-- Campus impact of MPC/Gateway bankruptcy filing
-- Fairchild Library electrical testing and shutdown
-- Refreshing public site machines
-- LTS Alerts: An update
-- Unlimited access to a Web conferencing tool
-- LTS studying Ebook options
-- LTS Turkey Trot team (LTS Mountain Goats)
-- Library hours over exams and winter break
CAMPUS IMPACT OF MPC/GATEWAY BANKRUPTCY FILING
The computer company known as MPC which purchased Gateway has filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection and has scaled back its business offerings and obligations. Gateway offerings have been removed from the Library and Technology Services Purchasing Computers website and the Lehigh Purchasing Department is blocking Gateway purchases. In addition Gateway/MPC is currently NOT providing warranty repair service or funding it through Lehigh University or anyone else.
The LTS Computer Repair operation will continue to repair Gateway computers as requested for both computers under warranty or out of warranty. For those computers that are university-affiliated purchases (purchases made through the Lehigh/LTS website by faculty, staff, students, or departments) and still under warranty, there will be no labor charge. Owners will need to pay for parts and parts shipping,
assuming it continues to be possible to purchase parts. For out of warranty machines, there will be labor and parts charges as usual. For more information, contact the LTS Help Desk at 610-758-4357.
FAIRCHILD LIBRARY MART WING ELECTRICAL TESTING AND SHUTDOWN IN DECEMBER
After final exams, new electrical panels will be installed in the Mart (south) Wing of Fairchild-Martindale Library. On December 18th testing will take place with recurring power outages. Beginning on Monday, December 22 and continuing on December 23, 29, 30, and 31 (extending even to January 2 if necessary), the electricity to the entire Mart Wing will be shut down, most likely including the Digital Media Studio. Computers and printers located in the Fairchild (north) Wing will continue to operate. A minimal level of photocopy and microform printing/reading services will be maintained at other locations in the building. Books can be checked out and returned as usual. Thank you for your patience as this 40 year-old building gets an e-update.
REFRESHING PC'S AT THE PUBLIC SITES
The PCs at the public sites are heavily used by faculty, staff, and students. As specialized software is loaded through Install Software and through steady use and abuse, machines begin to experience performance issues. The solution to this problem is to refresh the hard disk image. The highest use public sites are refreshed on a weekly basis in the early morning hours.
What is a refresh?
During a refresh, the hard disk contents are completely replaced with a "fresh" installation of the basic operating system and default software (e.g., Microsoft Office, Firefox/Thunderbird, etc.). Any user customizations, software installed via Install Software, and files saved anywhere on the hard disk are erased.
How can I refresh a public site PC?
When you reboot a public site PC, you will see a startup screen that displays two options: Refresh or Go to Windows XP. If you choose Refresh, the system will begin to install a new hard disk image. This can take 10-20 minutes.
I saved a file to a hard drive on a public site machine. It's gone! More than likely the PC has been refreshed, either by another computer user or as part of regularly scheduled site refresh. DO NOT SAVE FILES YOU NEED ON A PUBLIC SITE PC. Instead, save them to your networked H: drive.
LTS ALERTS: AN UPDATE
LTS and University Communications feature an LTS Alert feature. The LTS Alert feature is an icon on the Inside Lehigh page and all LTS pages. Clicking on the icon will display more detailed information. Currently, the LTS Alert has three statuses: All systems go, Planned Downtime, and LTS System Down. The middle category, Planned Downtime, is seldom used, so the three statuses will be changed in time for the spring semester. The LTS Alert feature will be modified to these (3) three statuses:
--All systems go: indicates all systems are up and running.
--LTS System Bulletin: provides news about LTS-related services
including phishing alerts, planned downtime, non-critical service
issues, etc.
--LTS System down: indicates a campus-wide or severe service outage
(e.g., email, Web server, phone, etc.)
Any questions about this change can be directed to the LTS Help Desk at
8-4357.
UNLIMITED ACCESS TO WEB CONFERENCING TOOL
Library and Technology Services has purchased a site license for Elluminate, a web-based conferencing tool that has been used at Lehigh for several years in various applications. The software is a real-time online learning and collaboration tool that has many uses: online courses, traditional classrooms, and other academic and administrative environments.
Elluminate has been used widely at Lehigh in online courses, by graduate students for their dissertation defense when committee members have been away, by traveling faculty who have taught their classes from afar, as an easy way for outside guest speakers to share their expertise with students, and for meetings of people at multiple locations without the expense and effort of traveling. There is also a Blackboard course link that gives instructors the ability to schedule their own Elluminate sessions from within their course. This tool works on PC's, Macs and
Linux computers.
The new site license removes the limitation on the number of participants in an event because it no longer references any specific number of "seats" although there may be some practical limits. LTS has used Elluminate on campus for three years and thus has good experience to assist new users. For more information or a demonstration about this exciting option, contact Sherri Yerk-Zwickl (shy2@lehigh.edu
http://cf1.cc.lehigh.edu/LTSstaff/browse_album.cfm?id=15.
LTS STUDYING E-BOOK COLLECTION OPTIONS
Lehigh librarians are studying e-book content and platforms, in part to consider how e-books can be effectively acquired, cataloged and discovered in the library and to evaluate if expanding and diversifying our e-book collection is a valid strategy for developing academic content from the Library.
As part of that evaluation process, trial access to e-books from several vendors is available over the next two weeks. Please visit the E-Books Trials page at http://library.lehigh.edu/page.php?id=E-Book_Trials to connect to the e-book sites. We hope you enjoy your reading on screen and welcome your comments and questions.
The Lehigh Libraries currently hold over 7,000 e-books fully accessible online from anywhere, anytime; our first e-book online was acquired about ten years ago and our first e-book on disc was acquired over twenty years ago as part of our millionth book celebration. During 2008 the e-book market continued to grow and mature so now it is a good time to reexamine e-books and their utility for teaching and learning at Lehigh.
LTS TURKEY TROT TEAM (LTS MOUNTAIN GOATS)
The LTS Turkey Trot team competed in the 54th Annual Turkey Trot held on Thursday, November 20th beginning in front of Packer Chapel. The Turkey Trot is a 2.5 mile running race that goes through the upper Lehigh campus to the top of Upper Sayer Drive returning to the lawn in front of the University Center. It is a team event composed of various teams including the Lehigh Clubs, Sororities, Fraternities, Faculty/Staff and Independent teams. Each team can have a maximum of 10 members of which the top 5 finishers are included in an overall team score.
This is the LTS Mountain Goats 11th year competing in the Turkey Trot and they are undefeated in the Faculty/Staff division. Overall, the team placed 3rd out of a total of 29 teams including the student teams which are made up of MUCH younger members than the LTS team. There were a total of 280 runners competing in the Turkey Trot this year. Rob Weidman, a Digital Library Technical Coordinator for LTS, finished 1st overall for the second year in a row and Tim Hayburn (a new recruit from
the History department) finished 8th overall. Gale Fritsche, an LTS Client Services Team Leader finished 15th overall, Chad Meyerhoefer from the Economics Department finished 34th, John Rodgers, a Mechanical Engineering graduate student finished 79th, David Ramsay, a LTS Senior Computing Consultant finished 129th and Ken Kodama from EES finished strong but an error in recording his number failed to give Ken an
accurate place.
LIBRARY HOURS -- EXAMS AND WINTER BREAK
Exams*
Fairchild Martindale*
OPEN 24/7
8 am Monday, Dec. 8 through 10 pm
Wednesday, Dec. 17
Linderman
Monday through Friday - 8 am -- 2 am
Saturday through Sunday - 9 am -- 2 am
Wednesday, Dec. 17 - 8 am -- 10 pm
*Winter Break*
December 18 -- January 11
Thursday 12/18 through Friday 12/19 - 8 am -- 5 pm
Saturday 12/20 through Sunday 12/21 -- Noon - 5 pm
Monday 12/22 through Tuesday 12/23 - 8 am -- 5 pm
Wednesday 12/24 -- 8 am - Noon
Thursday 12/25 - CLOSED
Friday 12/26 - 8 am -- 5 pm
Saturday 12/27 through Sunday 12/28 - Noon -- 5 pm
Monday 12/29 through Wednesday 12/31 - 8 am -- 5 pm
Thursday, 1/1/09 - CLOSED
January 2 -- 11
Monday through Thursday - 8 am -- 8 pm
Friday - 8 am -- 5 pm
Saturday through Sunday - Noon -- 5 pm
Thursday, December 11, 2008
December 5, 2008
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
CONTENTS:
--HELP DESK SURVEY TO BE DISTRIBUTED IN NOVEMBER
--LTS HELP DESK SERVICE ENHANCEMENTS
--PHISHING: HOW TO AVOID GETTING HOOKED
--NEW ILLIAD INTERFACE
--DALAI LAMA EXHIBIT: THE PATH TO LEHIGH AND BEYOND
--MAKING EVERY E-VOTE COUNT
--ELECTION RESOURCES
HELP DESK SURVEY TO BE DISTRIBUTED IN NOVEMBER
In November, the LTS Help Desk will distribute a survey to a sample of staff, faculty, and students who use the Help Desk service. The intent of the survey is to get feedback on how we are meeting the needs of our clientele. It should take about ten minutes to complete, and those who receive the survey will have a chance at a drawing to win a $200 gift certificate to Barnes and Noble. We value the opportunity to serve the Lehigh community. Thanks in advance for your input!
LTS HELP DESK SERVICE ENHANCEMENTS
The LTS Help desk has recently added new support tools that will aid in providing service to a wider range of users. By the time you read this message, a Macintosh computer will be installed at the EW Fairchild-Martindale location to better assist Macintosh computer users.
A new remote support tool from Bomgar Corporation will allow help desk staff to offer a "remote in" service where help desk staff connect to the user's computer, view the desktop, and issue commands to resolve the issue. The service is available to both PC and Mac platforms.
PHISHING: HOW TO AVOID GETTING HOOKED
Phishing is a deceptive practice used to steal personal data such as credit card numbers, passwords, or other sensitive information. Scam artists send an email that appears to come from a Web site or corporation you are affiliated with, such as online auction sites, banks, or even Lehigh University. The email will ask you to click on a link within the mail, or will ask you to provide password or credit card information in a reply to the message. NEVER provide your password information via email, and DO NOT click links in an email that appears to be requesting sensitive data. Call the Help Desk with any questions about email purporting to be from Lehigh or LTS.
NEW ILLIAD INTERFACE SAME GREAT INTERLIBRARY LOAN SERVICE
A recent upgrade to the Libraries’ ILLiad interlibrary loan software has presented users with a fresh, simple interface while maintaining the streamlined, reliable service Lehigh users have learned to expect from Interlibrary Loan. Some of the continuing advantages of ILLiad are:
Single entry for personal information. With ILLiad you only need to enter personal information such as name, address and delivery preferences once.
No need to retype bibliographic information. ILLiad is linked to most of the Library’s online databases through SFX. When possible SFX will link you to an electronic version of the publication you need or guide you to a copy owned by Lehigh Libraries. If these options are not available, it will link you to ILLiad and fill out the ILL form with all the necessary bibliographic information, automatically.
Quick and easy status reports on all your ILLiad requests. Login to ILLiad to see the status of all current requests - when processed, when available electronically, or when shipped to Lehigh and when received.
Email notification. ILLiad sends an automatic email when an item is ready for pickup, if it has been scanned and ready for your use, if it is being mailed directly to you, or if a loan is overdue.
To register as an ILLiad user go to https://illiad.lib.lehigh.edu/illiad/logon.html and type in your Lehigh user name and password to begin. To make an ILLiad request from an online database, look for the Lehigh Links logo . Users are reminded that for quick access to books, PALCI EZ-Borrow service provides free, express access to the collections of over 60 academic libraries with holdings of over 36,000,000 volumes. EZ-Borrow requests are usually received within 2-3 days.
DALAI LAMA EXHIBIT: THE PATH TO LEHIGH AND BEYOND
An exhibition opening on October 15th in Linderman Library will commemorate the events and activities leading up to and including the visit of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to Lehigh University in July 2008. This exhibition will be on display throughout the fall semester.
This exhibit, made up of event artifacts and images, begins with the first year student experience reading an autobiography of His Holiness the Dalai Lama and includes coverage of the numerous exhibits and lectures presented throughout the school year, with such highlights as the sand Mandala created in Linderman Library by Monks of the Namgyal Monastery Institute and the teaching and public lecture in July by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. The artifacts and images in this exhibit are located in the Rotunda, Café Gallery and in the 4th floor Parents Gallery. All items have been generously shared with the Library by individuals and departments throughout the University.
An opening reception with refreshments will be held in Linderman at 4:00 p.m. on Wednesday, October 15th.
MAKING EVERY E-VOTE COUNT
At noon on Thursday, October 23rd, the Friends of the Libraries will sponsor a talk on "Making Every E-Vote Count" by Professor Daniel Lopresti, Computer Science and Engineering, in Linderman Library (Room 200).
Professor Lopresti, an active researcher, expert witness, and lecturer on electronic voting, will talk about what kinds of technology voters will encounter this November and what kind of reliability they can expect. Lopresti is co-director of Lehigh's Pattern Recognition Research Lab and co-principal investigator of the new multi-institutional NSF project: Paper and Electronic Records of Elections: Cultivating Trust (PERFECT).
Lehigh has been involved in voting machine research for a very long time, in 1906 George Street, Jr., a mechanical engineering major, wrote his bachelor's thesis on “the original design of an automatic balloting machine." It is held by Special Collections and will be on view at the talk.
ELECTION RESOURCES
Hungry for information on the candidates and the upcoming election? Just trying to sort out fact from fiction? Perhaps the following Web sites can help.
Produced by the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, the non-partisan FactCheck.org works to determine the accuracy of the statements of candidates and campaigns in their speeches, interviews, debates and advertisements.
Wondering about campaign spending and finance? The Federal Election Commission website has maps which allow you to compare contributions to candidates by state. You can even search by donor name!
Do your research! Project Vote Smart provides candidate biographies, voting records, issue positions, interest group ratings and public statements along with campaign finance information.
The ever reliable League of Women Voters has a website, Vote411.org which will help you find plenty of data on candidates in federal, state and local races. Use it to find your polling place or learn about the election process and rules in your state.
Aimed at young voters, VoteGopher.com was created by Harvard University students as a one-stop place to learn candidate’s positions on issues.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
September 4, 2008
LTS DIGEST –September 4, 2008 Lehigh University Library and Technology Services
CONTENTS:
CLASSROOM ALERT SYSTEM
NEW SCANNING STATION IN EWFM
EASY PDFS! MICROSOFT OFFICE 2007 CONVERTS DOCS TO PDF
MICROSOFT SOFTWARE FOR STUDENTS DOWNLOAD
HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPUTING “TRIPLE”
PSYCINFO: POPULAR DATABASE NOW ON APA’S PSYCNET
ICPSR DATABASE
ENGINEERING EXHIBIT IN LINDERMAN LIBRARY
LIBRARY HOURS
CLASSROOM ALERT SYSTEM
To facilitate emergency announcements to instructors in classrooms, Library and Technology Services has implemented a new service over the summer that will use digital speakerphones to broadcast announcements.
Wall-mounted digital speakerphones have been installed near the instructor’s station in all Registrar classrooms on campus. The speaker volume control has been preset to its highest level and cannot be changed. This modification affects only the speaker, not the handset. If an announcement takes place, occupants will hear an alert tone repeated several times, followed by the alert/announcement which will be repeated three times. 911 calls in progress will not be interrupted; other calls will be placed on hold temporarily.
An event that triggers a classroom broadcast announcement will also trigger other emergency notification channels: the University Emergency Info web page, LU-ALERT text messaging, email and campus voice mail alerts. Consult http://www.lehigh.edu/phones/classroomphones.html for a link to more information.
NEW SCANNING STATION IN EWFM
This fall LTS introduced a scanning station in the Information Commons. The networked PC and scanner can be used by anyone affiliated with Lehigh (log in with a Lehigh username and password), and help desk staff are available to assist in use of the scanner. This station will be helpful for those who want to scan library materials. Scanners are also available in the Media Center.
EASY PDFS! MICROSOFT OFFICE 2007 CONVERTS DOCS TO PDF
Creating PDF documents used to require the Adobe Acrobat Professional software or other similar commercial software. Microsoft Office 2007 users have the option of saving a document to a PDF file. When you select Save As in MS Word 2007, you'll see the option to save as a PDF file. Just select that option when you want to create a file in PDF format.
You have to download and install a separate program to enable that feature in Office 2007. Users can go to http://office.microsoft.com/downloads and look for "Microsoft Save As PDF or XPS” under "Popular Downloads".
MICROSOFT SOFTWARE FOR STUDENTS DOWNLOAD
Beginning August 2008, currently enrolled Lehigh students may download Microsoft Office for Windows and Macintosh as well as Microsoft SharePoint Designer software. Previously, this software was only available on CD from the EWFM Library. Please read the information below before downloading, also available at: http://www.lehigh.edu/computing/software/studentuse.html. Faculty and staff may purchase Microsoft Work at Home media including MS Office at the Lehigh University Bookstore. The downloading option is limited to students.
Software available for download:
Office 2007 Enterprise for Windows (includes: Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint, Publisher, OneNote);
Office 2008 for Macintosh – (includes: Word, Excel, PowerPoint);
SharePoint Designer - (Web Authoring Suite).
Limits: Two (2) installs each of Office and SharePoint Designer for use only on student's personally owned computers. Choose EITHER Office for Windows OR Office for Macintosh.
The Vista Ultimate system upgrade is available as a software DVD at the Fairchild-Martindale Library—Lehigh ID required. Limit ONE (1) per student. No download is available.
HIGH PERFORMANCE COMPUTING “TRIPLE”
1) The Library and Technology Services (LTS) has purchased a 32-core shared memory processor computer bringing an amazing amount of new computational power to campus. The new compute server, called Altair consists of eight (8) quad-core Intel Xeon 64-bit processors with 128 Gigabytes (GB) of RAM. Altair replaces the previous centralized shared memory compute resource, Vega. Researchers on campus who need large amounts of computational power combined with greater than four (4) GB’s of RAM for their compute problems, can take advantage of this 64-bit processing architecture to run programs like Matlab, Ansys, Fluent, and Abaqus.
2) In addition to this new compute server, LTS has put into operation an 18-node Linux login farm called LEAF. Anyone can access these 32-bit machines that have four (4) Xeon single-core processors with 12 GB of RAM on each one of these Egenera Blade Server nodes. The head node of this farm uses load balancing to provide the best resources for your needs by directing your login session to the machine with the least amount of processing load. No special account permission is required. The same applications that users can run on Altair are also available on any of the LEAF servers.
For more details on Altair and Leaf hardware architectures, please visit:
http://www.lehigh.edu/computing/hpc/services/hardware.html
3) And finally this summer, LTS refreshed 20 new Linux workstations that are distributed in public spaces in the Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, and Earth and Environmental Sciences department buildings. Each one of these Dell Precision T7400 workstations has a minimum of a single quad-core Intel Xeon 64-bit processor with 4 GB of RAM, 80GB hard disk, and a 256MB graphics card with a 22-inch monitor. Some of the important software that these computers will support includes Spartan, a quantum chemistry application suite, and ARC GIS, which is for creating and analyzing geographic information systems databases. For more information on how to take advantage of Lehigh’s HPC resources, please visit http://www.lehigh.edu/computing/hpc/
PSYCINFO: POPULAR DATABASE NOW ON APA’S PSYCNET
PsycINFO is now accessible on the PsycNet, APA’s search interface. One of the most heavily used library research tools at Lehigh, American Psychological Association’s literature database, PsycINFO, indexes and abstracts over 100 years of scholarly output in psychology and related fields. To login to PsycINFO, bookmark this page for both on and off campus connections: http://databases.lib.lehigh.edu/finder/dbfull.asp?DBID=1. Special note for persons with an interest in neuroscience: 171 journals in this area are now covered in PsycINFO.
PsycINFO on PsycNET offers added functionality for searching within results, for cited reference retrieval, for consulting the rich vocabulary in the Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms, for saving search strategies, and for exporting to bibliographic citation software such as RefWorks. The Term Finder (Thesaurus) has an easy to use “add to search” option; that option could be particularly valuable for undergraduates unfamiliar with psychological terminology.
The familiar “Lehigh Link (SFX)” icon, depicting the Linderman Library skylight, is found in PsycINFO. The Lehigh Link connects the user to the library’s electronic copy or ILLIAD service. The Lehigh Link is durable and can be used for course readings. It also displays in RefWorks@Lehigh.
ICPSR DATABASE
LTS has subscribed to ICPSR, the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research, the world's largest archive http://databases.lib.lehigh.edu/finder/dbfull.asp?DBID=235 of digital social science data. Professor Ziad Munson, Sociology and Anthropology, will serve as Lehigh’s ICPSR representative, supported by Librarian Roseanne Bowerman and Computing Consultant Bill Betterman.
ENGINEERING EXHIBIT IN LINDERMAN LIBRARY “HOW TO BECOME AN ENGINEER: TOYS, TOOLS, AND TECHNOLOGY”
This exhibition explores the rise of formal academic programs in civil engineering established around the time of Lehigh's founding in 1865. The title of the exhibition, mounted by Lehigh University Libraries Special Collections, was inspired by the name of an 1891 manual detailing the "theoretical and practical training necessary in fitting for the duties of the civil engineer." In addition, featured content includes "the best educational toy", a model bridge building kit dating from 1895, 19th century student notebooks, and classic works in the history of civil engineering. Exhibited items date from 1793, when the term "civil engineer" first appeared in print, and special emphasis will be given to Lehigh's contributions to the field. The exhibition runs August 15, 2008 - January 15, 2009. There is a related program on September 25th at 4pm in Linderman Library, room 200.
LIBRARY HOURS
Beginning (Monday, August 25 – Sunday, September 7)
Monday – Thursday open 8:00 am – Midnight
Friday open 8:00 am-10:00 pm
Saturday open 10:00 am – 10:00 pm
Sunday open 10:00am – Midnight
Beginning (September 8)
Monday – Thursday open until 2:00am
