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Monday, April 9, 2007

TIC Salutes its Student Employees

April 8-14 is National Student Employment Week.  Since nearly the beginning of construction on the Turfgrass Information File (TGIF), the Turfgrass Information Center has relied heavily on student employee labor to produce high-quality, immediately-available TGIF records.  Additionally, as TIC continues to partner with publishers and associations to digitize and make available publications, roles played by TIC student employees continue to expand.  Student employees are relied upon to create descriptive (citation information) records, add keywords, write abstracts, determine online article availability, maintain URLs, design websites, create web pages, file and organize materials, serve walk-in traffic, and an assortment of other tasks! 

“All that I have accomplished, or expect, or hope to accomplish, has been and will be by that plodding, patient, persevering process of accretion which builds the ant-heap – particle by particle, thought by thought, fact by fact.”  —Elihu Burritt

Similarly, the Center truly could not run, nor could the TGIF database have grown so much, nor could as many new features have been and continue to be added, without student employees.

The work performed by student employees is important and valued.  A round of applause for the sheer amount of work and effort these students put forth; gratitude for all the researchers, students, and practitioners helped via TGIF searches, archive sites and other TIC online resources; and thanks by all the staff at the Turfgrass Information Center.

Monday, March 19, 2007

USGA Green Section Record Article Utilizes TGIF Fastlink

In an article of the Summer 2006 issue of The Sward, TIC periodic newsletter, embedding TGIF fastlinks in course syllabi, vitae, literature cited sections, and more was discussed.

The March/April 2007 issue of the USGA Green Section Record demonstrates a real-life example of a fastlink. In the article “Golf Course Maintenance and the ADA” Patrick J. Gross writes about how the American with Disabilities Act relates golf course operations and its potential impact on the quality of the turfgrass. The Director of the Southwest Region of the USGA Green Section references Gary Gentilucci’s 1997 master’s thesis Putting Green Characteristics Associated with Surface Depressions Caused by Selected Forms of Traffic (the linked article title and thesis title in this blog entry are more examples of utilizing fastlinks!). By adding the TGIF fastlink after the citation, readers can jump to the TGIF record for this citation. Additionally, since Gary Gentilucci has granted copyright permissions to have his thesis digitized, readers can even access the full-text of the thesis from the TGIF record!

The publicly-available USGA Green Section Record archive site can be found at http://turf.lib.msu.edu/gsr/.

For more information on utilizing TGIF fastlinks in your own work, please visit http://www.tic.msu.edu/fastlinks.html.

Monday, March 12, 2007

Documenting the Golf Course Design Literature

A very important, recently published book details the long and rich written heritage of the art and science of golf course architecture. Two deans of golf course design, Geoffrey S. Cornish of Massachusetts and Michael J. Hurdzan of Ohio, have collaborated to outline the wealth of this written tradition. Both as well are gifted communicators and writers, thus bringing together a unique perspective and producing a unique contribution.

Clearly a work of personal passion and pursuit, the book, Golf Course Design, is subtitled "An Annotated Bibliography With Highlights of Its History and Resources". While the core of the work and content are the annotated listings of about 360 items, much supplementary comment and guidance are provided relative to personal book collecting and the nature of golf design itself. In addition, the structure of the book provides multiple pathways to identify resources of interest; by era, or architect, or broad classification, including, "The Environment" and "Turfgrass Science and Management". Given the overwhelming number of 'golf books' that have been printed over the past 100 years, the winnowing which Cornish and Hurdzan have done to identify those materials most relevant to course design is indeed a great service to the discipline, along with expert commentary as to each piece's significance.
One of the more unusual features found here is a fairly thorough description of a highly personalized collection organizing system based on 'shelves', which includes 1) Primary Sources, 2) Pictures, Personalities, Places or Ideas, 3) Research Information, Catalogues, and Secondary Resource Materials, 4) Publications Related to Golf Course Design for Interesting Leisure Reading, and 5) Old and Rate Publications of High Value. Detailed for each 'shelf' are volumes considered as such by author Hurdzan.
This is the latest offering in Grant Books' Golf Architecture Series. Grant is UK-based specialty publisher, which has contributed much to the golf design literature by making available some unique and important resources which otherwise might not have seen public publication. Bravo to them and that! Their website is at: http://www.grantbooks.co.uk/beta/index.php (though the website is clearly not their focus....).

Every, even casual, student or observer of golf design should own a copy of this work. It is a most welcome addition to the literature of not only course architecture, but also the relationship between design and management of those facilities. And it will certainly raise the industry-wide awareness of both the depth and significance of what this literature has contributed to the evolution of golf's fields of play.
For further details about this item, see the TGIF record for it, from which you can get to information about what libraries own the item. See: http://www.lib.msu.edu/cgi-bin/flink.pl?recno=109655 .
(poc)

Thursday, March 8, 2007

Many Full-Text Resources Available

Did you know that the Turfgrass Information Center has a range of full-text resources available? These include publicly-available archive sites (such as USGA Green Section Record and USGA Turfgrass and Enviromental Research Online), archive sites available to all TGIF subscribers along with other groups (including the International Turfgrass Bulletin and Turf News), and resources such as the publicly-available ASGCA Architect’s Gallery. Additional full-text resources are in the process of being constructed, including an archive site for GreenMaster, Golf Course Management, and the International Turfgrass Society Research Journal and Proceedings. Plans are also in place to develop a publicly-accessible site for the Noer/Milorganite® Division MMSD Image Collection materials.

Additionally, TGIF records from the archive sites, both public and restricted-access, are linked to the digitized version of the article. Enabling database users (and the world in the case of publicly-available archive sites) to access materials immediately can only help improve the discipline of turf science.

Check out the complete list of full-text resources at http://tic.msu.edu/pubjrnlbrowse.htm! TGIF subscribers can access the restricted sites by logging in to TGIF and after accepting the conditions of use choosing the option Browse Full-Text Journals (Logs Out) from the left-hand navigation.

The Turfgrass Information Center at Michigan State University Libraries is proud to make these resources available. We thank you for your continued support.

Monday, February 18, 2007

2006 USGA Turfgrass Research Program Update now available

The 2006 program summaries for 2006 are now available online. The 61 reports include the full range of research funded by the USGA Turfgrass and Environmental Research Program, including: Course construction practices, Grant-in-aid, Environmental impact, Breeding, genetics, and physiology, and Integrated turfgrass management. Browse the list of available reports from:
http://www.lib.msu.edu/tgif/usgasummarybrowse.htm. In addition, records for all of these items have been added to the Turfgrass Information File so they can be searched directly from within TGIF itself

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Q & A from earlier USGA Periodicals (Pre Turf Twisters) added

While all Turf Twisters from the USGA Green Section Record (1963-) have the question, source of question, and answer within the TGIF record, none from the earlier USGA periodicals, including the Bulletin of the USGA Green Section and Turf Culture were added to TGIF prior to the Turf Twisters in the 1960s. Currently underway is a push to add to TGIF these historically interesting and still possibly-relevant items in their full-text form, including question, source of question, and answer. Additionally, with the complete digitization of the USGA Green Section's periodicals dating back to 1921, there will also be a link to the digital format of the original publication.

Check out the publicly-available digital archive of the USGA Green Section periodicals at http://turf.lib.msu.edu/gsr/. Subscribers (http://tic.msu.edu/subscribe.html) to the TGIF database may already see some of the newly-added 400+ Q&A records appearing in their results!