FAQ Finals Week: Extended hours

FAQ Finals Week: Extended hours

Well, the end of the semester is upon us. There is nothing left to do except PANIC!!
FAQ empathizes with your plight -- FAQ was once a procrastinating college student, too. This too shall pass.

In an attempt to make the last week of classes and finals week slightly more bearable, the library will be offering extended hours and various distractions and amusement in the Stress Free Zone (located on the first floor, main lobby area).

Library hours April 24^th – May 4^th, 2007

Tuesday 24 April 7:30 am – 1:00 am

Wednesday 25 April 7:30 am – 1:00 am

Thursday 26 April 7:30 am – 1:00 am

Friday 27 April 7:30 am – 4:30 pm

Saturday 28 April 9:00 am – 4:30 pm

Sunday 29 April 1:30 pm – 2:00 am

Monday 30 April 7:30 am – 12:00 midnight

Tuesday 1 May 7:30 am – 12:00 midnight

Wednesday 2 May 7:30 am – 12:00 midnight

Thursday 3 May CLOSED

The 1^st floor of RLSC will be designated a Quiet study space from Noon Wednesday, May 2 - 4:30 p.m. Friday, May 4, 2007.

· Library staff will be on hand in RLSC from 8 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. to assist with research/technology assistance.

· MH 304 will be open Thursday 5/3, 8:00am – 10:30pm as well.

Friday 4 May 7:30 am – 4:30 pm

Saturday 5 May Closed - Graduation Day

Good luck with finals from the staff of the Hackelmeier Memorial Library!

Quiz Answers: Librarian -- fact, fiction or just plain freak

Answers:

1. b – Elizabeth. No, it’s true. She wasn’t Tony Hawk, but back then it was hockey or skateboarding. Which would you choose?

2. b – Tom Arendall-Salvetti. He’s a reference and instruction librarian at the Univ. of Baltimore, and a friend of Elizabeth's from her early days of library work. The others are examples of fabulous librarians in film, fiction and pop culture.

• Ruth Harrison, Reference Librarian – recurring character on A Prairie Home Companion who excels at biblio-kwan-do.
• Bunny Watson – Katherine Hepburn as glamour girl librarian in the film “Desk Set”.
• Rupert Giles – librarian and mentor to Buffy The Vampire Slayer, television series.
• Marcus – librarian character in the game Siege of Avalon.

3. c – Chadwick. As if you couldn’t guess that one.

4. a – True. No really – librarians were instructed on how to write as uniformly as possible. The pre-computer era was truly the Dark Ages.

5. c – Kelley. She says it was only once…

6. c – Belly dancing. It’s not stereotypical, but there is a growing community of belly dancing information professionals out there, shifting books and shaking hips. Gone are the days of glasses on a chain and sensible shoes. Well, depends on your definition of “sensible”…

Check out http://valinor.ca/waycool.html to find out more about librarians bucking the stereotypes.

LIBringtones - Free ringtones for National Library Week

In honor of National Library week we want to give you some free ringtones for your cell phone. You’d be surprised what we can do in our Digital Media Center.

Ringtone 1 – Listen to it and send to your phone HERE.

Michael, from “The Office” talking about Wikipedia.
Remember that this clip is satire. Wikipedia is a great place to start, and find keywords, but is not considered an authoritative source for the very reason Michael gives here.

Watch the Two Minute episode summary by clicking on the image:


Ringtone 2 – Listen to it and send to your phone HERE.

Taken from a Monty Python skit (series 1, episode 10) where the library administration
is interviewing a gorilla for the position of Librarian.

Watch the whole skit by clicking on the image:

Ringtone 3 – Listen to it and send to your phone HERE.

Taken from a 1946 US government career film titled, “Your Life Work: Librarian”.
Really funny from today’s perspective. No mention of SMART boards at all. J

Watch the whole 10 minute film by clicking on the image:

There are NO fees for the tones themselves, but the standard download fee from your phone’s service provider will apply. Check with them if you aren’t sure what that is. Usually not very much and these are small files. ENJOY!

National Coin Week "Coin Drop" in Library

Each year during the third week of April, the American Numismatic Association celebrates National Coin Week with exhibits, presentations and other activities at civic centers, libraries, and schools to let the world know about the joys of collecting and studying coins, paper notes, and other forms of money.

Each National Coin Week has a theme chosen to engage people in learning more about money’s role in culture, art, history and science.

The 2007 National Coin Week theme "The Presidents are Coming!" celebrates the United States Mint's Presidential $1 Coin Program which begins in 2007. The Mint is honoring our Nation's Presidents by issuing $1 circulating coins featuring images of the Presidents in the order they served, beginning with Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Madison in 2007.
The $1 coins feature the Statue of Liberty on the reverse; and, the mottos "In God We Trust" and "E Pluribus Unum," the date and mintmark on the edge.

This year Marian College will participate in the ANA National Coin Week with a “Coin Drop.” This coin drop will involve plastic tokens dropped in the Library, P.E. Center, and Ruth Lilly Student Center, Monday thru Friday, 16-20 April. The tokens will be easily recognized by the words “ANA National Coin Week” on one side. If you find one of the tokens, come to Campus Operations, turn in the token and receive a newly minted Washington Presidential Dollar. The first of the dollars to be minted for this Presidential Coin series.

FAQ Friday: What's with the (obnoxious) buzzer, anyway?

Lately, FAQ has noticed that the library has become a second home for many students. That’s fabulous, glad you found a corner (or a table, or a couch) to call your own. After all, that’s why the library is here. Along with increasing traffic, we have noticed a corresponding increase in questions. FAQ is here to answer one that has come up virtually every day since classes resumed after spring break (and fairly frequently before then, too).

Q: What’s that noise? What does that buzzer/bell/ringing mean? Is it a fire alarm?

Basically the same question, asked in different ways.

A: It’s the closing bell.

But what does THAT mean to ME, you ask? It’s pretty simple.

The closing bell (or buzzer, or whatever you want to call the strident noise) signifies that the library will be closing soon. The buzzer goes off twice – 15 minutes prior to closing time, then again briefly when the library is officially closed. We ring the bell to remind everyone that it’s time to start about packing up. If you hear it the second time around, you are about to be locked in the building.

The bell is serious business. The library staff can’t run around personally notifying every person in the building that closing time is near, that’s just not efficient staff usage and let’s face it -- we’re all adults. We don’t have a public address system either, so we can’t personalize the closing process (really, you should be thankful we can’t do that).

PAY ATTENTION TO THE BELL

• When you hear it, be aware that it’s time to finish what you are working on, not start something new. The closing process begins when that bell rings, and we don’t generally offer extensions.
  
  
• If you plan to check materials out, consider taking care of that before you hear the bell, just in case there might be any problems (fines, etc) to resolve.
  
  
• When you hear the bell, it is the time to save your work, print what you need, and log off the computers. And remember, the computers are primarily for academic work. Don’t expect anyone to be happy about waiting around while you finish updating your Facebook or MySpace page after the closing bell sounds.

FAQ realizes how this all sounds – militant, and vaguely Pavlovian. Maybe that’s true, but when library services end, the building closes and everyone has to leave. You don’t have to go home, but you can’t stay here.

Please, pay attention to the bell. If you don’t, we might have to resort to something stronger, like water balloons. Or Tazers.

Take a Study Break with Scribbler

Head full of facts? Hands numb from writing? Eyes heavy from sleep? Take a few minutes to stop your research and make some art.

Scribbler is a "generative illustration toy" that starts out looking like MS Paint. Use the cursor to draw whatever you want and then start the process.

Scribbler starts filling in lines and making connections that you may not have even realized were there. It makes even the most basic haphazard lines look like it might be able to hang in a contemporary art museum. I am sure you could get some really neat images from this.

You can play with the settings if you want to go pro, and just do a print screen and paste into Microsoft's Paint program that is on every PC in campus to crop and save as a JPEG.

You can stop it at any point in the process if you like what you see or let it continue to see where it's going. Enjoy Web 2.0