For the next 4 weeks up to 175 Geog. students will be here researching the environmental and cultural history of the areas around Vancouver’s old streams. Tim has laid out the principal map and atlas resources for this assignment under signage on top of the map cabinets, and most students should be able to use these materials without staff help.

There are other suggested sources on their reading list, however, such as Canadian Newstand and several books, so you may get reference questions. Feel free to “plunge in”, time permitting, or refer students to Tim, at your option. Journal article searches in Geobase, Ac. Search Premier, America History & Life and Urban Studies Abstracts could also be useful.

You may find that many patrons are getting white screens when they try to log on to the public computers. The white screen is because their library accounts have not been activated yet. They should go to the Circulation Desk to get this taken care of. To get rid of the white screen, hit “ + left arrow” to go back to the login page, then cancel to go back to the CWL / library barcode login page. The arrow keys are between the main keyboard and the numbers.

From UBC IT:

“A trial ‘ubcvisitor’ wireless network is operating for the duration of the Winter Games.  This allows campus Visitors to connect to the Internet for light web browsing.  Service restrictions are in place such as limited bandwidth and limited accessible network ports.”

For more info, see: http://it.ubc.ca/internet/wireless/Visitor_Wireless_Network.html

All problems or questions should be routed through the UBC IT Help Desk (not Library Systems and IT).

A patron may come back in to see this volume (DE5. P33). I couldn’t find it last night. It’s damaged and is in the back – Koerner Ref Staff area. I emailed to tell him that I have now found it (and by “I” – I mean Aprille). It isn’t shelved with the other books since the spine is too badly damaged, it is lying on a shelf by itself at eye level (5″8″) one shelf below where it would be if filed by call number.

confused?
Sara

Heads up for an assignment in Classical Studies 105. The students (more than 100) need the call number range for greek and roman archaeology, and the call ‘letters’ for ancient greek or roman politics and culture. I took the student to the LC site to look at call number ranges.

Ellen

We’ve had a number of requests about books held by the extension library and whether they are available for non-distance students to check out as well. I checked with Borrower Services and was told that they can be checked out for 1 day by on-campus students. Better than hustling for a 2 hour reserve!

Sara

We have a trial of eBooks from Brill from 2007-2009 in seven humanities and social science subjects.
The trial is on until 15th November. The information page is here:
http://toby.library.ubc.ca/resources/infopage.cfm?id=1593

You may be seeing some Anthropology 232 (Ancient Latin America) students at the desk. There are about 90 students registered.
For their first assignment, they have to compare a scholarly and a popular article on the same archaeological site or civilization (Aztecs, Maya, Zapotec, Inca, Chimor).
The best resource to use is Academic Search Complete; show them how to refine to scholarly or popular using the sidebar limiters. They also have a list of popular journals to use such as National Geographic and Archaeology (ISSN 0003-8113). Limiting the search to a particular journal works well, especially Nat’l Geog.
If they’re struggling to find a topic, we have an excellent online encyclopedia, The Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures to get them started: http://www.oxford-mesoamerican.com/
(On the Anthro Subject Guide under Reference resources > Archaeology)
They can do a search for a culture or site of interest and use the bibliography at the end for article suggestions. The biblio includes popular sources, esp. National Geographic, and it has the eLink for quick access.

The Victorian popular culture database is now available on a trial basis until 10 November.
The information page is at http://toby.library.ubc.ca/resources/infopage.cfm?id=1592
——
Trial period: 15th October – 10th November 2009
Description:
A collection of primary sources, together with interpretive essays, describing popular entertainment in America, Britain and Europe in the period from 1779 to 1930. It consists of two sections; Spiritualism, Sensation and Magic and Circuses, Sideshows and Freaks.

From Darrell:
Here is the assignment
http://www.econ.ubc.ca/green/226asg4.pdf
The students will need to go to Canadian journal and newspaper indexes.
The only data requirements are for price indexes which can be found for provinces and CMAs in CANSIM.