There is now a NEW printer in Reference. It’s a large industrial model that sits on the floor like the one in the Science Library. It holds 4,000 sheets at one time and the toner lasts about twice as long. It’s quieter than the other ones and faster (about 55 pages per minute one side), duplexes just fine and DOESN’T JAM! (At least, that’s the word on the street. I’ve already seen it printing a ton and no problems.)
Our smaller printers are made for office use, not the heavy use they receive here from all the students, so the industrial printer is a better solution all around.
They’re still testing the drivers to make sure we’ve got the best service possible, so for now the office computers and student laptops will print to the same smaller one as they’ve been doing for a few days now. All the lab computers, though, are going to the big new one. So far, all seems good.
There is a
new LibGuide in our system that is called Librarian Resources.
I’ve taken
the “Librarian Links” from our website and added pages with links to online
journals, blogs, RSS feeds, and other professional development tools that all library staff may find useful. You can
find this on the main LibGuides page: http://libguides.butler.edu
or else use
the direct link: http://libguides.butler.edu/librarians
We have an update for the printers in Reference. A test is being run this week to see if different drivers will solve the many problems we’ve been having. To that end, the LEFT printer is now on a new print queue, IL_120_K2. The right one is still on IL_120_K. All of the student-access computers have already been switched to print to IL_120_K2 as their default, which also has the new drivers. Office computers and the Reference Desk (and the PC with the scanner) will print to the right one as will people with laptops that already have IL_120_K installed.
Nobody needs to change a thing. This is strictly informational.
After a week or so, they’ll be evaluating whether the new drivers have solved our problem and if so, setting both printers to use the new drivers on just one queue again.
There you go.
Scott
PC Magazine recently published an article (7 August 2007) that said that the most popular internet search engines were Google and Yahoo, with Amazon coming in third.
There was also an article back in April that was called Search Engine Shoot Out, which compared dozens of search engines and gave us the results. It’s worth a look.
The Reference Desk is now set up to use Meebo. Meebo does the same thing that Gaim does (which is what we’ve been using), namely combining multiple IM accounts into one interface, so we only have to run one program to allow people with different IM programs to contact us.
BUT (and that’s a big but), there’s a very special thing that Meebo does that programs like Gaim and Trillian do NOT, and that is providing an embedded “widget” allowing people to IM us without having any IM program installed. I’ve already set up a widget for Meebo on our Ask A Librarian page, so give it a click and see what it looks like.
The only thing that Meebo requires is logging into it through a web page and keeping that web page open. If you use Firefox, it’s just an extra tab and I’ve already configured Firefox to open the library website AND Meebo in two different tabs when Firefox is launched. Internet Explorer 6 doesn’t have tabs (and IE7 cannot run on Windows 2000 machines), so if you use Internet Explorer you’ll need to have two browser windows open–one for the library website/catalog and one for Meebo. I’m keeping the library website as the Home Page in IE and have added a link on the toolbar for Meebo. Since we’ve gotten used to having a separate application running with Gaim, it won’t be much different except that both windows will be Internet Explorer. My recommendation: use Firefox. 🙂
(For what it’s worth, Meebo widgets can also be seamlessly used in LibGuides, as you’ll be able to see by looking at my profile.)
(See http://meebo.com for more information about it.)
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