Category Archives: What’s Your Suggestion?

Why Is It So Cold Here? Please Warm Up Paley.

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It’s really cold in here. Can it be at least a little warmer? It doesn’t have to be this cold.

Ah, if only we were able to achieve the ideal temperature setting in every area of Paley Library. But given the nature of our 165,000 square foot facility, and the idiosyncrasies of our heating and cooling system, were we to ask facilities to come and warm up the building, we might regret that the very next day by experiencing too warm temperatures. While we do our best to regulate the temperature across the entire Paley building, there are going to be situations where it may be too cold or too warm for individual preferences in any particular spot in the facility. But it would be a challenge to warm up or cool down any specific zone without perhaps affecting the temperature in another zone. The Temple University’s facilities department regulates the building temperature on a seasonal basis. This can be a challenge if it is unseasonably warm or cold for a few days.

If you find the area where you like to study a bit cold from time to time, bring along your favorite hoody. And if you do want us to follow up on what you think is a particular problem, please be sure to let us know exactly what part of the Paley building you think needs a temperature adjustment. We will then follow up.

The Redesigned Web Site Needs To Work With Google Chrome

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I just tried to view the re-designed web site in the Google Chrome web browser and it doesn’t appear to be very compatible. Any suggestions?

 

We apologize for the difficulty you experienced with the prototype homepage. Your suggestion was submitted to our web manager and this problem was corrected. Please try to use the prototype again with the Chrome browser. It should work fine now, but if not, please let us know.

 

 

I’m Not a Temple Student But Can I Use The Wireless Network?

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Your library does not allow visitor get into internet, even if the visitor uses his own laptop. It is unreasonble for a public university to refuse local tax payer to use their library. Suggestion: set up a public access code for vistor so that they can access the internet network, at least as they use their own laptop.

Your message has a few misconceptions that I’d like to clear up. Let’s take them one by one:

Your library does not allow visitor get into internet: This is not correct. We do offer access to the Internet to members of the public. But you do need to be on-site and you must use a designated computer. For more information ask about Internet access ask at any Library service desk.

Even if the visitor uses his own laptop: This is correct – BUT – no college or university we know of allows members of the public to access their wireless network on their own laptop. If you know of one, please tell us where to find them. Our wireless network is an encrypted, secure network. We have to do this or anybody in the city could use our wireless signal to get on the Internet. Temple University’s Computer Services Department does not allow us to create any codes to allow members of the public to access the wireless network because it is a computer security risk. We do not think this is unreasonable, and you are able to use the designated computers when you are here.

It is unreasonable for a public university to refuse local tax payer to use their library: This is incorrect. Not only are the Temple University Libraries open to the local tax paying public, but we are open to the entire world. We allow anyone from anywhere to use our Libraries. As long as any member of the public abides by our library use policies, they will never be refused access to our Library.

So we welcome you to use our library and its resources – and you can certainly access the Internet here even if you are not a student – but we are unfortunately unable to allow members of the public to access the Internet via our wireless network using a laptop computer.

Why Can’t I Pay My Fines Online?

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We should be able to pay our library fines online It is 2009. You can pay for almost everything online. Why not Temple library fines? Other libraries provide this convenience, Why not Temple? Temple’s library system seem awfully low-tech.

This is a fine suggestion. We’d love to be able to offer online bill payment for overdue book fines, lost book fines, etc. It may very well be that other libraries offer this option, but I am not aware of them. In any case, regardless of what other libraries may offer, Temple University (and this isn’t something the Libraries can do independently – obviously we can only offer e-commerce options if the University makes it available) is currently in the midst of migrating its entire financial software system to a new system called Banner. We inquired about the possibilities of having an online payment option. That is definitely part of the future plan. However, given the implementation schedule we can’t expect this to be available until some time in 2012.

In the meantime we do offer the convenience of Diamond Dollar payment for all types of fines – but only in person. Again, Diamond Dollars doesn’t offer an online payment option.

If enough students feel strongly that Temple Universityshould make online payment options available, they may want to bring this to the attention of the University administration.

Are The Library’s Computers Open To The Public

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The answer is no and yes. Here’s an explanation. It is the mission of Temple University to serve the community. Since the Library supports the mission of the University, we serve the community as part of our mission as well. To do this we allow members of the public to use our Libraries, although those who do not have a Temple ID must show photo identification to enter the building and must sign in with the door guard. Also, because the Library is a government document depository, we are also required to be open to the general public.

However, the computers in all the Temple Libraries are not generally available to the public. You may have noticed that virtually all of our computers require a Temple network account to access anything more than the Library online catalog. But given our mission to serve the public we do make available a limited number of computers for members of the general public. For fall 2009 the public use computers will be located in Tuttleman opposite the Circulation Desk. To use a computer a member of the public (no currently valid Temple ID) must register in advance at the Circulation Desk, and if approved will receive a unique code to logon to the designated public use computers.

So the anwer is yes, but in a rather limited capacity. We believe there are sufficient computers in the Libraries – along with laptops that can be borrowed from the Circulation Desk – to accommodate Temple University students. But let us know if you think we need to be doing a better job with our computers.

Any Advice For Dealing With Noisy People

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I’m sitting here using a computer and there’s a group nearby that is kind of noisy and they’re watching a video with loud music. I’m reluctant to ask them to stop. I don’t want to get into a confrontation. What can I do to get some quiet in the library?

We want your visit to and time spent in the Paley Library to be productive and peaceful. In other words, we want you to have a good library experience – and we want you to tell others about it and come back again. So never hesitate to let us know what we – and by “we” that means any library staff member at any desk or at work in the library or someone in our administrative office on the mezzanine level – can do to make your time in the library more satisfying.

Were you in one of our quiet zones? The computer commons on the first floor west (13th Street side) is not designated for quiet study so you can expect more noise there. However, we do ask everyone to use headphones if listening to music or any type of audio. If someone is creating computer noise that is disturbing you feel free to ask a library staff member at any service desk to intervene on your behalf. There are quiet zones throughout the Paley Library. Many of the quiet zones have computers. You can also borrow a laptop or netbook computer from the Circulation Desk in Tuttleman for use anywhere in the library. Take a computer to your own quiet spot.

In the future, consider simply asking your fellow students to hold down the noise, especially if it’s a quiet zone. Most students are courteous and will be glad to comply with your request. If that doesn’t work or you would rather not ask, again, seek assistance from a member of the Library staff.

How About More Hours Before Summer Session One Finals

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Is there any chance that the library could be open a bit longer next weekend since finals are on the Monday right after it? It would really help a lot of students to have access to a quiet study area.

Thanks for your suggestion. We always have extended hours for finals during the fall and spring semesters, but not during the summer sessions. We can’t offer as many extra hours as we do during the regular semesters, but to accomodate requests for additional hours we are going to extend the building hours from 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm on Sunday, June 28. So you’ll have a few extra hours in the Library before finals on Monday. We hope this helps, and we’ll keep this in mind for future summer sessions.

There Should Be a Better Way To Find/Search Journals As a Group

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In the “Find Articles” section, there should be a list of the journals under each section. For example, there are many journals for Speech Pathologists (for which Temple has a Master’s program) but there is no way to search through these journals as a group.

We would certainly like to be in a position to offer a better system for either identifying all the journals in a subject area, like speech pathology, or enabling a way to search all those journals. But given the state-of-the-art in our information systems that capability isn’t exactly available today. There are a few things you could learn that would enable you to produce a list of journals in a subject area, though it wouldn’t necessarily be 100% accurate, and there are some techniques for limiting an article database search to specific journal titles.

In the library catalog, DIAMOND, you can structure a subject search along the lines of “speech disorders–periodicals” and that will return a list of journals to which we describe in this discipline.

You can use Journal Finder to browse journals by subject disciplines; dozens of disciplines are represented. Though I didn’t find one for speech pathology there were many in the health disciplines.

Our librarians create subject guides that we call LibGuides that can help with research topics. Some of the librarians have created customized search boxes for specific subject areas. We have LibGuides for a limited number of topics, but you are welcome to request that we create one for a new subject area.

Many of our electronic databases offer advanced search features that allow you to search by specific journal titles. This is a technique that is less familiar to most library users and we suggest that you seek assistance when you need to do this by coming to the reference desk or make an appointment with the library liaison to your academic department.

Perhaps the best advice we can offer is for you to get to know the librarian that serves as the subject specialist for your discipline. Our librarians have expertise in research and information retrieval and can often identify good solutions for almost any type of research need. Start by examining the list of subject specialists.

How About Computers For Those Who Just Want to Print?

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I think there should be computers for people that only need to print. There should be a max time limit that someone can be on the computer allowing them enough time to log on and get any documents they need from online or the backpack tool. I just know a lot of people that have to go to school a lot earlier in order to make sure they have enough time to stand around for an hour so they can print.

Having individual computers for those who just want to do some quick printing would offer some potential benefits for those in a rush. However, your print job would still go into the regular queue and you would have to wait your turn to print the job. The challenge is that there is a significant demand for computers at Paley Library, and it could be a questionable use of resources to set aside a computer just for those who want to print a document. Also, once on  the computer we would not have any control over how many documents the person prints, which might be time consuming. Nor do we police the computers or put time control software on them. So again, we would not prevent someone from still taking their time on our computers. But I will share the idea with others and perhaps we can come up with some potential solutions to your problem, which is really about waiting too long just to print a document when you are in a hurry. For example, additional printers on upper levels could better level printing jobs so they don’t all go to just the two printers in the computer commons. We will also consult with Computer Services about the costs and feasibilty of setting this up since they have control over campus computer printing services.  

Thank you for your suggestion. It is a problem for which we will explore some potential solutions.

Let’s Keep Paley Quiet During Late Night Hours

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In general I love using the library, particularly as a place for quiet study, but there’s one incredibly frustrating aspect of this during finals. I really like the extended hours during final weeks, but workers in the study areas should respect students’ need for quiet. I was trying to work in the library last night and workers were talking loudly and then I heard a worker playing music too loundly. This sort of thing makes the extended hours kind of pointless, especially in the quiet zones. Is there any way this could be addressed?

We are glad to hear you appreciate our keeping the Paley Library open around the clock during finals week, and it’s great to hear you and other students are taking advantage of the extended hours. We are sorry to hear that your library experience is being greatly diminished by the noise being made by some workers. Our goal is for you and others to have the best possible library experience we can deliver – so clearly we need to improve this situation. We absolutely will address the problem you have described. Within hours of receiving your suggestion the appropriate supervisors and administrators were contacted in order to share your concerns. We have asked that all those who work in the Library are reminded about the need to maintain the quiet atmosphere – at all times but especially during extended hours.

If you continue to experience this problem in Paley Library please contact Steven Bell directly for further assistance.