The photography, design and fashion & textile books have moved! Previously shelved downstairs, books beginning with the call numbers TR, TS, or TT have been moved to the second floor. This includes books labeled “stacks” and “oversize.”

This means that now all the visual arts books are housed on one floor of the library.

Check out the new 2nd Floor Plan to get acquainted with the new second floor layout.  For help finding these or any books just Ask Us!

Workshops about pedagogy, instructional design, Moodle, ePortfolios, clickers and more are happening in the Library throughout the day.  See the full schedule.

Even if you haven’t signed up, walk-ins are welcome, so come give your instruction a boost to start Spring Semester off right!

In cities across the country, as well as online, protesters are speaking out today against SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act), two bills before Congress that would use extreme means of preventing and punishing online piracy.

According to Wikipedia’s website:

“SOPA and PIPA would put the burden on website owners to police user-contributed material and call for the unnecessary blocking of entire sites. Small sites won’t have sufficient resources to defend themselves. Big media companies may seek to cut off funding sources for their foreign competitors, even if copyright isn’t being infringed. Foreign sites will be blacklisted, which means they won’t show up in major search engines. SOPA and PIPA would build a framework for future restrictions and suppression.”

NPR put it this way in a radio broadcast yesterday:

“The most controversial provision is in the House bill … to ‘blacklist’ sites that are alleged to distribute pirated content,” The Associated Press writes. “That would essentially cut off portions of the Internet to all U.S. users. Supporters, as the AP adds, “include the film and music industry, which often sees its products sold illegally. They say the legislation is needed to protect intellectual property and jobs.”

Those in favor of these bills argue that stricter measures are the only way to stop piracy of digital content.  Those against see it as Congress and the entertainment industry trying to limit freedom of information and free speech.

Want to get involved? NY Tech Meet Up (a local group on meetup.com) are holding a rally Wed. January 18th at 12:30pm in front of the offices of Senators Schumer and Gillibrand.

Need to do some research? Even when Wikipedia and Google are not blacked out in protest, Purchase faculty, staff and students can always use Online Library Resources, any day, any time.

Check out the Library’s online Reference Shelf to connect to online encyclopedias that the library subscribes to.  Keeping sites like Google and Wikipedia free and accessible to the public is important, but don’t forget that Library resources are always at your fingertips as well– and generally contain more reliable content than Wikipedia and more targeted searching than Google!

The new wi-fi network on campus requires that all devices be registered and scanned for viruses before gaining access to the network.  Most of this process can be done at home; you can register your device, download the Bradford software* and scan for viruses from anywhere.  After taking these steps your device will be ready to get on the wi-fi network once you arrive on campus.

If you need assistance getting on the wireless network, please contact Campus Technology Services (CTS) by phone 914-251-6465 or by visiting their Help Desk (SS0025 in the basement of Social Sciences building). When classes are in session, support is available Mondays - Thursdays 8am to 9:45pm; and Fridays 8am to 6:45pm. You can also request technical support online by clicking the Work Order Tracking system link: https://www.purchase.edu/WOT/CTS and selecting the “New Work Request” tab.

More documentation for campus Wi-Fi is found here: http://www.purchase.edu/wifi.

*Bradford verifies that your laptop or device has up-to-date security patches and anti-virus software - and helps to ensure that computers on the Purchase College are secure and virus-free.

According to a report in USA Today, the project was organized by King’s son, Martin Luther King III, in conjunction with JP Morgan Chase who financed the imaging of the documents. The digital archive is a dynamic collection; the plan is that eventually all one million documents housed at the King Center will be available on the site.

Visit the archive at http://www.thekingcenter.org/archive. You can browse by topics such as sermons, economics, letters from children, Vietnam, and integration. Or select Spotlights to get an overview of the collection

If you need to contact a librarian, you can email, text, or chat with us.  (Our Ask Us 24/7 Chat service will put  you in touch with librarians at our partner institutions who are available 24 hours a day!).  See our Ask a Librarian page for instructions on getting in touch with a librarian.

Are you taking an online course during Winter Term?  Do you need help accessing library resources, doing research, or finding information? We’ve got you covered!

If you’re ON CAMPUS, you can stop by the library (see Winter Term hours) or make an in-person appointment with a librarian by calling 914-251-6401 or emailing us.

If you’re OFF CAMPUS, you can get help by email, by texing us at  (914) 873-1711 (see Text Us hours for availability), or via Ask Us 24/7 chat (available 24 hours a day). You can also search through our FAQs for answers to common questions.

For more ways to get help from a librarian over Winter Term, see http://purchase.libguides.com/askus

New York Times Book Review

Washington Post Best of 2011 

Publishers Weekly Top Books of 2011

These titles appear on multiple Top 10 and Best-of-2011 lists:

The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides, the Pulitzer-Prize-winning author of Middlesex (available in the Popular Reading Collection at Purchase College Library).

The Art of Fielding: a Novel by Chad Harbach (available through Interlibrary Loan)

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami (available in the Popular Reading Collection at Purchase College Library)

The Tiger’s Wife: a Novel by Tea Obrecht (available through Interlibrary Loan)

Holiday Break Hours

Mon., December 19:  8:30am – 4:45pm

Tue., December 20:    8:30am – 4:45pm

Wed., December 21- Mon. January 2:  Closed

Winter Term Hours (January 3, 2012 – January 24, 2012)

Monday- Thursday:    8:30am – 4:45pm

Friday:                             8:30am – 4:00pm

Saturday- Sunday:  Closed

Exception:   On Thursday, January 12th, the Library will be closed.

Text Us will be unavailable whenever the Library is closed.  If you need research help when the Library is closed, please consult our online FAQs or use Ask Us 24/7 Chat to IM a librarian at one of our partner institutions.

For full hours listing, see Library hours page.

Happy holidays and see you in the New Year!