Wednesday 11 November 2015

Study Rooms Bookings Extended

Following student feedback, timeslots for Study Rooms have now been doubled to two hours per group per day.

Demand for study rooms far exceeds supply so please respect this policy on behalf your fellow students.

You can continue to book using the booking sheets at the library desk or email ast.library@dit.ie or phone 01-402-3068

Tuesday 10 November 2015

Cash For College to be won: the Student Hub from The Irish Times


"Student subscribers will be eligible to enter the Cash For College competition offering the opportunity to win €250 every weekday until the end of term." This is among one of the many benefits of registering on the recently launched Irish Times' Student Hub. As students, the biggest bonus is that "Upon registration, students will qualify, free of charge, for a full Irish Times digital subscription." What are you waiting for? Click here for more information!

Monday 9 November 2015

Attention Postgraduates - Need somewhere quiet to work?

Do you know there is a dedicated Postgraduate Room in the Library?

This room is available to all postgraduate students and has 12 PCs that operate on a first come first served basis. 

The room is located at the back of the library on the ground floor and requires a door code for access. You can ask at the library desk to get the code. 

The postgraduate room is a silent study area. 

Wednesday 4 November 2015

Training Room Available as Overflow Computer Area

Due to heavy demand for computers in the library, the library's Training Room will be opened up as an overflow computer area whenever it is not in use for training sessions and classes. A sign outside the Training Room door will indicate at which times the room is free each day.

The Training Room will be designated as a Silent Study Area when it's in use as an overflow computer area.

Tuesday 3 November 2015

China and the One-Child-Policy

It was announced last week that China would make changes to its Family Planning Policy
moving from a one-child policy to a two-child policy.

Upon hearing this an old Freakanomics radio podcast, Misadventures in Baby-making, from 2011 came to mind. It touches on the interesting story of an economist, Geert Jan Olsder, who may have potentially and accidentally influenced China's one child policy. You can read more about Olsder and there's a link to the podcast here: http://freakonomics.com/2011/11/04/the-academic-origins-of-chinas-one-child-policy/

If you are interested in reading more academic research about China's one-child policy our online library databases such as Nexis UK provide access to international newspaper articles and our business databases provide access to academic research on the topic from a range of different perspectives both economic and social.

http://www.dit.ie/library/subjects/businessandeconomics/




Monday 2 November 2015

Happy 200th Birthday George Boole

Today's Google Doodle is a tribute to mathematician George Boole. According to Google:

'In 1849, Boole was appointed as the first Professor of Mathematics at University College Cork , where he pioneered developments in logic and mathematics. His beautiful binary “Boolean” system was detailed in An Investigation of the Laws of Thought in 1854, which inevitably enabled revolutionary thinking in not just logic and math, but also engineering and computer science.
As one of the most important scientists to have ever worked in Ireland, Boole effectively laid the foundations of the entire Information Age while working from UCC.'

What has this do with Aungier St. library you might say?

Well, any of you who have engaged in a database session with our librarians will have heard us mention Boolean operators. While the use of boolean operators is not obvious when you use a search engine like Google, they remain central to building your search strategy within an academic database. 

DIT Library subscribes to over 80 subject databases.  Depending on your discipline there is a subject database that is relevant to your research. Here in Aungier St. our experienced librarians are happy to help you if you have any questions about using your subject databases or those famous boolean operators. We provide both on-campus support in the library and off-campus support through our Ask-a-Librarian service.