Odum Library Blog

In preparation for the following Students Against Violating the Environment (S.A.V.E.) events, consider visiting the library to learn more about climate change, clean energy and solar panels, including the fossil fuel divestment movement. The  Encyclopedia of Global Warming, an e-book, provides comprehensive coverage of the questions of global warming and climate change, including scientific descriptions and explanations of all factors, from carbon dioxide to sunspots, that might contribute to climate change.

Upcoming Students Against Violating the Environment (S.A.V.E.) events

Tuesday, November 12th at 7 pm in the Powell Hall Auditorium, S.A.V.E. is hosting a panel discussion on climate change and the fossil fuel divestment movement. There will be speakers from geosciences, philosophy, and sociology. Come and learn about the issue and why divestment can be used as a strategy to address it. We will take questions and have a discussion after the presentations. The event is open to campus as well as the public.

Friday, November 15th at 2:30 celebration event for the recent addition of the new solar canopy to Odum Library, recognizing VSU’s  continuing efforts to move towards clean energy, increased energy conservation, and responsible investments. This event  is co-sponsored by Wiregrass Activists for Clean Energy (WACE) and refreshments will be served.

GALILEO is experiencing a statewide issue that makes their resources unavailable to VSU students who are trying to access GALILEO off campus. They are working to restore the problem. We will keep you posted with updates as we receive them.

UPDATE: GALILEO has resolved the issue with Anywhere Access and the GALILEO password as of 9:00 AM on 10-24-2013. Please let us know if you experience any more issues.

Due to the recent partial shutdown of the federal government, a number of widely used online resources that are normally accessible by the public will not be available for the duration of the shutdown. If you need any assistance accessing any materials that were provided by the federal government, please feel free to ask a librarian for help. Our reference librarians can be reached through phone, email, text messaging, and online chat through the following link:

http://www.valdosta.edu/academics/library/general/live-chat.php

Below is a list of a few of the most popular services that have been affected and some suggested alternate locations that you can visit to obtain the information.

Resources Affected by the Shutdown:

PubMed – Open With Minimal Support

PubMed is open, but it is being maintained with minimal staffing due to the lapse in government funding. Information will be updated to the extent possible, and the agency will attempt to respond to urgent operational inquiries.

Where to go instead:  MEDLINE<http://www.galileo.usg.edu/express?link=zbmf>, our subscribed database which has all the content of PubMed.

ERIC.ed.gov – Shut Down

Due to a lapse of appropriations and the partial shutdown of the Federal Government, the systems that host www.eric.ed.gov  have been shut down. Services will be restored as soon as a continuing resolution to provide funding has been enacted.

Where to go instead: Access ERIC at EBSCOHost or use our Electronic journal search to look for materials on eric.ed.gov.  Fulltext materials hosted on eric.ed.gov will not be available.

Census.gov (including American Fact Finder) – Shut Down

Due to the lapse in government funding, census.gov sites, services, and all online survey collection requests will be unavailable until further notice.

Where to go instead: ProQuest Statistical Abstract of the United States which has a great amount of important Census data.

loc.gov – Shut Down

Due to the temporary shutdown of the federal government, the Library of Congress is closed to the public and researchers beginning October 1, 2013 until further notice.

Where to go instead: Odum Library patrons wishing to use resources provided by the Library of Congress, including Subject Heading searching and American Memory, are advised to contact the Odum Library Reference Desk at: http://www.valdosta.edu/academics/library/general/live-chat.php

These are the most commonly used library resources affected by the shutdown. There are other sites maintained by the U.S. government that could experience issues as well. If you have trouble accessing anything you need for your research, please contact a reference librarian and we will be happy to help you get the resources you need during the shutdown.

Participating in VSU Homecoming activities, a dedicated team of Library faculty, staff and student workers spent the past week preparing Odum Library for Homecoming 2013 painting the library with “Red and Black”.   Spurred by the Library Director, Dr. Alan Bernstein, expressing a clear desire for winning the President’s Departmental Spirit Award traveling trophy, both library entrances are covered in “Red and Black” bunting and have enlarged pictures of past homecomings, football games, and school dances through the years.   The winning department will be announced on October 3 at the Pep Rally & Battle of the Bands.

We invite you to stop by any of the library service points and pick-up “CommUnity Through Time” story postcards depicting significant Homecoming events or take a selfie with the former mascot, Blaze the Dragon (1987-2000) as located by the 1^st floor east entrance.   If you want more information regarding the pictures, contact the VSU Archives, which maintains institutional records in various searchable resources, such as Archon, and the Scrapbooks.

Go Blazers!

It seems that in all the commotion surrounding the first days of Fall Semester, a thief has made off with one of the paintings from the art displays in the library. Investigators think that the thief has hidden the painting somewhere in the library for safe keeping until they can come back to claim their prize.

Come help us search the library for clues and use your deductive skills to help find the painting before the thief comes back and it slips through our hands for good.

Join in the mystery. It’s happening  Friday, August 16th, at 4pm. Meet in room 1604 on the first floor of the library if you think you could help us out.

If you finish the mystery you’ll get free pizza and drinks! Bring your friends for an afternoon of fun in the library.

If you are interested in attending, please RSVP to moholt@valdosta.edu. If you have any more questions about the mystery, don’t hesitate to contact the Reference Desk at the Library for answers!

Odum Library launches our new website on Thursday, June 20^th – complete with the fresh design, new look and improved navigation introduced on the campus website last year.  Similar to the campus website, the library’s new website is now mobile device ready.  You can use your smartphone or tablet to access library resources.  The library has thousands of e-books on many academic subjects, not to mention hundreds of full text e-journals, and online databases.   Among the new site’s enhancements is an emphasis on GALILEO’s Discover search function that is a single gateway to  books, articles, videos, music, and other research materials in the library, notwithstanding format (print, electronic, and so forth) or location (local or remotely held).   All of the most helpful “Tutorials” were moved onto the new site and the Reference librarians plan to continue developing and adding more tutorials, including more “How to” or “Do It Yourself” videos.  Navigation should be easier, with a new dynamically updated link for library hours, a new  “Live Chat” widget, and revised “Services” pages for “Students”, “Faculty and Staff”  and others, zeroing in on the resources most often needed by users.  Following on the success of MyVSU, all library account logins have been grouped together underneath MyLibrary.  Comments about the library’s new website can be submitted via the Quick Link – Feedback link on the bottom of every page.

As a recent blog post here noted, there’s a lot of construction going on in the library this summer. Unfortunately, a lot of noise comes with these projects. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused any of our patrons in recent days.

If you are someone who is bothered by the noise, we’d like to recommend our quiet computer lab, located in room 3250, on the third floor of the library. It offers a place where the noise is a little further away from the construction than our main GALILEO lab on the second floor. Do keep in mind that it is designated as a “quiet lab”, so please try to be respectful of other users in the lab. The lab has a black and white printer available, but for color prints, you will still need to visit the Internet Cafe, located on the first floor of the library.

We hope that this will provide a quieter place for you to get your work done while the construction crews are working. If you need help finding your way to this computer lab, or if you’d like another recommendation for a quieter spot in the library, just head to the Reference Desk on the second floor of the library (We’re right by all the construction!) and a reference librarian will be happy to assist you. Thank you for your patience while these projects are ongoing.

All floors of the library will be open 24 hours from today until Friday at 9pm! There are lots of places to study in library including group tables, study carrels, and study rooms.

Good luck on your finals, everyone!

The library and the College of Education held the seventh annual Read Fest this past Friday, April 19th, 2013 on the West Hall front lawn.  The event, which seeks to promote literacy among area pre-K children, had more than 255 attendees from five local schools. Students who attended got to take part in a number of activities, from read-alongs to sing-alongs. They also took home goodybags filled with gifts to keep them exited about reading!   Here are a few pictures from this years event:

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