University Library > What's New archive > What's New Summer 2005

What's New - Summer 2005

Alert! UB Outage in July
Summer Displays
Library Events
Staff Changes
Facility Improvements
Database News
Live Online Reference 24/7

Alert! UB Outage in July

In July 2005 the library catalogs on all University of Wisconsin System campuses will be upgraded. During the upgrade the catalog will be down for a brief period on each campus, though not all campuses are undergoing the upgrade on the same days.
UW-Whitewater's Andersen Library Catalog is expected to be down July 18 and 19 (Monday and Tuesday).

The Universal Borrowing service will be unavailable July 1-24 while all of the campuses are upgrading their catalogs. During this period registered students, faculty and staff may use the ILLiad interlibrary loan service to request books and videos from other UW campuses. The usual ILL fee will be waived. However, fees for requested articles from periodicals, magazines, and newspapers, and fees for loaned materials that are not available from UW campus libraries, still will be in effect.

Questions? Ask Reference staff for assistance (phone: 262-472-1032 or e-mail: refdesk@uww.edu).

Summer Displays

Summer Reading (lobby display cases): This display features suggestions from the Library staff for good summer reading, both fiction and nonfiction. The titles in the display case are available for checkout! Ask at the Circulation Desk.

Library Events

Summer Previews: Incoming first-year students will have a chance to talk with a reference librarian and learn about the Library's resources and services at a Library information table during lunch (11:45 am - 1 pm), and again at the end of the Preview day (starting at about 3 p.m.) in the University Center's Hamilton Center. Dates of Preview sessions this summer are listed online at http://www.uww.edu/stdrsces/newstds/freshmen/preview/dates.html.

Orientation Week: The Library will be participating in several Orientation Week events in August 2005, including a Learn Center-sponsored workshop on Thursday, August 25th, from 8:45-10 a.m.; a general Library orientation session for faculty and staff on Monday, August 29th, from 11 am-noon; the Graduate Student Orientation on Monday, August 29th, from 5-7 pm; and the Involvement Opportunity Fair for faculty and staff on Monday, August 22nd, from 9:30-10:30 am.

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Staff Changes

Goodbyes...
  • Brian Beecher, Coordinator of Circulation/Reserves, left UW-Whitewater to become the director of the library at UW-Rock County.
  • Bill Schutte, Library Services Asst.-Senior in Periodicals, retired in April 2005.
  • Terry Hering, Library Services Asst.-Senior in Circulation/Reserves, retired early in June 2005.
Hellos...
  • Ray Britson has joined the library as an LTE in Circulation/Reserves in the mornings.
  • Lara Monk has joined the library as an LTE in Periodicals in the mornings.

Anne Kimball, previously split between Circulation/Reserves and the Library administration office, will be working fulltime in the administration office.

The library is currently searching for a new Coordinator of Circulation/Reserves.
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Facility Improvements

During the early part of the summer there will be recarpeting (and asbestos abatement) in the Technical Processing staff area on the library's first floor. The project is expected to take about three weeks. During that time the staff from the area will be relocated, including moving the cataloging staff to two of the group study rooms on the third floor. Plenty of group study rooms remain available for group study use on the second and third floors. There also will be some equipment and furniture temporarily stored in the public area on the first floor, but access to collections is not affected.

In mid-summer the front portion of the Reference Desk on the second floor will be replaced. The new desk will have a section at a lower height to be more accessible to patrons in wheelchairs.

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Database News
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Live Online Reference 24/7

Reference help via live chat online now is available seven days per week, 24 hours per day. The software used for the service is called 24/7 Reference, and has been purchased by OCLC, which provides the QuestionPoint software used previously for reference via chat (and still in use for reference via e-mail).

The University Library is part of a consortium of public and academic libraries in Wisconsin that offer the service. Librarians from UW-Whitewater monitor the chat reference sessions on Mondays from 3-5 p.m. and 7-9 p.m., but even at those times it is possible that staff from other libraries will respond to a chat session that comes from this campus. During some times, especially late-night and weekends, chat sessions are responded to by staff from libraries that are not in Wisconsin.

To initiate a chat session for reference help, go to http://library.uww.edu/subject/askwi.htm and click on the "Chat Now" button. The form for submitting a question via e-mail is on the same page. E-mailed questions always are answered by UW-Whitewater librarians, Monday-Friday during the day with an approximate 24-hour turnaround time.

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Old news:

Fall '98 | Spring '99, Fall '99 | Spring 2000, Fall 2000 | Spring '01, Aug. '01, Nov. '01 | Jan. '02, Sept. '02, Nov. '02 | Feb. '03, Summer '03, Sept. '03, Dec. '03/Jan. '04 | Feb. '04 | Mar. '04 | Sep. '04 | Mar. '05