Home mortgage crisis - history note

Hey, folks, I picked up this interesting tidbit from the GovDoc listserv yesterday:

"Just in case you are starting to get reference questions on the Home
Owners' Loan Corporation (a New Deal program that refinanced homes to
prevent foreclosure), we have posted their annual reports on FRASER. They
were a part of the Federal Home Loan Banks, and so their annual reports
are contained within the FHLB annual reports.
Best regards,
Katrina
Katrina Stierholz
Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis"

FRASER is the Federal Reserve Archival System for Economic Research and can be accessed by the public at http://fraser.stlouisfed.org/. The annual reports Katrina refers to are listed first thing (for now) in the What's New section.

Another magazine opens up its archives

Not exactly an academic title, but Sports Illustrated is now opening up its archives online for free. This is a worthwhile read even if you don't care about Sports Illustrated--some interesting notes on what publishers of prominent magazines are thinking about getting their archives open. Expect to see more and more of this in the future.

Update on patron computing

LC Staff,

Update on patron computing…

COMPUTING LOCATIONS
* The LC now contains 36 Macs (older white and new aluminum), 22 Lenovos moved from the stacks and 39 new Lenovos. Older Lenovos are clustered around pillars, as their smaller bases fit better than the new ones. The old Shuttle PCs have relocated to the stacks.

* The stacks will eventually have 60 more computers than before, with a mix of Shuttle PCs and new Macs on each floor 3 through 8. The 2nd floor north wall has the same Dells as before. We are waiting for ComTech to activate network ports on 3-4 & 7-8, but we hope that process will be completed very soon. Floors 5 & 6 have PCs that are already working (as before), and about half the Macs on these floors work. The rest should be up in the next day or two.

WHAT WORKS WHERE
* All of the PCs in the LC now run the big apps, like SolidWorks and Matlab. Second Life will run on all Macs in the LC, and on the new Lenovos. The older Lenovos clustered around pillars will not run Second Life.

PRINTING
* No more Wolfcopy printing from Macs -- just print quota.
* Printing on Macs on 5 and 6 is printing to 1102-1 – trying to fix this ASAP.
* DML now uses print quota.
* Wolfcopy print release stations removed from 5 and 6.

FEEDBACK
* We need your collective input on the new image. Please report any issues you discover using the feedback form on the public LC page at http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/learningcommons/, lower left corner. We already have a list of some known problems, but please report any issues you encounter or hear of. We’re working with IT to get things fixed as soon as possible.

More info as things change…

thanks,
Rob

(posted by Josh B for Rob)

Journal Finder Realization: & vs. and

Last week I discovered an issue with the Journal Finder. It's possible to search for an e-journal we own without yielding results. This happens when you do a search for a title with an ampersand in it. If you use the word "and" in the title while doing a default "Title begins with" search, no results will be returned.

Example Search: Children & Libraries with the default "Title begins with" option.

If I had this request from a patron, I would automatically use the word "and" to search for the title: "Children and Libraries" But if I did that search, no results would be returned.

Solution:

1) Use the "Anywhere in Title" option to search for titles with an ampersand in them.

2) Do two "Title Begins With" searches: one with the ampersand and the other with the word "and" in the title.

Has anyone else experienced this issue? I realized it was a problem when I'd find an e-journal title in the OPAC after unsuccessfully looking for it in the e-journal finder.

Thanks,
Amy

QuickSearch results

You may notice when using QuickSearch that the algorithm for searching the library website has changed. QuickSearch uses Nutch, open source search software, and Nutch recently changed. Here's an example of how QuickSearch is different. When I used to search for "print," the first web result was the main "How to Print at D. H. Hill Library" page. Now QuickSearch finds various pages inside that directory ahead of the index page. We don't have the option to go back to the old version, so as we get used to the new, feel free to reply to this post with any observations.

Another QuickSearch note: If you use iGoogle, see the link at the bottom right of any QuickSearch results page -- a QuickSearch gagdet.

Best of Social Sciences Blogs from the UK

From my numeric data group (IASSIST) list:

With over 70 million blogs worldwide this new breed of online
commentating has taken the Internet by storm and has the potential to be
a significant source of information, debate and research material for
social scientists.

As part of the ESRC Festival of Social Science 7th -16th March 2008,
Intute: Social Sciences will be featuring a series of articles by their
subject editors on the blogs they find the most useful in their work.
Whether it is online sources of political gossip, an insight into the
latest economic issues or how psychological research may tell you more
about what you are thinking and why, let the editors at Intute: Social
Sciences guide you to through the Social Science blogosphere - or at
least the parts of it, that they like the most!

Visit each day during the
Festival and you will find a new article picking out some Favourite
Blogs, why not also join the conversation and tell the social science
community about some of your favourites.

Notes to Editors
Intute: Social Sciences is
based at the Universities of Bristol and Birmingham and provides a
selected guide to the best of Web for the social sciences, including
law, business, hospitality, sport and tourism. It is part of a
nationally funded service hosted by Mimas at the University of
Manchester and is a collaboration between seven universities, supported
by a network of partnerships with other universities and organisations.
For more information about the service please contact Debra Hiom on 0117
928 7117 or via email: d.hiom@bristol.ac.uk

The Festival of Social Science is organised by the Economic and Social
Research Council, and runs from March 7th to 16th, alongside National
Science and Engineering Week. It celebrates some of the very best
British social science research, as well as highlighting the ways in
which social science makes a difference to everyday lives. Press
releases detailing some of the varied events are available at
or for more information please contact
the ESRC Press Office on 01793 413032 or via e-mail:
esrcpressoffice@esrc.ac.uk

Rochester study on undergrads

Just a note to point you to the University of Rochester Library's new book Studying Students: The Undergraduate Research Project at the University of Rochester.

The University of Rochester folks are super smart! Over the past couple of years they've been undertaking an "ethnographic" study of better understand the students they serve and to get a better sense of their use of information. I've just requested the book through ILL so I'll make sure to share notes and post some highlights on the blog. Here's the table of contents:

1. Faculty Expectations of Student Research
Barbara Alvarez and Nora Dimmock

2. Asking Students about Their Research
Vicki Burns and Kenn Harper

3. Night Owl Librarians: Shifting the Reference Clock
Suzanne Bell and Alan Unsworth

4. Library Design and Ethnography
Susan Gibbons and Nancy Fried Foster

5. Dream Catcher: Capturing Student-Inspired Ideas for the Libraries’ Website
Jane McCleneghan Smith and Katie Clark

6. Photo Surveys: Eliciting More Than You Knew to Ask For
Judi Briden

7. Mapping Diaries, or Where Do They Go All Day?
Katie Clark

8. What an Experience: Library Staff Participation in Ethnographic Research
Helen Anderson and Ann Marshall

9. Then and Now: How Today’s Students Differ
Sarada George

10. The Mommy Model of Service
Nancy Fried Foster

11. Conclusion: Creating Student-Centered Academic Libraries
Susan Gibbons and Nancy Fried Foster