June 2009 Archives

Is there any chance that the library could be open a bit longer next weekend since finals are on the Monday right after it? It would really help a lot of students to have access to a quiet study area.

Thanks for your suggestion. We always have extended hours for finals during the fall and spring semesters, but not during the summer sessions. We can't offer as many extra hours as we do during the regular semesters, but to accomodate requests for additional hours we are going to extend the building hours from 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm on Sunday, June 28. So you'll have a few extra hours in the Library before finals on Monday. We hope this helps, and we'll keep this in mind for future summer sessions.

In the "Find Articles" section, there should be a list of the journals under each section. For example, there are many journals for Speech Pathologists (for which Temple has a Master's program) but there is no way to search through these journals as a group.

We would certainly like to be in a position to offer a better system for either identifying all the journals in a subject area, like speech pathology, or enabling a way to search all those journals. But given the state-of-the-art in our information systems that capability isn't exactly available today. There are a few things you could learn that would enable you to produce a list of journals in a subject area, though it wouldn't necessarily be 100% accurate, and there are some techniques for limiting an article database search to specific journal titles.

In the library catalog, DIAMOND, you can structure a subject search along the lines of "speech disorders--periodicals" and that will return a list of journals to which we describe in this discipline.

You can use Journal Finder to browse journals by subject disciplines; dozens of disciplines are represented. Though I didn't find one for speech pathology there were many in the health disciplines.

Our librarians create subject guides that we call LibGuides that can help with research topics. Some of the librarians have created customized search boxes for specific subject areas. We have LibGuides for a limited number of topics, but you are welcome to request that we create one for a new subject area.

Many of our electronic databases offer advanced search features that allow you to search by specific journal titles. This is a technique that is less familiar to most library users and we suggest that you seek assistance when you need to do this by coming to the reference desk or make an appointment with the library liaison to your academic department.

Perhaps the best advice we can offer is for you to get to know the librarian that serves as the subject specialist for your discipline. Our librarians have expertise in research and information retrieval and can often identify good solutions for almost any type of research need. Start by examining the list of subject specialists.

I think there should be computers for people that only need to print. There should be a max time limit that someone can be on the computer allowing them enough time to log on and get any documents they need from online or the backpack tool. I just know a lot of people that have to go to school a lot earlier in order to make sure they have enough time to stand around for an hour so they can print.

Having individual computers for those who just want to do some quick printing would offer some potential benefits for those in a rush. However, your print job would still go into the regular queue and you would have to wait your turn to print the job. The challenge is that there is a significant demand for computers at Paley Library, and it could be a questionable use of resources to set aside a computer just for those who want to print a document. Also, once on  the computer we would not have any control over how many documents the person prints, which might be time consuming. Nor do we police the computers or put time control software on them. So again, we would not prevent someone from still taking their time on our computers. But I will share the idea with others and perhaps we can come up with some potential solutions to your problem, which is really about waiting too long just to print a document when you are in a hurry. For example, additional printers on upper levels could better level printing jobs so they don't all go to just the two printers in the computer commons. We will also consult with Computer Services about the costs and feasibilty of setting this up since they have control over campus computer printing services.  

Thank you for your suggestion. It is a problem for which we will explore some potential solutions.