Subject: LTS Digest December 5, 2008 Issue
From: Terry McGinley (tam5@Lehigh.EDU)
Date: Fri Dec 05 2008 - 08:49:40 EST
*LTS DIGEST -- December 5, 2008 Lehigh University Library and Technology Services* * * *CONTENTS:* * * *--CAMPUS IMPACT OF MPC/GATEWAY BANKRUPTCY FILING* *--FAIRCHILD LIBRARY ELECTRICAL TESTING AND SHUTDOWN* *--REFRESHING PC'S AT THE PUBLIC SITES* *--LTS ALERTS: AN UPDATE* *--UNLIMITED ACCESS TO WEB CONFERENCING TOOL* *--LTS STUDYING E-BOOK COLLECTION OPTIONS* *--LTS TURKEY TROT TEAM (LTS MOUNTAIN GOATS)* *--LIBRARY HOURS -- EXAMS AND WINTER BREAK* * * Subscription, archive and contact information is at the bottom of this digest. * * *CAMPUS IMPACT OF MPC/GATEWAY BANKRUPTCY FILING* The computer company known as MPC which purchased Gateway has filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection and has scaled back its business offerings and obligations. Gateway offerings have been removed from the Library and Technology Services Purchasing Computers website and the Lehigh Purchasing Department is blocking Gateway purchases. In addition Gateway/MPC is currently NOT providing warranty repair service or funding it through Lehigh University or anyone else. The LTS Computer Repair operation will continue to repair Gateway computers as requested for both computers under warranty or out of warranty. For those computers that are university-affiliated purchases (purchases made through the Lehigh/LTS website by faculty, staff, students, or departments) and still under warranty, there will be no labor charge. Owners will need to pay for parts and parts shipping, assuming it continues to be possible to purchase parts. For out of warranty machines, there will be labor and parts charges as usual. For more information, contact the LTS Help Desk at 610-758-4357. *FAIRCHILD LIBRARY MART WING ELECTRICAL TESTING AND SHUTDOWN IN DECEMBER* After final exams, new electrical panels will be installed in the Mart (south) Wing of Fairchild-Martindale Library. On December 18th testing will take place with recurring power outages. Beginning on Monday, December 22 and continuing on December 23, 29, 30, and 31 (extending even to January 2 if necessary), the electricity to the entire Mart Wing will be shut down, most likely including the Digital Media Studio. Computers and printers located in the Fairchild (north) Wing will continue to operate. A minimal level of photocopy and microform printing/reading services will be maintained at other locations in the building. Books can be checked out and returned as usual. Thank you for your patience as this 40 year-old building gets an e-update. *REFRESHING PC'S AT THE PUBLIC SITES* The PCs at the public sites are heavily used by faculty, staff, and students. As specialized software is loaded through Install Software and through steady use and abuse, machines begin to experience performance issues. The solution to this problem is to refresh the hard disk image. The highest use public sites are refreshed on a weekly basis in the early morning hours. What is a refresh? During a refresh, the hard disk contents are completely replaced with a "fresh" installation of the basic operating system and default software (e.g., Microsoft Office, Firefox/Thunderbird, etc.). Any user customizations, software installed via Install Software, and files saved anywhere on the hard disk are erased. How can I refresh a public site PC? When you reboot a public site PC, you will see a startup screen that displays two options: Refresh or Go to Windows XP. If you choose Refresh, the system will begin to install a new hard disk image. This can take 10-20 minutes. I saved a file to a hard drive on a public site machine. It's gone! More than likely the PC has been refreshed, either by another computer user or as part of regularly scheduled site refresh. DO NOT SAVE FILES YOU NEED ON A PUBLIC SITE PC. Instead, save them to your networked H: drive. *LTS ALERTS: AN UPDATE* LTS and University Communications feature an LTS Alert feature. The LTS Alert feature is an icon on the Inside Lehigh page and all LTS pages. Clicking on the icon will display more detailed information. Currently, the LTS Alert has three statuses: All systems go, Planned Downtime, and LTS System Down. The middle category, Planned Downtime, is seldom used, so the three statuses will be changed in time for the spring semester. The LTS Alert feature will be modified to these (3) three statuses: --All systems go: indicates all systems are up and running. --LTS System Bulletin: provides news about LTS-related services including phishing alerts, planned downtime, non-critical service issues, etc. --LTS System down: indicates a campus-wide or severe service outage (e.g., email, Web server, phone, etc.) Any questions about this change can be directed to the LTS Help Desk at 8-4357. *UNLIMITED ACCESS TO WEB CONFERENCING TOOL* Library and Technology Services has purchased a site license for Elluminate, a web-based conferencing tool that has been used at Lehigh for several years in various applications. The software is a real-time online learning and collaboration tool that has many uses: online courses, traditional classrooms, and other academic and administrative environments. Elluminate has been used widely at Lehigh in online courses, by graduate students for their dissertation defense when committee members have been away, by traveling faculty who have taught their classes from afar, as an easy way for outside guest speakers to share their expertise with students, and for meetings of people at multiple locations without the expense and effort of traveling. There is also a Blackboard course link that gives instructors the ability to schedule their own Elluminate sessions from within their course. This tool works on PC's, Macs and Linux computers. The new site license removes the limitation on the number of participants in an event because it no longer references any specific number of "seats" although there may be some practical limits. LTS has used Elluminate on campus for three years and thus has good experience to assist new users. For more information or a demonstration about this exciting option, contact Sherri Yerk-Zwickl (shy2@lehigh.edu <mailto:shy2@lehigh.edu>) or other instructional technologists at http://cf1.cc.lehigh.edu/LTSstaff/browse_album.cfm?id=15. *LTS STUDYING E-BOOK COLLECTION OPTIONS* Lehigh librarians are studying e-book content and platforms, in part to consider how e-books can be effectively acquired, cataloged and discovered in the library and to evaluate if expanding and diversifying our e-book collection is a valid strategy for developing academic content from the Library. As part of that evaluation process, trial access to e-books from several vendors is available over the next two weeks. Please visit the E-Books Trials page at http://library.lehigh.edu/page.php?id=E-Book_Trials to connect to the e-book sites. We hope you enjoy your reading on screen and welcome your comments and questions. The Lehigh Libraries currently hold over 7,000 e-books fully accessible online from anywhere, anytime; our first e-book online was acquired about ten years ago and our first e-book on disc was acquired over twenty years ago as part of our millionth book celebration. During 2008 the e-book market continued to grow and mature so now it is a good time to reexamine e-books and their utility for teaching and learning at Lehigh. *LTS TURKEY TROT TEAM (LTS MOUNTAIN GOATS)* The LTS Turkey Trot team competed in the 54th Annual Turkey Trot held on Thursday, November 20th beginning in front of Packer Chapel. The Turkey Trot is a 2.5 mile running race that goes through the upper Lehigh campus to the top of Upper Sayer Drive returning to the lawn in front of the University Center. It is a team event composed of various teams including the Lehigh Clubs, Sororities, Fraternities, Faculty/Staff and Independent teams. Each team can have a maximum of 10 members of which the top 5 finishers are included in an overall team score. This is the LTS Mountain Goats 11th year competing in the Turkey Trot and they are undefeated in the Faculty/Staff division. Overall, the team placed 3rd out of a total of 29 teams including the student teams which are made up of MUCH younger members than the LTS team. There were a total of 280 runners competing in the Turkey Trot this year. Rob Weidman, a Digital Library Technical Coordinator for LTS, finished 1st overall for the second year in a row and Tim Hayburn (a new recruit from the History department) finished 8th overall. Gale Fritsche, an LTS Client Services Team Leader finished 15th overall, Chad Meyerhoefer from the Economics Department finished 34th, John Rodgers, a Mechanical Engineering graduate student finished 79th, David Ramsay, a LTS Senior Computing Consultant finished 129th and Ken Kodama from EES finished strong but an error in recording his number failed to give Ken an accurate place. *LIBRARY HOURS -- EXAMS AND WINTER BREAK* *Exams* *Fairchild Martindale* OPEN 24/7 8 am Monday, Dec. 8 through 10 pm Wednesday, Dec. 17 * * *Linderman* Monday through Friday - 8 am -- 2 am Saturday through Sunday - 9 am -- 2 am Wednesday, Dec. 17 - 8 am -- 10 pm * * *Winter Break* *December 18 -- January 11* Thursday 12/18 through Friday 12/19 - 8 am -- 5 pm Saturday 12/20 through Sunday 12/21 -- Noon - 5 pm Monday 12/22 through Tuesday 12/23 - 8 am -- 5 pm Wednesday 12/24 -- 8 am - Noon Thursday 12/25 - CLOSED Friday 12/26 - 8 am -- 5 pm Saturday 12/27 through Sunday 12/28 - Noon -- 5 pm Monday 12/29 through Wednesday 12/31 - 8 am -- 5 pm Thursday, 1/1/09 - CLOSED *January 2 -- 11* Monday through Thursday - 8 am -- 8 pm Friday - 8 am -- 5 pm Saturday through Sunday - Noon -- 5 pm ****************************************************************** Send your comments or suggestions for future topics by replying directly to the list. 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