Volume 18, Issue no. 30 September 20, 1999
September State Employees
Month
Governor Jim Hodges
has proclaimed September
as State of South Carolina
STATE EMPLOYEES
MONTH for 1999. In his
proclamation he encourages all South Carolinians
to recognize the tireless
efforts of state employees
in securing the well-being
of all South Carolinians.
–Betty Cook, President
Clemson SCSEA Chapter
Clemson University Libraries - Clemson, SC 29634-3001
Meet Acquisitions'
newest employee
Emma Simmons
of Kingsville,
Texas, has officially accepted
the position of
Head of the
Acquisitions
Unit. She will
begin on Oct. 1,
the day of our
book sale.
On September 3, Elizabeth “Beth” Alexander
began working in the Receiving Section of Acquisitions. Beth is a native of South Carolina,
born in Sumter, grew up in Bishopville, and is
PAWroud to be a Tiger fan (her husband, Jim,
graduated from Clemson, so his blood runneth
orange). Beth, Jim, and her two sons (Sloan, 11,
and Kenny, 3) live in Seneca. She thinks working
in a library is peachy because she loves to read.
She prefers mysteries and love stories. John
Grisham is her favorite author. Beth also likes
herb gardening, ceramics, and gourmet cooking. She is famous for her
cheesecake, which she used to make for the Main Street Garage in Seneca.
Customers were so enthralled with her cheesecake that she became known
as “Alexander the Great.”
(For those who don’t
know, the “Garage” is
really a restaurant; so
don’t go in asking for a
Banned Books Week Sept. 20 - Oct. 2
tune up and an oil change
Last year, the American Library Association received
or you will just get blank
478 challenges to books in public and school libraries
stares.) Beth shares with
and school curriculums. The list of last year’s most
her family a love of
challenged works of fiction include:
wildlife. She still remem1. The Chocolate War, Robert Cormier
bers the day her little
2. Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck
brother brought home a
3. The Goosebumps and Fear Street series, R.L. Stine
“pet” water moccasin.
4. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou
So, come by and say
5. The Giver, Lois Lowry
“hello” – Beth sits in the
6. Always Running, Luis Rodriguez
corner where Bobbie
7. Crazy Lady, Jane Leslie Conly
used to sit, and she
8. Blubber, Judy Blume
smiles a lot.
“Free People Read Freely”
For more information about banned
books check out
the ALA website
www.ala.org/pio/
factsheets/
bbw.html
–Steve Johnson
library news
Who’s the new MUSCle Man?
SEPTEMBER
birthdays
1 - Tabitha Wright
3 - Beth Helsel
4 - Betty Carson
6 - Ken Murr
13 - Susan Conley
Suzanne Rook
16 - Rexanna Abraham
19 - Clare Thomas
28 - Betty Cook
29 Norman Hoyle
Who's the new guy in Reference? Sort of a
whole state covered in
friendly Jesse Ventura/Hector Elizondo type -this project). Why
seems to be around on Mondays, Thursday and
Clemson? Chris' wife,
Fridays? It's Chris Colthorpe, a refugee from the
Kay Reynolds, had
Carolina lowcountry (but one who didn't just
already followed her
come to escape Floyd).
career here to Clemson
Chris comes to us from MUSC (the Medical
as a physicians assistant at Family Practice AssoUniversity of South Carolina), where he was an
ciates, and their two children (one boy, one girl, 8
Associate Professor of Education, involved in
and 5 years old) were happily settled into
writing and producing their instructional televiWestminster Elementary. We are the happy bension broadcasts to students across the state (and
eficiaries of the Reynolds-Colthorpe clan living
country). In one of those academic restructurings
under one roof, since Chris chose to do an internthat are becoming all too familiar to all of us,
ship here at the Clemson Libraries, working far
Chris recently ended up on the Library Science
more hours in Reference than his internship refaculty at MUSC, despite never having worked in
quires (probably just because we are so darned
a library or having a library degree. Instead of
much fun to be around). Chris is sharing Lois
spending his days trying to repeatedly explain this Sill's office and phone number.
odd anomaly to people, Chris applied for a sabIs Chris stressed by the relocation? Just the
batical to get another graduate degree -- this one
opposite -- he says that he truly believes that
in library science (because, face it, doesn't everypeople are "like houseplants -- they need to be
one secretly want an MLS after their
repotted once in awhile"!–Peg Tyler
name?). MUSC was intrigued by Chris' plan to
focus on the provision of library service to distance education
students and extension agents across
the state, and sent
him off to USC in
Columbia.
So, Chris left
http://
Charleston to get
his degree from
staffweb.lib.clemson.edu/benefits/leave.htm
USC as a distance
student living in
(a page on the StaffWeb that shows the accrual amounts for Annual
Clemson (he's
Leave in the new system - check it out!)
pretty much got the
Another new link
on the StaffWeb
library news
Search
update
The Search Committee for the Library
Human Resources
Officer has been diligently placing job ads in
just about every place
that they could think of
that would get the ad out
quickly. This includes
the ARL job list, the
Chronicle of Higher
Education, various
library school job lists,
and so forth. In addition,
we sent copies of the ad
to all library schools and
a list of historically
black colleges and
universities. We are now
beginning to receive
responses. The Committee will evaluate these
responses as they come
in, which should shorten
the lead time necessary
to get candidates in for
an interview. The Committee is tentatively
planning to have the
candidates give a presentation for all employees
to attend, and then
separate question and
answer sessions for the
faculty and staff. If you
have any input about this
idea, please be sure to
direct it to one of the
Committee members.
Thanks.–Jens Holley
A Littlehelp in Littlejohn?
If it’s October, it must be time for the Benefits Fair to roll
into the Littlejohn Coliseum, and once again, the University Libraries
will have a booth promoting library use by Clemson’s employees. This
year’s theme is the new Popular Reading Collection, with a
combination display of the library’s Solid Orange exhibit and examples
of our popular reading material. We’ll be giving away a book and an
audiotape (specially purchased for the giveaway, not from the
collection!) and passing out bookmarks and brochures.
And, once again, we need to staff the booth. Anyone willing to
spend a couple of hours schmoozing with the crowds? The booth’s
hours will be:
Tuesday, October 5
9:30 am - 4:30 pm
&
Wednesday, October 6
8:30 am - 3:00 pm
Sign-up sheets for two-hour shifts will be in
unit mailboxes on Tuesday, and should be returned
to Peg Tyler by Monday, September 27 th.
You know you are drinking too
much coffee when.......
–You’ve worn out the handle on your favorite mug.
–People get dizzy just watching you.
–Instant coffee takes too long.
–You don’t tan, you roast.
–You can’t even remember your second cup.
–When someone says. “How are you?”, you say, “Good to the last drop.”
–You’ve built a miniature city out of little plastic stirrers.
–You can type sixty words per minute...with your feet.
–You don’t sweat, you percolate.
–You’re the employee of the month at the local coffeehouse and you
don’t even work there.
library news
CLE to offer classes that will benefit web
designers
I attended 2 workshops in the past few
weeks. These were "Test" classes offered by the
CLE training group, in preparation for offering
them as part of the CLE class lineup. These
classes were on multimedia development, in
particular MacroMedia Flash and
DreamWeaver.
layout their web page, just like they've done with
brochures and pamphlets in the past. Programs like
PageMaker or Ready,Set,Go! for example, let you plan
how you want the page to look before you type in all the
information. But if you don't have that experience you
can pick up the layout idea quickly. You start by dragging some boxes on the screen to let you arrange how
you want the elements to look, and then fill in the boxes
with the text and images as you desire. DreamWeaver
uses table elements with the ease of a word processor.
DreamWeaver
But no more fiddling about adding spaces to lines to
The DreamWeaver class was excellent at introducmove a word or picture one way or another. Stick it in a
ing web page layout and development for the "non"
table! Then use table elements within the window, and
techie among us. DreamWeaver is designed for those
keep the picture where you put it. You can also use a
who need to do sophisticated things, but don't have time
new DHTML type called layers, to give you the ultito take 3 JAVA classes and a Visual Basic course to
mate arrangement flexibility. But don't worry,
boot. The ease with which you can take a few graphics
DreamWeaver has a tool to convert the layers into table
and some text and turn it into a nicely designed page is
elements, so it's backwards compatible for older
amazing.
browsers.
DreamWeaver is designed for people who want to
DreamWeaver gives you plenty of tools for adding
the latest JAVA or Active X elements to your page too.
Adding dynamic links is child's play. Find the
word, select it. Go to the place in the page you
want to link. Grab a button from the bottom of
The Society of
the window and drag a line to the spot you want
English Graduate Students
to link. Done. Need to link to another docuhas slated a
ment? Same steps. Add a link to another web
site? Select the link, paste in the url, done.
I found DreamWeaver to be a dream to
use,
no
pun intended. You can change most of
(books, tapes, CDs, movies,
the defaults settings throughout the program.
etc.) for October 21
DreamWeaver is capable of the most sophistifrom 8:00 - 4:00 in front of the Daniel
cated web page designs you can think of. Take a
Hall Auditorium. Prices will range from $.25
few moments and browse to MacroMedia.com
and look at what DreamWeaver can do for you.
to $2.00. Any questions about the sale and/
DreamWeaver is available at the bookor donations can be sent to Cathy Whaley
store
for
$99.00. It's also available from
(cathyw@clemson.edu) or Joey Hall
PCWarehouse for $83.50 (see me for the
(hall6@clemson.edu).
details.)
media-sale
continued on page 5
library news
continued from page 4
MacroMedia
The other workshop was on another MacroMedia
program called Flash! 4.0. Have you seen those really
neat animations on the web? Pages load instantly, and
then things just flash around the screen. Text streams
across the page and assembles into words. Snappy
music, that keeps pace with the activity on the screen.
Well, in the past, those things required many, many
hours with digital editing programs. Scanning images,
taking them apart in PhotoShop, fixing all the little
blemishes. Creating a music score. Chopping a song
into little bits so it would match the pictures as they
appear on screen. Tedious, and often it just didn't look
very good unless you have a VERY fast Internet connection. Or better yet, you have the thing on CD ROM.
Enter Flash. Take lots of photos, sounds, graphics,
charts, works. Drop them into Flash. Say you have a
standard Multimedia presentation that your created in
Director. It's 100 MEGAbytes. You put it on the web.
No one looks at it, cause it takes 57 minutes to download. Now, take the same presentation created in Flash!
4.0. It's only 10 MEGAbytes.
But wait, you say, "5.7 Minutes is too way to long to
wait too." Not with Flash. You don't wait till it's done to
start the show. Flash elements are tiny compared to
other media formats. As the bits and bytes flow down to
your machine, the show starts. The music starts. The
pictures pop onto the screen. You are amazed at how
fast it loads. AMAZED! Within Seconds of clicking the
links, the presentation starts. Select items from the lists.
Bang, the next screen flies into view.
Really don't believe me? Go to MacroMedia.com
and check out the Flash pages. This is what the web is
supposed to look like. However, Flash is not the breeze
that DreamWeaver is. Flash assumes you have considerable knowledge of image editing, and understand some
of the more complicated design elements it uses to
create its movies. Not to worry though, CLE will be
offering both of the classes I took, in their final form,
later this year. I highly recommend them to any of you
"web developer want-a-be's" and seasoned web developers as well.–Rick Brink
Donate your
business card
I am collecting business cards for a 7 yearold Georgia boy with a brain tumor. He is not
expected to live and wants to be in the Guiness
World Book of Records. To do this he is collecting business cards. If you would like to
contribute one please send it to me in Cataloging. I will get them to the appropriate place.
The boy is currently with the Make a Wish
Foundation. They are trying desperately to help
this little boy. Your help will be appreciated
too.–Janice Prater
For Sale
Cookbooks
Calendars
No, not from Cooper
Library, but the new
edition of Daniel High Air
Force Jr. ROTC's annual
cookbook. Roaring Recipes of the Flying Lions is
on sale for $10 each.
Sales benefit the
AFJROTC booster club
and individual cadets.
These books make great
Christmas presents. I have
a copy at my desk if you
want to look it over.–
Kathryn Wesley
Featuring gorgeous
Sierra Club wildlife
photography and a hardcopy that doesn't have a
Y2K bug in it. There are
several styles:
Wall - $12
Birds, Oceans,
Wilderness, Wildlife,
Wildflowers
Engagement - $12
Day-by-day - $11
For a virtual view of
the calendars, click on
www.sierraclub.org/books/
and click on "calendars".
But don't buy them from
off the Web - buy them
from me!–Steve Johnson