DC Helps Tucson Earn Historic Recognition...

Tucson is declared a historic city! 

Ok, Tucson's recognition in the "U.S. Preserve America Program" has to do with the city's efforts to preserve historical sites and landmarks, not with all the cool history that has happened in the area.
 
PCC Downtown Campus can be credited as helping a bit - with our neon signs along Drachman! While not mentioned in the story, the neon signs were one of the items pointed out in the story in contributing to the recognition. 


Recently PCC was recieved the "Governor's Heritage Preservation" award for the neon sign project.
 
If you haven't seen them at night, you really need to drive by!

Facebook scam...

This blog tends to be about DC Library related things, but every now and then we through in some technology and other things we think re of interest to the DC community.

I know there are some faculty on Facebook (and the DC Library has just started a Facebook page as a way to keep students informed of DC Library things...no way to get the blog info out to them), so I thought I would pass along some info on a Facebook scam we have all probably seen.

This article talks about all those FB posts you see that say something like "click Like if you hate cancer" or "click Like to get this soldier one million likes" - - this is just a marketing scam or ploy, if you will. Someone is trying to get a page to have a million or so likes and then is selling the page. Doesn't matter what the page says, they are selling it and with it, you and your personal information that goes along with .

I am usually careful on what I "Like" because I don't want to give out my personal info...usually if you like something you will have to approve them seeing your personal information and sometimes it even says you are giving them permission to post of as you!! Why would you let someone post as if they are you!!! Even being careful, I did see a post in my name that I did not do, so I went in to remove it. (If you want help on removing posts from your FB page, just come by the library.)

So, here's the article link: http://daylandoes.com/facebook-like-scams/

I am not saying not to "Like" a page, but just be knowledgeable about what you are really doing when you click that thumb.

ProfHacker...Medical Emergencies in the Classroom

I am a big fan of ProfHacker. Every morning when I turn on my computer I try to at least read the ProfHacker posts in The Chronicle of Higher Education. (Thanks Pima for the subscription, although you can read ProfHacker from their blog without logging in to The Chronicle.)

I have learned much about technology, MOOCs, organization and even learned from their mistakes, which they are nice enough to share. Today's post was "Medical Emergencies in the Classroom." Luckily, my library sessions have never had a medical emergency, and much of what is said is common sense, but still nice to be reminded.

The top points in the article were:

• Know who to call in an emergency. For us it would be the campus police dispatch at x2700, or 911.

• If you teach in a space with unrealiable cell phone coverage, know where the closest landline phone is.  We are fortunate that Pima has a landline in every classroom. 

• Take a first aid / CPR class. Again, Pima Occupational & Professional Development (OPD) offers a first aid class. 

• To see all of the OPD courses, go to Pima's INTRANET (via MyPima) and in the search box type in Professional Development Calendar.
• The link to the calendar is in the first bullet under the first heading (Organization and Profession Dev) 
• I don't see a search box for searching the calendar, so do a "FIND" (CTRL F) for first aid. It looks like the next first aid class is February 28th. The directions for registering are at the top of the page.

• If the student has a friend in the class, it might be comforting to have that person stay 
• Finally, secure the student's valuables - purse, laptop, backback, wallet, etc. 

 Again, all this is not new information, but a nice reminder of what to do if something were to happen.  

Now is the Time to Request Book Titles!

Looking for a book to supplement your Spring course? Got something in mind to read over the summer? 

Now is the time to submit your requests to the DC Library!

Even if a title is not published for quite sometime, we can get a pre-published order in so it will arrive soon after the published date!


Stop by the DC Library or call us at 206-7267 and we can assist you with it.

Be sure to check in with this blog regularly - we will be trying to publish new information several times a week, so bookmark us to catch our new posts. You can subscribe to the RSS feed and be alerted when new posts are made!

Cool Find...Best Web Tools for Instructors...

Well, these tools may not be new to all of you, but quite a few were new to the DC Librarians, so I thought I would share this document. It's called "The Best of Teacher's Web Tools" and Med Kharbach put it together.(Thanks go to Rosanne Couston, a Librarian at WC for sharing this find!)

In this well comprehensive guide are hundred of web tools that you could you in your classroom. Some of them you may be familiar with, especially if you are a FITT graduate: Animoto, Vimeo, Livebinder, Slideshare, Skype, Delicious and Diigo, Pinterest, Evernote and SpringPad. (I LOVE Springpad on my iPad!) The author has a great Pinterest page!

There are many others - OverStream for adding subtitles to videos, 5 PicLits - which I think would be great for an ESL class, Screen Draw for writing over a webpage in Firefox (can save as an image), WebNotes is similar to Screen Draw and it works for PDFs (doesn't say it is browser specific) and many, many others. I could play with these for a week!

Playing around with some of the tools I did see that some required permissions/purchasing even for classroom use. The ones I found were in the Cartoon Resources section.

I would not recommend printing it, not just because it is long (95 pages!), but you would lose the ability to click on an icon and have it open up - much nicer than having to type in the URL! You can download it. (Maybe put it in Evernote or add it to your Delicious links?)

Also, if you want to see a Creative Commons license, go to the last page and look at the paragraph under "Reuse of this Book."

If you have any questions, feel free to stop by the library. I am sure the Faculty Resource Center could also help you out also.

If you find a tool that is really great - let us know! You can email me (tcstanley@pima.edu) or post a comment to this blog.

Have fun!

FYI...ARTStor performing upgrades...

The PCC Library has been informed that our ARTStor database will be unavailable during their coming updating on Saturday, January 26th from 11:00pm EST until Sunday January 27th at 1:00pm EST. (Their announcement is below.)

We are sorry for any inconvenience.
The DC Library

Dear ARTstor User Support and Primary Contacts, Please be advised that ARTstor will be performing an upgrade to our systems beginning on Saturday, January 26th at 11:00 PM EST and concluding on Sunday, January 27th at 1:00 PM EST. While the upgrade is being performed, users will not have access to the ARTstor Digital Library. During this time, we will be bringing our new Oracle server online. This improvement constitutes a major upgrade to our infrastructure; for more details, please see Oracle's press release. If you experience any difficulties, please clear the cache on your browser and restart your web browser. If you continue to experience difficulties, please do not hesitate to contact User Services at userservices@artstor.org. Kind regards, ARTstor User Services Team

 

Welcome to the Spring Semester!

We are hoping all had a relaxing time over the break. All of us at the DC Library are ready for the Spring semester!

Just a couple of housekeeping items with our first post of the semester...

•  Please schedule your library sessions as soon as possible. We have already had two requests for the same date/time, so the sooner you schedule the better. If we do have multiple requests, we will make every effort to accommodate both classes - remember we can also bring laptops or iPads to your classroom. 
• Please look over your Research Guides (formally known as LibGuides) to be sure they are up to date. If yours needs editing, or you want a new one, just let us know and we will get started on it. 
• Please feel free to refer students to the Library's "Ask a Librarian" online reference service - especially for those after hours questions! "Ask a Librarian" has a database of previously asked questions that can be searched, as well as space to submit new questions.   "Ask a Librarian" can be found on the Library's MyPima page, as well as on the Library's public page (http://libanswers.pima.edu/)

Finally, we are going to be starting a series of "Did you know..." The series will highlight a library resource or service. If there is a resource or a service you would like to know more about, stop by the library or call us (206-7267) and we will be glad to help you on the spot.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact any of us!
The DC Librarians
Joe, Marianne, Ellen and Theresa