At some point in the future, OIT is going to implement the Sign Up PC reservation system on all of the library public access PCs. This is the same reservation ystem used in the student computer labs. Take a look at this PowerPoint from Dexter in OIT to learn more about the system.
Sign Up Presentation (PPT)
The Directors named the following folks to a subcommittee of the Reference Committee to look into common issues such as session length that will need to be decided before the system goes live.
Kip Cates (Rockdale/ Newton)
Carmel Chaille (Dunwoody, Chair)
David Free (Decatur)
Ann Mallard (Clarkston)
We'll briefly discuss Sign Up at the holiday party on Tuesday. And you can contact your campus rep with any questions.
Monday, December 18, 2006
Friday, December 15, 2006
Food (for thought)
Hey everybody,
I know you're thinking, "Pete, it's the holidays; the last thing we want is more food!" Well, the good news is that this food really doesn't have any calories (whether someone sees you ingest it or not).
Actually, I am wondering about how other folks deal with strange/difficult assignments, and I would like to hear some ideas about how others would approach one particular reference question. The question comes to us like this, "So... what does the American Government stand for?" Students have shown us the assignment sheet, and that is exactly how the instructor wrote it. The handout also includes some other suggestions such as talking to friends, family, and veterans of the armed forces to see how they would answer the question. The students are required to cite at least four academic/scholarly sources, but it is not clear what exactly constitutes an academic source. This is for a Political Science class.
How would you approach this question?
Also, how do you generally handle questions that cause confusion or difficulty at the Reference Desk? Do you contact the instructor to discuss difficult assignments? If so, what kind of reaction do you get? Do you share ideas for handling specific problematic questions with others on your Reference staff? What other approaches have you used?
~Pete
I know you're thinking, "Pete, it's the holidays; the last thing we want is more food!" Well, the good news is that this food really doesn't have any calories (whether someone sees you ingest it or not).
Actually, I am wondering about how other folks deal with strange/difficult assignments, and I would like to hear some ideas about how others would approach one particular reference question. The question comes to us like this, "So... what does the American Government stand for?" Students have shown us the assignment sheet, and that is exactly how the instructor wrote it. The handout also includes some other suggestions such as talking to friends, family, and veterans of the armed forces to see how they would answer the question. The students are required to cite at least four academic/scholarly sources, but it is not clear what exactly constitutes an academic source. This is for a Political Science class.
How would you approach this question?
Also, how do you generally handle questions that cause confusion or difficulty at the Reference Desk? Do you contact the instructor to discuss difficult assignments? If so, what kind of reaction do you get? Do you share ideas for handling specific problematic questions with others on your Reference staff? What other approaches have you used?
~Pete
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Voyager Upgrade Looming
[I sent a message about this to everyone's director, to forward along, but I thought that I'd post it here too, just in case anyone missed it.]
The slot GPC has been allotted for the Voyager upgrade is Wednesday, December 20th, beginning that evening and hopefully ending by the following morning or afternoon.
I'm exploring the possibility of a remote upgrade with OIT, which is very gracious of them. However, if we can't get that working, I'll be manually upgrading every PC running Voyager, just like John did last year, starting December 21st. I will make it my only priority, but even devoting all of my time to it, it may take a while for me to get to every campus, so your patience will be greatly appreciated.
Circulation (for GPC materials) will be down until the machine you run it on is upgraded. GIL Express will be down for the duration of the entire upgrade. This means that all USG institutions must be successfully upgraded before GIL Express service can resume anywhere. The estimate is that GE will be down from December 13, 2006 through January 5, 2007. This service suspension has been discussed at length on the UC/UB listerv, and I imagine that GPC circulation staff are familiar this discussion.
That's about all that I know right now, but if you have any questions, please just drop me a line. I'll keep you posted as more details become available.
The slot GPC has been allotted for the Voyager upgrade is Wednesday, December 20th, beginning that evening and hopefully ending by the following morning or afternoon.
I'm exploring the possibility of a remote upgrade with OIT, which is very gracious of them. However, if we can't get that working, I'll be manually upgrading every PC running Voyager, just like John did last year, starting December 21st. I will make it my only priority, but even devoting all of my time to it, it may take a while for me to get to every campus, so your patience will be greatly appreciated.
Circulation (for GPC materials) will be down until the machine you run it on is upgraded. GIL Express will be down for the duration of the entire upgrade. This means that all USG institutions must be successfully upgraded before GIL Express service can resume anywhere. The estimate is that GE will be down from December 13, 2006 through January 5, 2007. This service suspension has been discussed at length on the UC/UB listerv, and I imagine that GPC circulation staff are familiar this discussion.
That's about all that I know right now, but if you have any questions, please just drop me a line. I'll keep you posted as more details become available.
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
GPC Libraries Site Search Up and Running!
From the get-go one of the requests we were hearing for the new web design was a site search feature that covered all the pages (residing in five different directories). This sort of thing was a bit beyond my skills right now, but, fortunately, I recently discovered yet another handy dandy little Google tool called a CSE (Custom Search Engine). After a little poking with an e-stick, voila! We have a site search!
You’ve probably noticed the link appearing in the top gray menu bar on some campuses in late November, a phased roll out, as it were. Well, it should appear on all of the pages now, so if you see a page lacking it, please notify the appropriate webmaster (see the footer at the bottom of the page in question).
So, take our little CSE for a spin, kick the tires, and tell us what you think.
You’ve probably noticed the link appearing in the top gray menu bar on some campuses in late November, a phased roll out, as it were. Well, it should appear on all of the pages now, so if you see a page lacking it, please notify the appropriate webmaster (see the footer at the bottom of the page in question).
So, take our little CSE for a spin, kick the tires, and tell us what you think.
Monday, December 04, 2006
Welcome Amy Eklund!
The last of our new catalogers has arrived! Amy Eklund is a recent graduate of UNT and was involved in some mighty impressive work there. We are quite happy to have her with us, so please pop by and make her feel welcome. Her phone number is #3666, and her office is CL-1204.
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