The Carroll Community College Library Blog

ebrary Changes

ebrary, the library’s largest e-book vendor, has just completed an upgrade to their ebrary Reader, so you may notice some changes to the way you access their resources.

     

ON-CAMPUS

If you just want to read or print from an ebrary book, you probably won’t notice any differences.  Just say OK to the “trusted site warning” dialog box to get into the database.

 

If you want to use the special InfoTool features, including your personal Bookshelf, you need to sign in using your Student ID. You will also have to download ebrary’s new virtual Java reader each day that you access the database.  It should take less than a minute, but you will need to respond to a few dialog boxes to complete the process (i.e. run Java, licensing agreement, etc.) To start the download, click on the gray ebrary reader box next the book titles in your search results list or use blue ebrary reader box within your selected title.

 

OFF CAMPUS

As always, you will need to use your Student ID to open the database.  Because you have logged in, your personal Bookshelf will automatically be accessible to you.  You will be able to read or print from a book without any further software downloads.

 

If you want to use the special InfoTool features, you will need to download the new virtual Java reader the first time you use the database.  NOTE: Your computer must have Java  1.6 or higher. Click here for a free download or version verification on your machine. http://java.com/en/download/manual.jsp

 

To start the download, click on the gray ebrary reader box next the book titles in your search results list or use blue ebrary reader box within your selected title. 

 

As always, if you have questions or problems, contact the Library Reference Desk.

410-386-8340 or ref_desk@carrollcc.edu.

 

Library Research Guides

The College Library is migrating to a new format for its subject and course related web pages.  For years, these subject/course related pages have provided students and faculty with lists of library resources and websites that supported research or assignments in a given discipline or course.  Though useful, these subject/course related pages needed to be refreshed.  A product called LibGuides was investigated and adopted as a new more dynamic format for providing research assistance for our users.  Over the next year, the librarians will be migrating the subject/course related pages to this new more interactive platform.  The new Research Guides are organized around a set of tabs and content boxes within which can be placed links, media, tutorials, bibliographies, surveys, etc. So far, new Library Research Guides on Speech, Art, Health/Fitness and Biology have been created.  You will find a link to these new resources on the Library's home page called, Subject Research Guides."  To see what they look like, go to the Library home page or try this link - Carroll CC library research guides .

Library Online Catalog Includes Web Sites

The Library online catalog is not just a finding tool for books and media, but it also provides access to many research oriented web sites.  For several years, the library has cataloged quality web pages along with the books and media.  When one does a search in the catalog by subject, keyword, title, etc., the results will show a mix of print and nonprint titles among which are web pages.  The web pages provide a link to the page and are identified by WWW as the collection, Online as the call number, and Internet as the status.  Some resources are in multiple formats and may have print call numbers listed as well as web links.  Examples of some of the Internet sites included are The Occupational Outlook Handbook, Uniform Crime Reports of the U.S., and Addiction: drugs, brains, and behavior.  Keep the library's catalog in mind when trying to locate quality Internet sites.

Double-sided documents now accepted campus-wide

In an effort to promote a more environmentally-friendly campus and conserve resources, instructors at Carroll Community College have been asked to allow projects and papers to be submitted with double-sided printing.  The printers in the CCC library have been set to print double-sided (also known as duplexing) unless you change it manually.

For more information on duplex printing, ask at the Reference Desk.

Jam at the Library?

Is that "jam" as in strawberry or "jam" as in Bob Marley? Unfortunately, it's "jam" as in, my assignment is stuck in the printer!

Today's Quick Tech Tip:

If you experience a print problem while using the library computers, send your print job to another printer and then let someone at the Reference Desk know which printer is jammed or printing incorrectly.  That way, you don't have to wait for your document while we troubleshoot and fix the problem.

To choose a different printer, open the Print Dialog box, look at "Select a Printer," and pick which printer you want.  Printers A, C, & D are near the Reference Desk, and B, E, & F are on the Media/Periodical side of the library.  Each one is labeled on the top cover so you can locate your finished print job.

OpenOffice software compatibility at CCC

Are you using OpenOffice software at home? If so, you may have already experienced problems trying to access or print your OpenOffice documents at school and here's why:

The OpenOffice word processing program called Writer can open most Word-created files, but Microsoft does not return the favor!  Microsoft Word can NOT open a .odt file, and unfortunately, the OpenOffice software default is to save files in OpenDocument (.odt) format.

Bottom line...CCC computers don't have OpenOffice, and if you need to open an .odt file at school, you'll be in for a headache!

Now the good news: there is a way to save your documents to make them compatible with the Microsoft products that are installed on CCC's computers. Follow these few simple steps when you initially save your document, and save yourself a load of trouble if you need to access your OpenOffice document at school.

    To save a document in a Word-compatible format in OpenOffice:

1. Open the File menu
2. Click on Save As
3. Enter your file name, then click on the down arrow next to Save as type
4. Select Microsoft Word 97/2000/XP (.doc) and then press the save button.
                                   

Thanks to LT Student Aide Matt Brown for his technical know-how and writing skills in contributing to this post.

            

Important File Saving Tips

This is an important reminder for people using the Library's computers. When you save a document or other project, please do not save it on the computer's hard drive (Desktop, My Documents, etc.) Your document will be erased when the computer reboots. It will be permanently deleted, and there is no way to recover it. Please use one of these options for saving your file:

• Save it on a diskette
• Save it on a CD (CD burning is only available on some Library computers.)
• Save it on a flash drive
• Save it on the M drive
• Ask a librarian to save it on the Library's flash drive if you need to move the file to another computer and didn't bring your own storage device

As always, it is a good idea to save a project periodically while working on it instead of waiting until you are finished.

Emailing Documents to School

Imagine this (or maybe you don’t have to imagine it – maybe it’s already happened to you!):  It’s midnight and your final paper is due at 9:00 am.  You hit the “Print” command and …nothing happens!  What do you do? Being the creative, intelligent, technologically-savvy person you are, you know that you have many options.  You could:

1. cry and use words that would make your mom wash your mouth out with soap;

or

2.  save your project to a disk or flash drive and print it from one of the many public computers at the college;

or

3.  attach the document to an email to be opened and printed at the college.

NOTE: Don’t put your text in the body of the email because you’ll have trouble with the formatting when you try to print it out.

Choices #2 and 3 are probably your best bets, but here’s a tip that will save you from another spike in blood pressure.  If you save an attachment in Hotmail, you may have trouble opening it at school because of Windows compatibility issues. No worries, though. Here’s a “workaround” to solve the problem:

1.  If you’re in Hotmail, sign out.

2. Sign in to Hotmail and be sure to click Save my e-mail address.

3.  Your attachment should now open normally.

4.  When you’re done, sign out of Hotmail.

5.  IMPORTANT: Sign back into Hotmail, only this time, click on Always ask for my e-mail address and password.  (For security reasons, you really don’t want public computers to be saving your address.)

6.  Sign out again – your personal info will NOT be saved.

Still can’t get your attachment to open? Stop at the

Library Reference Desk

and a librarian will be able to help you.

Word 2007 Patch Update

All Library computers (those near the reference desk and in the carrels) now have a patch that accommodates Word 2007 documents. The Library computers do not have Word 2007, but this patch enables the older version of  Word to open a file that was created in Word 2007. If your document contains graphics or special characters that are new in Word 2007, you will lose those when converting your file. If you are using Word 2007 at home and plan to work on a document both at home and in the Library, you may want to save the file in the older version by selecting “Word 97-2003 Document” under the “Save as Type” drop-down menu.