Monthly Archives: March 2018

A Night of Chocolate

For more information about this event, read the article in Penn State News.

Customer Service Tip: How their service failure can be your problem

By: Jeff Toister (submitted by Carmen Gass)

Chances are, you’ve had a bad customer service week. One where it seems like you receive bad service everywhere you turn. Just when you think it can’t get any worse, it does.

Mine started recently when a company shipped me the wrong socks. I normally wouldn’t think much of a shipping error. This one was turned out to be just the tip of the service failure iceberg.

That same week, I had to contact a local hardware store multiple times to find a missing part for a front door handle. Painters ruined several window screens on my home. A new microwave stopped working properly and required a service call, crushing my schedule between 8am and 12pm one day.

My patience began to wear thin as the week went on. It started taking more of an effort to be a level-headed, friendly customer as I tried to resolve each of these situations.

It also made me realize something you may already know—an upset customer might not just be frustrated at your company’s service failure. Read more here:

https://us8.campaign-archive.com/?e=19c9d795c1&u=5807a192a714bb01025f1d318&id=967230b618

Tech Tip: Introducing Box Drive

By: Ryan Johnson

What is Box Drive?
Box drive is a desktop application that brings all your files you have access to on Box, accessible from your desktop Box Folder. This desktop app makes it easier to access your files on Box in the cloud because it creates another drive on your computer like your C drive. Which means you will have access to all your files and folder on Box, without having to sync them down to your computer. The application also works on both Windows and MacOS.

What About Box Sync?
Box drive is a replacement for Box sync. If you currently use Box Sync, I-Tech recommends you uninstall Box Sync before using Box drive. Also, known issues with Box Sync such as poor performance and using a lot of Hard Drive space is not an issue with Box drive.

How to Install Box Drive?
To install Box drive first uninstall Box Sync (If you have it installed) with defendpoint and then visit the following page and choose your platform, Windows or Mac to download the program.

Note: Use Defendpoint to install any program such as Box Drive to your University Library computer.

Events: March 26

Spring 2018
Academic calendar information for all campuses is available online.

Jan. 16–May 13, “What Big Eyes You Have! Looking at the Wolf in Fairy Tales”exhibition, Eberly Family Special Collections Library Exhibition Room, 104 Paterno Library.

Feb. 18-Aug. 13, “Depth of Field” exhibit, Diversity Studies Room, 203 Pattee Library, seeks to highlight the intersections of war in the Middle East with the history of war photography.

Wednesday, Mar. 21: Software in the Humanities and Social Sciences Workshop – Pandoc, convert documents from one file type to another and back again, all from the command line, with Grant Wythoff. Bring a bag lunch; noon-1 p.m., 403 Paterno Library and via Zoom at https://psu.zoom.us/j/914950827.

Wednesday, Mar. 21: Poetry Without Borders – A multicultural night of poetry hosted by the Dept. of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literature; 6-7 p.m., Foster Auditorium, 102 Paterno Library. Reception following in Mann Assembly Room, 103 Paterno Library.

Thursday, Mar. 22: Mann Lecture: The Art of Being a Wolf – Debra Mitts-Smith, children’s and young adult literature expert and author of “Picturing the Wolf in Children’s Literature,” will offer the 2018 Charles W. Mann Jr. Lecture in the Book Arts; 4:30 p.m., Foster Auditorium, 102 Paterno Library, and online via Mediasite Live.

Thursday, Mar. 29: A Night of Chocolate: An Interdisciplinary Panel Discussion of Chocolate from Gene to Bean to Bar – Foster Auditorium, 102 Paterno Library, 6-8 p.m.

Monday, Apr. 2: Edible Book Festival – Compete in or help judge a book-themed cake decorating contest. Sign up at http://tinyurl.com/psulibsediblebook, noon- 1p.m., Mann Assembly Room, 103 Paterno Library.

Monday 2 April: Editing Aphra Behn in the Digital Age (E-ABIDA) – Show-and-tell session with some of our special collections related to Aphra Behn, with Elaine Hobby and Claire Bowditch of Loughborough University, England. 5-6 p.m., Mann Assembly Room, 103 Paterno Library.

Tuesday, Apr. 3: Grant Writing Workshop , Mann Assembly Room, 103 Paterno Library, 1-2:30 p.m.

Tuesday, April 3: Editing and Collating 17th Century Books in the Modern Digital Age – with Elaine Hobby and Claire Bowditch of Loughborough University. 2-3 p.m., Foster Auditorium and live streamed via MediaSite.

Tuesday, Apr. 3: Jillian Cantor to read as part of the Mary E Rolling Reading Series, Foster Auditorium, 102 Paterno Library, 7:30-9 p.m.

Wednesday, Apr. 4: Software in the Humanities and Social Sciences Workshop – IIIF, with Karen Estlund. Bring a bag lunch; noon-1 p.m. 403 Paterno Library and via Zoom at https://psu.zoom.us/j/914950827.

Thursday, Apr. 5: Lecture by Professor Leo Bersani, “Force in Progress”, 5-7 p.m., Foster Auditorium, 102 Paterno Library.

Friday, Apr. 6: Art+Feminism Wiki-edit-a-thon – An editing free-for-all to improve content on feminism, gender, and the arts on Wikipedia, 10 a.m.-5 p.m., Mann Assembly Room, 103 Paterno Library. Remote participation is also encouraged; This year’s meetup page is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/University_Park/ArtAndFeminism_2018/The_Pennsylvania_State_University.

Wednesday, Apr. 11: Software in the Humanities and Social Sciences Workshop – OpenRefine, a free and open-source resource for cleaning, regularizing, and organizing complex data, with Jose Guerrero. Bring a bag lunch; noon-1 p.m. 403 Paterno Library and via Zoom at https://psu.zoom.us/j/914950827.

Sunday, Apr. 22: International Write-In. Two sessions, 3:30-7:30 p.m. and 8 p.m.-midnight. Mann Assembly Room, 103 Paterno Library. Interested writers can sign up today at: http://tinyurl.com/psuwritein

Monday, Apr. 23: Working with International Students Workshop: Resources and Inclusive Strategies, 1-4 p.m., 221 Chambers Building, Krause Learning Space.

Please submit event information — and all Library News submissions — to Public Relations and Marketing via the Library News submission form. *Please note: The content submissions process may be changing soon; please stay tuned for updates.*

Events: March 19

Spring 2018
Academic calendar information for all campuses is available online.

Jan. 16–May 13, “What Big Eyes You Have! Looking at the Wolf in Fairy Tales”exhibition, Eberly Family Special Collections Library Exhibition Room, 104 Paterno Library.

Feb. 18-Aug. 13, “Depth of Field” exhibit, Diversity Studies Room, 203 Pattee Library, seeks to highlight the intersections of war in the Middle East with the history of war photography.

Monday, Apr. 2: Edible Book Festival – compete in or help judge a book-themed cake decorating contest. Sign up at http://tinyurl.com/psulibsediblebook, noon- 1p.m., Mann Assembly Room, 103 Paterno Library.

Tuesday, Apr. 3: Grant Writing Workshop , Mann Assembly Room, 103 Paterno Library, 1-2:30 p.m.

Tuesday, Apr. 3: Jillian Cantor to read as part of the Mary E Rolling Reading Series, Foster Auditorium, 102 Paterno Library, 7:30-9 p.m.

Thursday, Apr. 5: Lecture by Professor Leo Bersani, “Force in Progress”, 5-7 p.m., Foster Auditorium, 102 Paterno Library.

Monday, Apr. 23: Working with International Students Workshop: Resources and Inclusive Strategies, 1-4 p.m., 221 Chambers Building, Krause Learning Space.

Creating a Data Services Model

By: John Meier, Physical and Mathematical Sciences Library

One of the key objectives of our Strategic Plan is to develop and implement programs to promote discovery, access, and preservation. In the 2017-2018 Action Plan, this includes developing a library data warehouse. A data warehouse is a central system for gathering and storing data collected from all parts of an organization (example Google BigQuery). The methods and formats of data the University Libraries collects are extremely diverse but the overall goal is to use the data we gather. A data warehouse would allow us to easily keep track of the data we gather, and to give staff access to the data they need to work more effectively. To better understand the need for a data warehouse and how it is being developed at the University Libraries, I sat down with Rob Olendorf, the Prystowsky Early Career Science Librarian. Rob came to Penn State with a background in software and system, supports research data management in the Eberly College of Science, and is the product owner for ScholarSphere. The Data Warehouse Steering Committee includes Steve Borelli, Sherry Lonsdale, Julia Proctor, and Matt Ciszek.

The team interviewed staff from around the Libraries and developed user personas for the various ways we use and gather data. They attempted to find all data sources within our organization, including: Desk Tracker, circulation, gate counts, ILLIAD, teaching, and more. For each data source, they need to develop a data dictionary for interpreting each unique source and later development. This can take quite a while as some systems only allow a few users to access the data. Even in the information gathering process, the team has already made some recommendations for data cleanup or streamlining our gathering to create more usable data. They have also given feedback to different units in the University Libraries to help improve data entry.

You can follow their work in progress on their GitHub website. It is setting goals and defining what needs to be developed over the next few years to make the data warehouse a reality. This includes policies about what data can be added, some manually, some automatically. It is also important to sketch out how open the data can be and determine the levels of access for staff to parts of the collection. The design has to be open and flexible to operate with other application programming interfaces (APIs). One example might be a data dashboard, which visualizes data from the warehouse. This will also leave it open to new data inputs, such as an app for counting patrons that also indicates where they are in our spaces.

We can look forward to exciting new ways to gather data and to use the data we are currently gathering in visual, high-impact forms. While the full data warehouse is still a few years away, stakeholders from around the University Libraries and Penn State can help build it.

25Live is here!

By: Ann Thompson

Here we go….
Library spaces continue to migrate to CollegeNET’s scheduling product 25Live. The most recent space to migrate to 25Live is Foster Auditorium as announced by Emma Davidson in an email on March 7th, Foster Auditorium is now being scheduled using 25Live (CollegeNET). See Below.
If you’ve never used 25Live, please take the follow steps:

1. Login to CollegeNET
By visiting the above link and selecting “Reserve Space in 25Live…” an account will automatically be created for you. Please note: It will take about 24-hours for your account to be verified. However, you will not be notified when this is complete. You can simply login once the waiting period is over.

2. Schedule all future Foster events via CollegeNET
Please discontinue your use of UCS and/or emailing me to reserve Foster. Your requests will now be submitted to me via CollegeNET.

If this is your first time using CollegeNET, the Registrar’s website has some great training materials. Please note that a new policy and best practices guide are forthcoming. For most, this change will have little to no impact, but for those who schedule library spaces or sit at the Libraries Welcome Desks, they will notice the change on the Rooms Spaces webpage, where the Foster Auditorium schedule can be seen at a glance. This display will continue to have modifications as other library spaces are migrated to 25Live for scheduling, including the
Libraries instruction spaces.

Training sessions will be held throughout the remainder of the semester. Exact times will be announced via the University Park listserv and the Library Blog. There will also be an overview of 25Live at an upcoming Tech Update. Stay tuned.

Tech Tip: What is phishing and how to report it?

Phishing is the act of attempting to deceive a user into divulging personal or confidential information such as login credentials, credit card information, etc., to gain access to resources that enable them to steal your identity.

Phishing scams usually come in the form of email messages and false websites. Cyber criminals use social engineering to learn about their targets and then use that information to try and gather your personal information.

Things to look for to identify that you may be targeted include:

Spelling and bad grammar: Phishing emails are commonly plagued with spelling and grammatical errors.
Links in emails: Links in emails may appear as though they are taking you to a legitimate website however they can be disguised. Hover over (DO NOT CLICK) links and see if you are being re-routed to some other page.
Threats: Some emails contain threats to include legal action, time sensitive materials, etc. These are designed to convince you to make a hasty decision and click a malicious link or open an unsafe attachment.
Spoofing a legitimate website or company: Some emails will appear to come from a legitimate company. However that is far from the case. Again, attackers will try to make everything appear to be legitimate but things such as suspicious URL’s (pages with names not associated with the website or company), or outdated information can be tell-tale signs something is not right.

If you believe you have been sent a phishing scam, forward the original phish as an attachment in a new message addressed to phishing@psu.edu.

For more information on how to report a Phish or view recently reported phishes, please visit here.

Customer Service Tip: Problem solving and troubleshooting (Lynda.com)

Customer service care costs organizations billions of dollars each year. As a result, it’s critical that employees are equipped with the skills needed to handle a variety of different customer
service problems.

In this course, learn critical problem-solving and troubleshooting processes for common sense customer service in a wide variety of applications. Discover how to effectively deal with issues, while maintaining a positive relationship with your customers (and your own sanity). Plus, learn how to identify and resolve larger systemic issues within your company.

Topics include:
Responding to valid and invalid complaints
Diagnosing a problem before you prescribe a fix
Disarming and redirecting unhappy customers
Delivering bad news
Remaining calm, cool, and collected while dealing with customers

Watch the class here:
https://www.lynda.com/Business-tutorials/Welcome/616661/687378-4.html

Diversity Retreat: Advancing the conversation on inclusion

By: Alia C Gant

Registration is now open for “Diversity Retreat: Advancing the Conversation on Inclusion,” which will be held on April 16, 2018. To register, go to:
https://pennstate.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3I2W28CkrtU7yvP

For information on the agenda, sessions, and travel procedures for campus participants, go to:
https://staff.libraries.psu.edu/diversity-retreat-advancing-conversation-inclusion.

The morning program will include two sessions with three concurrent training offerings. The afternoon program will include lightning talks and the LFO Colloquium, followed by a light reception and wrap-up discussion. You do not need to register if you only plan to attend or view the afternoon presentations. They are open to all and not restricted to retreat participants. (Attend in person in Foster Auditorium or view on MediaSite Live.)

We intend to have some great discussions on this day and hope that many campus participants can attend!

Space is limited, so try and sign up soon!

Cheers,
Diversity Committee and Library Faculty Organization

Instruction Room Best Practices

By: Rebecca M Peterson

Below are five quick reminders about the instruction rooms, based on questions and problems users have experienced this semester. If you have any questions or problems, you can always contact Rebecca Peterson at rmr28@psu.edu or 865-9257.

1. Always contact Rebecca Peterson to report any problems with the rooms.

2. Return all cords, cables, and remotes to the podium and lock the podium when finished.

3. Log off of the podium computer when finished with the podium.

4. If the podium computer screen won’t “wake up,” make sure the podium touchscreen panel is turned to “computer,” not “laptop.”

5. If you’re teaching in W023 Pattee and don’t have a key to W023B, contact Rebecca Peterson ahead of time about getting access to the Chromebooks.

Large-scale faculty survey opens March 13

By: Lana Munip

The University Libraries is conducting a survey of Penn State faculty on the impact of digital technologies on research, teaching, and publishing. The survey will run from Tuesday, March 13, 2018 to Tuesday, April 10, 2018, and is conducted in partnership with a national research organization, Ithaka S+R.

This is the first large scale survey of faculty conducted by the University Libraries in many years and the goal is to learn more about:

1. the ways that PSU faculty discover and access scholarly materials in their teaching and research;
2. the evolving role of the library and of library collections;
3. current research and teaching practices, with particular emphasis on how these are changing in light of opportunities created by new technology; and
4. the ways in which faculty communicate the findings of their research
through a variety of media.

Results from this survey will impact the Libraries’ plans for service and
resource improvement. A sample of faculty members from across all Penn State
campuses will receive an invitation to participate in the survey on March 13.
Note: This includes all librarians at all campuses.

For each completed survey, the Libraries will donate $2.00 to the Lion’s
Pantry, the University’s student food pantry. For more information on the
survey, please contact Steve Borrelli, head, Library Assessment,
smb96@psu.edu/814-863-1909.

University Libraries’ Information Literacy Award updates

By: Hailley Fargo

Beginning on Tuesday, April 3, our first of 17 Undergraduate Research Exhibitions will kick off. Throughout April, libraries across the Commonwealth will be awarding Information Literacy Awards to student research that display a high level of information literacy skills. This award recognizes scholarly work based on a foundation of careful background research and literature review. The award is given to entries that demonstrate excellence in information literacy through the following: showcasing your research process and strategies; selection of sources that contribute to your argument and ideas; social, ethical, or economic considerations in accessing information; and credit and proper citation for any quotes, tables, graphs, images, and other content displayed. More information on this award can be found on our public facing page (LINK TO: https://libraries.psu.edu/about/awards-scholarships/information-literacy-award). It will be an exciting month!

As the Student Engagement Librarian, part of my scope of work includes creating an aligned approach to how we give out this award. An aligned approach means we will use a common rubric across the Commonwealth, create and lead workshops to help students prepare for the exhibitions, and work towards a shared assessment model to learn more about our impact. This spring semester, I’ve been lucky to work with 28 of my colleagues across the Commonwealth as we prepare to give out this award. As a group, we’ve made some changes and created some valuable resources for our students. I wanted to give the University Libraries a big picture update and also recognize the hard work of this group.

Along with the public facing page on the award, we have created an internal, Intranet page, to help share resources in one common location (LINK TO: https://staff.libraries.psu.edu/information-literacy-award-undergradate-research-exhibition). This page contains our most exciting updates including:

Our new, shared rubric. This rubric is an iterative document, meant to be looked at each year as we continue to judge research posters and learn the needs of our students.

A “workshop-in-a-box” for campuses who would like to host a Poster Creation 101 workshop. In the Box folder, you will find learning outcomes, an outline for an hour workshop, shared assessment plans, and a PowerPoint you can download and edit to find your campus needs.

A calendar with the 17 exhibitions across the Commonwealth, along with the contact people for each exhibition

A big shout out goes to the following colleagues who helped with creating the rubric — Joel Burkholder, Jen Jarson, Amy Rustic, Andrew Marshall, Beth Seyala, Erin Burns, Jen Hunter, Jo DePolt, and members of Library Learning Services. Additionally, the Poster Creation 101 workshop was created by Amy Deuink, Megan Mac Gregor, Christina Riehman-Murphy, Emily Mross, and John Siegel. Thank you for all your hard work in preparing for this year’s awards.

Finally, I am also looking for people interested in helping judge for the Information Literacy Award at University Park. The 2018 UP Undergraduate Exhibition will take place on Wednesday, April 18, 2018 in the HUB. This year, UP will run the exhibition a bit differently. Posters will be displayed and judging will occur later in the day, from 5-8 PM. Students will be expected to be at their poster from either 5-7 PM or 6-8 PM. Winners will not be announced on the 18th and instead, winners will be notified the following day and a more formal awards ceremony will happen on Sunday, April 22nd. If you are willing and able to serve as a judge for the partial or full evening, please email me at hmf14@psu.edu.

Thanks for reading about these updates and if you have any questions, comments, or want to get involved, get in touch!

Tech Tip: How to recover an unsaved Word document

Have you ever clicked Don’t Save on a new document only to realize you should have clicked Save?

The good news you can still retrieve that file. First, open Microsoft Word and go to File->Info->Manage Document and select Recover Unsaved Documents

This will open a window with any files available to recover. Simply select the file to recover it.

To make sure you have this setting enabled in Word, open Word Options and select Save. In the Save Documents section, make sure Keep the last autosaved version if I close without saving is checked.

Events: March 12

Spring 2018
Academic calendar information for all campuses is available online.

Jan. 16–May 13, “What Big Eyes You Have! Looking at the Wolf in Fairy Tales”exhibition, Eberly Family Special Collections Library Exhibition Room, 104 Paterno Library.

Feb. 18-Aug. 13, “Depth of Field” exhibit, Diversity Studies Room, 203 Pattee Library, seeks to highlight the intersections of war in the Middle East with the history of war photography.

Wednesday, Mar. 7: Software in the Humanities and Social Sciences Workshop – PGP (Pretty Good Privacy), a popular program for encryption and authentication of digital messages like email, with Andrew Singer. Bring a bag lunch; noon-1 p.m., 403 Paterno Library and via Zoom at https://psu.zoom.us/j/914950827.

Wednesday, Mar. 14: Software in the Humanities and Social Sciences Workshop – ggplot2, makes pretty, easily reproducible and modifiable graphs for publication, with Nathan Piekielek. Bring a bag lunch; noon-1 p.m., 403 Paterno Library and via Zoom at https://psu.zoom.us/j/914950827.

Tuesday, Apr. 3: Grant Writing Workshop , Mann Assembly Room, 103 Paterno Library, 1-2:30 p.m.

Tuesday, Apr. 3: Jillian Cantor to read as part of the Mary E Rolling Reading Series, Foster Auditorium, 102 Paterno Library, 7:30-9 p.m.

Thursday, Apr. 5: Lecture by Professor Leo Bersani, “Force in Progress”, 5-7 p.m., Foster Auditorium, 102 Paterno Library.

Seeking your ideas for 2018-19 Strategic Plan action items!

By: Amanda S Clossen

The 2018-19 Strategic Action Plan Team invites you to submit your ideas for action items for the 2018-19 Action Plan!

We are looking for suggestions for action items that the University Libraries can work on in the next fiscal year to support the goals and objectives of the Libraries Strategic Plan. If you have a great idea, big or small, that you think should be explored as an action item, we want to hear about it! These action items help us to further our efforts in Discovery, Access and Preservation, Teaching and Learning, and Advancing University Research. Details of last year’s action items can be found here. Our recent staff post includes information on how submitted ideas will be reviewed, as well as the ideas submitted so far.

Have a voice in the future of the Libraries! We welcome all ideas – please submit them using this survey by Wednesday, March 21:
https://pennstate.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_2tqYzTHwENHVy9D

You may submit as many ideas as you like. Questions? Please email the Strategic Action Plan Team at ul-action-team@lists.psu.edu or contact team members directly.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Paige Andrew, Maps Cataloging Librarian
Paul Burnell, Information Resources and Services Support Specialist, Knowledge Commons
Amanda Clossen, Learning Design Librarian
Matt Ciszek, Head Librarian, Penn State Erie
Jen Jarson, Head Librarian, Penn State Lehigh Valley
Glenn McGuigan, Head Librarian, Penn State Harrisburg
Binky Lush, Manager Discovery Access and Web Services (co-chair)
Lana Munip, Analysis and Planning Consultant (co-chair)
Martha Ney, Proposal and Awards Generalist
Billie Walker, Head Librarian, Penn State Great Valley
Rachel White, Information Resources and Services Supervisor-Manager, Lending Services

Penn State York’s Lee R. Glatfelter Library wins big for their students

By: Sarah Bacon

Congratulations to 2017 Giving Tuesday Commonwealth Campus Library Leader, Penn State York’s Lee R. Glatfelter Library!

Led by Barb Eshbach, the Glatfelter Library team embraced the charge to elevate Commonwealth Campus Library (CCL) involvement in the 2017 Giving Tuesday campaign. As the winner of the Get 5 and Most Donors CCL challenges, we are happy to present them with a $1,000 award. These funds will be used to purchase educational resources and textbooks for their course reserves.

2017 Giving Tuesday highlights (full summary attached):
$32,000.03 raised ($20,000 was the goal)
141 total gifts (100 was the goal)
18 first-time donors
39 GOLD (Graduates Of the Last Decade) donors
37 gifts via Commonwealth Campus Libraries
14 from York
6 from Altoona
5 from Hazleton
12 from Abington, World Campus, Great Valley, DuBois, Harrisburg, and Scranton

Watch this video of students saying thank you to our Giving Tuesday donors (note: grand totals were updated after production.)

Thank YOU to ALL who participated and gave of your time, support and/or resources. Mark your calendars for 2018 Giving Tuesday – Nov. 27!

Diversity Retreat schedule now online

By: Lana Munip

Registration for the April 16 Diversity Retreat opens on March 12. To see the day’s schedule, please go to https://staff.libraries.psu.edu/diversity-retreat-advancing-conversation-inclusion.
For the morning program, you’ll have the opportunity to choose from discussions on rankism in the Libraries, bystander training on bias and discrimination, or a “Speak Up!” session, where you will work in groups to craft strong responses to acts of incivility. For something a little lighter, we’ll also host a speed networking session. This invariably fun social activity aims to develop social bonds among employees and is great whether you are new to the Libraries or have been here a long time.

After lunch we’ll have lightning talks presented by staff and faculty (we’ll send out more information on that in the coming weeks) and the LFO Colloquium. Please see the schedule for full details on the speakers.

Note: You don’t have to register for the Retreat if you only want to attend/view the afternoon program – just come to Foster Auditorium or view on MediaSite Live at:
Lightning Talks and LFO Colloquium

Funding is available for campus participants. If you have any questions, please contact Lana Munip at lana@psu.edu, or 814-863-1939.