New feature in OhioLINK requesting

As of March 31, you may now add a NOT NEEDED AFTER date to your OhioLINK requests. This field is not required, but if you use it, your request will be automatically canceled if the item has not yet been shipped when the date arrives.

Please note that putting a date in here will not speed up the response to your request. It will be used if there are delays in fulfilling your request -- for example when all copies in OhioLINK are currently checked out and you're waiting for one of them to be returned -- putting an end-date to the waiting.

Ah, the NYT

As everyone knows, free access to the full New York Times online at NYTimes.com is coming to an end on 3/28. Once you've read 20 articles in a month, you'll be asked to subscribe for continued article-level access. Folks at the NYT tell us that students at Oberlin should be receiving a 50% discount on the going monthly rate (going rate is $15 per mo.), based on Oberlin College's participation in the College-Readership Program (the free paper NYT distributed around campus).

As of the moment there is no option being offered for an institutional (library) subscription to NYTimes.com -- so unfortunately we can't step in to help just yet. As soon as they start offering an institutional subscription, we'll be on it!

While folks are probably already aware of some of the ways to get around the paywall (going in through social networking sites, etc.), we'd like to take this moment to remind you of the multiple ways the Library currently offers access to the NYT:

• in print (!)

and electronically (in asci text; i.e. without images/graphics/multimedia):

• 1980 - today - via Factiva
• 1980 - yesterday - via LexisNexis Academic

Ask at the Research Help Desk for assistance accessing any of the above!

Break is almost here!

Are you planning to study during spring break?
You can have access to all of our electronic databases and books while you're off-campus, by following these instructions. If you've not yet activated your barcode number on the back of your ID, email us with the information and we'll update our records. You need this to be validated as an Oberlin student when you're off-campus. Enjoy your break!

One-Song Dance Parties return to Mudd

Break your studies on Thursday, March 24 at 4:30 pm, 9 pm, and 10 pm in the Academic Commons with the CHLP one-song dance parties. Vote for your music at the poll: https://oncampus.oberlin.edu/students.

Improved wireless in Academic Commons

Hooray! Three additional wireless routers have been installed in the Academic Commons. You should see a big improvement in the connection speed.

OhioLINK emergency down time, 3/16 at 1 pm

Update from OhioLINK staff:

Please be aware that the Central Catalog will be going down 1 p.m. TODAY, for some emergency maintenance. We have a bad disk that is throwing off errors and we need to move the data off that disk and on to another disk. This process should only take about 15 minutes. So, the Central Catalog should only be down for a short period of time. I will send another message when it’s back up or if we run into problems where it will take longer than 15 minutes.

I apologize for this middle of the day down period, but we need to do this before it crashes the system.

Updated 1:31 pm: Thanks for your patience while we performed this important maintenance function. The catalog is now back online for everyone to use.

OberlinScholarshipOA - open for business!

Oberlin's digital repository OberlinScholarshipOA is now accepting submissions of peer-reviewed scholarship by Oberlin faculty and members of the Administrative & Professional Staff.

In November 2009 the General Faculty passed an open access resolution, and since that time library staff and the GF Library Committee have been implementing the policy.

More than 300 articles are currently available in the repository and faculty and A&PS are invited to submit their work published since the date the policy was adopted.

Current Spotlight on the Collections: History of Books & Reading

The activity at Oberlin College surrounding book studies and book history in recent months – the many related courses, exciting lectures, and emerging curricular area – dovetails beautifully with a particularly strong Library collection of both historical and contemporary materials on the history of books

Don't miss this Spotlight, which features a sampling of historical “gems” relating to book studies, as well as many titles published in the last decade or two, when book studies started to see a sharp increase in scholarly publishing activity.

RefWorks - The Basics: Thursday at 4:30pm

Learn how to get citations into your RefWorks account, edit your citations, and create bibliographies on Thursday March 10th at 4:30pm in Mudd 113.

Michael Suarez talk Thursday at 4:30pm

Michael Suarez, Professor of English and Director of the Rare Book School at the University of Virginia, will deliver the 2011 Harold Jantz Memorial Lecture this Thursday (March 10) at 4:30 in Craig Lecture Hall.

He will speak about the production and financing of illustrated academic books in the 17th century. The event is part of the spring semester history of the book lecture series.

Among his many scholarly achievements, Professor Suarez is co-general editor of the recently published Oxford Companion to the Book and co-editor of The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain, Volume 5, 1695-1830.

It May Have Been a Short Month...

But the Library cataloged oodles of new materials in February.

Check out the lists of new videos, books, scores, recordings and gov docs!