Academic Commons – The USD Academic Commons will open on the 1st Floor of the I.D. Weeks building in August and December 2010. In August 2010 the University Writing Center, Speech Communication Center, and Software Support will join Library Reference and Instruction and Circulation services on the West side. In December 2010 all the services and programs students need to achieve their academic goals will be available inside the building when the East side opens. The East half of the 1st Floor will house Academic & Career Planning Center (provides Academic Advising, Career Planning, Tutoring, Supplemental Instruction, and FYE services), Student Support Services (TRIO), Math Emporium, ITS Help Desk and Equipment Checkout, and Center for Academic Engagement.
AquaBrowser / Library Catalog – Searching the University Libraries’ online catalog to find books, e-books, and government documents is far more user-friendly this year as the library catalog has a new frontend called AquaBrowser. AquaBrowser makes it easy for you to search, discover, and refine to identify relevant materials in our collection.
Bestsellers – A collection of fiction and non-fiction titles are hand-selected by librarians for the leisure-reading interests of the USD community. New titles are added every month to shelves on the 1st Floor West.
Blog and RSS Feeds – The University Libraries now has a news blog [http://blogs.usd.edu/library/] and several RSS feeds [http://www.usd.edu/library/library-feeds.cfm], so you can keep up with what has been added to the collection and what’s happening in the Libraries and its departments.
E-books – Over the summer the University Libraries has subscribed to many books in online, full-text format. You will find them in the library catalog and through our E-book search.
LibGuides – Guides [http://libguides.usd.edu/] prepared by subject specialists help you conduct research in academic disciplines 24/7. Mobile Services – Search many of the databases subscribed to by the University Libraries through your mobile device. A LibGuide [http://libguides.usd.edu/mobile] describes what is available , but you enter bit.ly/libusd into the web browser on your mobile device to access the resources and get reference assistance.
Text Reference Service – This fall you will be able to get remote assistance from a reference librarian via text as well as chat, email, and phone.
CFANews 