SPECIAL FINALS WEEK LIBRARY INFO -- LONGER HOURS & FREE COFFEE

FOUR special tips for our scholars:

1st: The library will be open 24/7 during finals week starting
Sunday, May 6 at 11 am and ending Friday, May 11 at 6 pm.

2nd: During Finals week, every night from 10 pm - 7 am,
there will be free coffee available at the Circulation Desk.
Bring your covered coffee mug to the Circulation desk for
coffee refills during those late night hours.

3rd: We have (8) laptops and (4) calculators for
3-hour checkout at the Circulation desk with your Titancard.

4th: Finally, return all library books and videos
before you head for home.

Check out a calculator

You asked--we listened.

Some library patrons inquired if calculators could checked out for use in the library.
The Library purchased 4 calculators and they can be checked out for 3 hours at the Circulation desk with your Titancard.

Models: TI-30X IIS (2) and TI-83 Plus (2)

We have GAMES to check out

The following games have been donated to Polk Library by the UW Oshkosh Gaming Society.
Games have a 28-day checkout period and are shelved in the Browsing Room on second floor by the magazines.

1. Axis & Allies / a strategy game by Larry Harris
2. Carcassonne : a clever tile-laying game for 2-5 players aged 10 and up / by Klaus-Jürgen Wrede.
3. Battle cry : Civil War battle field game.
4. Twilight Imperium : an epic board game of galactic conquest, politics and trade / a game by Christian T. Petersen.
5. Doom : the boardgame / by Kevin Wilson.
6. GURPS basic set: characters / GURPS game design by Steve Jackson ; cover design by Victor R. Fernandes ; illustrated by Abrar Ajmal.
7. Guillotine.

Conducting a Simulated Tornado Warning

Per U.P. Chief Mellon:
On Thursday, April 12, 2007, around 1:00 PM the National Weather Service will issue a simulated Tornado Watch. A watch means that weather conditions are favorable for the formation of a tornado. It does not mean that a tornado has been sighted or is considered imminent.

Between 1:10 PM and 1:15 PM the simulated watch will be upgraded to a simulated Tornado Warning. Winnebago County will sound the civil defense sirens which in a real situation may be the only warning you would receive. A Tornado Warning means that a tornado has been sighted in the area visually or on radar and you should take cover immediately. Do not leave the building, stay in the Library's sheltered basement.

We must conduct an actual drill.
When you hear the public address announcement telling you to collect your belongings and to to the basement of the library, do help assist others down to the first floor lobby and then down into the basement. An 'all clear' announcement will be made 5 minutes after the last person arrives in the basement.

Doing research can be expensive

It is probably hard to believe but we cannot Google everything. Here's an interesting example of how expensive it can be to do research.

Last November, 2006, new copyright fees from American Scientific Publishing Company were released and their scientific information got a bit more expensive. The copyright fees for articles in their journals increased from $118 to $250 per article. Yes – you just read that correctly. It was double checked with the Copyright Clearance Center.

Below you will find a list of their titles.
Journal of Nanoscience and Nanotechnology

Journal of Computational and Theoretical Nanoscience

Journal of Biomedical Nanotechnology

Journal of Nanoelectronics and Optoelectronics

Journal of Low Power Electronics

Sensor Letters

Journal of Bionanoscience

Journal of Biopharmaceutics and Biotechnology

Journal of Biobased Materials

Journal of Scanning Probe Microscopy

Journal of Holography and Speckle

Journal of Autonomic and Trusted Computing

Journal of Ubiquitous Computing and Intelligence

Journal of Genome Science and Technology

Finals week Free Coffee Experiment Results are in

With a sign on the Circulation service desk on Sunday, Dec.10th, 2006, Polk Library quietly began an experimental free coffee bar during finals week for students pulling ‘all-nighters.’

Five days later, we had made approximately 988 cups of coffee.
And, we exceeded last fall's total for All Night Study users by 336! Our grand total was 2,368.

So we are going to assume that our coffee experiment was a success by the numbers and the smiles. Quite possibly we’ll try that again in Spring.

Never having to buy coffee supplies we had to guess what the demand would be.
We used:
5 large cans of coffee
12 pounds of sugar
2 1/2 large creamers
700 coffee cups
1 large pkg. napkins
5 pkgs. stir sticks

Say it isn't true!

In a recent international library organization publication, NextSpace,* there was a statistic that seemed unbelievable.

It stated that 42% of college graduates never read another book after college.

*NextSpace analyzes industry trends and technology developments.
As its name implies, NextSpace is about the next idea or the next trend affecting libraries. It is also about the next step that will help libraries create value and shape their future.