printer #3

The #2 drawer in this printer is not functioning properly--it always jams--and so we've left it empty all day.

Math students may have trouble logging on to WebWork2

While on the desk this afternoon we tried to help a student, in Math 2207, log on to Webwork2 at http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/webwork2/. He was unsuccessful. A call to the help desk informed us that if the students registered for the class after Jan. 20, they are not on the list. They should contact Sherman.Wong@baruch.cuny.edu for the username and password to use. As the student said he wasn't the only one having trouble getting on (there is homework posted on the site) I emailed Prof. Wong on his behalf. The student, a new transfer student, thought he had registered prior to Jan. 20.

New practice room in the 6th floor computing lab

Baruch students who need a room to practice presentations in can now go to the circulation window and ask for the key to the practice room on the 6th floor (room 636). The room has a podium, a projector, a computer, and chairs. I've added an entry about this new room in the reference wiki.

President Obama signs first legislation of his term --Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act

President Obama signed the first legislation of his presidency today. Among the attendees at the signing were Lilly Ledbetter

The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act extends employees’ opportunity to challenge allegedly discriminatory pay practices under Title VII and other anti-discrimination statutes.

What's important about this Act?

Under the new Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, each allegedly discriminatory paycheck triggers a new 180- or 300-day statute of limitations, thus extending employees’ opportunity to sue to the entire duration of their employment.

It basically reverses the result of a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court decision involving Ms. Ledbetter. The decision stated that employees were required to file an EEOC charge within 180 or 300 days (depending on the state) of the first time an allegedly discriminatory pay decision was made.

(Ms. Ledbetter, a 20-year employee of Goodyear Tire Co. for 20 years, had sued her employer in 1998 after she discovered she was paid less than her male counterparts for similar work. She had not learned of the possible discrimination over the years years because Goodyear employees were not allowed to discuss their salaries.
Although a jury awarded Ms. Ledbetter more than $3 million in damages, the Supreme Court overruled that decision because it said she waited too long to file her case.)

I found this information on the White House site, in news articles in Factiva, and was alerted to it through a listserv.

IMF on financial stability

The IMF has developed a section of their website to put together resources that deal with the analysis and assessment of key financial stability issues, in a global, regional, or country context.

Copyright and Harvard Business School Press Case Studies

Given the somewhat frequent requests we get for Case Studies from Harvard Business School Press, I thought you might want to read about the various ruses the publisher has come up with to control access to print and electronic editions. The author of the post, Jonathan Rochkind, is a systems librarian at Johns Hopkins University, and is currently one of my favorite blogging librarians.

Helping with student printing accounts

With Christian Keck's permission, I am reposting an email he sent to Saad today about student printing accounts and why some students are unable to print. Saad forwarded the message to our BBLIB listserv, but I thought it would also be useful to share here, too.

Please keep in mind just because a student can log into the computers, does not mean they can print.

If the student has not paid their bill; or just paid their bill; or is not taking classes at Baruch this semester they will not be able to print. If they just paid their bill they can come to help desk and we can activate their account after verifying that they paid their bill. 75% of the calls/walk ins to the helpdesk have been that they forgot
their password and the rest of the calls have been they did not pay their bill or just paid their bill and they were not taking classes this semester.

The other issue if they have forgotten their password they will receive the message log in failed and they will need to come to the help desk to have their password reset.

The other item we have observed if the file is extremely large it will take some time to print. We have the same issue upstairs here with students as well and is not a
unique issue to the second floor.

Capstone research subject: 25 pages on Madonna

I helped a student this morning who said her capstone class is requiring a 25-page paper on different aspects of Madonna (the singer). She said Madonna and her producers was already taken. She didn't know what aspect she wanted to research. I showed her some of our databases and Bearcat search and also suggested the NYPL Library for the Performing Arts. Madonna's original surname was Ciccone, which is helpful in searching some of the databases.

Re: Prof. Victoria Stone's Anthro 1001 reading assignment

I helped a student in Prof. Victoria Stone's Anthropology 1001 class who was looking for an article that the syllabus said was on e reserve. Perhaps the professor meant in our databases as no listing for Prof. Stone was found, and we also searched the other Anthro classes to see if the article was listed and it wasn't. The article is available through JSTOR. The article is in American Anthropologist Second series, (1956) Vol 58, No. 3, pages 503-507. It is by Horace Miner and the title begins Body Ritual.

NYT announces API for best sellers' book lists

The New York Times today launched an Application Programming Interface (API) for the books that have appeared on the publication's best sellers' lists since June 2008. In future months the NYT plans to add lists going back to 1930. Information currently available includes ranking information and links to NYT reviews and excerpts, according to the announcement.

New York Academy of Medicine changes its access policy

Users are now being requested to call ahead for an appointment. No one will be turned away. Appointments may be scheduled by calling 212-822-7315 or emailing the library.

Syllabus for Spanish course given to security

I turned into security the syllabus that a student in Prof. Cuesta's Spanish class left at the reference desk. I emailed Prof. Cuesta who responded that she will notify the student.

Testing email forwarding of blog posts

Please ignore this test post. Just checking how email of blog posts is working these days.

Baruch Geoserver Provides GIS Data

The library now has a server to provide GIS datasets, static maps, and information about GIS facilities and educational opportunities on campus. All academic libraries that seriously provide GIS services have sites or repositories similar to this one, to provide data and information. The server can be accessed anywhere on campus from machines that are hardwired to the network (it cannot be accessed via wireless or from off campus). While the datasets can be downloaded from anywhere on campus, patrons will need access to GIS software to actually use them. The site provides a list of locations on campus where patrons can find the software.

The Baruch Geoserver is listed on the library's databases page, and can also be accessed on campus at http://gserv. The site also has an RSS feed that users can subscribe to for news and updates. The feed is available from on or off campus.

Most of the information on the geoserver supercedes the content of the Geography / GIS subject guide. The subject guide will be pared down significantly and there will be a link from the guide to the geoserver.

Please pass the news along to anyone who may be interested. I have already contacted about twelve faculty members who use GIS or demographic datasets to let them know that this resource is available. Feel free to contact me or post to the blog if you have any questions.

Library Journal evaluates e-business resources

The article looks at ABI/Inform, Business Source Complete, EconLit, Mergent Online, Proquest Entrepreneurship, and briefly goes over a few others.

LJ, v.134, no. 1, Jan. 2009, s16-s22

Trial: Guide to Reference

Formerly Guide to Reference Books, this new online edition incorporates online resources as well. The trial runs until March 26, 2009 and requires a username and password, which are on the database page. The trial is available on campus only.

Please post any comments you may have.

Journal Citation Reports (JCR) at Hunter College

If faculty inquire about journal rankings (impact factor) within a discipline, please let them know about the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) module available within Web of Science at Hunter College. I have confirmed this is available with a librarian at Hunter. Unfortunately, we do not subscribe to the JCR module at Baruch. They will be able to use the computer terminals at the Hunter Library (they are not required to ask for a username/password).

New Reference Titles in Demography

We've received two new reference titles in demography. Both are handbooks / encyclopedic type works that cover concepts and issues in demography, such as: statistic sources and collection, types of stats (counts, estimates, surveys, projections) population distribution (age, gender, race, ethnicity), components of population change (natality, mortality, migration), and health and education.

The Methods and Materials of Demography, 2nd ed. Siegel and Swanson. Ref HB 849.4 .M484 2004

Handbook of Population, Poston and Micklin. Ref HB 871 .H3447 2006

Both books are available in the reference section, 2nd floor.

Calculators

Calculators will be distributed next week, the first week of the semester, on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday at 10:30 am and 6:30 pm at the third floor service desk.

Help desk request filed for Quicktime 6 installation on reference desk computers

I have made a help desk request, #3205, regarding the need to have QuickTime 6 installed on the reference desk computers in order to launch media such as Accounting Cycle One in the Digital Media Collection. Some students have been asking about these accounting tutorials and currently they can't be launched from the reference desk computers, although it used to be possible.

question about Executives on Campus and printing

While I was working the reference desk this morning an Executive on Campus asked for a guest log in, which I gave him. (These are Baruch alums who volunteer their time on campus..giving talks, meeting with students, etc.) He didn't need to print anything, but that may me wonder what to do if he had something he wanted to print. Sending him up for a vendor printer card didn't seem like a good thing under the circumstances. I don't know if this has occurred before. He asked if the guest log in could be issued for the semester and I explained it couldn't be. Perhaps he is new to the program.

What would be good to do?

Question about Bronx Community College Middle States report

While on the desk this morning someone called and said she had been told that the Baruch library had a copy of the Bronx Community College Middle States Report and wondered where it was. I couldn't find it on our website or in CUNY+ for either school. I called the Bronx Community College library and spoke to the chief librarian who said as far as she knew the report, in draft form, was on the Bronx Com College institutional research department's web page with restricted access since they are still working on it. The phone number of this department is 718 289 5156.

Unfortunately, my pen went dry when I was talking with the person and I don't know whom she was. (I did call John Choonoo and let him know.) So, in case the person calls back, this is the information.

Forthcoming New York Review of Books article re Google and the future of books

A friend sent me the following:
I read this today in the 12 February 2009 New York Review of Books in an article by Roger Darnton called "Google and the Future of Books":


"One of my colleagues is a quiet, diminutive lady, who might call up the notion of Marion the Librarian. When she meets people at parties and identifies herself, they sometimes say condescendingly, 'A librarian, how nice. Tell me, what is it like to be a librarian?' She replies, 'Essentially, it is all about money and power.'"

The article is not yet available online..my friend must read the print version.

Chat reference schedule for spring 2009

Beginning next week (the first of the new semester), a new chat schedule will be in effect and it will look like this:

• Monday: 2 pm - 4 pm
• Tuesday: 12 pm - 2 pm and 2 pm - 4 pm
• Wednesday: 2 pm - 4 pm
• Thursday: 2 pm - 4 pm

The new hours mean that we are more likely to be there for our users when they are asking for help and we can contribute our fair share of coverage to the QuestionPoint academic cooperative. Baruch students have been increasingly using our service. During 2008 we received 1,890 chat requests from Baruch students. Students from the all six of our schools in CUNY that share this QuestionPoint subscription (John Jay, Brooklyn, Hunter, BMCC, Baruch, and the Grad Center) asked over 6,200 questions during this period.

ebrary gets new interface

As previously announced, ebrary launched its new interface today.

Here's a flash demo to get to the details of the new interface:
http://www.ebrary.com/corp/collateral/flash/UIplugind/UIplugind.html

Let me know if you have any comments.

Locked Drawer Problem with Student Printers

Hi,

This morning, as I was replenishing the new student printer paper supplies, I noticed that both machine #2 and #3 drawers (both drawer no. 3) cannot be locked. You can easily open them.

I placed a Systems Helpdesk request, job #3201.

Alfredo

Problem with copy machine and printer problem reported by student

On Saturday, a student reported he lost a $1.00 bill in the first photocopy machine (nearest the door) in Room 309. He said that the machine is accepting coins without problems.

In Room 309 and the second floor student printer room there are no envelopes for students to request refunds for losses. Could we please get some?

A Baruch student reported that she was able to print without problem some word documents using the student printers in the library, but when she sent some jpeg files to the printer, she received the notice that they were sent to printer HPLG 950. Paul and I were unable to locate where this printer is located. Is there a printer with this number, or was this an error. (The student said that the jpeg files had personal information about she and her family, including Social Security numbers. I told her that if the printouts are located, they will be destroyed.)

I will alert Annette about the copycard problems and the need for envelopes and I will ask Saad about the printer problem.

Known-item searches and acquisitions

I'd like to thank Lisa and a few other folks who periodically let me know of specific books in my subject areas (English and philosophy) that students asked for in reference interactions and that we were unable to find in our collections. If you can pass along to me the details on those known-item searches that yield no results or where the item is marked as lost or reported missing, I can look into buying copies of those books.

Would anyone else want to participate in this kind of a reference/acquisitions feedback loop for their subject areas?

Charlie Rose interviews outgoing Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott

Last night Charlie Rose interviewed outgoing Wal-Mart President & CEO Lee Scott, who is reducing his time with Wal-Mart over the next two years. Since Wal-mart is frequently researched by our students this interview might be recommended to them as many issues relating to Wal-Mart and being an executive of a major corporation are discussed. Sustainability and how Wal-Mart and retailing have changed are among the topics covered.

One moment in the interview provides an example of what information is required to be reported by a public company and what isn't. Rose asked Scott how many stores Wal-Mart had in China and he replied, "about 200." Rose then asked, "And they generate how much revenue?, to which Scott quickly replied, "I don't believe we report that....but good try."

New Student Printers Paper Drawer Keys

Hi,

Today, Systems placed two more HP Laserjet M4345 MFP printers, that will replace the current student printers.

One machine is operational, Pharos #2. Students can login their username and password to print their jobs. This machine has a yellow instruction sheet on how to print. There is another yellow instruction sheet on the bulletin board, near it.

All new machines have locked paper drawers. The key to open them is available at the Reference Desk locked drawer, in the wooden key ring. Another one is in the Reference office in a key ring in at desk drawer opposite my desk.

The key number is W-23. The key is small and silver colored.

Any questions let me know.
Alfredo

Bookmarks, guest logins, and the Firefox browser

If you ever log in to a computer at the reference desk and the bookmarks are missing from Firefox or you find that the guest logins print out weirdly from Firefox, you'll want to install two different add-ons for Firefox. I've added detailed instructions in the wiki about how to get these two add-ons and how to configure them:

• Foxmarks (this is the add-on you need to install and set up so that you get the standard set of bookmarks across all four PCs at the desk)
• IE Tab (this is the add-on you need so that the guest logins you print out come out clearly)

If there are steps missing from the wiki pages detailing installation of these add-ons, I encourage you to edit the pages and help improve them.

Weeding of accounting and tax collections and a question about the collection of RMA, Troy and D&B business ratio books

I have started weeding the accounting and tax collections in reference. Please don't disturb green or white paper slips inside the books. (Green means see if a new edition is available and white means keeps but move upstairs.)

I was wondering about the collection of "financial ratio" books published by RMA (Risk Management Associates now, but formerly Robert Morris Associates ), D& B and Troy. We have all years of each series in reference. I would like to suggest keeping the most recent five years in reference and moving the remaining years to noncirculating in the stacks. From my experience here, the accounting students, among those who have assignments to use these resources, are frequently asked to compare a company over the past five years. The older copies might be consulted by graduate students doing more detailed research.

What do you think of this suggestion?

Updated wiki page on fax machines

I updated the wiki page for "fax machine" to include the area codes that faxes may be sent to (the machine does not allow faxes to be sent to it, though).

Information re how NFL teams do financially

The online BNET has posted a story on the business behind the NFL teams which includes financial information about the teams.

Printing

When I was at the desk this afternoon, a few students taking winter classes were having problems with their printing accounts. They could login to the system but the printer wouldn't recognize the print jobs they sent. If they call the help desk, they can get their account fixed and will be able to print.

New Reference Titles

Audit Bureau of Circulation. Magazine Trend Report (REF PN4888 .C59M33 2008)
Circulation, paid subscriptions, renewals, price data and advertising rates for individual magazines. Data covers the five-year period from 2003 to 2007.

Bond’s Franchise Guide (REF HF5429.235 .U5S66 2008)
Profiles of over 2,400 U.S. and Canadian franchisers. Provides data on geographic distribution, projected business growth, capital requirements and fees, and training and support for new franchisees.

Encyclopedia of Psychology and Law (REF K346 .E53 2008)
Two volume encyclopedia devoted to this new area of study. Some of the key themes are the death penalty, divorce and child custody, eyewitness memory, juvenile offenders, mental health law, trial processes, and victim reactions to crime.

Trade and Development Report, 2008 (REF HF1008 .T7 2008)
This annual report from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development focuses on a trade-related theme each year. For 2008, the theme is “Commodity prices, capital flows and the financing of investment.” Chapter II examines how commodity price hikes especially food prices affect the world economy. Chapter IV covers sources of finance through banks and capital markets in emerging market countries.

Who’s Buying Series
This series from New Strategist publishers provides market share data and demographic profiles of the buyers of various products and services. Individual reports cover spending for health care, groceries, travel, pets, entertainment, information products and services, apparel, alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverages, household furnishings and restaurants and take-outs. Additional reports cover who’s buying by age and by race and Hispanic origin. All the data is based on analysis of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Expenditure Survey.

WSJ Financial Meltdown Video

The Wall Street Journal just put up a three-part video series about the 2008 financial crisis: The End of Wall Street: An Oral History.

SimNet Enterprise CD installation question

If students ask for help regarding the SimNet CD (Microsoft Excel Skills test), please refer them to the BCTC Help Desk.

Please note that the Help Desk may not be able to answer all questions related to the installation of the SimNet CD. So, please provide the SimNet customer support phone number as well. The number is 1.800.331.5094.

A student contacted chat reference regarding problems with installation (needed a subdomain). I called BCTC, and they stated there could be a problem with the CD itself or another issue and advised me to have the student contact SimNet directly since BCTC has not encountered this problem before.

Weeding reference books in the Ps

Chris Tuthill and I are taking a look at reference titles in the Ps to see if anything might be withdrawn from the collection. If you see green or yellow sheets of paper sticking out of books in this area, please leave them in, as they are part of a system Chris and I set up to notify each other of our thoughts about specific titles as we independently review the collection.

Turkish Literature Collection

You may have noticed that the Turkish literature books are now on display in the reading room. Mike and I put them up earlier today, and Mike is going to have their location set as 'New Books' in the catalog. I wanted to make sure everyone at the desk knew in case students are asking about them.

Vendor printer not working

I submitted a help desk request (#3174) to report that the vendor card printing system is not working properly. Students are able to send their jobs to the vendor printer and see them listed in the print release station in the printing room, but when they try to actually print out those jobs, their copy cards are debited for the job but nothing ever comes out of the printer.

Laptops distributed from circulation desk in January

Until the spring semester begins, laptops will not be distributed from the 3rd floor desk. Instead, students should stop by the circulation desk.

No more daily reference statistics

Today is the first day that we won't be collecting daily reference statistics. There is no longer a need to open the desk by getting out a clean statistics sheet and making tally marks all day. As you may recall, we'll soon be collecting statistics during selected, representative weeks a couple of times a year.

Winter Session Printing Accounts

Students taking classes during winter session (January 2 - 23) have activated printing accounts with $30 credit. Students not enrolled for winter session will have to use the vendor printer during this time. They will be able to log on to their student accounts on the library computers but the student printer will not recognize their log on.