I recently had a question from a student who had been told that she MUST use a mac to do her art assignment. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find any for her to use. The “welcome to your library” guide suggests that there are macs at Barber, so she went over there. I popped in to the Learning Commons today and was told that they will have macs installed sometime in October (they showed me the spot where they are going to be- there’s not room for many!). Anyone know of any secret campus macs in the meantime? Or of a way I can find out?
Sara

Attn: GAAs
The following is copied from the email I sent out earlier today as an FYI.
1. Koerner Library keeps course descriptions from previous years on Microform. If the patron were local, or knew someone local, you could direct him/her to the microform section AW1 .R7544 which can be found by typing “UBC Calendar” into the OneSearch box and selecting UBC Library from the list of results. The second hit has the full calendar list from 1915-2004.
2. If the patron requires the course descriptions to be sent, ILL will send them at the approximate cost of $20 International (and $5 for BC residents).
3. Another, not so well known option, is to ask Keith Bunnell who has copies of old course calendars in his office from which you could copy down the information the patron requested.
4. Recent course schedules from 2007-2008 are available online through student services.
Tara

I had a question this afternoon on locating primary source documents from the period 1800-1909 on women and china. The assignment sounded broad (focused more on locating primary source documents than on finding out about a particular subject). She didn’t have a specific topic in mind yet. (I didn’t catch the course title and number- I’ll shoot for doing that next time!)
– We started by me letting the patron know about the Asian Library (closed today, but she could go by there tomorrow, Monday).
– The we went to the Asian Studies subject guide to find some resources to get some ideas about a topic. I mentioned that she could also check out the History subject guide, and browse the subject guides list for other possibilities. On the Asian Studies site, The Encyclopedia of Asian Studies looked like a good start for finding a topic, since it was available here in Koerner and she could physically browse it on the shelf right now.
– I showed her how to get into the ProQuest Historical database, the Times (London) database (historical) and the New York Times database (and how to do the advanced search in their historical archives). We found a few interesting hits by searching women and china (and variations of those terms) and limiting by date.
– I recommended to her, again, to check out the Asian Library if she has a chance, and speak with one of the reference librarians during their reference hours.
Any other suggestions on sources/ strategies?
Thanks,
Christina H

Satirical Maps of the First World War

There is a problem with the DocDel system due to a recent upgrade. Users new to the system (i.e. those who have not placed a previous request ) are encountering an error when they try to order a book from UBCO. The message says:

“Add request failed: There was an Internal Error. Please contact the service provider. Please inform Systems Division. Back to catalogue”

Systems and ILL are working on this. In the meantime, if you get a patron at the desk who needs to DocDel an item, you can phone Liz in ILL at 2-6596 and she can manually add the patron’s record to the database so that they can place the DocDel request.
Thanks to Paul for troubleshooting this.

Last week saw the return of the “deaf” person who solicits donations [in a very persistent and somewhat threatening way] in return for a card printed with the fingerspelling alphabet. Steve Peets, the Library monitor notes that this person a known problem, and if you see him or get reports that he’s bothering people, call Patrol. No need to be worried that he’ll
approach you: he stays away from staff.

Hallo,
Ellen was showing me how to answer emails today, and two of them were about off-campus access. We’ve just created a new folder for filing email questions that involve connecting from home – VPN/proxy stuff.
After much negotiation, brainstorming, and arm-wrestling, we decide to call the folder ‘Connecting from home’.
Cheers,
Francesca

Wilson is offering a free trial of the Essay and General Literature Index Retrospective (1900-1984) until October 31.
Give it a try here: www.hwwilson.com/eglretro.htm
(You’ll need to register first)
Here’s the blurb:
“This one-of-a-kind reference indexes tens of thousands of essays that might otherwise be all but inaccessible—unsung tracts in collections and anthologies back decades.”

For a Psyc 300a (abnormal psychology) assignment due next month, students need to select a disorder from a list supplied by the instructor and find two articles about it. The catch is that one article must be a case study and the other must be a treatment outcome/clinical trial.
I’ve presented to the class (Course page here) and there will be 2 drop-in sessions for them to come by and do their searches: Tuesday and Thursday, Sept 16 and 18, from 10-11 in Koerner 217.

Students in one section of PS 101 are looking for election campaign pamphlets and advertisements. For students doing older elections (1911 has come up twice so far today) browsing by date in the Globe and Mail (election date of September 21st I think) for the month before seemed to work. The editorial page (page 6) has election cartoons that they can use.
Also Maclean’s in microfilm, browsing by date, but no takers for that so far.
RBSC does have election pamphlets available, not sure how far back they go. The catalogue record says “Elections: federal, provincial or municipal”, and basically they are filed by date and level of government.