Name Release

Tired of having your books recalled?
Name Release allows the library to provide your name, phone number and/or e-mail address to another library patron who expresses an interest in a book that is signed out to you.

Why is this valuable?
The requester can now contact you directly in order to share an item, as opposed to simply recalling it from you. There is a good chance the person wanting the same item as you is a classmate, given our relatively small and specialized field of vision science at the University of Waterloo.

Note: For those who are interested in this service, please keep in mind that any item you sign out is still your responsibility.

Lunchtime Learning Sessions at the WLRC

Finding library books and journals at home or school has just become easier! Join us for a 25 minute practical introduction to effectively searching our library catalogue using PRIMO. New features of PRIMO have the potential to simplify finding your needed resources.

PRIMO Sessions:

• October 7^th 12:30-12:55 pm (Wednesday)
• October 14^th 4:30 - 4:55 pm (Wednesday after class session)

Your bibliography can be one of the toughest parts of writing a paper or report. RefWorks can make this easy! Come and learn to set up a RefWorks account and learn the basics for using this bibliography management software.

Refworks Sessions:

• October 21^st 12:30 - 12:55 pm (Wednesday)
  
• October 28^th 4:30 - 4:55 pm (Wednesday after class session)

new library catalogue search interface for UW

University of Waterloo has a new library catalogue search interface called PRIMO. You will now see a difference in the look of your search results.

New usability functions that PRIMO offers include:

• A "did you mean?" spell check function similar to Google
• Social software features, such as tagging and reviewing to encourage knowledge sharing
• Ability to group similar records to avoid duplication in search results
• Enhanced ability to limit results to "available" and "online" resources
• The option to sort search results by popularity and relevance

If you have difficulty using this new interface, please check the PRIMO Search Tips page for an answer. We are planning a number of 20-25 minute practical tutorials to be given over the lunch break or after classes to introduce this new search tool to faculty, staff and students. Of course, you can also contact us with any of your questions.

Finally, if you prefer to search with the old TRELLIS interface there is a link to the TRELLIS catalogue in PRIMO

Case Reports & Grand Rounds (Research Resources)

As always, the School of Optometry is a bit quieter during the summer months, but there is always one notable exception - students preparing for their Grand Rounds (case study presentations). It is always tough to spend a beautiful summer day indoors, so here are a few research tips to improve your research skills, which just might increase your time for fun in the sun!

Step1: Review other case studies and/or grand rounds examples online:

• Digital Journal of Ophthalomology (Grand Rounds)


• Eye Rounds (University of Iowa)


• Optocase


• Working in the clinic? Grab the latest copy of Clinical & Refractive Optometry or the American Orthoptic Journal (see Case Corner) to read over your lunch break.

Step 2: Come in and ask Kathy MacDonald, your Liaison Librarian, or myself (Peter Stirling) for assistance finding relevant peer-reviewed literature that supports your case study.

Step 3: Use Bibliography Management Software to make easy work of your citations and bibliography. We supply Refworks to you at no cost. Come and ask us about it if you are not already using it!

Step 4: Take frequent deep breaths and pop outside for a break once in a while. It has been proven to help mental clarity :)

Our new space and a new name!

We are happy to announce that we are officially in our new space as part of the School of Optometry Expansion! We are now able to offer our students more than double the study space that was available in our previous location:
With our new space comes a new name as well. In honour of a generous gift presented to the School of Optometry expansion project by Dr. Marta Witer and her husband Ian Ihnatowycz, our facility has been renamed the Witer Learning Resource Centre (WLRC).

Free access to ISO standards

FREE access to standards from the International Organization of Standardization (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) is now available to students and faculty. These are provided through the Standards Council of Canada (SCC) by request. A questionnaire is sent to you which requires a class number to identify the request as education-related.

Looking for a Canadian (CSA) or United States (ANSI) standard?
Many of these are available through our library catalogue. If you cannot find the standard you need, please contact us and we will try to locate what you need.

Journal Impact Factors

The OLRC often receives questions from researchers relating to which journals have the greatest "impact" in their field? There are a number of indexes available for comparing journals, but the most commonly used resource in North America is the ISI Web of Knowledge Journal Citation Reports. Journals can be searched by title, or there is a subject heading for Ophthalmology, which provides quick reference for major vision science journals in North America.