Apply to Inspired Discoveries: Undergrad Symposium of Research & Creative Works

Apply now to present at the 9th annual Inspired Discoveries, a symposium of undergraduate research and creative works! One of Langsdale Library's missions is to recognize, encourage, and celebrate research and academic achievements.

Take this opportunity to share your hard work with the University of Baltimore community! Projects may include individual or collaborative research as well as creative works like video games or design projects. Presentations can take the form of

• Poster sessions
• Exhibits
• Panel presentations
• Presented papers

The best project in both areas will receive a $500 scholarship and their work will be submitted to UB's institutional repository.

Student applications are due by Friday, April 6th and must be accompanied by a faculty letter of recommendation. The event will be held on Friday, April 27th in the Learning Commons Town Hall.

Access the application and more information at the Inspired Discoveries website at http://langsdale.ubalt.edu/inspired-discoveries.

It’s Here -The Touchjet Pond!

There’s new technology in the library and we’re ready to show you what it can do!

At its basic level the Touchjet Pond is a portable projector. But ultimately it’s a portable touchscreen tablet that can be projected onto any surface. 

The Pond has wireless and Bluetooth capability. It can project an image from 12 to 80 inches on any surface. With the power of 80 lumens it can produce a nice display that allows its users to interact with it via the stylus pens and the air mouse that come with it.  

There are several ports on the back, one that allows you to connect it to a USB drive for external storage. It has 16 GB of internal storage, but the external option gives more flexibility for sharing. Which comes in handy for libraries! Plus, there is always the cloud! Also, there’s an HDMI adapter that allows you to connect the Pond to laptops and desktops so they can be mirrored and projected onto a larger surface. It has both AC and DC power. Once it’s charged it can move around for a few hours without the bothersome cord.

The Pond comes equipped with an Android operating system, so you can connect and download apps from Google’s Play store. This gives you the flexibility to choose between the wide varieties of apps to suit your needs. We’ve taken the initiative and preloaded apps like, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Adobe. There are many educational apps as well as fun gaming apps that may be useful in a classroom. Its interactive capability gives you many options. You may also choose to login to your Netflix or Hulu account and watch a movie, just don’t forget to logout when you’re done!

We are giving a demo for librarians next week and then for faculty in January. Once we’ve educated them, be sure to ask about it and learn how to see what it can do for your class!

For more information on this technology www.touchjet.com

The Internet Arcade

For you gamers out there, the Library would like to introduce you to the recently launched Internet Arcade! The Internet Arcade is an Internet browser-based library of emulated video arcade games from the 1970s up through the 1990s. It has hundreds of games ranging across many different genres that you can play for fun, to study, or to test your eye-keyboard coordination! Before you start, though, I recommend reading this blog post by the Internet Arcade operator, Jason Scott, walking you step-by-step through instructions to have a better playing experience.

 The Langsdale Library also has its own Game Collection for students, researchers and faculty use. Video game conservation is an important part of preserving our cultural heritage, but can be extremely difficult due to copyright issues and software and hardware obsolescence. Read more about this endeavor in the Library of Congress' 2010 "Preserving Virtual Worlds Final Report". 

2048: it's not just for squares

Can you beat this score? Probably.

The sliding tile game, 2048, has been all the rage in social media since it was introduced by the Italian programmer Gabriele Cirulli in March. Just for fun, here’s a special customized Langsdale Library version of 2048, using images instead of those geeky numeric tiles. We've found that this game works best in the Google Chrome browser. Have a dynamite summer, and be sure to visit Langsdale in its new space on the third floor of Learning Commons!

Meet Mike - Reference and Instruction Librarian at UB

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For more videos by Langsdale's librarians click here.

WorldCat Lists: Showcasing UB Authors and Langsdale Collections

If you missed the Faculty Authors celebration held at Langsdale on October 23 (or even if you didn't), you can browse a list of books authored by UB faculty and available at Langsdale by going to WorldCat Lists.

WorldCat is the name of the software behind the catalog accessed by clicking on the "Books" tab on Langsdale's web site. In addition to the "traditional" catalog function of locating books and DVD's held by Langsdale and other libraries, WorldCat offers the option of creating local lists of materials. To showcase UB authors and some commonly sought-after materials in Langsdale's collection, we have created lists of the following:

• UB Faculty Authors
• UB Alumni Authors
• UB Fraud Library
• UB Leisure Reading
• UB Games
• UB DVDs

Each WorldCat List can hold only 500 titles, so unfortunately we couldn't have a single list of all our DVDs. You'll find those lists subdivided by date.

You can find all the Langsdale lists here.

If you would like to see a list we haven't thought of, suggestions are welcome. Contact Betty Landesman, Head of Technical Services and Content Management at Langsdale Library, 410-837-4204, blandesman@ubalt.edu.

Free Coffee, Game Night, and a Publications Showcase at Langsdale

May is a busy month around campus as student are finishing up classes and preparing for final exam week.

At the end of the semester students are like:

So, Langsdale Library is giving the tired, stressed-out, "can't-wait-for-the-semester-to-end" students some extra energy. Stop by the first floor for free lemonade and coffee from 8:30am to 6pm, Monday, May 6 through Thursday, May 9.

One cup of coffee or lemonade, and you'll be alert like:

Effective Management of Student Team Projects

Image courtesy of Vancouver Film School

UB's own Anastasia Salter, Assistant Professor of Information Arts and Technologies wrote a useful post for the Chronicle of Higher Education's Wired Campus blog in the ProfHacker column.  In it she provides useful tips on managing team projects such as monitoring members' presence in the group, including an individual as well as group grading rubric, and inserting points of accountability at all stages of the process.  It's an important read with great ideas for faculty and students alike.

Games in the Library

Professor Anastasia Salter discusses the value of games in the library in a recent post in the Chronicle of Higher Education's blog Wired. She states that campus libraries are a great location for games because of extended hours and the games' connection with academic pursuits.

Langsdale has recently received a grant to work with Dr. Salter on a games collection for UB students. We hope to begin collecting materials spring semester for use in the library. The collection will be open to all students, with a focus on the needs of students in game design courses.

For more information, read Salter's blog post and watch next semester for news of the growth of the collection at Langsdale.