Smith Library Center News

Get Your Google On

And Shake Your Wikipedia

Join your friendly neighborhood librarians for a class on the finer points of searching the internet’s most popular sites. Believe it or not, you can use them for academic research!

Join us for one of three classes at 12 noon
Tuesday, April 3
Wednesday, April 4
Thursday, April 5
SLC 202/204 (computer lab on the 2nd floor)

Learn these search skills and you’ll be the hippest cat at the sock hop.

On November 1st and 2nd, Dave Eggers visited campus as the 2011 The Writer’s Voice speaker. While at Southwestern, Eggers gave a public lecture (to a full Alma Thomas Theater), held a book signing, met with Philosophy and Education classes, was interviewed by a student for the Megaphone, and had lunch with a group of students. Throughout the two days on campus, many students, faculty, and staff had the opportunity to interact and ask questions of Eggers, with those discussions covering the broad range of writing, publishing, educational, and other endeavors with which Eggers is involved.

Below are a selection of photographs from Eggers’ visit to campus.

This summer, with the help of ITS, we added off-campus access to our licensed databases through the library website. Instead of needing to go through the portal when you need to access a database from off-campus , you can now simply click on any of the databases on our Databases A-Z, Databases by Subject, or Subject Guide pages; or in our various LibGuides. If you are off-campus, you will be asked to enter your SUEID and password, and will be directed to the database.

If you have any questions, contact Jesse Saunders by email, or at x1585.

Over the next couple weeks, the Smith Library Center will host focus groups to discuss the library website and gather ideas about what works and what doesn’t on various library sites as we prepare to redesign ours. Focus groups will last one hour and be held in the library. To thank you for your help, the library will add funds to your Pirate Card so you can have lunch (or just do your laundry) on us!

If you are interested in participating, please email Jesse Saunders at saunderj@southwestern.edu with the subject “Focus Groups.”

Reference Services is happy to announce a new way to connect with the Reference Desk to get assistance with your research questions. In addition to our in-person, email, phone, and instant message services, you can now obtain reference help via text message.

During regular Reference Desk hours you can send a text message to 265-010, begin your question with “sulibrarian: “, and the librarian at the Reference Desk will reply to your text. Please remember that during busy times it may take longer to answer your text message if librarians are assisting other patrons.

Details on all of our reference services can be found at Ask a Librarian.

With a number of interesting events going on around campus this semester and new work being published by Southwestern University Faculty, we have several new exhibits on display in the library.

• Dreams Were Made Here: Salons, Cabarets and Parties in 1920s Harlem–Smith Library Lobby–Featuring materials related to the Salon culture of the Harlem Renaissance in 1920s New York City.  Exhibit presented in conjunction with the upcoming Brown Symposium. Brooke Lyssy ’10 curated the exhibit.

• Brown Symposium–Periodicals Room–Features books by Brown Symposium guests, as well as the books listed in the reading list to complement this year’s symposium, “Think – Converse – Act: The Salon and Its Histories.”

• Shilling Lecture–Periodicals Room–A display to complement the Shilling Lecture, delivered by TOMS Shoes founder, Blake Mycoskie.

• Texas Cowboy Culture–Second Floor Lobby (between Library Administration and double-door entrance to Special Collections)–Features books from Special Collections and the Clark Texana Collection.  Megan Wagner ’13 curated the exhibit.

• SU Faculty Highlight–Periodicals Room–Religion Department and Philosophy Department.  The Smith Library turns to the work of our philosophy and religion faculty in this collection of books and articles.

Several updates have been made to the cluster of computers in the first floor Reference Area. The most immediate change is that, like computers in the various campus labs, these machines will now require an SUeID and password for login. By logging in with your SU account, you will have immediate access to the files in your Helios drive on the desktop of the computer.  In order to keep these documents secure, please remember to log off of the computers when you are finished working.

In addition to the login/logout change, the computers now have Microsoft Office, and the USB ports have been enabled, so you can now use these computers to edit and print Word, Excel, and Powerpoint files. Also, since your credentials will be provided at login, there will no longer be a need for a separate print login. You can simply print the items you need (with charges being applied to your Pirate Card) and pick them up in the Periodicals department.

Please note, there have been no changes to the three computers closest to Interlibrary Loan or the two public use computers behind the Reference Desk.

Over the summer break, with the help of several student workers, we moved a number of collections and rooms around the library.  The big moves of note included:

- CDs and LPs have moved to SLC 111, along with three private listening stations for CD’s, cassettes, and records.

- VHS tapes and documentary DVDs have been moved to SLC207 (formerly the Media Library/Video Viewing room).

- Video Viewing has moved to SLC225, which now has three private viewing stations with VHS and region-free DVD players, and a large flat-screen for group viewing.

- The Graphics Lab has moved to SLC203.

If you’re wondering where these rooms are, check out our updated maps at http://www.southwestern.edu/library/maps-slc.