feedback

Join Our Student Advisory Group

Last week the Library’s new Student Advisory Group met for the second time. The group’s charge is to discuss and give feedback on issues concerning Library services and facilities. Participation in this group is a way for students to voice their concerns and participate in planning for new services and programs. Every student is welcome to join the Advisory Group. If you are interested, please contact Lesley Milner at l.milner@neu.edu or by phone at 617-373-4920. The following items were discussed: • The Library is partnering with the SGA on a pilot project to provide laptop computer locks for loan from the circulation desk. The pilot project will try and determine if having locks available for laptop computers would benefit students by reducing the opportunity for theft. We will start with providing locking capabilities at 10 tables on the first floor and the service will be available later this month. The Library will send out an announcement when the locks are available to be borrowed. A follow-up survey would be conducted to poll users as to their perceived value. • Students are still having problems with the temperature in the building. We reviewed the procedures for reporting area temperatures in the building when it is too hot or too cold. Either call Building Services at X2757, or report it to the staff at the Circulation Desk on the first floor. • The need was expressed to have more hours with fresh food available for purchase in the Cyber Café. Discussions have been had with Dining Services, the department that manages the Café, and this concern will be added to our future improvement planning processes. • We need to improve our communication. Ideas for the best ways to contact students and to post information included Blackboard, Facebook, the NU student portal, and campus e-mail. • Good news! Everyone raved about how great wireless printing was in the Library and how it eliminated waiting in long lines to get your print jobs from the InfoCommons. As a result of this discussion, the Library is putting together a new publicity campaign to increase student awareness of this great new service. • Opinions were expressed to expand the number of lockers available to students and to make a group of lockers available to undergraduate students as well as graduate students. • Actively ask for student feedback. The need is there to survey students about services and proposed changes in services and facilities at the library. The group offered to facilitate surveys as the need arose.

Try Our New EBSCO Search and Give Us Your Feedback!

You may be familiar with EBSCOhost, the face of many of the library’s article databases. Now we are trying out a new concept in search: the EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS), and we hope you will help us evaluate it. The hallmarks of EDS are speed and simplicity. EDS provides a starting point for your research, an easy keyword search across multiple databases, including the library catalog, article databases and more, returning a list of results that points to articles from academic journals, magazines, newspapers, books, book chapters, video, music and more. With EDS it is easy to see what sources your results are coming from so that you can continue your search in the individual databases if you wish. The EBSCO Discovery Service is a product in progress, and that is why your input is so important. Features will be enhanced and content added as we work with the vendor to develop the service. Please check back as progress continues on the EDS and leave feedback on this blog, or use the feedback form that is linked on the EDS main search page.

New Look for Library Website

Here at Snell Library we’re about to launch a redesigned home page! A library committee did surveys and testing with NU faculty, students, and staff, with the goal of making the site more user-friendly. On the new version you’ll find:
  • Front-and-center research tools
  • Streamlined, easier-to-use visual design
  • Quick access to course reserves, interlibrary loan, and other frequently-used services
  • A Multi-Search box, right on the front page, that lets you search multiple databases at once
We tried to make our research tools the central focus of the site — you should be able to locate ejournals and databases easily, as well as popular services. You’ll also find easy access to research guides, developed by our subject librarians, to help you find the most important resources in your academic discipline. You’ll still find up-to-date library news and info on our events, and we’ve added links to this blog and our Facebook, Flickr, and YouTube sites. We thank everyone who has provided feedback so far, and we’d love to hear from more of you. Go to our page at http://www.lib.neu.edu to see a sneak preview, try out the new site, and offer your comments!