Thanks to all who took our Web survey. Over 900 responses! That will help us tweak and redesign our Website with you all in mind. Ashley Gibbs is the student who won the drawing to be a Library VIP; Marie Walker is our faculty Veep. Congratulations!
More new books have arrived. Check out the latest arrivals. No pun intended.
Peter Suber worries that there are developments that could hinder open access to information - specifically the Webcasting treaty, the opposition to "network neutrality," and the end of free e-mail. He discussed these issues recently in the SPARC Open Access Newsletter.
Concerned about fair use? Read what Duke Law has to say about it - in their comic book, "Tales from the Public Domain!"
Want to find images that you can use for educational purposes without worrying about whether you're infringing copyright? Take a look at San Jose State University's World Art Kiosk. Or take a prowl through Flickr's Creative Commons Pool. For more ideas, explore tips for finding free media on the Web from the New Learning Technologies Buffet.
Friday, March 17, 2006
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Take Our Survey - Please
Want to be a VIP? As the library considers a redesign of our website, we need faculty perspectives on the library's online tools and services. This survey will enable us to improve the quality of the services we provide for you and your students. If you complete the survey prior to Monday, March 13, 2006, your name will be entered into a drawing to become our "Library VIP." As the Library VIP, we will deliver library materials to your office on campus for the remainder of the spring term. We'll save you a few trips across campus! (Which, when the weather is like it is today, means something.)
L'Annee Philologique, the classic bibliography of Classics literature, is now available online, campus-wide.
If you haven't tried Web of Science lately, you may be missing some of its nifty features. This interdisciplinary database covers the natural and social sciences (including history) and in addition to searches by author and topic lets you search by cited reference. Another feature, the "find related records" lets you seek out articles that share the same sources. And finally, a new "analyze tool" creates histograms of search results, analyzing a set of records by date, author, subject area, or other variables. Want to stay on top of new publications? Save a search and have new results sent to you weekly by e-mail. AHSearch, a version of this database with fewer features, covers Arts and Humanities.
L'Annee Philologique, the classic bibliography of Classics literature, is now available online, campus-wide.
If you haven't tried Web of Science lately, you may be missing some of its nifty features. This interdisciplinary database covers the natural and social sciences (including history) and in addition to searches by author and topic lets you search by cited reference. Another feature, the "find related records" lets you seek out articles that share the same sources. And finally, a new "analyze tool" creates histograms of search results, analyzing a set of records by date, author, subject area, or other variables. Want to stay on top of new publications? Save a search and have new results sent to you weekly by e-mail. AHSearch, a version of this database with fewer features, covers Arts and Humanities.
Friday, March 03, 2006
MnPALS Interlibrary Loan Goes Live!
At long last, the interlibrary loan function in the MnPALS shared catalog is now working. To order books from other libraries, you need to log in using your barcode and last name and select Gustavus as your library. Then, when you find a book at another library that you want to order, click on the ILL Request link at the top of the record. You will have to choose a "date needed by" from the calendar and check off agreement with the copyright statement, then click on "go." Finally confirm your request from the next screen.
One thing that may seem confusing : there is a form for requesting a photocopy of part of a book. You may fill that section out if you wish, but many if not most libraries prefer to loan the book rather than make a copy. And as libraries adapt to a totally new system behind the scenes, requests from other libraries may take a bit longer for the first week or so.
Online interlibrary loan forms for books and articles also have a new look.
Kudos to Kathie Martin and her student team for managing to get the new system up and running with such speed and good spirits.
The MnLINK Gateway will continue to serve as an interlibrary loan portal to public and academic libraries around the state. However, it has suddenly become necessary to enter your last name (where it calls for Pin or Password) in ALL CAPS rather than lower case letters. Why this is suddenly case sensitive is something only the gremlins know.
In other news ... congratulations to Edi Thorstensson for landing an NEH grant to bring a consultant to campus to advise us on conservation and preservation of the Church Archives, but also to help us with long-term preservation planning for the college archives, special collections, and the collection as a whole.
Some of our course reserves are being loaded on Moodle, an open-source course management system, as a pilot project. Next fall we expect all of our electronic reserves to be loaded on Moodle. Though this system has many additional courseware features, the library is only using it for reserve readings as we phase out our home-grown e-reserves system. Participating faculty don't have to use any additional Moodle features; students simply log in to find electronic readings for their courses.
One thing that may seem confusing : there is a form for requesting a photocopy of part of a book. You may fill that section out if you wish, but many if not most libraries prefer to loan the book rather than make a copy. And as libraries adapt to a totally new system behind the scenes, requests from other libraries may take a bit longer for the first week or so.
Online interlibrary loan forms for books and articles also have a new look.
Kudos to Kathie Martin and her student team for managing to get the new system up and running with such speed and good spirits.
The MnLINK Gateway will continue to serve as an interlibrary loan portal to public and academic libraries around the state. However, it has suddenly become necessary to enter your last name (where it calls for Pin or Password) in ALL CAPS rather than lower case letters. Why this is suddenly case sensitive is something only the gremlins know.
In other news ... congratulations to Edi Thorstensson for landing an NEH grant to bring a consultant to campus to advise us on conservation and preservation of the Church Archives, but also to help us with long-term preservation planning for the college archives, special collections, and the collection as a whole.
Some of our course reserves are being loaded on Moodle, an open-source course management system, as a pilot project. Next fall we expect all of our electronic reserves to be loaded on Moodle. Though this system has many additional courseware features, the library is only using it for reserve readings as we phase out our home-grown e-reserves system. Participating faculty don't have to use any additional Moodle features; students simply log in to find electronic readings for their courses.
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