myMcGill

myMcGill is a new single sign on service for all students. On the top right of every McGill web page should be a tab "myMcGill". The student click on it, enters their email and password and then is logged into their "myMcGill" page. The can also login at my.mcgill.ca .The page displays their mailbox, announcement, courses, etc. etc. There is a tab within this service that allows them seamless access to their library account. Also they should be able to access Minerva and WebCT without additional logins.

Complete info on this service is at this website

Also in the black ref desk binder under "Technical Support" is a page with myMcGill student view screen shots since you as staff can't login.

BD

Reycling at McGill

If any of you are interested this is a link to various recycling programs at McGill - I initially looked for this so I could figure out where to recycle the alkaline batteries we go through for the wireless mouse. http://www.mcgill.ca/rethink/initiatives/wmp/#00

The porter's office at Bronfman should be the place to recycle alkaline batteries.

BD

Bloomberg Certification

So I don't forget I am posting this info to the blog. Students who want to be certified for Bloomberg must arrange this for themselves. They log into Bloomberg and use "help" or preferably use their cell phone to call Bloomberg and ask about certification. The library doesn't allow the students to use our phone to complete the certification.

Playing around with delicious

Last post before vacation.

I have been experimenting with using social bookmarking software to organise some of my "business" bookmarks. Delicious is one such "social bookmarking" program. It would be labourious to try to explain it in words, basically "social bookmarking" is a way to store your bookmarks on the web, tag them (i.e. add subjects to them), add notes, search them, share them, organize them, etc. Take a look at some I've put into:

http://del.icio.us/mcgillhowardross

Some libraries are starting to use this software to organize "online reference" sites or whatever web page they had before with various web links. Maybe it's not feasible to use this as a public tool at McGill, but internally I think it might help us store our bookmarks and share them with each other.

I can delete the account if this is not something we want to play around with.

BD

RefQ Archive

Hi all,

Judy and Rajiv, you each have your own inbox at the ref desk for your stuff. I figured it would help keep papers from getting lost. if you hate the inbox just get rid of it.

Also the ref question archives is done. All the old questions are in the bottom drawer of the file cabinet just outside the reference office. There is a little stand now on the ref desk for questions, don't know if this will work or not, but as of now there is a folder for "in progress" (e.g. not currently working on, but not ready to give up), one for "ready to archive" for questions that should be kept. Once there is enough paper in the "ready to archives" folder I will go through it and put in assigned subject folder for eventual enterting into EndNote and storing in file cabinet.

I am thinking in the future we should print out everything we want archived. From clearing out the email reference q folders it was not always possible to follow a thread of conversation and there was a lot of duplication.

If you double click EndNote on the ref desk desktop you can see what that looks like.

BD

Blog Sign In info in the black ref desk binder

FYI if you ever forget