Society Guardian.

I know that buying a daily newspaper is fast becoming a thing of the past because most newspapers are free online.

The Guardian has a particularly good online section for social science students called 'Society Guardian'. In the paper edition it appears on a Wednesday.

Have a look here to get a taste of what it covers. It won't do the same job as academic journals, (if you tried writing an essay based entirely on newspaper articles you'd probably fail!) but it offers a good selection of opinion pieces and articles written from the perspective of the client.

You can also set up an RSS feed to the website, enabling the info to come to you. Have a look here for advice on how to set this up.

Do you have a smart phone?

Does your phone support the Android operating system?

If the answer is yes, you can download our new UoB Learning Resources application (or app) from here.

This is a rather smart little application allowing you to easily access your library account via your phone, as well as all the usual options for searching the catalogue.

Feel free to let me know how you get on?

I was taking Evan, my 4 year-old, to pre-school this morning.

This is him. And yes, I know he looks like trouble.

It was lovely to be out on the bike and he was singing to me from his bike seat behind me.

Without warning, the more traditional lyrics to Abba's Mama Mia morphed into, "Mama Mia, you've got a big belly like an elephant because you drink too much wine".

Now I'm not saying he doesn't have a point (although surely, 'Dad, maybe giving the rather delicious Pinot Noir a miss this evening would be beneficial to your overall health?', would have been kinder).

As much fun as it would be to write an essay about obesity based on cutting things children say, I think you'll need some evidence from grown-ups at some point! So if it's statistics you're looking for on anything health related my suggestion would be to look on the NHS website. And if any of you are currently looking for info on obesity in the UK take a look here where you'll find the latest government figures.

And this evening I will be giving the alcohol a miss, although if he thinks he's getting any cake later he'll be very disappointed...

If you're going to tweet then get a good lawyer.

In January a man called Paul Chambers, stuck at a snowed in airport in Nottingham and frustrated with life, wrote a message on Twitter saying that he was going to blow the place sky high if they didn't get their act together.

Unfortunately for Paul, what was obviously a flippant, if unfunny, tweet was intercepted by anti-terrorism bods and within hours he was staring at the walls of a cell.

I mention this because it has serious ramifications for the future of communications on the Web.
In my online past I'm pretty sure I've threatened personal turmoil or trauma towards at least 5 politicians, 8 football referees and everyone who's ever appeared on X-Factor.
I'm also pretty sure none of those people increased their security as a result though.
Because most people who aren't judges and terrorism experts can tell the difference between serious terrorists and frustrated commuters. Even when the words seem similar.

So here's my advice. The next time you're on Facebook or Twitter think twice before writing that you're so frustrated with your husband/wife that you want to kill them, or that the lack of books in the library makes you want to take it out on a librarian.

Not unless you're prepared to spend some time alone in a small area with views that even an estate agent would struggle in making attractive.

You can have a look at Charlie Brooker's reporting of the story here in the Guardian.

YouTube to the rescue

Hi all.

This message is particularly for those students who I've seen recently regarding finding journals via the databases.

I didn't mention this in the lectures but there a quite a few tutorials on YouTube showing you how to conduct searches.

The video below is just one example of what you can find but bear in mind these videos were made by the company who provide the databases, not UoB.



Let me know if these videos help?

Alan