Study Room Policy

Hello!

Just a little reminder: yes all of the study rooms are a first come, first served basis.  BUT, first priority is given to groups.  So if all the rooms are occupied and there is an individual in the room and a group wants to use it, we will ask the individual to move.

Thanks!
Heidi

Quiet Zone

Hello,

Lately, we have found that people are holding classes in the quiet zone.  This is not acceptable, so please keep an eye on this.  If you see people holding conversations or having a class in the quiet zone please ask them to move.  Matsubara's meeting is a Japanese reading club, if they are reading quietly, they are ok but if she starts to actually conduct class or a meeting, please ask her to leave.

Please let Belinda or I know if there are repeat offenders and who they are.

Heidi

Phone and tablet chargers

Hello,

Due to student suggestions we now have phone and tablet chargers available for patrons to use.  They are located behind the desk by the I-share returns.  At this time we have 3 apple chargers, 6 micro USB chargers and 2 portable chargers with only micro USB cords (eventually these portable chargers will have apple cords but they haven't arrived yet).

When someone wants to use one you need to take a NCC ID or driver's license and put it in the drawer where the charger they are using is housed.  We will only allow a NCC ID or driver's license for exchange.  If they do not have either, they cannot use a charger.  When it is returned, please be sure that all of the pieces are returned before you give the patron back their NCC ID or driver's license.

For the portable chargers, when they are returned please press the power button, if two or less of the four green lights illuminate please plug it in to the staples plug located on the wall behind the information services desk. While it is charging, if you notice all four lights illuminate please unplug and put back in the corresponding drawer.

We have placed a sign by the staplers advertising that people can use these items from the library.  Please let us know if you are getting interest or if you have any suggestions on how we should advertise we now have this feature.

Thanks!
Heidi

Emergency Response Plan

The following was posted to the Student Assistant blog today.  I would encourage you all to review procedures as well.  (You can take the quiz if you'd like, but it's not required for you!)  We have added an Emergency Response Plan link on the ISD website as well so that you will always have quick and easy access to the information you may need.

In light of both local and national events in the past few weeks, we feel that it is an important time to review procedures that can help us deal with emergencies in an informed manner. The library student assistant website has a new link (left column) to Emergency Response Plan. The landing page from this link will lead you to both the North Central College Emergency Response Plan as well as information and quick tips pertinent to specific types of emergencies.

All student assistant are required to review all sections of the  North Central College Emergency Response Plan and our quick tips. Once you have finished this review, you must also complete a short quiz. This work can be done during your normal work hours, and the quiz should be submitted for our review no later than Sunday, October 18. Please do not hesitate to contact Heidi or me if you have any questions about these procedures.

Latest Assessment Activity post

Today I posted the following on the Student Assistant blog:

During the Assessment Activity at the Student Assistant Orientation, it was suggested that we should allow students to work in longer shifts during the academic term. Although I can respect that longer shifts may be appealing to some, I do not feel that it is feasible for us to offer this option.  Here are a few reasons why:

*Many of you have indicated that you like the fact that we don’t hassle you or expect you to get coverage for your shift when you are ill, have an emergency situation, etc. We try to respect your need for time off when we can, but the bottom line is that we need to make sure we have enough staff in the building to maintain normal operations. This is sometimes challenging for a 2-3 hour shift, but each hour added to that shift makes it increasingly difficult to cover your duties when you are unexpectedly absent.  

*Perhaps one of the most common responses we received during the assessment activity was that you like that we are flexible enough in our scheduling to accommodate most of your schedule preferences. And let’s face it, some of your schedules are pretty crazy! Assigning your work schedules for the term is a complicated process, and our ability to honor most of your schedule requests is very directly related to the length of our work shifts. Allowing longer work shifts would make this process even more challenging, and we would lose some of the options that accommodate busy schedules.

*We are legally required to give any staff member who works 4 consecutive hours a 15 minute unpaid break. If we were to allow 4 hour (or longer) shifts, we would need to plan for coverage during break times. This would add one more factor to that complex scheduling matrix, and flexible scheduling would again be at risk.

Always feel free to share ideas for improvement!  We can’t always act on those ideas, but every suggestion will be heard and considered.

Update on Assessment Activity from S.A. Orientation

Just FYI... I posted the following on the student assistant blog today:

Thanks to all of you who took a few minutes during the Student Assistant Orientation to give us some thoughtful comments and suggestions about how we are doing with the student assistant program and library services. While we may have spent the first few days chuckling over some of your humorous suggestions, we have since been contemplating ways we might incorporate or implement some of your great ideas. Throughout the next several weeks I will be using this blog to share with you both suggestions that we will be able to act on as well as explanations for why other great ideas are not feasible at this time. Please feel free to use the comment section to share other thoughts or ideas as appropriate.

To get us started, I want you to know that we are in the process of purchasing a number of wall chargers (both Apple and Android) and two power banks that will be available for loan for short term use. Patrons will be required to leave an ID at the desk while they have these items.

We appreciate the suggestion to add these items to our services. Once we have the items ready for use, we will need to get the word out to students to let them know they are available.  Please use the comments section below to give us ideas on how best to advertise this service!

Reminder: Book Displays

Just a reminder: When shelving, please check the backs of books near the barcode for stickers.

Books with blue dots:  part of the display in the lobby (under the TV). Please shelve that book (or those books) in the lobby display.

Books with purple dots: part of the Tyson Center display (lower level). Please shelve those books in the Tyson Center display.

If you have any questions, please ask Elizabeth or Belinda.  Thank you!

Cardinal Research Minute video tutorials

Hi, everyone,

I would encourage you all to watch the Cardinal Research Minute video tutorials available on the library's website on the Writing research guide. They are brief (1-2 minutes) videos that walk viewers through the basics of using Oesterle Library resources - creating your I-Share account, renewing books, requesting articles through ILL, etc. Encourage your friends and classmates to take a look as well!

http://noctrl.libguides.com/writing/tutorials

Thanks! Elizabeth

Reminder: Display orientation for monitors in '97 Lab

Hi, everyone,
A student in one of my instruction sessions kindly shared the following information with me:

To change the monitor orientation, after you've logged in, you can use the keyboard shortcut Control+Alt+any arrow key. Using the UP arrow will return the display orientation to normal.

Elizabeth

Color printer tray issue

There was an issue with the color printer in the Reference Room defaulting to print from tray 1 instead of tray 2. ITS came over to look at it and apparently tray 2 had come off track slightly which is why the printer wouldn't default or recognize the ability to print from tray 2.

If this should happen again try playing around with the adjustment of the tray to make sure it hasn't come off track and that it is properly adjusted. If you're not able to get it working we'll let ITS know again.

ITS Contact

During Heidi's leave, the following staff will be handling all contacts with ITS regarding computer/printer issues in the public spaces or at the ISD.  If you become aware of an issue, please contact one of the following (in this order):

Aimee
Elizabeth
Belinda

Thanks!

EDN assignments

We are starting to get questions about assignments for a couple of Education classes.  Both of them involve finding children's books.  The first assignment asks students to find a children's book about disabilities.  The other class is looking for "wordless" children's books.  I thought this would be a good time to remind everyone that there is a tab on the Education research guide labeled "Children's Books About..."  If you go to that site, you will see pages for both disability awareness and wordless books.  It's a lot easier to pull up the list for students to browse through than to try to browse through the books themselves or to try to put together a good CardinalCat search to seek them out.

Printing multiple copies in Word

We had a student report a problem with printing from Word today and I verified the problem with the same result. If you have a single page document and you're trying to print multiple copies of it, it seems to print on both the front and back of the sheet even if you have set it to only print on one side of the page. So essentially you're getting both of your copies, just on a single sheet of paper. One copy on the front and the other on the back.

I did not run in to this problem with printing from Firefox, so I'm not sure if it's just unique to Word or may be a problem in other applications.

I've reported the problem to ITS, but in the meantime if you encounter someone who's having this problem have them print their copies one at a time. As long as they just hit "Print" for each copy they want to print, it will show up on the printer as multiple print jobs and come out on separate sheets. They do not need to physically retrieve print each job before sending another. Hopefully this will be fixed quickly.

Instructional Media form

The request form for Instructional Media was down the other day and Tom had no idea until someone tried to make a request and received an error message. In the case that something like this happens again Tom suggests that the requestor send an email with the type of equipment and dates/times to imedia@noctrl.edu

Sending the request to this email address ensures that the request goes in to the proper system so either Tom or his student assistant can receive the request.

Staplers and three hole punch

Hello,

Please ask people to refrain from slamming or rough handling of the staplers and three hole punch.  The three hole punch now has a bent piece that would have taken a lot of force to accomplish.

Just try to keep an eye on it.

Thanks!
Heidi

New Laminator

Hello,

We have just purchased a new laminator and put it downstairs in the Tyson center.  It is a much faster machine!  The major difference with it is that you do not use a folder to laminate, you just put the item in the machine in the lamination pocket, no extra paper folder.  There are two settings AutoSense and Manual Operation.  They are both fairly simple.

AutoSense is the setting you will use regularly.  The machine will sense what is going on and adjust the heat accordingly.  The following diagram is how you use the AutoSense setting:

The Manual Operation setting is if you want more control.  The following diagram is how you use the Manual Operation setting.

All of our lamination pockets will work in the new laminator.

DO NOT use or let a patron use any of the boards in the new laminator, it cannot laminate those items.  If a patron wants to use one of the boards we have put the old laminator by the boards.

Let me know if you have any questions!
Heidi

Patrons taking paper

Hello,

We have had a rash of people just taking paper from the printers.  If you see patrons opening the trays to the printers and taking paper, please ask them not to do so and put the paper back.

I had to tell two people today that they can't do that.

Heidi

Lost IDs, important documents, etc.

Hello,

When a lost ID, important document, passport, something that would have the owner's name on it is turned in to you at the front desk please send that person an email.  If you can't find their email through Groupwise, don't worry about it but if you could contact them, please do.

Thanks,
Heidi

Printing System

Hi!

I got some new advice from ITS about the printing system.  If you run into a person who is doing everything right but no print jobs are showing up on the screen after they swipe their ID, have them log out of the print screen (not the computer), wait for a minute or two and then swipe their ID again. If that does not work, then have them move to another computer and then if that doesn't work, they need to talk to ITS.

Thanks!
Heidi