
• leave it on "Select a field" for largest search
• limit the published date from "1973" to "1974"
• results: 13 
• click on UC-eLinks if no PDF or full text link is present (click here for how-to guide)

Cruzcat, for reviews in print:

• do a title search for "Film Review" (McH Stacks PN1993.F624)
• we have volumes for 1944-1992, so this is good for older films
• look up the title of the film in the index
• patron can photocopy or scan pages

For more film review sources, go to the Film & Digital Media Research Guide, and click on the articles tab, and use the search tips above.

Theater Arts: Finding play production reviews

An assignment this quarter for a Theater Arts class dealt with searching for production reviews and for a modern production of an ancient play (for example, "Medea"). Here are some strategies for dealing with this question (and more comments are welcome!):

• The best thing to show them is the Theater Arts Research Guide (home page > research guides > arts > theater arts)
• On that guide direct them to the International Index to the Performing Arts database. It's right on the front of the guide.
• Once in that database, they can try searching for the name of the play and "production review" and perhaps a geographic location if there were many places the play was produced. This should give them some full-text results they can look through.
• The other thing they may ask for is "Theatre World." Look that up as a title in Cruzcat, choose the first record in the results, and you see that the current volume is in Ref and the previous volumes are upstairs on 4th in the PNs. They'll determine which volume could help them by the year of the production of their play. 
• There are other resources they can try on the Theater Arts Research Guide as well.

Coca cola taste tests

Some students from a psych class at Cabrillo college have come in looking for articles about taste test experiments involving colas (coke and pepsi). PsycInfo had a number of articles, including experiments from 1948.

They are working in groups of 4, and there are 6 or 7 groups. Their paper is due Wednesday.

In PsycInfo use the descriptor "Taste Perception" and KW cola to find 18 relevant scholarly articles. They need to pick the best five for the assignment.

Laura also discovered 14 articles in ASC using SU cola and SU evaluation

Zines for Community Studies 161 (Steiner)

If students from CMMU 161 come looking for two zines listed on their syllabus as "at McHenry Library", they are not available here. They are available on the web as free downloadable PDFs.
Here are the links:

Take Back Your Life: A Wimmin's Guide to Alternative Health Care
http://zinelibrary.info/files/takebackyrlife.pdf


Navigating the Space Between Brilliance and Madness
http://theicarusproject.net/files/navigating_the_space.pdf

I will contact the instructor and let her know.

History 110A (Westerkamp) Early America class

Lynn Westerkamp is teaching her early America class this quarter.
Students are being asked to find 5-7 primary source documents. The
assignment is attached (to a separate refall email). I am not teaching
a class for this group. If the work becomes onerous at the desk, please let
me know and I'll check in with Lynn. Everyone already knows this, but just
out of a sense of duty, the How to Find Primary Sources in American History
page should be considered the "class page" for this assignment.

Many thanks,

Kerry

16th-century engravings

Students in Allan Langdale's HAVC 137E Renaissance Prints class will be researching a mystery engraving from 16th-century Germany. BR kindly informs us that they should consult the Illustrated Bartsch (http://cruzcat.ucsc.edu/record=b1431168~S5), volume 10 of which is entitled Sixteenth-century German Artists.

Additional info from Lee:

"That helps. I had a student who insisted the engraving was Bosch, and when that didn't pan out, noticed "Barsch" somewhere on the page, but that name drew a blank as well. I pointed her to some texts about early engravers and suggested the VRC if that didn't work."

Students asking for Plagiarism Quiz

Anna Tsing is referring her Anthropology students to a plagiarism quiz. The quiz is hosted by another institution and can be found at http://abacus.bates.edu/cbb/quiz/index.html.

Class: History 30 "Making of Modern Africa"

Hi all,

Beth and I recently conducted research sessions for David Anthony's
History 30 (Making of Modern Africa) and History 137B (Africa 1800 to
Present) classes, and you will notice lots of activity around these topics
just now. Although Beth and I are happy to assist them when they have hit
research roadblocks, please be aware that they should first consult and
*use* the resources listed in the dedicated guides for each of these
classes linked on the Course Materials page (and to which we introduced
them in class) and below. They should be assured that Reference Desk staff can help
them as well as Beth and myself.

Thanks,
Ken and Beth

History 30 Guide:
http://library.ucsc.edu/course-guides/history-30-making-of-modern-africa

History 137B Guide:
http://library.ucsc.edu/course-guides/history-137b---africa-1800-to-the-present

Film 132B assignment

I've emailed Peter that a number of the links on the assignment page need to be changed (because of our fall server switch) and I assume he will put up a corrected version soon.

Paul


On Jan 12, 2010, at 3:05 PM, Peter Limbrick wrote:

Hi Paul,
Just a heads up for you and your research librarians that my 88-student class, Film 132B, will be doing an annotated bibliography project, as they have done in past years. You can see the assignment on our website at:
http://www.ic.ucsc.edu/~limbrick/film132b/

but I've also attached it here. Just wanted to let you all know since you may experience some increase in traffic and questions (I hope!) It's due on Jan 25, two weeks from yesterday.

Best,
Peter

ENVS 140

Hi everyone,

ENVS140 is almost fully launched. This year the class has 90 students enrolled, which is down 10 from last year.

We have made it very clear to the students in this class that they need to ask Jan, Jess, or myself for assistance with part I of their project. Drop-in hours are posted on the class wiki at http://ucsclibrary.pbworks.com/ENVS140. Most of the drop-in hours are with Jan and Jess, although I have let them know I'm at S&E on Tuesday's 12-2pm. (They also know that if it's busy at S&E they will need to wait for my help).

If a student needs help outside the drop-in hours, please call Jan or Jess to help them. We have let them know Jan or Jess will help outside of the posted drop-in times if they are available.

To reiterate, you should NOT help them with Part I of this assignment. However, you can assist with Part II later in the quarter. I will announce when Part II begins. I will be providing a separate session for them for Part II, and information will be posted on their class page that will help you answer questions.

Let me know if you have any questions.

thanks,

Lucia

Questions from weekend shift

Just a sampling of the kinds of questions we got at the desk this busy Sunday:

-need study room or space to practice Spanish
-need to find a court case and history; it was a Supreme Court case and needed to find out if it went through state court system (used Westlaw)
-how do I check out a book?
-need to find biographical info about anthropologist Michelle Habell-Pallan (her CV was online)
-what is "Request at ILL" and how do I get it?
-what is NRLF?
-the books I want are checked out, what can I do?
-just starting research on the topic of human sacrifice and offerings (used Cruzcat subject headings)
-how do I print?
-I need a pen
-need a book about prefixes and suffixes
-UC-eLinks not working (we owned the book)
-can I take Ref books to another floor?
-can't find call number RC
-need books and articles about Australian aboriginal dreams (used subject headings in Cruzcat and Ebsco)
-book checked out until December?
-where are the elevators?
-where are the HB call numbers?
-I don't understand how the moving stacks work
-I need Latin-English, Greek-English, legal, and medical dictionaries
-couldn't find book (it was on Reserve)
-having difficulty using UC-eLinks
-book is checked out, need by tomorrow (we found it at SCPL)
-where are the newspapers?
-need to do research on the history of American Sign Language
-about 5 more questions on not finding call numbers (they were looking in Ref Stacks)

Anthro 1 assignment

Anthro 1 book assignment

I wanted to alert you that students from Anthro 1 may come in looking for books located at S&E and McH respectively. The point of the assignment is to use the book as a jumping off point to explore broader themes, but they do have to be familar with the book. The instructor is encouraging students to look for these books in our libraries, local libraries and bookstores. The written assignment is due Nov. 24th, and students are looking for these items now.

As you may have guessed, most of these books are already checked out. I don't have a good solution for helping students, other than ILL. I'll see if I can catch the student I helped (and who sped off) for a copy of the assignment.

Here's a sample of some of the titles:

The old way : a story of the first people / Elizabeth Marshall Thomas McH Stacks DT1558.S38 T46 2006

Female fertility and the body fat connection / Rose E. Frisch S&E Stacks RG136 .F755 2002

Your inner fish : a journey into the 3.5-billion-year history of the human body / Neil Shubin S&E Reading QM26 .S58 2008

Thanks,

Lucia

History 10 - primary source questions

We are getting more questions from History 10 students needing primary sources. Their assignment is to find a letter that is ideally from the time period of a historical event (ex. the Missouri Compromise), or at least not after 1877, and then write 5-7 pages about it's historical significance. I had luck with a Thomas Jefferson letter (on Library of Congress site) about the Missouri Compromise. Consult Kerry's class guide for more sources:

http://library.ucsc.edu/course-guides/history-10a-united-states-history-to-1877

Online guides for Writing and Core classes

As we get used to our new website, it might be helpful to highlight a couple of ways to introduce Writing and Core students to research (thanks to Debbie and Annette):

Getting Started (linked on our home page)
-takes students step-by-step through constructing a research paper
http://library.ucsc.edu/content/constructing-your-research-paper

Writing subject guide (linked on home page under "Subjects" and "Course Materials & ERes")
-outlines research process steps with links
http://library.ucsc.edu/course-guides/writing

Class and assignment-specific guides

There are many class guides for this quarter. Take a look at either of these links when helping patrons at the desk:

Find research materials by subject
http://library.ucsc.edu/find-research-materials-by-subject

and

Course Materials & ERes
http://library.ucsc.edu/services/find-materials-for-courses

Anthro 1 assignment

Students from Anthro 1 may come in looking for books located at S&E and McH respectively. The point of the assignment is to use the book as a jumping off point to explore broader themes, but they do have to be familar with the book. The instructor is encouraging students to look for these books in our libraries, local libraries and bookstores. The written assignment is due Nov. 24th, and students are looking for these items now.

As you may have guessed, most of these books are already checked out. I don't have a good solution for helping students, other than ILL. I'll see if I can catch the student I helped (and who sped off) for a copy of the assignment.

Here's a sample of some of the titles:

The old way : a story of the first people / Elizabeth Marshall Thomas McH Stacks DT1558.S38 T46 2006

Female fertility and the body fat connection / Rose E. Frisch S&E Stacks RG136 .F755 2002

Your inner fish : a journey into the 3.5-billion-year history of the human body / Neil Shubin S&E Reading QM26 .S58 2008

Thanks,

Lucia

Psych 3 class info and online guide

Hi All,

Last week I gave a talk at Cam Leapers Psyc3 class. There is a class guide at:

http://library.ucsc.edu/course-guides/psychology-3-research-methods

The guide is meant to walk students through their assignment, which requires that they find only 1 study to replicate

Cam really prefers that they use encyclopedias or textbooks to get a citation for a study. I linked students to citation linker forms, which is the most direct place to find out if we own something or to request it.

Students, however, may also try to use Psycinfo to find a paper that is about a study. If they go this route they must ONLY use peer-reviewed articles.
Hope this is useful.

Thanks,
Annette