State budget woes arise again

We thought we had pulled through without a hitch (or cut) in the databases that the state pays for, but we sighed with relief a little too soon. iConn (the CT digital library organization) just announced that they are cutting CINAHL, Westlaw (Campus Research), AP Photo Archive, and the Boston Globe, as of Oct. 1 (yes, that's this Thursday).

We are picking up CINAHL ourselves, so there should be no interruption of access.

Our law librarian recommends the following for law related searching:

For Westlaw cases and statutes, try these sites: Findlaw http://www.findlaw.com/casecode/ (link goes directly to cases and codes portion of the site); Justia http://www.justia.com/index.html ; or Public Law Online Library http://www.plol.org . Academic Search Premier indexes several law reviews.

For the AP Photo Archive, try Google Images, Googles new Image search for news, ArtStor, or the image search feature in some of the Ebsco databases like Academic Search Premier.

For Westlaw business news, try Business Source Premier.

For local news (Westlaw), try the Hartford Courant (Proquest Newspapers) and General Reference Center Gold.

For the Boston Globe, try General Reference Center Gold.

MySCSU Upgrade will block access Fri & Sat

After several postponements, they are finally going to do a planned upgrade to MySCSU. Starting tonight (Fri, 9/11) at 5pm, MySCSU (and all related services) will be down until 5pm Saturday, 9/12 (24 hours!) This includes:

• MySCSU email
• MySCSU portal
• U-Drive
• home.southernct.edu websites
• VISTA (e-Learning Vista courseware)
  
• Banner Web

This should not affect campus network logins (computer labs, faculty webmail, remote access) or library logins (e-reserves, databases).

Notices and Updates

Sorry, I haven't been posting much, folks. Here are a few notices and updates:

Campus is closing at 12:30 today, including the library. The library is closed this weekend, but will be open Monday - Wednesday next week. (Library Hours)

There's a MySCSU database update scheduled for Dec 23, 10 am - 5 pm. It will affect the MySCSU portal (email, calendar, etc.), but not Vista. IT suggests using the alternative interface for web email access: https://mail.southernct.edu/.

I'll be on vacation from Jan 5-19. I'll be keeping an occasional eye on my email (mostly to keep the spam from building up), but if you need help, you'll be better off contacting the Reference Desk directly: (203) 392-5732 or eref@southernct.edu.

Warm holiday wishes to everyone!

Resetting your Library PIN

Fantastic news!

You can now reset your library PIN without having to call or visit the library. On the CONSULS login page is a link "Forgot your PIN?" just under the Submit button. Click that, and enter your ID number*. You will get an automated email at the email address in your account (whatever is in Banner, unless you've changed it with the library this semester. Library only changes to your address(es) get overwritten every semester when we get new data from the Registrar.) Follow the instructions in the email to change your PIN.

The link showed up this fall, after a software update to the catalog, but wasn't working for a while. Now it works. Yay!

*If you don't know what your ID number is, and can log into MySCSU, your ID number is under Account Information on the left of the main MySCSU screen.

Another planned outage: Friday afternoon for the web server

This time it's the web server, going down from 4:30 - 6:30 pm on Friday, Aug. 15, for upgrades to the software (Apache and PHP). Other than the downtime itself, users probably won't notice a thing.

IT seems to be getting all our systems upgraded this summer: Banner and Vista have had upgrades; now the web server. The planned email migration to Exchange has been delayed, however. No official word on that, but I hear they may do a gradual switch over, maybe by department, rather than a mass, all-at-once change. Watch your campus email for announcements on that. (And if you aren't watching your campus email, why not? You can set your MySCSU mail to forward to the email address of your choice: go into your email and choose the Options tab.)

Upgrades, outages, ebook downloads, and vacation

A little bit of everything in this post.

First, there will be some minor upgrades in Blackboard Vista during our usual Sunday (7/27) morning (6-10am) maintenance.

Second, Banner will be down on Sunday (7/27), technically from 11:30 pm Sat (7/26) to 11:50 pm Sun (7/27).

Third, I forgot to announce the World Ebook Fair this year, but there is still time. The Fair collects in one place over one million ebooks, text and audio, all available for download between July 4 and Aug 4. Some of these are collections that are normally free, like the Internet Archive, Project Gutenberg, and government reports, but others are commercial products offering free and discounted ebooks especially for the fair. Many languages are included, both fiction and nonfiction, even sheet music from the IMSLP/Petrucci Music Library.

Fourth, I'm going on vacation for the next week, and then the week after that (Aug 4-8) I'll be busy with the campus SummerTech Faculty Technology workshop. I will keep an eye on my email, but I don't promise to respond right away! I'll try and remember to check my voicemail, too, but I'm really bad about that. So if you need to get in touch with me, use email. Library access problems should go directly to the reference desk, (203) 392-5732 or eref@southernct.edu.

So, instead of using Vista or Banner this Sunday, download some ebooks, and I'll "see" you all in a couple of weeks!

Spam warning

I think this is our first campus specific spam. The Office of Information Technology send the following warning this morning:

To All Faculty and Staff,

Several people have reported the receipt of an email with the subject “FINAL NOTIFICATION!!!” that appears to come from the “SOUTHERNCT WEBMAIL SUPPORT TEAM [supportteam@southernct.edu]”. The message itself is as follows:

Dear SOUTHERNCT Webmail Subscriber

This mail is to inform all our {SOUTHERNCT} webmail users that we will be maintaining and upgrading our website in a couple of days from now.As a Subscriber you are required to send us your Email account details to enable us know if you are still making use of your mailbox. Be informed that we will be deleting all mail account that is not functioning to enable us create more space for new subscribers, You are to send your mail account details which are as follows:

*User Name:

*Password:

Failure to do this will immediately render your email address deactivated from our database.

Thank you for using SOUTHERNCT

FROM THE SOUTHERNCT SUPPORT TEAM

Please be advised that this email is spam. It is a phishing scheme designed to get your username and password. Do not reply to this. Simply delete it.

Unfortunately, the timing of our Microsoft Exchange implementation makes this message more confusing and believable. However, please be advised that the OIT staff will never send an email out asking you for your username and password. Also, another clue that this is not legitimate is that OIT will not send emails out with all upper case letters in the “Subject” header.

We will be investigating this email and will try to include it in our spam gateway rules.

Thank you for your continued vigilance in privacy, security, and malware issues.

The OIT Staff

You should never respond to any email requesting your account password. Real IT folks have access to our accounts--they don't need our passwords. The only situation I can think of where an IT help staffer has ever asked me for a password was at the end of a long, multi-email and phone exchange trying to figure out why what I saw looked different than what she saw. No service or site worth anything would send a request like this with no previous contact.

Another clue about this, by the way, is the curly brackets around the SOUTHERNCT in the first sentence. Spammers exchange "form letter" type texts, usually copied from legitimate sources, with the information that needs replacing marked in some sort of bracket. I actually got one where the spammer didn't replace anything, so it was addressed, "Dear {eBay username}". The hint about the capitalization in the subject is excellent. It's true, very few legitimate business-type emails come through with all caps subject lines.

Be smart and stay safe--if you get a suspicious email like this, go to the site that it's supposed to be from (NOT via any link in the email--use a search engine if you don't know the URL), find the help or contact information, and write or call directly to the institution/company.

And, of course, if you did get this and did respond, contact the helpdesk (which is helpdesk@southernct.edu, not supportteam) IMMEDIATELY!

MySCSU downtime Friday morning

MySCSU will be down from 5 am to 8:30 am tomorrow, Friday, July 18. It's the portal itself that they are working on, so this won't block or bounce email--you just won't be able to get at it. Vista and other web services won't be affected.

Vista & Library login server down

Something has happened to a server at the main system office, so you can't login to either Vista or the Library databases. I've got no other info right now, but all the right people have been notified, so someone is working on the problem. Hang in there and keep trying!

Update, 7/9, 9:30 AM: Everything seems to be back up now. No news on what happened so far. Thank you for your patience.

Banner down June 30

Banner and BannerWeb will be down June 30 for the end-of-the-fiscal-year accounting. Here is the official message:

Banner (i.e. In-Person transactions-registrations/payments/other inquiries) and Banner Web (i.e. Online registrations/ Online payments/ Other Online inquires) will be inaccessible on Monday, June 30^th from 12:00PM (noon) until July 1^st- 12:00AM (midnight). Access to Banner Web Online (registrations and payments) will be available after 12:00AM on July 1^st. Banner (In-Person transactions) will recommence with normal business hours on July 1^st.

Library closing at 6 pm today

The library is closing early tonight due to a facilities problem of some sort (we've heard it's a very leaky air conditioner). So the reference desk, circulation desk, and the computing labs will all be closed (and unavailable by phone for distance students and faculty).

Our apologies for any incovenience.

ILL will continue during our move

Update: Interlibrary Loan (ILL: loans from outside the CSU systems and photocopies) will continue during the move, though we will undoubtedly experience delays, and, of course, you won't be able to come in and pick up items. So you can continue to use the online ILL forms during the week and expect to get photocopies by mail and email. Intercampus loans (from the other CSU libraries via CONSULS) will not be processed during that week, however.

Also, at least some of our journals, oversized books, and juvenile books are coming over from storage this week. (Yay!)

Moving the library

Right after finals, the library will start moving into the new building. The library will be closed to the public from May 18-26. No staff-related services will be available during this week: Reference, ILL, Circulation, InterCampus Loans (via CONSULS).

**Databases and other electronic resources will still be available.**

Depending on how efficiently things go (or not), there will likely be some times when we will not have access to our phones and computers, so we may not even catch your voice mails and emails right away. Please be patient. Everyone in the building is moving that week, including the ILS department on the 4th floor and the IT computer labs and offices on the 3rd floor. (Other IT offices and labs will still be open.)

The building, with the new entrance near the Adanti Student Center, will open at 8 am, Tuesday May 27, 2008 for Summer Session A. At that point, all staff will be moved; services will resume and public service desks and labs will reopen. However, all library materials will not be moved at this point. Depending on where the item is that you are looking for, it may take some time to fetch it for you. Eventually, nearly all library materials will be in the new building, accessible for regular use. A few things will be in storage, mostly special collections materials, until the second half of the construction is complete. New maps and guides for the new arrangements will be up on the library web site soon.

Once all materials are in the library, the former building will be torn down to the steel frame. The "renovation" will take a couple of years.

UPDATE (5/12): ILL will continue during the move week

My 15 minutes of fame (in print)

In the April 2008 issue of Library Journal, Meredith Farkas mentioned my use of del.icio.us in the Physics Research Guide. Thanks, Meredith! I'm glad you like it. (And, by the way, whether or not the del.icio.us parts look the same as the rest of the page depends on your browser. There's one computer that I use regularly on which the bullets in the del.icio.us links don't show up right, and it drives me batty!)

I've been toying with the idea of using the same technique for the list of reference books on those pages, too. I don't update that part of the page often enough, so it would be a way of making the updates easier (so that I might actually do them!)

On a technical note, I'm in the midst of changing my tag for subject guide use. I originally used "subjectguide", the subject (physics, chemistry, etc.) and another tag for the section I wanted it in (educational, articles, data, etc.) However, I realized that using "subjectguide" meant that I couldn't use that tag for sites that actually are subject guides. So, I'm part way through changing over to "forsubjectguide". Del.icio.us has a great tag management feature that makes changing and adding tags easy (everything tagged "subjectguide" is now tagged "subjectguide forsubjectguide".) Once I get change the coding on the pages themselves, I'll remove "subjectguide" from all those links to finish cleaning up.

And a Thank You! to the student/colleague (I did figure out who you are!) who sent me sites using the for:rhedreen tag over the winter. What do you know, it works!

Presenting virtually on presenting virtually

I'm going to be presenting a talk on improving presentations in virtual worlds for a virtual conference held in a virtual world. The Virtual Worlds: Libraries, Education and Museums Conference will be held in Second Life at the New Media Consortium Conference Center (NMC) on March 8, 2008. I'm tentatively scheduled to present at 11am Second Life Time (US Pacific = 2pm Eastern, local for me). My official topic is "Applying Distance Educational Theory to Virtual Worlds" and I'm going to be talking about how applying constructivist-type educational theory can improve the presentation experience online.

I'm also calling this my "Anti-PowerPoint PowerPoint". Too many people feel that they must have slides, and that the slides must cover everything they are going to say. It's especially tempting to do so when presenting online, because you usually end up posting your slides somewhere, and you want them to speak for you. However, slides should usually illustrate your talk, not give it for you. It's a problem that is just made worse by the technological behavior of slides in Second Life. I've been to several presentations where I never saw the slides, because the images wouldn't show up on my screen fast enough (part of the dreaded SL "lag"). By the time I could start to see the slide, the presenter was going on to the next one.

All my materials--yes, even the slides (all 6-7 of them)--will be posted online. That's part of my message, in fact: making materials available, in several formats, makes sense pedagogically and technologically. It helps your students review and process, aids in accessibility, and helps prevent disaster when the inevitable technical catastrophe occurs. Win/win/win!

After the conference, I'll post the links on this blog.

Welcome to the Spring Semester

It's a new semester and new online courseware! WebCT Vista has been upgraded to Blackboard Vista (Blackboard bought WebCT last year). The URL remains the same: http://vista.southernct.edu/, it just looks and acts a bit differently.

Because of the upgrade, you should REALLY do the browser check function before logging in. Mac users are reporting that they need to upgrade Java to enter (instructions appear when you do the browser check).

Login name and password are still your MySCSU credentials. MySCSU passwords expire every 90 days, so you may need to change your password (http://myscsu.southernct.edu/). If you have trouble with your password, students who can come to campus should visit a computer lab to reset your password; online only students can call the Helpdesk. Within MySCSU, you can also get into some Vista 4.2 tutorials. Look in the righthand box, the link is labeled eLearning Vista 4.2 Tutorials.

Snow and online classes

A bit of "watercooler" conversation:

"One of the advantages of online classes is you don't have to worry about whether snow will cancel class."
"Are you sure that's an advantage?"

SCSU is closing at noon today, by the way, thanks to what promises to be a messy storm. Be safe everyone, wherever you are.

Online forms for materials in storage

Our bound journals and the Oversized and Juvenile collections have been in storage across campus since we got them back after the flood last Thanksgiving. We had to develop a process to fetch books and copy journal articles for what we thought would just be a short time until we moved into the new building. Well, with another semester's delay on the move, we decided that we really needed a better way for people to request materials than just having the paper forms at the library desks.

On the Library home page, under Quick Links on the right, are links to the Journal Retrieval Form and the Oversized and Juvenile Book Retrieval Form.

The Journal Form is only for articles in the bound journals and microfilm. First check the Journal Locator (or use the "Find Article @ SCSU" buttons within the databases). If the article is only available in the "SCSU Print and Microform Collection" (example), click on the "SCSU Print and Microform link" (or the "Journal" link if your came in though the Find Article button) to bring up the CONSULS catalog record (example). Double check to make sure we have the correct year listed under the "Location Bound Journals" or "Microfilm" listings. Note the last volume and date (volume 34, 2006 in the example). Everything from this issue/date back should be bound and will need to be requested. Double check recent issues by clicking on the "Latest Received" link (example). Anything listed as "Arrived" will be on the current issues shelves on the first floor of the library. Don't request these using the Journal Retrieval form. (Students who cannot come to campus, i.e. online only students, can request articles from these journal issues via Interlibrary Loan.)

Most people reading this will want to use the Email option. Be sure to use an email that you check regularly and that has enough room to receive large attached files. Articles will come as PDF files. If you haven't received your article within a couple of days, first check your spam folders, then contact the library--your request may have gone astray in cyberspace.

If your article "should" be available online according to the Journal Locator, and you can't get to it, email me before requesting the article. Your request may be rejected if we don't confirm the error first.

The Book form is for those items listed in the CONSULS catalog as Oversized and Juvenile, marked with an OSC note. If the status of the item is "In Repair", don't request it. These items were damaged in the flood and are not available. Commuting students who are only on campus once or a twice a week should find this most useful, since you can now request a book a day or so before you come to campus and it should be waiting for you at the Circulation Desk when you get to the library. While staff retrieve books several times a day, if possible you should request books at least 24 hours in advance. Books will be held at the Circulation Desk for 10 days and can be checked out and renewed for the normal loan periods (28 days for students, 1 semester for faculty and staff--1 renewal of the same period).

These services will go away when we move into the new building and have space for the collections, again. That is currently scheduled for the end of the Spring '08 semester.

If you have questions, please contact me.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The Library and the University will be closed for Thanksgiving Wednesday afternoon, Thursday, and Friday (Nov. 21-23). Saturday and Sunday (Nov. 24-25), the Library will have normal hours, and the Reference Desk will be open if you have questions or problems.

I'll be back on Monday, Nov. 26.

Have a good Thanksgiving for all those who celebrate it, and a good weekend for everyone.

"Security Error" in library logins

The CSU system just implemented a security measure for CONSULS logins (electronic reserves, requesting books from the other campuses, etc.) When you log into CONSULS, you should now go to an https page, rather than a plain http page. Unfortunately, in most browsers this is now causing a "security error". The security certificate is registered to ctstateu.edu (like the databases) but the library catalog is consuls.org. The mismatch causes the error.

You can safely click Continue, or OK, or Yes, I want to proceed, or Accept, or whatever similar message you get. It's not a browser hijacking attempt or a phisher.

Depending on your browser you may get this every time you log into the CONSULS catalog. There is a similar security error when logging into Refworks--in that case, the Refworks company needs to update their website. It's also OK to Continue, Accept, Proceed, etc. into Refworks. Update 11/16/07: It helps when you actually read the security messages. (By the way, Firefox produces much better messages than IE7.) The problem is not Refworks' security update anymore, but something else. It may be something about our link or our network. In any case, you can definitely click through, and, with any luck, we'll figure this out and eliminate the problem completely. Thanks, Christine at Refworks, for getting back to me so quickly!

(I hate telling people to ignore the security messages they are getting from their browsers, but in these two cases it really is OK to proceed. Generally, do NOT proceed on other sites, especially ones that you don't know anything about. These security systems are in place for a reason and there is a lot of bad stuff out there. So speaks someone who used to help clean out people's computers after they visited certain websites. A few extra clicks is definitely better than reformatting your hard drive.)