24-Hour Study

Both the O’Neill Library Reserve Reading Room and Gargan Hall in the Bapst Library will be open for 24-hour study through the evening of Monday, May 14. See Library hours for more on which libraries are open when.

Blackwell Reference Online

Several new electronic reference books of value in Communication Studies are now available via Blackwell Reference Online. These include: A Companion to Media Studies; A Companion to Television; A Companion to Cultural Studies; The Handbook of Discourse Analysis; and many others in psychology, sociology, race and ethnicity studies, and other disciplines.

In Media Res

In Media Res is an experiment from the Institute for the Future of the Book's Media Commons project that uses short video clips and comments about them to "promote an online dialogue amongst media scholars and the public about contemporary media scholarship."

A fuller description of the experiment is quoted below. You can view the posted videos and commentary on them on the In Media Res site.

Each day, a different media scholar will present a 30-second to 3-minute clip accompanied by a 100-150-word impressionistic response. The goal is to promote an online dialogue amongst media scholars and the public about contemporary media scholarship through clips chosen for either their typicality or atypicality in demonstrating narrative strategies, genre formulations, aesthetic choices, representational practices, institutional approaches, fan engagements, etc.

In Media Res is envisioned as an experiment in just one sort of collaborative, multi-modal scholarship that MediaCommons will aim to foster. Its primary goal is to provide a forum for more immediate critical engagement with media at a pace closer to how we typically experience mediated texts. In Media Res hopefully will:

• Give scholars the opportunity to critically engage with the media in a more immediate and timely way.

• Promote discussion within the media studies community through virtual interactions around contemporary media artifacts.

• Enable a lively debate in which the sum total of the conversation will be more valuable than any one particular voice.

• Bridge the divide between academic and non-academic communities, inviting a critically-engaged and/or curious public to join in.

• Lead to the emergence of new scholarly and pedagogical ideas about studying and teaching media.

• Work toward reinvigorating the academic’s role as public intellectual by presenting media scholars no just as informed experts with valuable ideas to impart about critical media literacy, but as fellow citizens in a mediated society.

Citation Confusion?

Are you putting together a list of works cited for a research paper and having trouble with citation formats? There are several places you can turn for help.

1. The Writer's Resources section of the BC Libraries Web site includes links to several helpful tools. Among the most useful: online APA and MLA citation guides from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Writers' Workshop.
   
2. Style manuals at the O'Neill Reference Desk. Ask for manuals on APA, MLA, Chicago, and Turabian at the desk. These are the official manuals and can help figure out the right way to cite common and uncommon resources.
3. RefWorks. If you're already using RefWorks, you probably know about the bibliography tool. If not, it might be a little late to learn everything about RefWorks, but get in touch with me and I can give you some tips on how to make the most of it in a short time.
   

Finally, don't be afraid to ask for help from me or from any of the librarians at the Reference Desk.

JibJab Animation: What We Call the News

Communication Abstracts Update

The April update of the Communication Abstracts database is now complete, with 640 new journals articles, book chapters, and books. Use the links below to view all of the new entries or to browse them by major topic area:

All New Abstracts

New Abstracts by Topic Area

1. Communication Processes
2. Interpersonal Communication and Relations
3. Economics and Communication
4. Communication, Culture, and Society
5. Education and Communication
6. Health Communication
7. Political Communication
8. Communication, Regulation, and the Law
9. Organizational Communication
10. Public Relations
11. Advertising, Marketing, and Consumer Behavior
12. Mass Media
13. Journalism and News Media
14. Communication and Information Technology
15. Telecommunications
16. Communication Theory and Research

Are You Paying Attention?

Who has a greater attention span, people reading news online or those reading it in print?

Some surprising results from a new study by the Poynter Institute.