Archives for April 2017

Stuff @ Circulation

Did you know that DVDs are not the only thing you can check-out at the Ross Pendergraft Library?  The Circulation Desk, located on the first floor, keeps an entire collection of supplies and materials that you can freely borrow for a few hours to power up your late-night study sessions and keep more money in your pocket.

Here’s a few of the things you might want to acquire during the long study nights ahead:

Dry Erase Boards

Dry Erase Boards are Remarkable!

These are brand new, 4 x 3 feet, mobile, magnetic, reversible, and remarkable dry erase boards that you can check out for the low, low price of nothing.  Borrow for two hours, then renew for another two hours, if needed.  They offer large writing space to draw out all your molecular diagrams, musical arrangements, mathematical formulas, and next year’s NCAA basketball brackets.  Pairs well with our dry erase markers.

Dry Erase Markers

set of dry erase markers

What can you do with a dry erase board without dry erase markers?  Don’t find out by borrowing a set of markers at the Circulation Desk.  Each set of markers includes 8, multi-colored thick point markers, 4 black fine-point markers, an eraser, and a bottle of cleaner.  You can check them out for two hours and renew them for another two.

Graphing Calculators

Graphing calculators

Why have computers come down in price, but a graphing calculator still costs the same as it did twenty years ago?  Some mysteries may never be solved, but if you still haven’t saved up the bucks to buy one, and just need a loaner for a few hours, the Library has the TI-83, TI-83 Plus, and the TI-83 Plus Silver available for four hour check-out.  Four hours!  You can renew it for another four, as well, which is probably more time with a graphing calculator than is recommended by the American Psychological Association.

Headphones

Experience two hours of moderately okay sound with our sturdy, pre-sanitized, and surprisingly comfortable headphones.  These headphones have circulated hundreds of times, making them the most popular item available in the library.  Don’t you want to be popular too?  Wear the same headphones as everyone else in the library, and you’re well on your way.

Now, I know what you must be thinking: Free stuff is great, but is there a way I can spend money, too?  There is!  Here are some of the items currently offered at cost to help you avoid a trip to the bookstore or a large 24-hour big-box chain.  (Cash only!)

  • Small Scantrons: $0.20
  • Large Scantrons: $0.40
  • Earbuds: $1.50
  • Helpful customer service from friendly people: Priceless

The Circulation desk—your source for the treasures above and more—operates as long as the library is open (though some of the services are reduced during the wee hours of the open-24-hours-for-finals period).  So when the bookstore is closed, and you don’t have a friend to take you to the store, come see us!  We won’t be your friend or anything (we barely know you), but we can sell you a Scantron and let you borrow our headphones.  Which is kind of like something a friend would do.

Survey Time!

Do you like us? Yes or Yes

If you haven’t had a chance to take the Library survey, take six minutes and help us help you: Take the Library Survey.  From now until April 24th, the annual library survey is your chance to suggest changes, recommend new services or collections, and/or lodge complaints about the temperature.

Not convinced it does any good?  Here’s a list of changes the library has made this year based on actual student, staff, and faculty comments on last year’s survey:

“Make it easier to know what rooms are available to be reserved for group study.

In the past, study room reservations were managed using old-fashioned, quaint methods like telephone reservation.  Last November, the library completely overhauled the reservation system and instituted the “Book It” online system.  Want to reserve a study room?  Click on a green square, log in, and now you’re done.  You receive an email confirmation of the booking, and your green square has now turned red, alerting other users that your room is now reserved.

Screenshot of Bookit

“EVERY survey EVERY year I ask that the library consider adding the HeinOnline database, which would benefit business, communication, history, and political science.”

We heard you, and now—until October 2017—we are running a trial of HeinOnline’s Government Politics and Law for Academics.  This database the world’s largest government documents and legal research database.  You can learn more about it here.

The library receives requests to add new databases all the time.  Sometimes we can accommodate, but sometimes we cannot (for a variety of reasons, cost being only one of them).  A trial is often an excellent way to gauge the databases that will be used heavily and those that may not meet the needs of the students, faculty, and staff as well as another, competitive database.  For example, we already subscribe to LexisNexis Academic, another large legal, business, and government document resource.  Is it better than HeinOnline?  You be the judge and tell us at Ask A Librarian.

“I would like to see more database access”

Say no more—the library has added several new databases in the past year, including many in STEM fields.  Here’s just a few:

“Open up more rooms for private study groups.”

We did it!  Adding more study rooms has been a top issue in just about every survey since we started making surveys.  In the past, the Library’s study rooms were often targeted as swing space for other departments while other buildings were under construction and the campus grew.  This year, with the removal of TRIO offices to the new Brown Building, we were able to reclaim some of our old study rooms, bringing the total number available to nine.  Thanks in part to your survey responses, the Library was able show how important these study rooms were to our students, thus saving them from further repurposing by outside offices.  Finally, the study rooms are back serving their original purpose: study rooms for the students.

“Tutoring available for all majors at the library, not Doc Bryan.”

Done.  The Library has partnered with the office of Student Success to host tutoring on the second floor of the Ross Pendergraft Library, each Thursday and Sunday night from 5-9 p.m.  Read more about it at Tech News or see the complete tutoring schedule from ATU Office of Student Success.

“Updated furniture. The atmosphere has much to do with how I learn, and I get distracted by the old, worn furniture.”

Yes!  We agreed.  That’s why, last January, the Library replaced most of the older computer chairs & floral patterned couches with newer, more functional, more attractive, and more comfortable seating.

“Perhaps add a few more computer stations.”

Coming soon!  The first floor is in the process of adding 12 additional computer stations.  Right now, the computer desks are there, but the computers are on the way.  Stay tuned!

“Make library always 24 hours”

We did this—a little bit.  The library still opens 24 hours during finals, and we’ve extended our hours during the week, until 1:00 AM.

We would love to extend our hours further, but, in order to do this, we need more staff, more safety, and more students taking advantage of the late hours we already offer.

But keep asking!  Let us know that this issue and other issues are important to you.  We may not be able to make the changes you want right now, but each voice helps guide our decisions and strengthen our requests to the campus administration.  Your opinions matters—and we are listening.  This is YOUR library so tell us how to make it better.

Tell Us!

 

On Trial

From now until October 1st, access the world’s largest, fully searchable, image-based government document and legal research database:

HeinOnline’s Government Politics and Law for Academics 

The Ross Pendergraft Library is hosting a trial for this comprehensive resource containing U.S. Congressional Documents, U.S. Statutory materials, more than 2,300 scholarly journals, all the world’s constitutions, all U.S. treaties, collections of classic treatises and presidential documents, and access to the full text of state and federal case law powered by Fastcase.

All ATU factuly, staff, and students can browse by database name or browse by category:

Or search by keyword, author, title, or date. Select the Citation tab to search by citations, the Catalog tab to browse publications, or the Case Law tab to quickly search case citations::

The results display allow users to quickly narrow selections by type, titles, collections, and year.  Each results includes a brief display, highlighting the words used in your search so you can assess the relevancy of each article:

screen shot of database result

Each article includes options for downloading the PDF, emailing the document to yourself, as well as generating citations.   You can also view the number of times it has been cited by other articles, a way to gauge the relative importance of an article to the scholarly community.  Sorting results by “Number of Times Cited By Articles”, can push more significant articles to the top of your search results.  Something also rather unique to HeinOnline is the ability to sort by “Number of Times Accessed (Past 12 Months)”, allowing you to see what is most popular for other users of this database:

Once inside the article, users have access to all of the tools of other databases, including the citation information:

 

Need more legal help?  Sorry—librarians can’t give legal advice.  But we can help you with finding legal resources through this database or our other legal database, LexisNexis Academic.

You have until next fall to send us also your pro’s & con’s list with this database.  Do you like it?  Hate it?  Indifferent to its existence?  Tell us at AskALibrarian.  We need your feedback to build a case for or against this database.  Should we make it apart of our permanent collection? You be the judge.