Finals Mania Draws Hundreds of Students to Library
Finals Mania, Spring 2009 Edition, kicked off at 10pm last Wednesday, May 6 at the UH M.D. Anderson Library. Hundreds of students were drawn to the library for a free late night pancake breakfast, made and served by UH faculty, staff, and student leaders.
The library’s own Dean Dana Rooks and Associate Dean Diane Bruxvoort were on hand to flip pancakes, along with Faculty Senate President Dr. Dan Wells, SGA President Kenneth Fomunung, Vice President for Administration & Finance Dr. Carl Carlucci, VP for Student Affairs, Dr. Elwyn Lee, and Staff Council representatives.
President Khator joined in the late night study break festivities to mingle with students and play a heated match of Hungry, Hungry, Hippos.
Finals Mania is a biannual study break for UH students sponsored by UH University Services, the UH Libraries, the Student Government Association, Student Affairs, Staff Council, and Faculty Senate.
For photos of Finals Mania, check out the UH Libraries on Facebook.
Library Privileges Continue Throughout the Summer
Spring Semester Students:
Your library privileges, including access to electronic resources, continue throughout the summer. You must be enrolled on the last day of the Spring semester and be in good standing on your library account for access to library materials.
UH Libraries receives multiple awards
The University of Houston Libraries was a multiple award winner at the Annual Conference of the Texas Library Association last week.
Dana Rooks, Dean of Libraries, was awarded the 2009 TLA Distinguished Service Award. Dean Rooks is a former TLA president and winner of the 1997 Librarian of the Year award for her work on TexShare, a cooperative program that enables the sharing of resources among academic, special and public libraries.
The UH Libraries also received two Branding Iron Awards for marketing, including the Best in Show Award for Student Video Network-produced library commercials. The Demco Award, another marketing prize, also honored the commercials.
Finally, a team of library employees won the annual Book Cart Drill Team competition. The employees, including Dean Rooks, performed a dance routine titled “Materials Girl” with book carts. The team may now advance to the national competition at the Annual Conference of the American Library Association.
The commercials and Book Cart Drill Team competition may all be viewed at YouTube:
2009 UH Libraries Book Cart Drill Team
Enter the Learning Commons Media Contest!
To celebrate it’s official grand opening, the UH Libraries’ Learning Commons is holding a Student Media Contest!
You can win an iPod Nano, iPod Shuffle, or Target Giftcard if you use the Learning Commons’ equipment to answer the following question…
What Does it Mean to be a UH Cougar?
Being a UH Cougar means something different to everyone on campus, so put your creativity and the Learning Commons’ equipment to use and tell us what being a UH Cougar means to YOU!
Anything goes, as long as it fits one of the following categories:
- Still Digital Photography
(An original photo in jpg or tif) - Graphic Design
(Your own creation in jpg or pdf) - Video
(No more than 5 minutes uploaded to YouTube)
Submission Guidelines
You must be a UH student to enter the Learning Commons Media Contest.
To enter, send an email to uhlearningcommons [at ] gmail [dot] com with the following information:
- Your Name
- Phone Number
- Email Address
- Title of Your Submission
- Category of Your Submission
For Still Frame Photography, attach your design as a JPEG or TIFF.
For Graphic Design, attach your design as a JPEG or PDF.
For Video, upload your clip to YouTube, and include the URL in the body of your email. - A short paragraph describing your entry
Important Dates
All entries must be submitted by April 28, 2009 at 5pm. Winners will be announced at the Media Contest Winner’s Reception on May 4
in the Learning Commons.
Questions? Contact
Nathan McKee (npmckee [at] uh [dot] edu),
Veronica Arellano (varellano[at] uh [dot] edu), or
Robin Dasler (rlhoward [at] uh [dot] edu).
Learning Commons Opening Celebration on April 8th
Please join us for the Opening Celebration of the Libraries’ Learning Commons on Wednesday, April 8th at 2:00pm.
The Learning Commons offers students flexible and inviting spaces for both collaborative and individual work, new opportunities for developing presentation projects, and enhanced access to sophisticated computing technology and advanced applications. This facility offers both high-end PCs and Macs which feature either dual or large-screen monitors. A wide variety of software is available, e.g., Adobe Creative Suite, Apple iLife Suite, Camtasia Studio, Captivate, Visual Studio, EndNote, Mathematica, Matlab, SPSS, ArcGIS, and SAS.
Encore, a new way to search the catalog
Encore offers a single search box for retrieving results from the library catalog. Search results can be refined using a faceted display. Results are redrawn on the page so that users see in real-time how their results can be refined by selecting a single facet option or multiple facets. Results can be limited by title, subject, material format, sub-collection, date, and language.
A tag cloud is generated for each search based on subject headings for titles in the results set. Search results can also be refined by selecting any keyword or phrase in the tag cloud. The results display uses font size to highlight possible search options and helps to distinquish similar search terms.
Community tags allow the user to create their own search terms for an item, and can be used in describing works on a professor’s reading list.
Encore also highlights recently added materials based on the keyword search entered.