Library Resources

I got rid of our “Report Issues with E-Resources” form since it wasn’t getting the love it deserved (when I didn’t get even a single message during the Great EBSCO Outage of the spring, I knew it wasn’t working out quite the way I hoped it would).

Miss it? Email library AT blc.edu and someone will reply to help you with any e-resources issues you’re having. Most of them relate to off-campus access and students erroneously believing they need a special account. We have it set up where your campus login (logging into email, CampusWeb, etc.) is how you get into our resources from off-campus.

Alyssa is also trying out a new system that books that have been on the library’s book sale cart since the beginning of last school year will get a second chance, this time on the free cart. Just in case the free cart isn’t cool enough…

We’re also working out some bugs with the ID card software and printer, to make sure that we’re ready for all of you in two weeks!

Our electronic resources aren’t exclusively articles and academic reading. There are some great features that would be fun to explore for your own personal enjoyment.

1. Crossword Puzzle Solver in Credo Reference  (Click on “Gadgets” in the purple top menu and it will open in a pop-up box.)

2. Naxos Music Collection  – Stream classical, international, jazz, and even more styles of music through Bethany’s subscription.

3. Project Gutenberg and Hathi Trust – Find public domain (pre-1923) eBooks for your reading pleasure. The Project Gutenberg site has some fantastic instructions on how to download the files for Kindles, Nooks, and other eReader devices.

4. LibreVox – Volunteer-recorded free audiobooks for many public domain (pre-1923) works. The list is always growing, so check back every so often!

5. EBSCO eBooks and Audiobooks – These titles are newer than Project Gutenberg and Hathi Trust’s selections and feature a very eclectic selection of titles. There is a pretty surprising variety of children’s fiction titles. Check out the instructions here for downloading them onto your electronic devices; some setup is required.

AskMN is a chat service available 24/7! A librarian in the state of Minnesota is available to answer your questions.

We are current doing a trial of a new chat program called Digsby. Please feel free to try it out. If you do not receive a reply, your chat is cut off, or there is some other type of technical difficulty, please ask your question via email (see the Ask a Question! link on the library homepage).

Looking to find some quality children’s books this summer? Elizabeth Bird, a blogger at School Library Journal’s website, has released a top 100 list for both picture and children’s books.

Top 100 Picture Books

Top 100 Chapter Books

Links to the Top 10 Chapter Books in the library catalog:

#1 Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White (1952)
#2 A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle (1962)
#3 Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling (1997)
#4 The Giver by Lois Lowry (1993)
#5 The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis (1950)
#6 Holes by Louis Sachar (1998)
#7 From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg (1967)
#8 Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery (1908)
#9 The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin (1978)
#10 Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson (1977)

Links to the Top 10 Picture Books in the library catalog:

#1 Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak (1963)
#2 The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle (1979)
#3 Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus by Mo Willems (2003)
#4 Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown, illustrated by Clement Hurd (1947)
#5 The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats (1962)
#6 Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey (1941)
#7 Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale by Mo Willems (2004)
#8 Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst, illustrated by Ray Cruz (1972)
#9 Bark, George by Jules Feiffer (1999)
#10 The Monster at the End of This Book by Jon Stone, illustrated by Mike Smollin (1971)

Business Insights: Global: Now Available on the Journals and Articles section of the library homepage

Description from the Publisher:

“Gale Business Insights: Global uses case studies, statistical data sources, news articles, academic journals and topical reference materials organized by country, company and industry to quickly engage users in the global business environment. ”

Learn More through These Short Help Videos:

Starting Out with This Resource

Comparing Companies

Comparing Industries

We have two new staff members starting at the library this week! Safe to say, we’re very excited to have them here and think they will be an amazing contribution to the library.

The student computers in the library are being updated by the campus IT department this week, so if you see any monitors with “In Repair” signs on them, don’t be alarmed. Only one floor is being taken at a time, so there are still many available.

We began our subscription to a new database, Academic Search Complete. This database adds a TON of full-text journal articles that we previously only had available as citations. This new resource definitely strengthens our science holdings, especially for recent articles. It’s available on the library homepage and when you use the Search by Journal Title option, its holdings will show up automatically. There are more new resources still to come this summer-I’ll update the site when I can.

I spent a few minutes today testing the mobile site in Libguides. If you are using a smartphone or similar device, the site will automatically switch to a more streamlined, easy to scroll option. I’m spending my last hour this afternoon going through and deciding which boxes should be omitted from the mobile version to make browsing quicker. (Check out the Frequently Asked Questions page on the library site for a full list of library resources for mobile devices.)

I’ve been working with our new subject guide software for about a week, and now I’ve taken the plunge and put the link on the main library page, even if I have only been able to finish about six of the guides this week.

What I like:

Easy to divide out resources by type: Our old subject guides had everything as one long page to scroll through, which got to be overwhelming visually. LibGuides is organized by pages that look like tabs. So if you’re only looking for books, you don’t need to sift through information on databases and electronic resources.

Easy to Edit Resources: LibGuides’s editing works more or less like WordPress (this blog) and Drupal (our website). Setting up links is absolutely painless now.

Easy to Reuse Information: Most of the information on citations and basic library directions don’t have to be typed out for each subject page, but can be re-used.

Course Pages: Pages can be made for individual courses more easily than in the old program, which means that highly specialized information resources only used for certain classes doesn’t clutter up the other pages. It also gives students a clear idea of where to start!

What I don’t like, so far:

Settling-in: I’m not sure how easily students will notice the tabs at first, but this is easy to overcome through class visits and some practice. I made them bright red, since the default light blue wasn’t attention-getting.There’s also a definite learning curve for figuring out the pages (the first one took me a surprisingly long time, but I can re-use several of the tabs elsewhere, so it was worth the work), but the Help pages made by the company are fantastic!

Staring at my face on every page…but, hey, if it makes me easier to find, I will live with it. Or I might eventually replace it with a lovely picture of a tree or something…

Check it out!

Just in time for Synod Convention this week, I’ve created a new Religion LibGuide which includes a list of Evangelical Lutheran Synod-related resources.

Link to LibGuides page

UPDATE 6/5/12: Looks like access has been restored! Email library AT blc.edu if you are still having issues accessing anything on our site.

I hate to deliver bad news, but here goes:

Access to journals, articles, ebooks, our streaming music subscriptions, and our other electronic resources are currently unavailable due to a server issue beyond our control. It will most likely take a week or so for our IT Department to get everything back into working order. It’s going to be a big project for them, as there were many important things on this server beyond what we used in the library.

The best we can do is be grateful that it didn’t happen during the school year and won’t affect students as much as it could have. Our library catalog and Interlibrary Loan are still working since they are not housed on that server, for which we can also be  grateful. Checking out books, DVDs, and bound journals are carrying on like always.

Please email library AT blc.edu for assistance.We can get creative in order to make sure that faculty and students working on independent studies get the resources they need!

Many people are surprised that we remain open over the summer, asking what we do when the students leave. There is no doubt that students are the life of the building. We love the bustle of students working on projects and helping them to find the resources they need. But I definitely use the summer for both catch-up on important projects and for upgrades to our services. Here’s my “to-do” list for the summer:

1. Finish removing all of the Course Reserve items

2. Update our Movies Access database and printout

3. Update materials I’ve used for class visits and create a new program for Freshman Seminar

4. Finish Weeding Selection for P section (literature)  (This is 150 pages at about 2 hrs/page…basically, what I’m doing this summer!)   Change of plan: Finish subject guide for each major currently offered

5. Go through collection and evaluate pamphlets and Reference Shelf titles 

7. Work on Journal Finder replacement

8. Install Research Quickstart replacement and create new subject guides

9. Work out some bugs in EBSCO databases