More new fiction! And an invitation to browse the fiction swap shelf.

The library's new fiction shelf has been refreshed with all new selections from our newly acquired fiction titles. If you are looking for something to read, come to the library and see what new literature we have for your browsing pleasure.

Did you know about the library's book swap shelf in the periodicals room? Bring in old books that you've finished reading and let someone else discover them, while you pick up some new material. It's book recycling at its best!

The swap shelf is by the reshelving bin in the periodicals reading room.

And a heartfelt thank you to everyone who took the time to fill out the library survey. We appreciate your time and effort!

Only Two Days Left to take the Love Your Library Survey!

There are only two days left to take the annual Love Your Library Survey! We value your feedback and use your comments to improve our services. The link below (the blue "2008 Library Survey") will take you directly to the library. The survey will end on February 28th and it is open to all members of the Sarah Lawrence College community.

Accessing SLC databases from off campus

Ever find yourself out in the city and off the Sarah Lawrence network with a desperate urge to search Project MUSE? (You're not alone; this often happens to your Librarians.) It's easy to use our databases from anywhere. Simply head to our Databases A-Z page. Click on the name of the database you'd like to search. You'll be prompted to log in using your email username (that's the part of your email address before the '@') and your network password (that's the password you use to log into the library computers). Click enter and ta-da! You'll be what we call 'proxied in' and able to use the database just like you would from a computer on campus.

If you can't log in or experience any other technical difficulties, please let us know! Contact the Help Desk at x2460 with log in problems, or let your reference staff know at x2225. Remember: we don't know there's a problem unless you tell us.

Search our catalog directly from your browser!

A group of library search elves has been hard at work thinking up ways to connect you with the greatest of ease to the resources of the library. Check out our two new catalog search plugins here. Simply click on the name of the plugin you'd like to use and ta da! In moments the plugin will download and you'll be able to search the catalog directly from your browser. No more opening yet another window or tab to find out if we have a book! You can search the catalog by keyword or by title wherever you are on the web.

Confuddled? We were too, until we started using this great little tool. Give it a try, and if you need help, stop on by the reference office or give us a ring at x2225.

Want to keep up with new widgets and plugins and new-fangled search tools as the elves come to work every day? Check us out on del.icio.us!

Please re-submit your consultation requests

We've got our consultation form back up and running, but sadly lost access to any requests made between last Friday and this morning. If you submitted a request and have not been contacted by a reference librarian, please re-submit your request via our online form.

We apologize for this glitch in our systems, and look forward to hearing from you again!

Don't be a doodlebug video!

Nothing is more disappointing than opening a library book only to discover the pages marked with someone else's comments or highlighting. This short (and cute) public service video shows how "doodlebugs" ruin shared public resources for all of us.

Show your library a little love!

In honor of Valentine's Day, the annual "Love Your Library" survey is now available!
Please help us assess the quality of the library services we provide by taking 10-15 minutes to fill out the annual library services satisfaction survey. The survey is open to all members of the Sarah Lawrence College community, and we appreciate your feedback!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Take the "Love Your Library" survey now!

RefShare shares references!

We know a lot of you are using RefWorks to manage and create your bibliographies. But have you tried RefShare? We think you'll want to. RefShare is a tool within RefWorks that allows you to share references with anyone--even people who don't use RefWorks. With a few simple clicks you can generate a list of your references that you can email to other users or post in your MySLC course space. You can allow other users to post comments on your references, making RefShare a great way to collaborate with your fellow students on course work or group projects.

You can find the sharing function under the Tools tab in your RefWorks account. If you'd like help using this cool feature, stop by the reference office or sign up for a research consultation using our online form.

Writing Contest for the New York Times

The New York Times is sponsoring a writing contest for college students with a $1,000 prize! Sarah Lawrence College students seem ideally suited to answer the question: "What is love now, in this age of 24/7 communication, blurred gender roles and new attitudes about sex and dating?"

With Valentine's Day just around the corner, this is the perfect opportunity to gather your thoughts and tell the world (or at least the New York Times) what you think love means. Good luck all entrants!

http://www.nytimes.com/ads/marketing/modernlove/

Schedule a research consultation!

Remember last semester? How that annotated bibliography ended up being due a whole lot sooner than you thought? Get a jump on things this spring by scheduling a research consultation with Emily, Carl, or Carrie. Let us know what you're working on, when you're available to meet, and we'll meet with you one-on-one to go over research strategies and sourcing. It's a great way to get a jump start!

Request a consultation by filling out our consultation request form, located here. You should receive a response within a day, except during weekends.

Do you del.icio.us?

The Sarah Lawrence reference staff does! We've plunged into the Web 2.0 waters of social bookmarking to bring you high-quality librarian-selected websites to help with your scholarly research. Find everything from historical statistics and census data to easy-to-search public domain images to open access science journals. Check out our tag cloud on this blog, and join our network! We're slc_reference. Who are you?

Confused about social bookmarking? Check out this post from Carrie for a fun primer. Or stop by the reference office--let us show you what we're excited about!

Sex, Death, Abstraction

Join Bella Brodzki and Judith Rodenbeck this Saturday, February 9th at 2pm in the Library Exhibit Space for the opening of "Sex, Death, Abstraction," a show of prints and paintings by poet Anne-Marie Levine. Anne-Marie Levine's most recent work, a series of abstract digital prints, depicts the effects of touch, volume, and mass in pixelated pattern, producing visual illusions of and allusions to precisely the tactility we increasingly find missing in this hyper-digitized age. A poet and pianist, Anne-Marie Levine is also more recently a visual artist who by preference works on an intimate scale. The work shown in "Sex, Death, Abstraction" cites a range of abstractions from Rothko's Abstract Expressionist stacks, on the one hand, to Man Ray's curious Surrealist landscape paintings, on the other, but she does so using a poetics of touch-already-gone-missing: the computer.

The show will run from February 2 through March 3.

Please Please Locate!

With over 200,000 volumes and a campus of voracious researchers, it's bound to happen occasionally. You step away from the library catalog, elated that the library not only has the perfect book on your topic, it's even on the shelves! But when you go to the stacks, despair: The book isn't where the catalog says it should be. Please come to the information desk and ask for help! You'll be asked to fill out a Please Locate card. This triggers the process for tracking down lost or misplaced books. Geoffrey, one of our intrepid and sharp-eyed librarians, will first try to track down the book inside the library. If he can't find it, he can borrow another copy for you via interlibrary loan. You'll be notified via email when the book is located for you.

Remember: We can't start the Please Locate process without you! So don't leave the library angry--come to the information desk and ask for help!

Maximizing Gryphon Mail

Today from 12:30 pm - 1:30 pm! Maximizing Gryphon Mail Workshop, in the Library Electronic Classroom
If you are an SLC student, you automatically have an account which you can use for much more than sending email. Learn tips and tricks to organizing your email and about the other Google Apps (Docs, Reader, Calendar, and more) that you have with your Gmail account. RSVP to Brenda Grell at bgrell@slc.edu

New Fiction Acquisitions

Just in time for the new semester, there is a brand-new selection of the new fiction acquisitions on the library's New Fiction display shelf. Even better, there is a selection of new poetry too!

The New Fiction and New Poetry shelves are a place for the library to display books it has recently purchased for the library's literature collection. If you have a suggestion for a book for the collection, tell us by clicking here.