Blog Home – Page 26 – Mary and Jeff Bell Library Blog

Service Excellence in Your Campus Library

Post author:Jennifer Anderson
Post published:May 31, 2019
Post category:Behind the Scenes Service for You

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:…

Frame of the Day: Information Has Value

Post author:Bell Library
Post published:May 28, 2019
Post category:Library Hacks

Today we're talking about the third Frame of Information Literacy, which is Information Has Value. By the way, these frames aren't organized by importance —it's just alphabetical. There are a lot of different ways we value things. Some things, like money, are valuable to us because we can exchange them for goods and services. On the other hand, some things, like a skill, are valuable to use because we can exchange them for money (which we exchange for more goods and…

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

Post author:Bell Library
Post published:May 24, 2019
Post category:Behind the Scenes

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…

Does the Library Have Any Stephen King Books?

Post author:Trisha Hernandez
Post published:May 21, 2019
Post category:Books & More Service for You

Take a moment to stroll pass the Popular Reading Collection. As you scan the spines of the numerous books, which are currently shelved by author’s last name, you get to the “K” authors. That’s when you see it, ”King…King…King…King.” Of the over 600 titles in this collection, 27 are by Stephen King. While this is a mere 4% in the grand scheme of things, King dominates all other authors regarding number of titles available. Ever wonder why? Gather round, it’s…

Mediasite, what is it and who can use it?

Post author:Abel Cantu
Post published:May 17, 2019
Post category:Library Hacks Service for You Tech in the Library

As part of a joint venture between the Library and the University Technology Council (UTC) to bring a video streaming service to the campus community, Mediasite was selected for a one-year pilot program in the fall of 2017. After a successful test phase Mediasite has been in full production since the fall of 2018. So, what is Mediasite and who can use it? Well in the library we use it for our video course reserve materials. Pretty much gone are…

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

Post author:Rachel Bennett
Post published:May 14, 2019
Post category:Behind the Scenes Service for You

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…

Meet Our Newest Librarian: Alexa

Post author:Alexa Hight
Post published:May 10, 2019
Post category:Hello, from the Staff

Hello, Islanders! My name is Alexa Hight and I am the new Scholarly Communication Librarian in the Bell Library here at TAMU-CC. What does scholarly communication mean and how does it apply to students, staff, and faculty in the TAMU-CC community? According to the Association of College and Research Libraries, scholarly communication can be defined as "the system through which research and other scholarly writings are created, evaluated for quality, disseminated to the scholarly community, and preserved for future use.…

Frame of the Day: Information Creation as a Process

Post author:Bell Library
Post published:May 7, 2019
Post category:Behind the Scenes Library Hacks

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…

Cuba’s Pirate Internet: A Short Story

Post author:Bell Library
Post published:May 3, 2019
Post category:Library Randomness Today's Special

Tourist hotels line the beaches of Havana; you can see their lights to the north as you ride the P5 bus along Avenida 41. You've never been inside, but you know they contain another world: a world filled with people from places that have never even heard of El Paquete Semanal. The sellers of El Paquete, the paqueteros, all say that's where the 'real' internet lives, that the Maestros all have connections inside, that the hotels are modern-day pirate ships.…

Paws on the Island — A Finals Tradition

Post author:Jennifer Anderson
Post published:April 30, 2019
Post category:Service for You Things to Do

As the semester winds down (or up – depending on your course load!) we all start to feel a little stress. Students are getting ready for exams, gathering sources for final papers, and polishing presentations! Faculty members are getting rubrics ready and getting ready for final grades. It can be a time of high energy. We do our best when we’re getting enough sleep, eating right, and taking care of ourselves. Paws on the Island is an amazing opportunity to…