Contact information for instructors:
Tefko Saracevic, Ph.D.
Professor II
Room 306, SCILS bldg. Work: (732)932-7500/ext 8222 Fax: (732)932-6916
Email: tefko@scils.rutgers.edu Home page: http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/~tefko

Please visit the course web site at http://scils.rutgers.edu/~tefko/Courses/530/

• The site also has links to a number of tutorials. As necessary, bone up on prerequisite background knowledge, as listed in the syllabus. Regardless of your skills level, I strongly suggest that you take some of the tutorials as refreshers. Find a tutorial that matches your needs.
  
  
• REMINDER:

SCILS has a Technology SOS Tutorial http://scils.rutgers.edu/techsos/; refresh your knowledge and take the Participant Self-Assessment. Also, the Rutgers University Chapter of the American Society for Information Science & Technology (RUASIST) maintains a Technology Assistance Page for MLIS students at Rutgers http://scils.rutgers.edu/%7Eruasis/bootcamps/index.htm - tells you, among others, about your email account, how to ftp, and much more; all very practical.


• Get the text book from Rutgers Bookstore (title in syllabus). The first reading & summary (due the second class) will be Chapters 1, 2, & 4 from the book.

• The course will also include additional readings to be found on the Web, on electronic reserve, or through Rutgers University Libraries (RUL).

Each student MUST have a Rutgers University Library (RUL) card with a bar code and PIN. (To get a PIN follow the instructions on the RUL site http://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/ under How do I ...?) Some of the readings are obtained through access to online journals or databases at RUL, others are stored in the RUL Electronic Reserve. All these can be accessed from any computer on the campus, or remotely from home. For remote access, students who dial into RUL from home using a Rutgers address as the Internet Service Provider (ISP) (e.g. scils, eden, rci …) have full access to all RUL services. But, students who use other ISPs, such as AOL, Yahoo, Earthlink etc. do not have a full access to all RUL services, only to some. In these cases, for remote access to full services the student has to enter RUL by proxy; this requires configuring the proxy connection on the browser (on Netscape, Explorer does not work well) and using as user name the bar code from the library card and a PIN obtained from the library. Detailed instructions for all remote access can be found on the RUL site under How do I ... ?

• For a variety of working purposes, the students will be organized in groups. Each group will have four students (or so). You can start looking for a group - we will form groups at the end of first class.
  
  
• The first two exercises (for weeks 2 and 3) involve, among others, taking Dialog tutorials as listed in the Tutorial file on the class Web site. You can take a look at them, to ask questions if necessary when we meet for the first time.
  
  
• An email address is mandatory. If you do not have one, get an EDEN email account; staff from Netops in the lab, room 119, SCILS bldg. can provide information on how to get it. You can use other than EDEN account.
  
  
• The class has a listserv for posting and receiving general messages: lis530_01@rams.rutgers.edu