Comments Off on Changing Toner in Reference Printers

By Scott Pfitzinger, December 5, 2006 12:36 pm

Because of the volume of printing we’ve been
experiencing in the Reference Dept., we’ve been flying through toner
cartridges. Even with the amount of printing, though, there has been some
question about whether toner cartridges were really full, because they had to
be changed rather suddenly sometimes.

To help measure the productivity of our toner cartridges, we
will now be tracking how many pages are printed out for each cartridge. What
does this mean for you? Probably nothing more than printing out a page whenever
you change a toner cartridge. I’ll be keeping track of the stats. We just
need a Print Usage Page created every time a toner cartridge is printed.

Instructions are included below, are saved in the Reference
folder on BUFiles/Library, and are posted on the bulleting board behind the
Reference Desk. If the toner cartridge runs out on your watch and you need
help, talk to any of the Reference Librarians.

Thanks.

Scott

Comments Off on Saving Documents on Library Computers

By Scott Pfitzinger, December 1, 2006 10:06 am

When working on documents on library lab computers, whether MS Word, PowerPoint, or anything else, the best place to save those documents is on your H: drive, which is typically mapped to BU Files. That’s your own personal space on the network and is accessible from anywhere on campus.

Do NOT save your documents on “My Documents” on the C: drive of the local computer. Those files will automatically be deleted every time the computer is rebooted.

Rebooting the computers is necessary to “clean them up” and delete the large numbers of profiles, which are created every time anyone logs on. This is normally done about once a week, but at this busy time of year, so many people are using the library computers that it’s necessary to reboot them all a couple times a week to ensure smooth operations for everyone.

So please do not save any important files on the local C: drive on lab computers. The libraries cannot be responsible for them and they WILL be deleted.

Comments Off on Database Errors

By Scott Pfitzinger, November 14, 2006 11:32 am

We now have at the Reference Desk some forms for reporting errors people get when accessing databases from off campus. This will help collect all the information we need to be able to troubleshoot the problems.

These forms are also available in Library on BUFiles, under Departments-Library, Reference, Forms. If you use our library databases from home at all, please feel free to print some of these forms out and take them home, so you can report if there are any problems.

Thanks!
Scott

Comments Off on Checking Out Reference Books

By Scott Pfitzinger, November 7, 2006 5:33 pm

As a general rule, we do allow faculty to check out Reference Books if they need to use them in their classes. If a faculty member requests such a use, please have them take the book to the Circulation Desk, where the book will get a record created “on the fly,” so we can have a record of the book being taken out (and by whom).

If a supervisor is not at the Circulation Desk, take down their name and the title and call number of the book and give those to Mary, Laina, or Anthony, who will create the record when they get back.