USF Student Creative Activity and Research Day

USF’s Creative Activity and Research Day (CARD) is this Friday, April 19th in Fromm Hall. This annual one-day conference celebrates the research, artistic, and creative work of USF undergraduate and graduate students. It is a great way for students to present the results of their hard work and showcase their knowledge outside of the classroom. Student talks start this Friday at 10:00a and can be heard  continuously until 3:00p. The poster sessions begin at 11:00a. The full schedule can be found on the College of Arts and Sciences CARD website.

CARD 2012 Student Research Presentation

One way the Gleeson Library | Geschke Learning Resource Center supports CARD – we archive digital records of many of the student presentations and posters. Anyone can browse the 2012 and 2013 CARD presentations stored in the Gleeson Library Scholarship Repository.

This year will be another great event!  We hope to see you there on Friday and if you’re presenting give us a shout out in the comments section below.

Finding Ireland

Gleeson Library is thrilled to co-sponsor an evening with poet Richard Tillinghast:

Finding Ireland: A Poet’s Explorations Of Irish Literature and Culture Thursday, April 4 Berman Room, Fromm Hall 5-6:30 pm. Booksigning and reception to follow in the Thacher Gallery, Gleeson Library-Geschke Center.

Link

Debates in the Digital Humanities Lecture

Gleeson Library Rare Book Room 3rd Floor. Feb 7th. Twitter #USFDH http://bit.ly/X9K76O

The University of San Francisco will be hosting a lecture and reception with Matthew Gold, Editor of Debates in the Digital Humanities (U of Minnesota Press, 2012).

Happy Birthday Charles Dickens

Today (February 7, 2012) is the 200th anniversary of Dickens’ birth. To show a little love for Dickens, I went up to the Rare Book Room and took photos of 2 items from the Gleeson Library Rare Book Room collection. The first two photos are illustrations from Bleak House and the third is a photo of the first edition of Bleak House in original unbound parts. Both of these items and others by Dickens are available to view in the Rare Book Room - please stop by and take a look!

Image from Dickens' Bleak House

 

iPad and Kindle Updates – Good News!

The iPads and the Kindle have been extremely popular. Thank you! Two things we’ve heard from people who have checked them out from the library so far – they are difficult to get and the reservation process is confusing. We hear you. To make borrowing one of these devices a little easier:

1. We have ordered 2 more iPads.
2. We are changing how you request to borrow iPads and Kindles.
3. The loan period will change from 5 days to 7.

The 2 new iPads should be here late January or early February. This will bring the total number of iPads to five.

Starting tomorrow, all you will have to do to request one of these devices is search library catalog for iPad or Kindle and click on the “Request It” button.

Clicking “Request It” will place a hold on the item for you. When your turn comes around we will email you a note asking you to swing by the library and pick up the device.

We hope these changes make things a bit easier and as always let us know what you think in the comments.

Happy Holidays!

Good luck on finals and have a great winter break. If you’re graduating – congratulations!!

USF’s Digital Media Productions Class Captures Gleeson

Moat by danisabella (CC via Flickr)

David Silver’s Digital Media Productions class (#dmp10 on Twitter) has been shooting the library as part of a class assignment. The photos have been amazing. But more importantly, their insights into how Gleeson Library fits into their lives on campus are inspiring. From banned books to studies in color and texture, they have captured the library as unique, vibrant and alive. Many of the photos were added to the Gleeson photo pool on Flickr – take a look!

 

The iPads Are Here!

Its official! Starting October 1, 2010 USF students, faculty and staff can check out an Apple iPad from the Gleeson Library circulation desk.

The iPads will circulate for 5 days and you can read all the fine print here. If all three of the iPads are all checked out, you can make a reservation (booking) for a future date.

There are a few apps, books (including the Library Book Club selections) and other resources on the devices now. Based on your feedback (see survey below) we’ll be adding more resources soon.

We’ve built a very brief online survey – please let us know what you think of the iPad and our efforts to bring new technology (like the Kindle) to the library.

Who’s the next mayor of Gleeson Library?

If you aren’t familiar with Foursquare, the social media location-based game, a brief explanation comes from their website: “We’re all about helping you find new ways to explore the city. We’ll help you meet up with your friends and let you earn points and unlock badges for discovering new places, doing new things and meeting new people.” Foursquare is not only a great way to explore San Francisco, it is also a fun and easy way to explore USF and connect with other Dons.

Just getting started with Foursqaure? Once you’re on Foursquare via your smartphone (iPhone, Android, Blackberry), be sure to connect with your friends (via email, Twitter, Facebook) and meet new Dons along the way. When you check into a location, you’ll see who else is there at the same time and the mayor if there is one. 

One of the fun features of Foursquare (along with badges) is becoming the mayor of a location (called venues you 4SQ) you’ve checked-into. Some mayorships are easier to come by than others. For now, its much easier to become the mayor of Gleeson than it is to become the mayor of the Golden Gate Bridge. If you become the mayor of Gleeson, we’ve got a little library schwag for you – an official, limited edition Gleeson mug.

There are dozens of other locations on the USF campus in addition to Gleeson you can check-into with Foursquare. If you’re somewhere on campus that does not have a location, add it right from your smartphone!

So, let the battles for mayorships commence. For those lucky few how become the Mayor of Gleeson, we salute you. Stop by the circulation desk to pickup your schwag.

PS – Julie H. Since you’re the mayor of Gleeson right now, feel free to stop by the Circulation Desk at the library to pick up your super-awesome library mug. Yea, the mugs are that cool.

Borrow a Kindle @ Gleeson Library

Its official – students, faculty and staff can now check out a Kindle at Gleeson Library.

Because the Kindle will likely be quite popular for the next few weeks, the best way to borrow it is to make a reservation (we call it a booking). To make a booking, you need to stop by Gleeson with your OneCard and ask anyone at the circulation desk to help you. When you make your booking, we’ll tell you the date you can pick up the Kindle and you’re good to go.

The Kindle will circulate for one week. We realize that 5 days is not long enough for many to read an entire novel and it is certainly not enough time to read everything we’ve pre-loaded on the Kindle. For now, that’s the best we can do – we only have one Kindle for everyone at USF.  That’s where your feedback comes in. If enough folks enjoy using the Kindle and tell us via our online survey, we’ll have the info we need make a case to buy more.

The Kindle will come pre-loaded with a selection of books and other reading materials. If there is something you’d like us to have on the device you can let us know in the user survey or just shoot me an email. I can’t promise that the library will be able to get a hold of everything that’s requested – but either way your feedback is key to the success of this pilot program.

Enjoy!

P.S. Next up, iPads! Stay tuned for more info in the coming weeks.

Quick Response Codes

By now you might have seen a few of these funny looking things around Gleeson Library or the Lone Mountain Reading Room.  They are called Quick Response (QR) codes. When scanned by a smart phone you can download all sorts of information. For example, if you scan the code to the right with your smart phone, you’ll get the hours for Gleeson Library. Most of the applications that scan QR codes allow you to save the information you download to your smart phone.

The QR code below will take you to an information page for the group study rooms at Gleeson. Once you’ve scanned the QR code, you can save all you need to know about our group study rooms and you can take that info with you wherever you take your smart phone.

Gleeson has created a few of these codes and placed them in various locations in the library and the Lone Mountain Reading Room. Look for more as we continue developing our QR program.

A few of the QR code reader apps you can download to your smart phone include:

iPhone
Android
Palm OS
Blackberry
Nokia

Some of these apps will also allow you to create your own QR codes from URL’s, phone numbers, email addresses etc. or you can use a web-based tool to create QR codes.

I have only used iPhone apps, so I can’t vouch for the others. There are many different apps, some are free and others might include advertisements or cost a few dollars. Please post any additional info about QR apps, corrections on app availability or other things you find out about them in the comments.

Give QR codes a try and let us know what you think!

The Crisis in Higher Education: A Reading List

I am confident that we are of a size and nimbleness that allow us to capitalize on the positive underpinnings beneath an iceberg that most folks can only see the tip of. This is a time for vision, imagination, energy and action tempered by a prudence that capitalizes on latent opportunities without jeopardizing the enterprise or compromising our mission of educating leaders to fashion a more humane and just world.

Rev. Stephen A. Privett, S.J., USF Town Hall Meeting April 2009

With the goal of providing additional context to the ongoing crisis in higher education, Gleeson Library has collected a set of articles and other resources that discuss the current state of budgeting, enrollment management, endowments and other topics from institutions with budgeting challenges similar to the ones we face at USF. This list is just a start. If you have other articles you’d like to see on this page, please let us know in the comments below.

APA Publication Manual Sixth Edition Corrections

The American Psychological Association (APA) recently published a new, sixth edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. You can find a copy of the manual at the library reference desk, on course reserve, and in the Gleeson library online catalog.

Shortly after the new edition was released, news began to circulate about errors in the manual. You can read more background on the errors here and here.

APA Style issued a set of corrections [PDF document] late last week.

Mary Lynn Skutley, Editorial Director, APA Books wrote in a recent email:

We realize that, by listing all corrections in one document, we created a sense that all were significant errors.  While any error is regrettable, that is not the case.  To clarify this, we have reposted the corrections according to category.

You will see that, of the 188 APA Style rules, two errors were made.  You will also see that, of close to 1,000 examples that illustrate various style rules in the book, 36 errors were made, and half of these have been corrected [emphasis added] in the form of new sample papers and posted on the internet where they are available for download.

While many who have purchased copies of the new Publication Manual are less than pleased with the first printing of the sixth edition, there is no indication that APA will publish a revised edition anytime soon.

Gleeson has printed copy of the corrections, and the document is available at the reference desk.

Congratulations Graduates!

On behalf of the Gleeson Library | Geschke Learning Resource Center it is my pleasure to extend an enthusiastic congratulation to the University of San Francisco’s 2009 graduating class. We applaud your achievements, and wish you great opportunities and success in your future endeavors.

2008 USF Graduation :: Photo by Sarainsanfran via Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarainsanfran/2498837354/)

Tyrone H. Cannon Ed. D.,
Dean, University Libraries

Did you know you can still use the Gleeson Library as an alumnus? Sign up for an Alumni Special Access ($20) or Borrowing Card ($50) – stop by the Gleeson Library Circulation Desk to request an Alumni Card. Annually renewed Alumni special borrower cards provide you with continued access to the Gleeson Library. To learn more about Library services and resources available to alumni, check out the libraries Alumni information page.

Civil Rights Digital Libraries Enhance Americans’ Understanding of Important Era

The Civil Rights Digital Library (CRDL) is a comprehensive civil rights Web site and portal hosted by the University of Georgia Libraries. CRDL is a partnership among librarians, technologists, archivists, educators, scholars, academic publishers, and public broadcasters.

From the CRDL/University of Georgia Web site:

“The struggle for racial equality in the 1950s and 1960s is among the most far-reaching social movements in the nation’s history, and it represents a crucial step in the evolution of American democracy. The Civil Rights Digital Library promotes an enhanced understanding of the Movement by helping users discover primary sources and other educational materials from libraries, archives, museums, public broadcasters, and others on a national scale.”

One of the many amazing resources available from CRDL is a 1971 clip of civil rights activist Andrew Young predicting the election of an African American president in his lifetime.

Enjoy the resource and please let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.