Odum Library Blog

Summer can be a time for fun and relaxation, but be sure to stay safe and healthy while you enjoy being out of school, going on vacation, or exploring your community. Check out these sites for FAQs for the summer, courtesy of Georgia.gov:

1.      Is your Georgia beach safe for swimming?  Check the Beach Swimming Advisory, courtesy of the Coastal Resources Division of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources (DNR).

2.      Can you leave your children at home alone?  See these guidelines from the Georgia Department of Human Services’ Division of Family and Children Services.

3.      Can you eat the fish you catch? Yes, says the Wildlife Resources Division of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, but be sure to consult these guidelines.

4.      What is there to do in Georgia? Here’s a list of things to do and places to go, including  state parks and historic sites, upcoming events from Georgia’s Official Tourism Website, and the Civil War in Georgia: Commemorating 150 Years. You can also order or download maps and other information.

More summer questions about Georgia? Just contact VSU’s Government Information Librarian at 229.245.3748, or the Reference Department’s Live Chat service.

If you are having difficulty reaching our Anywhere Access page, please open a different browser (i.e., if you’re using Firefox, try Internet Explorer or Google Chrome) and try to reach our Anywhere Access page through the new browser.

Remember that if you are a student, faculty, or staff member trying to reach online sources in GALILEO from off-campus, you can also gain GALILEO access by logging into BlazeVIEW and selecting the GALILEO link on the right under Campus Bookmarks.

Thank you for your patience as staff work to correct these problems.

The Library will be closing at midnight Sunday, May 29th, in observation of Memorial Day. This includes the Internet Cafe.

Odum Library will reopen at 7:45am on Tuesday, May 31st. We hope you enjoy your extended weekend!

The library’s Reference Desk will be open its regular hours (Sat. 11:00am-7:00pm and Sun. 2:00pm-10:00pm) on May 28th and 29th but is also closed on Memorial Day, May 30th.

From 9am through 12 noon on Tuesday, May 24th 2011, the ILLiad logon service will be temporarily unavailable, due to a software upgrade.

Patrons will not be able to carry out any actions in the ILLiad system during the upgrade, including updating their information, making requests, or viewing electronically received materials.

We apologize for the inconvenience. The service should be accessible again after the software upgrade has been completed.

Update: The Illiad service for Interlibrary Loan (ILL)  requests is fully operational after Tuesday’s successful upgrade!

The Library will be closing at midnight Sunday, May 29th and will reopen Monday, May 31st in observation of Memorial Day. This includes the Internet Cafe.

We hope you enjoy your extended weekend!

Due to printer malfunctions, both the Black & White printer and the Color printer in the Internet Cafe are unavailable for printing. We are hoping to have this issue resolved sometime early this week.

Because both printers are offline, this means printing as a whole will be unavailable in the Library from 2:00 AM till 7:45 AM when the remainder of the Library is closed.

Other than the hours specified above, if you need black & white printing you may visit any of the other computer labs during normal business hours. If you need color printing, be sure to visit Media Services during their normal hours of operation.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, and we hope to have the problem fixed soon.

Through May 31, 2011, the Valdosta-Lowndes Metropolitan Planning Organization (VLMPO) invites the public to review and comment upon the Draft Public Participation Plan, available on the South Georgia Regional Commission Transportation Site and at all public libraries and government administration offices in Berrien, Lanier, and Lowndes counties, and city government administration offices in Valdosta. This plan presents ways in which the VLMPO assures compliance with federal nondiscrimination laws when developing transportation plans and administering federal transportation funds.

Interested parties may submit written comments by fax at 229-333-5312, email to chull@sgrc.us, or mail to VLMPO, 327 W. Savannah Ave., Valdosta, GA 31601, through May 31.

Map showing the South Georgia Regional Commission service area

As the designated Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) for the Valdosta-Lowndes Urbanized Area, the South Georgia Regional Commission (SGRC) partners with local governments on addressing public issues and enhancing community life. In order to qualify for federal transportation funds, any urbanized area of population greater than 50,000 (such as Valdosta) must prepare a comprehensive transportation plan that includes public input.

Take this opportunity to review and comment upon this public participation plan and help influence the quality of life in our community!

Bechtel Herpetology Reception – Good Time by all!

Odum Library hosted a special reception on Thursday, April 21, 2011, recognizing the generosity of Dr. H. Bernard and Elizabeth R. (Bette) Bechtel in donating an outstanding herpetology collection to the library. The reception was held in conjunction with the current 1st floor display featuring the Bechtel gift titles along with specimens of snakes, frogs, and turtles, on temporary loan from the Biology department. Do visit the herpetology display soon, for it will be changed at the first of June.

Dr. Alan Bernstein, Interim Library Director, Elizabeth Bechtel, and Sherrida Crawford, Library Biology Liaison

Odum Library – Bechtel Herpetology Display and Reception, April 21, 2011

Odum Library – Bechtel Herpetology Display and Reception, April 21, 2011

You can listen to historic sound recordings for free via the National Jukebox at the Library of Congress. Compile your own playlists, browse artists or genres, by language, date range, or composer, or listen to LC’s ready-made playlists.

Hear Fanny Brice (1891-1951) sing “Second Hand Rose“!

Listen to Ada Jones’ 1914 rendition of Irving Berlin’s “If That’s Your Idea of a Wonderful Time, Take Me Home“!

Thrill to Richard Wagner’s Lohengrin Prelude performed by Italy’s Teatro alla Scala Orchestra in 1907!

Or, page through a digital facsimile of the 1919 Victrola Book of the Opera— where you can read synopses of more than 110 operas and link to audio from within the book.

If you’re looking for something else today (anything!) please Ask Us— text us at 229-234-1947 or click for live chat.

I’d like to invite you to our new E-Reference Shelf page on the Library Website.  This is an exciting time for the old page – it has been re-focused on great electronic sources that the library has to offer.  In the past, we kept a set of recommended websites, but we found through our usability studies that this made the page overwhelmingly huge, daunting, and cluttered.  Instead, we’re now sending you to the experts on librarian-recommended websites, the Internet Public Library, which allows us to put our library resources on center stage.

What is the E-Reference Shelf, anyway?  It’s a place to go before you do any heavy research, where you can get basic information on a topic through dictionaries, encyclopedias, and more, before diving in to in-depth stuff like scholarly journals.  Think of it as a “shelf” of online resources that you could consult instead of just Googling a topic, and you’ll get the idea. E-Reference Shelf also includes our biggest databases of E-books, like eBrary or Virtual Reference Library.  These databases have even more dictionaries and encyclopedias toward very specific subjects, so feel free to search through those, or just find them in the Library Catalog as usual.

We hope you like the new E-Reference Shelf; explore the page to your heart’s content!  You can get to it by selecting E-Reference Shelf in the “Articles By Subject” menu on the homepage, or by clicking “Library Help” and going to the E-Reference Shelf link.