I don’t know if these exist, but Bill Nye, the Science Guy DVDs would be really really awesome. And The Shining.

Thanks for the great suggestions! To say that Bill Nye the Science Guy DVDs do exist is probably the understatement of the year. We’ll get some.

And, of course, what DVD collection would be complete without a copy of The Shining? We had one, but it was lost.  Perhaps it was thrown in the Schuylkill River by a creeped-out engineering student. We’ll get another one so the creep fest can continue.

The printer in the side room on the first floor is *never* working properly. It’s always off center!

Thanks for writing. The card scanner screen in the first floor copy room does sometimes annoyingly shift off center so that you can’t read it. If this happens, please come to the reference desk—we have a tool to quickly get it back on track.

The outlets all over the basement and the router cords in the basement quiet room do not work. Not every stall has an Ethernet cord and sometimes these cords do not work. There has been a lot of difficulty with the wireless internet in the past couple of months, and Ethernet cords would be a reliable alternative if only they worked.

First some great news: IRT has recently upgraded the wireless system at Hagerty. We hope this will mean better access for everyone in the library. Read all about it here.

However, if you’d still like to use an Ethernet cable, they are still available and working. If your cable appears not to work, the jack has probably been inadvertently shut off by a previous user; if this happens, please alert a member of the library staff and we will call IRT to turn the jack back on as quickly as possible.

I go to the library to concentrate, yet it seems like I should just give up and study at my apartment. Yesterday a loud alarm went off in the basement (it does so frequently) for 15 minutes straight and no one at the front desk had a key to turn it off. Even when a guard came to try to fix it, the alarm kept going off.

We are very sorry for this disruption. Believe us, we hate it too. Public safety recently changed the alarm, and since then we have been working with them to implement a system to get the alarm turned off quickly when it gets accidentally set off. If you hear the alarm for more than 30 seconds, please come to the circulation or security desk, and if they have not already called to have it turned off they will do so.

Please put a time limit on the copier and scanner on the entrance level. I understand there are other scanners, but they are a pain to work.

This seems fair. A time limit is difficult to enforce, as it would require library staff to stand at the scanners, stopwatches in hand. But we can put up signs asking patrons to limit their use to 15 minutes as a courtesy to their fellow students when there is a line.

Please allow alumni to access some of the journals from home. Driving down to Philadelphia just to access the journal from Drexel’s computers is just wasting people’s time and gas.

Thanks for your comment. The cost of database subscriptions is based on the number of users—and the more we can control the number, the more databases and information we can provide. Although we would love to offer access to our subscriptions to our alumni, doing so would significantly increase our costs, causing a decrease in the number of resources available to our current students and faculty.

I like your loaner library bags. Could they be sold as a fundraiser?

We love this idea and we are looking into selling them in the near future. Thanks for the suggestion!

The bad internet makes me cry. Could you give out complimentary cookies every few hours to help ease the pain?

The cookie brigade is busy, so instead we’ll offer you something better: Ethernet cables. We know the wireless problem is a big one, and we don’t want to make you cry, which is why we offer Ethernet cables, available from the circulation desk. These can be plugged into any of the numerous jacks in the building. So please, find a study space you like—chances are you’ll find an Ethernet jack just a cable length away. If an Ethernet jack isn’t working, it may have been shut down because of problems with the previous user. If this happens, please alert a library staff member and we’ll call IRT to fix the problem as quickly as possible.

Can you get The Bicycle Thief on DVD?

Great movie, and great suggestion.  In fact, we already have The Bicycle Thief on DVD, although it’s not part of our leisure collection. This term, the DVD is available from our reserve desk for three day loan. However, this film is frequently put on course reserve, and when that happens, it will only be available for viewing in the library.

Be sure to check out our other great DVDs that are not in the leisure collection. Just make sure to search the entire catalog, not just DVDs, when searching for a title.

Internet access at this library has been seriously screwed up for almost a year now, if not longer. Recently it’s gotten a little better and the effort represented by the Ethernet cords is appreciated, although they haven’t worked each time I’ve tried to use them. Still, I have to ask: who is working on the wireless? Is the administration aware of the extent of the problem? Is there any chance I’ll experience fully functional internet at the library before I graduate at the end of the summer?

Thanks for your comments. We know wireless access here and elsewhere on campus is a consistent problem. IRT recognizes the issues and believes that there are simply not enough wireless access points in the building to support the number of users we have. They are working to upgrade the wireless capacity around campus. Unfortunately, since IRT must work campus wide, there is no way to know when they will be upgrading Hagerty Library specifically.

If you plug into one of our Ethernet jacks and it doesn’t work, it may be that it was shut off because the last person who plugged into it was identified as having a virus or other problem. Unfortunately we can’t figure out if this has happened until we call IRT. If you are unable to connect through an Ethernet jack, please let a library staff member know, and we will ask IRT to re-enable it as quickly as possible.