Starting March 17, Paley Library began experimenting with a “soft opening” Monday through Friday in response to students and researchers who eagerly await entrance before the official 8:00am opening time. Now students will be allowed entrance weekdays as soon as the security guards take up their positions in Paley and Tuttleman, up to an hour before opening. Patrons will be able to study, return books, check out books (using the self-check terminals), and search library databases using the Paley Reference Area computers. If you need help from Paley Library staff, however, you’ll have to wait until they start arriving at 8:00am. This is part of an overall attempt at Paley to make the library more available to Temple’s growing number of highly motivated undergraduates, graduates, and researchers.

Other important Paley and Tuttleman hours to keep in mind:
* In fall and spring semesters, the Tuttleman Scholars Information Center (SIC) is open 24 hours between Monday, 8:00am, and Friday, 7:30pm.
* For final examinations, Paley will be open 24 hours between Thursday, April 28 at 8:00am and Wednesday, May 11 at 10:00pm.
* Service Desks close at regular times during extended hours.

Welcome to Temple University Libraries’ new blog. We started this to improve communication with you, providing news on library events, new acquisitions to our collection, information on useful resources, tips on researching, and whatever else we’d like to tell you about.

You can leave comments on any of the entries (beneath the entries is a link), or you can email one of the contributors directly (we are listed to the left). As this is a new and ongoing development, we’d appreciate any feedback: comments, criticisms, or suggestions.

New to blogs? Blog is short for weblog, and the Oxford English Dictionary (one of our many fine online resources) defines it as:

“A frequently updated web site consisting of personal observations, excerpts from other sources, etc., typically run by a single person, and usually with hyperlinks to other sites; an online journal or diary.”

That’s a fairly general definition. For a much more detailed look, see the Wikipedia entry on weblogs.

We’ll be adding posts regularly, so please stop back in.

Here’s the number one question asked by students of library staff: “How do I access the Libraries’ restricted resources, such as the databases, from off campus?” A simple answer: TUPortal. Log into your TUPortal account as usual. Once logged in, click on the TULibraries tab near the top of the page. Enter your AccessNet password when prompted. If you utilize a “pop-up blocker” on your web browser you may need to manually click on the link provided. The Libraries’ website should now appear in a new browser window. From within the new window, navigate to EbscoHost, Lexis-Nexis, and other restricted electronic databases available on the Libraries’ site. Questions? Contact either Computer Services, 215-204-8000 or Ask A Librarian.

On Thursday January 27, 2005, an E-ZBorrow user from St. Joseph’s University placed the program’s 300,000th request. Lehigh University lent the book to St. Joseph’s and it arrived there on February 2, 2005. Temple Libraries is one of over 45 Pennsylvania-area libraries that participate in PALCI E-ZBorrow, a program that allows you to place your own requests for books not available at Temple. Questions? Call 215 204-0749.

Occasionally we get comments from patrons expressing their opinion that we don’t have enough e-resources and how they are forced to use other university libraries (such as Penn) to find what they need. It is important to keep in mind a few things: Penn is a substantially larger university than Temple in regards to its library budget, having spent approximately twice as much as us on library materials in the 2003/04 fiscal year. The Temple Libraries do have access to over 27,000 electronic journals in all subject areas across numerous databases and publishers. Because of the variety of providers we encourage you to use our Journal Finder to help locate journals in our electronic and print collections. If you need an article from a journal that we do not have in our collections, we have an excellent (and speedy) Document Delivery unit that can get you almost anything, providing you include a complete citation. Here is an online form for requesting journal articles. We also always encourage you to contact your Subject Specialist with any questions or concerns.