Shiny-ing up your skill set with Lynda.com

2012-02-15T20:24:00.002-06:00

If you're like many SLISers, you may be looking at a long list of desired skills on a job application and thinking, "Gosh, if only I had experience with [technology-related item here]." Sigh no more, my friends.

DoIT recently purchased a subscription for the UW community to Lynda.com, which contains more than 1,200 self-paced online courses and more than 50,000 individual tutorials. Courses cover everything from Drupal to Photoshop to XML and range from 45 minutes to several hours.

Signing up is easy. So easy, in fact, that it's already done. If you have a UW Madison NetID, all you need to do is click on this link, and then log in using your NetID. From there, you can search by subject (photography, video, business, design) or by specific software (CSS, iMovie, Microsoft Access). Or, if you're feeling adventurous, browse the "latest releases":

Once you've found interesting courses, watch them immediately or add them to your queue. Each course has a detailed outline so you can get an idea of what's being covered or you can skip to the part you need. There are also exercise files to try out your skills and a transcript in case you want to go back to look.

Happy searching!

(For more info from DoIT, go here: http://www.doit.wisc.edu/training/lynda.aspx)

Protests Against Journal Publisher

2012-02-09T11:31:00.000-06:00

Following the lead of British professor Tim Gower, a growing number of professors, librarians, researchers, and like-minded professionals are refusing to publish in, referee for, or join the editorial board for academic journal publishing giant Elsevier.

Supporters of the protest cite the incredibly high journal subscription prices as a main reason for their disassociation with Elsevier. Thomas Hales, a math professor at the University of Pittsburgh, stated his frustration plainly, asking "Why should university researchers donate their labor and intellectual property to Elsevier, just to have the publisher turn around and charge university libraries exorbitant prices for access?" (http://www.utimes.pitt.edu/?p=19679).

The price of scholarly journals has long been an issue, especially with university and library budgets being so tight. Open access, which allows unrestricted online access to scholarly journals for little or no cost, is gaining momentum as a viable solution. Time will tell whether this Elsevier protest will be a step toward bigger changes in the journal publishing market.

SLIS Library News

Shiny-ing up your skill set with Lynda.com

Protests Against Journal Publisher