Changes in opening hours: week 13 & 14

Week 13 (25 March - 29 March):

• The library will be closed on Friday, March 29th. The library will be open as usual from Monday to Thursday: between 9:00 am and 7:00 pm
• The Data Center helpdesk will also not be open on Friday. The opening hours of the Data Center on Wednesday and Thursday will remain the same: between 1:00 and 4:00 pm.

Week 14 (1 April - 5 April):

• On Easter Monday, April 1st, the library will be closed. The library will be open as usual from Tuesday to Thursday: between 9:00 am and 7:00 pm. On Friday the library is open between 9:00 am an 5:00 pm
• In this week the Data Center helpdesk is open as usual: on Wednesday and Thursday between 1:00 pm and 4:00 pm. On Friday the helpdesk is open from 1:00 to 3:00 pm.

That’s the Question: new tool for teachers

The university library has developed a new free tool that helps you formulate test questions for exams. As part of a SURF project Silvester Draaijer, advisor on IT and education at the library, has created a tool that helps and supports teachers when they are developing tests or test questions.

The tool is intended to offer suggestions and advise to teachers about formulating clear and precise test questions. Uing the tool you, as a teacher, will be able to create your own list of test questions that can be easily exported to the current test systems. More information is available (in Dutch) at the library website. You can also contact ir. Silvester Draaijer.

New additions to the library collection

Below you find a short selection of recently acquired literature. Through the library website it is also possible to get a monthly overview of new additions to the library collection.

• Alemanno, A., den Butter, F., Nijsen, A., & Torriti, J. (2013). Better Business Regulation in a Risk Society. Springer.
• Biondi, Y. & Zambon, S. (2013). Accounting and business economics : insights from national traditions. Taylor and Francis.
• Botzem, S. (2012). The politics of accounting regulation : organizing transnational standard setting in financial reporting. Cheltenham [etc.]: Edward Elgar Publishing.
• Butter, F. A. G. d. (2012). Managing transaction costs in the era of globalization. Edward Elgar Publishing.
• Eriksson, P. & Kovalainen, A. (2008). Qualitative methods in business research. Los Angeles [etc.]: SAGE Publications. (2 print copies)
• Firestone, J. M. & McElroy, M. W. (2003). Key issues in the new knowledge management. Boston, MA [etc.]: Butterworth-Heinemann.
• Reihlen, M. & Werr, A. (2012). Handbook of research on entrepreneurship in professional services. Edward Elgar Publishing.
• Takseva, T. & Global, I. G. I. (2013). Social software and the evolution of user expertise: future trends in knowledge creation and dissemination. Information Science Reference.

It is also possible to view all monthly new additions to the collection through the library website. Please submit any queries about the collection or acquisition suggestions to the information specialist for Economics and Business Administration: Mark Bruyneel (m.bruyneel@vu.nl).

Reference management support

The library of the VU supports two software programs that help you manage references when doing research and writing papers. These software programs are Reference Manager and EndNote. Both programs allow you to easily gather citations from literature databases, websites and Google Scholar without too much diffulty.
Using these references from your own database while writing a paper then becomes easy as pie. Find out more about both programs from the library website which also offers manuals. During the course of the year the library also provides workshops. Information on these workshops and the option to register, is available through the Agenda at the library website.

News on financial databases

New blog entries have been made available on different subjects. Most of these deal with financial databases available to the personnel and students at the Vrije Universiteit. Most deal with databases and some of the subjects deal with handling data in Excel. Some of the latest blog entries in February concern: IPO data and quality, Combining searches in SDC Platinum, Accounting standards & Datastream, Using the Excel function Vlookup, Datastream & ratings, Auditor data in databases, Bankruptcy information in databases, and Index constituents in databases.

Library services improved according to students and personnel

The library of the Vrije Universiteit has organized a customer satisfaction questionnaire at the end of 2012 among both students and personnel at the University and the VU Medical Centre. According to the results that are now available, the library has made definite progress compared to an earlier customer satisfaction questionnaire which was held in 2008. In that year the library got a grade of 6.6 overall. In 2012 the VU gave a 7.2 overall grade and the VU Medical Centre a 7.4. If you want more information you can visit the library website and even download the full (Dutch language) report.