History 110A (Westerkamp) Early America class

Lynn Westerkamp is teaching her early America class this quarter.
Students are being asked to find 5-7 primary source documents. The
assignment is attached (to a separate refall email). I am not teaching
a class for this group. If the work becomes onerous at the desk, please let
me know and I'll check in with Lynn. Everyone already knows this, but just
out of a sense of duty, the How to Find Primary Sources in American History
page should be considered the "class page" for this assignment.

Many thanks,

Kerry

Monday, October 4th: CLA Snapshot Day

Hi Deskers,

Monday, October 4th is CLA's Snapshot Day and UCSC is participating. The impact for the Ref Desk is the way we tally statistics. We won't do a separate tally form for this. Instead, we will ask staff to record the number of questions within a transaction in the narrative box (for example, if you verify 3 citations, that's 3 questions, not the single long or short question we normally count, etc.). So go ahead and log your question as directional, short, or lengthy but also include the extra transaction information in the narrative box.

If you have questions, please ask Laura or Lucia.

Thanks, Laura

Oversized paper for music students

Many music scores are not regular sized and reducing them makes them too small to read. So we have in the cabinet just under the right desk Mac (looking from the desk), some 11" x 14" and 11" x 17" paper. Feel free to give some to students who ask for it. They can use it in the bypass trays on the copier. The bypass tray is a little drop-down tray on the right side of each copier. Please let Laura know if you have any questions.

Tip for Slug Card dispenser and "newer" bills

This worked for a student with a $5 bill that had color and the large image: try putting the bill in the opposite direction from what the bill slot says. It did not work the regular way, but it did this way. I don't know if this works for larger bills but it might.

Handout at Ref Desk explaining printing

IT Help Desk hours for Fall

The Fall Quarter hours for the IT Help Desk in the InfoCommons is:

Monday-Thursday: noon-3pm and 5pm-8pm
Friday: noon-5pm
Saturday: CLOSED
Sunday: noon-3pm and 5pm-8pm

So folks working the 10am-noon Ref Desk shift may get more printing and computing questions.
Some incoming freshmen have their CruzID Gold passwords already, and some do not. So it's always good to ask if they do, as they often just buy a card when they didn't know they could charge printing to their accounts.

An afternoon at the Fall Festival

Peggy McNicholas, Laura McClanathan and I set up a table at the OPERS Fall Festival yesterday and spent the afternoon meeting students and talking about the library. We asked passersby,"Have you been to the library yet?" and passed out fliers on services and hours.  If students didn't know where our libraries were located we gave them personalized maps with directions from their college to both McHenry and S&E.  We talked to close to 300 students both new and returning.  Returning students were especially happy to hear that we have been able to restore library hours thanks to the passage of Measure 42.  Every student we talked to expressed positive support for the library as reflected in this sampling of comments we collected:

- Yay! we love McHenry!
- Thanks for keeping it open!
- I love the library - I'm a fan!
- The library is our favorite

It was a great day, a wonderful event, spent with good company.  Here are some photos:

facsimile services on-campus

In addition to those services offered by the former XpressIt! (now absorbed by Print Services and located at B66, Baskin Engineering), faxes can be sent and received at Bay Tree Bookstore as well. Although this information is not currently listed on the bookstore's Web site (though see: http://summer.ucsc.edu/services), the service has been verified by their staff; charges are identical to those levied by Print Services (http://printing.ucsc.edu/printing/fax.html).

KL

Fall desk shifts begin tomorrow

Hello Deskers,

Fall desk shifts begin tomorrow, Thursday, September 23rd. I have posted the master schedule on the internal page (http://internal.library.ucsc.edu/ref/schedule/). This schedule will be migrating very soon to the new staff portal, and I'll send out a message when that happens. I am also updating materials at the desk, so please let me know if you notice something I've missed that is out-of-date. And don't forget to log your questions on SurveyMonkey. The link is still on the Firefox browser on the desk computers.

We've reduced the handouts kiosk to one, and moved it by the pillar closer to the InfoCommons. There are fall hours fliers, and an updated "Top 10 things" flier. I've seen groups of students come in and take them, so please let me know if you see them out of stock. I'm keeping an eye on them too.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Best,

Laura

Precalculus book by Cohen

If you get asked here at McHenry for the Precalculus book by Cohen, we don't have it. It is only at the Science & Engineering Library:

http://cruzcat.ucsc.edu/search/X?SEARCH=precalculus+cohen&searchscope=5&submit=Submit

Students are seeing this on the math placement test advising page, and I've let them know that it needs to be changed. Several students have already come by only to find that it is not here:

http://undergrad.pbsci.ucsc.edu/advising/gettingstarted/StudyGuideandPracticeExam.html

(corrected) Reference Desk Transactions Report, Summer Sessions 2010

During the two summer sessions of 2010 (21^st June–27^th August), the McHenry Library Reference Desk was open for four hours per day, Monday through Friday, from 1 till 5pm. This tallies to a total of twenty hours per week, or 200 hours for the entire ten-week period. In that period, 387 desk transactions were logged by Reference staff in SurveyMonkey (of which 379 included explanatory remarks). Since Reference staff have been logging desk queries through SurveyMonkey (from March 2010), 2501 transactions have been recorded:

March (includes Spring Break week)—144

April—685
May—927
June (prior to Summer Session)—738

The distribution of queries shows that the 1–2pm hour is most popular with 31.3 percent (121) of transactions, descending with each subsequent hour: 27.4 percent (106) from 2–3pm; 19.6 percent (76) from 3–4pm; and 19.4 percent (75) from 4–5pm. Additionally, 2.3 percent (9) of the questions were recorded at times when desk service was not available. While the majority of transactions were under five minutes (55.3% or 214), 29.2 percent (113) were five minutes or longer; directional questions were only 15.5 percent (60) of the total. Just over 3 percent (76) of the total came to us via telephone, and 2 percent (52) were printing or computing questions. (These transactions do not include off-desk, Ask A Librarian/QuestionPoint, or personal e-mail enquiries.)


Transaction Highlights

• Helped [emeritus librarian] determine the signature on an 1860 original letter he was transcribing from the Hihn-Younger Archive
• Recent UCSC graduate: advice on applying to master's degree v. doctoral programmes in pursuit of teaching at community-college level; Web site for faculty postings at California community colleges
• Emeritus-faculty proxy needed help with databases; also said that he has always received great service from our desk, and how much he appreciated that
• Assisted two lecturers working on a project which required analyzing the table of contents and physical layout/arrangement of a few journals. We only had electronic access to the journals they needed…. I suggested they contact an ENVS professor who I knew once used to edit the journal to see if he had a personal print subscription.
• Patron looking for data sets related to education from the perspective of population, transportation, health, environment, etc. Showed him ICPSR, several federal gov. sites, Rand California and our statistics guide. Also gave him contact info for [local ICPSR rep] and Lucia
• Books, articles, primary documents on Wilder Ranch, its history, and the Ohlone who lived in the area > extensive searching for, variously, Wilder Ranch, Rancho Refugio, Ohlone, Awaswas tribelet in local history titles in Reference Area, Cruzcat, SCPL, America: History & Life + advice on general Spain>Mexico>US California history and land grants
• Graduate student had ILL request for microfilm from New York State Archives denied as 'no lending library' although NYSA site states desired items 'available through ILL' > contacted our ILL, who will contact NYSA directly to enquire about item + found microfilm purchasing information on NYSA site to offer patron alternative if ILL unsuccessful
• 1970s-80s index for Santa Cruz Sentinel? > no such, but showed patron how to use SCPL Newspaper Clippings file along with microfilm
• Community member: reliable Web information/advice on home foreclosure options and alternatives > found relevant pages at HUD, FDIC, California Department of Real Estate
• UCSC staff member who is also a Cabrillo summer student needed help finding an expert from UCSC on global warming to interview for a project. Helped him find several names and printed contact info, primarily [Earth & Planetary Sciences faculty] who spoke on the topic for Synergy
• Historical information about the invention of the washing machine - found one book in Ref and several in stacks. Also wanted advertisements from different decades. Gave her call no. for All-American Ads by decades.
• Tutorial on finding popular articles reporting new scientific research then finding scholarly studies on which articles are based > New York Times and Academic Search Complete, then PubMed and PsycINFO
• [Community researcher] needed help finding and accessing a document on land use from 1878. It's an online document that Hastings owns in their Making of Modern Law database. He'll have to visit Hastings to access it. Also spent time telling him how to best approach access to these documents, when to use Cruzcat, limitations of Melvyl, and about Calcat. He was very appreciative!
• Former student doing an internship for [Politics faculty], researching mayors who are notable or “heroes”—Academic Search Complete, newspapers, how UC-eLinks works, ILL process, Cruzcat -- subject headings "mayors", Dictionary of National Biography, Gale Biographies database, ref book: Biographical Dictionary Of American Mayors, 1820-1980
• Staff member looking for FCC decision concerning wireless signal boosters > found public notices and comments in FCC Electronic Comment Filing System, eventually determined from listed proceedings that FCC's Wireless Telecommunications Bureau had jurisdiction in matter, went to their separate site and found Headlines Archive lists all official public notices, news releases, and orders/decisions > determined no decision has yet been made in the case of signal boosters (as comment is still being collected)
• Researcher from UCSF called to verify a citation from Source: Encyclopedia of Drugs, Alcohol & Addictive Behavior. We have title electronically, and in print. Almost needed to use the print because the title search didn't return results. Determined there was a slight title change from what the researcher had vs. the title in the source.
• Advice on appropriate use, according to Chicago Manual of Style, of footnotes v. bibliography v. in-text notes v. reference list

Underground Newspaper Collection

If you've ever had to find anything in the Underground Press Collection, you know it can be confusing, so perhaps this will make it easier:

If you see "In: Underground Newspaper Collection" after a location of McH Microform,
(as in this example from the "People's Press": http://cruzcat.ucsc.edu/record=b1528604~S5),
then you need to look up that title in the guide to the Underground Newspaper Collection. The guide lives in the bookcase at the end of the microfilm cabinets that is closest to the microform readers. It is in call number order under PN4888.U5U542. It will tell you what our holdings are an what roll# it is on.

Then you will find all of the Underground collection in cabinets 40 and 41 against the back wall of the microforms area.

Classical Scores Library

We have access until November 10 to "Classical Scores Library," an online collection of scores available at the Music Online site (the home of four of our streaming audio databases -- Classical Music Library, Smithsonian Global Sound, American Song, and Contemporary World Music).

Please take some time to browse and test this resource. It is expensive, but there appears to be a one-time funding possibility for acquiring it. I would very much appreciate any feedback regarding the value of this resource (once all of the content has been loaded) to your teaching and research.

The vendor has told me that each score will soon have a link to "available recordings" so that one may play the corresponding audio (in Classical Music Library) while reading the score. However, there appears to be a technical problem with that right now.

To get to the resource, I suggest that you go to:

http://library.ucsc.edu/subjects/music/websites

and then click on any of the links that say "Also available at Music Online."

Thank you,

Paul Machlis

Billing voicemail

There seems to be a problem with the billing voicemail line 9-4053. Please have patrons send emails to billing@library.ucsc.edu until fixed. If they really, really need to speak with someone you can give them my extension 9-3381. I will let you know when it is fixed.
--
Sara Puhl
Library Billing Coordinator, UCSC
1156 High St.
Santa Cruz, CA 95064
831-459-3381 Phone
831-459-8206 Fax

Next Gen Melvyl now has tabbed limits for embeddable search box

A common concern expressed about Next Gen Melvyl is that article and book records are often intermingled in the search results. A new tool, in the form of an embeddable search box, takes a step toward addressing that by including tabs that limit the search set.  Here is an example of what the search box can look like:

In this example the search can be limited to articles or books or search everything. Other format options include DVDs, videos, audio books and images. The scoping option generates a drop down menu that will allow you to limit your search to UCSC, UC libraries or libraries worldwide.

If you want to embed this in a page you maintain the code can be found here:

http://ucsc.worldcat.org/tools/searchboxhtml

Media Center hours

The Media Center hours from today through September 22nd are Monday through Friday 12pm-5pm.