Bulletin Updates

Research Thursday: Use JSTOR’s Text Analyzer tool to explore research topics

By March 18th 2021

Have you heard about JSTOR’s Text Analyzer tool? The Text Analyzer tool accepts PDFs, Microsoft Word documents, or images of text and generates a list of research articles and subject terms to help you find new research sources. Watch this video to learn more about JSTOR’s Text Analyzer tool.

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How to try the Text Analyzer tool for the first time.

  1. Go to JSTOR Text Analyzer to get started.


  2. Upload a document with text in it. It can be an article you found, a paper you’re writing, or a picture of a page from a book. If you want experiment, JSTOR provides a test document you can click and drag to upload into the tool. The Text Analyzer tool will process the document and redirect you to the results page.


  3. On the results page, you can adjust which prioritized terms are used and how important they are in the Analysis section. These terms are autogenerated, but you can also add your own if the tool did not include the ones you want.


  4. You can also adjust important search filters like the publication year, content type, and access type in the Search Filters dropdown menu.



  5. Finally, you can browse through the list of results generated by the tool.

File types supported

You can upload or point to many kinds of text documents, including: csv, doc, docx, gif, htm, html, jpg, jpeg, json, pdf, png, pptx, rtf, tif (tiff), txt, xlsx. If the file type you’re using isn’t in this list, just cut and paste any amount of text into the search form to analyze it.

Languages supported

English, Arabic, (simplified) Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Turkish (see FAQ, below, for details)

Research Thursdays: Find the latest research on COVID-19

By March 4th 2021

Scientists around the world are rushing to understand the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19. Proquest has created a database to curate new, openly available research related to COVID-19 and the study of coronaviruses. To view more research related to COVID-19, please check out the Coronavirus Research Database

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Canvas Outage

By March 3rd 2021

At about 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 3, LITS was alerted of a Canvas outage affecting multiple institutions, including Allegheny College. We are investigating and will provide more information as it becomes available.

UPDATE:

As of 5:07 p.m., Instructure reported:

A fix has been implemented and we are monitoring the results.

Please contact the InfoDesk at 814-332-3768 or by email at infodesk@allegheny.edu if you continue to experience issues.

Tip Tuesday: Managing Voicemail for Forwarded Calls

By March 2nd 2021

Last week we posted instructions for forwarding your calls to another extension or phone number.

If the forwarded call goes unanswered, it will roll back to the voicemail of the original extension.

Those who choose to have their calls forwarded can change their outgoing voicemail greeting to indicate that they are out. LITS strongly recommends this solution. The voicemail greeting can include a suggested alternative number for those callers needing an immediate response.

An additional measure could be to provide the voicemail PIN to someone else in the department, so that someone can check the voicemail inbox. This can be done remotely, or at the phone whose voicemail you are checking. When you return to the office, remember to change the PIN.

LITS has other tips for managing phones during vacations and furlough.

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Tip Tuesday: Vacation Reply in Gmail

By February 16th 2021

When you’re planning to be out of office, you can set an automatic vacation reply in Gmail. Here’s how:

  1. On your computer, open Gmail.
  2. In the top right, click Settings Settings and then See all settings.
  3. Scroll down to the “Vacation responder” section.
  4. Select Vacation responder on.
  5. Fill in the date range, subject, and message.
  6. Under your message, check the box if you only want your contacts to see your vacation reply.
  7. At the bottom of the page, click Save Changes.
Note: If you have a Gmail signature, it will be shown at the bottom of your vacation response.
On a related note, LITS also offers tips for managing phones during vacations and furloughs.
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Research Thursday: New Digital Collections at Allegheny College

By February 11th 2021

We are excited to announce that LITS has recently made three new digital collections publically available in the Allegheny College Institutional Repository (DSpace) for research and general use.

Allegheny Strong: A Digital Collection of Reflections on the COVID-19 Pandemic

This collection is the result of an invitation to Allegheny College Community members to submit their personal reflections on how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted their lives and the lives of those around them. The collection shares these items as a way to build understanding, strengthen our community, foster human connection, and preserve personal accounts of this global event for future generations and scholarly research.

Submissions to the collection are still being accepted. If you would like to contribute to the collection, please review the submission instructions.

The Civil War Letters of Pvt. Willard A. Cutter

handwritten letter
This collection contains the letters (handwritten with typed transcripts) of Willard A. Cutter, a private in the 150th Pennsylvania Regiment, Company, also known as Lincoln’s Guard. The letters document conversations between Williard Cutter and his mother, Eliza Cutter, and two brothers George Cutter and William Cutter, who all lived in Meadville, Pennsylvania. The letters were written from Soldier’s Home, the White House and Washington, D.C.

For further information about these letters, please contact Jane Westenfeld (jwestenf@allegheny.edu).

Reflections on Social (In) Justice: A Digital Collection

This collection is the result of an invitation to Allegheny College Community members to submit their creative works that best convey their experiences and express their thoughts and feelings during the period of social unrest of 2020. The collection shares these items as a way to build understanding, strengthen our community, foster human connection, and preserve personal accounts of these troubling events for future generations and scholarly research.

Submissions to the collection are still being accepted. If you would like to contribute to the collection, please review the submission instructions.

If you’re interested in exploring other Allegheny College digital collections, please visit LITS digital collections for more information.

Tip Tuesday: “Out of Office” in Google Calendar

By February 9th 2021

In Google Calendar, you can define a stretch of time when you will be out of office. This can be a few hours, a particular day, or a range of days. When you indicate you’re out of office, your calendar will automatically decline all meetings during that time, using a custom decline message if you choose.

  1. On your computer, open Google Calendar.
  2. At the top of your calendar, click the date you’ll be out of the office (or the first date, if you’re planning on multiple days).
  3. Click Out of office.
  4. Select the dates that you’ll be out of the office.
  5. Optional: Update the time range and edit your decline message.
  6. Click Save.

"Out of office" dialog box in Google Calendar

During the time when your status is set to Out of office, others who contact you through Google Chat messages or Gmail will see a notification alerting them to that fact. So will users who mention or tag you in comments in a Google Doc.

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Tip Tuesday: Laptop Care

By February 2nd 2021

With so many of the college community working from laptop computers, it’s useful to keep some basic guidelines in mind for taking good physical care of your laptop. Here are some tips:

  • Wash your hands. In addition to helping protect against illness, washing your hands can help prevent dirt and oils from your skin from staining your laptop’s keys, touchpad, and other surfaces.
  • Keep food and drink away. Liquids, sugar, and food crumbs can interfere with keyboard function and damage electronics. It’s always best practice to keep liquids away from electronics.
  • Close carefully. It’s easy to forget a pen or paper clip is on the keyboard when you close the lid in a hurry. But such items can dent, scratch or even crack the screen. Be sure to close the laptop gently and carefully–don’t just snap it shut and go.
  • Don’t pick up by the monitor. This puts undue strain on the delicate electronics of the screen, and can result in damage to the hinges as well. Lift your laptop by the base, preferably with two hands, to prevent any twisting of the laptop frame.
  • Watch what you put on top. Heavy items and items with sharp edges can damage your laptop surprisingly easily. Even resting your hands or an elbow on top without thinking can damage delicate LCD screens. Cold or heat, such as from a can of soda or a mug of coffee, can likewise risk damage to your laptop.
  • Keep an even temperature. Rapid temperature changes can cause condensation inside your laptop, and glass and plastic components can crack from extreme cold. Try never to leave your laptop in a cold or hot car. If your laptop has become colder or warmer than room temperature, give it time to return to room temperature before turning it on.
  • Bag it. Bags made for a laptop are the safest way to transport a laptop from one place to another. If possible, use one sized specifically for your model of laptop. If that’s not an option, consider using a cushioned laptop sleeve to carry your laptop inside another bag, to keep other items in the bag from scratching or bending your laptop frame. If you’re using a sleeve, don’t put other items inside–even a mouse or the laptop’s own power supply can risk damage if they are pressed against the laptop cover.
  • Keep it clean. Check your laptop manufacturer’s website for their recommended methods. Properly used, compressed air and isopropyl alcohol wipes designed for electronics can be important tools for keeping your keyboard, monitor, and ports clean.

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Research Thursday: Create groups of images in Artstor

By January 28th 2021

What are groups in Artstor and why would you want to use them?

Groups allow any Artstor users to create sets of items to share, export, and add descriptive information. There are two kinds of groups: Private or Institutional (within Allegheny College).

How to create groups in Artstor

  1. To create a group, you first need to log in to Artstor. To log into Artstor, go to Databases A-Z on the LITS website and select the Artstor link. If you are signed in properly, you should see your email address in the top right corner of Artstor.
  2. To view your existing groups, select Groups from the Browse menu.

  3. If you haven’t created any groups yet, go to a collection to select items for your new group. To select items for your new group, hover over the top right corner to select (on a desktop) or tap the checkbox (on mobile) to select items.

  4. After you have select the items you want to add to your group, go to the Organize menu item and select “Save Selections to a New Group”.

  5. Finally, complete the Create New Group form to complete your new group. Title and sharing permissions are required. You can add an optional description or subject tabs.

Tip Tuesday: Forward an Entire Gmail Conversation

By January 26th 2021

Did you know you can forward an entire Gmail conversation thread at once? This can be useful if you want to bring someone new into the conversation without having to forward every individual email that’s been exchanged so far. It will save you and the new participant time sorting through each message one at a time.

Gmail offers a way to forward an entire email conversation all bundled into a single email, in chronological order with the oldest messages at the top.

To forward a conversation, first open it in Gmail on your computer. Then click on the “More” menu (the three dots in the toolbar at the top of the conversation.) Choose “Forward all.”

Screenshot of a sample Gmail conversation with the 'More' menu open

This will create a new message with the entire conversation all in one place.

You can then choose recipients and, if you like, add additional text at the top of the message. Click on the blue “Send” button and the recipients will get a single email message containing the entire Gmail conversation thread.

All attachments in the thread will also be included.

Note: “Forward all” will not show as an option in a conversation with only one message.

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