Use the Library Classroom for a Meeting!

Need a place to meet?  The recently upgraded Library classroom is available this summer to faculty or staff who want a fresh new setting for a meeting or workshop.

Please call the Reference Desk at 312-369-7153 or use our ASK US email service to request your time.  Be sure to include your name and contact information and the group that will be meeting.

Classroom includes:

• White boards and markers
• Seating for from 2 to 25 people
• Movable desks that can be arranged in any configuration
• A computer, projection screen, speakers and WiFi access.

Lynda.Com and Safari Tech Books Online - A Winning Combination

Did you know that Columbia College students, faculty and staff have access to over 2,500 courses and 116,000 individual videos available from lynda.com absolutely free of charge?  And you have access to over 27,291 e-Books available through Safari Books Online?  So learn new technology, get answers to tricky homework questions or just browse for fun all from the comfort of your home, dorm room or commuter pod.

To access classes at lynda.com simply go to the Columbia College Access Lynda Page.  Students can log in using their OASIS ID.  Faculty and staff log in with the Network ID.  Safari Tech Books can be accessed here .

Some of the new classes available for you to try at lynda.com include:

Job Hunting Online:  Find your next job online! First, get clear on your objectives, and then discover how to use popular job hunting and networking sites such as LinkedIn, CareerBuilder, Monster, Simply Hired, and Glassdoor to locate jobs. Discover how to take advantage of each site's tools for job hunters and learn how to interact with hiring managers and recruiters.  Then take a quick workshop on applying for a job—from finding the ad to researching the company, tailoring your resume and cover letter, and submitting the application.
Safari Tech Books:  Job Hunting 3.0,  Ultimate Job Search

Shooting with the IPhone 5s:  The iPhone has become one of the most popular cameras in the world, and the iPhone 5s offers the best image quality of any iPhone to date. It is also filled with advanced features: two flashes, built-in high dynamic range (HDR) imaging, a burst mode, and a video mode that shoots 120 frames per second slow motion.  In this course, photographer, author, and educator Ben Long explores the iPhone 5s as a serious photographic instrument, using its built-in features as well as a hand-selected collection of accessories and apps that will extend your iPhone power. He details the basics of shooting with the iPhone, and then delves into more advanced camera capabilities such as panoramas, HDR, and video. Ben also explores workflow issues, including editing, sharing, and printing photos and transferring them to a computer.
Safari Tech Books: Capturing Better Photos and Video with your iPhone, iPhone Photography and Video for Dummies

Songwriting in Pro Tools:  Everyone writes songs in their own way. Some start with a melody or a beat, some start with a lyric. Whatever your starting point, you need to get your ideas down quickly, and then polish them into demos worth presenting to partners, producers, and record labels. Pro Tools can help. It's one of the programs professional musicians and songwriters turn to for writing, recording, and mixing songs. In this short course, David Franz takes you from an initial seed-idea to a great sounding demo song, showing you how to find the best tempo, meter, and key; add in vocals, drums, and hooks; and put together a dynamic mix using effects like EQ, compression, and reverb and delay. These 10 simple steps can guide anyone with an idea and a little musical ability through the process of capturing a song idea before the inspiration fades.
Safari Tech Books:  Pro Tools 101, Pro Tools for Dummies

Check out these classes and much more at lynda.com and Safari Tech Books!

What's wrong with that link?

Faculty - have your students mentioned that they are having problems accessing the Library materials you have put online for your class?  Do they get an error message when they try to click on a Library link in your Moodle or OASIS class?  What's the problem with those links?

Well, the problem might be related to something called "permalinks." Access to articles and e-books from the Library's databases require that a special link, a "permalink", be used.  Usually, if you want to include a link to a webpage, you can just copy the URL from the top of the webpage and everything works fine.  Unfortunately, in order to have a link to the Library materials that will authenticate properly and won't time out, you can't use the URL from the top of the browser page.  You need to find the "permalink."

 You can find detailed instructions on how to create "permalinks" to use in your Moodle class in this research guide:  Faculty Tutorials:  Link to Articles in Library Databases.  

In the meantime here is a very quick guide to finding the "permalink" for an article or e-book you want to use in your class.

1.  Locate the article you want to use and click on the title.

2.  Locate the Permalink Icon and click on it.  Every database is just a bit different so look for something that says Permalink, URL, or some type of link icon. 

 In this example the Permalink icon in on the right-hand side of the page.








 3.  Copy the Permalink.  Use this Permalink with your Moodle or OASIS class or in emails that you might send to your students.  

 

 

 As always, if you have any questions or need help finding a "Permalink" you can ASK A LIBRARIAN!

It's the last stretch of finals, but we still have free coffee for you!

It's almost over, but there's still studying to be done, projects to be completed, grades to be submitted and finals to be taken. 

Let us help you get through next couple of days.  Need a little pick me up? Stop by the Library for a free cup of coffee during finals week to help get you through!  Prefer tea or cocoa?  That's available too!

The last two days are Wednesday Dec. 11 and Thursday Dec. 12 from 6:00-9:00pm at the Coffee Cart (first floor of the Library), courtesy of your friends at the Library!

Good luck on finals!

The Giving Tree: Give a Gift to a Chicago Child in Need

The Columbia College Chicago Library and The Center for Community Arts Partnerships (CCAP)  are again providing the Columbia community an opportunity to give a gift to a child in need from one of Columbia's partner Chicago public elementary schools through The Giving Tree.  This year, 40 students from Mahalia Jackson Elementary School will be participating.

The Giving Tree will be located across from the Circulation desk in the Library. It will contain ornaments representing each child and the gift that they would like for the holiday season. Students, faculty and staff can select a child's gift by pulling the corresponding ornament off the tree, check out their ornament at the Library Circulation desk, and then purchase the gift noted on the ornament.

Please wrap the selected gift and bring it to the Library Circulation Desk by 8pm on December 11th, 2013.

Gifts will be delivered to students at Mahalia Jackson Elementary on Friday, December 13th, 2013. All are welcome to participate or attend!  Send questions to givingtree@ccap.colum.edu.

Create Happy Memories…One Gift at a Time

 

An Evening with David Plowden: Tuesday, November 19, 2013

The Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago and the Columbia College Chicago Library present An Evening with David Plowden: Closing Reception for Heartland: The Plains and the Prairie exhibit on Tuesday, November 19th from 5:30-7:30pm in the 3rd Floor North Reading Room of the Library.  The Library is located at 624 S. Michigan Ave., Chicago IL.

David Plowden’s work spans over fifty years. He has authored more than twenty photography books, including The American Barn, Vanishing Point: Fifty Years of Photography and Requiem for Steam. Plowden’s photographs can be found in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Beinecke Library at Yale University, the Center for Creative Photography, the Library of Congress, and the Smithsonian Institution.

The reception begins at 5:30pm, followed by a talk by David Plowden at 6:00pm. He will be signing copies of his latest work, Heartland: The Plains and the Prairie at 7:00pm. Copies will be available for sale at the event.

Heartland: The Plains and the Prairie Exhibit - Photographs by David Plowden

Photograph by David Plowden

The Museum of Contemporary Photography and the Columbia College Chicago Library are pleased to display prints by photographer David Plowden.  The photographs on exhibit are from Plowden's latest book,  Heartland: The Plains and the Prairie, and will be available for viewing from November 11-November 19th 2013 in the 3rd Floor North Reading Room during Library hours.  The Library is located at 624 S. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL.

David Plowden’s work spans over fifty years. He has authored more than twenty photography books, including The American Barn, Vanishing Point: Fifty Years of Photography and Requiem for Steam. Plowden’s photographs can be found in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Beinecke Library at Yale University, the Center for Creative Photography, the Library of Congress, and the Smithsonian Institution.

A closing reception for the exhibit, featuring a talk by David Plowden will be held on Tuesday, November 19th from 5:30-7:00pm in the same location.

Alumni on 5: Fall Exhibition & Opening Reception

Join us for the Alumni on 5 Fall Exhibition & Opening Reception this Friday, October 18, 2013 from 5pm-7pm on the fifth floor. Meet some of the alumni artists, view their work, and mingle over food and drinks. This exhibition's theme is the Start of Something and is curated Nick Albertson (MFA '13).

Celebrate Constitution Day: Tuesday September 17th, 2013

Constitution Day is quickly approaching, but what exactly is it?  Constitution Day is a day commemorating the signing of the United States Constitution which occurred  on September 17, 1787.  Since 2004, Constitution Day has been recognized each September 17th as a national day of observance, one for American citizens to learn about the importance of the Constitution and know their rights.   Find out more about Constitution Day here:

Each year Columbia College Chicago observes Constitution Day, and this year we have exciting activities planned for the College community.  First, the Library will host voter sign-ups at two campus locations. Voter sign up forms, information and goodies will be available at each station, including FREE copies of the US Constitution in both English and Spanish.

Voter sign-up
Tuesday, September 17,  10am - 2pm
624 S. Michigan, Library, 1st Floor  AND 623 S. Wabash, Lobby

In October, we will continue our recognition of Constitution Day by screening the award-winning 2013 documentary, Gideon's Army, directed by Dawn Porter.   The documentary follows three young public defenders in the South, where sentencing is exceptionally steep and the prison population swollen. The film takes its name from Gideon v. Wainwright, the landmark 1963 Supreme Court decision that guarantees the right of legal representation to all criminal defendants.     

Gideon’s Army screening and panel discussion
Thursday, October 24, 6pm
Film Row Cinema, 1104 South Wabash, 8th floor
This program is FREE and open to the public.

Classroom Upgrades Coming Soon!

The library classroom is receiving a fancy upgrade.  Most of the changes will be in place by early September so keep an eye out for more posts on the progress.

First, the obligatory BEFORE pictures.  In case you haven't visited recently, here's what it looked like until last week:

The view from the back of the room

The view from the front of the room. 

The first order of business is to remove the power poles, paint and re-carpet the room.

Power poles. Yuck!

This week the laptops were removed...

No more laptops

And the furniture was re-located.

So much space!

Now, the power poles get removed...

And then new carpet and paint!

This is a work in progress - but there's no turning back now!

I don't think we'll miss all those cords!

We'll be posting updates along the way - so keep checking back!

New Ask A Librarian

If you click the Ask A Librarian button 

you'll now go to a new resource.  

It's super easy - all you have to do is start typing your question in the search box...

...and if we've already answered it, a link will appear as you type.  

If we haven't answered your question before...

...not to worry, you can enter your question in the form provided.   

And someone will get back you ASAP.  

Easy as can be! 

New Way to Renew Books and Check Fines...

New Way to Renew Books and Check Fines... 

The MyAccount button takes you to a new login page: 

The first time you use this you will be required to create an account. 

CREATE A NEW ACCOUNT

1. Start here (or once in I-Share, go to LOGIN & Create New Account):
   
   
2. Create a new username & password -- anything you want! (We recommend using your email Columbia username and password)
   
   
3. Enter your Borrower ID*:
   
   
   
   *Borrower ID is the 14-digit number on the back of your Columbia ID.

Take a class with Lynda this summer!

 

Looking for something to do this Summer?

Why not brush up on some of your computer skills by taking a class or two with Lynda at Lynda.com?   

Lynda.Com offers over 900 online training courses that cover topics such as photography, business software, web development, graphic design, editing video, sound and much more!  All these videos are available to Columbia College students, staff and faculty free of charge.

Some of the new courses offered at Lynda.com include:

Outlook Web App (OWA) 2010 Essential Training

Learn how to access your Microsoft Exchange account online using Outlook Web App (OWA). In this course, author Gini Courter takes you on a tour of OWA, and shows how to send, receive, and manage your email on the web. Learn the ins and outs of tagging and organizing your email and discover how to create appointments, request meetings, and view multiple calendars. Plus, find out how to add, group, and search for contacts and use the task feature to manage your to-do list effectively.  Duration 3h 27m

InDesign Secrets

In this series, David Blatner and Anne-Marie Concepción, co-hosts of the web's top resource for InDesign tips and tricks, InDesignSecrets.com, share some hidden and sometimes surprising workflow tips that will make working in InDesign more efficient and more fun. The course covers built-in timesaving features such as Quick Apply and auto-expanding text, but also little-known tricks, such as using the eyedropper to copy and paste character and paragraph text attributes and making accurate selections by selecting through or even into objects.  Duration 8h 37m

Enhancing a Travel Photo with Photoshop and Lightroom

Learn how to develop a travel photo into a wonderful memory of your trip in this short start-to-finish project from author Jan Kabili. Jan shows you how to combine the power of Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom to achieve the best possible results from your corrections. The course covers adjusting tone and color, correcting hue/saturation and lightness, precisely targeting adjustments with masks, and removing distracting objects with the Content-Aware toolset in Photoshop.  Duration: 54m 

Use your Columbia Login to view all of the courses available at:  Lynda.com

Congratulations to our graduating Library Student Assistants!

The Columbia College Chicago Library staff wish the very best to our graduating student assistants.  We appreciate them and the work they have done for us in the Library.

Congratulations to the Class of 2013!

Access Services

Ade Adewole - Film & Video

Antonio Hernandez - Film & Video

Caroline Browne – Cultural Studies

Jerrica Martin - Television

Lynette Velazquez – Art & Design

Sean Struble – Film & Video

College Archives

Jay Seawell - MA Photography

Nick Albertson - MA Photography

Library Administration/Access Services

Joy Thornton – Music

Library Marketing, Outreach and Special Initiatives

Samantha Funt – MA Arts & Entertainment Management

Julius Baldridge – Film & Video

Reference & Instruction

Rachel Doe - Film & Video

Technical Services

Ahmad Daniels – Game Design

Ram Catapang – Film & Video

Julia Alvarez: Keynote Speaker for The Big Read, Friday May 10, 2013

Photo credit: Bill Eichner

Julia Alvarez, author of In the Time of the Butterflies, and other books such as How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent and Return to Sender joins us via videoconferencing as the keynote speaker for The Big Read.  The program will be held on Friday, May 10, 2013 at Columbia College Chicago's Ferguson Lecture Hall, 600 S. Michigan Ave., 1st Floor from 6:00-7:30pm.  A reception follows the program.
 
Ms. Alvarez is a novelist, prize-winning poet, children's author, essayist and currently a writer in residence at Middlebury College in Vermont. Her latest work, A Wedding in Haiti was published by Algonquin Books in 2012. The program will be moderated by Jesus Macarena-Avila, faculty member in the Humanities, History and Social Sciences Department at Columbia College Chicago.

Also on the program will be Grupo Marivilla, a Chicago area senior citizen Latina/o folk dance group who will be performing dances of the Domincan Republic in native dress. They are based at Centro Maravilla, part of Alivio Medical Center in the Pilsen neighborhood.  Members of the dance troupe are between the ages of 65-93.

The Big Read is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest.  This program is also made in part by a grant from the Illinois Humanities Council, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Illinois General Assembly.

The Big Read Screening TONIGHT: Tropico de Sangre

The Big Read Screenings conclude with Tropico de Sangre, starring Michelle Rodriguez in the role of Minerva Mirabal.  The film, directed by Juan Delancer, focuses on Minerva Mirabal and tells the true story of how she and her sisters came to represent the greatest threat to dictator Rafael Trujillo and his regime.

She, along with her sisters, Patria and Maria Teresa would eventually be murdered by Trujillo on November 25, 1960 for their underground work toward overthrowing his dictatorship.





The film came under fire in 2008 by Carlos Leiter, president of the Minerva Mirabal  Foundation for using Rodriguez due to her past legal troubles and illegal use of the Mirabal name.  Find out what happened here.

Trópico de Sangre
Wednesday, May 8 from 6:30-8:30pm 
Columbia College Chicago Film Row Cinema
1104 S. Wabash, 8th Floor, Chicago IL

CALL FOR ENTRIES: THE BIG READ @ MANIFEST ART EXHIBIT

As part of The Big Read and Manifest, the Columbia College Chicago Library is looking for visual artwork of all media that deals with the broad themes in Julia Alvarez’s novel,  In the Time of the Butterflies.

We are looking for original art which encompasses themes including:

• Violence against women
• Political activism
• Women’s rights/Equal rights
• The history and politics of the Dominican Republic

Accepted works (or reproductions) will be reproduced from emailed jpg files as ephemeral prints for distribution at Manifest, the college’s annual arts and media festival.  These prints will include the artist’s name, website, and email (if they wish to release this information). 
NO ORIGINAL WORKS WILL BE ACCEPTED

There is no fee to submit. Submissions should be:

•  3000 pixels on the long side (ie 10” @ 300 ppi)
•  Level 12 jpg files
• Naming: files should be named FIRSTNAME_LASTNAME#.jpg (ie robertson_cole1.jpg)
• The body of the email should include title, date, medium, size, artist's website, email, and contact info for the back of the print

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: 3 PM, THURSDAY, MAY 9, 2013
PLEASE INCLUDE “ARTWORK SUBMISSION” IN SUBJECT LINE

Email Cole Robertson to submit, or for additional information: crobertson@colum.edu

 ______________________________

The Big Read is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest. This program is also made possible in part by a grant from the Illinois Humanities Council, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Illinois General Assembly.

The Big Read Film Screenings

As part of The Big Read, Columbia College Chicago will be sponsoring several film screenings related to the In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez.  In the Time of the Butterflies transports us to the Dominican Republic in the mid-twentieth century when the country struggled under the brutal dictatorship of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo. A work of historical fiction, the novel honors the lives of Patria, Minerva, and María Teresa Mirabal, who became icons of freedom and women's rights when they were assassinated in the autumn of 1960 for their role in the underground movement against Trujillo's regime.

There will be several screenings of the "In the Time of the Butterflies," the feature motion picture, starring Salma Hayek, Lumi Cavazos, Marc Anthony and Edward James Olmos.

In the Time of the Butterflies
Upcoming Screenings

Wednesday, April 24, from 6:30-8:30pm 
Columbia College Chicago Film Row Cinema
1104 S. Wabash Ave, 8th Floor
Chicago IL

Wednesday, May 1, from 3:00-4:30pm 
Harold Washington College Library
30 E. Lake St., Rm 102
Chicago IL

Wednesday, May 8 from 7:00-8:30pm 
Cicero Public Library
5225 W. Cermak Rd.
Cicero IL

Code Name: Butterflies - Nombre secreto: Mariposas
The first documentary to tell the powerful story of the Mirabal sisters of the Dominican Republic.  Directed by Cecilia Domeyko.

Code Name: Butterflies 
Wednesday, May 1 from 6:00-8:00pm 
NOTE LOCATION CHANGE:
624 S. Michigan Ave., Collins Hall, 6th floor
Chicago IL 

Trópico de Sangre
In 1960, The Dominican Republic's historic heroine, Minerva Mirabal and her sisters were assassinated by dictator Rafael L. Trujillo for daring to oppose the dictatorship.  Their death gave life to revolution.  The film focuses on Minerva Mirabal and tells the true story of how she and her sisters came to represent the greatest threat to dictator Rafael Trujillo and his regime. The Mirabal sisters were involved in an underground movement against the government, and were assassinated in 1960 by men under the instruction of the Trujillo regime.  Starring Michelle Rodriguez.

Trópico de Sangre
Wednesday, May 8 from 6:30-8:30pm 
Columbia College Chicago Film Row Cinema
1104 S. Wabash, 8th Floor
Chicago IL

  

For more information about The Big Read at Columbia College Chicago, please visit the Columbia College Chicago Library Big Read website.   All events are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted.

Library Named #57 Most Social Media Friendly College Libraries

The Columbia College Chicago Library has been selected as one of the "Top 100 Most Social Media Friendly College & University Libraries" for 2013 by the Editor of LibraryScienceList.com.

LibraryScienceList.com is a new social community for librarians around the world whose focus is to "showcase creative editorial around the field of librarianship".  As part of the evaluation process, their staff searched the most popular social media platforms to identify academic libraries engaging in social media.  Nearly 450 college and university libraries around the country were reviewed on how they were "actively using their accounts to promote library events, notify students of new materials, or interact with patrons in other ways".  Out of the 100 academic libraries making the final list, Columbia College Chicago's Library was ranked at #57. Find out who else made the list here!