Can you suggest a book for me? I’m looking for a coffee table book with photos of Britain. I’d appreciate a few recommendations as I wouldn’t know how to search for one in a library.

Cheers!

ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: Well, I don’t have any specific recommendations, but you can do this search in the library catalog. Look for “Title Keywords” of:
britain illustrated

You get lots of books with those two words in the title. Some of these relate to history, and probably have a lot of photos of castles, megaliths, etc. Play around with other such words.

You can do a similar search at amazon.com if you’re looking for something to purchase. You can also throw in words like “landscape” or “history.” The “narrow by category” choices in the left margin might also help.

There isn’t an easy way to limit only to large-format books either in the catalog or at Amazon. In the catalog’s Advanced Search interface, you can search for keywords in the title like I said, and then in “All Fields” search for “32 cm.” (use quotes) to look for specific large sizes. This works. Anything over 30 cm. tall is pretty big. You’ll have to do a search for each size one at a time.

There’s that way of formating microsoft word words so they are all capitals. But if you have a bunch of words that are all capitals, can you make them all lowercase without having to retype everything?

Thank you!

ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: Sure. Under the Format menu, choose “Change Case.” There are options for all lowercase and all uppercase, as well as Sentence Case (only the first word begins with a capital) and Title Case (all words start with capitals). A flaw in the latter choice is that even prepositions, articles, conjunctions, etc. will be capitalized.

They say it’s good to eat the crusts of bread, right? But is the crust any healthier than the middle since it’s all the same bread?

ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: I had always thought this old saying was to keep kids from wasting precious foodstuffs, back when food was a scarcer commodity. But there have been studies showing that there are more antioxidants in the crust, probably developing due to the chemical changes affected by the “intensity of the thermal treatment.” See: Lindenmeier & Hofmann, “Influence of baking conditions and precursor supplementation on the amounts of the antioxidant pronyl-L-lysine in bakery products,” in the Journal of Agricultural Food and Chemistry, 2004 Jan 28;52(2):350-4, as well as other articles of theirs (references in MedLine).

I would like you to think on the possibility of granting access to the on-line resources currently available to students through Duke library system. It could be granted for an annual fee to access a limited number of e-magazines and e-resources chosen and needed by subscribers.
This initiative (if ever implanted) could be specially useful to foreign alumnus like me living in developing countries who lacks access to such resources on an affordable way.
Thanks a lot,
Ricardo Flores G.
MA PIDP 98
rflores@alumni.duke.edu

ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: Alumni have asked for this for years, but the access that we can grant is spelled out in our legally-binding licensing agreements with the database vendors. The mechanics of a solution seem daunting. The standard licenses don’t allow access off-campus for persons who aren’t current Duke students, faculty, or staff. I don’t think the vendors like the idea of their databases being used broadly by persons no longer affiliated with Duke, for instance being used for the benefit of private employers who would then not need pay the high subscription costs themselves. A lot of licenses with a lot of different companies would have to be specially negotiated, which is unlikely to happen. It’s also unlikely that Duke’s OIT would allow alumni to purchase a NetID (which would allow use of the databases off-campus). Also, anything involving passwords is dangerous from the point of view of the vendor, since anyone who gets hold of the password would then have access.

I’ll pass on your request. Perhaps someone can figure out a solution that will only apply to a manageable number of vendors or only apply to alumni in specific countries. Your suggestion of paying a modest annual fee seems like a reasonable offer.

Dear Answer Person,

You do many amazing things, and your colleagues at the library are some of the people I admire the most. Dukeref is definitely my favorite IM Buddy. I’m sure someone is working on it, but wouldn’t it be convenient if the interlibrary loan login was tied to one’s netid so that it would be easier to keep track of login information and maintain continuity through the Duke computer systems?

Thanks!

ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: Oh, yes, this would be a lot easier, and we at the library know it. The system uses completely different software that apparently can’t communicate with OIT’s NetID services (or no one has figured it out yet). The “My Library Card” feature of the Catalog does work with your NetID without even having to register, but apparently the Document Delivery (a.k.a., Interlibrary Loan or ILL) system can’t.

If you register into ILL with the help of library staff, sometimes they hint that instead of accepting the default Username (which is your DukeCard number plus issue number), you replace that with your NetID and password if you want to synchronize the systems. Then, you won’t have to think about it next time. Of course, you still have to register the first time, and it would be nice to get rid of that step. Also, you can’t go back and change your Username once you’ve gotten a crummy one, unless you ask ILL to reset your account so you can start over.

Thanks for the input.

Do you think Russ Ferguson’s hair is overrated?

ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: It all depends on the sort of hair you like. Some people may very well prefer the tidy hairsprayed look.

Why do so many people have such a hard time writing the term y’all? Although it’s southern slang and not proper English, it’s just a simple contraction of the words you and all… I’ve seen ya’ll, you’ll, and all sorts of ridiculously off-the-mark attempts. It just doesn’t seem that difficult to me…

ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: I suspect that since it’s generally spoken, and not part of “official” written English, the contraction is confusing to people. I think y’all makes the most sense, but if it’s not official, then perhaps people can be given some leeway. What about yawl?

Since “proper” English doesn’t have a distinctive 2nd person plural personal pronoun, and since “you” and “all” are legitimate English words, why not accept the term as “proper.” “Youse” is also completely legitimate.

My name is […]. I sugested to purchase “Modern Organic Synthesis” around two weeks ago, and it is still on oder, even though Duke Book store already has this book.

When do you expect that I can get this book?
Could you explain why it takes long time?

Thank you.

PS – you can email me, if you have any question.
Thank you.
[email address]

ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: The appropriate subject librarian has been asked to “rush” catalog this book and you’ll be notified when it’s ready for you. It appears to be in a processing backlog.

The library gets books from intermediate vendors, not directly from the publishers. If the book isn’t ordered “rush,” then it won’t be shipped by itself immediately, but will wait to be included in a large shipment from that vendor, maybe even a week or two or more. Then, the shipments have to be unpacked, then the invoices paid, and the books put in a queue to be cataloged, and then the call number labels need to be applied, and then the books need to be shelved. If the book comes through an automatic approval plan, as did this one, it is also reviewed by subject librarians for appropriateness for our collection. All this takes much longer than the process in a bookstore, especially given staffing and funding shortages at the library that create cataloging backlogs, where the book may sit for several weeks on a shelf. The time in various backlogs depends a lot on issues with the particular book (whether it’s been cataloged already by another library, what language it’s in, whether it has supplemental material such as a CD or map). A softcover book may need to be sent off to a bindery to have a hard binding put on it.

The online “suggest a purchase” form will not guarantee that the book is ordered and cataloged quickly. If you need a book quickly, then you should indicate this on the form or contact one of the subject librarians directly: http://library.duke.edu/about/directory/subject_librarians.html

[A library employee] is extraordinarily rude to patrons.

[…]

Is there anything that can be done about this?

ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: Your complaint has been passed on to the employee’s supervisor.

did you watch the blue devil marching band win 3rd place in the dci championship last night? can you think of a more invigorating way to spend the evening! i bet you cant! oh it was a spectacle!

ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: I hate to spoil your fun, but this is a group of “Blue Devils” from Concord, California. Their website: http://www.bluedevils.org/ In any case, you can catch it all again. The ESPN2 website says “The first half of the program can be seen on Monday, Sept. 11, at 2 p.m. Eastern time (ET). The second half will air on Monday, Sept. 18, at 2 p.m. ET.”