You are currently browsing the monthly archive for January, 2008.
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Fired up about reading?
If you’ve read a good book lately AND the MW library has a copy of it, stop by to dash off a quick recommendation on a green and gold Dragons Recommend card.
Your card, along with a copy of the book, will be featured on display in the book gutter near the circulation desk, and you’ll be eligible to attend a sip & chat book social with coffee and treats. Just one way that YOU can help build a reading community @ MLWGS.
Check out the newest display in the library’s faculty showcase series: handwoven fabric by Mrs. Barrett Brown. Thanks to the ingenuity of Ms. Lindsay Hawkins, Mrs. Brown’s beautiful handmade scarves, tea towels, placemats, and blankets adorn the library walls. Don’t miss the related window displays: miniature felt hats in the window nearest the computer, and a throw rug and books about textile arts in the main area.
Thank you to Mr. Bear O’Bryan for displaying his meticulous pencil portraits in the library during the 2nd nine weeks.
The library will be starting a new program in 2nd semester: Library Lunch Bites. These will be 15-20 minute workshops about a technology tool related to research or reading. They will be held in the forum during lunch on most Fridays, beginning Feb. 8 when the topic will be the library’s new online catalog, Destiny (which Mrs. Chappell and I will be installing over exam week).
From Feb. 29 through May 30 (with the exception of March 21 and 28), Library Lunch Bites will focus on the 12 Faces of Google series. Watch the blog for info about the top secret topic for Feb. 22.
Thanks to grant funding from the GSGIS Foundation, the library now has two cafe-height tables located near wall outlets.
If you need a quieter atmosphere than the commons, but still need to charge your laptop, drop by the library!
Congratulations to SECSEE for sponsoring an informative Eco Week. Both Monday’s lecture and Thursday’s documentary were thought-provoking. Several students dropped by to pick up eco-volunteer pamphlets on Wednesday as well. Nice work!
Continue the spirit of Eco Week by expanding your environmental knowledge. After exams conclude (since you should focus on those FIRST), check out one of the environment-related books in the display window.
The MW library blog passed the 20,000 mark this morning for the number of times you’ve visited the site since it launched in mid-September (20,044 as of 12:30 today).
Thank you for your continued use of the site and its resources. Remember, if you have any suggestions for improvements or other feedback, feel free to drop me an email or come by the library to chat in person.
If you missed hearing Eco-Week featured speaker Chad Ellis last night, you missed an interesting lecture. Chad Ellis, a ‘99 GS graduate, is a doctoral candidate in Chemistry at Carnegie Mellon, and works with their Institute for Green Oxidation Chemistry. He spoke about the field of green chemistry and the imperative for better communication between scientists and policy-makers so that policy-making can be better informed by science.
In order to connect you with some of the resources he recommended for people interested in this topic, I’ve added the online resources from his reference list to the MW library’s bookmark account under the tag, green_chem. Certainly thought-provoking information!
A sincere thank you to SECSEE and the PTSA for sponsoring this lecture.
I noticed recently that the list of unbundled tags in the library’s bookmark account (dragonlibrary) was getting a bit unwieldy, so I cleaned it up - consolidating tags, renaming tags, and creating some new bundles.
The following bundles stayed the same:
- Doing Reseach
- Project Guides
- Reference Shelf
I renamed the old Look_Listen_Learn bundle as Multimedia_Resources, and renamed Find_Sources to Find_Source_by_Type.
I added new bundles for each department at MW: English; Fine Arts; International Languages; Math, Business, and Techology; Science and Health; and Social Studies.
Other new bundles include the following:
- Finding_Tools (search tools to help you find stuff on the world wide web)
- News (with subcategory tags such as world_news and sci_news)
- Teacher_Resources (such as lesson plans - although the tags bundled under multimedia resources would also be helpful to teachers).
I hope these updates make it easier for you to find the resources for which you’re searching. Drop by the library or email me if you have any comments.
If you participate in Friday’s Spanish News workshop, please complete the following post-workshop survey by the end of the school day on Tuesday, Jan. 15th. Thank you!
Don’t worry, this isn’t a big change. However, now that I’ve been here a few months, I’ve had a chance to observe that there are many more students who arrive early to school than who stay after school. I’ve also chatted with several students who told me that it would be nice if the library opened earlier. Effective Monday, the library will be open from 8:15-3:15 instead of 8:30-3:30. I hope this helps you get more research, typing, reading, and printing done before the school day begins. See you soon!
Are you taking Spanish this year during 1st, 2nd, or 5th block? If so, your class may be attending a Spanish News workshop this Friday in the Forum.
To help me customize the workshop to meet your needs, please take a few minutes by the end of lunch tomorrow (Jan. 10) to complete the following survey about your news-finding habits:
http://www.quia.com/sv/157338.html
Thanks!
Because our current library software is no longer being developed, I’ll be moving the library’s records to a new library management software during exam week. In order to minimize the chances of records getting lost in the process, all library materials should be returned by Friday, January 18.
If you currently have library books or CDs checked out, I’d sincerely appreciate their return by the 18th. As long as the data migration goes smoothly (which it should!), circulation of library materials should be back to normal by the first day of 2nd semester: January 31.
Once the new system is up and running, you should notice a few improvements. Although most of the changes impact what I do behind the scenes, one change you’ll notice is that the new library catalog will only be web-based instead of there being a parallel application installed on the desktops around the school. You’ll click on the same links from the school’s home page or library’s blog to access the catalog, and I’m confident that you will find the new search screen easier to use and more effective in executing your search than our current one.
Thank you for doing your part to make this transition a smooth one!
Happy New Year! I hope you had a restful, joyous break. I just learned that over the holidays, Gale updated the appearance of their database main menu and changed the wording on the screen you encounter when you access the Gale databases from home.
The new wording may sound a bit confusing (instead of “Enter password”, it now reads “Enter your library ID, barcode, or other ID”), but all you need to do is what you’ve always done - enter the Gale password (which is also our UserID) printed on the Online Resources for Research handout from the library.
