Totality Awesome!

Posted on March 27, 2024 Written by

Unless you are living under a rock, you know that April 8th is a special day for Arkansas Tech University, Russellville, Arkansas, and the planet.   At exactly 1:50 P.M. (and six seconds), the best show on earth will begin here–on campus and in Russellville—and will last for four minutes and eleven seconds.

Protect your eyeballs for the whole show by picking up special eclipse glasses available at the Ross Pendergraft Library’s Research Help Desk, located on the first floor.

Glasses are available on a first come, first serve basis until they are gone.  Every student, faculty, and staff member at ATU can receive one pair of free glasses with a valid ATU ID card.  Each pair comes with a special case, protecting your glasses and advertising the time and date of the eclipse.

Provided courtesy of the Arkansas Space Grant Consortium, the glasses conform to the ISO 12312-2 standard for direct observation of the sun.  Except during the totality phase of a solar eclipse, when the moon completely blocks the sun, it is not safe to look directly at the sun without special eye protection certified for this use.  Sunglasses are not enough!  See NASA’s guidelines for safely viewing the solar eclipse for more information.

Before the eclipse, be sure to take advantage of the events and activities around campus and the community in the days leading up to April 8th by reading all about them here: https://www.arkansastechnews.com/your-guide-to-eclipse-events-and-preparation-at-atu/

The Ross Pendergraft Library & Technology Center will have adjusted hours in the days leading up to, during, and after the eclipse:

  • Friday, April 5th – CLOSED At 12:00 P.M. (Noon)

  • Saturday, April 6th – CLOSED

  • Sunday, April 7th  – CLOSED

  • Monday April 8th – CLOSED

  • Tuesday, April 9th: OPENING At 12:00 P.M. (Noon)

Normal hours resume on Wednesday, April 10th.

We will still offer virtual services by phone, email, text, or chat during normal business hours (8:00 A.M. through 5:00 P.M.) on Friday, Monday, and Tuesday.  You can also follow us on Instagram or Facebook for more events and changes to our hours over the semester, including our final exam hours.

Stay safe and enjoy the Great American Eclipse of 2024!

 

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Thanksgiving Hours

Posted on November 21, 2023 Written by

The Ross Pendergraft Library & Technology Center will have adjusted hours this week due to the Thanksgiving Holiday:

  • Tuesday, Nov. 21st: 7:00 AM – 9:00 PM
  • Wednesday, Nov. 22nd: 8:00 AM – 5:00 PM
  • Thursday, Nov. 23rd: CLOSED
  • Friday, Nov. 24th: CLOSED
  • Saturday, Nov. 25th: CLOSED
  • Sunday, Nov. 26th: Resuming normal hours, open 1:00 PM – Midnight.

Screenshot of Libby app featuring book covers for titles like "Staying on Top in Academia" and "Ask a Science Teacher"As you make travel plans, don’t forget about our new streaming Audiobook service, Libby, available for download to your mobile devices.  Enjoy newer fiction and non-fiction titles on the long road-trip to grandma’s house or your own Friendsgiving feast.

Stay tuned to more events, including our special hours for finals, by following us on Instagram, X, or Facebook.

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Library Hours

Posted on August 10, 2023 Written by

The library’s current interim hours are:

Monday-Friday: 8:00 A.M. – 5:00 P.M.

Saturday-Sunday: Closed

Starting August 23rd, the Ross Pendergraft Library and Technology Center will resume regular semester hours:

Monday-Thursday: 7:00 A.M. – 12:00 A.M.

Friday: 7:00 A.M. – 6:00 P.M.

Saturday: 10:00 A.M. – 6:00 P.M.

Sunday: 1:00 P.M. – 12:00 A.M.

Please see our complete hours, including all exceptions to regular hours during Labor Day, Fall Break, Thanksgiving, and Final Exams, by visiting our hours page: https://libguides.atu.edu/about/hours/

You can also follow us on social media via Instagram, Facebook, or the X formerly known as Twitter.

Photo of the Ross Pendergraft Library and Technology Center on a sunny afternoon with blooming, pink crepe myrtle trees

 

 

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The Finals Countdown

Posted on November 26, 2019 Written by

We’re nearly there!  The final exams for Fall 2019 are on their way, and the Ross Pendergraft Library is here for you with 24-hour service, starting 7:00 AM on Wednesday, Dec. 4th, until 6:00 PM Friday, Dec. 6th.

Gif of hair bad singing finals countdown

Come by in the late, late hours for free coffee and moderately-priced printing.    We also have all the friendly services you’ve come to know and love:

You can also stay up and on top of all the news in the library by following us on Twitter (#ATUFinals)/ Facebook / Instagram.

Don’t forget, we are closed this Thursday, Nov. 28th through Saturday, Nov. 30th for the Thanksgiving holidays.  We will open again on Sunday at 1:00 PM.  The full schedule is below:

full schedule of special hours for Fall 2019

Good Luck on Finals!

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Summer Hours

Posted on May 20, 2019 Written by

Campus may be emptier, and the traffic lighter, but the library is still open during the summer months:

Swing by, enjoy our air-conditioned computer labs, book and DVD collections, and excellent staff working hard to make your summer classes and/or summer reading a success.

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It’s Crunch Time

Posted on April 25, 2019 Written by

With the spring semester winding down, the frantic race to finish those papers, projects, and future plans is nearing an end.  To help you crawl to the finish line, the Ross Pendergraft Library is offering extended hours and resources during the next two weeks.

OPEN 61 HOURS STRAIGHT

We will begin our day as usual on Reading Day, May 1st, at 7:00 AM.  But we will not close until Friday, May 3rd, at 8:00 P.M.  While we advocate strongly sleeping at some point, if you need to come in early or stay late, we’ve got your back during the first week of finals.  Will there be coffee?  Yes.  When?  Follow our Twitter @ATULibrary to find out brew times or other special announcements.

List of library hours during finals

Procrastination – Endless

CURE CITATION ANXIETY

Nervous about your citations?  Easybib no longer making any sense?  Make sure your MLA is not DOA by taking a look at our links to instruction, videos, sample papers, and other tools to help you cite right.  We also have trained experts at the main Research Help Desk to give you guidance and pointers, or if you’d rather consult the ultimate source, they can also help you locate the official citation manuals for APA, MLA, Chicago, and more.

RESERVE YOUR SPACE

Having trouble finding the right place to study?  The library is full of open computer labs, tables for group work, and couches/comfortable chairs scattered throughout the building.  But if you need your own room, we have 8 study rooms to reserve for quiet escapes or a guaranteed meeting spaces.  Secure your space today by going to our Room Reservation System.  Click on any green block to reserve your room.  Click on the room number to find more details about room size and if there’s a whiteboard.  But hurry–space is filling up fast!

YOU GOT THIS

This may be your first year or your last, and when you are here at midnight, tired, exhausted, or in that weird space where you are so tired you are actually giggly, deliriously wide-awake–we see you. This is college, and you’re still here, doing the best you can to make it through. Remember, you’ve made it this far, and we’re all rooting for you. Keep going, and if you have a break or feel like you are nearing your breaking point, come see us at the desk and just check in. If you need help, we can help. And if you need to cry, we have tissues. Good luck!

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Spring Break!

Posted on March 15, 2019 Written by

The Ross Pendergraft Library is going on spring break!  At least for a few extra hours during the week.  Here’s the schedule for our reduced hours during spring break:

  • Saturday, March 16th – CLOSED
  • Sunday, March 17th – CLOSED
  • Monday, March 18th-Friday, March 22nd – 8:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M.
  • Saturday, March 23rd – CLOSED
  • Sunday, March 24th – Resumes regular hours, 1:00 P.M. to 1:00 A.M.

If you are planning a long trip, don’t forget the library has a collection of Audiobooks on CD and MP3 that you can pop in the car stereo or download to your phone for bluetooth broadcast. Here’s a few new titles, fresh on the shelf:

book cover of Children of Blood and Bone featuring illustration of upper half of the face of a beautiful, mysterious woman with long white hair rising up behind her.Children of Blood and Bone – Zélie Adebola remembers when the soil of Orïsha hummed with magic. Burners ignited flames, Tiders beckoned waves, and Zélie’s Reaper mother summoned forth souls. But everything changed the night magic disappeared. Under the orders of a ruthless king, maji were killed, leaving Zélie without a mother and her people without hope.

Front cover of Educated, featuring a large illustration of a sharpened end of a pencil with a shadow of a girl on a mountain drawn into the pencilEducated : a memoir – Traces the author’s experiences as a child born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, describing her participation in her family’s paranoid stockpiling activities and her resolve to educate herself well enough to earn acceptance into a prestigious university and the unfamiliar world beyond.

The Good Neighbor : the Life and Work of Fred Rogers – Drawing on original interviews, oral histories and archival documents, the author traces the iconic children’s program host’s personal, professional, and artistic life through decades of work.  Narrated by LeVar Burton.

Stephen King's cover of Pet Sematary featuring a cat so scary I can't even describe it in the alt text.Pet Sematary: A novel – When Dr. Louis Creed takes a new job, and moves his family to the idyllic, rural town of Ludlow, Maine, this new beginning seems too good to be true. Yet despite Ludlow’s tranquility, there’s an undercurrent of danger that lingers like the graveyard in the woods near the Creed’s home, where generations of children have buried their beloved pets.  This Stephen King classic is narrated by Michael C. Hall.

Front cover of book featuring Eric Idle dressed up as a knight from Monty Python and the Holy GrailAlways Look On the Bright Side of Life : A Sortabiography – From the ingenious comic performer, Eric Idle, founding member of Monty Python, and creator of Spamalot, comes an absurdly funny memoir of unparalleled wit and heartfelt candor.

 

Cover of book featuring a couple clothed in roses.The Greatest Love Story Ever Told – Presented as an oral history in a series of conversations between the couple, the book features anecdotes, hijinks, photos, and a veritable grab bag of tomfoolery. This is not only the intoxicating book that Megan Mullally’s and Nick Offerman’s fans have been waiting for, it might just hold the solution to the greatest threat facing our modern world: the single life.

 

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Frosh News

Posted on August 22, 2018 Written by

Are you new to campus?  Are you just new to the library?  At the RPL, we believe in fast, accurate, and reliable information, so here’s a quick rundown of all the top 5 facts you need to be successful that first day on campus.

1. Find computers, even late at night.

The Library holds the largest general computer lab on campus 119 computers, and the only computer lab open late at night.  As long as the library is open, our computer labs are open.   Each machine has all the software you need to succeed, including Minesweeper.

Hours of the library include Monday - Thursday, 7 A.M. to 1 A.M., Fridays from 7 A.M. to 8 P.M., Saturday 10 A.M. to 8 P.M., and Sunday from 1 P.M. until 1 A.M.

2. Find printers, scanners, copiers, and yes, even a fax machine.

You can find printers on all floors in the library, including color printers.  Printing is done on ‘release stations” where you login with your TechID or pass your TechID near the scanner.

Just print your document to the “Universal Print Queue” printer and release at any of the stations scattered throughout the library.  Black and white copies are $0.10 a page, but if you release the job at a color printer, that’s $0.30.  Every Tech Student Starts with a $20 balance every semester.  If you run out of money, just add more (cash only) to your TechID using the PHIL station on the first floor.

map of the first floor of the library

We also have traditional copy machines for making copies at $.10 a page.  Or save money by scanning for free!  The library has recently purchased a KIC scanner on the first floor where scanning documents and books is as easy as the press of the SCAN button.

picture of our new awesome scanner. Press a button to scan documents

If you need to fax materials (ancient technology still used by doctors, scholarship offices, and utility companies), we have a publicly available fax machine located on the first floor, near the Reference Desk.

Read more about our policies here:  http://libguides.atu.edu/services/students

3. Find (Some) Textbooks, Calculators, Headphones….for Free!

If you are enrolled in a Gen Ed course this semester and you don’t have the textbook, check our online course reserves and search for “Textbooks”.

A screenshot of our course reserves catalog showing results for keyword "textbooks"

Remember, we do NOT have ALL Textbooks!  We have a limited collection of textbooks for General Education courses ONLY.  You can also search by course name, title, or ISBN.  If your professor has specifically added a book to their course, it might be here, too—just try searching for their name.

Textbooks are available for a limited 2 hour check-out, and you cannot remove them from the building.  But if you need to get some reading done before class or photocopy a few pages, these are available to any student with a Tech ID at the Circulation Desk.

We also checkout graphing calculators, headphones, whiteboards, and all other course reserves materials at the Circulation Desk.  It’s as simple as walking up and asking.

4. Find Almost Everything Using Find It

Imagine Amazon.com but for library materials like articles, books, videos, ebooks, calculators, headphones, streaming videos, and more—all for free to you, the Tech student.  That’s Find It—the library’s search engine.  Anything we have available to check-out, watch, print, or download, you can find it here.  Try typing in a keyword, and use the facets on the left to limit by type, location, online, or more.  Get started by going to http://findit.atu.edu

Screenshot of Find it search box with keyword Game of Thrones5. Find Help with Librarians

Probably the best-kept secret in campus support, we are trained professionals whose main job duty is to help you succeed by finding accurate, reliable, and authoritative information.   No question is too small or too large.  We want to help, and we do it better than Google.

screenshot a google text autocomplete which says, "Librarians are the ..." which completes to Librarians are there, Librarians are the secret masters of the universe, librarians are the ultimate knowledge managers, librarians are the new black, librarians are the original search engine

Contact us by the following methods:

Find us so you can find everything else.

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Back to School

Posted on August 23, 2017 Written by

Welcome home and welcome back!  The Library is open and ready for new and returning students & faculty.  Over the summer, we’ve really bulked up with new services, new hours, and new databases designed to help everyone keep calm and carry on through the academic life of Tech.  Here’s the top five things you should know about Tech’s most popular destination for studying, printing, and researching.

We’re Open Late…Really Late

The Library is the best and ONLY place on campus open for studying, printing, and meeting after midnight at Tech.  From Sunday through Thursday, we remain open until 1:00 AM and continue to offer excellent and slightly over-caffeinated service long after other offices and buildings close.

In addition, the Library will now offer extended hours on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.  Beginning Friday, August 25th, the library will remain open until 8:00 P.M. on Fridays and Saturdays during the regular fall semester.  Additionally, we will open early on Sunday’s at 1:00 PM beginning Sunday, August 27th.

hours for the library in a chart.

Check our website for full schedules, special hours during holidays, and our upcoming 24-hour schedule at finals.  Feel free to bring in a coffee (with a lid) and burn the midnight oil with us.

We Got the Prints

We know many students at Tech only come to the library for the printers.  And that’s ok!  But if you are new, the act of printing can be a little confusing.  Here’s a step-by-step introduction on how to print:

  1. Login to a computer in the General Lab.
  2. Press Ctrl + P or find a Printer Icon to print your academic paper, course schedule, or cute cat pics.
  3. Choose “Dell Universal Print Queue” as your printer and select “Print”
  4. Get up and look for the printer stations. These are separate computers next to a large laser printer.
  5. Login with your Tech Username/Password or simply swipe your ID at the station.  You should see your document ready to print.  You’ll also see the balance on your account and the cost of the job.
  6. If everything looks right, press print.

Prints costs $0.10 a page in black and white, but we also have a color printer that eats up $0.30 a page.  Every student starts with $20 on their account each semester.  But if you run out of money on your account, you can always top it off with cash at the PHIL station, next to Circulation Desk.

If something goes wrong or you can’t find the right printer, friendly staff are standing by on all floors to help with this very thing.

You Can Get a Room

image of bookit chart with red squares indicating booked rooms and green squares indicating free rooms

The Library offers study rooms, multimedia-use rooms, and even an audio lab to record songs, mix music, or narrate video.  Reserve space using our online reservation system, Book It.   The Library has 5 study rooms that can be reserved by any Tech faculty, staff, or student on a first come, first serve basis.

If you need to make a Tegrity recording, reserve one of our Multimedia rooms.  These all-purpose rooms allow you to record yourself taking an exam for instructors, create video or audio presentations, or use interactive software such as Read & Write Gold or Pronunciator.

screenshot of how to book a tegrity room from the Book It dropdown.

If you need to make a podcast or lay down some sick beats, you might want to book some time in our new Audio Lab.  Open to all students, faculty, and staff, the audio lab contains sophisticated software and hardware designed to create professional recordings.   Professional staff are standing by to help you learn the software and make something amazing.

a picture of a woman's hands manipulating a Mini mixing board

We’re All About That (Data)base

Need research?  We have all that in one easy-to-use search:

Screenshot of our find it search engine. There's a blank to search articles, books, and moreSearch and find scholarly articles, books, DVDs, streaming video, or calculators using our search engine for all things Tech Library.  Not sure how to find something in Find It?  See this handy guide for getting the most out of your searches: http://libguides.atu.edu/FindIt

If you need something more specialized, see our list of A-to-Z databases, containing over 200 topical databases for every subject or format need.

We’re Better Than Google

google search result indicating that librarians are the secret masters of the universe.

A search engine will never replace the listening, knowledgeable, and compassionate humans at the Library (at least…not yet).  We have dedicated, friendly staff poised to drop anything to help you succeed.  We thrive on questions, and chase after answers like the professional information hunters that we are.  When you are in need of an answer and don’t know who to call, call us: (855) 761-0006.  We may not always know the answer, but we know the right place to find it.  You can also ask us a question via Ask-A-Librarian or text us at (479) 802-4876.

So come by this semester, either online or in-person, and let us help you find the answers, book a study room, or print your cat pictures.  In the meantime, welcome (back) to Tech and good luck!

 

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Auf Wiedersehen, Adieu

Posted on May 8, 2017 Written by

As the year wraps up, many of you might be planning exotic trips to Brussels, Paris, Stockholm, Lisbon, Paraguay, Beijing, or any major city in the United States where languages are as abundant as Uber and art museums.  To prepare you for your journey, don’t waste money on Rosetta Stone.  Use the Library’s online language learning tool, Pronunciator.

Pronunciator is available to all Arkansas Tech students, faculty, and staff.  You will need to create your own account at first using your ATU email address.

Login screen for Pronunciator database.

Once logged in, you have your choice between 80 non-English languages.  If you are a non-native English speaker, the service also provides ESL courses for speakers of 51 non-English languages including Chinese, Arabic, Spanish, Japanese, Swedish and many more.

Learn at your own pace, or, for targeted objectives, through guided courses.  The guided courses range from early learners (3-6 years old), young learners (7-12 years old), 8-week travel prep, beginner courses, and even a healthcare course.  Choose the main guide to independently roam and explore the language through “postcards” where you can learn common expressions, cultural information, and more.

A boat in the Stockholm harbor, under a leaden sky. The Swedish word for Please, "Snalla" perched on the mast.

Get the most out of Pronunciator using a microphone and headphones, which allow you the ability to practice speaking the language.  Pronunciator will play your recorded phrases back to you in comparison with the native speaker, provide drills to score how well you pronounce certain words and phrases, and offer assistance when you just can’t get the hang of it.

As you progress in each language, Pronunciator will let you review your overall progress and stats.  You can also take practice quizzes, review flashcards, and nail your rolling R’s with drills.

Not only can you learn a language structured in a learning course, Pronunciator doubles as handy phrasebook, giving you instant access to probably the most important phrase you’ll ever need to know:

The multitude of ways you can ask about Toilets in Swedish

Remember, there is also a Pronunciator App for mobile devices, capable of syncing to your existing account.  No matter where you are in the lesson, your phone or tablet can take your progress with you on the flight, train, ocean liner, or rickshaw.

Mobile app page with overly excited people stock photo.

Have a question about Pronunciator, the library, or where to find the best brunch in Stockholm?  Let us know at Ask-A-Librarian.  We’ll be open throughout the break, too, so stop in and grab a travel guide on the way to your next destination.  Hint: Search Find It for “Eyewitness Travel Guide.”

Have a great summer!

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