E-Journal and Form Updates

I have been working on updating our Electronic Journal Service (EJS) holdings with Terry. We are trying to reconcile the list that the vendor has given us versus our serials management list - which we manage. Once the list is reconciled, then we will send it to TAL, with our updated journal holdings, and add them to our Find It A-Z List.

Additionally, the Report Feature Films in Class Form was also updated. More than 70 film production companies were added to the list.

AAQ - Medicine Hat Convenience Stores & Gas Stations

The following is my latest response to an "Ask a Question":

Hello and thank you for using the “Ask A Question” service.

You are inquiring about how many convenience stores and gas stations there are in Medicine Hat, Alberta.

To find these numbers, we referred to the “Alberta Business Directory” in the Reference Collection of the Vera Bracken Library – call number: HF 5072 A4 A63 2007/08. This directory will list most businesses in Alberta by city or by business category.

We looked up the convenience stores (naturally under the “Convenience Stores” category) and found that there are 15 convenience stores – refer to page 772 of the directory. On page 1299 of the directory, you will discover that there are 29 businesses in Medicine Hat that fall under the category of “Service Stations-Gasoline & Oil”. There is some overlapping between the two lists.

You can also refer to: www.infocanada.ca. This site is the online version of the printed directory, though you might have to pay for some information that you would find for free in the print version.

Thank you again for using the “Ask A Question” service. If you need more help, please use the service again or see the Information Desk in the Medicine Hat College Library (phone #: (403) 529-3867).

AAQ#:36945

New Calendar Live

After some tinkering, the new calendars have gone live in the Hours (@Vera Bracken Library; @ Brooks Campus Library) sections of the library websites. The calendar will default to displaying the hours for each library, one week at at time. There are tabs to display a month or an agenda view. The hours of operation, until the end of April 2008, are posted.

The calendar was created by embedding code from Google Calendars into our Web pages.

AAQ - Canadian Business Tax

The following is my latest response to an "Ask a Question":

Hello and thank you for using the “Ask A Question” service.

You are inquiring about the tax rate for Canadian business.

A good source to check is the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA). This government body’s website contains a great deal of information about the application of personal and business taxes. There are a couple of sections that you might wish to refer to:

• FOR TAX RATES: CRA homepage > select: All Rates (link under “Key Information” heading) > select: “Corporation Tax Rates” link > This page will display the tax rates for Canadian corporations and small businesses at the federal and most provincial levels – click here to go directly to the tax rates.


• NOTE: From the CRA homepage, consider reviewing the individual sections on small/medium-sized business, and corporations under the “Business” heading. Each section offers greater detail about each type of business size, and potential tax models.
  

A document titled “The Canadian Tax Advantage” (originally posted in January 2002, and updated on January 25, 2007) outlines current and proposed corporate tax rate comparisons between Canada and United States. The document makes mention of the distinction between large/medium-sized businesses versus small businesses and the rates that each pays. Additionally, a business’s investment in research and development will act as a tax credit – effectively offsetting some of the tax on capital gains. Some of the tax rates in this document might be out of date, since some of the rates were adjusted in April and July of 2007.

Admittedly, we are not experts in the application and interpretation of Canadian taxation rules. If you do not find sufficient data from the CRA website, consider consulting a chartered/professional accountant. There are a great number of nuances to Canadian tax applications/laws that these professionals would be more familiar with.

Thank you again for using the “Ask A Question” service. If you need more help, please use the service again or see the Information Desk in the Medicine Hat College Library (phone #: (403) 529-3867).

AAQ#:36804

"Request" Authentication Page Updated

After the UofL implemented its new LDAP server authentication system, one of our OPAC authentication pages went a little wonky. The page in question was the "Request" item authentication page which is used to request holds or transfers of materials between the Vera Bracken a Brooks Campus libraries. [Click here to read more about the request feature.]

The previous page offered authentication via LDAP or the III library system. Without a clear explanation of the authentication methods, our patrons were somewhat confused when presented with the two different options. The new page eliminates the LDAP login for MHC patrons and now offers an example of how to authenticate in to the library system.

After some toiling, the page has been recoded and is working properly for the book and periodical requests. Slowly, but surely I am getting more confident in employing the system generated tokens as opposed to pure HTML. Most of my Web work is WYSIWIG designed, so employing a pure code view is somewhat consternating. The inability to see the product in a preview/design view, before uploading it to the test server bothers me, but it is getting easier with each successful implementation. So a little, "Whoo hoo!" - for now.

Of Classes and Calendars, etc....

CLASSES
Well, Hell Week has been booked (October 29th-November 5th) - 8 classes with 250+ students divided amongst them. This is the title that I have given the Health Studies (HST) 210 orientation to APA citation style classes. Not that I dislike teaching in classroom environment, but teaching the same thing time-and-time-again gets a little boring. Thankfully the more confident students try to take me/the citation method to task - this makes for some enjoyable debate/discussion. Over the last couple of years, I moved the presentation from overheads to PowerPoint - which was interesting for 5 minutes. Now it is time to try something new.

If time permits, I hope to employ our new Classroom Performance System (CPS) software for the APA sessions. It is a lightweight student response/feedback system, but hopefully it will make things more interesting for the students and myself.

To compound things this year, my regular history and political science information literacy sessions will overlap at the same time. Thankfully, nothing conflicts, but it will be a hectic week with some classes beginning at 8 a.m., while others begin at 6 p.m. on the same day - it is all over the board this year. It should be interesting. After the manic pace of this week, everything else for the remains of the semester will look extra mundane.

CALENDARS
I have been trying to deliver a more robust display for the libraries' hours. To this end, I have employed Google Calendar to deliver this service. By using Google's Calendar API, I embedded the hours for the Vera Bracken and Brooks Campus libraries in our site. You can preview the Vera Bracken Library's calendar by clicking here, and the Brooks Campus Library's by clicking here. This is not quite the final product, but is the direction that I would like to go in.

I am exploring other options for delivery and hope to employ a locally housed/maintained calendar service, but that is a larger project for another day.

OPAC & COMMUNITY STATIONS' WALLPAPER
I also modified the desktop wallpaper for the OPAC and community access stations. The wallpapers are variations on the preexisting generic student version that I created. The colours and text have been modified to display their differentiation from one another. You can view samples of each below (click on each thumbnail for a larger image):

Generic Student Wallpaper:










OPAC/Research Station Wallpaper:










Community Access Station Wallpaper:

Yes, I Am Still Here

This blog has not been abandoned. It has been a hectic two weeks, and there has not been enough time to make a satisfactory entry. As my coworkers might attest, I have been running around frantically trying to come up with solutions to the various issues that plague us.

Some updates on various outstanding issues:

RELAIS INTERLIBRARY LOAN

Hooray, the never-ending project has been completed! We can now move it to simple maintenance keeping mode. The best part was that we were able to launch it on time for the start of the new semester – September 4th.

Among some of the achievements with this project included:

• We performed customization of the self-registration forms from the source code that Relais provided.
• Relais went beyond the call of duty and customized the login and patron forms pages. They employed our desired colour scheme – which was a bonus that we did not expect.
• The training session that we underwent was most helpful, and put the ILL staff at ease with the new system. A couple of Lethbridge College staff members also attended the session.
• The trainer from Relais said that we were the first group that completed the generic system testing without training and with very little intervention by them. A real feather in our cap, and a testament to the high level of determination and skill of our ILL staff – Jason and Valarie can take a bow.
• The trainer was also surprised to see that we installed and began to use the new Relais Reports product. This new module is definitely an improvement over the previous ILL system.
• TAL targeting of Find It/SFX has moved from the older Innovative Millennium ILL system to the new Relais system – thanks to Weiwei for her promptness in honouring our request.

As you can see, despite some trials and tribulations, the Relais Implementation Committee was able to pull a rabbit out of its hat to better serve our patrons. Whoo hoo!

START OF THE SEMESTER BLUES

We are happy that the school season is in full swing, but we are plagued by the start of the semester growing pains. The college has modified many aspects of how computer services are delivered this year, and this led to some confusion about the access of those various services.

PASSWORDS GALORE. Students must now know not less than 5 user name/password sets to access resources. To clear up confusion about the various logins, I created a new handout that demonstrates the various user name/password sets. You can view the document by clicking here.

Additionally, I also created a “pocket guide”. The pocket guides are printed on a standard business card and present examples of all 5 user name/password sets.

SLOW LOGINS. For some reason, computers around the campus are very slow at logging-in. Wait time for logins can take 10-15 minutes. Naturally this hobbles the library, since it is a main hub in the institution. Students popping in to check e-mail between classes are leaving before their machines full authenticate. Library staff have been graciously shutting these machines down for students.

NO NETWORK DRIVE SPACE. Students were originally going to get up to 1GB of drive space on the network servers. Due to technical difficulties, those personal drives are not presently mapping. The sneakernet is alive and well for the time being.

WIRELESS NETWORK.
The wireless network remains unavailable. Many returning students are somewhat annoyed by this development, and all we can ask for is patience. Computer Services has set this as a high priority, and we hope to be able to offer this service again.

There are scads more, but am I too short on time and recollection to make a record at the moment. Stay tuned.