Opening PPT files in Lion's Den

Students are experiencing a problem when trying to open or download PPT files that have been uploaded to Lion's Den when they are using Internet Explorer. This does not seem to be an issue in other browser's, so ask them to log in to Lion's Den from another browser and try again.

If the PPT won't open but Saves as a PPT file, try saving to the desktop, then opening MS Office PowerPoint and open the document from within the PowerPoint program.

NetOp Vision Setting

NetOp Vision was not working on the Reference PC.   Phillip from Technology Services came by and corrected the problem.  Check that the following setting is correct if you are experiencing problems:

File->Preferences->Network

Verify that the Network Adaptor is set to the following:

Printing from Chegg eBook

Students should use internet explorer to print pages of an eBook purchased from Chegg.   Using Chrome Browser prints a dark background causing the page to be unreadable and wasting toner.

Big Ideas Video Tutorials

NC State Libraries has created several videos on information literacy "big ideas" - general concepts that are important for students to know, rather than specific tools or search strategies. They have intentionally made them non-institution specific (except for their own logo at the very end). Many are quite short, and they could easily be used during an instruction session to demonstrate a concept. They are creative commons licensed, so they could also be included in libguides, etc. Check them out when you get a chance!

http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/tutorials/#bigpicture

Sony E-Reader Store Closed - now Kobo Books

We have 1 Sony E-Reader that is pre-loaded with about 40 titles, including The Hunger Games books, a couple Steig Larson titles, and some other best sellers from a few years ago. The catalog record lists the titles.  I just realized that the Sony store closed last March and they have transferred their services to Kobo.

Because the college does not issue the library a credit card, in the past we purchased gift cards for the Sony store and used them to purchase titles to the e-reader. Those gift cards are now defunct so at this time, there is no way for us to add additional titles to the e-reader. However, the existing titles are still available on the device, and for now, many of them are still popular so it will remain in the collection.

Using Libguides for Interactive Instruction

This is a great 10 minute presentation about how you can embed free online tools into a libguide to create an interactive guide that can be used during a class session.

http://buzz.springshare.com/videohighlights/acrl-emilie

She describes using Wordle (not as impressive), Google Forms, and Padlet for student interaction. I'm particularly interested in how she used a Google Form that generates an automatic email so that students could basically create their research guide and email it to themselves. For example, if our English Comp I handout were recreated as a Google Form, it could be embedded in a libguide, the students could fill it out throughout the session, and then it could be emailed to them at the end.

I'm definitely going to play around with this. If you try it and are successful, let us all know! Or if you can think of other tools that can be embedded in a libguide to make a class session more interactive for students, please share!

Video on publishing process

The graphics are corny but this is one of the best videos I've seen to describe how scholarly articles get published and end up in library databases. http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/tutorials/idea_library/ . It's nice and short and could easily be shown in an English I class.

Talking Book & Braille Center

The RVCC Disability Services office is registered with the State Library's Talking Book & Braille Center.  Students with visual impairments can use their resources by visiting the Disability Services Office. 

Using Print-Friendly to print webpages

Recently when students ask for help printing "clean" webpages without ads, images, and awkward formatting, I've been recommending they use the Print Friendly and PDF tool at https://www.printfriendly.com/. It presents a printer friendly version of a webpage by removing ads and any unnecessary formatting and spacing, allows the removal of portions of text, and also offers an option to save the webpage content as a pdf.

Subject Headings for Special Collections

Below are the subject headings associated with our different special collections. You should be able to search these by subject to pull up a full listing of the materials in each location.

ROBESON

Paul Robeson Institute for Ethics, Leadership, and Social Justice Collection.

-- all titles should also has the following subject heading:

Robeson, Paul, 1898-1976.

-- media will also have one of the following local fields depending on the format:

RVCC DVD Collection.

RVCC Videocassette Collection.

RVCC Compact Disc Collection.



HIRSCH

Hirsch Holocaust and Genocide Studies Collection.

--media will also have one of the following local fields depending on the format:

RVCC Compact Disk Collection.

RVCC DVD Collection.

Hirsch Audiocassette Collection.

CD-ROM

RVCC Transparency Collection.

RVCC Videocassette Collection.



ESL

RVCC ESL Collection.

--all titles should also has the following subject heading:

English language -- Study and teaching -- Foreign speakers.

--media titles should also have:

RVCC ESL Audiobook Collection.

GRAPHIC NOVELS

GRAPHIC NOVELS

Reference help for nursing students.

I have created a research guide for helping nursing students. The guide is unlisted so it is not accessible through the 'Research Guides' tab, or in any other public way. The link is: http://library.raritanval.edu/sp/subjects/guide.php?subject=reffornurses and I will email this out to all reference librarians as well.

I've organized the guide by semester and class along with the requirements for resources, the assignments, typical topics that students choose, and faculty who usually teach the class in case you need to get in touch with them.

Students usually struggle with APA formatting and MS Word which I offer to help with  and give them a once over on their papers closer to the due date. You do not have to do this if you don't want to.

The big assignments for fall are for Nursing of Adults II (QSEN group project paper) and Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing (research critique paper). I have sample papers for these classes which I will have at the reference desk. They are NOT to leave the ref desk under any circumstances and students may not photocopy any of the sample papers. They can write ideas down when consulting them, but that is all. The sample papers are numbered- there are 3 sample papers for Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing, and there are 5. Make sure all sample papers are back in the 'Nursing' binder.

Please don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions!
-Alyssa