Server Down

A college server is down, which is affecting access to library databases. Techs are working on the problem, now.

Limited Reference Coverage 12/22/10 from 12-4pm

The library reference desk will have limited coverage on 12/22/10 from 12-4pm. Normal coverage will resume at 4pm and continue to 9pm. We apologize in advance for any inconvenience this may cause.

Knol: possible reference resource?

Came across this new Google product called Knol (http://knol.google.com/k#).

It's a Wikipedia-like product, except the articles are written by subject experts or groups of experts (contributors establish their credentials). It's limited in scope at present, but has real potential to grow into a good reference resource. Let the group know what you think.

Dana

option for the future?: lib website optimized for mobile devices?

Came across a web service, Google Mobilizer: http://www.google.com/gwt/n) that allows you to link to a mobile-optimized version of any web page

Here is one for our web page: http://www.google.com/gwt/n?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.esc.edu%2Flibrary

Does it male sense to put a link to this somewhere on our home page? This version has the added option of being more usable to those using screen readers.

Dana

Marketing idea: intro letter to just accepted students

The idea is this: we work with admissions (or whatever office would have the appropriate information) to send a brief (printed) form letter to newly accepted/starting students. The letter would be a welcome from the librarians along with a very brief description of our most relevant services (like our virtual workshops and Ask a Librarian) with a couple links and our pledge to help them as best we can as they pursue their academic career at the college. Perhaps also include a library bookmark with the letter.

Ideally, the letter content would be very, very brief, but also personalized based on the AOS of the student, if that's possible.

This letter would have the double advantage of making the student feel welcome at the college and putting our services right in front of them as they start their academic work. As a recent Limnal Librarian post states (and was the inspiration for this idea): "Small gestures can create enormous goodwill."

Dana

Useful video resource for policy issues: UChannel

Description: A collection of 1000+ public affairs lectures, panels and events from academic institutions all over the world

It's especially useful because it only includes materials from academic institutions, each tagged and browsable via tag cloud.

UChannel

PMOG as Info Lit Tool?

PMOG (The Passively Multiplayer Online Game) as a tool for information literacy? It seems to have some good potential to merge gaming and info lit from what I can tell so far, but would be very interested in hearing others thoughts on this.

I've created a very basic proof-of-concept PMOG "mission" based around finding e-books on our site here (you need to have registered for PMOG and installed the Firefox plug-in to take part): http://pmog.com/missions/find_books_in_empire_state_college_library

We could potentially integrate such missions into the Info Lit study, Angel courses, and elsewhere.

There is a good article on this tool and it's potential in libraries here:
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6555546.htm.html

Dana