Useful Website

In a class I'm taking this semester called Fundamentals in Exercise and Nutrition, we came to the library to use the computers. Our class needed the computers to fill out a health assessment called the RealAge Test. The test asks questions regarding one's health, feelings, fitness, and diet. The results the test gives varies depending on your answers to the questions. For example, my current age is 19.6 but based on my answers to all the questions, my RealAge is 18.7. The assessment gives you your RealAge and then it breaks down all of your answers and tells you whether you need to make changes or if you need to maintain your current choices. For example, there was a question in the diet section about the amount of grains I consume each week. From my answer the test told me that I need to eat more grains. It was a great assessment that made it easy to evaluate my current health and identify any changes that need to be made.
~Nathan

Take a break from finals

Most people think the library is just a place to go to study and write papers.  However, the library has a lot more to offer.  My new favorite place in the library is the hidden rooms on 2^nd floor with the comfy chairs and pictures.  Whenever I find myself at the library unable to study, I usually go to the one of these rooms to take a break.  I also use them when I just don’t have ambition to sit at a desk and focus intently on my homework.  I think these rooms offer a unique twist the library.  People usually imagine the cold desks, tiny lamps, and hard chairs.  This room, on the other hand, has oversize chairs and the walls are decorated with paintings that are a good thing to look at, especially to avoid that homework.

As finals come around, it is good to know that the library doesn’t have to be just a place to concentrate and study hard.  Long hours in the library during finals lead us all to hate the library, but it’s really just finals that we hate.  Take a break, visit the rooms and look at the paintings, sit in the chairs and take a break.  You deserve it after all.  Molly-Reference student

Time for Finals

The library is one of the best places to go study if you need to get out of your dorm room for a while. There are so many nooks and crannies here that you can curl yourself into and just get work done without any distractions. Every floor has some sort of study area, whether it's an actual enclosed room or just a bunch of comfy couches up in the Over-Sized Reading Room.

For me, I really love working either up on the second floor in one of the study rooms, if I can get one, or down on the first floor in the reference area. The study rooms are great if you're working with a couple other people and you need to chat about what you're working on or if you can't study in open spaces. Be careful, though, if you're working in there with friends; work might not actually get done if you spend too long chatting!

I also like working in the reference area. It's secluded enough that if you need to be on your own there are spaces for it, but if you want to work near a friend, there's place for that too. The good thing about working on the first floor is that there aren't any places where you can shut the door, so you can actually get work done instead of chatting (which is something I've been guilty of in the past.) Of course, the library isn't the only place on campus you can study, but if you need to work in almost absolute silence or absolute silence, the library is a wonderful place to come to work.

The great thing about it is there are a lot of places to try and work. If you're not sure what works for you, try out study areas on all four floors (people seem to forget about third floor a lot for some unknown reason) and figure out what works for you. Maybe you need walls around you or light or something. You'll probably find a perfect place somewhere in the library.~Anita, Reference student

Resources (sometimes overlooked) in the Library

• First Floor East Side Computers: It never fails students will be gathered around the west end printer furiously grabbing papers the printer spits out at mad intervals, but there is another printer steps away. Use the east printer and save some time!


• The Reference Desk: It's these people's jobs to help you find information. They actually enjoy searching out a book for your research paper due tomorrow that you might have neglected. Bonus--if you procrastinate a little less and start thinking about that paper a few weeks in advance, they can help you get resources from other libraries across the country: articles, DVDs, books, you name it.


• The Isolated Computers on the Second and Third Floors: These computers are there to help you find resources here in the library. Go to the website and search the catalog. The call number will be present and voila! Numbers on the shelves will help guide you to that elusive book.


• The Books!: I see students scrambling all the time, struggling to find scholarly articles on Ebsco for a project, when there are countless resources right here. There are books on almost every subject! The library isn't just a place for studying and hanging out. It houses a wealth of information you may find helpful. ~Shanel

New Library Webpage!

Speaking of Stewart Memorial Library website (which I just did, in my last post,) what do everyone think of the new site?  While the center of the page remains essentially unchanged, visitors will find a few new additions that I think will make the site much more user friendly, not to mention the sleek new color palette.  I might be partial though, due to the browns matching my sleek bronze physique.  One of the changes that I really like is the menu bar down at the bottom of the page, which makes it very obvious as to where to find a map of the library, a suggestion box (*cough*bring back donuts on Wednesdays *cough*), and a link to the library's staff information.  Also, the page now features a help section that has FAQs that the library hears on a regular basis.  We will add questions as they come up, so don't be afraid to ask.  We do understand that since the page has undergone some changes, everything might not be working perfectly.  Find a broken link?  Database access not working?  Just let the staff know!  And when I say staff, just go ahead and email Katelyn, the head of the reference department at kwazny@coe.edu.  That's probably the easiest way to ensure that things get fixed.  We hope that this site is generally an improvement upon previous iterations, and we believe that the changes that we made are positive ones.  We know that faculty and staff alike are going to be using the library's resources far more regularly as finals rapidly approach, and we think that the new site is going to make it easier for everyone to get what they need.

-Bronze Boy

P.S.  The snow yesterday has me thinking its almost time to break out my most stylish fedora.  If only I had a stylish fedora.