Author: Matthew

Celebrate Fair Use Week!

Matthew

From February 26 to March 2, the Library will celebrate Fair Use Week. Fair Use is an important legal doctrine within U.S. copyright law that underpins many of the activities we engage in every day. It allows the right to use a copyrighted work under certain conditions without permission of the copyright owner. The doctrine helps prevent a rigid application of copyright law that would stifle the very creativity the law is designed to foster. It allows for the unlicensed (that is, without permission or payment of royalty) use of a copyrighted work where the balance of several factors weighs in favor of such use. Four of these factors are specifically enumerated in the statute. Application of fair use requires a factual analysis of these four factors as applied to the facts of the proposed use.

Did you know?

Without fair use, you wouldn’t be able to:

  • Search web browsers or databases. These valuable research tools rely on fair use to index information, making it easier to find what you need.
  • Read that assigned book chapter on Blackboard. Fair use makes it possible to read digitized course material from the comfort of your bed.
  • Enjoy and create memes. Internet memes are a form of parody, which is protected by fair use.
  • DVR the Pat’s game because you have work to do. Yes, fair use makes it possible to record live programming to watch later.

Learn more about how fair use impacts almost everything you do, whether it’s for research or for leisure.

Visit Bentley Library’s Research Guide on Fair Use for resources to help you to understand and apply fair use.

 

Database of the Month: Opposing Viewpoints in Context

Matthew

Opposing Viewpoints in Context covers social and political issues with access to primary and secondary source material including journal articles, national and global news sources, pro/con viewpoint essays, videos, podcasts, and more. It also includes full-text access to the Opposing Viewpoints book series.

This interdisciplinary database supports science, social studies, current events, and language arts classes, making it an ideal resource for research across the curriculum. Informed, differing views help learners develop critical-thinking skills as they examine topics from all perspectives to draw their own conclusions.

Periodical content covers current events, news and commentary, economics, environmental issues, political science, and more. Specific titles include The New York Times, Newsweek, Foreign Policy, American Scientist, and Education Week.

Opposing Viewpoints in Context is an ideal resource for debaters and researchers alike. It offers a breadth of information on over 400 topics from a variety of sources:

 

With fresh topics frequently added and a category on current national debate topics, this database provides quick and easy access to content on commonly studied and discussed issues.

There are always two sides to a story.

Stay informed with Opposing Viewpoints in Context.

Please visit our Databases A-Z page and select Opposing Viewpoints in Context to begin your search.

________________________________________________________________

Database of the Month provides a very brief introduction to a useful website or library database, highlighting key features you should know about. If you would like more information about these resources (or any of the library’s databases), please contact us for research assistance. If you would like a demonstration of this resource for a class, please schedule a research instruction class using the instruction request form.

Database of the Month: Kanopy (Streaming Films)

Matthew

Kanopy logo

With an ever-expanding catalog of over 50,000 films, Kanopy delivers diverse content in a variety of genres, from award-winning documentaries, training films, and theatrical releases on a wide range of topics and subject areas that span all academic disciplines. With media from producers such as Criterion Collection, PBS, Media Education Foundation, and Great Courses, this resource is ideal for both faculty and student research needs.

Access:

Streaming films from Kanopy can be viewed on or off campus through Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and IE and are accessed via authentication of your Bentley credentials and allows for simultaneous users of a particular title.

Search and Browse:

If there is a particular film you are looking for, you may search in the following ways:

From the library’s catalog:

Select Books/Video/Audio, enter your search criteria, then click Search.

Then click on the Kanopy link to view the film.

From Kanopy:

Enter your search criteria in the search box at the top of Kanopy’s main page and click the Search icon.

Then select the desired title from the listing of results.

The film should now appear ready to stream, complete with features described below.

 

Features:

  • User Profile – create a profile to:
    • Use Kanopy on device apps such as Roku, IOS, Android, etc
    • Generate personalized content
    • Utilize disability controls and features
    • Access customer support
    • User dashboard
  • Clips and playlists
  • Embed films into course sites
  • Captions and transcripts

———————————————

Database of the Month provides a very brief introduction to a useful website or Library database, highlighting key features you should know about. If you would like more information about this resource (or any of the library’s databases), please contact us for research assistance. If you would like a demonstration of this resource for a class, please schedule a research instruction class using the instruction request form.

Database of the Month: Project Euclid

Matthew

Project EuclidProject Euclid is a mathematical sciences database that seeks to advance scholarly communication in theoretical and applied mathematics and statistics through partnerships with independent and society publishers. It was developed by the Cornell University Library and is now jointly managed with Duke University Press. It was originally created to provide a platform for small scholarly publishers of mathematics and statistics journals to move from print to electronic in a cost-effective way.

Through a combination of support by subscribing libraries* and participating publishers, Project Euclid has made 70% of its journal articles openly available. As of 2015, Project Euclid provides access to over 1.2 million pages of open-access content.

*Bentley Library is not a subscribing library.

Content

Search results display all relevant hits. The tables of contents and article abstracts are freely available to all users, and the following icons indicate whether or not the user can also access the full text for these items.

Project Euclid Access Levels

While the library does not currently subscribe to any licensed content, full-text is available for the following open-access titles.

  • Annals of Mathematical Statistics
  • Bayesian Analysis
  • Berkeley Symposium on Mathematical Statistics and Probability
  • Bulletin of the American Mathematical Society (1891-1991)
  • Communications in Mathematical Physics (1965-1997)
  • Electronic Communications in Probability
  • Electronic Journal of Probability
  • Electronic Journal of Statistics
  • Hiroshima Mathematical Journal
  • Institute of Mathematical Statistics Collections
  • Institute of Mathematical Statistics Lecture Notes – Monograph Series
  • Lecture Notes in Logic
  • Notre Dame Mathematical Lectures
  • NSF-CBMS Regional Conference Series in Probability and Statistics
  • Osaka Journal of Mathematics
  • Pacific Journal of Mathematics (1951-1996)
  • Perspectives in Logic
  • Probability Surveys
  • Proceedings of the Centre for Mathematics and its Applications
  • Proceedings of the Japan Academy, Series A, Mathematical Sciences
  • Stochastic Systems
  • Statistics Surveys

———————————————

Database of the Month provides a very brief introduction to a useful website or Library database, highlighting key features you should know about. If you would like more information about this free web resource (or any of the library’s databases), please contact us for research assistance. If you would like a demonstration of this resource for a class, please schedule a research instruction class using this form.

Have copyright questions? The library has answers.

Matthew

From books to business cases, photocopies to fair use, we’ve got you covered.

copyright-questionsThe library has recently added to its website important information about copyright and how it relates to the Bentley community. Within the Research tab in the top navigational bar of our website, you will find the “Policy on the Use of Copyrighted Materials for Education and Research”. This updated policy is designed to address the ambiguities of copyright law in relation to evolving faculty needs and student expectations and provides useful information to assist in interpreting the law and applying its principles to the use of copyrighted material in teaching and scholarship.

In addition, the library offers a comprehensive research guide to assist the Bentley University community in matters of copyright that are most likely to be encountered in academic setting. This guide is informed by numerous resources on copyright law and its relation to higher education and is shaped by the “community of practice” that has emerged among scholars and librarians.

On Display: “For Brevity’s Sake” – The Short Story: Writers and their Craft

Matthew

The Oxford English Dictionary defines brevity as “being short in speech or writing; contraction into few words, conciseness, terseness”.

That we encounter brevity on a daily basis should come as no surprise. Twitter, one of the most widely used social networking services, is designed to only allow users 140 characters to convey thoughts, news, or commentary in dispatches known as Tweets. Most academic journal articles feature an abstract that summarizes the salient points of the document in a very brief paragraph, comprised of no more than a few sentences. Even the act of texting imposes its own economy of language. We have become reliant on brevity to enable us to evaluate information quickly in a fast-paced society.

But we continue to read books, which is a good thing. Fiction, in particular, offers refuge from our busy lives and great stories serve to reflect and even affirm the human condition, reminding us that our struggles and victories, while uniquely our own, share a common thread in the great and shared human experience.

Short stories use this thread to weave such stories in impossibly succinct ways. To develop an entire character study or arc within the span of a few pages is remarkable. Consider what Andre Dubus, one of the great short fiction authors of our time, asserts about the craft and brevity of the short story:

“I love short stories because I believe they are the way we live. They are what our friends tell us, in their pain and joy, their passion and rage, their yearning and their cry against injustice.” 

Indeed, short stories are the way we live – particular moments of drama or inspiration whose meaning may (or may not) be immediately known. Whether it’s the emotional depth of Alice Munro (recent winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature), the Modernism of Jorge Luis Borges, or the everyman realism of Raymond Carver, everyone has a (short) story to tell.

Come by the library to check out the display or take a look at the Pinterest board. If you don’t see what you’re looking for, inquire at the Reference Desk.

Come find your favorite story today!

The Fall Semester is Coming – Submit Your Course Reserve Requests Now!

Matthew

The Library is currently accepting faculty requests for course reserves, both print and electronic. As soon as you have completed your syllabus, please stop by the Library Services Desk with your material and we will place items on physical reserve or post course material to Blackboard.  As an added convenience, we are pleased to announce the launch our new online request form.  And in the coming months, be on the lookout for new features and services, all designed to improve the reserves service the library provides to faculty year-round.