The Library & The Patriot Act

This is just a reminder. It is the policy of the Goodwin College Library, as well as Connecticut state law, that all records of an individual’s use of the library are confidential. However, library patrons should be aware that Section 215 of the U.S.A. Patriot Act gives federal agents the ability to seek a secret search warrant to obtain access to library records. For more information see USA Patriot Act and Intellectual Freedom.

Experienced Nurse to the Rescue

A 50-year-old woman was admitted to the hospital with complaints of severe weakness and difficulty breathing. She had been quite healthy until the afternoon of the admission, with no history of serious illnesses. The doctors at the university hospital where she became a patient are known for using their brains. They also use their stethoscopes wisely, and observe closely how a patient looks. For this woman, the diagnosis remained obscure for the next hours as her breathing got more labored and she became comatose.

A tube was placed in her windpipe and she was attached to a breathing machine. Then an experienced nurse, with good sense and a good sense of smell, came to the rescue. The nurse noted that the patient had a peculiar odor, resembling garlic, most prominently from her hair. The unusual odor raised the suspicion of insecticide poisoning with organophosphates.
Find out how this saved her life by reading about this bizarre case in "Is There a Barber in the House,"
Source: The New York Times, December 19, 2006

Homeland Security Career Guide

The Homeland Security and Federal Law Enforcement Career Guide provides help students need to

• determine which elements of the emerging job market are right for them
• prepare resumes and application materials
• find a job in the federal government

All the information they need about qualifications, vacancy announcements, and testing procedures are in this book. Plus, the included CD-ROM contains all the information in the book and easy access to online resources, agencies and websites. It's in the reference section of the library and has Ron Lee's seal of approval!

Nationmaster

Have some fun playing around with NationMaster, "a cool site developed by Luke Metcalfe, an Australian and stat-geek who was frustrated at his inability to mine the data within the CIA World Factbook. NationMaster now includes data from the World Bank, various United Nations entities, OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), World Trade Organization, and so on.

Here's how it works. Head over to NationMaster.com, and select a category from the pull-down menu -- anything from Crime to Industry to Sports. Once you have chosen a category, a subject-specific subcategory menu appears, from which you pick a specific topic. For example, subcategories for Health include percentage of infants immunized against measles, number of acute care beds." From there, you're on our own. I see this working for business, homeland security, and health sciences at the very least.
Source: Mary Ellen Bates

Christmas Songs and Christmas Lyrics

You don't remember the second verse of O Come All Ye Faithful? Here's a place to find all the songs and lyrics you need for the season. So, don't hum along-sing!
http://www.alpinewreaths.com/ChristmasSongs/christmassongs.html

Charitable Giving Guide for 2006

There is still time this year to support a charity dear to your heart. Here is a list of charities that support preservation, open access, the first amendment, and other causes dear to librarians' hearts. You can even support the Internet Archive. Boing Boing!
http://www.boingboing.net/2006/12/11/charitable_gu.html
Source: Marylaine Block

Guide to Clinical Preventive Services

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) is pleased to present The Guide to Clinical Preventive Services 2006, which will give you the information you need to provide evidence-based clinical preventive services to patients.

Research has clearly demonstrated that providing high quality, evidence-based preventive care is a critical factor in helping people live healthier lives. We also know from research that the best way to ensure that preventive services are delivered appropriately is to make evidence-based information readily available at the point of care.

To that end, The Guide puts the “gold standard” of preventive care at the fingertips of health care staff to provide effective preventive service to patients every day. The 2006 Guide offers recommendations on 53 clinical preventive services made by the Task Force from 2001 to 2005.
Guide to Clinical Preventive Services, 2006: Recommendations of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force
Source: U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF)

What is the Largest cash crop in the U.S.?

Not, it is not corn, soybeans, or wheat. Marijuana is the largest cash crop in the United States, more valuable than corn and wheat combined. Using conservative price estimates domestic marijuana production has a value of $35.8 billion. The domestic marijuana crop consists of 56.4 million marijuana plants cultivated outdoors worth $31.7 billion and 11.7 million plants cultivated indoors worth $4.1 billion. The domestic marijuana crop is larger than Cotton in Alabama, larger than Grapes, Vegetables and Hay combined in California, larger than Peanuts in Georgia, and larger than Tobacco in both South Carolina and North Carolina.
Source: The Bulletin of Cannabis Reform

Act on Fact: Improve Student Success

Act On Fact: Using Data to Improve Student Success

“Research shows that the more actively engaged students are — with college faculty and staff, with other students and with the subject matter they study — the more likely they are to learn, to stick with their studies, and to attain their academic goals. Student engagement, therefore, is a valuable yardstick for assessing the quality of colleges’ educational practices and identifying ways they can produce more successful results — more students across all subgroups learning at higher levels and attaining their academic goals.”
Source: Community College Survey of Student Engagement

U.S. Military Counterinsurgency Manual

U.S. Military Counterinsurgency Manual (December 2006) (PDF; 14.3 MB)Source:

This manual takes a general approach to counterinsurgency operations. The Army and Marine Corps recognize that every insurgency is contextual and presents its own set of challenges. You cannot fight former Saddamists and Islamic extremists the same way you would have fought the Viet Cong, Moros, or Tupamaros; the application of principles and fundamentals to deal with each varies considerably. Nonetheless, all insurgencies, even today’s highly adaptable strains, remain wars amongst the people. They use variations of standard themes and adhere to elements of a recognizable revolutionary campaign plan. This manual therefore addresses the common characteristics of insurgencies. It strives to provide those conducting counterinsurgency campaigns with a solid foundation for understanding and addressing specific insurgencies.
Source: Headquaters, Department of the Army

Greater Hartford Literacy

Approximately 300,000 Greater Hartford adults, or roughly 41% of the adult population, ages 16 and above, are functioning within the lowest two of five literacy levels. This is the same as the state's average, and slightly lower than the national average of 49%. These individuals would have problems filling out a job application or following an ATM screen (National Adult Literacy Survey).

Population of adults performing at the lowest literacy level:
Hartford 41%
New Britain 26%
Bloomfield 25%
East Hartford 18%
Wethersfield 18%
Windsor 18%

Throughout the Greater Hartford region, nearly half (48%) of tenth grade students performed below the state goal on the Connecticut Academic Performance Test in reading. For example, in Hartford 91% were below state goal, in Bloomfield 70%, in New Britain 73%, and in Windsor 64%. Likewise, just under half (46%) of the state's fourth graders did not meet proficiency goals in language arts (CT Department of Education 2003/2004).
Source: Greater Hartford Literacy Council

Useful Sites

Here are some free sites to find useful and interesting information:

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics <http://www.bls.gov/bls/other.htm> lists international statistical agencies on the Web.

Kidon Media-Link <http://www.kidon.com/media-link/index.php> offers links to all forms of media worldwide: newspapers, magazines, television, radio and news agencies. You can search by country or by language.

The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) <http://www.gemconsortium.org/> measures entrepreneurial activity in a global context. Handy if you need to understand the relationship between entrepreneurial activity and national economic growth.

Asknumbers.com <http://www.asknumbers.com/> is an online conversion site. Convert weights, distance, currency, computer storage, temperature, cooking, clothing and much more.

International Students in the U.S.

in 2005-2006, the number of international students enrolled in U.S. higher education institutions remained steady at 564,766, within a fraction of a percent of the previous year's totals, according to Open Doors 2006,the annual report on international academic mobility published by the Institute of International Education. India remains the largest country of origin, with 76,503 students, followed by China with 62,582. The overall international student numbers have stabilized, following a two-year decline.
Source: Institute of International Education

Bibliography Tools in Word 2007

Good news for students! The upcoming version of Microsoft Office will include citation and bibliography tools built into the program. These features will help you create citations and bibliographies via a fill-in template. Sources can be easily shared with others via e-mail or shared lists. While not yet as sophisticated as other bibliographic management software such as EndNote or RefWorks, it will perform many of the same functions.
Source: Jennifer Michelstein, Microsoft Office blog

Could You Become an American Citizen?

On November 30, 2006, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) Director Emilio Gonzalez announced the release of 144 questions and answers for the pilot test of a new naturalization exam. USCIS will administer the pilot exam to about 5,000 volunteer citizenship applicants in 10 cities beginning in early 2007. The questions and answers are here. How many could you have answered?

Recommended Reading

Mary Henderson, academic office manager, highly recommends this book with a long title, Enough: The Phony Leaders, Dead-End Movements, and Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America--and What We Can Do About it. Enough has been added to the Goodwin Library collection.

"Inspired by Bill Cosby's now famous speech at the NAACP gala celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Brown decision integrating schools, Williams makes the case that while there is still racism, it is way past time for black Americans to open their eyes to the "culture of failure" that exists within their community. He raises the banner of proud black traditional values--self-help, strong families, and belief in God--that sustained black people through generations of oppression and flowered in the exhilarating promis of the modern civil rights movement. Williams asks what happened to keeping our eyes on the prize by proving the case for equality with black excellence and achievement. Certain to be widley discussed and vehemently debated, Enough is a bold, perceptive, solution-based look at African American life, culture, and politics today." (comments from the book cover) Juan Williams is a senior correspondent for NPR and has written other books, including Thurgood Marshall: American Revolutionary and Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965.

Tracking the Invisible Faculty

The sweeping shift toward non-tenure track academic labor has been one of the most worried-over and undocumented trends in American higher education. For instance, 50% ofYale's faculty are outside the tenure system. Drawing on data collected by the Department of Education, the AAUP has compiled the numbers of tenured, tenure-track, part-time, and full-time non-tenure track faculty members employed at 2,617 American colleges and universities. Read the report.
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education

How to Build a Student for the 21st Century

The world has changed, bu the American classroom, for the most part, hasn't. Now educators are starting to look at what must be done to make sure our kids make the grade in the new global economy.

How can U.S. schools prepare the next generation to compete in the more challening global economy of the 21st century? It will take more than No Child Left Behind, according to Time magazine's cover article this week. This is required reading!

How to Bring Our Schools Out of the 20th Century gives you access to only the beginning of the article. We have the issue in the library and the article is also available online in the InfoTrac OneFile. Anywhere on campus where you have an Internet connection you can go to InfoTrac OneFile from www.iconn.org by clicking on [Link to Individual Resources].

Google Remembers Munch's Birthday

If you visited Google today, you saw a miniature version of Edward Munch's painting, The Scream, because Munch was born on December 12, 1863. He was a Norwegian painter and printmaker whose intense, evocative treatment of psychological and emotional themes was a major influence on the development of German expressionism in the early 20th century. His painting The Cry or The Scream (1893) is regarded as an icon of existential anguish.

Career Preparation tops for College Freshmen

Students entering their first year of college consider career preparation the most crucial factor in determining the value of their postsecondary education, according to a new report from Eduventures, an education consulting firm. Of 6,200 traditional-age college freshmen surveyed, 72 percent said "professional preparation" was very important to them.

Students in the survey said they viewed programs and services that would assist them in career-development efforts as the most likely indicators of a college's commitment to professional preparation. The three most significant factors that convey that commitment to students are the opportunities a college provides for internships, the quality of its career office, and job-placement records of its graduates.
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education

Patient Safety Tip of the Week: Patient Elopment

Patient elopement is the patient’s departure without permission beyond the facility, which places the patient at risk of injury or death. Those at risk for elopement include patients with dementia, young patients with persistent mental illness, individuals with a family history of abuse, those exhibiting or having a history of violent behavior, and those who have been involuntarily hospitalized.

A comprehensive initial assessment by qualified professionals can identify problems that could lead to elopement due to an individual’s behavioral disorder, cognitive impairment, fear, poor judgment, or lack of insight. Because of these problems, the individual is at greater risk of harm if he or she leaves the facility’s protective environment.

Reassessments also give health care providers the opportunity to observe and note any changes in conditions that might increase the risk of elopement. Changes in mental status can be a predictor of dangerous behavior, such as elopement.

The VA National Center for Patient Safety uses the following questions to identify patients at risk for elopement:
Does the patient have a court-appointed legal guardian?
Is the patient considered a danger to him or herself or others?
Has the patient been legally committed?
Does the patient lack the cognitive ability to make relevant decisions?
Does the patient have a history of escape or elopement?
Does the patient have physical or mental impairment that increases his or her risk of harm to him or herself or to others?
Source: Joint Commission Resources (Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations

How Does Social Bookmarking Work?

Social bookmarking is an increasingly popular way to locate, classify, rank and share Internet resources. It derives from an idea similar to that which prompts you to utilize your browser’s Favorites or Bookmarks function: you have a resource of interest or value to you, and you want to save it for easy access in the future. However, instead of saving the resources just to your browser, in social bookmarking you save them to a centrally-hosted service that you can access at anytime, from anywhere. You can classify resources (or “tag” them) in any way you want, and your saved resources (or “bookmarks”) are added to both your personal list and an overall library, where others can access them. That’s the social part. Users then can utilize either your classifications or those created by other users. They also can access information about the resources, such as who saved them, how many people saved them, etc., to evaluate them and more easily locate further sources of information.
Source: SCSU Workshop on Social Bookmarking

2007 National Patient Safety Goals

On June 2, 2006, the Joint Commission’s Board of Commissioners approved the 2007 National Patient Safety Goals (NPSGs). As of January 1, 2007, all Joint Commission accredited health care organizations and the Disease-Specific Care certified programs will be surveyed for implementation of applicable 2007 goals and requirements—or acceptable alternatives (see below)—as appropriate to the services the organization or program provides. Compliance with applicable requirements (or an acceptable alternative) will be scored at the associated implementation expectation(s) for that requirement in the NPSGs chapter of each standards manual.

Photo of the Day

Earth Shots is a Photo of the Day contest celebrating the beauty and diversity of our planet. Everyday they feature the best photograph submitted by visitors to the site. Earth Shots is looking for photographs that exhibit the beauty and diversity of our planet. Any subject matter goes. The most important requirement is that the image is interesting and striking. Take a look at this week's winners.

Recent Research and the Male Brain

Men are not from Mars nor women from Venus, but it is obvious their brains work somewhat differently, not only in how they think but also in how the male or female brain is affected in such conditions as mental illness, addiction, and degenerative neurological diseases.
While scientists do not know the reasons for many of these, recent research has revealed genetic, anatomical, and functional differences in the brain that could have implications for better diagnosis and treatment of a variety of conditions. [Full Text of this Article]
Source: Journal of the American Medical Association

New York Times: 10 Best Books for 2006

The New York Times has released their list of 10 best books for 2006. All comments are from the NYT article:

• Abursdistan by Gary Shetyngart--exuberant second novel that is smart, funny, and extraordinarily moving
• Collected Stories of Amy Hempel--urbane, pointillistic and wickedly funny short stories
• Emperor's Children by Claire Messud--unsparing and sympathetic novel set amid the cultural Manhattan in 2001
• Lay of the Land by Richard Ford--the third installment in the serial epic of Frank Bascombe set in Florida 2000 (The Sportswriter and Independence Day were the first two in the series.)
• Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl--buoyantly literate first novel, a murder mystery narrated by a precocious teenager
• Falling Through the Earth: A Memoir by Danielle Trussoni--searing memoir of the author's girlhood in Wisconsin with her war-damaged father
• Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright--fullest account yet of the events that led to the fateful day
• Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community and War by Nathaniel Philbrick--absorbing history of the Plymouth Colony
• Ominivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan--traces the origins of four measl from a fast food dinner to a hunter-gatherer feast--uncommonly good American food writing
• Places in Between by Rory Stewart--splendid travel journal of the author's walk across Afghanistan in January 2002

Best of 2006: Black Issues Book Review

The November/December issue of Black Issues Book Review lists the books, authors, and trends that they think are the best, the first, the biggest, the most unusual or the most significant among those we have seen in 2006. The issue is available in the library.

Among the most talked about, written about and honored authors of the year were the British writers Zadie Smith , author of On Beauty, and Uzodinma Iweala, author of Beasts of No Nation. Both are available in the library.

Connecticut the 5th Healthiest State

Minnesota was deemed the healthiest U.S. state for the fourth year in a row, while Louisiana slumped into last place as the least healthy in annual state-by-state rankings released by on Tuesday. Vermont placed second as it did in 2005 with New Hampshire, Hawaii and Connecticut rounding out the five healthiest states in the report by the United Health Foundation, a nonprofit group formed by health care company UnitedHealth Group.

The report weighed a series of factors in determining rankings, such as prevalence of obesity, smoking, infectious disease, cardiovascular deaths, infant mortality, child poverty, immunization rates, workplace deaths and auto deaths. Southern states performed particularly poorly while those in New England and some in the Upper Midwest fared well.

The United States as a whole experienced a slight rise in health over last year, the report stated, but lags behind many other nations in key measures such as infant mortality. "Since 1990, America is a healthier place. The bad news: since the year 2000, we've made very little progress. The health of the nation has become stagnant," Tuckson said. Tuckson cited a dramatic increase in obesity, a rising number of Americans - 46.6 million in a country of 300 million - without health insurance, and smoking by 21 percent of U.S. adults, lower than many countries but still problematic. The American Public Health Association and Partnership for Prevention also contributed to the report, posted on the Web at http://www.unitedhealthfoundation.org/ahr2006.html .

Autism Effects and Treatment

Two studies shed light on the possible effects of autism on the brain and point to potential treatments, researchers said on Monday. One reports that oxytocin, which studies have found is important in human bonding, may help reduce debilitating symptoms in autistic adults. And a second found that fear-detecting areas of the brain are shrunken in people with autism.

The term autism describes a range of symptoms that can include very severe mental and behavioral effects, an inability to interact socially, and milder symptoms such as those seen in Asperger's syndrome. Severely autistic patients may bang their heads, repeat words or movements, or become obsessed with certain actions.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a survey in May indicating that up to 1 in every 175 children born in the United States develops an autism spectrum disorder of some kind. The cause is unknown and treatments are limited.
Source: Reuters Health Information, December 5

Guide to Clinical Preventive Services

The Guide to Clinical Preventive Services (released earlier this year) is a compilation of abridged U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommendations released from 2001 through 2005 and can be used as an evidence-based tool at the point of patient care.

Features include:
Recommendations for Adults
Cancer
Heart and Vascular Diseases
Infectious Diseases
Injury and Violence
Mental Health Conditions and Substance Abuse
Metabolic, Nutritional, and Endocrine Conditions
Musculoskeletal Conditions
Obstetric and Gynecologic Conditions
Vision Disorders
Recommendations for Children"
Source: Guide to Clinical Preventive Services 2006

Remembering Robert Altman

While MASH was not Robert Altman's first film, it catapulted him into the pantheon of major figures in American cinema. Five years later, Altman solidified his reputation with Nashville, a crowded spectacle of a film that featured a cast of memorable characters and improvised, overlapping dialogue — a hallmark of Altman's filmmaking style. Last month Altman died of complications from cancer at the age of 81. For a list of his films, go to imdb.com.

Colleges: Rethink Electronic Records!

New federal rules that took effect on Friday allow evidence stored in PDA's, printers, home computers, and even cellphones to be used routinely in lawsuits involving individuals and organizations, including colleges. And experts say the rules could prompt changes not only in how college lawyers approach cases but also in how long colleges store electronic information.
The new rules require that parties involved in litigation in federal courts make available to their opponents a wide array of electronically stored information, lawyers familiar with the rules said last week.

Tuition Tax Credits

Members of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee showed strong interest during a hearing on Tuesday in a witness's proposal to combine tuition tax credits, an expired income-tax deduction, and the Pell Grant into a refundable "super credit" that would simplify higher-education tax incentives and assist students from middle- and lower-income families
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education

Holiday Booklists are here!

Connecticut Library Consortium's annual booklist project, "Best Books for Children & Teens: Lists for Holiday Gift Giving" is ready and waiting for you. Enjoy!
Babies & Toddlers (ages 0-3) (PDF, 496 KB)
Young Readers & Listeners (ages 3-8) (PDF, 904 KB)
Middle Readers (ages 8-12) (PDF, 416 KB)
Teens (ages 12+) (PDF, 460 KB)

High School Reform

High school reform has moved to the top of the education policy agenda, commanding the attention of the federal government, governors, urban school superintendents, philanthropists, and the general public. All are alarmed by stubbornly high dropout rates and by the low academic achievement of many high school students. These problems disproportionately affect disadvantaged young people, especially those who are African-American and Hispanic and who attend urban schools and certain rural schools in the South and Southwest.

This is the first in a series of reports for policymakers, practitioners, and others who must make hard choices about how to change high schools. It discusses three comprehensive initiatives evaluated by MDRC — Career Academies, First Things First, and Talent Development — that have grappled with the challenges of improving low-performing urban and rural schools. Together, these three interventions are being implemented in more than 2,500 high schools across the country, and various components of these models are being used in thousands more schools.
+ Executive Summary+ Full Report (PDF; 1.65 MB)
Source: MDRC

Welcome to NationMaster

This is a dream site for statistical information. Welcome to NationMaster, a massive central data source and a handy way to graphically compare nations. NationMaster is a vast compilation of data from such sources as the CIA World Factbook, UN, and OECD. You can generate maps and graphs on all kinds of statistics with ease. NationMaster wants to be the web's one-stop resource for country statistics on everything from soldiers to wall plug voltages. You can also view profiles of individual countries including their maps and flags, use correlation reports and scatterplots to find relationships between variables, and refer to fully integrated encyclopedia with over one million articles.

But, wait--there's more! NationMaster also recently rolled out StateMaster.com, a sister site that offers similar data mining on US state statistics, using sources such as the US Census Bureau, FBI, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and a variety of non-profit organizations such as the March of Dimes.
Source: Mary Ellen Bates

homeland Security Career Guide

The library has ordered Homeland Security and Federal Law Enforcement Career Guide with CD-Rom. This guide provides a comprehensive introduction to the hiring process, career profiles, a complete directory of agencies to contact, and other useful tips and material for acquiring a position with Homeland Seucrity or federal law enforcement. The CD affords quick and easy access to this information, along with direct links to the agency websites. Delivery is expected next week.

New Markets Data Center

On January 2, the Wall Street Journal will launch a state-of-the-art online Markets Data Center, combining news, data and tools from across Dow Jones. Beyond contributions from the Journal’s markets-data group, this new Web site and associated services such as email roundups and alerts will include coverage from Dow Jones Newswires, authoritative data from Dow Jones Indexes, investment tools from the MarketWatch unit and personal-finance tips from the SmartMoney joint venture.

The Markets Data Center will be available free on the Web.
Source: WSJ.com

Robert Gates Bibliography

New, Robert M. Gates, Secretary of Defense Nominee: A Bibliography
On November 8, 2006, President George W. Bush nominated Mr. Gates to be Secretary of Defense. Confirmation hearings for that position begin today.

Mr. Gates previously served as director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The Senate held two confirmation proceedings for that position. The Georgetown Law Library has created this bibliography of documents authored by and related to Mr. Gates.
Source: Georgetown University Law Center Library

“

Agroterrorism: Why We are not Ready

An agroterrorism attack could dramatically impact many aspects of American life, including law enforcement, which—especially in rural areas—is financially and strategically unprepared to respond. This Research for Policy looks at the impact the introduction of foot-and-mouth disease would have on the United States, including the slaughter of millions of animals and an impact of up to $60 billion tax dollars. The publication outlines why law enforcement is not currently ready for such a terrorist attack and gives procedures for preparing for and responding to agroterrorism.
Source: National Institute of Justice
Summary Full Text (8 pages; PDF)

Leave No Child Behind and James Comer

James P. Comer, a professor of child psychiatry at Yale University, is the winner of the 2007 Grawemeyer Award for Education, the University of Louisville announced this morning. The award carries a $200,000 cash prize.

Dr. Comer is being recognized for his efforts to promote a focus on child development as a method of improving education. In books such as Leave No Child Behind: Preparing Today's Youth for Tomorrow's World, he argues that the best way to guarantee a student's well-being is to involve everyone with a stake in a school a role in the educational process.

Jack Matthews recommends "Setting the Table"

In Danny Meyer's book, Setting the Table, he distinguishes between customer service and hospitality. Meyer writes, " Hospitality exists when you believe the other person is on your side. The converse is just as true. Hospitality is present when something happens for you. It is absent when something happens to you. Those two simple prepositions –for and to express it all." The book is available in the Goodwin Library.

Mirror Neurons: Monkey See, Monkey Do

Yesterday three scientists at the University of Parma, Italy, received the 2006 Grawemeyer Award for discovering the "mirror neuron" system of brain cells in monkeys. Mirror neurons have been referred to by scientists as one of the most important neuroscientific breakthroughs of recent history.

There is now strong evidence to suggest that humans have the same type of "mirror neurons" found in monkeys. It's what these neurons do that's amazing--they activate in the same way when you're watching someone else do something as they do when you're doing it yourself! This mirroring process/capability is thought to be behind our ability to empathize, but you can imagine the role these neurons have played in keeping us alive as a species. We learn from watching others. We learn from imitating (mirroring) others. The potential problem, though, is that these neurons go happily about their business of imitating others without our conscious intention. Hmmm. Although the neuroscientific findings are new, your parents didn't need to know the cause to recognize the effects:
"Choose your role models carefully."
"You're hanging out with the wrong crowd; they're a bad influence."

HubMed for Health Science Research

Many students have problems finding literature resources for their needs and then of trying to maintain current awareness around those resources. One solution, and one only among many, might be HubMed. HubMed is found at http://www.hubmed.org/ and is a parallel search engine to PubMed, or as some people have said “HubMed is like PubMed on steroids.” Any search strategies you use in PubMed may be used in HubMed and once you have the core skills for efficient searching of PubMed, HubMed offers many options that are not found in the original PubMed. The library offers workshops on core skills in searching. Another possibility would be using SUMSearch. (See information in following entry.)

What does SUMSearch do?

SUMSearch is a unique method of searching for medical evidence by using the Internet. SUMSearch combines meta-searching and contingency searching in order to automate searching for medical evidence. Meta-searching, which is used by from general Internet search engines such as from Go2Net, Dogpile, and SavvySearch, means simultaneously searching multiple Internet sites and collating the results into one page. In addition, SUMSearch adds the idea of contingency searching. If SUMSearch finds too many ‘hits’ from an Internet site, SUMSearch will execute more restrictive, contingency searches. For example, if a search finds 1000 articles at PubMed, SUMSearch may do up to four additional searches until an optimal number is received.
http://sumsearch.uthscsa.edu/

Climate Change

Europe is leading the way in the fight against climate change, according to the 2007 Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI). The Index ranked 56 countries (together making up over 90% of global carbon dioxide emissions) based on their domestic and international efforts to combat climate change. Sweden is ranked number one and is joined by six other European countries, including the United Kingdom and Germany, in the top 10. The world’s two largest emitters of greenhouse gases, the United States and China, are ranked 53 and 54, respectively.

Love Your Library This Weekend

Goodwin library supports The Connecticut Library Association, Connecticut Library Consortium, and the Connecticut State Library in partnership with Barnes & Noble Booksellers to Love Your Library this holiday season in a special fundraiser that will support a statewide online information service called InfoAnytime.

With InfoAnytime, the Goodwin community can access the help of a librarian online 24x7. As with most innovative new services, funding is a key to ensuring its success. That's why this year's Love Your Library proceeds will go to InfoAnytime, for libraries and their patrons throughout the state to enjoy.

What can you do to help? Shop at a participating Barnes & Noble with your Love Your Library voucher (available at Goodwin LIbrary or online) on Love Your Library days. Get your voucher now - print it out & use it at a Barnes & Noble Friday, December 1st through Sunday, December 3rd.

Last year's pilot event raised over $7,000, which helped to underwrite the Historical Hartford Courant database now freely available this year to all Connecticut libraries and their patrons via iCONN, the CT Digital Library.

This year's proceeds will go toward InfoAnytime - the statewide virtual reference project coordinated by CLC.
Thank you for your support! -The Love Your Library Team

JAMA Auditory Commentary

For just a few minutes of listening time while you are multi-tasking, you can keep up with what’s happening in the American medical scene. Catherine DeAngelis, editor of The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) summarizes and comments on the week’s issue. You can listen to this audio commentary in one of 4 ways:
1. Subscribe to the podcast using iTunes.
2. Subscribe to the podcast using another podcast software client.
3. Use the JAMA Audio Commentary interface.
4. Download the MP3 file.
By the way, it's free!

Historic Building Database

"Curious about an unused college literary-society hall or a restored Old Main? Interested in comparing campus plans or approaches to arboretums? A searchable database of historic buildings, master plans, and landscape features on nearly 370 college campuses is now available online, thanks to the Council of Independent Colleges and the J. Paul Getty Trust. "--Introduction
Historic-Buildings Database Goes Live Online
Source: Wired Campus

Women in the Labor Force

Every semester students are looking for statistical information on women in the labor force. Here is an online databook from the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Statistics.
This report presents historical and current labor force and earnings data for women and men from the Current Population Survey (CPS). The CPS is a national monthly survey of approximately 60,000 households conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau for the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Statistics: Women in the Labor Force: A Databook (2006 Edition)
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

Homeland Security Privacy Report

Privacy: U.S. Department of Homeland Security Annual Privacy Report to Congress (via EPIC)38 pages; PDF. July 2004 – July 2006.

The Department of Homeland Security finally released the Privacy Office Annual Report to Congress. The Department is required by law to provide the report each year “on activities of the Department that affect privacy, including complaints of privacy violations, implementation of the Privacy Act of 1974, internal controls, and other matters,” but the report was more than a year overdue.
Source: DHS via EPIC

EPA Is Disposing of Its Library Collection

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is frantically dispersing its library collections to preempt Congressional intervention, according to internal emails released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). Contrary to promises by EPA Deputy Administrator Marcus Peacock that all of the former library materials will be made available electronically, vast troves of unique technical reports and analyses will remain indefinitely inaccessible.

Meanwhile, many materials formerly held by the Office of Prevention, Pollution and Toxic Substances (OPPTS) Library, in EPA’s Washington D.C. Headquarters, were directed to be thrown into trash bins, according to reports received by PEER. This month, EPA closed the OPPTS Library, its only specialized library for research on health effects and properties of toxic chemicals and pesticides, without notice to either the public or affected scientists.
Source: Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility

Statistical Abstract of the of the United States 2006

The Statistical Abstract of the United States 2006 is now available in the Goodwin Library. Published since 1878, this incomparable reference book is the standard summary of statistics on the social, political, and economic organization of the United States. The Abstract guides you to the agency producing the statistics; then you can go to that agency for more details. What is in it?

• more than 1,300 tables and graphs
• expanded guide to other statistical sources in print and online
• listing of metropolitan and micropolitan areas & population numbers
• historical tables highlighting unique data from previous editions

The State and Metropolitan Area Data Book is the local area supplement to The Statistical Abstract. The 2006 volume is available online: http://www.census.gov/prod/2006pubs/smadb/smadb-06.pdf

College Board Studies Federal Financial Aid

In September a commission appointed by Margaret Spellings, the education secretary, called for restructuring the federal student-aid programs but provided few details of how to achieve that aim. Now the College Board has assembled a group of higher-education researchers and student-aid experts who may be able to point the way.

The Rethinking Student Aid Study Group has begun meeting in recent weeks to examine whether the government's financial-aid programs are fulfilling the goals that were set for the programs when they were created and to look for ways to improve them.

The study group has commissioned a series of papers that will examine the effectiveness of the student-aid programs. Some of the papers will focus on grants, loans, and tuition tax breaks, while others will look at broader issues, such as the role that the aid programs play in promoting college preparation and persistence, and in helping nontraditional students.
Source: The Chronicle of Higher Education

Health United States 2006

Health United States 2006, an annual report on trends in health statistics, was released last week with a special feature on pain. The report consists of two main sections: A chartbook containing text and figures that illustrates major trends in the health of Americans; and a trend tables section that contains 147 detailed data tables. The two main components are supplemented by an executive summary, a highlights section, an extensive appendix and reference section, and an index. This is a Web-only release at this time. Printed books will be available in 6 to 8 weeks.
Source: National Center for Health Statistics

Science Teachers and Students Alert

Science Animations. Movies & Interactive Tutorial Links--Oh My! Some of them work and some don't, but there's lots to choose from. Many are from university science sites and are freely available for use in instructor presentations.

Besides a general collection, this link includes information on: biology, microbiology, anatomy and physiology I & II, plants, ecology, animals, geology, astronomy, physics, medmotion (mainly fetal and newborn information, and more. Fantastic!

http://science.nhmccd.edu/biol/animatio.htm

Books on Reserve for Pease's English Class

The class is researching U.S. immigration issues. On reserve currently for this class:

Immigrant America by Portes and Rumbaut
--A thoroughly updated and revised edition of a classic in the immigration field.
Unguarded Gates: A History of America's Immigration Crisis by Otis L. Graham, Jr.
--reflections on the consequences of large-scale immigrationin the United States.
Who Are We: The Challenges to America's National Identity by Samuel P. Huntington
--Hungtinon's thoughts on reasserting the core values that he considers make us Americans.
(Huntington is well known for his controversial book, The Clash of Civilizations and the
Remaking of World Order.)

National Book Awards: "Oscars" of the Book World

The National Book Awards winners were announced last night in Manhattan. Fran Lebowitz, writer and humorist, was the evening's host. Winners each receive a bronze sculpture and $10,000, although the award's greatest benefit is often in increased sales, especially when little-known authors are suddenly thrust into the spotlight.

Fiction: The Echo Maker by Richard Powers
Powers tells the story of a youg man who develops a rare brain disorder after an automobilie
accident.

Nonfiction: The Worst Hard Times: The Untold Story of Those Who Surved the Great American Dust bowl by Timothy Egan
Egan gives an account of the dust storms that descended on the Great Plains during the
Depression.

Young People's Literature: The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume One: "The Pox Party" by M. T. anderson

Poetry: Splay Anthem by Nathaniel Mackey

In case you have forgotten, last year's fiction winner was Europe Central by William T. Vollmann. Joan Didion won the nonfiction prize for her memoir, The Year of Magical Thinking.

November is American Diabetes Month

Every November, the American Diabetes Association encourages us to learn more about diabetes and the risks associated with the disease.

Diabetes is a serious disease that affects the body's ability to produce or respond properly to insulin, a hormone that allows blood glucose (sugar) to enter the cells of the body and be used for energy. Nearly 21 million children and adults in the U.S. have diabetes. It is the fifth deadliest disease in the U.S. and it has no cure.

Here are some ways you can become involved in this year's American Diabetes Month. The National Women's Health Information Center has also put together some November recipes for diabetics.

Africana: New Reference Books

Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience edited Kwame A. Appiah & Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
REF DT14.A37435 2005 (5 Volumes)

Thoroughly revised and massively expanded, this monumental work merits a place in any college collection. Alphabetically arranged but backed up by both a detailed index and a topical list of headers in the final volume, the nearly 4500 entries delve into both African and African-American history, from wide-angled studies of "Slavery in Africa" and "Blackness in Latin America and the Caribbean: An Interpretation," to close-focus mentions of Malcom X's "Aardvark" references and major "Zydeco" musicians. Most articles are signed and close with "see-also" references. Illustrations are uncommon but well chosen, a blend of clearly designed maps, charts. and graphs, and sharply reproduced prints or color photos. Students seeking information about African music, insight into the failure of school desegregation in the U.S. or the significance of Curt Flood's challenge to baseball's reserve clause, background on the history of colonialism, or hundreds of other historical topics will find both facts and ideas in plenty here. I don't know how we managed to get along without it.

Get Ready to LOVE YOUR LIBRARY

It's that time of year again - the Love Your Library holiday bookfair with Barnes & Noble is coming up! This year's event will take place Friday, December 1st through Sunday, December 3rd at all Barnes & Noble stores in Connecticut, plus select MA and RI stores.

Barnes & Noble will donate to Connecticut's libraries: 10-20% of the proceeds of all purchases made on Friday 12/1, Saturday 12/2 or Sunday 12/3 that are accompanied by a LoveYourLibrary voucher (PDF). Vouchers are also available in the Goodwin Library.
All purchases must be accompanied by a LoveYourLibrary voucher
Voucher may only be used with in-store purchases.

Last year's pilot event raised over $7,000, which helped to underwrite the Historical Hartford Courant database now freely available on iCONN to the Goodwin community.
This year's proceeds will go toward InfoAnytime - the statewide virtual reference project coordinated by the Connecticut Library Consortium.

Health Statistics-Early Release

This release, the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) updates estimates for 15 selected health measures based on data from the January–March 2006 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) and presents estimates from 1997 through 2005 for comparison. The 15 measures included are lack of health insurance coverage and type of coverage, usual place to go for medical care, obtaining needed medical care, receipt of influenza vaccination, receipt of pneumococcal vaccination, obesity, leisure-time physical activity, current smoking, alcohol consumption, human immunodeficiency virus testing, general health status, personal care needs, serious psychological distress, diagnosed diabetes, and asthma episodes and current asthma.
Source: Naional Center for Health Statistics (CDC)
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/about/major/nhis/released200609.htm

DNA Testing: Homeland Security Students

DNA Testing: an Introduction for Non-Scientists
With our criminal justice system relying more and more on science most of us don't understand, this attempt to explain in layman's language and diagrams how DNA testing works should be useful (though even this may be a hard slog for people without science backgrounds).
Source: Scientific Testimony: an Online Journal
http://www.scientific.org/tutorials/articles/riley/riley.html

Is Islam Compatible with Western Values?

With more than 1 billion adherents, Islam is the world's second-largest religion after Christianity. Within its mainstream traditions, Islam teaches piety, virtue and tolerance. Ever since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States, however, many Americans have associated Islam with the fundamentalist groups that preach violence against the West and regard “moderate” Muslims as heretics. Mainstream Muslims and religious scholars say Islam is wrongly blamed for the violence and intolerance of a few. But some critics say Muslims have not done enough to oppose terrorism and violence. They also contend that Islam's emphasis on a strong relationship between religion and the state is at odds with Western views of secularism and pluralism. Some Muslims are calling for a more progressive form of Islam. But radical Islamist views are attracting a growing number of young Muslims in the Islamic world and in Europe. The entire report is available online for the Goodwin community.l
Source: CQ Researcher

Grants: Eligibility Rules at Issue

The U.S. Education Department has dismissed concerns among college leaders about the burden of administering two new federal grant programs for academically talented low-income students. (From the issue dated November 10, 2006)

In final rules that the U.S. Education Department issued last week for two new federal grant programs for academically talented low-income students, agency officials largely dismissed concerns that college leaders and lobbyists have expressed about the burden of carrying out the requirements. At issue is the role colleges must play in determining who is eligible to receive grants through the programs, which Congress created last year. The grants are available to students eligible for Pell Grants and, for the first time, introduce criteria not based solely on need into federal-aid programs for undergraduates from low-income families.

More American IT Jobs Than Ever

Now hear this! If the declining enrollments in college computer-science programs are any indication, students are not especially confident in the IT job market. But they need not fret, according to Moshe Y. Vardi, a professor of computational engineering in Rice University's Computer and Information Technology Institute.

Speaking last week at Stanford University, Mr. Vardi said there were more high-tech jobs in the country today than there were six years ago, during the halcyon days of the dot-com boom. "IT is still a good career," he told members of the Stanford Computer Forum, an industrial-affiliates program run by the university. "We have nothing to fear but the fear of competition itself."
Mr. Vardi's statistics came from a study commissioned by the Association for Computing Machinery that he completed this year. The report acknowledges that "offshoring" has had an impact on the IT industry, but it argues that the migration of high-tech jobs has done little to hurt the quantity or quality of openings in the United States.
Source: Chronicle of Hgher Education


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Democratic House and Higher Education

"Democrats picked up more than the 15 seats they needed to gain control of the U.S. House of Representatives in Tuesday's midterm elections, and for the first time since 1994 will steer the chamber's legislative agenda, with plans to push forward on a full range of campaign promises, including several higher-education issues: making college more affordable, training more scientists and engineers, and expanding federal financing of stem-cell research.

The prospects for several other higher-education issues before Congress will also change with Democratic control of the chamber."
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education
http://chronicle.com/free/2006/11/2006110801n.htm

Does "Value Added" Add Value?

Critics of higher education say colleges and universities need assessments to measure student progress. However, some academic administrators say there is much more assessment going on right now than policymakers realize, and making assessment matter is more difficult than policymakers think.
Inside Higher Ed., November 3, 2006
http://lists.ncte.org/t/704523/1293328/5668/0/

Writing Essays in Math Class

Schools emphasize writing, Even in math class . (NPR, November 1, 2006) (audio player required) More and more high schools are emphasizing the need for students to be good writers. In an Indianapolis high school, math teachers are requiring students to write an essay as part of the math curriculum. Hear the report as it aired on NPR's November 1 broadcast of Morning Edition at
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6415434&sc=emaf

As scrutiny of higher education intensifies, colleges and universities of all sizes are working overtime to better understand their successes and failures. The scrutiny is coming from many quarters and community colleges in particular are feeling the pressure: They now educate about 45 percent of undergraduates nationwide, and are being asked to bolster their local economies while equipping a growing number of academically at-risk students with the tools to succeed in the global economy.

In response, numerous two-year colleges have rolled out new student-support services and community-outreach efforts in recent years. Steps that five colleges have taken to produce better results for their students and their communities are outlined in this report. One of the colleges is Housatonic Community College in Bridgeport.
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education

IT Security and Legal Liability: Chronicle Chat

Not a week goes by, it seems, without a reported security breach on some college's computer network. The problem is growing, and so are the potential legal liabilities awaiting colleges that don't take appropriate steps to avoid such troubles -- or that flounder in trying to address them. Tracy Mitrano of Cornell University answered questions about threats to IT security and about colleges' legal liability as they protect their systems from hackers and other data breaches. If you missed the live discussion October 26, a transcript is available at the Chronicle of Higher Education online.
www.chronicle.com

Body Worlds 2 Exhibit: Doing the Research

A Goodwin College field trip will go Friday to the the internationally renowned exhibition, BODY WORLDS 2: The Anatomical Exhibition of Real Human Bodies, created by Dr. Gunther von Hagens. The exhibition at the Boston Museum of Science explores human and comparative anatomy, health science, anatomy, and physiology through the study of real human bodies that have been preserved using the ground-breaking process called Plastination — providing people with the unprecedented opportunity to discover the wonders of the human body. More information about the history of plastination can be found at the museum site and on the InfoTrac OneFile database available through the library on and off campus.
www.mos.org
www.iconn.org

Contemporary Youth Culture

The library has just purchased the two volume encyclopedia, Contemporary Youth Culture. This encyclopedia describes the current image of youth, as created by youths themselves, society, the media, and technology, which has brought the youth of the world together through the Internet. In the past, adolescents developed identity and status; now, in addition, they have tremendous buying power. Worldwide communication has produced an international youth culture that affects economics, politics, music, film, and nearly everything else. Containing information on subjects from homelessness, sexuality, and race to the new body image, hip-hop culture, and video games, this encyclopedia offers powerful insights into today's youth culture and the forces behind it. An introductory essay provides historical background for both adolescents and older generations, and a time line illustrating the development of international youth culture enhances the text. Poetry and lyrics by young writers, and entries on what young people think about a variety of issues, add to this fascinating work. Scholars, teachers, parents, and young people will find this authoritative source useful for research and for starting discussions on a variety of topics--highly recommended.

Elephants recognize their image

The Republicans are on to something. Elephants can recognize themselves in a mirror, joining only humans, apes and dolphins as animals that possess this kind of self-awareness, researchers now report.

Happy, a 34-year-old Asian elephant at the Bronx Zoo, faced her reflection in an 8-by-8-foot mirror in a 2005 experiment and repeatedly used her trunk to touch an "X" painted above her eye. She could not have seen the mark except in her reflection. And she did not respond to a similar mark above her other eye that was invisible except under a black light.

"This would seem to be a trait common to and independently evolved by animals with large, complex brains, complex social lives and known capacities for empathy and altruism, even though the animals all have very different kinds of brains," researcher Diana Reiss, a senior cognitive research scientist at the Wildlife Conservation Society. Could this include compassionate conservatism?

Hopefully, she added, this will encourage people to protect elephants. No similar research has been reported on donkeys.
Source: Livescience.com

Institute for Healthcare Improvement

This organization's aim is "to engage US hospitals in a commitment to implement changes in care proven to improve patient care and prevent avoidable deaths." The site offers case studies (called Profiles in Improvement) and How-To guides and tools on a variety of topics (preventing adverse drug events, preventing surgical infection, improving care for myocardial infarction, etc.)
http://www.ihi.org/ihi
Source: Marylaine Block

Librarything.com

Did I ever tell you about LibraryThing? It is what I am using at home to organize my book collection. At its most basic, it enables users to build their own web-based catalog, using information from Amazon.com, the Library of Congress and over 40 other major libraries.
It's fairly easy to add titles to your online collection; note that you can make your collection private or public. You can add your own tags, edit any of the fields, and even note what date you purchased the book, when you started reading it and when you finished. You can import your Wish List from Amazon.com. Your catalog can be sorted by author, title, tag, publication date or even by how many other LibraryThing users also own the book. LibraryThing has tools to generate what must be the geekiest stats you can imagine from a catalog.

I know, I know. You think this a site only a librarian could love. But it is still wicked cool!
Source: http://www.librarything.com

Happy 35th Birthday, MEDLINE

MEDLINE went live for the first time on October 27, 1971.
In 1971, MEDLINE featured 239 indexed journals. In 2006, that number has grown to 4,928. In 1971, MEDLINE served 25 users. In 2006, MEDLINE/PubMed will average 77 million unique visits and about 800 million searches. View a PDF version (2 pages) of the complete article, “NLM to Introduce MEDLINE Service,” from the September-October 1971 NLM NEWS at http://www.nlm.nih.gov/news/medline_news_article.pdf.

(MEDLINE is an international literature database of life sciences and biomedical information. It covers the fields of medicine, nursing, and other health related disciplines. MEDLINE is freely available on the Internet and searchable via PubMed.)
Source: MEDLINE News

Election 2006

Election Day is fast approaching. Here are some useful annotated links to resources, both for informed voting in the November 7 election, and for elections in general. Includes candidate and issue info, electoral maps and calculators, weblogs, and historical election information.
http://www.ipl.org/div/election/
Source: Internet Public Library

Halloween is coming: Recipes and More

http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/et_hd_halloween/
Recipes for snacks like Yummy Mummy, and Spider's Nest Dip, and punches like Green Ghoulade (with or without Wormy Ice Cubes), and pumpkin recipes galore.

Don't forget pumpkin carving and activities for kids and kid wannabees. See also Pumpkin Carving 101 <http://www.pumpkincarving101.com/> for more about the history and art of Halloween carving.

What Do You Want to Do: Free Resource

E-how
Providing “clear instructions on how to do (just about) anything,” the E-how web site boasts of receiving “over four million visitors each month.” Its popularity is not difficult to understand. The web site’s instructions are easy to understand and follow. E-how covers a very wide variety of subjects ranging from how to play the kazoo, kiss on a date, create a tile mosaic, to how to fix your car. E-how’s users are encouraged to submit their suggestions on how to do anything via its wiki site (http://wiki.ehow.com). The site is funded in part by advertisements via Google which are related to the subject being researched. E-how is recommended for anyone who has felt that with just a little knowledge and a little courage “I could do that myself.”
http://www.ehow.com

Carbon Neutral College

"In a move we hope will inspire other institutions to follow suit, College of the Atlantic (COA) has pledged to become the first college in the U.S. to go carbon neutral. Coming at the request of incoming President David F. Hales, the college vows to avoid, reduce or offset all contributions to global warming that are associated with any of the college's activities, including travel by students to and from campus. Located in Bar Harbor, Maine, COA has about 300 students drawn from 47 states and 51 countries who all study in the one program offered by the school: Human Ecology. Since its inception in 1969 to offer a new educational philosophy to prepare students to address the world's social and environmental challenges, the institution has been walking the walk: in 1972, students were instrumental in getting Maine to pass its groundbreaking bottle recycling bill; in 2004, it become the first institution of higher learning to sign a multiple-year contract to offset 100% of the emissions generated from its electricity use in 2004 and in 2005, the college had the first zero-waste graduation; commencement and a reception for 800 people netted no more than five pounds of waste."
Source: Treehugger, a web-based magazine

New Books in the Library: Keeping up with Science

Gravity's Arc
How did one of the greatest geniuses who ever lived retard the study of gravity for 2,000 years? How did a gluttonous tyrant with a gold nose revolutionize our view of the solar system? How could an eccentric professor shake the foundations of an entire belief system by dropping two objects from a tower?And how could a simple patent clerk change our entire view of the universe by imagining himself riding on a beam of light?

In Gravity's Arc by David Darling, you'll discover how some of the most colorful, eccentric, and brilliant people in history first locked, then unlocked the door to understanding one of nature's most essential forces.

Trouble with Physics: The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a Science & What Comes Next
The confrontation between string theory and its critics is one of the great intellectual dramas of our age. With this book, the physicist Lee Smolin, finally raises the curtains for all to see. While Smolin is a devastating critic, he is also optimistic and constructive. He exudes a love of science and imagination, and a faith in the next generation of young physicists.

The God Effect: Quantum Entanglement, Science's Strangest Phenomenon
If you thought science was a predictable, commonsense business--maybe even a little dull--you haven't encountered quantum entanglement. A physical phenomenon so strange and all pervasive that the author Brian Clegg calls it the "God Effect."

CQ Researcher: Caring for the Elderly

Who will pay for care of aging baby boomers?

Nearly 70 percent of those turning 65 this year will need long-term care (LTC) in their lifetimes; 20 percent will need it for five years or longer. But — unlike most other industrialized nations — the United States has no public or private insurance infrastructure to pay for LTC. Those needing years of care will have to impoverish themselves before Medicaid will pay for it. But state officials say Medicaid — intended as a health-care safety net for poor children — could be bankrupted by rising LTC costs as the baby-boom generation ages, and the number of people over age 85 soars from around 5 million to 21 million by 2050. Meanwhile, understaffing, low pay and poor working conditions at nursing homes put residents at risk of life-threatening malnutrition and bed sores. As an alternative, states and nonprofits are offering more home- and community-delivered care, but LTC experts say the alternatives may not be any safer.

Last week's CQ Researcher report addresses this problem--highly recommended readng for health science students and faculty (and other interested parties). The report includes summary, issues, background, chronology, current situation, outlook, and bibliography. Contact the library for user name and password for accessing CQ Researcher.

Confused About HIPAA?

Several health science students have been asking the library staff what the HIPAA law really says. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (PL 104-191), known affectionately as HIPAA, has confused and unnecessarily alarmed many conscientious health careproviders. Nurses in particular are likely to be on the front line of family caregivers' inquiries, because physicians are often difficult to reach and because family caregivers look to nurse as sources of reliable information. A major retraining of health care providers at all levels is needed to dampen the "HIPAA scare" and clarify what HIPAA does and does not say about communication with family caregivers. Carol Levine published an article in the August Journal of Nursing on "HIPAA and Talking with Family Caregivers." This is a good place to start. The article also has a list of references, most of which are available in the Goodwin Library.
Source: American Journal of Nursing August 2006

Guide to Public Opinion Poll Web Sites

With the midterm election only a few weeks away, polls and polling are in the news. Here is comprehensive source on polling data in the United States and around the world. According to the authors Thompson and Conley, "since their beginnings in the 1930s with Gallup, Roper, Harris and others, scientific polling organizations have grown dramatically in number, scope, and stature to their worldwide presence today. This compilation focuses on significant Internet sites concerning general public opinion polls, especially those providing polling results in usable formats."
Guide to Public Opinion Web Sites

Government Secrecy

"The Department of Justice reported that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court approved 2,072 orders to conduct surveillance on foreign nationals in the United States in 2005. It rejected 0 orders. Another Justice Department report on secret wiretap warrants indicated that the government issued 9,254 National Security Letters during 2005. These letters can be used to obtain information about individuals without the government applying for a court-reviewed warrant. The number of Freedom of Information Act requests increased by 65,543 requests sinced 2004. Agencie overall have been unble to keep up with the number of requests, with 43 percent more pending requests this year than in 2002."
Source: Security Report Card 2006: Indicators of Secrecy in the Federal Government
OpenTheGovernment.org

National Environmental Scorecard

“When it comes to the environment and energy, 2006 will be remembered for sky-rocketing gas prices, record-high oil company profits, an acknowledgement by even President Bush that America is addicted to oil, the Alaska BP pipeline spill, and a widespread recognition that human activity is causing global warming to happen far more quickly than previously thought. Unfortunately, as the League of Conservation Voters 2006 National Environmental Scorecard reflects, Congress did virtually nothing to help solve these problems, with little hope for anything positive to emerge from an anticipated lame duck session.”
Full Report (PDF; 2.54 MB)
Source: League of Conservation Voters

Medline Plus: Sleep Disorders

Sleep Disorders is just one of over 700 topics on conditions and diseases at the National Institution of Health's Medline Plus site. This is a reminder for you that Medline Plus is one of the best sources of patient education information--very user friendly.

Medline Plus is a gateway to many authoritative resources on sleep disorders. There is a directory for finding services in your local area. You can also see a slideshow on sleep disorders.
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/sleepdisorders.html

Lack of Cyber-Terrorism Preparedness

The Business Roundtable Security Taskforce says the United States is not prepared to reconstruct the Internet after a major nationwide disruption and offers a 21 page report of policy suggestions. Business Roundtable is an association of chief executive officers of leading U.S. companies.
http://www.businessroundtable.org/pdf/20060622002CyberReconFinal6106.pdf
Source: Business Roundtable

Booker Literary Award

The novelist Kiran Desai won the Man Booker Prize on Tuesday this week for The Inheritance of Loss, a novel that examines identity, displacement and the indissoluble bonds of family. The Booker, Britain’s best-known literary award, is awarded annually to a novelist from Britain, Ireland or a Commonwealth country. The prize comes with a check for £50,000, or about $93,000, and a guaranteed increase in visibility and sales. Ms. Desai’s mother, Anita Desai, has been a Booker finalist three times, but has not won. They are the first mother-daughter team of nominees in the prize’s 37-year history.

The Inheritance of Loss is set in a remote corner of India against the backdrop of growing Nepalese unrest, and in the streets of Manhattan, where illegal immigrants try to make a living while eluding the authorities. It is Ms. Desai’s second book and concerns itself with what she calls “the enormous anxiety of being a foreigner.” This book is available in the Goodwin Library.

Turkish Writer Wins Nobel Prize

The Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk on Thursday won the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature.
Mr. Pamuk, is Turkey's best-known and best-selling novelist but, according to the New York Times, " also a divisive figure in a nation being pulled in many directions at once. A champion of freedom of speech at a time when insulting Turkish identity is a criminal offense, he has run afoul of Islamists who resent his Western secularism and of Turkish nationalists who object to his unflinching, sometimes unflattering portrayal of their country. "

In an interview in New York, where he is spending a semester teaching at Columbia University, Mr. Pamuk said he saw the prize as a recognition of his work rather than a statement about his beliefs. “I think less than people think I do about politics,” he said. “I care about writing. I am essentially a literary man who has fallen into a political situation.”

The library staff recommends two of his best-known books. My Name Is Red is at once a mystery, an intellectual puzzle and a romance. Snow, published in the United States in 2004, expands further on themes — alienation, religion, modernization, the unseen corners of Turkish society — that Mr. Pamuk has explored over and over in his work. He has also recently written a book about his beloved city, Istanbul.

Military Blogs

This guide to over 1500 military blogs from 28 countries offers views and experience often ignored in current political and policy debates. It's searchable and browsable by branch, language, gender, and country (including 373 from Iraq and 40 from Afghanistan, among others). Sample blog titles show the range of military experience represented: Navy Corner, Afghan Warrior, Anonymous Army Wife, Chaplain Kline, Blogs of a Retired Infantryman, British Army Reservist in Iraq, An Army Combat Medic, Blogging for Kosovo, etc.
http://www.milblogging.com

Public Administration Review & Homeland Security

Public Administration Review's July/August issue has three articles on homeland security issues:
Imperfect Federalism: The Intergovernmental Partnership for Homeland Security
Mandates and Management Challenges in the Trenches: An Intergovernmental Perspective on Homeland Security
War Narratives: Framing Our Understanding of the War on Terror
Other articles from this journal and on homeland security are available on the ABI/Inform database reached through www.iconn.org.

Public Administration Review, a bi-monthly scholarly journal, has been the premier journal in the field of public administration research, theory, and practice for more than 60 years. PAR is the only journal in public administration that serves both academics and practitioners interested in the public sector and public sector management. Articles identify and analyze current trends, provide a factual basis for decision making, stimulate discussion, and make the leading literature in the field available in an easily accessible format. With articles on a wide range of topics and expert book reviews, PAR is exciting to read and an indispensable resource.

Journal Alert: Health Affairs

Health Affairs is the leading journal of health policy thought and research. All papers are peer-reviewed. Published since 1981, Health Affairs is nonpartisan and presents a wide range of timely research and commentary on health issues of current concern in both domestic and international spheres. “For more than 20 years, Health Affairs has been a must-read for anyone with a serious interest in medicine, health care, and health care policy,” (Washington Post, 11 January 2004).

Every article Health Affairs has ever published is available online at www.healthaffairs.org. The 25-year archive is fully searchable. All back content is free access after three years. Selected content is free access at time of posting, including Editor’s Choice articles, Web Exclusives, Narrative Matters, Grants and Outcomes, UpDate Publications, Book Reviews, and Letters.

Health Affairs’ goal as a journal has been to foster an ongoing dialogue on health policy issues of concern to a diverse audience of interested readers. They are launching a blog this week, www.healthaffairs.org, with the aim of expanding the dialogue even further.

Anyone is welcome to comment, but all must register and agree to terms of use, including the use of real names. They will filter comments for appropriateness and language.
source: www.healthaffairs.org

Needlestick Injuries

"In response to a rise in the number of needlestick injuries in its OR, Connecticut-based Hartford Hospital conducted a study to determine and better understand staff members’ perceived barriers to safety and discovered that communication problems with physicians and feelings of powerlessness among nursing staff were lead factors. The study, led by perioperative services nurse educator Andrea Hagstrom, prompted the formation of a staff-led safety committee and a physician-led initiative to gain practice change buy-in. The efforts have empowered nurses to enforce the new safety practices and improved the hospital’s needlestick injury rates."
Source: Janene's blog http://ysnlibrary.blogspot.com/

Chronical Brown Bag Web Chat

William J. Pepicello, who was recently named president of the University of Phoenix, will answer your questions about the university's plans for growth, its expanding focus on younger students and new degree programs, and its trend-setting moves in marketing, including its recent deal for the naming rights to a National Football League stadium. Join him today for a live Web chat at noon, U.S. Eastern time.
http://chronicle.com/brownbag

CDC Updates for STD (Medical Assisting Class)

These guidelines for the treatment of persons who have sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) were developed by Center for Disease Control after consultation with a group of professionals knowledgeable in the field of STDs who met in Atlanta, Georgia, during April 19–21, 2005. The information in this report updates the Sexually Transmitted Diseases Treatment Guidelines, 2002.
Read SummaryFull Guideline - web versionFull guideline - PDF version

National Report on Population & Environment

The United States population passed 300 million recently. Although constituting only five percent of the global population, the U.S. emits more carbon dioxide, consumes more paper and other forest products, and produces more municipal waste than any other country. A new report by the Center for Environment and Population (CEP) quantitatively demonstrates the relationship between current national population trends, unprecedented resource consumption, and observable environmental degradation.

This report is the first effort to bring together a wealth of statistics on national population and demographic dynamics and assess them in the context of environmental health. Using a variety of data sources, including the EarthTrends database, the report demonstrates links between phenomena such as rapid suburban sprawl, a shift from rural to urban living, and recent increases in coastal population densities, and their negative impacts on the environment, including habitat and species loss, increased water pollution, and climate change.
Direct to Full Text

Voting Rights and Election Law

The 2006 midterm election is less than six weeks away. At least one class is focusing dicussion and research on voting rights and election law. Here is a searchable blog providing information on many issues: voting rights, campaign finance, redistricting, etc.
http://www.electionlawblog.org/

Anatomy Atlases for A & P Students

"A digital library of 'current, authoritative, trustworthy' information for patients and health care providers, curated by long-time anatomy professor Ronald A. Bergman. In addition to its own extensive textual and image content, it provides links to other medical digital libraries."
Anatomy Atlases http://anatomyatlases.org
Source: Mary Laine, librarian

Banned Book Week

"Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read is observed during the last week of September each year. Observed since 1982, this annual American Library Association event reminds Americans not to take this precious democratic freedom for granted. This year, 2006, marks BBW's 25th anniversary (September 23-30).

BBW celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one’s opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them. After all, intellectual freedom can exist only where these two essential conditions are met."
Source: American Library Associaton

New Feature: The Brown Bag

Join The Chronicle of Higher Education editors every Thursday at noon, U.S. Eastern time, for The Brown Bag, a new live chat on higher education's hot topics. Every week they will be joined by an expert from the world of higher-education finance and technology to answer your questions about recent news and to share ideas on how you can run your institution more effectively.

Today's guest will be Penelope W. Kyle, who is now entering her "sophomore year" as president of Radford University. She will answer questions about what she's learned -- and what she's still learning -- after her first year at the helm of this public institution in Virginia.
Join them today at noon: http://chronicle.com/live/2006/09/kyle/

The Preamble to the Constitution

"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Constitution Week September 18-22

Information about resources and activities this week related to Constitution Week are posted on the student intranet. Here are some additions:

"A Conversation on the Constitution: Judicial Independence" video online with Supreme Court Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Stephen G. Breyerand Sandra Day O'Connor. Length: 32 min.(Read along with Spanish language Closed Captions)

View individual students' questions and the Supreme Court Justices' answers
Source: Annenberg Classroom

Library Instruction workshops

Introduction to Sociology (LaRocca)
September 16 8:30 a.m.

Introduction to Psychology (Leone)
September 16 10 a.m.

English 101 (Simpson)
September 18 11:40 a.m.

Introduction to Sociology (LaRocca)
September 19 8:30 a.m.

Cardiopulmonary A & P (Alfieri)
September 19 6 p.m.

Youth Development Practice (Ward)
September 19 6:45 p.m.

Introduction to Science (Rajaniemi)
September 21 8 a.m.

Introduction to Homeland Security (Lee)
September 26 11:40 a.m & 6 p.m.

Book Club Members Event

The Goodwin Book Club members have been reading Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by ZZ Packer. Ms. Packer will discuss this book of short stories at the Hartford Public Library Friday evening, September 22. The talk begins at 7 p.m. to be followed by book signings and reception. The book club will meet next week to share our reactions to this book and be introduced to our October selection.

Childhood Immunizations

If anyone is researching childhood immunizations, MedlinePlus has links to many reliable sources.
Source: Childhood Immunizations at MedlinePlus

Pub Med Statistics

PubMed, which reached 16 million citations in December 2005 (including the 1.7 million OLDMEDLINE citations), is searched at a rate of more than 76 million searches per month. It is updated with in-process and MeSH-indexed citations 5 times per week. More than 82% of data entry now comes from electronic submissions. The National Library of Medicine reached the all time annual high of adding about 606,000 indexed citations from 4,928 journals at the close of Fiscal Year 2005. MEDLINE is leased by more than 400 organizations (the majority of which are mining the data for research purposes). PubMed is a service of the National Library of Medicine that includes citations from MEDLINE and other life science journals for biomedical articles back to the 1950s. PubMed includes links to full text articles and other related resources.
Source: National Library of Medicine

September 11 Digital Archive

The September 11 Digital Archive uses electronic media to collect, preserve, and present the history of the September 11, 2001 attacks. For the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the September 11 Digital Archive has overlaid a select group of photographs and stories from Ground Zero in New York on an interactive map. Clicking on blue markers (photos) or red markers (stories) shows details from the September 11 Digital Archive.

Featured Collection -- Ground One: Voices from Post-911 Chinatown aims to provide an in-depth portrait of the ways in which the identity of a community, largely neglected by national media following 9/11, has been indelibly shaped by that day.
Source: September 11 Digital Archive

Purple Math: Help with Alegbra

How do you really do this? -- Purplemath's algebra lessons are written with the student in mind. These lessons emphasize the practicalities rather than the technicalities, demonstrating dependable techniques, warning of likely "trick" questions, and pointing out common mistakes. The lessons are cross-referenced to help you find related material."
http://www.purplemath.com/index.htm

Welcome to New Students

We're thrilled that you're here, and we want to help you get used to finding information and conducting research in an academic library. Don't assume that locating and using library materials in a sophisticated manner is quick or easy.

Do assume that library staff is always available to help you! Watch postings to the blog that will help you navigate our periodical indexes.

New Books Just In!

Youth Leadershp (VanLinden & Fertman)
HQ769.V278 1998

Urban Sanctuaries: Neighborhood Organizations in the Lives and Futures of Inner-City Youth (McLaughlin & Langman)
HQ769.M385 1994

Raising Children in a Socially Toxic Environment (Garbarino)
HQ769.G258 1995

Full-Service Schools: A Revolution in Health & Social Services for Chldren, Youth, and Families (Dryfoos)
LB 3409.U5 D79 1994

Ready-to-Use Activities for Before and After School Programs (Stassevitch et al.)
GV1203.R37 1989

Building a Full-Service School: A Step-by-Step Guide (Calfee et al.)
LC221.2.F6 1998

Children and Danger: Coping With the Consequences of Community Violence
(Garbarino et al.)
HQ784.V55045 1992

All Kids are Our Kids (Benson)
HQ769.B51177 1997

Putting Families First: America’s Family Support Movement & the Challenge of Change
(Kagan et al.)
HV 699.)88 1994

Student Cellphones

"This fall college students across the country will use their cellphones to send each other text messages. But at 15 institutions, the phones will do a whole lot more. Those 15 colleges have signed up to use Rave Wireless -- a service that aims to turn every student's cellphone into a social and academic jack-of-all-trades. Students can use the service to view their grades, check the availability of study rooms, and see transportation and event schedules, according to USA Today. Rave Wireless, which can be used with any phone carrier, doubles as a campus-safety tool. A student on a late-night wa lk home from the library can set his or her cellphone to contact campus police if he or she doesn't arrive by a certain time. A built-in GPS system then tracks the phone, and the student's medical information and emergency contacts are automatically sent to the police."
Source: Wired Campus

Featured Database: Informe!

Full text Spanish language and bilingual periodicals, Informe provides indexing, images and full-text access to general interest Hispanic magazines. Most articles are in Spanish; however, some are from English language Hispanic magazines. While the interface and instructions are in English, Spanish word searches produce many more results than English word searches. There is no English-Spanish dictionary on this database. This database could be useful for instructors and students in Spanish classes. For more information contact the library staff.
access: www.iconn.org

New Books in the Library

The library staff is now cataloging and shelving 35 new books for the collection. A complete list is available in the library. For the faculty community of learning center in the library we have added

1. Teaching Language in Context is the essential methods text for anyone teaching or learning to teach a foreign language.
2. What the Best College Teachers Do is an inspirational summary of what teachers do to make a difference in students' lives.
3. Teaching as Community Property: Essays on Higher Education is Lee Shulman's vision for improving the quality of teaching in higher education.

Communities of Learning

As stated in the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Principles of Adolescent Literacy Reform, "teachers who belong to a study group, a learning community, or some other collaborative enterprise are most likely to remain in the profession as highly successful instructors" (p. 10).
Read the Principles policy research brief athttp://www.ncte.org/library/files/About_NCTE/Overview/Adol-Lit-Brief.pdf

Melting Pot Overflows

This fall 55 million students are enrolling in schools across the country. This is the largest public school student enrollment ever, and in terms of ethnic diversity, it is the most diverse student population since the immigration boom 100 years ago.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/27/education/27education.html
(free registration required)

Spelling Report on Higher Education

After almost a year of discussion and debate, the federal Commission on the Future of Higher Education has issued its proposals, but the work of divining their effects is just beginning. The commission made proposals on accountability and aid. Many observers say it would be foolish for institutions to ignore the report, which warns of the perils of complacency and calls for sweeping changes in American higher education. Read the extensive article in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
http://chronicle.com/free/v53/i02/02a00101.htm?cch

Make Your Searches Private

As disturbing, funny, and nutty some searches are one thing is pretty clear — people ran them in private. Or thought they did anyway. More disturbing is that the entire web is now reading about them, blogging them, doing news stories on them. So much for privacy.
Luckily, you can go a long way to keeping your secret searches safe. Here’s a few tools that will help:

Lost In The CrowdThis site allows you to search your favorite engines while automatically mixing your searches with a large number of other searches essentially creating “search noise”. The idea is that that your sexy/sneaky/sick searches will be harder to find and appear less prominent if they are found. Nice that it works with any browser and all major engines.
TrackMeNot FireFox ExtentionThis extention does pretty much the same thing as Lost In The Crowd. One bit that TrackMeNot has over Lost In The Crowd is that you can add your own list of keywords for the autogenerated searches to be created from which should add a little more safety.
TorCreates a network of onion proxies allowing all data (not just searches) to flow through what is essentially an anonymous peer to peer network. I’m not the most techy guy in the world so if that description doesn’t do it for you here’s a great overview of how Tor works (scroll down a bit to the pics). Appears to be the most robust solution, but a bit complicated for people like me.
FoxyProxy FireFox ExtentionThis extention can be configured to use a multiple proxies to help keep everything you do online (including your searches) do anonymous. Works with Tor out of the box.
Don’t Leave Traces FireFox/Greasemonkey ExtentionThis new one is similar to FoxyProxy although a little more simplistic since it uses only one proxy and works for searches only. Easy add though if you already use Greasemonkey.
Use a Web-Based ProxyThere are 100s of free proxies out there that you can use to surf the web. Most should give you some level of anonymity and work in any browser, but be careful since you never know who is running the proxy!