10.11.06
New online reference database: xreferplus
Swem Library now subscribes to xreferplus, a collection of 169 electronic reference books including dictionaries, encyclopedias, thesauri, bilingual dictionaries, and books of quotations, with subjects ranging from art and accountancy to literature and law.
The entire collection is keyword searchable. Xreferplus is available from the database listing on Swem Library’s home page; individual titles in the collection are available through the online catalog.
09.20.06
Getting your personal laptop to play nice with Swem’s printers
Here’s another thing we get asked about fairly often (and I’ve heard that the Circ desk gets this question, too.): Can I print to the the printers in the Information Commons from my laptop?
The answer: Yes, you can most definitely print to the IC printers from your laptop. Good news, huh?!
Follow the steps below to set it up:
Type campus\ and then your W&M userID (the same one you use to log on to Information Commons computers). Then drop down to the box below and enter your W&M password.
From the printer list select (by double-clicking) SwemICE or SwemICW for the printers in the first floor Information Commons. You could also select Swem2nd or Swem3rd, if you were working on those floors and wanted to use the Information Commons printers there.
The last step may be to click “Yes” when asked whether you want to have the necessary printer driver installed on your laptop. After that, you’ll be able to print with no problems.
09.13.06
Getting more bang for your printing buck in PowerPoint
We’ve had a number of students ask us lately if there’s a way to print multiple PowerPoint slides on a single page. The default print option in PowerPoint prints one slide per page. If the presentation has a lot of slides, the print job (@ $0.05/pg) can get costly… esp. since the students typically have many lectures/presentations to print over the course of a semester. It’s no wonder they’re looking for a little relief. So, to answer the big question: Yes, there is a way — an easy way, no less! — to print multiple slides on a single page and save some money (and save some paper!). Here’s how:
First, 2 things to note:
- The presentations are usually found in BlackBoard, so we’ll work from there.
- The browser that a student uses also plays a role.
We’ll start with Firefox.
If you click the filename.ppt link in BlackBoard (Horace.ppt in the example below), Firefox will ask you whether you want to open the file or save it. If you click “Open,” PowerPoint will launch and open the file.
With the file open in PowerPoint, either type CTRL+P or click File –> Print in the toolbar at the top of the window. Then, in the lower left of the printer options box that opens, change the “Print What” option from “Slides” to “Handouts” using the dropdown menu.
The process is just a little different in Internet Explorer:
If you click the filename.ppt link in BlackBoard (Horace.ppt in the example below), Internet Explorer will ask you whether you want to open the file or save it. If you click “Open,” PowerPoint will launch inside Blackboard and open the file.
With the file open in BlackBoard, right-click anywhere in the presentation window and select “Print” from the list of options. Then, in the lower left of the printer options box that opens, change the “Print What” option from “Slides” to “Handouts” using the dropdown menu.
09.05.06
Printing .pdfs from BlackBoard
Lots of students are trying to print their readings from BlackBoard. Often, the readings are in .pdf format. If you use the traditional File –> Print option to try to print the .pdf, many times only one page will print. To print the whole document (or to print any part of the document you want), just use the Print function in the Adobe reader. See below.
Nice job, PFOAs!
All of the PFOAs did a great job giving the library tours during orientation. Their enthusiasm, creativity, and attentiveness made all of us at Swem proud.
08.28.06
They’re heeeeere!
Just when I was thinking that it was kind of a drag to be working at my desk on a lovely Saturday afternoon, I had an experience that reminded me just how fun working in a library can be. I had gone out to talk to Don, who was working at the ref desk all afternoon, and he was in the midst of several groups of smiling, laughing, energetic freshmen who were trying to complete a campus scavenger hunt as part of their orientation. Two of the tasks on the hunt were about the library:
- Get the signature of the person working at the reference desk.
- Where can you find The Throne?
The first of those two was pretty easy for them. After all, Don was sitting right there.
As for the second question, they had no clue. Don had a lot of fun explaining to them that The Throne is a Swem Library newsletter… that’s on the wall in all the restrooms! Hence, the name. Of course, like all good budding researchers, they then had to verify his claims. LOL!
Btw, I’m not sure who designed the hunt, but whoever you are, you get a hearty ‘thank you!’ from all of us here at Swem for including us. And thanks to Caroline K. for letting me take a picture of her and her friends after they got Don’s signature. (In the pic, Don’s the one that looks least like a freshman!) 
08.24.06
Writing Resources Center @ Swem Opens for fall
The Writing Resources Center is going to continue offering its services at Swem Library on Sunday afternoons. The WRC@Swem will open on September 17th for fall 2006.
Writing assistance is available from 2-5 pm each Sunday throughout the semester. You may drop-in or sign-up during those hours for a one-on-one session with a writing consultant. The sign-up sheet will be posted on the door of the center which is located in the group study room behind the reference desk on the first floor.
And here’s a link to some electronic writing resources (dictionaries, grammars, style manuals, etc) selected by Swem librarians.
08.21.06
If it’s the end of August, it must be Orientation time!
With the start of the Fall semester right around the corner, Swem Library staff are involved in a number of student outreach and orientation activities. The tour for the new international grad students kicked off our outreach efforts last Friday, but things really get started in earnest on Tuesday, the 22nd.
Thanks to all the volunteers! Thanks to Rebecca for being such a good leader. No one would ever guess that she’s a rookie at this. And thanks to Hope for sharing her knowledge and experience. She’s led the library through a bunch of these orientations and we’d be lost without her!
For anyone playing along at home, here’s our upcoming schedule:
| Tuesday, August 22 |
| Residence Life Fair 10:00am – noon Trinkle Hall (in the Campus Center) Swem volunteers: Rebecca Beasley and Carol McAllister This is the orientation for the new RAs on campus. Rebecca and Carol will have a laptop on-hand to demo the Swem website. And they’ll be reminding (with a handout) the RAs about Swem’s myLibrarian program. And, of course, they’ll also have goodies like Swem bags and mints and magnetic rulers to give away. |
| Wednesday, August 23 |
| Orientation Aides (OA) Overview and Reception 3:30pm – 4:00pm University Center, Chesapeake B&C Swem volunteers: Deb Weiss, Troy Davis, and Rebecca Beasley The orientation aides are student volunteers with at least one year’s experience at W&M. The OAs help new studens during orientation. So, this is the orientation for the orientation aides. I’m sure the Swem group will be very popular as they’ll be providing cookies and lemonade for the OAs as well as talking up the library a little bit. |
| Thursday, August 24 |
| Program and Family Orientation Aides (PFOA) Training 2:15pm – 3:15pm Swem Library Swem volunteers: Deb Weiss and Paul Showalter The PFOAs are a subset of the OAs. The day before classes start, the PFOAs will be shepherding the freshies around to various meetings and events that are part of orientation. Included in those events is a tour of Swem Library. On the 24th, Deb and I will teach the PFOAs all the stuff we want them to pass along to the new students during the tours. |
| Saturday, August 26 |
| Family Resources Fair 9:00am – 11:00am University Center, Chesapeake Swem volunteers: Rebecca Beasley and Paul Showalter The Family Resources Fair is event for the parents (and families) of new W&M students. After they drop the kid(s) off for good, the families come to the Fair, where they’ll learn a bit more about the many services that will be available to their member(s) of the Tribe. Rebecca and I will be there with our trusty laptop to show off the library website, some handouts (about myLibrarian; it always makes the parents happy to know that their freshman has a personal librarian!), and some other goodies (most notably some very cool pens that Rebecca got and some beautiful bookmarks printed for us by Karen McCluney, Swem’s graphics goddess.) |
| Tuesday, August 29 |
| PFOA Tours of Swem for New Students 10:00am – 2:00pm Swem Library Swem volunteers: Lots of folks! Yay! While the PFOAs give the tours, Swem staff will be on-hand to give out our famous custom Swem fortune cookies and handouts about the myLibrarian program to all the new students. We’ll also be feeding lunch to the PFOAs. Lots of people will be passing through Swem on the 29th. It should be exciting! Orientation Concurrent Sessions During the concurrent sessions, new students can go to various parts of campus to hear folks talk about their various services. I’ll be conducting a couple sessions called, “Don’t Drown in the Sea of Information! Learn to Swem!” The sessions are just a quick overview of some of the things the good people at Swem can do to make life easier for new… well, actually, ALL… students. My goal is just to reduce the new students’ library and research anxiety some and to help them feel comfortable coming to us with questions. |
Looking for CRS Reports? Good news!
Alan Zoellner, Swem’s awesome Gov Docs librarian, informed the library liaison group this morning that we can get the fulltext of Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports all the way back to 1916(!) via LexisNexis Congressional. You know what that means? No more hunting down CRS reports on microfiche! Yay!
08.18.06
Tour for new international graduate students today
I want to thank Molly Brittain over at the Reves Center for Internation Studies for thinking of Swem and including us in the orientation for the new international grad students. She wasn’t sure if the students would be getting any library orientation from their academic departments (I hope they do!), so she called me and arranged to bring the group into the library for a tour this afternoon at 4:15.
I’ll only have 45 minutes with them, but I think I can show them some useful stuff in that time: Circ/Reserve Desk, Info Commons, Ref Desk, Current Periodicals, Stacks, Microforms, and Media Center. I’ll also make sure they get a copy of our Welcome to the Libraries Guide.
Tour, pt. 2: I think the tour went very, very well. Of the 80 or so students that could have attended, about 12 did. For me, that was a perfect size. Everyone could stay close to me and hear what I was saying and I could hear their comments and questions without anyone having to raise their voice.
Here’s a list of the few questions posed to me (as best as I can remember them):
- If I check out something from the Media Center and I accientally break it, will I be charged for the item?
- Can we check out videos?
- Is the video viewing room very big (I think they thought it might like a theater.)?
- Can I bring my laptop into the library and connect to the wireless network?
- Where do the computers in the IC print to?
- Can Google Chat communicate with AIM?
- How many books can I check out and for how long?
- Can I print in the library using my laptop while it’s connected to the network wirelessly?
- Is the library open on Sundays? How late?
I think that’s about it. Like I said, we only had 45 minutes together and I had a fair amount of talking to do, too.
All in all, I’m happy with how things turned out and I hope I see all of those students frequently in the library. It was a good tuneup, too, for all the tours and classes I’ll have coming up in the very near future.
