If you’re looking for websites on a particular topic for a class project or paper, you’ll be glad to know that the Butler University Libraries have made some select resources available to you.
Every academic discipline taught at Butler has a library liaison, a professional librarian who focuses on that topic. These library liaisons (or subject specialists) have reviewed many websites by and about people and topics in their disciplines. The “Websites by Subject” page is your gateway to discipline-related websites that have met the approval of our librarians. Give it a click and pick your subject. You just might find something new.
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.
Want to find a book, but don’t know what libraries it’s in? Checked the Butler Library Catalog and couldn’t find that book or CD? Try OpenWorldCat.
WorldCat has been available to Butler students, faculty, and staff via the Library Website for quite a while. But now WorldCat is available to everyone via http://worldcat.org/. Just do a search like you normally would, type in your zip code, and they’ll show you libraries near you that own the item. “Books, videos, downloadable audiobooks… if it’s in a library near you, you can find it in WorldCat no matter where you are on
the Web.” You’ll even get links to the libraries’ websites and services like “Ask A Librarian.”
If you want to search Open WorldCat right from your browser, you can download one of their toolbars. You have the options of the WorldCat versions of the Yahoo Toolbar or Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer or a Firefox browser search extension. All of these include installation notes and “how to use” notes.
The EBSCO databases have a cool new way to search for information. It’s called Visual Search. “Visual Search allows you to search efficiently across broad subjects,
and then returns a visual map of results, organized by topic.”
You just search for a topic and you’re given a visual picture of your search results, where circles represent related topics and squares represent actual articles.
To move back (or up) in the map, click outside of a circle or square. Click on Top Level to view the entire map.
You can even use the filters at the top of the map to limit or focus information by keyword, date, or publication name.
Click on the circles to focus on that particular topic. Then mouseover any square to get the citation info for its article. If you want more, click the square to view the information on the right side of your screen. You can even see whether the article is available full text.
To search visually rather than textually, just click the “Visual Search” tab at the top of any EBSCO database.
Just a reminder for all of you who print PDF files from Blackboard, JSTOR, Academic Search Premier, or other full-text databases that the library offers.
Be sure to click the Print Button that’s in the PDF toolbar. Don’t use the Print Button or File-Print function that’s in the web browser. That way you’ll actually get your document printed instead of just the frame at the top of the screen.
If you still can’t get it to print correctly, try saving the PDF file to the Desktop or your H: drive, and then open the document from there and print it.
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