Announcing All Floor 24/7

Students who have experienced frustration over a lack of time or places to study need fear no more. We are pleased to announce that beginning the evening of July 5th, Snell Library will be open twenty-four hours a day while classes are in session for current students, faculty and staff. For over a year, as a direct result of student demand, the first floor of the Library has been open 24×7. This access has proved a huge success with students. Based on this success, by expanding 24×7 access to all floors, the Library will better serve students who need to stay up late studying and who can also access a wider variety of resources than those available on the first floor. Associate Dean for User Services, Lesley Milner said, “The Library has worked closely with student government, student employees at Snell Library, and frequent library users, to get their input to create optimal library hours and study space, for which there is always demand. For students, the resounding response was anytime, day and night, and as much space as possible.  Dean of Libraries, Will Wakeling shared, “We want to give students what they need to succeed in their academic careers— and of course we are delighted that students want 24 hour access to the Snell library building, which complements our suite of online library research tools and resources.” For security purposes students, faculty, and staff are required to present and carry with them a valid Northeastern ID at all times. The public and alumni are welcome to use the Library during previously regularly scheduled hours. Funding for All Floor 24×7 has been provided by the Office of the Provost. See http://www.lib.neu.edu for more information about hours and usage of Snell Library. For questions about this change please contact Lesley Milner at l.milner@neu.edu. A new era has dawned.

Alumni space in Snell Library

Do you miss your alma mater yet, alums? If you do, we’ve got a treat for you. Beginning June 25th, the first floor of Snell Library will undergo construction to create an Alumni Reading Room. This room has been made possible by a generous gift from Dr. and Mrs. Eugene M. Reppucci, Jr., in honor of Dr. Reppucci’s late mother, Anna Reppucci. The room will open this fall. It will be situated to the right of the Library main entrance, facing Snell Engineering. The primary purpose of the room is to provide a welcoming space for Northeastern alumni to relax, read, use their laptops, conduct research, and meet while on campus. Graduate students who have received their baccalaureates from Northeastern are also welcome to use the space. Additionally, the Library is pleased to offer the room to current students who would like to schedule a Student Group meeting or event. Students can book the room through the Office of Student Affairs. Study tables and seating previously located in the Reading Room space are being redeployed to other areas of the Library. Lesley Milner, Associate Dean of user services commented; “We are delighted to offer alumni and student groups what promises to be a beautiful new space.” It must be understood that this room is first and foremost, for alumni, and their activities take precedence over student activities. Student group meetings may be overridden by alumni events. For more questions, please contact Maria Carpenter at m.carpenter@neu.edu. Further updates can be added to this post in the form of comments. -Damon Griffin

To Naxos and Beyond

  (Above: Johann Sebastian Bach, his printed Naxos subscription in hand) Note: This is the definitive version of the Naxos post, with full instructions. Are you a fan of Bach? Handel? Debussy? You should check out Naxos, one of our many Alumni Resources at Snell. It is a music library  tailored towards fans of Classical Music.  If you go to the Naxos website (www.naxosmusiclibrary.com) you can find such a wide array of composers and songs (over 615,000 songs), that you might feel overwhelmed, but there is no need to worry; Naxos organizes itself in to categories of Composers, Genres and a search engine for specific song titles. Although Naxos is, ostensibly, a Classical Music  site,  the site is now expanding to other genres. An impressive Jazz collection has been established, categrorized under both “Contemporary Jazz” and “Jazz Greats.”  There is a new application Naxos has recently started; now you can upload music on to your iPhone, iPad or iTouch. First you must register with Naxos, then you may begin streaming playlists on to your phone. You can create your own playlists. Students (users) have the ability to create a student playlist account and build their own, private playlists. To do this, they need to access the NML as usual, click on the Playlist tab at the top of the page, then click “Sign-up.”To register for Naxos, you must vist http://0-neu.naxosmusiclibrary.com.ilsprod.lib.neu.edu/  (if you are off-campus, use myNEU credentials to log in). Click on the Playlist tab, then click “Sign Up.” (If nothing happens the first time you click, click again).  The user will be asked to enter his/her name, email address, and to create a password. Once (s)he has created a student playlist account, (s)he will be able to login to the account and build an unlimited number of playlists from any piece within the Naxos Music Library. (Playlists are limited to 60 tracks or 4 hours–whichever comes first–for loading and streaming optimization.) The same login will be used for both the student playlist account AND the iPhone app. While the NML app version 2.0 allows users to search and stream as if logged in on their computer, building and editing playlists must still be done on a computer. You must have iTunes version 9 to use this app. You can download the iPhone app by visiting http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/nml/id338059159?mt=8.  For now, playlists may only be created online, rather than on one’s phone. Naxos may change this in later editions of the iPhone app.  Northeastern playlists will be created in the near future, which all Naxos users of the NU community will be able to view.   Naxos can be found on the Alumni Resources page.  For technical assistance with Naxos please contact: NMLHelp@Naxosusa.com. (Special thanks to Naxos Customer Relations representative Anne Benson for providing crucial information for this post.)

Note about Naxos

Hi Visitors, As you may have noticed, the Naxos post was taken down. This is because there seem to be some problems with getting the Naxos iPhone app to work. Both Karen Meguerian and Debra Mandel have informed me of this issue, and so until we find out exactly what one must do to get the iPhone application on to their itunes, we are withholding this post. Expect a revision soon. Thank you. -Damon Griffin

Score with books on soccer

I suspect plenty of Americans, like me, only pay attention to professional soccer every four years during the World Cup!  Whether that describes you also, or whether you’re an all-time afficianado, there’s plenty at Snell Library to keep you informed and up-to-date. If you look to the foreign press for great coverage of professional soccer, try PressDisplay, which brings together World Cup headlines from South Africa, Canada, Italy, Mexico, and over 70 other countries.  And for all you coaches out there, subscribe to the RSS feed for  Soccer Journal from Ebsco, a bi-monthly magazine for coaches.  There are plenty of books about soccer skills and coaching at Snell Library, too. Like all games, soccer is cultural.  On the professional level, it’s political, too, and our book collections definitely reflect that. More than just a game For example, just as World Cup soccer arrives in South Africa, a moving sidenote in apartheid’s history has just been published: More than just a game : soccer vs. apartheid by Chuck Korr with Marvin Close.  This is an inspiring story about inmates at Robben Island prison in South Africa in the 1960’s who formed a soccer league, and how it gave them dignity in the face of oppression and adversity. And if you’ve ever wondered how serious the nationalism around soccer can be, read  Ryszard Kapuscinski’s The Soccer War which tells the story of the 1970 war between El Salvador and Honduras that was ignited by a soccer match, or the highly entertaining How Soccer explains the world by Franklin Foer about soccer, culture, and globalization.  African soccerscapes Africa’s rise in the world of soccer is described in the timely African Soccerscapes. And Soccer Empire by Laurent Dubois profiles Zinedine Zidane, the French-Algerian soccer star, as a symbol of French imperialism both in his most glorious and his most tragic moments. Soccer empire Are you a parent of a soccer player or a former youth player?  Enjoy the insights into youth soccer culture in W.D. Wetherell’s  Soccer dad, or Nina Savin Scott’s practical Thinking kid’s guide to successful soccer (online from netlibrary).  Inspire your kids with the biography Young Pele or the mystical novel Keeper by Mal Peet , about a goalie and his supernatural mentor in the South American rain forest, both in the Favat children’s collection on the 2nd floor. Of course many at NU are interested primarily in the medical aspects of sports–including soccer–for those, there are books about soccer health and rehabilitation. Search for recent medical research in PubMed (customized for NU), SportDiscus and Medline. And if you just want to watch…see you in AfterHours, where all the matches are on the big screen!