These days, you may feel like you're living in Hale library, but have you wondered if that would actually be possible?
Be honest.
After all, we're 24/5 during the semester, open from 1pm on Sunday afternoons until 8pm on Friday evenings. And then, of course, there's the Anita C. Lehner 24 Hour Study Area, open every hour of every day of the year. And we've got computers and scanners and coffee and snacks and millions of books. You have to admit, it would be a pretty cool place to live.
Just ask Cody.
Thanks to Robyn Bramlage, one of our Graphic Design Interns, for sharing this excellent mocumentary with us. It really makes you wonder...
Tara "Talked in the Library" previously about recent published information regarding the swine flu, once also known as hog influenza. You may be wondering how I discovered the older term. Well, while searching for information on swine flu in some authentic federal government documents, I discovered historical information about hog influenza.
In the 1877 Annual Report of the Commissioner of Agriculture, I read that hog cholera was a real concern of most farmers. However, the term cholera at this time was used in discussion of various hog diseases, and Professor James Law of Cornell believed there should be another term used to separate one specific hog disease from cholera. He used the term epizootic influenza of swine (page 386). I gathered from his report that he coined this phrase right then and there! However, many of you at K-State (and I do mean very many!) know more about animal diseases than I do. Am I correct? Or did the phrase come out before 1877?
When did this hog flu begin to spread to humans? In my research I found that the National Swine Flu Immunization Program was discussed at great length in the U.S. House of Representatives in 1976. Oh my goodness so much to learn! However, maybe for now I will leave the research on the human aspect of this disease to the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.
If you want to read further about Dr. Law and epizootic influenza of swine, then I suggest searching for the report via Lexis Nexis Congressional, available through K-State Libraries database page. Or, if you are like many of our researchers and prefer your 500 plus pages of agricultural information in book format, we have it shelved on the 3rd floor in Hale Library under the SuDoc call number of A1.1:1877. And as always, our library staff will be glad to help you find it if you want. That’s our job! And we love it.
Okay, let's say you wake up one morning and you aren't feeling so hot. Is it a cold, allergies, the flu? Not sure? The Mayo Clinic has an online self-assessment that may help. The page asks you to check your symptoms (dry cough, headache, etc.) and, based on that information, helps you assess your condition. It then offers suggestions on how to ease your symptoms; sadly, none of them are skip class and watch the soaps until you feel better.
Remember, nothing replaces your doctor. If you haven't been feeling well for a while or you just want to be safe, see your doctor!
-T. Coleman
Short Cuts is a series from K-State Libraries' Instruction Team
providing library and research tips and tricks for undergraduates.
Please feel free to share our articles and ideas with classes and
colleagues - just give us credit!
I canceled my cable a while back and am just a wee bit behind on the news (I don't listen or read it on the weekend). So on my way to work this morning,I hear there is this swine flu thing going around and you can get it from eating pork...or using a piggy bank...or by watching Miss Piggy. Or maybe not.
If you are looking for some trustworthy information on the swine flu, give these a try-
It just occurred to me that no one here posted about the passing of Judith Krug, who died of stomach cancer April 11th. Who is she, you ask? I'll be honest, I didn't who she was until she died, which is a shame. For those of you who, like me, are unfamiliar with her name, you may recognize the campaign she helped found, Banned Books Week. In memory of her work, I will share with you a random unrelated story tell you about one of my favorite banned books. Once upon a time, when I was in middle school…
I was having a conversation with some colleagues the other day about words that are hard to say. "Rural" came up, which is apparently hard to say even if you hail from a rural area. "Juror" was another. For me, one that's a real verbal challenge is "asterisk." It's that extra "s," I think, that really throws me. I end up saying it too slowly - "as-tuh-riskkkkkkk" - or jumbling it all together to get it out - "astrik." Sometimes I avoid the whole ordeal and say "star."
Any way you say it, the asterisk is an awesome tool for doing research in a database. Why? Because it's a truncation symbol. Sounds kind of fancy, right? Well, it's actually pretty simple. When you're plugging a keyword into a database or the catalog, try to think about the root word, and if other words with the same root might help you. So, for instance, if you're researching the effect of soft drink consumption on children, try soft drink and child* as your search terms. Child* tells the database to search for anything that starts with that root, so child, children, children's childhood, etc.
So, is the asterisk magic? Yes, I think so. But it doesn't work in
every database (what kind of magic would it be if it were so easy to
understand?). Some databases (and our catalog) use other truncation symbols, like the ?. If your search with a * doesn't work, check the help link in the database to see if they have any tips for you, or Ask a Librarian for assistance!
For our catalog, try the ?, the other truncation symbol I mentioned mere moments ago. So if you're interested in finding some Indonesian cookbooks from our world class cookery collection, you might try Indonesian and cook? (cooking, cookbook, cookery, etc).
Short Cuts is a series from K-State Libraries' Instruction Team
providing library and research tips and tricks for undergraduates.
Please feel free to share our articles and ideas with classes and
colleagues - just give us credit!
A Friday afternoonetiquette tip from Tara Coleman ad Sara K. Kearns.
On Tue, Apr 21, 2009 at 4:07 PM, Tara Coleman wrote: I'm about to unfriend some people on Facebook. On Tue, Apr 21, 2009 at 4:07 PM, Sara Kearns wrote: Seriously? Not me again, I hope. What's wrong?
On Tue, Apr 21, 2009 at 4:10 PM, Tara Coleman wrote: There's WAY too much drama. What's wrong with people? Does no one know how to use Facebook right? On Tue, Apr 21, 2009 at 4:14 PM, Sara Kearns wrote: I didn't, until you sent me that helpful video. (BTW, sorry again for outing your childhood dream of being a backup dancer for Janet Jackson on your wall.)
On Tue, Apr 21, 2009 at 4:22 PM, Tara Coleman wrote: First off-anyone who's seen the Rhythm Nation video knows there is no shame in wanting to back up Janet, Ms. Jackson if you're nasty. I guess I should be happy you didn't post those pictures of me voguing (shout out to Robyn-my voguing partner!). Again, no shame, but that bra was a bit too pointy. I would have happily taken a job back up dancing for Madonna too. Ahh...to be 12 again.
I'm sorry I had to resort to a training video, but something needed to be done.
On Tue, Apr 21, 2009 at 4:31 PM, Sara Kearns wrote: I appreciate that. Of course, it took me a while to figure out you were telling me that my etiquette was bad. I thought it was just a funny little video until I remembered that time I set my status as married to Daniel Craig. Two restraining orders later and I've learned that not everyone appreciates my sense of humor.
On Tue, Apr 21, 2009 at 4:33 PM, Tara Coleman wrote: Weren't the hate posts on your wall a clue???
On Tue, Apr 21, 2009 at 4:35 PM, Sara Kearns wrote: Sadly, no. Apparently I'm pretty damn clueless. It's ok, though, I'm totally over him now. He can't compare to Detective Green. Green is my favorite color, so we're meant for each other. Maybe those people you are going to unfriend could use the helpful tips in the training video, too? On Tue, Apr 21, 2009 at 4:51 PM, Tara Coleman wrote: You're clueless, but trainable. Hence the subtle video sharing. I know you can be learned.
You might not know this little bit of information, but one of the coolest things to do in the library doesn’t involve acts that might get you banned from the building. It’s actually federated searching and you can do it in the future if you haven’t already! Seemingly contrary to its name, federated searching does not involve the Department of Homeland Security, illegal wiretaps, or raids on your personal belongings. In fact it isn’t really something that you can do; so much as it is something that really awesome databases do (Yes, they are really awesome! & italics used for emphasis, ampersand included).
A federated search doesn’t use just one database. Instead its task is to use as many as possible and does it in a way that both you and the other databases can understand. This is a daunting task given the various interfaces and syntax used in catalogs, databases, and other digital depositories of useful and ‘not so’ useful information. In a federated search, a request for information must move from you (the user) through to the search engine and then on to the databases which then provide results back to the search engine. These results have to then be recognized by the search engine and translated back to you, the user, in a way that you can understand. A couple of examples of federated search engines are ProQuest and Google Scholar. ProQuest turns from mild-mannered database to federated search engine when you click on the link to Select Multiple Databases. This trick will work in a few other databases, too, so keep an eye out for this option (databases are available to K-State faculty, students, and staff, as well as anyone who uses the Infocommons).
Federated search engines, aka portals, like these search many databases to provide you with the results you so desire. So, desire the results you need and use federated search engines like ProQuest. Once again, portals = federated searching = Awesome = the future.
Short Cuts is a series from K-State Libraries' Instruction Team
providing library and research tips and tricks for undergraduates.
Please feel free to share our articles and ideas with classes and
colleagues - just give us credit!
I have a new True Love Forever (sorry, NPR, but we can still be BFF's). Rather than build the suspense, I'm just going to blurt out the identity of my TLF: usability testing. It is intoxicating and I cannot think of how I went through life without it. I mean, I've heard others talk about how informative it is. How useful. How utterly revealing. So I've been wanting to try it for years. But it wasn't until I sat down knee to knee with usability testing that I . . . well, I swooned.
Let me pause my gushing for a moment and tell you why I am in love with usability testing. Basically, we can learn if you use things the way we think you use them: things like our website or our catalog. If you do, awesome, life is good. If you don't, however, we now have information about how to modify our website so that it does work the way you expect it to. The obvious outcome being that, if it works the way you expect it to, you will find the information you need.
How do we figure out how you use things like our website? There are a variety of ways to conduct usability tests. For this round, we developed some tasks for volunteers to complete using our website. We have a computer with software loaded on it that will record how the volunteer moves through the website and we have a microphone that will record the volunteer explaining why she (or he) clicked where she did. Plus, a couple of us librarians observe and jot down notes, in case the software goes on strike. The process for the volunteers takes between 10 and 20 minutes.
It honestly takes only a few people before we start to see trends, and a few more before we've reached saturation. (That's a research methods term that I learned this semester--it means that you've hit the point when you've interviewed enough people that you are getting the same information over and over and learning little that's new.)
If usability testing is so out of this world awesome, why weren't we already aboard the usability train? Mostly, it was because we didn't have the right mix of time, resources, and interest. But, this fall, we hit that sweet spot of synergy. A small group of us in the Libraries (Dale Askey, Thomas Bell, Jennny Dale, Donna Ekart, Steven Shelton, and myself, with support from our building services, finance, and tech people) came together and began planning. That planning flowered last week with our first usability testing. Right now, we're looking at how well people can find information on our website.
Once we've gathered and reviewed the results, we'll submit our findings to our library interfaces team.
Usability testing is an ongoing, iterative process, and you can trust that this is just the first of many usability studies we conduct. Because, we all need to remember, "If the user can't find it, the function's not there."
I attended the Military Foodways Symposium last week and it was fascinating. The two speakers were great and the mobile field kitchen was pretty cool.
Here are a few pictures, courtesy of Daryl Youngman.
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