Computer Assistance Available Now!

The Computer Assistance Desk is open and ready for business!

The desk is located on the west side of the 3rd floor of Library West (across from the Orange printer and next to room 317, which is the Information Technology Services Office).

This desk will be staffed full time by highly knowledgeable students and staff. The desk will be open from 10am until 5pm Monday through Friday.

Any and all technology related questions may be directed to the friendly staff at the Library West Computer Assistance Desk. They will be able to field questions ranging from frozen computers to activating Gator 1 cards and everything in between.

This desk is not only for our patrons but our faculty and staff as well! You can also give them a call with your questions at 273-2668.

Need Ares Training?

Additional training for Ares will be held on Tuesday, September 4th at 8:30am in MSL L107.

This training is specifically designed for desk staff who have to help patrons find their course reserve items in Ares. I know I've been getting a LOT of these questions on the desk since fall started.

Endeca request* Issue

At the moment in Endeca there are error messages associated with Storage items with a ‘request*’ link (notice the lowercase r and the asterisk).

When you try to request these items, you may encounter an error message that says ‘Patron does not have permission to place a hold request for this item’.

(You can all see for yourself with 843.91 K66r 1953).

FCLA is aware of this issue, and are trying to fix it. In the meantime when you encounter this error, please direct the patrons to use the alternate request form at: http://www.uflib.ufl.edu/Storage/StorageRequest.asp which they can access via the Retrieval Help link at the top of the page.

Please note: in Endeca clicking the Retrieval Help link will not open a separate window. You may want to force it to open in a new tab or window so that you can easily cut and paste information into the form.

Regular items with the normal ‘Request’ link should not be affected by this problem. (Note the capital R and there is no asterisk.)

Endeca

With the Endeca implementation this week I thought many folks would appreciate some sort of help getting used to this new system.

Matthew provided this link to the Endeca online tutorial. Please go through the tutorial on your own, and then try to use Endeca as much as possible in your normal daily work.

As you notice issues or run into questions please email them to me (with as much detail as possible) and I will compile all our questions and concerns to the appropriate folks for answers.

Also there is an online help guide accessed by clicking “help” next to the Endeca search bar.

One very important caveat though: when looking up items that are on course reserves check the Aleph OPAC instead. Endeca isn't showing the current status of these course reserves items "live." Instead it is updated once or twice a week (we're not sure of the exact schedule). So while you can trust the Available vs. Checked out status, you can't be sure about whether the item is on reserve yet or not based on Endeca's information.

Orientation Time

It's that time of the semester again. Orientations are available online at: http://www.uflib.ufl.edu/instruct3/orientation.html where they can find the listed times for the in-person sessions and the link to the online orientations.

For tours of the building you can refer them to the lovely map brochures to go on a self-guided tour. Or they can attend one of the orientations- I'm told they might do a tour if time allows at the end.

No reservations are needed for the orientations.

Returned Study Carrel Keys

If you have a patron returning a key for their study carrel (the ones that are assigned to Graduate or Faculty for the year) please refer this to circulation staff. The keys are overdue and their is a block that must be manually removed when the key is returned.

By the way, the Carrel Application website is active again. It came up by yesterday before noon.

Endeca is LIVE

We've officially switched over to the Endeca interface to the catalog. I anticipate that many folks might be interested in a hands on training, so I'll be working on setting something up soon.

An important piece of information in the notice is: If you are ever using the Endeca OPAC and need/want to go to the Aleph OPAC for any reason, there is a link in the lower left of every Endeca OPAC screen to "Previous Library Catalog".

I know that in the Endeca interface you can't search by call number, so you'll want to switch over to Aleph for that. (I know I end up doing a lot of those kinds of searches on the desk.)

Happy Monday everyone!

Weekly Calendar is online now too

Now you can check the weekly calendar online as well. This is the place where all trades are recorded. I think I've also put in all the holidays we'll be closed for too. But if you notice one I missed let me know.

Right now I have the reduced Fall schedule as continuing till Winter Break, but we may end up closing the desk after Finals. We'll look at that later in the semester.

See you Monday!

The Fall Schedules are UP!

So many folks were able to stay on for the first three weeks of Fall! Thank you all for volunteering! The Fall Triage Schedule is up, and we'll start Monday. Keep in mind that Monday-Wednesday next week we'll only be open until 6pm though since it's still technically intercession.

We'll continue with the full schedule until September 10th when we'll switch to the reduced Fall Schedule. Again though, so many folks were willing to take shifts during these busy times. Thank you all!

Those who were unable to fit the Info point into your schedule with the reduced time coverage, we'll miss you. Hopefully we'll see you again in the Spring. My guess right now is that we'll do the three weeks of Triage again in the Spring, but we'll see what happens.

I'm trying to keep up with the Email Distribution List, but if you find you're still on the list and you should be removed, please let me know. I'm also trying to keep our page of Information Specialists up to date as well.

See you on the desk!

Graduate and Faculty Study Carrels

It's that time of year again. Time for Graduate and Faculty to apply for their study carrels.

Applications are being accepted until August 31st. Applicants use the online form at http://www.uflib.ufl.edu/cars/.

Assignments will not be made until the first week in September. Then all applicants will be notified via email to check their online account at the same URL.

The application form allows room for special notes or requests, so please ask patrons to enter those there rather than contacting Lori Driscoll directly. She's happy to answer any policy questions, but here are links to them as well:

Online Policies for:
Graduate Students
Faculty

-------------------

I just had a question from a student about what classification number they should choose (e.g. 7ED, 8EG, 9EN etc.) I found the information below to be very helpful. It's from the online Graduate Student Catalog.

Classification of Students

6 - Postbaccalaureate students: degree-holding students admitted to postbaccalaureate credits.

7 - Graduate students seeking a first master’s degree.

8 - Graduate students who have earned a master’s degree, or who have earned 36 or more credits while seeking a graduate degree, but who have not been admitted to doctoral candidacy.

9 - Graduate students admitted to doctoral candidacy.

July Statistics

The July statistics are up. But I know what we're all really waiting for are the stats for the first month of fall!

Closed for Intercession

Today we officially start intercession and the Information Point will be closed until Monday 8/20. I have only a few people to hear from on the schedule and then I'll be sending around the fall triage schedule and the regular fall schedule via email.

Endeca Discovery Classes

The switch to Endeca is coming up sometime this month. Possibly even as early as next week. There are two classes coming up this week and I recommend everyone try to attend one if possible. Hope to see you there!

Tuesday, August 7, from 1:00-3:00 in Library West 419
Friday, August 10, from 1:00-3:00 in the MSL L107

Class objectives:
-You will leave the class with a general understanding of the web pages your patrons will encounter.
-Review common search strategies
-Highlight Endeca’s unique query capabilities.