First Aid Kits

The Dyson Wellness Center staff have kindly re-filled our first aid kits (which are at both the ISD and the Periodicals Desk). If you become aware of any patrons who need first aid supplies, please be sure to check what is available in these kits! If you use up any of the supplies, please be sure to let Jan know so that she can re-stock items as needed.

George S. Huntington

I received this email from Prof. Patricia King: In a writing conference with Meagan Smith, one of my ENG 115 students, I suggested she try to find biographical information on George S. Huntington (who discovered Huntington's disease) in an academic source rather than on the web.

Do we have any encyclopedias--medical or otherwise--that might contain this info? Or would you have any further suggestions as to where she might look for this material?

The biography is in the database (Find Articles) American National Biography, but it does NOT use his middle initial.

Rosemary

Duplex Printing

Ahh, yes. Another printing topic for the ISD blog! It appears that duplex printing is not an option in the Fishbowl right now. I suspect that when they re-ghosted those computers to fix the Spellcheck problems, they may have created a new issue. If you have someone trying to print two-sided material in the Fishbowl, I would suggest having them try to print to the Reference printer. That seemed to have worked for this morning's student.

Print Credits

It's that time of the term... many students are running out of print credits. If you have any students who appear to be having trouble printing, be sure to have them check their print credits (using the $ in the bottom right hand of the screen). If they are out of credits, they simply need to login to Merlin to purchase more. There is a pretty obvious link on the main Merlin page from which they can purchase credits. If they are wondering how they pay, please let them know that the cost is added to their student account.

Week 7 - myEBSCO alerts

Since I've been asked to give a presentation in December on student assistants in the academic library (for the Metropolitan Library System), I've been watching the literature even more closely than I usually do. I didn't expect Academic Search Premier to have much on this topic, but actually found some interesting articles. So, I've now set up my search to target any new materials that become available prior to December. I've set up the RSS feed directly into Google Reader, since I'm now in the habit of checking new postings each day.

I'm not sure how useful most undergrad students would find this feature for their everyday class work. I think it is most applicable for those who are doing longer term research. So, perhaps those doing College Scholars research, working on Richter projects, Masters degree research, etc. would find this most useful. And, of course, I think our faculty would certainly find this helpful in monitoring their particular areas of interest and study, although they are probably using similar features in more specialized sources.

Spellcheck Issues Resolved

ITS has been "re-ghosting" many of the computers in our labs, and spellcheck should once again be available to students from all computers. If you continue to hear of problems, please do let Heidi or me know so that we can make ITS aware of any ongoing problems.

And... one more addition to the list of staff willing to help with Microsoft Word questions. Please add Kim to your list.