New green alternative to photocopying at the library

In an effort to further Stevens' efforts towards being a green campus, the library has a new, easy-to-use scanning station. Instead of photocopying, you can now scan book pages or documents, and then either save them to your usb drive or e-mail them directly from the console.

The simple touchscreen interface allows you to scan in color, black and white or greyscale, and save your files in various formats, including pdf and jpg. You can also use the station to edit and adjust your documents after scanning.

The scanning station is free to use, and located on the first floor of the library, on the north wall (at the beginning of the row of public computers.)

New library website to launch July 1st.

The staff of the S.C. Williams Library is pleased to announce the upcoming launch of its new website planned for July 1, 2008. The new site brings into focus the most important content of the former version and is more intuitive to navigate. We hope you’ll find the new site to be more logically organized – it should make finding the information you need quicker and easier.

The site design focuses on technologies that enable communication and interactivity and simplifies access to resources and services so that using the website for your research is less complicated.

Features of the new site:

• Clear, concise and logical navigation


• Simple, elegant design


• Greater accessibility of online resources


• Guidance for using library resources (tutorials, subject guides, chat reference via instant messaging, ‘how do I?’ menu, ‘help’ section, ‘ask us’ page)


• Multiple, logical access points to information and resources


• Meebo^© instant messaging application on homepage, which allows users to chat with librarians during reference hours without having to log in or sign up for any instant messaging account


• Recent publications section highlights whenever a member of the Stevens community publishes in an academic journal (indexed by the Scopus^© database)


• News and Events section on homepage that highlights what’s going on at the library


• Rotating pictures showcase distinctive pieces of art housed within the library


• New Multisearch tool allows searching across multiple resources at once

We are looking forward to rolling out all of these new features and we hope you will be as excited to see our new website as we will be on July 1^st. Please feel free to send us your feedback on the new site, here in the comments or by email. We look forward to hearing from you.

Final Thoughts from Sir Arthur C. Clarke (1917-2008)

IEEE Spectrum Online recently featured the last interview with the late Sir Arthur C. Clarke, who passed away last week in a Sri Lankan hospital. The interview, conducted in January, reveals the famed author as "still entranced with terraforming planets, space elevators, and the search for extraterrestrials." Read more...>>

The Library owns several copies of Clarke's works; look for them out in our online catalog!

Tech Review's 10 Emerging Technologies 2008

Technology Review presents their list of the 10 technologies that they think are most likely to change the way people live. Technologies profiled include: modeling surprise, probabilistic chips, NanoRadio, wireless power, atomic magnetometers, offline web apps, graphene transistors, connectomics, reality mining and cellulolytic enzymes.

Got a question? Ask it online!

SC Williams Library is happy to introduce its new online reference service! We'll be using Meebo, a web-based instant messaging application that allows us to sign on to multiple IM clients at one time, so you can find us on AOL, Yahoo, MSN and GoogleTalk. This service will be available at the following times*:

Monday, Tuesday and Thursday: 9am to 6pm
Wednesday: 9am to 10pm
Friday: 9am to 5pm

Or, just add us to your friends list to see when we're online! Our screenname is scwLibrary on AOL, Yahoo, MSN and GoogleTalk, and scwLibrary@hotmail.com on MSN.

Don't have an instant messaging account? Sign up for a screenname on one of the following services to chat with us:

AOL Instant Messenger
MSN Messenger
Yahoo Instant Messenger
GoogleTalk

(*Unless we're off helping a student, or doing a library orientation, or in a meeting... Well, you get the point! Mostly, we'll be there during those hours...)

Source of the Week: Cyberinfrastructure Vision for 21st Century Discovery

This report from the National Science Foundation describes "the various challenges and opportunities in the complementary areas that make up cyberinfrastructure: computing systems, data, information resources, networking, digitally enabled-sensors, instruments, virtual organizations, and observatories, along with an interoperable suite of software services and tools. This technology is complemented by the interdisciplinary teams of professionals that are responsible for its development, deployment and its use in transformative approaches to scientific and engineering discovery and learning. The vision also includes attention to the educational and workforce initiatives necessary for both the creation and effective use of cyberinfrastructure." Read more...>>