Daily Archives: January 21, 2013

United Way 50/50 Raffle Extended: Ends 2 pm Today

Help University Park Libraries meet the Centre County United Way goal. 

Before 2 p.m. today, Monday, January 21, buy a 50/50 ticket. 
Half the money raised goes to one lucky winner and that could be you. Previous winners won $276 and $183!! 
Tickets are: 
  • 2 for $2 
  • 6 for $5 
  • 20 for $10 (Best Value) 
To buy tickets please see one the members of the United Way Committee Amy Miller (ILL/Lending), Heather Ross (Social Sciences), Bonnie Osif (Engineering), Erica Noel (Lending), Robert Freeborn (Tech Services, Cataloging), Donna Dean (Tech Services, Cat Marking), Ashoo Kumar (NML), Melody Gehlbach (Access Services, 2nd Floor Paterno), Brian Beer (PSU Press), Jaimie Jamison (Tech Services, Electronic Resources).

Events: Jan. 21 – 27

2013 Inauguration Ceremony: “Faith in America’s Future” 

Monday, January 21, Foster Auditorium, 102 Paterno Library
Doors will open at 10 a.m., and the broadcast will be 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. In addition during the same time period, the News and Microforms Library, 21 Pattee Library, west, will broadcast the inauguration in the Film/Video Viewing Room as well as on three televisions, each with different networks and sound on one and closed captioning on the other two. 
NML Schedule:
TV 1: Fox News w/cc 10:30-3 pm 
TV 2: WTAJ/CBS w/sound 10 am-4pm 
TV 3: WPSU World (channel 5)/PBS w/cc 11 am – 2 pm 
Film Viewing Room: CNN w/sound 9 am-4 pm
Introduction to SelectSurvey 

Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2013 1:30 PM, 1 Paterno
Want to learn more about the survey tool for the libraries? Everyone at the University Libraries has access to SelectSurvey. In this introductory class, you will learn basic survey creation, management and deployment.
Available online at http://meeting.psu.edu/ultraining
Duration: 1 hour Instructor: Ryan Johnson

Introduction to Zotero
Tuesday, January 22, 1:30 – 3 pm, W315 Pattee Library
Find more details and registration information on the Library Learning Services website 
ICIK Presentation: “Indigenous Knowledge that Inspires”
Wednesday, January 23, noon to 1 pm, Foster Auditorium
Free, open to the public, and available for viewing online (no log on required).
“Dirty Business: ‘Clean Coal’ and the Battle for Our Energy Future (part 1)
Wednesday, 12:15 pm, EMS Library, 105 Deike

Director’s Station Tip: How to Create Lists of Lost and Missing Items

By Trish Notartomas

Use All Checkout Measures (Current) Module

Swap Checkout Library in the Report area with the Item Library dimension pool filter

Select a location for your library in the Home Location dimension pool filter

Select LOST, LOST-ASSUM, LOST-CLAIM, and MISSING in the Current Location dimension pool filter

To generate a list of the LOST items, highlight the Total Items Checked Out number (left-click, hold and drag), and click on List Titles Currently Checked Out.

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To export the title list into an Excel spreadsheet, hover cursor over Menu (upper left corner) and click on Export. To generate a list of the MISSING items, highlight the Library Use Transactions number (left-click, hold and drag), and click on List Current Library Use Transactions.

Advisory Group Discusses Retention Policy

By Lisa German, associate dean for Collections, Information, and Access Services

On January 15, the Collection Services Advisory Group sponsored a forum to discuss the Collection Retention Policy Working Group (CRPWG) Report. The Working Group was charged to evaluate the Libraries current retention policy and program, formulate a retention policy for the next ten years, and to identify and describe those collections for which PSUL will take responsibility to steward for future scholars. CRPWG was asked to deliver a set of recommendations to the Collection Services Advisory Group for its consideration and to draft an implementation schedule.

Several themes emerged as they tackled their challenge:

  • Find a balance between space for our users, collections, and services Support for the role of selectors in making data-informed decisions
  • Develop centralized, efficient processes for collection development and management
  • Increase leadership in cooperative decision making
  • Define Penn State’s responsibility as a leading research library in relation to other ARL and CIC institutions and within Pennsylvania

Please watch the MediaSite Live presentation and also read their report which can be found on the Libraries’ Intranet. You will see that there are similarities between this report and the report of the Space Consultants. I’d like to thank the members of the Collection Retention Policy Working Group for all of the excellent work they did studying these issues. Ann Snowman, chair, Christopher Walker, Dawn Childress, Sandy Stelts, Debora Cheney, Nonny Schlotzhauer, Rick Hart, Sue Kellerman, Janet Hughes and Kevin Harwell comprise the Working Group.

Next steps: more vetting, adoption, and implementation of the recommendations.

One Million Customers Use Pattee and Paterno Libraries

Throughout fall semester, Libraries faculty and staff kept remarking how much busier the library seemed. Numbers in from the gate-count mechanism at the doors to Pattee Library and Paterno Library confirm this perception and add up to more than one million students, faculty, staff and community members who entered the library this fall. In fact the number is 74,185 higher than any previous semester. 

Joe Fennewald, head of the Tombros and McWhirter Knowledge Commons, offers this explanation. He says, “From the first day of classes in August, students began to throng into the Knowledge Commons, utilizing its many services and study spaces. Word of mouth and social media must have gotten our message out quickly to many students.”  

Pin Folders in Windows 7

By Ryan Johnson, technology training coordinator

You may already be aware that you can right click on programs and pin them to the Windows 7 Taskbar but did you know you can do something similar to folders?

Right-click any folder, drag it to an empty space on the Taskbar (or to the Windows Explorer button), and let go when Pin to Windows Explorer appears. Now when you right-click the Windows Explorer button, your folders will be accessible via the Jump List.
secreenshot of how to pin folders in windows

Dewey to Serve on ARL Statistics and Assessment Committee

Dean Barbara Dewey was recently invited to serve on the ARL Statistics and Assessment Committee. This committee sets ARL’s statistics and assessment agenda and advises on issues and priorities. Members serve for three year terms (2013-15).

In extending the invitation, ARL Statistics and Service Quality Programs Director Martha Kyrillidou said Dewey would bring a “helpful perspective on many issues on which the committee is working.”

Research Guides to Be Harvested in LionSearch

By Binky Lush, manager, Discovery, Access and Web Services

The CMS Development Team has completed the development to allow LionSearch (Summon) to regularly harvest and index our Research Guides and make them available in LionSearch search results! We’ve been working closely with Serials Solutions on the metadata schema, and are currently testing this component with 20 sample research guides to confirm that they are correctly displayed in LionSearch. Once this test is complete, we plan to make this component available for all Research Guides at the beginning of February. Authors will only need to add a few lines of metadata to each guide and reactivate the page to make their guides harvestable. (Step by step instructions for authors will be available). LionSearch will automatically ingest and index all guides containing this metadata every two weeks.

Collection Highlight: Brignano Collection

By Marty Goldberg, head librarian, Penn State Beaver
 
The Beaver Campus Library is proud to house an interesting and useful resource of more than 600 African-American autobiographies, dedicated in honor of Dr. Russell C. Brignano, professor emeritus of English. Brignano, who is now retired, was the prime force behind the establishment of this collection. In 1997, a ceremony was held in the Beaver Campus Library in honor of the dedication of this collection. Begun in 1990 with $5,000 from the Penn State Equal Opportunity Planning Committee, it has been supported through University Libraries monographic funds as well as gifts from library donors. Brignano, a recognized scholar of African-American autobiography, helped to develop the collection and donated many of his own books. The collection is designed to enhance awareness of the importance of African-American autobiographical literature and allows the campus to offer courses designed to explore the African-American contributions to literature, the arts and society.

Brignano was a member of the English Department at Penn State from 1975 to 1996 and achieved his doctorate in English from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Brignano taught composition and rhetoric, American and African-American literature and humanities. He also has pursued scholarly research into baseball literature, a personal passion. The author of numerous articles, bibliographies and book reviews, Brignano has authored two books: “Richard Wright: An Introduction to the Man and His Works” and “Black Americans in Autobiography: An Annotated Bibliography of Autobiographies and Autobiographical Books Written Since the Civil War.”

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Book titles in the collection run the full gamut of professions and experiences, including “Mirror to America,” by renowned scholar and historian John Hope Franklin; the Brooklyn Dodgers’ Jackie Robinson’s life story in “I Never Had It Made;” musical great “Ray Charles’ Brother Ray;” and famous poet Nikki Giovanni’s “Sacred Cows and Other Edibles.” The best way to view titles in the Brignano collection is through an advanced search, limit it to Beaver Library, and in the shelf location scroll down to “Beaver–African-American Autobiographies.” All titles are available via the “I want It” button in The CAT, the online catalog. For more information, contact Marty Goldberg, head librarian, Beaver Campus at mxg35@psu.edu or call 724- 773-3791.