InfoShare

Today's Meeting Cancelled

With so many people away today, today's reference meeting has been cancelled.

Researching Aboriginal Ancestry at the NLC

The National Library has developed a guide to help researchers undertaking aboriginal genealogical research in the archival records at Library and Archives Canada. It is particularly useful when consulting the records relating to Indian Affairs (RG10).

Network settings changed for Scholar (Cybrary)

I've changed some of the networking properties on Scholar, which hosts Cybrary. If you experience problems connecting/accessing Cybrary via the Web, let Grant or Michael know.

Sherri sick today

I'm sick and won't be coming in today (Friday Feb 27).

Ebsco - Full Text limiter

I made a small adjustment to the Ebsco profile -- the fulltext limiter will not appear anymore on the basic search screen, but you can still get it in the Advanced search screen.

I did this to help prevent people from assuming that "clicking fulltext" limits to fulltext, when in fact in Ebsco and Proquest it may be eliminating potential fulltext obtained from "Ask Godot".

Comments / questions? Let them fly :)

Sherri sick today

I'm sick and won't be coming in today (Thursday Feb 26).

Alternative Press Index Broken Link

Students are being asked to log in.

Sherri sick today

I'm sick and won't be coming in today (Wednesday Feb 25). I am scheduled to be on the desk from 10:30 - 12:00 - I'd be happy to swap with anyone who is able to cover.

What, exactly, is a JPEG?

---Pasted from Tim's email---

" ...what, exactly, Is a JPEG?" A follow-on question from the last tip
of the week (using DAVE R to scan images.)

When you save a scanned image, there are a number of formats that you
can save it in. Here is a brief rundown of some of the most popular file
formats used with most scanners . . .

BMP (BitMaP): BMP files are a standard format for Windows (for
example, Windows wallpaper uses BMP images). While still commonly used,
BMP files are too large for Web use, and have been supplanted by other
formats for use in high-quality graphics.

GIF (Graphics Interchange Format): This is pronounced either "Jif" or
"Gif" , depending on where you heard it first. GIFs are widely used for
Web site graphics. However, this format only uses 8-bit colour (in other
words, up to 256 colours), as opposed to JPEG's 24-bit colour capacity
(over 16 million colours!). As a result, it is usually recommended that
simpler graphics, such as charts, be saved as GIF files, while
photographs should be saved as JPEG files.

JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group): Usually pronounced Jay-Peg,
this is a popular standard that provides relatively little perceptible
loss in image quality. JPEG is used a great deal for Web site graphics;
it is also useful for emailing photos or other images.

PNG (Portable Networks Graphics): A relatively recent development,
PNG offers good compression and 48-bit color. With JPEG and GIF, it is
one of the three formats most suitable for Web sites, and in fact is
expected to eventually replace GIF. It is not yet as popular as the
other formats, however.

TIFF (Tagged Image File Format): This is a very widely used format
that handles a wide variety of image types, including monochrome,
grayscale, and 24-bit color. TIFF files offer high-quality images, but
TIFF files tend to be large. As a result, while TIFF files are suitable
for high-quality photos and other images, they cannot be used for Web
sites, and should NOT be sent via email!

Hopefully this helps you to decide on just what format to use when
saving those pictures of your pet fish. And when in doubt, just save it
as a JPEG.

Criminal Justice Abstracts not working?

***I should add that this problem seems to come and go (re: Mark's comment), and doesn't always present itself. ***

I've dealt with a couple of students over the past week or so who have had the same problem when trying to use Criminal Justice Abstracts. Normally what happens is that the database allows you to do a search, but if you try to view a complete record, it brings up an error screen with 'webspirs error' or something like that.

This is now more than an occasional flukey problem, as I see from the LiveHelp transcripts that the evening vref people have also had questions from students encountering the same thing. It has also happened to me here from my office computer. Has anyone else had this problem?

Meeting - Feb 27

Hi all:

Please send me other agenda items, but we'll start with your homework assignment: top three things that you think frustrate students.

John -- could you show us the interface for CUFTS?

And, we'll review the Database of the Week project.

Karen

Human Rights database

I thought this might be useful - we may also want to link this in the DB list. If you read the review listed below note that the proper URL is http://www.hurisearch.org/.

Mark

HUMAN AND CIVIL RIGHTS : DATABASES: SOCIAL SCIENCES: Tool for Searching
Human Rights Information on the Web

Thanks to George Lessard for posting a request from this organization for
feedback on their database on the MediaMentor discussion group.

From: George [s] Lessard
Date: Sat Feb 21, 2004 12:43 am
Subject: Tool for Searching Human Rights Information on the Web

Acrobat and RealPlayer Modifications

Carmine and Neil will be making some changes to the new(est) Dells this morning.

There have been some printing issues with PDF's. One site in particular (http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~uminch/uwpg-inverts.html), crashes the browser each time you go to print from any of the Dell's (seems to be something with MSIE and Acrobat 6 opening as a plug-in). Carmine and Neil will be reconfiguring MSIE/Acrobat on the Dell's to allow Acrobat to open on it's own. The appears to be a sufficient workaround for getting a few of these problem PDFs to print.

Carmine and Neil will also uninstall the Real Alternative and install Real One Player Gold version 2. There have been problems with at least one site (CBC Newscast) being able to only stream the audio element while the video stream only loads one image. The Real Alternative (for anyone interested) is a Real Player that should allow Real Media (.rm) files to be played using Windows Media Player.

Hopefully that should resolve the more apparent issues with the new stations for now. Please let libsystems know if there are any other issues.

Interesting Guide to Finding Images

I thought this might be of interest for those image quests. I also remember that this was a popular question at a previous Institute. I suspect Faculty in particular have in interest in easy ways to find images.

http://www.tasi.ac.uk/resources/searchingresources.html

Topic-based 2001 Census Tabulations

http://www12.statcan.ca/english/census01/products/standard/themes/index.cfm

Or from the Census page, choose Data, then Topic-based tabulations or Profiles.

Beginning July 16, 2002, this series of tables will paint a portrait of Canada based on various topics, that is on groups of variables on related subjects. They will be available for various levels of geography. Some tables will provide a simple overview of the country; others will consist of three or four cross-tabulated variables; and still others will be of special or analytic interest.

In addition, a profile of language characteristics, for Canada, provinces, territories, census divisions, census subdivisions and dissemination areas is available for a fee (costs vary depending on geography level) in Beyond 20/20 format.

1. A Profile of the Canadian Population: Where We Live
2. Age and Sex
3. Marital Status of Canadians
4. Families and Household Living Arrangements
5. Housing
6. Language Composition of Canada
7. Canadians on the Move
8. Immigration and Citizenship
9. Ethnocultural Portrait of Canada
10. Aboriginal Peoples of Canada
11. Canada's Workforce: Paid Work
12. Canada's Workforce: Unpaid Work
13. Place of Work
14. Commuting to Work
15. Language Use at Work
16. Education in Canada: School Attendance and Levels of Schooling
17. Education in Canada: Major Fields of Study
18. Earnings of Canadians
19. Income of Individuals, Families and Households
20. Social and Economic Characteristics of Individuals, Families and Households
21. Religions in Canada

DAVE R.'s mouse

DAVE R.'s mouse has been replaced. Must have crawled away somehow.

EZProxy Update

Our proxy software has been updated on Mercury. We were running version 2.0e of EZProxy on Mercury and we were testing version 2.2e of EZProxy on Infovortex, but we actually upgraded to version 2.4b yesterday (Thurs., Feb. 19th). This version was released on Monday, Feb. 15th and though the version numbering would seem quite different, there is not a great deal of difference between the 2.2e version and the 2.4b version. There was a great deal of difference between the 2.0e version and 2.2e version and that's what took so long to get the proxy configuration file updated.

Anyway, as I said above, there doesn't appear to be any major bugs/issues with the current 2.4b version. We did have an error with the proxy.cfm file on Cybrary that is used to control/send people to the proxy (when off-campus). John fixed the error this morning so that shouldn't be an issue.

If you are contacted by patrons who are off-campus and are experiencing problems with the proxy, we still have the copy on Infovortex and they can use that as we will continue updating configuration files on both servers for the next few days. To access the proxy on Infovortex, they should prefix the subscription database URL (address) with http://infovortex.uwinnipeg.ca:2048/login?url= (rather than the mercury prefix (http://mercury.uwinnipeg.ca:2048/login?url= or http://cybrary.uwinnipeg.ca/proxy.cfm?url= prefix)

Please report any problems with the Proxy to John Dobson or libsystems@uwinnipeg.ca

Tim is sick today

Tim is away sick today (Fri. Feb. 20th).

-- Michael

Do Web search engines suppress controversy?

There is an interesting article in Volume 9, Number 1 (January 5th 2004) of FirstMonday:
Do Web search engines suppress controversy? by Susan L. Gerhart

Gerhart argues that the ranking strategies of search engines such as Google, Teoma and AllTheWeb tend to "lead to organizationally dominated search results depriving searchers of a richer experience and, sometimes, of essential decision-making information." The topics that she used in this paper included distance learning, Albert Einstein, female astronauts, St. John's Wort and Belize. She proposes a model for a more "objective' web.

A recent (and somewhat more light-hearted) example of search engine ranking gone awry is the story of the George Bush Google bomb.

North America Snow Cover

Terra/MODIS is the satellite/instrument that I used to work with. They now have about 4 yrs of data since launch/activation and have produced this nice snow cover map for 4 years.

Looks like a bit less coverage this year, but we know where a good deal of it piled up. The snow dump on Kenaston should still apear on this map in August ;)

New Computers

15 New Dell Computers (yeah!) have arrived. Despite arriving at the end of Jan., they weren't expected to be setup until mid-/end of March; however, with Reading Week being a bit slow for Help Desk calls, Carmine and Neil found time to get them set up.

LIB07-LIB12 and LIB16-LIB24 are all new and replace the Mind PC's that were there (11 of the old Mind's will be placed elsewhere for the public in the Library, but more on that later). The print by default to Libref1 (the new printer) and can also print to Libref2 (the old AP4500) as the Mind's did. LIB13-LIB15 and LIB25 print to both printers as well with Libref1 as the default. All the old Dell's in Reference and the LC Lab and SMG Dell's print to Libref2 only (and the colour printer, but that's no longer "available"). The Older Dell's in the Reference and LC Dell's will be configured for the Libref1 printer as soon as our printer trial is over.

These machines are a bit faster then the other Dell's we have (LIB01-LIB06 and LIB55). The new ones have 256MB of memory (2 x 128MB Dual In-Line Memory Module - so very fast! - versus the 256MB DDR style memory in LIB01-LIB06 and the 192MB or less of SDRAM memory that was in the Minds), 2.2GHz processor (versus 2.0GHz or 2000MHz on LIB01-LIB06 and 400MHz on the old Minds. Hard drive space is not really relevant, but all have CD-RW (burner) drives as well as USB ports at the front for those geeky students who may have USB Memory Keys.

The software set-up/environment is basically the same as the LIB01-LIB06 and LIB55 Dells and the LIB50-LIB54 Reference Express Workstations. The most noticable differences are that the Real Player isn't the Real Player but a Windows Media Player plugin (if anyone has tried to get Real Player installed recently, you'll understand why), Ad-Aware is installed and available under the programs meno, but any ad software that is added would be deleted with DeepFreeze on the Reboot, and MS Outlook is installed, but it's a Windows thing that won't go away and patrons shouldn't try to use it.

Tim will finish with the signage and putting headphones on each station and wire ties, etc. on for security. If there are any problems with the PCs, please contact the Help Desk and CC libsystems.

LIB13-LIB15 and LIB25 (Accessibility workstation) and LIB26 (Reserves express terminal) and LIB27 (DAVE R. ) and LIB28 (Archives express terminal) are still old Minds that need to be replaced - hopefully during the next budget year (in YR 4 of the UWin program).

If you're confused, feel free to follow-up. I think it's unfortunate we couldn't have the software and hardware being more homogeneous for our reference workstations, but hopefully we can in the long run - at least we have new workstations (for the most). That's probably better than waiting for TSC/Sr. Admin to get things working a bit better on the UWin program.

Archives & Records closing early today

Jude has advised that they will be closing at 4:30 today.

Library Catalogue - Shelving Status

Grant has found some setting in Innopac for returned book. Over the next few days he'll be playing around with the settings.

For example, when a Main Stacks book has been returned, it will say "Recently Returned" for 3 hours, and for 24 hours it will say "Reshelving".

Let me know if you notice any problems or have other ideas for wording / timing.

Karen

STATISTICS CANADA PRESENTS: SOCIAL TRENDS IN CANADA, FOCUS ON WINNIPEG

---Pasted from email to UofW news from Annette Elvers---

STATISTICS CANADA PRESENTS: SOCIAL TRENDS IN CANADA, FOCUS ON WINNIPEG

A half-day seminar presented by Dr. Doug Norris

SEMINAR TOPICS INCLUDE:
- 2001 Census Data
- Population, family/household change
- Education and Occupation
- Employment labour, place of work
- Ethnic diversity, immigration
- And much more . . .

To Register Click on this link:
http://209.123.49.177/~statcan/presentations/focusonwinnipeg.pdf

LOCATION
Winnipeg Convention Centre
Presentation Theatre
375 York Avenue
Winnipeg, Manitoba

DATE
Tuesday March 16, 2004

From 9:30A.M.-12:00P.M.
COST
$175 For Regular Admission
$150 For Early Bird
(If paid before March 1, 2004)

Refreshments and information package
will be provided for all attendees.

For more information Please Contact:

Statistics Canada
Suite 200, 123 Main St.
Winnipeg, Manitoba R3C 4V9
Phone: 204 983 7218
Fax: 204 983 7543
Email: steven.isfeld@statcan.ca

Tim Sick today

Tim is sick today (Wednesday, Feb 18).

Directory of Open Access Journals Improved

From DOAJ News:

New improved DOAJ

We are pleased to announce the new improved version of DOAJ:

DOAJ is now OpenURL-compliant.
This is how to link to a journal title in DOAJ:
http://www.doaj.org/openurl?genre=journal&issn=14726920

GODOT question

One of the staff submitted the following question to me about GODOT, which may be worth sharing here; I have slightly abridged the question and my answer.

Question: "I was dealing with a patron who was searching for a journal article. When she ran a GODOT search it showed that the UW didn't have it, but then when she hit REQ it gave her a warning that it might be in our library, although it's not. I told her to go ahead and request anyway, but I thought you should know."

My answer: "This situation is caused when we happen to have a book with the exact same title as the journal. If GODOT can't match a journal request using the ISSN, it reverts to a title search, in which case it isn't able to tell whether the item is a journal or not. The message suggesting that the item might be available in our collection is therefore somewhat misleading, but unavoidable. So your advice to the patron to ignore the message and order the item was correct."

John

Persistent Links in EBSCOhost

Thanks to Karen Hunt, who figured out how to do it, the "persistent links" generated in EBSCOhost now incorporate the EZproxy URL prefix. For professors wishing to create links to electronic articles in a study guide, or for students needing to create meaningful citations in a bibliography, persistence is a crucial consideration, and Reference staff should be prepared to offer explanation or assistance. For more information on the subject see Linking to a journal article in a database.

Firefox - browser

This is a browser you may want to try out (it was mentioned at the meeting on Friday).

Adding database trials to the website (correction)

One final (I hope) correction to the previous message, concerning the creation of entries for database trials in the Database Maintainance Module:

Previously, I wrote: If the trial is password protected, the access rights should be listed as "free" (so that the resource will NOT be proxied).

This wasn't a very logical process, so to accomodate these and other databases which are password-protected (as opposed to IP-authenticated), I have added a third access category, "U. of W. subscription BUT DO NOT PROXY." These databases will show up correctly in the public interface as being "subscription," but will not have the proxy-server prefix added to their URLs.

Incidentally, the Winnipeg Free Press also requires this "DO NOT PROXY" designation, but for a somewhat different reason: the password is passed via the proxy server, requiring all requests to be proxied. Therefore, the URL has the prefix http://mercury.uwinnipeg.ca:2048/login?url= hard-coded at the beginning, forcing the proxy server to be invoked regardless of whether the request originates from on or off campus. It therefore must not be handled the same way as other subscription databases, or the URL would get wrapped again, causing the proxy server to attempt to proxy the mercury.uwinnipeg.ca host, which would be undesirable.

Don't worry too much if you don't understand the last paragraph; it isn't particularly important.

Thanks,
John

World Bank: Globalization

http://www1.worldbank.org/economicpolicy/globalization/

Is this information useful in Infoshare rather than in "favourites" or our own e-mail files?

"The word globalization is thrown around with reckless abandon by
numerous parties these days, and as a result, the very notion of such a
force is somewhat elusive. While this website from the World Bank may
not end all of the fierce academic and pragmatic debates that rage on
about globalization, it does offers some perspective from this
organization on this wide-ranging phenomenon. The site itself contains
audio and video selections, issue briefs, a data and statistics section,
and an area dedicated to current research on the subject underway by the
World Bank. The issue briefs are definitely worth a look as they address
such questions as What is Globalization? and Does More International
Trade Openness Increase World Poverty? The selection of videos is also
quite nice, particularly a recent talk by Michael Moore (the former
director-general of the World Trade Organization) entitled Globalization
& Development: Its Implications & Institutions."

Reviewed by:
The Scout Report
http://scout.wisc.edu/
Copyright Internet Scout Project 1994-2003
[Volume 10, Number 6 - February 13, 2004]

Location codes used in library catalogue

---Pasted from John's email---

At Sandra's request, I have created a list of location codes used in
the catalogue, at

http://cybrary.uwinnipeg.ca/find/opac/location_codes.cfm

It is linked to from the main OPAC page (at the very bottom). If
anyone has suggestions re the content, or how better to link to it, please
let me know.

Thanks to Susan for supplying the list.

Newsfeed Info

Here is the Government of Canada website on RSS:
http://news.gc.ca/cfmx/CCP/view/en/index.cfm?categoryid=12&category=Choose%20Your%20News

hungry

Did you know that a giraff has more than one stomach?

fun fun fun

til her daddy takes the T-Bird away

Valentine's day tomorrow

Don't forget chocolates for Mark.

All about Beer

Faculty club

Agenda - Feb 13, 2004

1. InfoShare Training Session
2. PubMed versus Medline update
3. Trials and New Databases
4. Course Help Updates
• Cultural Geography Assignment (Selwood)
• Greek and Roman Society Assignment
• English I (Catherine Hunter)
5. Top Frustrations

Notes from January 16 2004 meeting

Our next Reference Meeting will be on February 13 at 3:00 in the Learning Commons. The meeting will adjourn at 4:00 to the Faculty Club if you're interested in joining us.

The agenda for the January 16 meeting was posted at Reference Meetings, But I think we can start using the Blog to post agendas and notes (minutes).

These are the notes I have from the Jan 16 meeting:

1. Disability Resource Centre
   • Services available from the Library
   • Information for students
   • Differently abled students can be referred to Linda Dixon or for more straight technical issues or fetching issues Tim Allen can be contacted. John mentioned the VisuNet training he attended with Linwood.
   • Karen created a page for these services, which needs to be fleshed out -
     
     
2. Circulation - News / Issues (Pat)
• Pat suggested that email is not the best way for students to get their PINs changed -- not immediate
• Lois asked Pat about the timing for Holds (when are they actually processed). Right now it is the morning, but Pat is meeting with Grant to go over the possibilities in Innopac
  Media - News / Issues (Jim)
• Jim has has a cell phone
• Reminder that non-public records for DVDs and videos are in the staff only area
  
  
3. Reference Statistics

• Simplified form
• Online collection (once a day)
• We decided to use the simplified form, starting in April (new fiscal year)
  
  
1. Staff Training Schedule / Ideas
   • Meetings -- how often versus training
   • Every 2 weeks for meeting to alternate with training sessions
     
     
2. Desk setup
   • is OK
     
     
     
3. TABLED Database Updates
   • Silverplatter - WebSpirs 5
   • Proquest - direct export to Refworks now working
     
     
4. eManual update
   • Check Course Help for assignment information
     
5. TABLED InfoShare - update
   
   
6. Other Stuff
   • Database of the Week - more to come . . .
     
     
     

Dan Stone's 4th year History Assignment: Trouble with Microfilm Scanning Assignment

---Pasted from Peter's email---

*Note to ref staff: Students can also convert tif to pdf on Dave-R

Dan: I know your students are in doing their microfilm assignment once
again and there is a caution I would ask that you pass along to some of
them (at least two of your students will have tales on this matter).
Those who are scanning microfilm to disk should limit the size of their
files to perhaps 25-30 scans/pages, and certainly not more than 50
images per file. There is no reason not to create multiple files when
doing the assignment.
The trouble a few of your students have had is that they have scanned
perhaps 140-165 pages into a single file, which makes for a very large
file (in the neighbourhood of 50 megabytes). Such a large file is very
difficult to open and to manipulate -- if any complain that they have
these large files they will want to covert them to 'pdf' format which
can be done on a computer that has a full Adobe Acrobat software
package. Computers in the Learning Commons are so equipped, but not
those in the Reference Department of the Library. We can do the
conversion in the Archives for those who are having problems, but in
future all students should bear in mind that large 'tif' files are BAD
THINGS, and small 'tif' files are the way to go.
Thanks, Dan.
Peter

ProFusion

http://www.profusion.com/

I was updating a course help page and was reviewing what ProFusion has to offer. It looks like they've made a lot of improvements.

Karen

EZProxy Testing and Upgrade

All;

We're in the process of upgrading EZProxy. John and I have installed and configured a very recent version on Infovortex (infovortex.uwinnipeg.ca). If you're off-campus and select a link from one of the databases pages (on Cybrary not as a link from the Library Catalogue/OPAC), you will will be directed to a "New Proxy Server Test" screen. The screen will provide a link to the database of choice via the test proxy server (on Infovortex) as well as a link to the database of choice via the existing proxy server (on Mercury). The "New Proxy Server Test" screen will remain open as either of the links to the databases via the proxy will open in a new browser window. The Report Problems link for the "New Proxy Server Test" screen provides a link to a Web form as well as contact information for John.

We hope most of the bugs are worked out already. I did about 2 days of testing last week. If you could try a few databases from home (via the new/test infovortex proxy) and provide any feedback, that would be appreciated. Depending on how much use the test version gets, we may look at upgrading our live/production version on Mercury as early as Saturday night.

Note: Off-campus users should definitely be using the new/test proxy on Infovortex for Web of Science and RefWorks as our current proxy on Mercury has problems proxying these databases/resources.

Cheers,

Michael

Internet Explorer causing problems for students connecting to NetMail (MyUWinnipeg)

---Pasted from Bob Emery's (TSC) email---

A recent update to Microsoft's Internet Explorer may cause some
students to be unable to access their web based NetMail from within
MyUWinnipeg. While we investigate a solution to this problem, please
advise students that they can still reach their NetMail by visiting
https://iam.uwinnipeg.ca , which has been set up as a temporary access point.

Changes to menus

I've made several changes to the menus today.

- changed "services" to "library departments"

- added more "services" under help

- added a link to InterLending under "Get"

- added link to Info Lit page under "Learn"

- added link to a new "Create your PIN" page under My Library. Created the page and created a viewlet on how to create your PIN.

Sherri and I briefly discussed, but if you have any suggestions please let me know, and then I'll send an announcement out to all staff.

Karen

Departmental name change for Justice & Law Enforcement

The Justice & Law Enforcement Departmental name has changed to Criminal Justice Studies. I have made the changes on Cybrary (i.e. Subject Guides and Databases). If anyone spots the old Departmental name kicking around, please let me know.

Reference Meeting - Feb 13 at 3:00

Our next Reference Meeting will be on February 13 at 3:00 in the Learning Commons. The meeting will adjourn at 4:00 to the Faculty Club if you're interested in joining us. The agenda for the January 16 meeting was posted at Reference Meetings, But I think we can start using the Blog to post agendas and notes (minutes). I'm working on notes from the last meeting and an agenda. Please send suggestions. When I have them done, I'll update this message.

Article Linking with GODOT/CUFTS

The GODOT/CUFTS system was recently updated to provide article-level linking with databases that support the DOI/CrossRef linking. That means we have added article-level linking for Ingenta Select, Kluwer, Science Direct (Elsevier) and Wiley - all of which were previously journal only. If you get a chance to check that these article-level links work from off-campus that would be great. If you encounter any problems let me or John know.

Scanning; Its not just for Reference Staff Anymore!

---Pasted from Tim's email---

Recently I created a How-To document on how to use the scanner attached
to the DAVE R machine in the Reference Room. It was part of a training
session for the Ref staff. It is available in the Staff only section on
our home page under "Training Tuesday Workshops" (even though it was on
a Friday...what's up with that?)
The link to the guide is here-

http://cybrary.uwinnipeg.ca/staff-only/training/20040130_DaveR/

Anyhow, I just wanted to make sure everybody knew that you can scan
from DAVE R and that we have a good step-by-step guide on how to do it.
Now there is no reason not to send those pics of the kids to aunt Hilda
in Kamchatka. (I'm sure there are work related applications as well.)
If you have any questions on how to use it, feel free to give me a call.

And just to get you started, here are two links to some good
introductory material on how to use PHOTOSHOP. Ever wonder how "The
World News" puts together those bizarro pictures? Well, this explains
it all.

http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/staff/handbook/tools/photoshop/

http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/design/graphics/tutorials/tutorial1.html

New *Free* Journal: Preventing Chronic Disease: Public Health Research, Practice, and Policy

Preventing Chronic Disease: Public Health Research, Practice, and Policy is a free-access journal published by the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion.
Volume 1: No. 1 is now available in full text (PDF).

January Live Help Statistics

January was a very busy month for Live Help - we answered 211 calls! This has been one of our busiest months (if not the busiest) yet on Live Help.

To compare, 88 calls were answered in Janurary 2003.

Human Geography Assignment

Yesterday I did a lab for a Introductory Human Geography "term assignment". The assignment was co-developed by Dr. Selwood and myself. The assignment is on a course help page http://cybrary.uwinnipeg.ca/Learn/courseHelpDisplay.cfm?helpID=83.

It involves using the UN site to get the HDI, and using the Statistics Canada web site to get provincial stats on GDP, Education, and Life Expectency. The students will also have to construct a population pyramid for Neepawa and Iqaluit.

If you have a chance to look at this and have any questions, please let me know.

Karen

New Public Printer (Update of Tim's message from Michael)

---Pasted from Michael's email---

Actually, the new printer is being phased in and the colour printer is
being phased out over a bit longer of a time period. Most if not
hopefully all the Minds will be done tomorrow, but it may be a few more
days to all the new Dells to be updated in 4th flr. Ref. area as well as
the LC SMG and LC Lab. Tim will keep you updated.

New Public Printer (update)

---Pasted from Tim's email---

The new printer is ready for Carmine to hook up the Ref. PCs. That will
probably happen tomorrow.

In the meantime, students will still see an option to print to the
colour printer, even tho it is no longer connected to the system (or
even plugged in). Paul from TSC has disabled the print release station
so that if a student does try to print to the colour printer, money
will not be subtracted from their card. All they will lose, so to
speak, will be the print job itself.

This is a temporary measure until Carmine can get the new images for
the PCs sometime tomorrow. At that time the colour print option will
disappear.

CPI-Q and The Strike

I thought this a bit odd too Paul, so did some searching and got the following:

- 11 hits by searching "winnipeg strike" in the keyword search/index
- 9 hits by searching "winnipeg general strike" in the keyword search/index
- 5 hits by searching "winnipeg and strike" in the abstract index
- 3 by searching "winnipeg general strike" in the abstract index
- 1 by searching "winnipeg general strike" the default Subject Guide search/index

From this I would make a few comments:

- Can we make the "Keyword Search" the default search in CPI-Q?
- If not, then I hope our reference staff know how to use it and let patrons know.

- I don't think one example like this is reason to question the value of an index like CPI-Q, but rather shows the value of using multiple sources. I guess that's why Ref and IL staff are there - to teach patrons the value of looking beyond one source...
- When I search "mad cow" in CPI-Q I get 285 hits, but when I search AH&L I only get 1 hit for the same keyword search. Hmmm...

It also points out the value of Reference staff sharing these kinds of experiences, especially when posted on the InfoShare BLOG. That way we can continue to benefit from these kinds of investigations! Thanks Paul...

BTW - try using the Comments link at the bottom of this entry in InfoShare if anyone has additional comments.

Mark

New public printer

---Pasted from Tim's email---

The new printer has now arrived. It is set up beside the printer
release station - BUT - it is has not been hooked up to any of our
Reference PCs. I have put a sign on it stating that it is not yet
operational and that students should get there printouts from the old
printer (which was moved over to where the colour printer used to be).
Carmine will be adding the new printer onto the PCs by the end of the
week.

The colour printer has been unplugged and moved into the corner by the
fire escape door. That way, if there is a fire, it can "accidentally"
be shoved down the stairs. Seriously, the colour printer is no longer
operational, and will be hauled away ASAP, probably by the Gold
technicians. So anyone who needs colour printouts will have to use/make
do with the little inkjet at the Reference desk...which worked %500
better than the other one anyway.

Adding database trials to the website

As I mentioned in a previous message, using the "database maintainance
module," at
http://cybrary.uwinnipeg.ca/staff-only/databases/index.cfm

staff can add information about database trials, which will show up at
http://cybrary.uwinnipeg.ca/find/db/trialDisplay.cfm

In the instructions, I stated that a trial

(a) Should be designated as a "trial" and not as an "active" database.
(b) The access rights should be stated as "subscription" (in case the
trial is IP-authenticated)

The second should have read:

(b) If the trial is password protected, the access rights should be
listed as "free" (so that the resource will NOT be proxied)
(c) If the tials is IP-authenticated (which is unlikely to happen), the
access rights should be listed as "subscription" AND JOHN DOBSON SHOULD
BE NOTIFIED TO CREATE AN ENTRY FOR THE DATABASE IN THE PROXY SERVER CONFIGURATION FILE.

Thanks,
John

ProQuest Announces Distribution Agreement for 100+ Springer-Verlag Journal Titles

ProQuest Information and Learning announces a new agreement to distribute 103 scholarly journals published by Springer-Verlag. Key titles in science, technology, medicine, economics, and business are included in the licensing agreement. Many of the journals are newly available online; other titles formerly available only through a single distributor may now be accessed in ProQuest, as well. ProQuest Information and Learning, a unit of ProQuest Company, creates and publishes databases for libraries and educational institutions worldwide.

Read more from the Press Release. . .

Web of Science Slow!

I thought I would check to see if anyone else has had problems with Web of Science...
Last week I found it extremely slow. I also had problems today in the Academic Writing Lab....

Mike Kibsey sick today

Mike Kibsey has called in sick today. Live Help and the Help Desk phone will not be monitored this evening (after 4:30 pm).

RAKIM version 0.9 on InfoVortex

Greetings All;

Just a reminder that we've switched to RAKIM v. 0.9 running on infovortex.uwinnipeg.ca - The previous version is RAKIM v. 0.8 and that was running on odin.uwinnipeg.ca - We made the switch on Tuesday, Jan 27th. You should be logging into http://livehelp.uwinnipeg.ca/librarian (you should not use the previous hostname - odin.uwinnipeg.ca - or the new hostname - infovortex.uwinnipeg.ca - to login). After you login, the header should display RAKIM (v. 0.9 on Infovortex). You should also see shared scripts and share bookmarks in the lower left panel (tools area). If you are not seeing the latest version with these characteristics, please let me know immediately.

Cheers,

Michael

LiveHelp and RefDesk Schedule

Though a bit out of Date with Linwood on sybatical and Karen L. here in the interim, I thought it'd be handy to have a link to the Reference Schedule posted: http://cybrary.uwinnipeg.ca/services/reference/ref_sched.htm. I've also added a link to the Links under Reference Schedule to the right.

Interlending

This from Pat Russell - new procedures for InterLibrary loans - Students will be notified by email when their item is received, but they might get the email before the item travels from ILL office to circulation.

Karen

-------

-- cut from Pat R's email

The Interlending unit is now on a new system. The emails for item pickup
will be sent immediately and then the items are brought to Circulation.
The articles will be located in the basket by the boxes in alphabetical
order to be filed into the envelopes. The books will also be brought
when the emails are sent. That means there will be a number of drops by
Heather and Lynne during the day. Please be careful of the books. About
5 books the other day were filed onto our book cart instead of being
filed under the counter.

Training Materials

I've added a link to the Training Materials - http://cybrary.uwinnipeg.ca/staff-only/training/ on the links part of the blog.