It Won't Be Long Now

Thank goodness.

Classes ended last week. We are now beginning the week of finals, and I'm seeing much more selfishness than ever before.

There was the "me Generation." Now there's the "Selfish Generation." A lot of these kids seem to think about nothing but themselves. It's like they consider themselves entitled to things and to hell with everyone else.

Already today, I've witnessed a student come from the second floor, walk over to the Uniprint printer, open the paper tray and help herself to a rather large amount of paper from one of the paper trays, then walk away. She didn't even have the courtesy of closing the tray back properly. Another student locked up a PC so no one else could use it.

It's been a long semester. I'll be glad it's over.

ttyl.

The Joint Is Jumping

It's coming down to the wire for the semester. The last day of classes is Friday, December 11th. The last day of finals is Saturday, December 19th.

The library is packed. Students are using all the workstations, study rooms, the café, and the Presentation Practice room. We are doing our best to keep up with requests and technology issues.

There's been a surge in ILL requests and we've begun ordering books for the Spring semester.

The library is now staying open to 2 am Mon - Thu, and the students are taking advantage of the extended hours. We'll be open 24/7 again finals week. The students really seem to like that.

It's crunch time.

ttyl

Senior Photography Display at the Library

The following exhibit is currently on display at the library.

The link comes from our Facebook page and blog.

ttyl

Funny Holiday Picture

Happy Holidays

I hope everyone has an enjoyable and safe Thanksgiving.

To help put you in the mood, I've included a link to online Christmas songs in the sidebar.

So when I don't have that much to say, stop by to listen to some holiday tunes.

Enjoy.

ttyl

Another Useful Browser Shortcut

You know how you can set up your browser to load your favorite homepage when you start your browser? Well, guess what? You can have your browser start up more than one homepage.

I discovered, quite by accident that all you have to do is use the pipe command; it's the vertical symbol on your keyboard: |. By using this symbol, you can have your browser open several pages at once. I don't know if there's a limit to the number of pages you can include.

The command looks something like this: http://www.google.com|http://www.mylibraryjob.blogspot.com|http://www.facebook.com. Now, whenever I open my browser, the Google homepage, my blog homepage, and the Facebook login page start in separate tabs in my browser. My browser of choice is Firefox.

The only drawback is if you're in the habit of clicking the homepage icon on your browser, you might want to reconsider adding more than one page. Because if you click your home button, all of the pages you keyed in to start when you start your browser will start again.

ttyl

Interesting Website

In a recent post on our blog, Library Lifelines, an interesting site from the History Channel was highlighted: This Day in History.

If you're interested in what happened on a particular day in history, this site has interesting factoids and videos about major events that took place on those days.

If you're the slightest bit curious (and you know you are), check it out.

Ah-ha! You thought this post was going to be another vent session, didn't you? (It almost was.) :-)

ttyl

Library Hand Sanitizer Locations Too High

The university has been installing hand sanitizers all around campus. Sanitizers were also installed in the library. The only problem: they don't conform to the Americans with Disabilities Act guidelines for wheelchair reach.

All of the other stations are stand-alone units; the ones that were installed in the library were drilled into the walls and pillars. Now they've got to be repositioned. Whey we didn't get the standing stations is anyone's guess.

Did I mention we're also dealing with a friggin' transportation strike? The mayor, the governor, and a congressman have been trying to head off a threatened strike by the TWU against the only transit company in the region. At 3 am yesterday morning, TWU leaders walked out of negotiations and ordered a strike leaving the city and surrounding suburban areas in turmoil.

ttyl

What is it with these Name Changes?

Geeze, another company has changed it's name again for the umpteenth time. One particular company, which will go unnamed, has changed its name back to what they were calling themselves thirteen years ago.

Does someone get paid to think these things up? Because if they do, sign me up. Reminds me of when I worked in periodicals. Title changes were a pain in the sit-down. Especially those titles that changed, then an issue later changed to something else or changed back.

In other news . . .

Not much out of the ordinary. Last week was pretty much the same as previous weeks, printing issues, portal issues, etc. We did have a book give-away. A full book truck full of gift books was nearly cleaned off. Anything left by the end of today will go to Better World Books.

ttyl

All Quiet on the Education Front

Semester break is here. All two days of it. The students will be back tomorrow and so will everything else--including the heat, I hope.

It's friggin cold in this building!!!!!!!!

It's difficult to concentrate when cold air is blowing through the vents overhead.

Presumably, when the students return tomorrow, the heat will too. Can't have them complaining about the cold in the building.

Fat lot of good it'll do them if the staff gets sick.

ttyl