Monday, June 30, 2008

Printing Tips and Tricks

...everything you ever needed to know about printing things in the library.

BASICS:
  • Clicking the printer icon on your browser will quick print your document. Right clicking or going to File-Print will allow you to change your options.
  • In the reference area of the library (4th floor), there are two printers. The one on the desk near the magazines is called the Westlaw, or W printer. The other one is called the Reference, or R printer. You can pick which printer you want when you choose your printer options.
  • The W printer prints double sided, but the R printer does not.

ADVANCED:

  • To print handouts of your PowerPoint slides, right click the slide area. Choose Print, and then on the bottom of the window that opens, change from Slides to Handouts. Then pick the number of slides per page- 6 is best for saving paper, but 3 allows for space to take notes.
  • To print duplex (double-sided), first choose the W printer. Then click Preferences, then the Finishing tab. Check the box for Print on Both Sides. Then click OK.

TROUBLESHOOTING:

  • If you click print and it says there is no printer attached to your computer, try it again. Sometimes this happens the first time you print something.
  • If you print and nothing comes out, double click the printer icon on the bottom right of the screen (next to where the time is). If there is a print job ahead of yours that says paused or is more than 20 pages, cancel it.
  • Please note that you can't print more than 20 pages at a time. If you really, truly need to print something that is more than 20 pages, you need to print it in segments- i.e. print pages 1-19 and then pages 20-25.

And finally...

Please be responsible when printing. You can save entire articles and PowerPoint Presentations onto a flash drive (if you need help, just ask). Use Print Preview to make sure you're printing what you need. Print Handouts instead of Slides when printing PowerPoint presentations- especially when the slides have black or dark backgrounds!!! If you do print something you don't need, put the paper in the scrap paper pile or reuse it yourself!

Happy printing!

Friday, June 27, 2008

Visual Searching

A neat feature of many of the databases is something called "Visual Searching." Visual searching is a different way to look for articles, geared towards people who are visual learners. So, if a loooooong list of words make your brain shut down, we suggest trying this out. Here's how you do it:

Go to one of the databases from the library website by clicking: Electronic Databases (under Research Tools)- On Campus Access- MasterFile Premier (under General Magazines and Journals).

On the Choose Databases screen, click MasterFile Premier again. You have to do this because you can choose more than one database to search at a time, which we don't need to do now, but that's useful, especially for psychology or health sciences searching.
On the top of the screen, there will be four tabs:


Click on the Visual Search tab. Type in your search term, or terms. I tried "recycling."

Sorry, the picture looks bad.

Then you narrow down your search by clicking on the subtopics on the left hand side (in blue), or scrolling though the articles (in green). If you start limiting your search by clicking on blue boxes, it looks like this:


To read the abstract (short summary) of the article, click the box it's in. The abstract will appear in the right hand column that says Summary. If it sounds good and you want to read the whole article, click the teeny tiny link that says "more":


Read, email, print or add your article to your folder, and then click the teeny tiny blue arrow on the left to get back to your results list:


So, now you know. Let's hope Visual Learners have good eyesight, because those are some teeny tiny arrows. But otherwise, this is pretty nice!

Thursday, June 19, 2008

no degree program? no problem.

Naugatuck Valley Community College is a resource for community education, whether it be in pursuit of a degree or for personal enrichment. That means that this library is for both credit students and non-credit students. If you're taking a sewing class, stop by the library to grab a few books for ideas! Learning guitar? Try a title keyword search for "guitar" and see all the books and videos we have to offer.

Even if you don't have a student ID, you can still use our library. Bring a photo ID like a driver's license and stop by the circulation desk to register for a library card. The library is just a short walk from any campus classroom, including Founder's Hall, so there are no excuses. See you soon!

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Summer Semester Hours and other bits of information

So, here are our Summer Semester Hours:

Monday through Thursday, 8 am to 6 pm
Friday 8 am to 12 pm
Saturday and Sunday, closed

As usual, the internet is open all night long. :)

If you are on campus, this summer, come by the library and head up to the L523 room. We have ALL NEW COMPUTERS! They are so nice, they have bigger screens and you can plug your headphones into any of them so you can listen to things. The USB ports are on the actual computer, behind the monitor, on the left hand side. You'll see it when you check them out.

Oh, and we have air conditioning.

Monday, June 2, 2008

Still here

You might be here too, or you might have taken the summer off. Heck, you might have even graduated and are off to the next leg of your journey. But, we're not- we're here all summer! The library is open for the summer, from 8-4 Monday through Thursday and 8-12 on Fridays. So, if you need to print out some resumes, copy some transcripts, do your summer class homework or you want a movie or some music (don't forget about those new CDs, they came in!), we're here!