Dewey Research Advisor

The Dewey Library at MIT, which houses collections in management and the social sciences, has an interesting, searchable database of FAQs in business in economics called the Dewey Research Advisor.

Advertising Redbooks

Access to Advertising Redbooks has been cut-off temporarily due to an invoicing problem. I am working with them to resolve this issue as quickly as possible.

Problem w Reference Desk Phone

The answering machine still picks up when one tries to call the desk from within the library (perhaps elsewhere on campus). I've put in a telephone repair trouble ticket today, 7/26. If you find out the problem is resolved, please let either Nelson, Louise or me know.
Thanks, Diane

Conference call phone in library classrooms

I've just added two new entries to the wiki:

• Conference Calls (how to make them using our special phone stored one of the library classroom closets)
• Telephones in Library Classrooms (phone numbers for each room and instructions about plugging in conference call phone)

LCSH volumes missing from reference desk

Any idea where they have gone?

Two is the magic (search) number

According to a recent study by OneStat.com, most web searches involve two search terms.

Found on Steve Cohen's Libary Stuff (who got it from the SearchEngineWatch blog).

Knowledge Media Laboratory from Carnegie Foundation

The following review is from the Scout Report of 7/21/06 and may be of interest to many of us.

Knowledge Media Laboratory [pdf]

How do students learn in the classroom? How can teachers best utilize new and emerging technologies in the classroom? What can teachers do to seamlessly incorporate technology into the learning experience? These are all questions that are asked by The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching’s Knowledge Media Laboratory. On their website, users can learn about their work with communities of teachers, faculty, programs, and institutions over the past several years, and also look over some of their informative case studies. The Gallery of Teaching and Learning is a good place to start one’s exploration of the site, as it contains a number of exhibitions that look at how web-based tools can be used in teaching and how scholarship may change as a result of an increasingly networked milieu. One seminal resource on the site is the KEEP Toolkit. With the Toolkit, teachers and others can create engaging knowledge representations on the web for their own use. For visitors who might feel a bit overwhelmed by this, there is also a nice tutorial that explains how the Toolkit can be used.

Used Up Student Printing Accounts

Students who have used up their Baruch printing account amounts for the semester should be advised to purchase vendor cards and use those to cover the cost of printing. These are available for purchase in room 309. $1.00 is the minimum purchase; $.30 covers the cost of the card with a $.70 credit. Additional value can be added. These cards can be used in the copiers as well as the vendor printer.

Pew Internet Project report on Bloggers

The Pew Internet Project has just released a report on Bloggers.
It can be found at http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/186/report_display.asp

Draft environmental impact statement re Atlantic Yards in Brooklyn

The draft environmental impact statement for the proposed Atlantic Yards and Redevelopment Project in Brooklyn is available from the Empire State Development. (More than 1,000 pages, according to the New York Times today.) In opposition to the project is Develop Don't Destroy.

news for fans of the Yankees and Mets

The Bond Buyer had a recent e-mail update today:

The New York City Industrial Development Agency said today that the Internal Revenue Service has given them permission to sell about $1.44 billion of tax-exempt bonds backed by payments from the teams to pay for the construction of two new baseball stadiums for the Yankees and Mets.

Conference Board offers redesigned web site

The Conference Board recently redesigned its web site, to which we have an educational associate's membership. (It is an international membership organization.) They now offer webcasts, and full-texts of some books, as well as continuing to offer their well known economic information and data and research studies on a broad range of work and public policy topics, including but not limited to ethics, corporate governance, management and director and executive compensation, work-family balance, etc. Organizational charts of selected companies are also available for purchase.

(I have inquired about these charts in the past. They are of Conference Board members. The original understanding was that one had to contribute an organizational chart to have access to others, but this policy probably has changed with electronic access and purchase. It was suggested to me by the Conference Board librarian that the pricing is not geared to a student's budget and that it might be good to suggest that faculty purchase a variety of charts. I have not had a request for an organizational chart for several years.)

New report: Investment banks' considering environmental, social and governance issues in their research

The United Nation's Environment Programme Finance Initiative and 10 leading international investment banks released Show Me the Money: Linking Environmental, Social and Governance Issues to Company Value. Form the the foreword: "This will further deepen our understanding how ESG issues impact the risk and reward dynamic in given industry and business sectors."

Can History be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the Past

Below is a quote from Marc Meola on the ACRL Blog on the above article by Roy Rosenzweig.


"Rosenzweig’s piece discusses the differences between professional historians and amateur wikipedists, Wikipedia’s obsession with Neutral Point of View (NPOV), and compares Wikipedia to Microsoft’s Encarta and the American National Biography Online. Rosenzweig points out that it’s not only accuracy that is problematic for Wikipedia (a problem for all encyclopedias), but poor writing and lack of scholarly subtlety and nuance. Yet he also points out the strengths of Wikipedia–it’s free and available to everyone, unlike the subscription products in our libraries".

The article can be found in the Journal of American History, v 93, n.1, 6/06 (reprinted online here). A interesting if long (51 pages) read.

Help the New Orleans Public Library

A wish list for book purchases has been set up by the New Orleans Public Library on Alibris.

Found on Kathleen de la Peña McCook's blog, Librarian 2.

Do you happened to have this book?

Del Dickson, ed., The Supreme Court inConference (KF8742/.S917/2001) is missing from the shelf and isn't checked out. A faculty member has been looking for it. Just in case anyone has it in his/her office, would you please let me know? Thanks.

Vault.com

The Career Development Center uses a source called Vault, "the online career library". It is available to undergraduate students via the Career Development Center website (via the Hot Links section). Students need to follow instructions to get a password. Some students mistakenly think this is available via the library's website.

When I attempted to get a password to check out the resource, I received the following message, "This Online Career Library is for the sole use of Baruch College undergraduate students. Use by any other individuals or organizations, including without limitation students or alumni of any other departments of this university, is unlawful. Any other use constitutes copyright infringement and theft of services. Any unauthorized use or distribution will be traced and may result in civil and criminal liability."

Is anyone familiar with this resource? Some brief descriptions state that it provides industry and business overviews, and is useful for background information for interviews. I was wondering if, or how, it differs from our library databases.

Laptops now distributed from 3rd floor desk

As of today, the laptops have moved from the 2nd floor to the 3rd floor desk.

Baruch is not a cooling center

If we get any calls asking if Baruch is a cooling center, please let the caller know that we aren't but a list of them can be found on this page of the NYC web site: http://gis.nyc.gov/oem/cc/index.htm

Student Printing Problems

Many students registered for the second summer session are experiencing problems printing to the student printer. BCTC tells me that some student ID's have not yet been uploaded to the system for those registered in summer session 2.

Printing error - Length

A student trying to print a 37 page document earlier this afternoon received a message "zero length job." According to Theresa, student printers only accomodate print jobs up to a certain number of pages, probably between 20-30 pages. The student was able to print upstairs in
BCTC.
Diane

Upcoming event of possible interest

New York-based retailer Crazy Eddie Inc. was one of the largest securites frauds of its time. (If you don't remember the fraud, perhaps you remember the firm's famous television ads.) And, you have probably had questions from students about it. Baruch's Robert Zicklin Center for Financial Integrity will host Crazy Eddie's cousin, Sam E. Antar, a former CPA and CFO of Crazy Eddie, Inc. for a program on Sept. 7. Mr. Antar now speaks about white-collar fraud and defending against securities fraud. The event is free. I imagine it will be popular.

Thomson Research news

In case you hadn't used Thomson Research recently (like me), here is the announcement that is posted on the website:

Dear Valued Client,

In July we will migrate the data center that houses the Thomson Research application to a new state-of-the art facility. This migration is being undertaken as part of a larger Thomson Financial initiative to update and consolidate our existing data centers to three geographically redundant, high performance facilities. This advancement enhances our ability to service clients on Thomson Financial solutions and improves our security, redundancy, and continuity across the Thomson ONE application suite.

We have committed significant time and resources in an effort to make this move with as little downtime as possible to the Thomson Research solution. Over the weekend of July 15/16, however, you may experience brief interruptions service. We will try to schedule these inconveniences during off-peak hours. In the unlikely event that there is a longer than momentary lapse in service, please contact your local support team:

In conjunction with the data center migration, we have made the difficult decision to cease production of our Compact D product, effective July 2006. As such, the Compact D tab in Thomson Research will be removed at the end of July.
We wish to thank you for your business and support.

Library Access Policy

To answer questions regarding access to the library, please refer to the policy posted on our web site under "About the Library". Here is the text:

Access to the Newman Library is generally restricted to current students, faculty and staff of the City University of New York, as well as retired CUNY faculty. Access is also permitted for current faculty and students of Empire State College with a valid Empire State College identification card.

Baruch College Alumni who are interested in library access should contact the Alumni Relations Office (646-660-6097).

Residents of the New York Metropolitan Area who need access to specific materials in the Newman Library that are not available in the public library system should contact their local library about obtaining a referral card.

Other individuals with an ongoing need for access to the Newman Library, including alumni of other CUNY campuses, are encouraged to apply for membership in the Friends of the Newman Library. For more information, including the fee schedule, visit the Friends of the Newman Library Web page.

For further information regarding access to the Newman Library, please contact the Office of the Chief Librarian (646 312-1655).

A poster of this page has been placed at the entrance of the library.

In addition, please note the policy on Access and Borrowing Privileges at CUNY that is posted on the CUNY Libraries web site, which states that "alumni have access only to their home campus library".

The security desk has copies of these policies along with forms to apply for membership in the Friends of the Library. Please let Campus Safety interpret and apply the policy as they do for the other buildings on campus. If there are questions, please defer to Campus Safety and inform me of the circumstances via e-mail.

Problems Accessing AP Multimedia Archive

An error message appears when trying to connect to AP Multimedia Archive. After a few more clicks, a "user id expired" message appears. Mike Waldman has been notified.

Some temporary alternatives/suggestions for finding images, or text of articles that contain a certain image (depending on need):

• Google Image Search
• Search "Caption" field in Lexis Nexis (usually this will only retrieve the text of an article that has your search term in the caption)
• Opposing Viewpoints has some images (you can limit by document type: image in advanced search mode)
• Library of Congress, American Memory http://memory.loc.gov
• US Government Graphics and Photos http://firstgov.gov/Topics/Graphics.shtml

Gutierrez v. Cal-Spas

Can anyone advise me of ways to find out what happened to an appeal for the case of Gutierrez v Cal Spas? I am trying to assist a student with this question. A February 1, 1995, article from Personnel Journal (found in Factiva) neatly sums up the latest information I can find about this 1993 case:

Savino Gutierrez was sexually harassed by his supervisor, Maria Martinez. Martinez, the director of human resources and CFO for Cal Spas, a division of California Acrylics Industries, had pursued Gutierrez in a sexual way nearly every day for six years and had demoted him twice for spurning her advances which involved fondling and sexual touching. A jury recently awarded Gutierrez more than $1 million in his case against the company, although the verdict is under appeal.

I have not been successful in helping the student learn how that appeal turned out. Here is where I have searched so far using variations of a query for CAL SPAS AND HARASSMENT:

• Factiva
• Lexis-Nexis ( searched News, Business, and Legal Research sections)
• Westlaw Campus
• Google
• ABI/Inform GlobaL
• Business Source Premier
  

For the moment, I've referred the student to one of the public access law libraries here in New York, where there may be a wider range of legal sources to use. Since this student's question is an assigment and is one that I recall hearing about last year, I was wondering if there is some place I have neglected to search.

NetFlix for interlibrary loan

The library at Niagara University has recently started a NetFlix account to bolster its ILL services for DVDs.

via Libraryman