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Piping Up

SFU Library Feedback

Archive for September, 2009

New purchase: Online Communities Handbook

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009

Author: Anna Buss, Nancy Strauss
Title: Online Communities Handbook: Building your business and brand on the Web
Publisher & where & when published: New Riders Press; Berkeley, CA; 2009
Acquire for which library?: Belzberg (SFU Vancouver)
Your affiliation: SFU Graduate Student

A: You will be pleased to know that the library provides access to the electronic version of this book. It can be accessed here: http://troy.lib.sfu.ca/record=b5484172~S1a

If you have any questions, or if you require a print version of this title, please let me know.

Regards,
Megan

Megan L. Crouch
Health Sciences Librarian
Collections Librarian

New purchase: The end of certainty

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009

Author: Chan, Stephen
Title: the end of certainty: towards a new internationalism
Publisher & where & when published: zed books, july 2009 ISBN: 978-1-84813-304-4, ISBN10: 1-84813-304-9
Where you saw this item mentioned: conference
Acquire for which library?: Belzberg (SFU Vancouver)
Your affiliation: SFU Graduate Student

A: Thanks very much for your suggestion that Belzberg purchase “The end of certainty”. This book had just arrived at SFU Library as part of our regular acquisitions. I will have it rush catalogued for Belzberg Library and held for you there. You’ll receive an email when the book is ready to pick up.

Regards,
Karen Marotz
Head, Belzberg Library

New purchase: Sounds and Perception

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009

Author: Matthew Nudds & Casey O’Callaghan (eds.)
Title: SOUNDS AND PERCEPTION: NEW ESSAYS ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF SOUND AND AUDITORY EXPERIENCE.
Publisher & where & when published: published by the OUP (but not available till December 2009)
Where you saw this item mentioned: http://www.oupcanada.com/catalog/9780199282968.html (Thanks very much in advance! This book is of interest to my M.A. studies)
Acquire for which library?: Bennett (Burnaby Mountain)
Your affiliation: SFU Graduate Student

A: Hi,
Thanks for your suggestion. This book is not available to order yet but I will get a copy of it when it is released, probably in December or January. You will get an email from the Library when it’s ready.

Cheers,
Mike McIntosh
Library Liaison for Philosophy

Talking on the 5th floor

Monday, September 28th, 2009

Q: There are too many people talking all the time on the 5th floor. it is supposed to be a quiet study area. can we have someone coming by often to tell people to be quiet please.

A: Thank you for your feedback. While the 5 th floor of the Library is a designated Quiet Study Area we do rely upon students to do some self monitoring and unfortunately we do not have sufficient staff to routinely patrol the Library. If you are not comfortable asking disruptive people to talk more quietly please feel free to come to one of our service points (Information Commons Desk or Check Out Counter on the 3 rd floor) and ask a staff member to look into the situation.

Best regards,

Todd M. Mundle
Associate University Librarian

New study space on 6th floor

Monday, September 28th, 2009

Q: Hello,

Kudos for the new study space on the 6th floor. Two sincere suggestion to ‘finish the job’. Could you please make it abundantly clear if discussions are allowed in that area. There is no signage indicating whether it is or not (as there are on most study carrels on the the 6th and other floors).

I believe the return on investment in terms of student (and therefore university) performance will be considerably enhanced if this is made a quiet study area. If you agree, I urge you to put up signs soon before habits get entrenched. It is getting a bit tedious to tell fellow students to keep the peace.

I am going out on a limb here but it would be revolutionary if you were to be able to declare it a laptop-free zone as well – banging away at keyboards is just as distracting.

Thanks.

A: Thank you for your feedback and your kudos on the renovated 6th floor space.

Signage will be posted that this is to be a quiet area and that conversation should be taken elsewhere. As for making it a laptop-free zone, I’m afraid that will not be happening. It is a fact of student life now that many use laptops to do their research.

Best regards,

Todd M. Mundle
Associate University Librarian

New purchase: The Barbaric Heart

Friday, September 25th, 2009

Author: White, Curtis
Title: The Barbaric Heart
Publisher & where & when published: Polipoint Press
Where you saw this item mentioned: Author’s website
Acquire for which library?: Bennett (Burnaby Mountain)
Your affiliation: SFU Faculty

A: Thanks very much for this suggestion for purchase. A copy of “The Barbaric Heart” is now on order for the Bennett Library. You should receive an email once this book has arrived and is available to be checked out.

Best wishes, Hope

Hope Power
Liaison Librarian for Education and Political Science

Reserves and Ask Us Desk

Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009

Q: Good morning:
I have two comments to make:
1. Reserve books constantly not in the right place. Its been more than four times when I go to get reserve books that they are not in the right order and sometimes even with the help of the library staff we were not able to find them, that brings me to the next point
2. the staff at the front counter and at the “Ask Us” counter located between the computer stations are extremely helpful and friendly, and I want to thank them all it makes my life as a student and everyday more enjoyable.
thanks

A: 1. Hi

Due to the heavy use of Reserves material, books are constantly being moved on and off the shelves. As this area is open to the public, often the books are removed by patrons to be photocopied or browsed and then returned to the shelf. Sometimes this results in misshelving.

In addition, there are times when the online catalogue gives a status of “In Library” but in fact the book is either being used by a student at one of the photocopy machines in the Reserves area or is on a truck waiting to be re-shelved. In those cases the book will be returned to the shelf in a relatively short time however I realize it can be frustrating to someone trying to find an item.

Staff do try and keep the shelves in order by doing periodic shelf reading when the desk is not busy however during busy periods the shelves can temporarily get a little messy. We have begun to assign a student shelver to the area at mid-day in order to get material back on the shelf quicker. Hopefully this will help.

take care
Scott

Scott Mackenzie
Head Access Services
———————-
2. Hi, I’m so pleased to hear that your experiences at the Ask Us desk have been so positive. Thank you for the kind words — I’ll pass them along to the team!

Cheers,
Janis

Janis McKenzie
Head, Reference Division

Drilling noises

Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009

Q: I routinely study in the carrels on the far-west side of the 4th floor of the library. All of the carrels read “THIS IS A LIBRARY QUIET STUDY AREA: PLEASE SHOW YOUR CONSIDERATION FOR OTHERS BY NOT TALKING.” Here’s the problem: everybody is indeed quiet and respectful, but this god-awful loud and frustrating drilling noise has been going on and off since at least last April. I’m not sure what is going on, but it seems highly hypocritical of the library administration to be allowing such a loud and nagging noise to be going on at peak hours during the day (9-5). It is VERY distracting.

A: Hi, Thank you for your feedback. The west end of the building sits over the two floor boiler room for the campus. We have no control over the work that takes place in that space and very often we are not told that it is happening until it is happening. Having said that I’m not aware that they’ve been doing any projects where drilling takes place.

As for Library related projects, there has been one project on the west end of the Bennett Library that has required some drilling. This is the 6th floor renovation where we’ve mounted tables against the concrete pillars and this requires us to drill for short periods of time. That sound gets transferred down to other floors. This drilling took place over two days in late August and there is still a small amount still to do. We do try to arrange to have the disruptive drilling take place as early as we can in the morning but it is cost prohibitive for us to have the work done when the building is not open.

I agree that it is distracting when such drilling takes place but in this case we’ve been able to renovate a space that was underutilized into a nice quiet study area for over 50 students. We also try to complete such projects during the summer time and semester breaks where the impact on library users is kept to a minimum.

Best regards,
Todd M. Mundle
Associate University Librarian
Special Projects, Budget and Personnel
tmundle@sfu.ca

Finding dissertations and theses on SFU Library website

Monday, September 21st, 2009

Q: Where can I find: ProQuest Dissertations and Theses on the SFU library
website?

A: Thank you for your question. We have this ProQuest database listed under the names “Digital Dissertations” and “Dissertation Abstracts” at http://cufts2.lib.sfu.ca/CRDB/BVAS/browse/facets/name/D ; you can also access it via the Journal Articles and Databases link (under the blue Find bar) on the library’s home page (www.lib.sfu.ca).

There is further information on obtaining dissertations or theses from SFU or other universities at: http://www.lib.sfu.ca/help/publication-types/theses .

Please don’t hesitate to get in touch again if we can be of further assistance. You can contact our librarians via one of the methods (including email, phone or online chat) listed at: http://www.lib.sfu.ca/help/ask-us.

All the best,
Janis

Janis McKenzie
Head, Reference Division

New purchase: The Arthashastra

Friday, September 18th, 2009

Author: Kautalya
Title: The Arthashastra
Publisher & where & when published: Penguin classics
Where you saw this item mentioned: http://amzn.com/0140446036
Acquire for which library?: Bennett (Burnaby Mountain)
Your affiliation: SFU Undergraduate Student

A: Hello, Thanks very much for your recent purchase suggestion! I’m happy to tell you that the SFU Library owns a copy of The Arthashastra of Kautilya and Fatawa-i-Jahandari of Ziauddin Barani : an analysis. This book is located on the 5th floor of Bennett Library at call number JA 84 I4 D37 1996.

If you have any questions, please let me know!

Cheers,
Rebecca
———-
Rebecca Dowson
Liaison Librarian: English and History