Two new books from Information Resources

Books are like buses, you wait ages for one to come along and two come at the same time, or something like that. This is the case in Information Resources as Andy Tattersall  his and colleague Anthea Sutton alongside fellow ScHARR library and information guru Andrew Booth have published books.

Anthea and Andrew's book, Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review is a second edition of their popular book for Sage and an essential read for anyone wanting to conduct a high quality literature review. Fellow ScHARR colleague and previous member of Information Resources Diana Papaioannou also contributed to the title which came out this month. Whilst Andy has delivered an edited book for Facet that looks at Altmetrics and the potential for research and libraries.

Systematic Approaches to a Successful Literature Review

Showing you how to take a structured and organized approach to a wide range of literature review types, this book helps you to choose which approach is right for your research. Packed with constructive tools, examples, case studies and hands-on exercises, the book covers the full range of literature review techniques,

New to this edition:

· Full re-organization takes you step-by-step through the process from beginning to end

· New chapter showing you how to choose the right method for your project

· Practical guidance on integrating qualitative and quantitative data

· New coverage of rapid reviews

· Comprehensive inclusion of literature review tools, including concept analysis, scoping and mapping

With an emphasis on the practical skills, this guide is essential for any student or researcher needing to get from first steps to a successful literature review.

To purchase a copy

http://www.facetpublishing.co.uk/title.php?id=300105#.V3PvSRUrLcs

Altmetrics
A practical guide for librarians, researchers and academics

Whilst Andy Tattersall has published an edited book for Facet Books on the topic of altmetrics. The book also features a chapter from the ever busy Andrew Booth and fellow Information Resources member Claire Beecroft. There are also contributions from Euan Adie at Altmetric.com, Ben Showers who has published previously for Facet on the topic of bibliometrics, and a chapter from William Gunn at Mendeley.

The book also came out this month and hopes to bridge the gap between practitioner and giving advice for library, information professionals and academics how they best make use of altmetrics. 

This book gives an overview of altmetrics, its tools and how to implement them successfully to boost and measure research outputs.

New methods of scholarly communication and dissemination of information are having a huge impact on how academics and researchers build profiles and share research. This groundbreaking and highly practical guide looks at the role that library and information professionals can play in facilitating these new ways of working and demonstrating impact and influence.

Altmetrics focuses on research artefact level metrics that are not exclusive to traditional journal papers but also extend to book chapters, posters and data sets, among other items. This book explains the theory behind altmetrics, including how it came about, why it can help academics and where it sits amongst current measurements of impact.

To purchase a copy

http://www.facetpublishing.co.uk/title.php?id=300105#.V3PvSRUrLcs

Sonia and Louise walk the 'Big Walk'

Louise Preston

During the second week of June, the University of Sheffield supported two teams of staff to walk over 120 miles over six days along the Trans Pennine Trail to to raise funds to support refugee academics and students here at the University of Sheffield. More details are available here.

From the IR Group, Sonia Rizzo and Louise Preston joined these teams on the 'One Day Challenge', an 18 mile walk from North Sheffield, via the outskirts of Barnsley and Rotherham, via Meadowhall and back to Sheffield. Neither of us had ever done anything of this magnitude before and were feeling quite nervous, but excited about the challenge ahead.

We set off early on the Friday morning from the picturesque surroundings of Tankersley Premier Inn! We were very keen to make good progress on the walk and found ourselves part of the group at the front. This meant that we were required to navigate the sometimes slightly difficult to find signposts of the Trans Pennine Trail as well as keeping a steady pace. Even though the sun didn't shine for us, the rain help off and it was great to meet and share time with other University of Sheffield colleagues.

Louise with a herd of deer behind her, in Wentworth Park (Mile 6)

We were fuelled by lovely home made fruit cake  and a strong flask of coffee but as the walk got tougher, our thoughts turned to those colleagues who had already walked over 100 miles and more importantly, those that we were raising money for. We finally finished the walk after 5 hours and 40 minutes, and despite being told that it wasn't a race, it was nice to feel that we had really challenged ourselves.
The walk was a fantastic experience for a really deserving cause, made more resonant by the death of Jo Cox MP the day before the walk. We carried her memory with us and we were both utterly delighted to raise just short of £500 before we started on the Friday morning. Our total now stands at nearly £600 and if you would still like to sponsor us, our page is here.

We did it!

A guest post from our work experience student Joanna

Hello, my name is Joanna Hewson. I recently spent 2 weeks at ScHARR on my year 10 work experience, working 5 days with RDS (Research Design Service) in the innovation centre and the other 5 days with IR (Information Resources) in Regent Court. Over the course of the two weeks, I have gained so many new skills and have got a real insight into working life.

In RDS, I learned about how the NIHR (National Institute for Health Research) can help with public involvement and funding in people’s research and found out about what it is like to do different jobs in the Research Design Service, such as what it is like to work in DTS (Design, Trials and Statistics) and what the CTRU (Clinical Trials Research Unit) do. Also, I helped set up for an event and afterwards, collated the information into a spreadsheet. I also produced a spreadsheet, table and list of organised dates for the Volidays scheme. This was interesting and I feel I benefitted from it through learning about jobs that I wouldn’t have known existed without this placement.

In IR, I found out about what different jobs they do as well, such as working on ScHARRHUD (http://www.scharrhud.org/) or doing infographics in the library. I also learned about e-learning and created some work sheets for online students. As well as this, I found out about the libraries on the campus and got a tour of a few. Also, I searched different databases to collect information on a topic for research – I feel this is where I learned a new skill in being able to use databases such as MEDLINE and Web of Science. I’ve really enjoyed the fact that people have given me work to do that may be new and sometimes challenging for me and not just small, easy jobs.

I’ve had a really great time on this placement and everyone I have met or spoke to has been kind, welcoming, helpful and patient with me if I didn’t understand something. It has been an excellently valuable experience and has given me an idea as to what I may do when I leave school.