Thursday, December 18, 2008

Resource Center Funds

The Resource Center at CBC has funds available for tuition and book loans, and for childcare and travel for Winter Quarter. Please refer students to our office in the HUB to complete an application. They can also call us at 542-5525 for more information.

Peggy Buchmiller
Director, Resource Center
Columbia Basin College

Note regarding textbooks: The library only has the textbooks if the instructor or department places them on reserve with us. If instructors have (or can get) an extra copy of their textbook they may bring them to Circulation, or send them via campus mail along with the class reserve form to Library Circulation, MS-L3.

Some textbooks are available for students to use in the Tutor Center.

Friday, December 12, 2008

Virtual Ready Reference Shelf

For a complete list of our subscription databases, please visit our main resources page.

Encyclopedia Britannica Online - includes World Atlas and international statistics.

Europa World - country information; statistics, recent history, directory information, facts.

Oxford Reference Online - dictionaries covering many subjects, bilingual business and concise dictionaries for French, Spanish, German, Irish, Italian, Latin, & Welsh. Books of quotations.

World Almanac - statistics, chronologies, weather, facts trivial and profound, persons, associations.

Web

Internet Public Library - Ready Reference section with atlases, dictionaries, books of quotations, writing guides.

Visit our Web Resources guide for more sites.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Learning Needs Assessments

The Resource Center provides “Learning Needs Assessments” to students who are struggling academically. These assessments will look at the reasons behind the students academic difficulties and refer them to appropriate on and off campus resources. Please refer students to the Resource Center in the HUB to schedule an appointment for this assessment. They can schedule this appointment by calling the Resource Center at 542-4412.

Peggy Buchmiller
Director, Resource Center
Columbia Basin College
http://columbiabasin.edu/home/index.asp?page=433

Thursday, November 6, 2008

Who's Who - Subscription Ended

The CBC Library's subscription to Who's Who ended 11/06/08; we cancelled it due to low usage.

Biographical information is available in numerous print and online reference sources as well as free online resources. The Richland Public Library has a subscription to Gale's Biography Resource Center.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

ProQuest loses Seattle Times coverage

"Effective January 1, 2009, ProQuest will no longer distribute full-text ASCII content from The Seattle Times in its current newspaper products. However, abstracts and indexing for The Seattle Times will remain. This means that full-text Seattle Times content (both current and backfile) will be removed from the ProQuest Washington Newsstand database on that date." WALIBSDL November 05, 2008 12:36 PM

COMPASS Interpretation Guide

Go to the CBC Assessment/Testing web page at
http://columbiabasin.edu/assessment
and click on “View Placement Interpretation”

or go directly to

http://columbiabasin.edu/docs/compass.pdf

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Save Word 2007 file as PDF file

Microsoft has a plug-in for Office 2007 that allows you to save your files as PDF. Saving them as PDF will ensure that the formatting will not change and that they are printed just as you saved them.

Once the plug-in is installed, all you have to do is:

1. Click on the Office button (What and where is the Microsoft Office Button?)
2. Go to the Save As menu
3. Click on PDF or XPS
4. Choose a location to save it in, then click the Publish button
5. Review your file

Note: If you have Adobe Professional installed, you can also save the files as PDF using that. Just click on Adobe PDF instead of PDF or XPS.

You can download and install the plug-in from Microsoft at http://download.microsoft.com/download/b/5/3//b5370004-d59d-493f-b005-2299ffca8596/SaveAsPDF.exe

Call the Help Desk at ext. 2353 if you need assistance installing the plug-in.

Eduardo Rodríguez
Columbia Basin College

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Proctored Math Exams in the Library

Math Exams from Dr. Zhang will be kept in the white “Proctored Test” folder sitting upright next to the Circulation Supervior's incoming mailbox and when completed, the test can be placed inside the Privacy folder and Circulation Supervior will get it back to Dr. Zhang.

Only library staff can help the test-taker initially get started. A library staff or a library student employees can accept completed tests.

CBC Scholarships Web page

www.columbiabasin.edu/scholarships

CBC Teaching, Learning & Tutor Center

www.columbiabasin.edu/tutor

CBC Common Course Numbering website

http://www.columbiabasin.edu/ccn

Monday, October 6, 2008

Assisting Spanish Speakers

Here is the Spanish for ‘I am sorry, I don’t speak Spanish. One moment while I transfer you to the operator.’

Lo siento, pero no hablo espanol. Un momento mientras que le transfiero al operador.

Explaining to a Spanish speaker that they have been misdirected or are otherwise misinformed after determining that they wish to buy, not borrow, books.

Lo siento mucho, ---- I am very sorry (standard politeness)
pero esta es una biblioteca. ---- but this is a library.
Para comprar libros, ---- to purchase books
usted quiere la libreria, ---- you want the bookstore
que esta en el segundo piso del HUB. ---- which is on the second level of the HUB.
El HUB esta detras de la biblioteca. ---- The HUB is behind the library (gestures)
Tengo un mapa. ---- I have a map (offering it, with further gestures)

Friday, October 3, 2008

Googlized EBSCO

If students would like to try a googlized version of EBSCO, they can

  1. Choose "SmartText Searching" under the green "Search Options". The default is "Boolean/Phrase";
  2. Then they can type in the enlarged search box "as much text for your search as you want - a phrase, a sentence, paragraph, or even whole pages";
  3. The number of results will be huge, but supposedly the first couple pages of the results should be most relevant as ranked by EBSCO's computer algorithm.