BOOKENDS May 2018, Volume 1, Issue 3

His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the UAE, has given directions to start the legislative procedure of drafting a UAE National Reading Law, which aims to ensure the sustainability of all government efforts to consolidate reading in the UAE for all ages, as well as identify the key responsibilities of government agencies in the field.The law comes as part of the National Policy for Reading in the UAE, which was announced at a press conference during the Abu Dhabi International Book Fair. The law stipulates obligatory frameworks for all government bodies in the education, media, community and cultural sectors to consolidate reading as a habit for all segments of society and different age groups.  The law also sets executive regulations that determine the National Reading Fund's capital and sources of its finance. The UAE Cabinet will dedicate a month to reading every year to encourage reading in communities and consolidating it as a daily habit.  The Cabinet will also approve a 10-year national plan, called the National Reading Plan, to be implemented by relevant government bodies.

Sheikh Mohammed emphasized that reading is the right of all members of society and guaranteed by law since early childhood. The law, the first legislation of its kind, obliges the government to intervene early to enhance reading through the provision of a knowledge bag for newborns and children. And as a result of the successful Arab Reading Challenge in 2016, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed declared the U.A.E.'s Month of reading will fall in March of every year. Khalifa University libraries have undertaken activities to encourage and create a reading culture in our libraries, in line with the government initiatives for reading in the UAE. ​To read more about this law, please visit the U.A.E Cabinet web site here.

Assim, A. S. (n.d.). 4 aims of the law of reading [Digital image].

Reading is an important skill for people and it enables people to acquire knowledge in their academic or leisure time. Most importantly, reading is an action that can be enhanced through practice. Its importance lies in how to develop this practice to become a daily habit of human life in order to become lifelong learners and this is what we seek at the Khalifa University libraries (KU). Therefore, we have undertaken activities to encourage and create a reading culture in our libraries. The role of Khalifa University library is to provide readable materials for users at the university such as books, journals in all its forms in printed and online forms to promote reading among the university community. We shaped four activities to encourage our patrons and let them engage in the library activities during the month of reading in March.

The first event during 21st – 31st March was “Books on Sale and Donation” to encourage faculty, staff and student to donate books. The event was successful and attracted a great deal of interest from the KU community. 

The second event was the “ Reading Corner” where each KU library arranged a reading corner by providing reading space and fiction books such as best seller titles, using items that already exist in the library collection.    

The third activity, “Drop Everything and Read for an Hour”, was launched from 25th - 29th March at 11 am. This activity encouraged staff, faculty and students to take an hour every day during the event week and in order to immerse themselves in the pleasure of reading. "Drop Everything and Read for an Hour" was a government initiative announced to the academic institutes in UAE and was implemented it at KU libraries.

Did you know? Librarians all over KU libraries met at SAN campus for a ‘Library Olympics’ day for successful team building games, followed by a huge amount of food to share and hidden talents surfacing amongst these ever surprising library professionals!

Steps to publish your research paper

Publishing your research paper in a scholarly journal isn't easy, and on the other side it's very important to all academics; network and stay in touch with other scholars, get their name and work circulated inside the academic community, and share knowledge and experience to refine their ideas and research. KU libraries organized a workshop on all campuses to highlight some effective points on how can researchers submit a creative and straightforward research paper, and make a good impression. Where to search for journals, and should they consider while searching for a journal to publish their paper. What criteria should be considered when evaluating journals. Open access journals, pros and cons. What is impact factor, how and where it can be found? What is the H-index, and what is the journal quartile and where to find. The presenter provided some useful links too.

For more information please contact Asma'a S. Assim Public Services Librarian - Women's campus.

​Do you need a free tool for your formative and summative class assessment? Do you want to create a quick pretest to give to your students before you lecture to gauge their prior knowledge? Do you want to transform your class from boring to exciting?

Kahoot!, a free game-based learning platform, to make any class interactive teaching experience. Is similar but different to Socrative where students get points when they get a correct answer and also points based on their response speed.

To create an account go to https://create.kahoot.it/login, You’ll have an option to create a quiz, survey or discussions. It’s quite easy to create a fun learning activity or “kahoots”. You can make a series of multiple-choice questions or try a new game. Add videos, images and diagrams to your questions to amplify student engagement.

Time-saving tip: Users can copy and edit “kahoots” created by other teachers and instructors.

To invite students to your Kahoot! You need to have an additional screen or classroom projector where the questions will be displayed. Ask them to use their device and go to kahoot.it website. You’ll share a PIN with your class and students will enter individually or in teams using their “nicknames”. As a teacher, you get great visuals, and you can download the full list of responses in spreadsheet once students have completed. This provides you with a full breakdown by questions and by a student and even tells you how long it took the student to answer.

Teacher sign in with Google - https://getkahoot.com/

Students visit https://kahoot.com/ on any device and then enter the on-screen code to begin.

Additional resources:

Intuitive Interactive Kahoot Quiz Design for Teachers. Udemy course (Free): https://www.udemy.com/intuitive-interactive-kahoot-quiz-design-for-teachers/

Kahoot Academy: Getting Started with Kahoot! https://files.getkahoot.com/academy/Kahoot_Academy_Getting_Started_Guide_2nd_Ed_-_June_2016.pdf

One of the interesting events that KU librarians attended during April, was the UAEU National Medical Library open house under the slogan "Medical Information in the 21st century". The UAEU National Medical Library is the first medical library in the United Arab Emirates. The open house program included The Medical Information Exhibition, through which some companies presented latest technologies in Medical science and useful for Medical students, like BrowZine, Primal picture 3D Anatomy, VisualIDX, VR Anatomy Lab (zSpace), and many more.  The program also included a welcome speech by Dr Mohammed Al Houqani and Ms Linda Ostlundh, guest speaker Dr Nafea Al Yasi specialist physician - Tawam Hospital his speech was about "How to enjoy your medical school years", Mental Health awareness presented by health promotion student committee.

The most interesting activity was the UAEU, National Medical Library’s first “Research as Art” exhibition. This exhibition was a mixture of art and science, emotion and reason all combined in one, exploring the beauty of medical images beyond the microscope and scientific publication cells (some were cancer cells). Open day attendees voted for the best CMHS research related art piece and the winning image was by Professor Safa Shehab.