The third floor of the Oscar. A. Silverman Library in Capen Hall is closed to the public for the summer for major New York Power Authority grant-funded energy conservation renovations. UB faculty should continue using the Delivery+ service. Science and Engineering materials from the third floor are available to others as follows:

• Current Periodicals: First floor.
• Books and Bound Periodicals : By request from the Circulation Desk on the first floor.
• Map Collection CD-ROMs: First floor.
• Map Collection Materials: Contact library@buffalo.edu.

Work will include updating heating, cooling and lighting systems and replacing the ceiling tiles. The renovation work should not have a significant impact on other operations within Silverman but is expected to create some construction-related noise and dust. Thank you for your patience as we work with the campus to improve library facilities.  Please contact library@buffalo.edu if you have additional questions or concerns.

Summer hours at the UB Libraries begin next week (May 14)! Building hours for each library unit, as well as Cybraries, can be found here. You can also access the hours by visiting library.buffalo.edu and clicking on ‘Library Hours’ at the bottom left of the home page. Beginning on May 14, this page will be updated to include summer reference hours as well. To learn more about contacting a librarian for reference assistance, visit our Ask a Librarian page.

We wish each of you a safe, relaxing, and productive summer!

[The following post was written by Mark Harrington, a graduate student within the Department of Library & Information Studies.]

Do you recognize this painting?  Can you name the painter?

What about this one?  Do you know what this picture is of?

How would you find out?  You can use reverse image searching.

Reverse image searching allows you to use a picture of a person or object and submit the image to a search like you would search text in Google.  Depending on the search engine you choose you can find information about the image, what or who it is, similar images, where it came from, and/or modified or higher resolutions of the image.

Check out these reverse image search engines:

 1. Tineye

www.tineye.com

Drag the image to the search box or choose to upload the image from a saved file on your computer.  You can also enter the URL to use an image from a website address.  This site also features plug-ins for Firefox, Safari, IE, and Chrome.

2. Google images

http://www.google.com/imghp

Just drag an image from your computer into the text box to search.  Click on the small icon of a camera in the right side of the search box to upload or paste an image’s URL.

3. Byo Image Search

http://labs.ideeinc.com/upload

Already know what’s in your picture but want similar images?  Try Byo Image Search by uploading an image to find like images based hundreds of attributes such as color, shape, and luminosity of your image.

Give it a shot with the images above or try some of your own and see what you can find.

[The following post was written by UB librarian Ed Herman.]

Lockwood Library and the Health Sciences Library will sponsor Stress Relief Days for students on May 1-4 from 10:00 AM – 2:00 PM.  Students can take advantage of these opportunities for brief breaks during the stressful exam period.  Take advantage of brief massages, therapy dogs, healthy (and not so healthy) snacks, quiet music, and other stress relief activities.

The Lockwood sessions will be in the library’s staff lounge located at the basement and the Health Sciences sessions will be in the Roswell Park Room.

Several stress relief and relaxation resources available from the federal government might also help.

Breathe2Relax  is a stress management tool designed for iPhones that decreases one’s ‘fight-or-flight’ (stress) response.

The Stress Web site sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health provides tips for managing and coping with pressure.  The interactive tutorial, Managing Stress is just one example.

The National Health Information Center describes how to recognize and deal with stress.  Click here  to view Managing Stress: The Basics.

Click here to see a brief Fact Sheet on Stress prepared by the National Institute of Mental Health.

Relaxation Techniques for Health: An Introduction prepared by the Department of Health and Human Services’ National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) is a good overview of the topic.

Not sure if you are really stressed?  Try the Questionnaire: Assess Your Stress prepared by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)