Library Launches New Service: Ask Online!
The Library would like to announce the start of a new service called Ask Online! This service is an embedded instant messaging program that will allow users to contact one of our reference librarians in real time and pose questions online about research problems or library 
services without having to visit the Library. As long as a librarian is logged on, you will be able to "chat" about your query and receive a response much more quickly than walking to the library building or waiting for an email reply. This new service will be available between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. To access Ask Online!, follow the links on our homepage: http://library.bilkent.edu.tr/. There is no need for users to register or login; your chat will be displayed simply as a "guest." If the message "Reference Librarian is offline" is shown, it means all our librarians are currently busy, so please try again a short while later. Ask Online! is available for users both on and off campus. We hope this will make the reference and other library-related assistance easier and more efficient. If you have any comments and suggestions about Ask Online!, please do not hesitate to contact the Library. Ask Online! is the latest in a number of initiatives designed to bring Bilkent University Library services in line with Web 2.0 technology. In the not too distant future, we hope to use Twitter, along with our existing Facebook account, and to generate a Library blog as well as some video and pod-casts.
Library Lunchtime Lecture
On Thursday this week, Assoc. Prof. Dominique Kassab-Tezgör (Faculty of Fine Arts) will give the third and final Library Lunchtime Lecture for this semester, entitled "Pottering Along the Black Sea: Sinope and its Ceramics Workshops." In this lecture, Dr. Kassab-Tezgör will outline the importance of the ancient Black Sea city of Sinope (now Sinop) with special reference to its ceramics manufacture. The prosperity of Sinope was largely due to its privileged location on the northern coast of Turkey. Its two harbors were the only safe haven in the Black Sea, long well-known as hazardous to navigation, and were transit points for intensive trade to such an extent that Sinope has been called both the Venice and the Hong Kong of the Black Sea. The best witnesses to its active economy are without a doubt the amphorae which indicate that Sinope was an important center of production, probably the biggest in the region, with commercial contacts not only in the Black Sea region but also extending to the Eastern Mediterranean and Italy. Dr. Kassab-Tezgör's lecture will be held in the Art Gallery of Main Campus Library, Thursday, December 16, 12:40 to 1:30 p.m. The lecture is open to all interested members of the Bilkent community. Lunchtime refreshments will be supplied.