British Library releases a million public domain images

The British Library has posted a million public domain images from the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries to Flickr, the photo sharing website.  The million first steps will attempt to crowdsource information about the images but also makes them available for repurposing.  The next time you need a public domain image for a project, check this out.

We are looking for new, inventive ways to navigate, find and display these 'unseen illustrations'. The images were plucked from the pages as part of the 'Mechanical Curator', a creation of the British Library Labs project. Each image is individually addressible, online, and Flickr provies an API to access it and the image's associated description.  - See more at: http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/digital-scholarship/2013/12/a-million-first-steps.html#sthash.wpVuFfpr.dpuf

We are looking for new, inventive ways to navigate, find and display these 'unseen illustrations'. The images were plucked from the pages as part of the 'Mechanical Curator', a creation of the British Library Labs project. Each image is individually addressible, online, and Flickr provies an API to access it and the image's associated description.  - See more at: http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/digital-scholarship/2013/12/a-million-first-steps.html#sthash.wpVuFfpr.dpuf

Put your creativity to work.

Is engineering for you?

Here is a video contest with a $25,000 grand prize for all of those who are interested in engineering.  Put your creativity to work.

Engineering for you video contest

Recording in PowerPoint

A user recently had a question about recording multiple tracks on Audacity to move them into a PowerPoint.  The user was looking for a simple way to record audio onto a PowerPoint for a project.  While Audacity works well for this, PowerPoint also has an easy-to-use, built-in recording feature for those that want something quick and basic.  Under Insert > Sound and Music there is a "Record Sound" option.  

This feature is much more basic than Audacity.  It allows for recording, playback, renaming the clip, and inserting it on the slide.  Because the sound clip is built right into the presentation, users don't have to worry about exporting and importing tracks from another program.  For users that do not need to trim or edit a track and want a quick recording option, the built-in recording on PowerPoint is a good tool to suggest.

Checking for lost flash drives and other devices on computers in the morning.

Hey everyone, I hope the end of the semester is going well for everyone. This is just a tip for those of you that open up in the mornings. When going through the SMDC and restarting computers, make sure to hang around a bit so that you can check for desktop icons (mac) or bubble notices (pc) that indicate a removable drive/device is still plugged in. Over the course of a semester drives are left in our computers and do not make it upstairs to the lost and found in circulation, so remember to keep a close watch for them, and other lost items!

How to record a voice over narration in Premiere Pro

We had a user ask how to record voice into Premiere Pro.  No one seemed to know if you could do this so we found a video from Adobe TV that show you how. 

How to record a voice over narration in Premiere Pro with Colin Smith

Problems in photoshop

Hey Guys,

So with finals happening there is a lot of chaos and people are perty frustrated. At this time there are a lot of people doing presentations and some of them may be using photoshop. Here is a post going over ten basic photoshop problems that can be quite perturbing ans strikingly simple to fix!

http://www.howtogeek.com/56742/

Best of luck with finals!

Adobe Bridge Batch Rename

As we wind down the semester and papers and projects are flying everywhere, it is so important to remain organized so as not to add to the stress and chaos associated with finals week. When it comes to your media files - particularly movie clips and photos, one great way to keep them all organized is to make sure they are properly labeled. When you have a ton of movie clips or photos, this can seem like a really annoying task to go through and individually re-label them (for example) as "SpanishProject_1", "SpanishProject_2" etc. One easy way to automatically sort through and custom label all your files is to use Adobe Bridge. By viewing your files in Adobe Bridge, you can highlight and select the files you want to relabel. Once they are selected, you can go to "Tools" > "Batch Rename" and enter the new name under "New Filenames." Adobe Bridge also gives you the option to rename the files in the same folder you opened them in, or rename them and automatically move or copy them to a new location. These options are listed under "Destination Folder." Having your files all renamed and properly labeled is a surefire way to decrease your stress when you are desperately searching for the photo you took for your spanish project amongst all of the generic IMG_1, IMG_2, IMG_3 etc. scattered throughout your computer.

New Group Study Room Policy

Hey guys,

Just yesterday I saw on the StaffWeb an announcement about the new policy on group study rooms. Which seems like a cool idea since group study room can be reserved for a two hour time slot within a week in advance (although groups could technically reserve the same room under a different name). This policy gives students an option to see if there are any study rooms open online and to make a reservation instead of spending time looking through the whole library for a room.

Here is the link for more information about the reservation policy.
http://guides.lib.udel.edu/groupstudyrooms

Good luck on finals everyone!

FireWire vs. USB

A week or so ago a student approached the desk looking for help to connect one of the center’s hard drives to a Mac she was using. She had the hard drive connected to the computer using a USB cable from the kit, but there was no recognition of it by the computer. I played around with it and the cable to make sure everything was intact and working as it should be, I tried different USB ports, but nothing seemed to work. Eventually, according to the advice of Dianna, we tried the FireWire cable and with it everything worked perfectly; the computer recognized the device and the student was able to download the video file she had saved on the hard drive.

As Dianna explained to me, generally USB connections should only be used as a last resort for computers that have no other options, as they lack several abilities that other connections offer. To me, without too much experience with digital audio or video and obviously using USB connections very regularly, this was somewhat counter-intuitive. But after looking into it some more on my own I will confidently be using FireWire over USB connections whenever possible from now on. Here’s a good article I found outlining the pros and cons of FireWire versus USB connections: http://support.presonus.com/entries/21355765-Should-I-choose-a-FireWire-or-USB-audio-interface-

Final Cut Pro for Dummies

FINAL CUT PRO!!

I hope everyone had a good turkey break! Now that we are back I noticed there are alot of students using Final Cut Pro.  If you are anything like me and have no idea what it is, this is your quick crash course.

  1. Final Cut Pro is a video editing software made my Apple, so it only works on MACs.

  2. These are some really good websites to assist you in your  journey to become the FCR master:

•  detailed video tutorials: http://www.lynda.com/Final-Cut-Pro-training-tutorials/201-0.html
•  clear explanation : http://www.washington.edu/lst/help/video/finalcutpro/basics 

 3.  Extra: The .mp4 file type produced by the GoPro HD cameras is not supported by Apple’s Final Cut software. Once you’ve selected ‘in’ and ‘out’ points (or kept the length the same), go to File > Export to Quicktime. ( http://gopro.com/support/articles/final-cut-pro-tips)

      PS: We have Final Cut Pro 7 in the Multimedia Center not, Final Cut Pro X

Locked iPads

Hey everyone,

Someone returned an iPad earlier tonight and she locked it so that no one else could access it. This is the first time that this problem as occurred, but we have to remember to also check the iPad to make sure it is not locked. Otherwise, the student may have forgotten to unlock it and we would not be able to restore factory settings. Not good. In the words of Diana, 'that is why the checklist is there.'

Overdue Laptops

       Today I had a user who was noticeably upset complain to me about the very high fines they received when they returned a laptop back a few hours late.  The student said that no one had notified them of the possibility of severe fines while they were checking out the laptop.  I decided to review our overdue equipment policy more closely (found on the SMDC website:http://www.lib.udel.edu/multimedia/policies.html).  I knew that the fee for overdue equipment is $15 a day BUT for laptops the fee is actually $15 per each hour that it is late, something I was not aware of.   

       Usually when I am checking an item out to a user I just tell them what time the item is due back and don't notify them of the consequences if the item is returned late.  After this incident I will be more concious to tell a user checking out a laptop that the fines are $15 per each hour the laptop is late, because those fines can rack up very quickly.  I think users will be appreciative of the warning and be more likely to bring the laptops back on time.