Chalepa ta kala - unless they're 12,000 Greek texts!

The library now offers Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (or, TLG). This digital library serves up virtually all surviving Greek texts from Homer's time (8th century BCE) to the fall of Byzantium in 1453 CE. One could call it the EEBO of ancient Greece!

Due to the nature of this product and the cost of a campus-wide license, TLG is only accessible from three designated computers on campus - one in the Classics department office, one on the main floor of the library, and one Mac on the library's lower level. Each of these computers is marked with a blue sign indicating the availability of TLG.

Thanks to the internet, we can search and sort these texts at lightening speed. But it is still good to remember what Thales said: Ti tachiston? Nous. Dia pantos gar trechei. Enjoy.

Introducing...Hector (group computing)

Room 102 (a study room on the library's lower level, Chapel side) is now home to Hector, a Mac mini with a wide flatscreen monitor, two keyboards, a laptop hookup and an iSight camera. This flexible workspace is perfect for groups writing collaborative papers, creating Powerpoint for group presentations, or working on other computing projects.

Currently, use of this room is first-come, first-served only, but as soon as the calendar arrives, groups may also begin to sign up to reserve Hector for up to three hours at a time. More on our signup policy can be found here. We have also drafted a few guidelines for the use of the room to help our users be good citizens when they're in there.

The library partnered with GTS to create this space, and much thanks is due Jessie Twaddle for his work putting it together. GTS is also hard at work on creating a room specifically designed for practicing and taping speeches and presentations, which will be located across the hall from Hector.

While our students have been discovering and using this room already, we hope faculty members will promote its use for group projects.

Photo of Sid filming Courtney with Hector.

New anthropology resource!

The library has just set up a trial to AnthroSource, the premier online resource for anthropology. It includes the full text of 32 scholarly journals published by the American Anthropological Association (AAA), most dating back to the first issue and about half continuing to the present. Topics in physical anthropology, cultural or social anthropology, linguistic anthropology, and archaeology are all covered.

Access AnthroSource from the Databases menu on our home page or from our guide to databases for anthropology, and let us know what you think.

SFX Downtime Sunday morning

The Journals link from the library's home page and the button in our databases will be disabled from approximately 9:30-10:30am Sunday morning, February 11, as the University of Minnesota moves the SFX server and runs updates on the software. Thank you for your patience!

Happy Darwin Day!

In honor of Charles Darwin's birthday, we've pulled together some library books, on display near the front door.

Don't want to come out in the cold? We understand. Luckily, the British Library has put Darwin's complete works online. You could also browse a museum exhibit, or see how clergy around the country have discussed the compatibility of science and religion at the Clergy Letter Project.

photo courtesy of KateMonkey.

Interlibrary Loan Jan. 4-8

Due to continued work on our software upgrade, the Interlibrary Loan (ILL) function will not be available through MnPALS or MnLINK from 5:00 pm Thursday, January 4 through sometime on Monday, January 8. During this time you will be able to request items in one of four ways:

1. Submit a printout of what you need at the ILL desk.
2. Fill out a paper ILL form at the ILL desk.
3. Use the online request form on the ILL homepage
4. Use the "Find It!" button in our databases to request ILL materials not available in print or full-text online.

Although you will not be able to request materials directly through MnPALS or MnLINK, we will be accepting all ILL requests that come in through any of these four options. Questions? Contact Kathie Martin.

Boy, these software upgrades certainly keep us on our toes! Thanks for your patience.

Interlibrary Loan

For the next few days, our usual interlibrary loan forms won't be available while we upgrade to a new version of MnPALS. In the meantime, you can use this form to request books or articles.

Take a Holiday on Us

Because of some work going on at the Minnesota State University, Mankato, the servers that run our MnPALS catalog, interlibrary loan, and the authentication system for our databases will not be available on the morning of December 28th, and perhaps unavailable for the entire day. Looks as if we all may just have to take the day off from research, at least any that entails searching our catalog and databases.

Which reminds us of why sometimes we like to have real, printed books in our hands...

EndNote Web is now available!

Access to , the online version of the popular citation management software, is now included with the library’s subscriptions to Science Citation Index Expanded and Social Sciences Citation Index (Web of Science).

From on campus, visit EndNoteWeb.com and click on the “EndNote Web Login” link to sign up for an account. If you already have a personal account in Web of Science, you should already have access.

Once you have signed up, you can begin to use EndNote Web from any web-accessible computer. You can:

• import references from any database (Web of Science, WorldCat, PubMed, etc.)
• save citations to folders
• download plugins to create footnotes and bibliographies in Microsoft Word

If you are currently using EndNote software on your personal computer (version X.0.2 or higher), you can transfer references seamlessly between it and EndNote Web. Earlier versions of EndNote can import references from EndNote Web via a text file.

The library will also continue to offer , a similar web-based citation management tool, to the Gustavus community.

For more information on using EndNote Web, see their online tutorials.

Interlibrary Loan Dec. 16-17

Due to software upgrades, the Interlibrary Loan (ILL) function will not be available through MnPALS or MnLINK from 5:00 pm Saturday, December 16 through noon on Sunday, December 17. During this time you will be able to request items in one of four ways:

1. Submit a printout of what you need at the ILL desk.
2. Fill out a paper ILL form at the ILL desk.
3. Use the online request form on the ILL homepage
4. Use the "Find It!" button in our databases to request ILL materials not available full-text or online.

Although you will not be able to request materials directly through MnPALS or MnLINK, we will be accepting all ILL requests that come in through any of these four options. Questions? Contact Kathie Martin.

*Please note that ILL through MnPALS and MnLINK will also be unavailable January 2-5 due to the second stage of the software upgrade. We will send out additional information at that time, and you will be able to request materials through the same four methods described above.

Primary Sources: New York Times & More

As we slowly but steadily update our web pages to their new look, we are also adding new resources and content. Our updated subject guide for finding Primary Sources includes links to digital collections such as the Library of Congress's American Memory historical collections and the Historical New York Times database.

Purchased last spring, the Historical New York Times contains the full text of the paper from its first issue in 1851 to 2003. An additional year of content is added annually (2004 content will be added next summer), with our subscription to ProQuest Newsstand filling the gap. The database is fully indexed and searchable with full-page images, including graphics. Now we just need volunteers to help move our microfilm into storage!

Extra Extra! Digital Archive of the Gustavian Weekly

Wondering what Gusties were up to in the past? Trying to find that great Gustavian article from last year? Look no further! This summer, the library's Periodicals Department and College Archives spearheaded a project to digitize backfiles of the Gustavian Weekly. You can now search, browse and view issues from 1980-2005 online. To access, click this link: http://www.arcasearch.com/us/mn/, or visit the library's homepage and choose "Gustavian" in the Databases menu. The library hopes to add older issues in the future.

Poster Presentations Tonight

Students in the Common Readers First Term Seminar will give brief presentations Wednesday Nov. 29th at 7:30 p.m. on their research into four information ethics issues: music file sharing, surveillance cameras in schools, social networking online, and (an issue that hits close to the pocketbook) the increasing price of textbooks. The presentations will be held on the lower level, near the current periodicals, and yes, there will be refreshments.

Their posters will be on display in the library for the next couple of weeks for people too busy to fit another event into their schedule, but who need an interesting way to waste time when they should studying for that test tomorrow morning.

Chat Reference Service

Ever find yourself with a reference question when you're miles from the library? Try the library's new Instant Messenger reference service! Use chat reference for answers to factual questions or to be directed to resources that best address your research question. To use the service, visit the library's chat reference page. Follow the instructions to connect live with a Gustavus librarian.


Also consider using chat reference when you're in the library but don't want to give up your computer. As always, you can also contact the librarians in person, via email, or phone. We look forward to chatting with you soon!

Patricia Lindell Scholarship

Every other year the library awards a $1,200 scholarship to a junior or senior student who will work on a project of benefit to the library and the wider Gustavus community. This spring the project will focus on the purpose and outcomes of common reading programs in higher education.

Though these “one book, one campus” community reading events are held on campuses across the country, very little research has been done on them. The recipient of this scholarship, working with Professor Barbara Fister, will conduct a literature review, design and carry out an online survey of colleges with common reading programs, and will write up the results to provide insight into the nature and impact of common reading programs on college campuses.

Application forms can be picked up in the library and should be turned in, with a faculty letter of recommendation, by November 10th to the library administration office. This scholarship is made possible by the Gustavus Library Associates.

By the way, the winner of last spring's Lindell research award will be announced in early December.

Library Toolbar for Firefox

Do a lot of searching? Try using our new Firefox toolbar! Once you install the LibX Gustavus extension, Firefox will have a handy-dandy toolbar, always available on your browser, that allows you to search the MnPALS library catalog, check our Journal Locator, and even drag search terms into it to run a Google Scholar search. This only works with the Firefox browser, but it's awfully useful.

Check out our Journals

We now check out journals and magazines overnight, hoping to encourage students to discover and enjoy our print periodical collection. No, Virginia, it's not all on the Internet. But starting this semester you can take home an issue of Harper's or New Scientist for a leisurely read.

Booksale @ the Library

We now have an ongoing booksale! Take a look at the book cart beside the front entrance - and take a book home for only fifty cents. Proceeds go to our acquisitions budget.

Take a Look at Our New Look

It's here! After a year of surveys and focus groups, a lot of meetings, and many, many summer e-mails we have launched a new homepage for the library. We wanted to be more standards-compliant, have a look that was closer to the campus style, and include some neat things like a simple catalog search right on the main page. (The code for that, by the way, was written by Gustavus grad Alec Sonsteby, who is a now a librarian at Concordia.)

It's a little like getting a new couch - now everything else looks a bit dowdy. But we will be working on making changes elsewhere on the site.

Meanwhile, please do let us know if you have questions, comments, or suggestions. Thanks to those who participated in focus groups and surveys (including over 900 students!) and to the library publications committee and Jerry Nowell for his invaluable advice.

Blogs and more blogs - as part of the redesign, we are trying to make it easier to check on new resources and events at the library. Those will be listed in separate blogs. If you get this via e-mail you'll find them coming separately. Of course, we will take you off the e-mail list if you're feeling information overload. Just drop us a line.

New Look for our Home Page

Minnesota's seasons - winter and construction. We're almost finished designing a new library home page that should launch before long. By the end of the summer we'll have some new organization for many second-level pages as well.

Social networking software has been getting a lot of attention lately, from Library Thing to the ubiquitous Wikipedia. Historian Roy Rosenzweig has just published some interesting ideas on "open source history" and Nature, the prestigious science journal, mulls over turning peer review over to the "wisdom of the crowds." Of course, one could argue libraries and scholarly work have always been about social networking - from the conversations that happen around the new books shelf to the books themselves that draw ideas from one another.

Speaking of social software, we'll be trying out chat reference next fall. We love the face-to-face interactions we have with students at the reference desk, but sometimes they may have a quick question that we can answer more conveniently. Quite a few of the libraries that have adopted instant messaging clients for reference questions chat with students who are in the library; they just don't want to give up their seat at a computer.

If you have questions over the summer you can always contact us the old fashioned way - by e-mail.