Please do not allow patrons to store their personal belongings at any
service desks. We do not have the staff to provide that kind of service.
We also do not want to be held liable for any items that may go
missing. Students may contact the student unions for information about
renting a locker.
Recently, Dr. Carl Osborne and a group of colleagues hosted a special recognition assembly for a crowd of current and former faculty, staff, and students in the Pomeroy Student-Alumni Learning Center. "Having a gathering of colleagues at the time of retirement is a global tradition," Carl wrote in a special invitation distributed via e-mail. "However, since I have decided not to retire, this is an opportune time for me to personally thank others for Caring About Others." The event included food, sing-a-longs, jokes, the distribution of memorial bricks from the Veterinary Anatomy building, and more. Vet Med Library Assistant M. Lisa Berg was specially recognized with an elaborate plaque. The clearly personalized inscription: To Mary Lisa Berg in appreciation Of your love of knowledge, Of your love of wisdom and most of all... Of your love of living beings, Animal and human." Lisa was delighted to see several former CVM staff who'd returned to campus for the ceremony. Pet-a-Palooza to feature experts from Veterinary Medical Center
The first Pet-a-Palooza event in Minnesota, to be held at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds Saturday, June 25, from 10 a.m.-6 p.m., will feature live music, animal events, local rescue/adoption groups, exhibitors, and veterinarians from the Veterinary Medical Center (VMC). Visitors to the VMC booth will have an opportunity to talk with veterinary professionals about maintaining a happy and healthy lifestyle for their pet. Admission and parking are free. Learn more at http://cbsradiompls.com/clients/Petapalooza.Twin City Polo Classic will benefit Equine Center
The 22nd Annual Polo Classic, to be held at the Twin City Polo Club Sunday, July 31, will benefit the University of Minnesota Equine Center. One of the longest-running fundraisers in Minnesota, the Twin City Polo Classic has raised more than $2 million for a variety of charities over the last two decades. The festive event includes a hat competition, champagne, and polo match with the best players in the Midwest. Learn more at www.thepoloclassic.com.Veterinary Medical Library to discontinue some document delivery service
The Veterinary Medical Library will be discontinuing its document delivery service for print materials only residing at the Bio-medical Library starting on July 1. The reason for this is because bound journal volumes are now allowed to circulate, so these print materials can now be ordered over to the Veterinary Medical Library using the "Get-It button," explains André Nault, veterinary medical librarian. Users simply locate the item they wish to obtain in the library catalog, click the "Get It/Recall" link displayed on its availability page, and select where they would like to pick the item up. Get-It services includes delivery to any Twin Cities campus library location and an on-campus office delivery option for University of Minnesota Twin Cities (UMTC) faculty and staff for materials at UMTC Libraries. For more information, visit www.lib.umn.edu/services/getit or contact Andre at naulta@umn.edu.University receives $51 million Clinical and Tranlational Science Award
The University of Minnesota has been granted a $51 million Clinical and Translational Science Award by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The award is the largest single-institution award ever received by the University, and will support programs that bring new treatments, therapies, and clinical trials outcomes to patients faster. With the award, the NIH is recognizing the strength of the U of M to translate scientific breakthroughs into improved health and well-being. Learn more
I previously wrote a note about how I'd placed VLC, a utility for playing back multi-media files (video, audio, and such)--including DVD-formatted disks in particular-- on the first PC in the library. I warned that other PCs would try to play back DVDs using the built-in Windows Media Player, which would result in a fine video image, but no available sound (with headphones, of course, as we've disabled the existing speakers in the PCs in the library). I originally described this as a temporary fix. Well, it's now it's permanent and installed on all 7 PCs. Most of you probably knew that I had put round, blue stickers on some of the PCs for purposes of indicating that some of the PCs had VLC, some did not. I've removed the stickers, as they all have VLC, which has an icon that looks like a little yellow & white striped megaphone or traffic cone.
Depending upon things that I'm not even sure about, when a DVD is put into the PC, it may start up VLC and start playing on its own, or the user may have to start it. This can be done in at least two ways: A. Double-click on VLC, and once that starts, find the DVD and tell it to start playing from within that program. B. Go to "My Computer" and find the DVD drive, where the name of the disk will probably be displayed. Double-click on that and VLC should start up to play the DVD. --IF-- instead Windows Media Player starts up, it's just possible that it will work fine (I found a DVD that WOULD play with WMP the other day, including sound), in which case you probably won't even hear about it. More likely, the patron will have trouble with sound, in which case, you should quit WMP and follow A to get the DVD playing properly. If you start having other problems, consider switching to a different PC. AND LET ME KNOW. Get me or tell me or leave me a note or email if I'm not available.
Note that the old headphones that we use, with an adaptor, can result in difficulty determining if the sound problem is the computer output or just with the headphones connection. You have to screw the connections around or pull them slightly looser or push them in more snugly, sometimes to get those old headphones to work. If patrons use their own headphones, as from their iPods, they will probably work more reliably.
RefWorks News
RefShare
Do you know students or faculty who would like to share citations
from their RefWorks account with people outside the University or publish a
list of citations that others can see and import? RefShare might be just
what they need. With RefShare enabled on a RefWorks account, you can
choose to share a folder or the entire account. Sharing a folder or
account results in a unique URL you can send to others. Attachments are
not shared, but viewers can print bibliographies or export citations for use in
their own accounts. To see what a shared folder looks like, go to: http://www.refworks.com/refshare?site=016671128744000000/RWWEB1031047486/AEM .
We're introducing RefShare to the University community selectively:
If you or someone you know would like to try out RefShare, contact Jan Fransen,
Laurel Haycock, or Julie Kelly and one of us will turn on access for you.
Be sure to let us know what you think. We will likely turn on
RefShare access for the entire University community this summer.
RefWorks 2.0
As you may know, RefWorks has been working on a new version.
The new version looks very different, but supports the same feature set you
already know. Moving to RefWorks 2.0 will work like this: Once RefWorks
switches our institutional account to the new version, any new accounts will
default to the 2.0 interface. Account owners can switch back to 1.0 if
they prefer. Existing accounts remain in the 1.0 interface, but owners
can choose to switch to 2.0. At some point in the future, RefWorks will
eliminate the 1.0 interface.
The current RefWorks 2.0 beta release appears stable, but we would
like more people to test it before making the switch. If you'd like to
set up a test account, contact any member of the Current Awareness/Personal
Information Management Collaborative (CAPIM) for instructions. If
you do set up an account, please let us know what you think. If all goes
well, we will likely switch to the new interface after May term.
- Jan Fransen, on behalf of the Current Awareness/Personal
Information Management Collaborative
Severe Thunderstorm and Tornado Season
We are moving into the severe thunderstorm and tornado season. Take a moment to review the emergency procedures from the University of Minnesota Emergency Preparedness website at:http://www1.umn.edu/prepared/weather.html . Then review the specific procedures for notifying patrons/staff in your specific building by visiting the Libraries Facilities and Operations Management (FOM) wiki at: https://wiki.lib.umn.edu/FOM/EmergencyProcedures .
A tornado or severe thunderstorm watch means that conditions are right for severe weather to develop rapidly. If a watch is issued for Hennepin or Ramsey Counties, the following steps should be taken:
- Monitor the local emergency alert radio station, the Twin Cities media, or the National Weather Service Web site.
- Supervisors with employees working outdoors should consider instructing them to go inside the closest building with safe areas.
- Supervisors with employees working indoors (such as in offices or laboratories) may instruct employees to close windows and blinds and be ready to move to safe areas.
- Faculty with classes in session should close windows, inform students of their building's safe areas, and be ready to relocate to those areas.
- Monitor the local emergency alert radio station, the Twin Cities media, or the National Weather Service Web site.
- Supervisors with employees working outdoors should consider instructing them to go inside the closest building with safe areas.
- Supervisors with employees working indoors (such as in offices or laboratories) may instruct employees to close windows and blinds and be ready to move to safe areas.
- Faculty with classes in session should close windows, inform students of their building's safe areas, and be ready to relocate to those areas.
A tornado or severe thunderstorm warning means that severe weather is happening and the situation is dangerous. The National Weather Service will sound sirens in the event of a tornado warning, but not in the event of other severe storms. The University will activate tone-alert radios. If a tornado or a severe thunderstorm warning is issued for Hennepin or Ramsey Counties, the following steps should be taken:
- Move students and staff to a safe area immediately. Safe areas include basements, pedestrian tunnels, or interior hallways on the lowest floor. Avoid large, poorly supported roofs and structures such as auditoriums or gymnasiums.
- Close classroom, laboratory, or office doors, and stay away from windows.
- Remain in a safe area until the warning expires or until the all-clear signal has been issued.
If you have questions or concerns, please contact your building facilities manager.
- Bernadette Corley Troge
New Website for the Health Sciences Libraries
On Wednesday, March 16, 2001, the Health Sciences Libraries
officially cut over to our new website: hsl.lib.umn.edu . The old
domans (biomed.lib.umn.edu, vetmed.lib.umn.edu, and wangensteen.lib.umn.edu) have officially
been replaced by hsl.lib.umn.edu/biomed , hsl.lib.umn.edu/vetmed , and hsl.lib.umn.edu/wangensteen ,
respectively. Redirects are in place, but any links to the old domains
should be updated as soon as possible.
This transition is the culmination of a year-long project on the
part of the Health Sciences Libraries Web Services Committee (Lisa McGuire,
Emily Reimer, Anne Beschnett, David Peterson, Laura Krueger, Lois Hendrickson,
and Chacko Kuruvilla) which moved through user surveys, targeted interviews,
wireframing, prototyping, usability testing, and, finally, to production.
Thanks are also due to our able systems administrators, Paul Bramscher and Eric
Forbis, whose assistance allowed us to smoothly transition to OIT servers with
no interruptions of service.
If you'd like to know more about how we did it, you can find out at:
hsl.lib.umn.edu/news/2011/jan24/welcome . If you
have any feedback on the new design, please fill out a form at: https://spreadsheets0.google.com/a/umn.edu/viewform?hl=en&hl=en&formkey=dERLUE9aam9jVEZIOHFmVlVUSElUSWc6MA#gid=0 .
- Wayne Loftus, Web Services Coordinator, Health Sciences Libraries
More from the Monday Memo
Google Project Update
The Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) libraries,
including the UMN Libraries, recently reached a significant milestone with
Google, one million scanned volumes. The press announcement follows:
One Million books scanned and returned to CIC University Libraries
Friday, February 04, 2011 at 7:42 am
Posted by Kim Armstrong, Deputy Director, Center for Library
Initiatives, Committee on Institutional Cooperation
Today we're celebrating an important milestone: Google has digitized
one million books from member libraries of the Committee on Institutional
Cooperation (CIC). The CIC is the consortium of the Big Ten member
universities and the University of Chicago. Each of these volumes has
been scanned, translated from image to text with Optical Character Recognition
(OCR) technology and added to the Google Books index. Once digitized, the
books are shipped back to our originating libraries to resume their journeys
from bookshelves to backpacks.
While Google preserves library books in digital form, and makes them
more accessible to more people as a result, it also sends participating
libraries (at no cost to us) digital copies for our own archives or other
non-commercial use. Accordingly, the CIC libraries are making hundreds of
thousands of the recently digitized public domain volumes accessible through
their partnership with the HathiTrust Digital Library.
We became Google's 16th Library Project partner in June 2007.
Google Books has now partnered with more than 40 libraries and scanned
more than 15 million books worldwide. Books that have only been available
for use within the walls of our libraries have found new readers now that they
are open to the world. Some examples of CIC titles available for reading
include: An Unwritten Account of a Spy of Washington, published in 1892; The
1901 Pipe and Quid: An Essay on Tobacco; and The Sun: a familiar description of
his phaenomena, published in 1885. While we are pausing to celebrate this
moment with Google today, we're not resting on our library laurels. We
have a long way to go to digitize all of our books. In fact, CIC
libraries have agreed to provide as many as 10 million volumes to this
ambitious project, out of total collections approaching 85 million volumes. --
so this is just the beginning.
- Sue Hallgren
More from the Monday Memo
Now Online! Library Guide for
International Students
go to: http://www.lib.umn.edu/libdata/page.phtml?page_id=3692
The Diversity Collaborative has created an updated and enhanced
web-based version of its print brochure for international students.
Please consider including this introductory guide in Course Pages for classes
with international students. The print brochure, also available as a PDF, is
available in English, Chinese, and Korean and has been reprinted many
times. We welcome any suggestions for changes or additions.
- Laura Dale
Bischof, on behalf of The Diversity Collaborative
It's probably a good idea to be aware of this web-site. You might even want to take a little time, while at the desk, and look at it. This is from the Monday Memo that goes to all full-time staff. I thought most of the rest of this week's issue was of less relevance to the Vet Med service desk....
Brand-new Copyright Website!
We are happy to announce that the new University Libraries' Copyright website, with heavily expanded and updated content, is now live at http://www.lib.umn.edu/copyright
Major changes and additions:
- Home page focuses on two issues - use, and ownership. This is based on the use statistics of the old website and questions from workshops; these are the central information needs of most visitors to the site. However, the site also provides information on a number of other issues, with content accessible from the side menu.
- Fair Use Analysis Tool is now called "Thinking Through Fair Use" to emphasize that it is not a substitute for legal advice. Heavily updated the checkboxes and simplified some of the language.http://www.lib.umn.edu/copyright/fairthoughts
- Copyright Decision Map is now called "Can I Use It?: A Map of Use Issues", and is available in both updated graphic form and a fully accessible outline form. https://www.lib.umn.edu/copyright/usemap
- New material
- Multimedia issues (specifically DMCA issues) - https://www.lib.umn.edu/copyright/multimedia
- Creative Commons - https://www.lib.umn.edu/copyright/creativecommons
Please note these important changes: NO links to the old site, except for the home page, will work - the URL structure of Drupal is very different. Please update any links on webpages you maintain! Visitors trying to reach specific URLs from the old site will be redirected to a single "we rearranged/updated" page that provides link to the new versions of the most heavily-used pages on the old site. https://www.lib.umn.edu/copyright/welcome.
The new site is Creative Commons licensed using an Attribution-Noncommercial license. This means that no one needs to ask us permission to reuse or adapt it for noncommercial purposes - such uses are pre-approved, as long as they provide attribution! Expect the site to change frequently - having the site in Drupal will make a big difference to the ability to keep it up-to-date and interesting! However, we do not plan to remove content without notice, so don't expect URLs to disappear or change regularly.
Many thanks to Cody Hanson and Jen Tantzen for their dedicated work and assistance with this project!
- Nancy Sims