Comments Off on Creating a Works Cited List

By Scott Pfitzinger, December 3, 2007 5:39 pm

We’re quickly approaching the end of the Fall semester and due dates for papers and projects. This is the time of the year when people are finishing papers and suddenly needing to know how to reference their sources for the “Works Cited” page at the end of those papers. Fortunately, the Butler Libraries have provided some guides to help you get everything in the right order and formatted correctly.

Just visit http://www.butler.edu/library/?pg=544 and pick the style you need. Whether MLA, APA, Chicago, Turabian, or other more specialized formatting styles, we’ve got them all, complete with examples for books, articles, electronic sources, and other types of media.

You can also get to the Citation Guides by going to the main Library webpage, http://www.butler.edu/library, and clicking on Citation Style Guides (listed in the Research column).

If you need more detailed examples than what are provided on our website, stop by the Reference Desk and grab the complete manual. You’re also welcome to Ask a Librarian for assistance with citations.

Comments Off on Working with Emailed Files

By Scott Pfitzinger, November 28, 2007 10:39 am

A common method of working on papers is to email the document to yourself and then open it from your email. While this method does work, PLEASE NOTE that you cannot just click “Save” when you’ve opened an email attachment. That will only save the document in a TEMP folder which will disappear once you log off, meaning YOU WILL LOSE YOUR WORK.

If you are opening a document you sent yourself via email, PLEASE save it to BUFiles first and only then start working on it. That will ensure you don’t lose all the work you’ve done.

Better yet, simply work from BUFiles all the time. The only time you won’t have access is if you’re off campus, in which case we suggest using a USB Flash Drive. If you do choose to use email, remember that files opened directly from an email attachment will open via a TEMP folder and clicking “Save” will NOT save it the way you want.

Comments Off on State of the Printers Address

By Scott Pfitzinger, November 26, 2007 2:02 pm

To all frustrated librarians and staff who have begun pulling their hair out over the Reference Computers, greetings.

As was mentioned last week, the printer testing that was going on in Reference is finished and we are back to the configuration we had at the beginning of the year. That means two smaller desktop printers and EVERYTHING in the Library, both lab-type computers and student laptops, will be printing on IL_120_K.

We do know that these printers are jamming more than we’re used to and are occasionally having other problems as well. When you are working at the Reference Desk (or even when you’re not but happen to encounter a problem), please document ALL printer problems in the spreadsheet whose shortcut is on the Desktop of the RefDesk computer. If you are getting more frustrated with these printers, please document problems all the more diligently, so we can more accurately raise a stink that will surely reach even the nostrils of the Chief Information Officer.

Comments Off on New Printers in Reference

By Scott Pfitzinger, November 19, 2007 2:53 pm

As of this afternoon we have new printers in the Reference Department. They are the same model of Kyocera printers that we had at the beginning of the semester and which sit on the table there. These are newer than those, and so have less wear and tear.

These printers have been installed with HP drivers, so computers will think they’re HPs and print to them that way. This should greatly reduce the number of printer jams and print queue delays that occur. In fact, if either of those things happens, please let me know so I can track their occurrence.

Laptops MAY experience problems printing to these printers if they’ve already got the printers installed on the laptops, because the laptop will think it’s a Kyocera printer but the network will be treating it like an HP printer, resulting in “gobbledygook” printing out. If this happens, the laptop simply needs to uninstall the printer and reinstall it.

There are no current plans to change these printers, test anything new, or otherwise break continuity with these printers and how they work, so things should be stable for quite a while now.

Scott