Alumni Borrowing Privileges

Based on a reference question emailed to us, a UofR alum wanted to know if she could acquire borrowing privileges and how much that would cost. There is currently no information posted about that on our website. Lori & Les informed me that Debbie Alban is the one who works these privileges out. Privileges include borrowing up to 6 books, looking at periodicals in the library, and guest use of the computers. It does NOT include database access or ILL.

RMA Annual Statement Studies and Value Line

Hello Librarians!

School of Business students from Lee Bertrand's class might be calling about the two texts mentioned in the Title line of this blog. They will be looking for a copy of the introduction in RMA Annual Statement Studies. I have left a PDF copy of the introduction, entitled "definitionofratios.pdf" on the reference computer desktop so it may be forwarded along via email.

Also, they will be looking for both a company and industry report in Value Line. We have online access to this for librarians only - if you want access, see Eugene or I for the password. You can also forward these requests to either of us!

Best,

Lua

Project Muse Error

Accessing Project Muse this morning, an error message appears.
http://0-muse.jhu.edu.library.uor.edu/

The error message says "502 Bad Gateway
Connection to remote host returned error 14."

I've alerted ITS and sent a help request to Project Muse.

Based on a related comment on a Innopac uses group Listserv, I believe this is
relatively minor and will go away soon.
Let's hope the hive mind is correct.
-eo

IEALC Cooperative Borrowing

Azusa Pacific Student just called about borrowing privileges here.
I couldn't find the answer on the website. What I saw is written from the perspective of a U of R student borrowing from another IEALC school, not the other way round.
The answer is:
IEALC students can borrow up to 5 books for up to 3 weeks with option to renew.

ArmRef 1 Printer

The "out of order" sign on the ArmRef 1 is due to a lack of ink. The printer tells me it needs a new ink cartridge. Shaking and reinstalling the cartridge didn't work. We have no replacement 64As in the cabinet. I've asked Debbie to purchase more.

Shana

Students in the Library on Monday.

 
 
 
 

A student yesterday needed the congressional quarterly (CQ Weekly), particularly the most recent of them from this year, and they've been placed in current periodicals should she return looking for them. The oldest ones through spring of '08 are in the reference section (JK1.C15), but she's looking primarily at the ones from this year. These will be in current periodicals under "CQ Weekly."

SPSS printing issue

Students report that SPSS files are not printing.
SPSS docs end in a .spv, I tried an export function to change them to PDFs but that
didnt seem to work either.
Don Williamson is coming over now to take a look.

Anthrosource not linking properly to JSTOR

Another problem with the databases. When content within Anthrosource is accessed through JSTOR, it won't actually bring up the content. When one clicks on the link, either the PDF or the HTML, rather than going straight to JSTOR it returns to the Anthrosource homepage. This is possibly a problem we've already discussed, but it was brought to my attention this evening by Alexa, who resolved it by going directly into JSTOR. Still, a wee bit frustrating.

PDF Creator

I've installed PDF Creator to the reference desk computer. This program should help us capture error messages and weird computer and database behaviors without having to do print-screen and pasting to a word processing program.

I recommend using Firefox as a browser since it has a print preview function that allows users to examine before printing a document.

When you need to capture a screen or some other error data, follow these steps:

1. Select File>>Print or Ctrl+P. This should pull up the print window.
   
2. Select PDFCreator from the drop-down menu. PDFCreator will start and prompt you to save the resulting pdf file. Change the name of the file if need be and click save.
3. PDFCreator will then prompt you to select the location to save your pdf file. I generally use the desktop so I don't have to dig around.
4. After this, you will be asked if you'd like to view your file. If not, the default PDF viewer (Acrobat or Foxit) will just show you the file you just created.

Hope these steps help. If not, let me know. I'll create a quick guide with screen shots.

Melissa

Keyword searching in Firefox's location bar

Hello!
Just an fyi: As per Eugene's request, I've reconfigured the default search engine for Firefox's location bar. Type in any keyword into the bar where a URL address is generally entered and you will be taken to a Google results page. I haven't tried this for IE though.

Melissa

Today I was asked by a student to assist her in figuring out how to find articles when fulltext access wasn't available. She knew to use the "fulltext search" function and what to do if online access wasn't available, but when using article linker, it returned an error message when attempting to access content within Wilsonweb. She wasn't given the option to search the library catalog, etc. Is there an issue with Wilsonweb and article linker?

Similarly, ComDis Dome seemed to have gone completely wonky. The search page appeared, but after entering a very simple search, a page with many lines of error messages came up. I've never seen it before, and almost looked like a problem with the code, from my ignorant perspective on the matter. Frankly I couldn't begin to guess where the problem lay because there was no particularly specific error message, just a list of them which were distinctly un-informative about the exact nature of the error. Does anyone know anything about ComDis dome? Thanks!!

Student-use scanner working again

Hello!

We finally have a resolution to unresponsive scanner and the disappearing scanner drive. Don Williamson came by, looked at the scanner and gave me some trouble-shooting tips.

The scanner apparently is not meant to be turned-on and -off multiple times in the day so sometimes it gets buggy.

When the scanner is unresponsive or will not shut off, it would be a good idea to check the Control Panel>>Scanners and Cameras to make sure that there is a scanner driver. For some reason, it disappears from time to time. Unplugging/replugging the scanner can resolve the missing scanner driver issue.

You can unplug-replug the scanner by detaching the power cord from the scanner or from the wall/surge protector plug. If that doesn't work, you can also try unplugging/replugging the scanner's USB connection from the back of the computer next to it. But be sure to plug it back into the correct port. Don said that we can try these strategies in the event that restarting the computer is not the best option. Restarting the computer should also take care of it, but can take a while.

The scanner can also take a long while (up to 5 minutes) when using the default HP scanner program. The default program is not as proficient in creating pdf files from multi-page documents beyond 6 pages. For speedier scanning into pdf files, please use Adobe Acrobat Professional.

Student-use scanner in research computers area

I had an issue with the single scanner that we have in the library for computer use. It was not turning off or allowing any scanning. I called Jones Computer Center and they were supposed to send someone over to try to take a look at it.

I made the call around 7:30 p.m. As of 8:34 p.m., no one has arrived yet. Meanwhile, I have placed the out-of-order sign on the scanner. There are more scanners for student use at Jones, so please direct students there.

I'll call Jones again in the morning.

--Melissa

BUS 126 op. cit. endnotes

Fellow librarians,
I had a BUS 126 student in Osborn's class who needed to know how to use op. cit. endnotes with the Chicago citation style. Unfortunately, according to the 15th edition, op. cit. and it's kin, loc. cit. are no longer used (16.50). Instead Chicago style directs users to use the short-title form (16.45).

Given that the class is still employing op. cit. we still need to provide students with an example of how it is used. A Google search proved the most helpful in this case. It directed me to Southampton Solent University's Library page discussing the use of op. cit. and ibid. and provided examples of how each is used. See link: Using ibid. and op. cit.--Southampton Solent University

--Melissa

Meebo Status

Reminder: If you're going to step away from the reference desk, please set your status to "I'll be right back." This can be done in the sidebar that's usually at the right-hand side of the Meebo screen. At the top of the sidebar, look for the the little emoticons for adding users, just below that is your status line which is usually set at "I'm available." If you click on that status line, a drop down list will appear with a number of prefab status options from which you can select one.
Thanks,
eo

Project Wombat

Ever been stumped with a tough reference question? I know I have. When I can't seem to verify a quotation or think of the best way to find specific historical data, Project Wombat is one of the things that comes to mind. It's a discussion list for those difficult to answer reference questions. It's a public list in that everyone can submit questions and answers are archived for future reference. They helped me out a lot with a couple of questions from my reference classes in library school.

Just wanted to share.

--Melissa

computers photocopiers contact

Hello Librarians,

I have two handy bits of information.

Don Williamson, is the IT guy who handles the public computers in the reference area.

The student assistant who works upstairs outside the CLS reports to him.

Don Williamson
Information Technology Services
Senior PC Specialist, Jones
909/748-8961 Campus Ext. 8961

For Photocopier Issues, including both the photocopier behind the reference desk and those located in the periodicals area.

Contact
ext. 8462
copycenter@redlands.edu

The men who come in the morning to check on the photocopier are Anthony and Mark.

LibGuides Basic Training--1/27/09

Hello fellow Armacost librarians. Springshare is going to be offering their first LibGuides training webinar on Jan. 27th. For details, go here and here.

--Melissa