Does the library have my textbook? A student’s guide to Course Reserves

What are Course Reserves? Reserves are books held at the Circulation Desk under course numbers and/or professors' names. Usually the books are on 3-hour reserve and must remain in the library. This allows more students access to the book. Books are put on reserve by the request of the professor. Tip: If you would like one of your course books to be on reserve at the library, talk to your professor. They might they have an extra copy available that they…

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Service Excellence in Your Campus Library

Recently the faculty and staff at the Bell Library have embarked upon a service excellence initiative. We hear about service excellence more and more often lately – we’ve even mentioned it a few times in our blog. What does “service excellence” mean? Perhaps more importantly, what will it mean for you? A simple Google search will give us some starting points…service excellence is an organization’s ability to meet and manage customer expectations. Lots of words are repeated in the results:…

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A Sea of Maps: A Collaborative Project with the Conrad Blucher Institute

Every morning the lights of the Archives Workroom come on at 8:00 am, and every morning the first thing (or should I say things) that greet me as I walk in are land surveying records. Not just a few, not just a couple hundred, but thousands of maps waiting to be processed, preserved and prepared for digitization. As Library Specialist II, in the Special Collections and Archives department, my job is to serve as point of contact with the Conrad Blucher Institute on a…

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An In-depth Look at How Bell Library Acquires New Databases

Have you ever been browsing our online databases and wondered how we here at Bell Library decide which ones to purchase and make available to you? Well wonder no more because I am about to lay it all out for you! The first step in the e-resource lifecycle begins when we become aware of a new database. This can happen several different ways. Sometimes there is a resource that a professor has been wanting or has used at a prior…

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Frame of the Day: Information Creation as a Process

In our April 2nd post, we discussed the Information Literacy Frame, Authority is Constructed and Contextual. Today, we'll focus on the second frame: Information Creation as a Process.  So first of all, let's get this out of the way: Everyone is a creator of information. When you write an essay, you're creating information. When you log the temperature of the lizard tank, you're creating information. Every Word doc, Google Doc, survey, spreadsheet, Tweet, and PowerPoint that you've ever had a hand in—they are…

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Come work with us in Special Collections!

You might think working in a library would be boring and all you would do is shelve books. However, modern libraries are bustling centers of traditional collection management and next level technology solutions. Working at Bell Library Special Collections offers something for everyone. Students interested in History can apply their skills researching and describing archival collections while being exposed to data management and networked systems. Students who are more technology oriented can work on digital projects and help develop our…

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What’s a QEP?

A QEP you say? Information and digital literacy you say? What the what? What’s a QEP? QEP is an acronym for Quality Enhancement Plan and is part of the SACSCOC reaffirmation process. According to SACSCOC, “the Quality Enhancement Plan is an integral component of the reaffirmation of accreditation process and is derived from an institution’s ongoing comprehensive planning and evaluation process. It reflects and affirms a commitment to enhance overall institutional quality and effectiveness by focusing on an issue that the institution considers important…

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Are you a Sean or a Joe? Re-shelving Books in the Library

Why do we ask you to put the books back on the cart instead of re-shelving them yourself? This is an excellent question. You're thinking, "If I re-shelve it myself, it will be right where I need it tomorrow; or, it'll be available for the next person." You obviously know where you pulled it from. You can see the gap right there. Also, maybe you’re saving the staff from having to do the work of putting it back; so really,…

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Behind the Scenes

The construction area next to the Ask Us Desk isn't the only big change happening at the library right now. Library staff are gearing up for a “behind the scenes” change that you probably won't notice, but that we hope will help us deliver even better service to all of you. The software we use to manage library operations—checking books in and out, the library catalog, journal holdings, tracking orders for new books and other materials, etc.—was designed with print…

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Your Popular Reading Collection

Do you hear it; the whispers calling out to you from our shelves? Tendrils of word clouds with themes like dragons, mystery murders, battles, and more wrap around and embrace you, enticing you to read. THIS is Popular Reading! Nestled beside the Circulation desk, the library has three blue shelves full of your popular reading desires. Before we talk more about the collection, however, how about a bit of history…. For years, despite all the amazing services the Bell Library…

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