Since I have children in middle school, I thought I would review some middle school math on LearningExpress.
I know it’s been a while, but I don’t remember math being this difficult! 🙂 I’ll admit, I had to look up how to multiply fractions…
There is so much info in this database, I was very grateful for the Video Guides that cover how to do just about everything.
Looks like I could use some more practice with math…
In regular, day-to-day work, I rarely use the databases, but it’s good to know how to use them, for when you get that student who needs sources but you have no books on the shelf for his chosen subject.
I love that we can access Consumer Reports thru our databases! It’s one of the titles that seems to walk out, so it’s good to have several years worth of articles available. I especially like that the articles are available in PDF – it’s just like making a copy of the actual magazine page.
The June 2014 issue alone has 36 articles on subjects ranging from food processors, humidifiers, insect repellent, and ice cream.
May 2001 lists 29 articles. I’m not sure how useful 15 year old reviews are, but there is a wonderfully thorough article on summer flowering shrubs that is still useful for home gardeners.
Volume 80, issue 9 – or September 2015 – has 26 articles. It includes several articles on customer service, which may be worth reading thru.
Canva and PicMonkey are services I’ve heard of but never used before, so I’ll definitely be playing around with these 🙂
I use the marketing template often, for book clubs
and have requested and used stock photos for displays at my branch.
It can be a lot of pictures to go thru, but if you can get the right search terms, you can find some really great shots. And the marketing staff is super quick to get your requested photos to you, so it really doesn’t take long to make your flyer. Just remember to proofread it before distributing!
It’s important to remember that not everyone who comes in to use our computers is as tech savvy as we are. It may be second nature for us to always sign out of sites we’ve signed in to, but not everyone does.
And have you noticed that our new system doesn’t always log off inactive users? It has a tendency to extend sessions instead, leaving a signed in computer easily available to another user. What if the first user didn’t sign out of their email, or Facebook, or their bank? While most sites will sign users out after a period of inactivity, not all of them do.
If a customer asked for help because they thought their Facebook account had been hacked, I would strongly encourage them to sign in to the website, change their password and check the security settings for their account.
The next step I would recommend is checking their account activity. Facebook will show you posts that you’ve liked, comments you’ve made, even searches you’ve done. This will help the customer decide if someone else has been using their account.
Next up is to find the list of where an account is open. Facebook will show you every device where your account is signed in. From here, the patron can close anything that they don’t recognize. Actually, I would recommend they close all other locations. This may include their mobile device, but since they’ve recently changed their password, they would have to sign in to the service on their phone again anyway, so closing it shouldn’t hurt anything.
Lastly, I would recommend that the user enable two step verification. When the user signs in to Facebook, from anywhere, it will send a text message with a verification code to the user’s phone. The user must enter this code, along with their password, before the application will open. Facebook can also send a notice to the user whenever their account is opened from a new device or location, which may alert them to unauthorized use in the future.
Hopefully these steps will help the patron to secure their Facebook account.
When I help a patron get set up on a computer, I always recommend that they use the Chrome web browser. I think it’s easier and faster than Explorer, but the best reason to recommend it is when it comes to printing.
Selecting Print in Chrome automatically generates a print preview and the dialog box is much more simplified than in Explorer.
The picture above is the Chrome print dialog box. The number of pages is clearly visible, as are your options for changing printers, number of copies, page selection and page orientation. I also like that the Print button is a different color.
Explorer print dialog does not tell you how many pages and you have to poke around a bit to find page orientation.
Complete Lesson 1 – Part 2 and you will practice using Dropbox and earn a new badge to add to your collection.
Dropbox is really great for storing and sharing large files and I use it often to share picture albums with friends and family. It’s also good for transferring video files, which are often too large to send via email. I really appreciate that I can add a file from my home computer and it’s accessible from my phone, the computer at my Mom’s house, or any other device or computer I may use. It’s like a flash drive that you don’t have to worry about losing.
Not interested in signing up for Dropbox? Don’t worry, you can bypass signing up for the service and go straight to downloading the 11.5 COSAs file, just look for the line at the bottom of the box that let’s you download without registering:
is remembering passwords! Take a minute or two to figure out your WordPress or Blogger passwords because 11.5 COSAS, part 2 is just around the corner.
If you haven’t completed Part 1, it’s not too late to finish that part off. You can still earn badges and a SAPL branded flash drive, and will be ready to jump in to Part 2.
Part 2 has some great lessons for you: online mapping, fun with attachments, coding, and even more database exploring.
Welcome back, and as always, the team is always available to answer your questions.
Happy to report that I have earned more money through the Virgin Pulse program than I put into my FSA! Please excuse all the redacted lines, but look – FSA is $130 and Virgin Health is $150 and I’ll get my Level 4 reward cash at the end of this month, too.
If you are a full time COSA employee, there really is no down side to participating in the Virgin Pulse program. Just clip the pedometer on to your waistband (or shoe!) and go about your day. You don’t even have to use the clunky Virgin Pulse Max, you can use a number of other fitness trackers. I use my Fitbit One and love that it syncs my steps to Virgin automatically. I don’t have to upload my steps or anything, but I do visit the site regularly to keep up with challenges and to earn as many extra health miles as possible.
Did you know you can earn up to $500, just for walking around and being active?
Does the program track where you are? No, it’s just a pedometer! If you use the one provided by Virgin, it tracks your movement – there’s no gps or anything fancy on it. Plug it in to your computer and it uploads steps, distance, and calories. If you use another device, well, you’d have to look into that on your own.
Is it really worth it? Yes! The “health miles” you earn add up to money in your FSA. You can then use this money to pay co-pays at office visits, glasses, contacts, prescriptions, anything you would use your FSA contribution dollars towards. And you can earn up to $500 – I’m pushing to reach Level 5 by September.
Aside from the money you’ll earn, you will also be earning health benefits from the program. Once you start tracking your steps, you’ll find yourself trying to up your step count each day, to earn more health miles. Then there’s the challenges: You can create a challenge (which earns you health miles!) and invite your friends to a step challenge or to remind each other to drink 8 glasses of water a day.
With the Virgin Pulse program, COSA is giving us an entertaining way to improve our health. The game feel of the program means we get rewarded for being active, hopefully saving us and the City some money in the long run.
So, sign up, clip on your pedometer, and start walking your way to wealth and health!
Just a gentle reminder that there’s no need to be stressed about your 11.5 blog. Sure, there’s a deadline, but it’s still weeks away, you’ll be fine. If you are having problems or getting stuck, here are some suggestions:
Ask for help. Your location should have a tech liaison who can help guide you through these lessons. Your manager also should have finished this part of the program and is available to help you. And you are not restricted to just your assigned tech liaison, ask any of us and we’ll be happy to help.
Use the team. Don’t forget, these lessons were created by your coworkers, and we are all available by email or phone, should you have questions. You can contact anyone on the 11.5 team and we will be happy to answer your questions.
Attend a workshop. Do you need a block of uninterrupted time to work on your blog? Attend a workshop at Central! Check the staff calendar for upcoming dates. Join us in the training room to get hands on help with your blog and the lessons.
Leave a comment. Did you read something on someone’s blog that you found helpful or that raised some questions? Leave a comment on that post. The owner of the blog will get an email that there’s a comment and trust me, it will make them so happy to have a comment and will respond to you.
Router, aka “paging slips” are something we deal with every day – more than once a day, if we’re industrious, right? We’re making customers happy with each item we check in that triggers a hold. It’s a great way to get out in the collection and maybe do some shelf reading as you’re searching for items, and can also be a great team building exercise, when the whole staff pitches in to get it done. Oh, and if you’re wearing your pedometer, it’s an excellent way to get in a few hundred steps each morning, too.
I may be the odd one out here, but pulling router is one of my favorite things to do at work. I’ve been known to time myself, to see how quickly I can finish the list, and often spend extra time trying to track down that one book that wasn’t where it was supposed to be.
The one down side of router is that it uses so much paper!  Even a short list of 40 items is going to use 4 sheets of paper. And if you’re lucky, you won’t get that blank last page. Remember, we’re supposed to be conserving paper at work – are you doing your part? At my branch, we print on both sides of the paper.
We think before we print: We’ll use yesterday’s router to print up today’s clear hold shelf list, which is usually much smaller. Once the page is printed on both sides, then it goes in the recycle bin.
There’s always scratch paper needed at my branch, and router pages are a good source for this. Great job for a volunteer, if you can trust them with the paper cutter. And we are checking that there are no names on the back side, right? Always consider people’s privacy when reusing paper.
What about the item level holds?
These are item specific holds, i.e., it wants the paperback version of Harry Potter, not the hard cover. This list is usually not more than a couple of titles, but if you print it the way you do the bib level holds, you’ll get one request per page, and that page will have the patron’s info at the top. Not a big deal when it’s a branch putting holds on their next book club selection, but that’s not always the case. This is also the list that gives you that ominous warning about how you can’t pull it up again if you leave the page without printing.
One option to consider: If it’s only one or two titles, write it down! But it’s a specific item, so you have to match barcodes, right? Here’s a trick. See that little double box icon next to Call Number?
Right click on it and see what happens.
Yay – barcodes! Now you know exactly which item you need to pull. Right click it again to go back to call numbers. This also works with the bib level list.
What if it’s more than a couple of titles? You can still save paper! Once you have your list of item level holds up, go to the top left hand corner of the box and select File, then select Print Table. This will give you 4-5 requests per page, much better than one per page.
What do you do at your location to conserve paper?
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