Friday, December 21, 2012

Helpful FAQ for the Grateful Dead Archive and exhibit questions

Here is a helpful list of frequently asked questions about the Grateful Dead Archive and the exhibit:

http://library.ucsc.edu/grateful-dead-archive/faqs


Begin Your Research tutorial

Here is a really helpful UC research online tutorial, usable by any campus. Complete with a quiz, it's a great way to get students started who didn't have a library class and can't come in for help.  It was very helpful in training the McHenry Roving students.

Begin Your Research
http://www.lib.uci.edu/uc-research-tutorial/begin.html

Monday, December 10, 2012

McHenry Library wayfinding

Good reminder, from Lee (libstaff message April 30, 2012):

"...we are now directing people to the North Elevator primarily for access to the Mathematics Department offices on the 4th floor AND as the ADA / handicapped access to the 1st floor capacity classrooms or (with the East Elevator) Gnd floor capacity offices.

Otherwise, direct people going to the 1st flr classrooms or the Gnd floor capacity offices via the outside route; out the foyer and around to the right.  The North Elevator cannot handle general classroom traffic and the outside route is quicker and more direct (as long as they don't have mobility issues).  Similarly, the West Elevator and Stairs are quicker for those trying to get to Education offices on the 3rd floor."

Access to today's New York Times

We do have access to the full content of the New York Times, back to 1857 when it began.
It does take a few steps to be able to view the content of just today's paper with our subscription, but it can be done. What we do not have is a graphical version that allows the user to turn the pages. The NYT does have a public site, but it has limited full content viewing (after 10 articles you will not see the complete content), and for today's paper, it does not let you electronically turn pages either, as some electronic journals or magazines do.

Steps to see the content for today's NYT:
  • from the library home page, type new york times in the Google Custom Search box on the top right
  • click on the 4th result in the list
  • then click on the blue title, New York Times
  • change the Date Range from all dates to today's month, day, and year
  • click Search
  • change the Sort Results By from Relevance to Publication Date (most recent first)
Now you will see a list of all of the content from today's paper, listed in section order, beginning with A1.

If someone wants to compare that with the public NYT site that includes photos and graphics, they can open two tabs, one with the search above, and the other with the public site.

Monday, December 3, 2012

Library power outages and losing documents

Just a reminder that students (and all patrons) should be encouraged to save their documents often and in the ways recommended below. Even a brief power outage can results in lost documents. Recommendations and warnings from IT are listed below.

Safest ways to save:
  • Flash drive/memory stick
  • Google Docs (does auto-save frequently)
  • CD
  • Email it to yourself
Unsafe:
  • Saving to desktop only (can be lost in an outage)
  • Documents folder only