Year: 2009

The problems from the past few days have been resolved.

As of Wednesday afternoon, all the graphing calculators have been loaned out. A few have come back in the last few days as students drop classes and return their calculators. Later this week, circulation expects to get a small shipment of additional new calculators.

At the moment, it is not possible for students who have borrowed Baruch laptops to send print jobs. When they click the print button, they get an error message from Pharos. I’ve reported this to the library help desk.

BCTC reviewed the printing logs for the first day of classes and discovered that the great majority of login failures were due to mistyped usernames and passwords. Please remind students that these are the same as the ones that they used to log onto the computer from which they initiated the print. The username is NOT their Baruch e-mail address, which is one of the common errors we saw in the log. The other source of error is mistyping on the printer’s entry screen. When I worked the floor yesterday I found that in many cases if I had the student type in the information again slowly, it worked.

Yesterday, Grethen Morgenson wrote in the NYT,  a story entitled Fair Game, New Rules for the Muni Market, available at http://emma.msrb.org/EA281897-EA1286-EA570212.pdf.

Ms. Morgenson mentions the new free source, Electronic Municipal Market Access (Emma), http://emma.msrb.org/

which allows people to view official statements, and other information, about municipal bond offerings, refundings, etc.  (Bonds are issued by cities, counties, museums, the City University of New York through the New York Dormitory Authority to finance construction, remodeling, equipment and other projects.)  These official statements have been difficult to obtain in the past for free.  Since July, all offerings need to be included on EMMA.  EMMA’s information starts in 1990.

In addition to the detailed financial information available, and the terms of repaying the bonds these documents can provide valuable summaries of information that must be disclosed to potential investors.  For example, I looked at the official statement for the $990,095,000 City of New York General Obligation Bonds issued earlier this year.

Subtopics of information included Recent Financial Developments, City Services and Expenses, Sources of City Revenues, Government and Financial Controls, Indebtedness, Financial Operations and an Appendix with Economic and Demographic information.

Email alerts are also available so that one might want to track particular offerings.

This site might be very helpful for information about cities around the country and for investors.

While at the reference desk this morning, I was asked by a student where the prayer room was located.  I was reminded that there is not an official room.  The Muslim Student Association, room 3-227 in the Vertical Campus, can provide an explanation as to unofficial resources.

In an email, Saad recently shared with me some advice about cancelling print jobs on the student printers that he’s given me permission to reprint here:

Please note that when a Pharos printer shows blinking green “data” light, this means it is working on a print job. Sometimes when jobs are very big, including images, and when a user requests duplex printing at the same time, it can take a minute for a couple pages to print.  Please do NOT turn the printer off and on if the student decides to abandon the job. This may even damage the printer. The only way to cancel the job is to call us (x1640) to contact the person in BCTC who would be able to delete it.  Do not place an “out of order” sign.

This fall, books on reserve (textbooks and monographs) will be arranged on the shelves behind the circ desk in course number order (instead of call numbers). Here’s a quick video that I made for library staff who need to look these items up (recorded in one-take, no less).

New staff will begin working today to help students learn about Newman Library. We will have greeters at the entrance giving directions and welcoming students to the Library. There will also be staff stationed in the printing room and the the copier room. Others will offer help at the course reserve line and work with students who have login, password, or other tech questions.

The new staff will be working the hours from 10:45 to 2 pm and from 4:30 to 7:30 pm. Librarians will also roam throughout the library offering assistance during the hours from 9 am to 8:50 pm.