Tag Archives: Top News

Articles in Audio

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Audio versions are now available on selected articles in Wilson OmniFile, a full-text bibliographic database from H.W. Wilson, and Library PressDisplay, a database that provides the most recent sixty-day coverage of newspapers from around the world. In the case of Wilson OmniFile, the audio files are downloadable into iTunes and other portable audio players.

Wilson OmniFile

In Wilson OmniFile, just click on links to “Full Text HTML”. Then click on Listen or Download Audio.  The sound quality is surprisingly good.

Wilson OmniFile also provides translations of articles into ten different languages.

 

 

Library PressDisplay

In Library PressDisplay, just select a newspaper or an article and look for the Interactive Radio icon. Not limited to English, audio is available for numerous languages including French, German, Dutch, Spanish, and Portuguese.

 

 

—Fred Rowland

 

 

 

Have A Suggestion? Use Our Newest Blog to Share It

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Everybody who uses the Temple University Libraries has at some point probably thought of something that could be improved, done better or made more efficient. If you have an idea for improving the library we want to hear from you – or even if you have a general complaint.

That’s why we recently upgraded our old virtual suggestion box to a brand new suggestion blog called What’s Your Suggestion. We found ourselves answering the same questions repeatedly for different individuals. We believe the blog will help to make your suggestions and our responses more transparent to the Temple University community. All suggestion blog postings will be stripped of personal information to ensure confidentiality. There is a link to the suggestion blog on the Libaries’ home page. Just look for the “Suggestions” link.

You can submit to the suggestion blog anonymously or include an email address if you prefer a personal response. Submissions to the blog are first reviewed by a staff member so any request to refrain from posting the suggestion to the blog will be honored, and a personal response will be made instead. We hope you will use “What’s Your Suggestion” to let us know how we can improve the library and better serve the Temple University community. For more information about the suggestion blog please contact Steven Bell, Associate University Librarian.

Libraries Conduct Survey To Get Your Opinion

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To continuously improve library services for the Temple University community we need to hear from our students, faculty and staff. Many of our service improvements come directly from comments and suggestions from the community. To facilitate this process the Temple University Libraries are currently conducting a campus-wide satisfaction survey. LibQual + is a standardized survey used globally by all types of academic libraries. LibQual+ differs from standard satisfaction surveys that use a Likert scale to measure satisfaction on a range from 1 to 5 or some point between “strongly agree” and “strongly disagree”. Instead LibQual+ seeks to determine someone’s minimum expectation for services, their desired level of services and then asks them to identify at what level they currently perceive the quality of the service. The other advantage of LibQual+ is that it is a standardized, national survey which makes it possible for the Temple Libraries to compare their findings to peer institutions.

As with most surveys LibQual+ is a randomized survey instrument. Therefore only certain members of the Temple University community will receive the e-mail message asking you to take the survey. However LibQual+ is being conducted on the main campus, at all the health sciences-related locations, the law school and the Ambler campus. Any member of our community at any of these Temple locations may be randomly invited to complete the survey. If you are one of those who does receive the invitation please take some time to complete the survey. Since we launched the survey on Wednesday, March 18 several hundred individuals have responded but we would greatly appreciate your response. The average time to complete the survey so far ranges between 9 and 12 minutes – so it takes very little time to complete.

LibQual+ is scheduled to end on April 2. We hope those who received the invitation will take the survey. Everyone who does is entered into a random drawing to receive some great prizes. For more information about the LibQual+ survey please contact Steven Bell.

Text Message Feature Added to Library Catalog

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You finally found that book you’ve been wanting to read or that DVD that the rental shops don’t stock right here in your library…and it’s available! All you have to do now is find a piece of scrap paper, hunt down a pen that has ink, and write down the call number to take with you to the book stacks or Media Services desk. Or, you could text it to your phone!

Save yourself time and be green with the latest feature in Diamond: the library catalog. While viewing any item, just click the “Send via Text Message” button. A new screen will appear – see the example below. Just enter your mobile phone information, and click “Send.” In seconds, you’ll get a text message with the location, call number, and title of the item. Normal carrier charges may apply.

We hope you enjoy this new feature in our library catalog. Please share any comments or concerns with Steven Bell, Associate University Librarian for Research & Instruction.

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New! Cell Phone Audio Tour of Paley Library

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New! Cell Phone Audio Tour of Paley Library

You can now use your cell phone to get information about Paley Library departments and services. Call 215-525- 1543, and enter a tour stop number (listed below), followed by the # key.

There is no charge for the call, just your cell minutes.

This service also features a Call Number Locator to help you locate Paley books! Enter 0, the keypad number corresponding to the first letter of the call number, and then the # key.

Tour Stops are posted throughout the library and a List of Stops and Floor Plan is available at the Circulation/Reserve Desk, the Reference Desk and from the Information rack at the Bell Tower entrance.

These are the current stops:

  1. Dean’s Welcome
  2. Paley First Floor
  3. Reference Services
  4. Circulation/Reserve Desk
  5. Computer Workstations in Paley
  6. Special Collections
  7. Paley Second Floor
  8. Paley Third Floor
  9. Media Services
  10. Urban Archives

You can leave us your feedback about the tour by pressing 0, followed by the # key. For more information about the new cell phone audio tour of Paley Library, you can contact Gretchen Sneff.

Media Services Department Officially Opens

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You may have noticed changes happening on the ground level of Paley Library. Over the past few months the Library has been busy converting what used to be the periodicals room into a new Media Services department. On Monday, February 16 the Media Services department officially became operational. We have now moved the entire media collection from its current location at the Tuttleman Circulation/Reserve desk to the new Media Services location on the ground floor of Paley Library.

In addition to making available all types of media for regular (one week) and reserve (4 hours) loans, it offers multiple viewing stations and even several viewing rooms for groups. That means students can now easily borrow and view the media assigned for their courses in one location. Students may borrow headphones as well. A DVD browsing area is being developed so students and faculty can see the latest videos added to the collection. Faculty can continue to place videos and DVDs on reserve for their courses using the same procedure. Students should be directed to the new Media Services department to obtain media placed on reserve.

For more information about the new Media Services department, please contact Sebastian Derry, Head of Media Services.

Integrating the Library Into Your Blackboard Course

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Temple University librarians offer some convenient yet powerful technology for integrating library resources into a Blackboard course site or even a web page. Think about it. Put the library’s databases and research tools right where students can easily find them – in their course site. To learn about these integration technologies please attend the next Instructional Technologies Users Group (ITUG) program on Wednesday, February 11 from noon to 1 p.m. in room 111 at the TECH Center. Fred Rowland, reference librarian at Paley Library, will present on how to integrate the Library’s resources into Blackboard. Rowland will explain the different options available to faculty, such as Library Express, Blackboard Content Packages and Blackboard Course Guides. All of these options make it easy for faculty to put the library into their course. If you are unable to attend Rowland’s session and would like to integrate the Library into your course, please contact him by e-mail for more information.

Library Express!

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express-icon-smaller.jpg Library Express! arrives just in time! The new Obama administration is hailing Library Express! as one of the most essential tools in helping to kickstart our economy. The president is lobbying all Temple faculty members to contact their librarian immediately to take advantage of this offer.

As Obama recently commented, “Here’s how it works. Faculty contact librarians. Librarians create customized online course guides for classes. Faculty insert guides into Blackboard. With quick access to excellent sources, students do superior research. Everybody wins…And let me add one more thing: though the current generation of students didn’t get us into this mess, we’ll need everyone to get us out of it. Information is power. Talk to your librarian.”

We are entering terra nova. Students need every possible advantage. Providing quick access to articles, databases, tools and services in Blackboard will lead students to high quality information and improve research quality. Temple’s subject specialists are eager to create customized course guides that fit curricular needs. Integrating them into Blackboard is quick and easy. Subject Specialists // Blackboard Library Sampler // Integrating the Library into Blackboard If you’re a faculty member, contact your librarian. If you’re a student, contact your faculty member. If you are neither faculty, student, nor librarian, just sit back and watch the economy grow.

—Fred Rowland

Temple Libraries Announce Spring Season of Events and Programs

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Temple University Libraries Announce Spring Season of Events and Programs Temple University Libraries Spring 2009 programs and events will begin on January 29 with the Temple Book Club’s annual discussion of the One Book, One Philadelphia selection; this year’s is The Soloist by Steve Lopez. Author and journalist Lopez will also be making a stop at the Libraries later this spring. Don’t miss this acclaimed Los Angeles Times writer, formerly of The Philadelphia Inquirer, on March 19 as he discusses his best-selling book: a story of second chances, human connections and the power of art and music.

The season continues on February 5 with the spring’s first installment of Chat in the Stacks. This ongoing series highlighting and promoting excellence in faculty research, creativity and scholarship will highlight Race in the Stage with a performance from The Seven, based on Aeschylus’ Seven Against Thebes. Director Lee Richardson, along with English professor Roland Williams and Theater professor Kimmika Williams-Witherspoon, will complete the panel.

On February 18 we welcome local scholar David Eng. A multi-disciplinary scholar, Eng is a professor in the University of Pennsylvania’s English Department, but his specialties lie within and beyond the written word. Eng is a cutting-edge scholar exploring the inter-connectedness of literature, cinema, ethnic studies, sexuality and theory. He will present his new research on “Queer Space in China” through a discussion of the film Lan Yu. Please join us in welcoming one of our city’s most engaging academics. This event is co-sponsored by Center for the Humanities at Temple.

Other season highlights include:

Check out all our events and programs, and we hope to see you at the Libraries soon.

-Nicole Restaino, Library Communications Manager

Tyler Library Closes Permanently At Semester’s End

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As of Friday December 19, 2008 an era will end. The Tyler School of Art Library will close its doors at the Elkins Park location. The materials, including journals, housed at Tyler will be integrated into the Paley Library. Older and lesser used materials will be moved to the Library Depository. Depository items may be requested for use by filling out a form linked to the catalog record. The Diamond online catalog will reflect the new item locations when the libraries re-open on Monday January 5, 2009.

The Tyler location will be changing and the materials will be moving, but the Temple University Libraries will continue to serve the education and research needs of the Tyler population. Reference, library instruction and research services will be delivered by the Paley Library Reference and Instruction Services Department. Access services, located in Tuttleman, will handle any material location issues and course reserves. For information on course reserves call 215-204-0747.

This move will also add “new” holdings to the general and reference collections at Paley, so the rich collections of materials for students and the wider Temple community will be deeper than ever and available at main campus.

The staff of the Tyler Library will be relocating also. Andrea Goldstein, the Tyler Librarian, will be joining the Ambler Library staff. Frank Marzullo, the Tyler Library technical assistant will also be joining the Ambler Library staff. Ann Mosher, the bibliographic assistant at Tyler, will be moving to the Urban Archives in Paley Library.

New opportunities for the Tyler staff, and “new” resources at the Paley Library will ring in the New Year at the Temple University Libraries!

Addendum 08/20/09: Jill Luedke has been hired as the new Subject Specialist for Art. She can be contacted at at jluedke@temple.edu or 215-204-3166.