Author Archives: Steven Bell

Top 10 Reasons to Use Temple Libraries

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The start of the new fall 2012 semester is a good time to remind Temple University students and faculty about the top 10 reasons to use the library. And we know that everyone can never get enough of top 10 lists, so here we go:

  1. Research tips for your majors and courses (go to our “Sources For Courses“)
  2. We’ve got one search box to rule them all (try our Summon Search)
  3. Books smell good. Like the smell of books. This is your kind of place.
  4. We know Philly! The Urban Archives is THE resource for photos, maps, manuscripts and more..
  5. Wireless Access. You can get wireless connectivity – and – borrow an iPad too!
  6. Escape the Dorms. Lots of quiet study spaces here.
  7. Online resources anywhere, anytime. Over 600 searchable databases, millions of e-books, streaming media resources and more.
  8. Never type a bibliography again. Learn how to use Refworks and the auto-citation formatting features of our research databases. Need help? Ask a librarian.
  9. Over 10,000 videos to watch. Stop by the Media Services Desk to learn more.
  10. Research help when YOU need it! Text! Live Chat! Email! Phone! One-on-One!

Not sure where to start? Download a copy of our 2012 Guide to Using the Library – and keep it with you at all times.

The Library Owl (stuffed animal) with a Library Book Bag full of books.

Be like the wise Library Owl. Know your Temple Libraries.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Welcome Class of 2016 – Join Us For ceLIBration

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Hard to believe it but it’s already time for Welcome Week at Temple University. Temple University Libraries is ready! We’re looking forward to welcoming the Class of 2016 to the campus and our Libraries. We’ll have our table at TuFEST which is a great opportunity to pick up some information about the Libraries and all the services and resources we offer to Temple students. – and meet our staff.

The high point of Welcome Week for us is ceLIBration.. What is ceLIBration? It’s two-hours of music, games, activities, and free food that celebrates the arrival of our new class of freshmen. Did we mention FREE FOOD. We’re also having a scavenger hunt that offers some pretty good prizes – and there are raffles.

WHEN: Friday, August 24
TIME: 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm
WHERE: Paley Library, Main Level, East Side

ceLIBration 2012 poster featuring an owl reading a book.

Come to Paley Library for ceLIBration.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We hope you’ll join us for ceLIBration. You’ll be coming through Paley eventually. You might as well get started with ceLIBration.

Library Special Collections Boost a University’s Reputation

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Obtaining a great collection of papers from a scholar or organization or other types of unique materials can be a significant accomplishment for the special collections department of an academic research library. Increasingly, what makes an academic library unique or distinctive is the content of its special collections and archives. According to the New York Times article “In University Holdings, Entry to History and Culture“, these collections can also serve to enhance the reputation of the institution as a resource for global scholars. The article states:

U.T.-Arlington officials, meanwhile, hope their future William Blair Collection will bolster their library’s reputation as a repository for artifacts of black history. For universities striving to improve their reputation — particularly the handful, including U.T.-Arlington, vying to be the state’s next Tier 1 research institution — special collections can provide a boost. And for a general public largely unaware of the items stored in public universities, they can be a veritable treasure-trove.“Tier 1 is all about scholarship and recognition by your peers from around the world for the great and wonderful research that you do,” said Ronald L. Elsenbaumer, the provost at U.T.-Arlington. “And special collections bring that uniqueness to your university. Having those unique, scholarly activities going on that distinguish you, that’s important.”

The Special Collections Research Center (SCRC) at Temple University Libraries is just such a collection of unique materials with a focus on 20th century Philadelphia history. With the recent addition of content from the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News Archives and the papers of Lew Klein, the SCRC helps to build the reputation of Temple University as a unique research source for scholars. Visit the SCRC soon to learn more about the fantastic collections of unique primary research material waiting for you at Temple University Libraries.

Could Open Access Disrupt Traditional Scholarly Publishing

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It’s not often that the mainstream media takes up relatively unpopular higher education issues, so it comes with some surprise that U.S. News & World Report published a rather extensive article on the debate about the future of scholarly publishing. The article, titled “Is the Academic Publishing Industry on the Verge of Disruption?” provides a balanced look at both sides of the push for open access journal publishing.

Using interviews with both open access advocates such as Heather Josephs of SPARC and representatives from scholarly publishers such as the American Institute of Physics, the article provides an excellent overview of the current challenges of traditional scholarly journal publishing. It covers new business models for open access publishing and current and proposed government policies aimed at promoting the sharing of scholarly research funded by taxpayer dollars.

If you’d like to learn more about the current issues confronting traditional scholarly publishing, the challenges that both libraries and scholarly publishers face, and new models and ideas for a better scholarly publishing system, then give this article a read. If you do, let us know what you think (use the comments) by sharing your thoughts about scholarly communications, open access, and its impact on higher education. Do you believe that the traditional system is ripe for disruption, and if so, will open access be the disruptive factor?

Please Share Your Feedback On Our New Website

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After many years of maintaining its current website, the Temple University Libraries is poised to move to an entirely new design for its website.On Thursday, July 12, 2012 the new website made its debut. We hope you find the new design refreshing – and that it makes your experience using our library resources much better. Please use the feedback link in the upper right corner of the homepage to tell us what you think of the site – what can we continue to improve?

For the past several months a preview of the website has been available to the campus community, and we have received encouraging positive feedback about the new look of the website, which is more streamlined, less cluttered with links and makes use of more visual content.

Screenshot of proposed new look for the Libraries' web site.

Temple Libraries New Website Design

The Libraries’ Summon search, which is a great starting point for research in almost any subject area, is the focal point of the new homepage design. A tabbed approach allows for easy navigation to other types of search modes and other sections of the website. We’ve added the daily hours right on the homepage, and an instant messaging tool allows for quick communication with library staff when help is needed.

Please know that some areas of the site are still being refined, and it is possible you will encounter a broken link or some other minor problem. If that happens, please contact us – using the feedback link on the homepage – to let us know of any problem. We hope to keep improving our website so that all of our community members will have the best possible experience using the Temple Libraries.

Easier Access to the Chronicle of Higher Ed – on iPads Too

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The Chronicle of Higher Education is the primary industry newspaper for the field of higher education. It is regular reading for both faculty and administrators – and graduate students. The Temple University Libraries purchases an annual site license to the Chronicle of Higher Education. That means any member of the Temple University community may access the full-text of every Chronicle article – and has access to the full-text of every archived article. Getting access from remote locations is now even easier. The Chronicle will recognize your Temple University email account and allow full-text access to all the content. In order for this to work you simply need to register as a Chronicle user with your Temple University email account. Once you have an account you should consider registering for the Academe Today daily newsletter that will give you access to the latest Chronicle articles. Please know that if you already have a Chronicle account you can simply add your Temple email to the existing account by editing your profile. Establishing a completely new one is not necessary. If you own an iPad and prefer reading your newspapers and magazines on it, you can now download an app for reading the Chronicle. The app is free to all Temple University community members. If you have any questions about obtaining access to the Chronicle of Higher Education as a member of the Temple University community contact Steven Bell for assistance.

It’s Career Week and Temple Libraries Are Here To Help

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Career Week is a series of events that lead up to the Career Fair. It’s an opportunity for juniors, seniors and graduate students to connect with potential employers. This year the Career Fair takes place on Thursday, February 23 at the Student Center. Students should take advantage of every opportunity to prepare themselves so they’ll be ready to impress the employers. A well-designed resume and the right clothes help, but it’s also critical to prepare by gathering the best information available about the company and the industry in which it operates. That’s where the Temple Univesity Libraries can help. We offer dozens of specialized information databases that can make gathering information about companies and industries easier and less time consuming to conduct. For example, Business and Company Resource Center is a great starting point for both public and private companies. You can use Lexis/Nexis to get the latest news about a company by tapping into thousands of newspapers from around the globe. Stop by the Paley Library on Tuesday, February 21 at 2:00 pm to get on-the-spot help with your company research from Adam Shambaugh, our business research specialist. Help is always available at the Paley “Ask Here” Desk or stop by the Science & Engineering Library (SEL) if you are researching companies in the sciences or engineering. Whether it’s Career Week or any week of the year, the information experts at the Temple University Libraries are availalble to help all Temple students be better prepared for a job interview.

Paley’s Vending Machine Offers Basic Office Supplies

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On any given day many students will stop at one of the service desks in Paley Library and ask for any of the following: * a pen * a flash drive * a highlighter Unfortunately, we are unable to provide such supplies to all the students who ask for them each day. Fortunately, students in need of these supplies can now conveniently purchase them in Paley Library. Vending machine stocked with office supplies. We have just added an office supplies vending machine that features all of the above items, plus notebooks, headphones, CD-ROM disks, and more – and we’ll be adding some personal items too, such as tissues and aspirin. Since Paley is open most nights until 2 am, there’s a new options for acquiring these supplies when you need them. You will find the vending machine in the corridor between Paley Library and the Tuttleman Center on the main level of Paley Library. If you have any suggestions for items you’d like to see us offering in the vending machine, let us know with a comment.

Do You Know the Top Two Complaints About Paley?

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As the library staff member who receives all the suggestions and complaints that come from members of the Temple University community I can answer this question. Perhaps you already knew the answer: 1) Noise 2) Food Despite the efforts of the library staff to create an environment that is welcoming to all students, we are occasionally challenged to meet everyone’s needs. Whether it’s two students talking in one of the quiet zones, students getting a little too loud in the noise-tolerant zones, students talking on cellphones, a food mess left on a study table or a student eating a food truck meal that for one reason or another is distracting to other students, we continue to experience situations that leave someone dissatisfied with their Paley Library experience. In recent months we’ve been asked to create very strict, zero tolerance rules about both noise and food. One student even asked us to hire a security guard to force students to be quiet. We believe that strict rules about food and noise are difficult if not impossible to enforce in a building of Paley’s size, and we want to treat students as responsible adults. Sign stating top two library complaints are noise and food odors, to be respectful of others, and keep the library clean, (linked to larger version).
 All that said, we do need to create a better environment in Paley Library, and to do so we need the help of everyone who uses this great community resource. In an effort to remind all those who use Paley Library about the top two complaints we have designed a small card with this information, and have placed these cards throughout the Paley Library. You will see them on desks, carrels and computer workstations. It’s just a reminder. We know the vast majority of those who use the Library are considerate of their fellow library users. Sometimes we could all use a reminder that this is Your Library and together it is Our library. Paley belongs to all of us. Let’s make it the best Library possible so that everyone has a great experience each and every time they are here. If you have any ideas to share about improving Paley Library, be it noise and food issues or any other situation, please leave a comment.

Surviving Crunch Time – Know Where To Start Your Research

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As Temple students head home for the Thanksgiving holiday, thoughts of relaxing with family and friends may be more on the mind than research and final papers. But rest assured, when the calendar hits that last week of November, its the official start of crunch time – the last few weeks of the semester. The big challenge for many students is getting started on those final research papers. The librarians at Temple University know that getting started is the hardest part of any project. That’s why we have created lots of Research Guides to get you started in the right place.

Our Research Guides are designed to provide direct links to the top research databases and resources for students who may not be sure where to begin – and they are equally helpful for students who want to expand their research beyond the same one or two databases that always get used. We have over 600 databases, e-book collections, thousands of full-text journals and much more. Cut through the confusion. Start with a Research Guide. Where else could you get started? How about Summon. That’s our newest research tool for searching a huge amount of the content the Libraries offer – and you don’t have to even think about where to get started. Summon will get you there by providing lightning fast results that offer links to articles, books, and more – and when you follow these links it will lead to new resources – that’s why we call it a “discovery engine.”

Still not sure where to get started. Talk to one of our human discovery engines – your subject specialist librarian. No matter where you start your research, Temple Libraries has you covered for getting through crunch time.