Feedback to the Library, March 2008

NOTE: Comments are edited to remove names of specific employees or users. Comments with names go to "Askref" for response or are forwarded to the appropriate person for a reply.

The location is only identified as "Library", "Campus" or "Off-Campus" to protect the anonymity of users. Comments received on paper forms may be entered several days after they were submitted.

Date/time Location

Mon Mar 3 11:36:27 2008 Library

I have seen a lot of homeless people using the computers and bathrooms int he science library. This is completely unacceptable and they should be asked to leave. These facilities are for the students. In the wake of all the tragedies that have occurred across the country, we need to keep a keen eye on any suspicious behavior. These individuals are a cause of concern to our students safety. Please have them removed or post a sign that states, "for student and faculty use only. All others are kindly asked to leave." Thank you.
Library response: Thanks for your comments and concern. As a state supported institution the University of Arizona Libraries are open to the entire community. As student's tuition and other fees also contribute to University operations, they have greater access to University resources and student, staff, and faculty use of resources are given priority. So, although we cannot ban community users as you suggest, community users, for example, must pay a fee to borrow books from the library, and whenever the various Information Commons are fully busy, we can ask for Cat Cards or other verification of role at the University and ask those without a formal role here to give over the computers to students.

As for security, whenever you feel at all threatened or unsafe, please call campus police or report your concern to the closest library staff so that we can report it. Campus police are very good about responding quickly and are willing to come whenever called. I also feel compelled to add that, quite often, individuals that some describe as homeless are actually your student, staff, or faculty colleagues. Dan Lee, Interim Team Leader for Undergraduate Services Team

Mon Mar 3 16:54:33 2008 Library

Recommend that the Library obtain the electronic version of "Journal American Water Works Association" (ISSN 0003-150x),
Library response: As you may know, the UA Library prefers electronic formats whenever they are available to us. However, in this case it appears that AWWA does not offer a library subscription to the electronic version of the Journal of AWWA. Their website is not clear about this. I just contacted their subscription department 800.926.7337 and inquired about online access. The subscription agent said that as a matter of AWWA policy, the electronic version of the Journal AWWA is available as a benefit to members only. If you know someone who is a personal member they may be able to help you or you may choose to join AWWA.

Although we are not able to provide electronic access, the Library does have a print subscription. You may request scanned copies of articles be delivered to you electronically at no charge via the Library’s Express Documents service--see info below. If you have additional information please let me know and I will be happy to pursue. Also, if you know members of the AWWA governing board or publications board, you may want to contact them regarding this policy. Doug Jones, Science-Engineering Team

Thu Mar 6 15:53:35 2008 Library

Please fix the chairs so I don't have to almost sit on the floor and peer up at the computer -- all students are not over 6 ft atheletes. Please order more skeptical books. Please order more interesting books about science for non-science majors. Please order less books that are literary hoaxes such as Lynn Andrews Jaguar Woman, Jamake Highwater, Carlos Castaneda, M. Jones ... and more books that were actually written by Native ppl. Why are there more children's books than books critical of goddess spirituality? There's way too much crap on your shelves. Thank you for considering my ideas.
Library response: I don't know what chairs you are talking about that are too close to the ground, you will need to be more specific about the location of these chairs. We have 100s of chairs in our different libraries. If you have titles of more interesting books that you would like the library to order, then you can submit those titles and we will consider them. We have selection criteria for the books we purchase, as all academic libraries do. Vicki Mills, Undergraduate Services Team

Fri Mar 7 14:35:47 2008 Library

why are all the computers so slow or broken?
Library response: We have hundreds of computers in our three library buildings and a remarkably few number of them are out of order at any one time. Our library systems staff does a great job of keeping our many computers with all their software up and running. The speed which computers do their work depends on a lot of things and I can't tell from this comment if the person who wrote it thinks the computers are slow to boot up or slow to connect to internet sites or slow to open applications -- so it's hard to answer this part of the comment. Also speed or lack of it is relative. Vicki Mills, Undergraduate Services Team

Tue Mar 11 20:53:26 2008 Off-campus

Why isn't Metallurgical and Materials Transactions B listed anywhere when full electronic access is available?
Library response: It is listed in both our online catalog and in our list of e-journals, with links to the full-text. This is where we list all our electronic journals by title. Vicki Mills, Undergraduate Services Team

Wed Mar 12 11:59:24 2008 Campus

I'm having problems accessing recent issues of Current Biology. The description on the e-journals page says that the library's access ended 5 months ago. Did the subscription lapse? This is a major journal in my field (evolutionary biology and general biology) - are there plans to renew the subscription? Thank you.
Library response: My colleague shared this message about you are having trouble accessing articles from the recent issues of Current Biology. We currently only subscribe to 5 Cell Press titles: Cell, Neuron, Immunity, Cancer Cell, and Molecular Cell. We never had a subscription to Current Biology. Now the reason you find issues available from our catalog is because Cell Press (CP) provides free online access to issues that are 12 months old or older and dates back to content from 1995. Unfortunately, there is something very weird happening with availability via their site and via Science Direct. My colleague and I will investigate this issue further and see if we can straighten out the discrepancies so that you and other users won't have this problem again in the future. This title along with other campus requests is currently on our wish list. The Science-Engineering librarians usually review requests a couple of times a year and determine which, if any, new subscriptions will be added. Generally subscriptions are added on a calendar year basis and changes are made in the fall. Because of the cost and the heavily constrained library budget situation, there is a chance that the UA Libraries cannot subscribe to any new titles in the near future. Your option, until we are able to get a subscription to this title, is to submit an InterLibrary Loan request and we’ll get your article(s) from a lending library. The service is free to you and all you have to do is enter the citation information on the online form from the Interlibrary Loan link on the library's homepage. We will find the article and send it to your UA email account. I'm sorry for the inconvenience. Let me know if you have any questions. Elizabeth Kline, Science-Engineering Team

Thu Mar 13 03:45:08 2008 Campus

I cannot access the course reserves page from the library website. On another computer which already had the appropriate page open (Harnish, PHIL 465), when new papers were selected to be opened they never finished loading, and an error screen appeared.
Library response: We have been experiencing some technical difficulties with the ERes server and on occasion the Eres database has been running slower than usual. Were you trying to access E-Res on campus or off campus? Were you using a PC or a MacIntosh? In any event, please make sure you are accessing Eres using the Mozilla web browser since the E-Res database operates best with that particular browser. If you are using a Macintosh, do not use the Safari web browser, use Mozilla instead. Here is a link to our technical requirements for using the E-Res database: If you are still having problems accessing the documents on the course page please let us know. Dana Von Berg, Electronic Reserves

Wed Mar 19 14:02:31 2008 Campus

Talking to a human appears impossible when dialing the 2101 number. Every option is "hang up and call somebody else."
Library response: You are not the first person to complain about that number and we are discussing what we should do about it. We are thinking about changing the number at the bottom of the site to two numbers, one for circulation questions and one for all other questions and having those numbers go to phones that are answered by humans most of the time. Thanks for your input on the issue. Vicki Mills, Undergraduate Services Team

Sat Mar 22 16:44:04 2008 Off-campus

Do you have any workshops available for 2008? I was given info that the UA Library offers workshops and the seating is limited to 24, but I cannot find a list of upcoming workshops
Library response: I'm not sure where you got that information about the UA Library teaching workshops. We do a lot of instruction for university classes, but we don't really offer many workshops unrelated to classes. The one exception is RefWorks workshops -- we had 3 this semester, but they weren't limited to 24.

I'm wondering if you are getting us confused with the Office of Student Computing. They offer some workshops in software products and they may limit their attendance to 24 people. You can go to the OSCR site at: www.oscr.arizona.edu. Select the We Teach button and you can see what workshops they offer. Vicki Mills, Undergraduate Services Team

Tue Mar 25 05:47:18 2008 Off-campus

Dear Librarians, I have a problem with a link-out from PubMed site. I could log-in remotely, but when I got to the article I wanted, I could not click on the link-out to get to the article. I had to go to the e-journal on AHL site then went through there to get to the article. THis is very inconvenient. Please, help fix it. I have reported to the AZ Health and Science Library two weeks ago and they said that they reported to AHL. But this is the third week already and the link-out hasn't been fixed. Please, help fix it. Thank you.
Library response: We think this problem may have been some kind of computer glitch because when we tried to duplicate it in the library or on our home computers, we could not. We also heard from this person that she was able to make the link work as well. Vicki Mills and Gene Spesard

Wed Mar 26 11:36:17 2008 Campus

I really appreciate the option to check out laptops at the music library. However, I've noticed that the clocks on the mac laptops are anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes off, which can cause some major inconveniences. But more importantly, I was wondering if Finale 2008 could be loaded onto the laptops in th Music Library. As the computers in the library are often all taken, it would be very helpful if the Music Library laptops had the same software loaded on it, especially programs like Finale 2008, Adobe Photoshop, Sibelius as well as other applicable applications. THANKS!
Library response: I'm forwarding your message to the library systems staff that works with the software on the laptops and they will look into seeing if they can add software on these computers and fix the clocks. Thanks for the suggestions and we are glad you appreciate and use the loaner laptops, they were purchased with some of the student technology fee, so they are your money in action! Vicki Mills, Undergraduate Services Team

Wed Mar 26 11:38:41 2008 Campus

Hello, I'm having a problem trying to get the following article because it seems our subscription has expired. Can you please look into this and email me? Thank you! An online subscription or single article purchase is required to access this article: History of Education Quarterly Vol. 42 Issue 4 Page 493 December 2002 W.E.B. Du Bois and Charles S. Johnson: Differing Views on the Role of Philanthropy in Higher Education Marybeth Gasman Why don't I have access to this article? University Of Arizona - NM Alliance - Tuscon - USA's subscription to this publication has expired or does not include backfiles published before 1997. You may purchase individual access to this article or recommend that your institution renew its subscription to this publication (see below).
Library response: Thanks for notifying us about the subscription problem for the more current issues of this title. We will get it fixed. I was able to find the article through JSTOR, another online journal article database -- so it was emailed to this person. Vicki Mills, Undergraduate Services Team