If you’ve searched for items in Omni lately, you might have noticed a small but powerful new feature. As of yesterday, the Load More Results button is gone and in its place is the more classic style of page navigation. At the bottom of your search results, you can now choose the number of results to display per page, up to 50, as well as navigate between pages of results.
Increase number of results per page and navigate between pages with this new feature
Users will now have much more control over how their search results are displayed and how they navigate between results in the set. No more scrolling through results 10 at a time, which is especially beneficial when you’re trying to get to the middle of a large set. In other words, if you know you want to get to page 5, you can do that in one click, instead of 4.
Scrolling through results 10 at a time
We hope you enjoy this small improvement to Omni. It’s one of many to come. Feel free to let us know what you think about this and other features. And if you need any help searching, email us at fimslib@uwo.ca.
Keeping track of citations for projects, articles, or teaching can be frustrating and having to shift between different citation styles for different classes or publications can be even worse. For these reasons, we recommend the content management tool, Zotero, to members of the FIMS community. Zotero is a versatile tool that is great for organizing research, collaborative work, and quickly formatting in-text citations and reference lists. As you browse webpages or databases, it allows you to easily save materials for later. There are other content management tools on the market, but we like Zotero because it’s a free, easy-to-use, open-source tool.
Installing and Using Zotero
To get started, go to Zotero.org and download the Zotero software and browser extension. It’s possible to build a citation library without the extension, but this will require you to add items manually which is a lot more work. Once you install the browser extension it will appear in the top right corner of your screen and the icon will change depending on what type of material you’re looking at. To add items to your library, click on this icon and choose the relevant folder for the material.
Figure 1 Image of the Zotero browser extension on the FIMS Graduate Library’s Website.
We recommend that you register for a free Zotero account so that you’re able to sync your account to other devices and access your library anywhere. Having an account will also allow you to use Zotero collaboratively and to share your libraries with others.
Creating and Sharing Your Library
Zotero libraries are easy to create and to customize to your own interests and research areas. You can create folders and sub-folders to collect materials for courses, projects, professional development, or general areas of interest. Everyone’s library looks different and it’s easy to change and update as you go.
To start building your library in Zotero, right click on the collection or library icon in the top right corner of the screen. From here you can also add sub-collections, colour-code your library, or attach tags to different materials in your library. Searching your library is also simple, so you don’t need to worry if you can’t remember where you filed an item.
Figure 2 Image of a Zotero library.
Zotero is a wonderful tool for collaborative work. To create a new group right click on the “New Library” icon that appears in the top left corner of the standalone version of Zotero, and then click on “New Group.” This will take you to the web version of Zotero, where you can choose the settings for the group and generate invitations to send to group members.
Creating In-Text Citations and References
Using Zotero to create in-text citations and reference lists saves you the time and frustration of having to create these on your own, and it allows you to easily adapt your work to different citation formats. This function in Zotero works with Microsoft Word, Google Docs, or LibreOffice.
If you’re using Microsoft Word, the Zotero word processor plugin should be automatically installed when you download the Zotero software and will appear in the main navigation bar. To add in-text citations, first choose a citation format for your document by clicking on “Document Preferences.” Next, put your cursor where you’d like the citation to appear and click on “Add/Edit Citation” and search for the appropriate citation. Once you’ve added a citation, you can add the corresponding reference entry by clicking on “Add/Edit Bibliography.”
* Important note: It is ALWAYS important to check citation and reference entries for errors, as there are often errors in the information that Zotero receives about materials. This is especially true of websites. When you discover an error, you can change the information for the item in your Zotero library permanently so that it will be correct whenever you cite this item in the future.
Figure 3 Image of the Zotero extension in Microsoft Word
Want to learn more? Watch our Zotero Video
If you would like an in-depth demo of how to use this tool, watch our Introduction to Zotero video. In this video, we walk you through installing Zotero, creating and organizing your citation library, generating in-text citations and reference lists, and more.
If you have any questions about Zotero please email us at fimslib@uwo.ca. Zotero also has a great documentation section on its website that allows you to easily find information about using the tool.
“Margaret Lyons always said she had three strikes against her: she was a woman, she was under five feet tall, and she was Japanese.” As a reporter, producer and manager, she brought a new standard of journalism to radio in Canada and is credited with saving CBC radio from oblivion. She directed the creation of programs such as As it Happens, Quirks & Quarks, and Sunday Morning. She was instrumental in realizing CBC’s Radio Revolution in the late sixties, seventies and eighties. Margaret died in late 2019.
When she died, a small group of people who worked for and with Margaret as young aspiring public broadcasters, decided they should create a moment to reflect on Margaret’s contributions.
They had hoped to stage an event at the Glenn Gould Studio in the Broadcast Centre in Toronto last Spring, but the pandemic rendered that impossible. So, they pivoted and created a one-hour documentary Tribute to Margaret.
From the beginning they thought the hour would be important for journalism/media and communication schools across the country. It is too easy to ignore our national history and Margaret Lyons personified a major chapter in the development of broadcast journalism in Canada. Any student of journalism or the media would not only benefit but enjoy hearing Margaret’s incredible journey from an interned Canadian of Japanese descent during World War II to the Head of CBC Radio. Her contribution to both public broadcasting and Canadian Culture is enormous and as a racialized woman her story is all the more remarkable. She is also a first-class example of the power of original thinking and what a little corporate defiance and bravery can accomplish. If her journey inspires young women and men seeking a future in the media world and engagement in an evolving Canada, then creating this documentary about an extraordinary person has served its purpose.
Please watch and enjoy this documentary and share it with others.
The FIMS Graduate Library has always been happy to help instructors with their course readings. But we want you to know that the level of service has increased.
In the past, our help centered on print reserves: you requested books, we tracked them down from various locations on campus and made them available to your students in the library.
This meant that you were responsible for book chapter scans, journal articles, website URLS, government reports, etc. In most cases, students were required to track down these resources with the bibliographic information provided in the course syllabus.
The situation improved with the adoption of OWL. Through OWL, instructors can upload PDFs of journal articles and link to webpages and other electronic resources.
But if this process is new to you, or the time it would take is burdensome, the FIMS Grad Library can take that work off your hands.
Using one of several methods, which will be outlined below, if you provide us with a list of materials, we can upload them on your behalf to your course’s OWL site.
How to Get Started
The first step is simple, just email fimslib@uwo.ca with the titles you need! You can email us your syllabus, a simple list of items or you can explore more options by submitting your request directly through the Course Readings Service.
Access theCourseReadingsService
If you have an OWL site, the next step is to add the Course Readings Plugin, so that a Course Readings link appears in the left menu. If you do not use OWL, or if your site has not yet been set up, log in to Course Readings with your Western Identity.
After logging in (or clicking the Course Readings link), select a course from the “Current Courses” table or “View upcoming courses” to add or manage readings for that course.
To upload Your Syllabus:
The following steps are optional. You can simply email us your reading list, syllabus or an individual item request. But if you’re more comfortable making the request from within OWL, these are the steps to follow:
Complete the request form based on the item’s material type
Note:
New purchases, items to be acquired via Interlibrary Loans, and items requiring copyright clearance may take longer to be made available
You must submit individual request forms for items you intend to supply, e.g.: personal copies of books or media, previously scanned books or articles, etc.
Ensure your syllabus includes complete citation information
Additionally, please note that our stacks are closed for browsing. If you would like to consult items available in the FIMS Graduate Library to determine appropriateness for your courses, please send us a list and we will gather the items and make them available to you.
If you have any questions or if you require assistance at any point in this process, please do not hesitate to get in touch via fimslib@uwo.ca.
Despite the lockdown, Western students are allowed to borrow physical items from all Western Libraries locations (although pickup locations may be limited).
If you need materials held in Western Libraries, in storage, or held by an Affiliated University College, simply click the Request button on the item’s record, fill out the form, and pick it up at your preferred location.
Returning your books
When you’re ready to return your books, simply return them to the outside book drop located near the front doors of The D.B. Weldon Library.
Renewing your books
If your loan period is ending and you still need your books, you can renew them yourself by logging in to “My Library Account” from the Omni homepage.
Once signed in, click Loans to find a list of the items currently on loan to you and click Renew beside the item you want to renew, and that’s it!
Click here, for more information about My Library Account.
If you have any questions about this, or other library services, please email fimslib@uwo.ca.
Usernames and passwords are usually requested by your instructor on your behalf and are sent to your UWO email. Contact us at fimslib@uwo.ca or your instructor for more info.
You might notice it is difficult to access RDA through Catalogers Desktop. If that is the case, we recommend accessing RDA directly, by the method above. If this doesn’t work, please email us at fimslib@uwo.ca.
If you’re still having difficulty, please email us at fimslib@uwo.ca.
