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                                          Issue: 2020 - 19
Welcome

April Fools' Day or April Fool's Day is an annual custom on April 1, consisting of practical jokes and hoaxes. The player of the joke or hoax often exposes their action later by shouting "April fools" at the recipient. The recipients of these actions are called April fools.

Don’t we all want to shout out this and wake up realizing the last month has been a bad joke?

Well, life goes on and the more optimistic we are, the better the days that will come.

KU Libraries staff has been working from home, making sure to keep supporting the academic community with services, tools and resources that enhance teaching, research and learning. The current issue is devoted to all of us, all of you, all people who keep themselves motivated and productive under these circumstances.


Library Researcher Development Webinar Series

Library Researcher Development Webinar Series

As you know, we convene and support research events and training activities throughout the year.

Under the title Library Researcher Development Webinar Series, we deliver a dedicated series of remotely organized events, to support graduate students and early career researchers and contribute to the development of the research skills base. Current topics cover reference management and survey tools, key research skills, research using the Library’s sources, hot trends in scientific fields and the importance of citations.

You can be informed about our current scheduled webinars via our online calendar. Find the topics you are interested in, make your registration and join from your computer, tablet or smartphone by clicking the links provided by the Library.



OPEN SCIENCE: Data Management Plan is required for all Horizon 2020 projects, download funder templates with DMPonline!

OPEN SCIENCE: Data Management Plan is required for all Horizon 2020 projects, download funder templates with DMPonline!

The Open Research Data Pilot (ORD pilot) in Horizon 2020 aims to improve and maximise access to and re-use of research data generated by projects. This ORD pilot covers all thematic areas of Horizon 2020 in order to “make open research data the default option”, as announced in the Communication: European Cloud Initiative – Building a competitive data and knowledge economy in Europe.

Further information on research data sharing is made available on the Funding and Tenders Portal. Horizon 2020 provides for the use of Data Management Plans detailing what data the project will generate, whether and how it will be exploited or made accessible for verification and re-use, and how it will be curated and preserved. Ideally, the DMP should address the relevant aspects of making data FAIR – findable, accessible, interoperable and re-usable.

The use of a Data Management Plan is required for all Horizon 2020 projects, except if they opt-out of sharing their research data for one of the reasons indicated in the EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation. Note that a Data Management Plan is not required at submission stage. Rather, projects must provide a first version of the DMP within the first six months of the project (as a deliverable), to be updated as appropriate.

DMPonline helps you to create, review, and share data management plans that meet institutional and funder requirements. It is provided by the Digital Curation Centre (DCC). Some funders mandate the use of DMPonline, while others point to it as a useful option. You can download funder templates such as ERC’s, without logging in, but the tool provides tailored guidance and example answers from the DCC and many research organisations.



FOSTER has released the Open Science toolkit!

FOSTER has released the Open Science toolkit!

FOSTER Plus developed a set of ten free online courses covering key topics of Open Science. Each course takes about one hour to complete and a badge is awarded after successful completion. You will need to create a free account on the FOSTER portal if you wish to claim your badge but the courses can also be accessed without registration if no badge is desired. The order you take the courses in is not important, the system tracks your progress regardless and you can claim the badge as soon you completed each of the suggested courses. However, we recommend starting with "What is Open Science?" as an introduction. The draft courses were released for public consultation during the summer and have been refined based on community feedback.

Access the toolkit to see the available Open Science Training Courses. Courses include: What is Open Science? Best Practice in Open Research, Managing and Sharing Research Data, OSS and Workflows, Data Protection and Ethics, Open Licensing, Open Access Publishing, Sharing Preprints, Open Peer Review, Open Science and Innovation.

You can get help from the Open Access Team in the Library for your questions via openaccess@ku.edu.tr



Suna Kıraç Library Campus Engagement Activities

Suna Kıraç Library Campus Engagement Activities

We often organize different events to meet and support the campus community. Book club talks, storytelling sessions, game days and mindfulness event

Our first game event was organized in 2017 in order to celebrate the popularity and educational, recreational, and social value of board games. Games help us to develop strategic thinking and planning - useful skills for education – and also help us to socialize. We wanted to combine these outcomes with library and our campus community loved it. Our game events attract intense interest and they continue with the help of the KUFRP student club, the board game lovers in the campus, and the Library Student Ambassadors.

Another popular engagement activity for the KU Community are the storytelling sessions. Our main aim is to reach our to all members of the campus. With the storytelling sessions we help our children develop imagination, improve social skills and we offer to them a library experience.

Suna Kıraç Library’s storytelling sessions started in 2018. Since last December we decided to organize them on a more frequent basis, every other week. In total we hosted 11 sessions and almost all of the sessions were held with the help of the Library Student Ambassadors.

Mrs. Meryem Kocabaş, with extensive experience from story telling sessions in Libraries in the US, taught the Student Ambassadors how to read books and gave tips about vocalization during narrating.

Parents were really enthusiast for the opportunity and children enjoyed the sessions. Our plan is to continue in the new semester.

Book club

SKL Book Club Talks started in October 2019 and we continued till February 2020 with a total of 5 books and very fruitful discussions. Administrative and academic staff, undergraduate and graduate students came together to discuss about different books. We were also very happy to have received the enthusiastic participation and support from dear prof. Bilgen Bilgin in 3 of the sessions. Due to known circumstances we had to cancal the next two talks.

The mindfulness events were organized with the help of UIF students, Student Ambassadors, Rengin Işık Akın, Yeliz Utku Konca and Mahide Sondikme. Suna Kıraç Library’s aim has been to help our students have a break during the finals period, empty their mind for a while, connect with their inner shelf, relax. We organized both meditation and yoga sessions that attracted students and taught them easy techniques that can be easily applied in daily life: how to breath correctly, how to focus on a moment, hot to stretch their body, how to release bad energy.



Meet our staff

Meet our staff: Rana Otur – Document supply Librarian

Rana Otur Hello all, my name is Rana and I’m the person behind the Document Delivery services in SKL. I have been working at this department for more than 2 years, with a primary aim to support your studies by supplying articles, book chapters, books, thesis and other additional material you need but it is not directly accessible via our library’s printed or electronic sources.

I’m searching for and request material from local and international academic and research libraries and all KU branch libraries (ANAMED, Health and Sciences Library, AKMED and VEKAM).

Also, I am providing Reserve services. Reserve services include the preparation of courses materials for the relevant semester as well as the management and maintenance of the e-reserve system for electronic courses materials.

Even if surrounded by books, articles, theses and many more, I can easily identify the human factor in this position. Being able to contribute to the research, teaching and studying process of the KU community has always been what motivates me the most. Even if we do not communicate face to face, your reactions and appreciation, the fact that you always remember to thank me, is my reward and the reason I’m doing my best. You can send your requests using the online forms for each service and if you need more information, you can reach at rotur@ku.edu.tr



Saved Items

“Saved Items” features and enhancements included in the Library’s Digital Collections.

While conducting research, having the ability to save important sources (e.g. articles) or to create customized lists of resources from a database page or a Library catalog is a big advantage for researchers. Unfortunately, our Archival platform CONTENTdm couldn’t provide such feature to the researchers, till now…

With the newly added feature, researchers will see the “☆ Save” buttons on the search/browse pages and the item pages; and items can be saved to be exported or shared with other researchers.

Saved Items
On the “Saved Items” page there are 3 action buttons: Remove, Create Link, and Export. These operations will apply only to those items that are checked when the button is clicked.

  • When you click Remove, any items that are selected will be removed from your “Saved Items” page.
  • When you click Create Link, you will build a permanent link to the items that are checked.
  • When you click Export, you can choose to save a Plain text file or a Simple HTML file. These files will be downloaded to your local device and can be shared via email.
You can add up to 200 items to your “Saved Items”.

Items added to the “Saved Items” page are kept in the browser cache of the local device. If you are working on a public computer, you should use Remove to clear all saved items before you leave the machine. You can also clear saved items by deleting the browser cache.



How would you like to browse a Digital Exhibition?

How would you like to browse a Digital Exhibition?

Suna Kıraç Library Digital Collections Website now has a new section for online exhibitions curated by the images of the Suna Kıraç Library Special Collections. At the moment, the webpage houses two online exhibitions as Vehbi Koç: A Son and A Pioneer of The Republic and Inscribed Rocks of Anatolian Civilizations: Hattusa, Midas and Topada. An online exhibition dedicated to Josephine Powell Slides Collection focusing on kilim bazaars in different cities of Anatolia, will be accessible in April.

Stay Tuned…


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Koç University Suna Kıraç Library
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T:+90-212 338 13 17 F: +90-212 338 13 21
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