Library Workshops for December 2012 - Registration opens now!!

6 December 2011 :

INFORMATION LITERACY SKILLS WORKSHOP (ILS) & ENDNOTE WORKSHOP

MONDAY : ILS (8:30AM – 11:00AM)
TUESDAY: ENDNOTE (8:30AM – 11:00AM)
WEDNESDAY: ILS (8:30AM – 11:00AM)
THURSDAY: ENDNOTE (2:15PM – 5:00PM)

ATTENTION !!
Register :
At Reference Counter, Ground Floor, PHS [New Wing] or
By phone: 04-6535350 or
By e-mail: rujukan@usm.my

Registration should be made two (2) weeks before the chosen date.
No earlier registration is allowed.

WORKSHOP VENUE: Computer Lab, Ground Floor, PHS1

Note:
BLUE : NO CLASS
YELLOW : FULL
WHITE : AVAILABLE

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Watch: Accelerated Programme for Excellence (APEX)

6 December 2011 :

Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) has been granted apex status. The Cabinet had agreed to USM being given the apex status on Aug 27. Watch the news from TV3.

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USM gets APEX status

5 December 2011 :

PUTRAJAYA: Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) has been granted apex status. With it, USM can expect hundreds of millions of ringgit in additional funding to transform it into Malaysia's first world-class university.
Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin said that quantitative and qualitative criteria were used to select USM under the accelerated programme for excellence (apex).

 Announcement time: Khaled flanked by deputies Dr Hou Kok Chung (right) and Datuk Idris Haron with a copy of the statement announcing USM as the country's first apex university.

“The selection committee evaluated each university's state of readiness, transformation plan and preparedness for change.
“After a thorough evaluation, the committee decided that only one university truly met all the criteria, namely USM,'' he told a press conference yesterday.
The Cabinet had agreed to USM being given the apex status on Aug 27, 2008.
The university that is given apex status is one that has the greatest potential among Malaysian universities to be world-class, and as such, would be given additional assistance to compete with top-ranked global institutions, added Khaled.
He said with apex status, USM will be expected to move up the World University Rankings with a target of top 200 in five years' and top 100, if not top 50, by 2020.
In last year’s Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings, Universiti Malaya (UM) was the highest ranked Malaysian university at 246, followed by USM (307), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (309) and Universiti Putra Malaysia (364).
A selection committee headed by former Universiti Malaysia Sarawak vice-chancellor Prof Emeritus Datuk Dr Mohamad Zawawi Ismail short-listed USM, UM, UKM and UPM.
USM's transformation plan, entitled “Transforming Higher Education for a Sustainable Tomorrow” focussed, among other things, on diagnostics, medical biotechnology, waste management, pharmaceuticals, nano-technology, membrane technology and vaccines.
Asked why UM was not selected, Khaled said: “I hope the apex status will spur other universities to strive for excellence, too. It's not about selecting the oldest university but choosing one with a doable plan that can help us transform our higher education.”
The other universities that applied for apex status were International Islamic University Malaysia, Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Universiti Teknologi Petronas and Universiti Tenaga Nasional.

(Source: http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2008/9/4/nation/22236521&sec=nation )

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IFLA 2012

3 December 2011 :

The IFLA World Library and Information Congress, which is also the IFLA General Conference and Assembly, is traditionally held annually in varying parts of the globe.


The Congress IFLA WLIC 2012 will be held in Helsinki, Finland, from 11-17 August 2012.
Congress theme: "Libraries Now! - Inspiring, Surprising, Empowering".

Further information: http://conference.ifla.org/

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ICOL 2012

3 December 2011 :

USM Library, supported by the Librarians Association of Malaysia will be proudly hosting:

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON LIBRARIES 2012

ICOL 2012

2 - 4 July 2012 | Kota BharuTransformation to Humanize Libraries

With the theme "Transformation to Humanize Libraries", the conference will be held at the Renaissance Hotel Kota Bharu, the capital city of Kelantan, one of the states in Malaysia.

Further information: https://sites.google.com/site/usmicol2012/ 

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Book Review: Qualitative Research Methods for the Social Sciences (8th ed.)

3 December 2011 :

Prepared/Reviewed by Kamal Adli Karim (Senior Librarian/Head, Technical Processing Division)

Title	:	Qualitative research methods for the social sciences (8th ed.)
Author	:	Bruce L. Berg and Howard Lune
Call Number	:	H61. B493 2011
Year	:	2011

This book is, by far, the most comprehensive book on qualitative research methods ever written. Berg covers all of the major areas of qualitative research methods with the expertise of a seasoned veteran researcher--of which he is. This book is written in an accessible and easy-to-understand style. Each chapter revolves around one central element of the qualitative research methods picture. Having been a reader of earlier editions of this book (in fact, all editions), I can testify that each edition of this book gets better than the previous edition. This book is required reading for anyone seriously interested in the research process - qualitative or quantitative.

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Impact Factor and h-Index

 1 December 2011 :

Prepared by Husriati Hussain (Librarian, Reference & Research Division) 

Impact Factor:

n  The only quantitative way of ranking a journal

n  A quantitative measure of the frequency with which the "average article" published in a given scholarly journal has been cited in a particular year or period.

n  Is used in citation analysis

n  It is calculated each year by the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI) for those journals which it tracks, and are published in the Journal Citation Report.

n  Impact Factors have a huge, but controversial, influence on the way published scientific research is perceived and evaluated

h-Index:

The h-index is an index that attempts to measure both the productivity and impact of the published work of a scientist or scholar. The index is based on the set of the scientist's most cited papers and the number of citations that they have received in other publications. The index can also be applied to the productivity and impact of a group of scientists, such as a department or university or country. The index was suggested by Jorge E. Hirsch, a physicist at UCSD, as a tool for determining theoretical physicists' relative quality and is sometimes called the Hirsch index or Hirsch number.

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