Deleting Online Predators Act: References

Here is a list of resources explaining the effect this bill would have on libraries and on social networking sites, and some alternative ways of dealing with online predators.
http://www.beiffert.net/wordpress/deleting-online-predators-act-dopa-hr-5319-ih/

Avoiding Medical Errors

Medication errors are among the most common medical errors, harming at least 1.5 million people every year. The problem is so serious that, on average, a hospital patient is subject to at least one medication error per day.

These are among the findings in a report released Thursday by the Institute of Medicine, chartered by Congress to advise the government on science and medical issues.
The extra costs of treating medication-related injuries occurring in hospitals alone conservatively amount to $3.5 billion a year, the report states. The IOM panel estimates that at least a quarter of these injuries are preventable. This is the bad news.

The better news is that the Institute of Medicine provides a Fact Sheet on what you can do to avoid these errors at home, as outpatient or inpatient, and at the pharmacy.

Own Your First Home Contest

What are you waiting for? Enter Black Enterprise's 2nd annual Own Your First Home contest and get a chance to win $10,000 toward your down payment. Closing the wealth gap between black and white households remains at the heart of the Black Enterprise Mission. Read more about the contest in the current issue of Black Enterprise in the library or you can get the contest rules by logging on to blackenterprise.com.
Source: Black Enterprise August 2006

Podcasts and RSS from NEJM

Now you can use the latest technology to keep up with medical research and clinical analysis. The New England Journal of Medicine offers two podcasts each week as well as weekly RSS feeds--FREE. To receive NEJM podcasts automatically, subscribe to NEJM Weekly Audio Summaries or NEJM Interviews at iTunes--easy to use. RSS feeds ae available for the current issue plus the three previous issues of NEJM. Each RSS feed contains article titles, brief summaries for selected articles, and links to the complete article.
Source: New England Journal of Medicine

New Resource for Marketing Statistics

American Demographics is a magazine for marketers. The content is available and searchable online (http://www.demographics.com/). it is full of information about who we are and how we live, above and beyond what the government collects. It's a repository of statistics from government reports, polls, and surveys from diverse groups such as the American Toy Institute, the Travel Industry Association of America, and the National Frozen Pizza Institute. Try it out and be amazed.
Source: Ex Libris

New Power Searching For Gale Databases

The future of search and information retrieval is here in August! Thomson Gale's new technology platform is the ultimate one-stop search solution. Our Thomson Gale databases will begin using the revolutionary new platform, PowerSearch, August 1. This new platform allows for the cross-search of Gale databases -- more than 11,000 InfoTrac periodicals and hundreds of Thomson Gale and partner eBooks. We will also introduce a new service called AccessMyLibrary. The Goodwin Library provides the Goodwin community with the following Thomson Gale databases: Professional Collection, Business & Company Resource Center with Newsletters, Expanded Academic ASAP, General Reference Center Gold, Health & Wellness Resource Center and Alternative Health Module, Informe, InfoTrac, InfoTrac (Junior, Kid's, and Student editions), What do I Read Next?, Kids InfoBits, Kid's Edition, and Gale Virtual Reference Library.

Electronic Voting Machines Need Safeguards

With November elections fast approaching, computer scientists are stepping up pressure on Congress to improve the accuracy and security of electronic voting. Eugene H. Spafford, a computer-science professor at Purdue University, wrote to Rep. Vernon Ehlers, Republican chairman of the Committee on House Administration, urging him to support legislation that would require voting-machine results to be documented by a paper trail. Spafford is chairman of the U.S. Public Policy Committee of the Association for Computing Machinery. "As experts in computing, we have grave reservations about the safeguards in place with many of the computerized voting technologies being used," the letter read. David Wagner, a computer-science professor at the University of California, alsodescribed his concerns before a joint hearing of two House committees. "A single person with insider access and some technical knowledge could switch votes, perhaps undetected, and potentially swing an election," Mr. Wagner warned members of Congress. --Andrea L. Foster in Wired Campus

The Blog Misses You

The Goodwin Library blog provides information, but it also was intended to be symbiotic, accretive of the wisdom of many, a fragile thread of eclectic conversation. That means anyone reading it, if anyone is, would occasionally be moved to comment. Such has not been the case-- so far. Warning: I am not giving up.

Blog Explosion

"The term “blog” was coined only in 1997, but less than 10 years later the blogging phenomenon is sweeping across the United States and around the world. Millions of bloggers are filling the blogosphere with everything from personal journals and family photographs to political advocacy and journalistic commentary. Blogophiles say the blogging revolution is changing politics, business and popular culture for the better by reducing the influence of elites and institutions and allowing for wider public participation and greater interactivity. Some skeptics, however, question whether blogging is anything more than an Internet fad. And some critics say public-policy blogs spew too much unchecked information and overhyped rhetoric into the political process. But with easy-to-use software and growing interest among individuals as well as businesses and government, the blogging phenomenon appears unlikely to peak any time soon."

Are blogs a passing fad or a lasting revolution? Click on comment below this or any entry to add your opinion.

Source: CQ Researcher June 9, 2006

The Big Here: Eco Awareness

"You live in the big here. Wherever you live, your tiny spot is deeply intertwined within a larger place, imbedded fractal-like into a whole system called a watershed, which is itself integrated with other watersheds into a tightly interdependent biome. (See the world eco-region map ). At the ultimate level, your home is a cell in an organism called a planet. All these levels interconnect. What do you know about the dynamics of this larger system around you? Most of us are ignorant of this matrix. But it is the biggest interactive game there is. Hacking it is both fun and vital." (from Kevin Kelly's blog)

Answer the 30 questions on this site to elevate your awareness (and literacy) of the greater place in which you live.

International Primary Documents

With so much international news making headlines of late, Diplomacy Monitor has become an essential resource for primary documents and news releases from various governments and government agencies. This free service from the St. Thomas University School of Law offers direct access to information (communiques, news releases, etc) from governments around the globe, gathered and posted to this database very soon after they are released on the web.

Material is searchable and also browsable in various compilations. Examples include:• Documents By Region• Documents By Issue• By Nation (Source)• By Nation (Affected)
Additionally, material is cached and non-English docs are also linked to mechanical translations into English. (be careful, of course).

Searching for Full Text Aticles

If you are searching for journal articles and you want the instant gratification of full text articles, let me give you some advice. Most of our database search screens have boxes to check that will limit your search to full text and scholarly (peer reviewed) articles. Not all of our databases provide full text; some will give you only the citation and often an abstract as well. So it is even more important to SEARCH IN DATABASES THAT PROVIDE FULL TEXT ARTICLES!

Here are a few examples. The PsycINFO database indexes only citations and sometimes abstracts. For that reason, we have subscribed to PsycARTICLES database that provides full text articles for you. CINAHL usually only provides citations and abstracts, but we have linked our full text database, Health Source: Nursing Academic Edition to CINAHL. If CINAHL has indexed an article that is full text in Health Source, it will show up in your search. WE also have subscribed to CINAHL with Full Text and that should be self-explanatory. In MEDLINE, search in Pub Med Central (PMC) to limit your results to full text articles only. For general academic research, the InfoTrac OneFile database provides the optional limit of full text and journal articles only.

We can often arrange for articles through interlibrary loan, but with shrewd searching or slight refocusing of your topic, you should find what you need in our databases. If you are having difficulty, please contact the library staff for help. We want to be sure that you have the information you need.
860.528.4111 #6782
mnowlan@goodwin.edu

Nursing Care for Older Adults

"The Atlantic Philanthropies has awarded two grants to increase the knowledge and skills of those providing care to older adults. Information about the care of those over 65, derived from cutting-edge research and best practices, is now available to nurses and other providers in either print format or streaming video, at any time and at no cost, through this series called A New Look at the Old.

The print series began in the August 2004 issue of AJN, and will continue every other month until December 2006. You can read or download the articles already publishedby clicking on the 'titles listed below.'

The broadcast series is based on the content of the articles found in AJN, but includes additional content. Those interested in viewing the 60-minute or 30-minute programs which began in January 2005, can click on the titles under the broadcast heading. These programs are archived for viewing at any time."
Source: www.nursingcenter.com

Digital Native or Digital Immigrant?

Technology is dividing us into digital natives and digital immigrants - and changing the way we think. A “digital native” is one who has never known a world without instant communication whereas a “digital immigrant” may still be coming to terms with a culture ruled by mobiles, PDAs, blogs, e-mails, and interactive websites. Librarians (and everyone else) must come to terms with this because it impacts the effectiveness of our work.

This generational divide has been evident for a while, but only now is its impact becoming clear. Last month, Lord Saatchi, doyen of the British advertising world, virtually declared the death of traditional advertising — because digital technology is changing the way people absorb information. The digital native’s brain is physically different as a result of the digital input it has received growing up, he claims.

Many of our current and most of our potential college students may appear to live in Connecticut, but they actually spend time in another galaxy — out there, in the digital universe of websites, e-mails, text messages and mobile phone calls. Some may be checking their wall on facebook.com Even young children today are multitasking left, right and center — downloading tracks, uploading photos, sending e-mails, visting chatrooms, instant messaging. They may find sitting down and reading, even watching TV, too slow and boring.

Behaviors are being shaped by digital technology as never before, taking us boldly where no generations have gone before. The experts say it may even be the next step in evolution, transforming brains and the way we think.

What do you think? Are you a digital native, a digital immigrant, or somewhere in between?

The Best Cities for Doing Business

As part of their annual report, Inc. studied 393 population centers across the nation, identifying job creation and other signs of business vitality. What did they find? The big cities are idling, and the real entrepreneurial hot spots are on the periphery -- where low costs and favorable regulatory environments make it possible to thrive. Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford area ranked 298th out of the 393 population centers.

Which metropolitan areas are really booming? The online report is a searchable database, the full 2006 rankings broken down by small, medium, and large cities, an interactive map, stories explaining why -- and where -- companies are flourishing today, and much more. This might be of interest to sociology and business classes.
http://www.inc.com/bestcities/

Friday Poetry Club

The Poetry Club will meet in the Libray Annex every Friday from 10:50-11:40. Come share your poetry or just listen and support others. If you have any questions, contact Cynthia McHale-Hendricks at writecmchale@earthlink.net.

Biology Blog

While in Minneapolis and St. Paul last week, I heard abou this biology blog. Paul Z. Myers, an associate professor of science and math at the University of Minnesota , is something of an accidental blogger: he only started after setting up a Web site for students enrolled in one of his courses.

“When the class ended, it was just sitting there,” he says of his blog, now called Pharyngula. “I started typing and haven’t stopped for three years now.” Mr. Myers’s site is now the most visited science blog on the Web. Be warned--he is very opinionated!

Librarians Fight for Facebook

The U.S. House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet is discussing a bill that would prohibit anyone younger than 18 from using social-networking sites on computers at public schools and libraries. The “Deleting Online Predators Act,” as it is called, would also prohibit minors from using public machines to log on to chat rooms and some online forums .

Chris Kelly, Facebook executive, depicted Facebook’s security as robust before suggesting, rather gently, that the bill is a bit too broad. But Beth Yoke, executive director of the American Library Association’s Young Adult Library Services Association, didn’t mince words. The bill, she argued, “creates barriers to information literacy” by discouraging librarians and schoolteachers from teaching young students about responsible use of the Web. “This flies in the face of logic and hundreds of years of educational theory,” Ms. Yoke said of the act. WHAT DO YOU THINK? COMMENT??
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education

MagPower Reading

MagazineLiteracy.org has teamed with Texterity.com to create the MagPower Reading demonstration project, which is an online portfolio featuring access to select children's magazines in a digital format. The organizations are now looking for teachers and other educators to participate in the project as literacy agents, providing feedback via an online survey that will help evaluate the benefits of providing online access to children's magazines as a literacy resource for teachers in classrooms, mentors in after-school programs, and literacy agents in community reading programs.
http://magazineliteracy.org/?tp=magpower

Just for Fun

To live and enjoy life requires more than just information. RecipeZaar <http://www.recipezaar.com/> is my favorite cookery site. After all you have done this week you deserve something good to eat. On this site, you can save favorite recipes in a personalized cookbook, rate and review recipes, or get cooking advice from their chefs. Bon Appetit.

College Cost Crunch

Rising tuition and student loan debt is a national problem. No state has escaped the college cost crunch. But individual states have been affected to different degrees. This report provides information on the college affordability problem in each state.

"Individualized state reports provide information for each state on:
• The rising cost of college;• The erosion of the value of the Pell Grant;• The amount of student loan debt incurred by college graduates;• The amount of family income needed to pay for college;• The amount of savings if student loan interest rates were cut in half;• The reduction in monthly costs if student loan payments were capped at 15 percent of a borrower’s discretionary income;• The increase in the average Pell Grant award and the number of studentseligibleif the maximum Pell Grant were increased to $5,100; and• The number of students and families who are likely to benefit from re-instituting the college tuition tax deduction, which expired at the end of 2005."
Source: Reference Shelf

New Subscriptions

The Goodwin Library has several new periodicals:
Sporting News
Black Enterprise
Wine Enthusiast
Architectural Digest
Information Week
Spin
Vibe
Men's Health
Women's Health

Katrina Web Archive

For anyone doing research on Katrina, here are some resources. The Internet Archive and individual contributors produced a comprehensive list of Web sites to create a historical record of the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina and the massive relief effort which followed. The collection contains over 25 million unique pages, all text searchable, from 1,500 sites. The Web archive consists of Web sites indexed between the dates of September 4 and October 17th. Two recent books on Katrina were reviewed in the New York Times yesterday: Hurricane Katrina: New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast by Douglas Brinkley and Breach of Faith: Hurricane Katrina and the Near Death of a Great American City by Jed Horne--both available through Interlibrary Loan.
Web Archive: http://websearch.archive.org/katrina/May30,2006

College Transfers and College Graduation

Forty percent of all first-time freshmen begin their post-secondary careers in community colleges. Among all community college students who were eligble for transfer to a college or university and who declared that their goal was a bachelor's degree, only 14% actually earned a degree. The number of credits accepted by four year universities greatly influences a student's success rate, according to a study by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. "Among those who had all of their credits accepted 82 percent had graduated within six years with a bachelor's degree," while "among those who had only some of their credits accepted, 42 percent had attained a bachelor's degree" during the study period. This has some relevance for Goodwin College as well.
Source: Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching

Book Recommendation: The Hungry Tide

The Hungry Tide is the work of a powerful novelist, Amitav Ghosh. It is a novel of adventure and romance set in the exotic Sundarbans--treacherous islands in the Bay of Bengal. It’s similar in style and tone to Ghosh’s overlooked masterpiece, The Glass Palace. But despite the similarities, its smaller scope and more limited range of characters makes it feel somewhat more accessible than the earlier book. Ghosh has managed to turn The Hungry Tide into a page-turner -- beautifully controlled and plotted -- while sacrificing none his historical sweep. Please don't miss this. (The book is featured in our Notable Books section.)

Understanding Nutrition Labels

A recent class assignment in Environmental Science focused on food labels. Most people look at food labels for reasons other than an assignment. But whatever the reason, many consumers need to know how to use this information more effectively and easily.

If the label says a food has 20% of your daily value of calcium, do you know if that's good? Or what the yellow part of the label signifies? Or how much difference there is between "reduced fat" milk and non-fat milk?

Research for that class uncovered the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's excellent online site on nutrtion label information. The site makes it easier for all of us to use nutrition labels to make quick, informed food choices that contribute to a healthy diet.
Source: "How to Understand and Use the Nutrition Facts Label"

Scientific American: Featured Periodical

Scientific American is published monthly by Scientific American, Inc. in New York City. It has been published for more than 150 years and for good reason. It is a highly respected, informative and accessible magazine. There are numerous features covering science and the citizen, technology and business, and mathematical recreation. An interesting feature is"50,100, 150 Years Ago", short sections from earlier issues. There are many color illustrations that add interest to the stories. Scientific American is a valued part of our collection. A recent issue featured articles on stem cell research and cancer, Hubble's top 10 discoveries, what birds see, power grids for hydrogen economy, reality of criminal investigations, and much more.

Goodby, Mr. Keating

Thomas Benton, an assistant professor of English, offers his take on academic life and work.

He writes in the Chronicle of Higher Education that "to succeed as an English Ph.D., you have to give up all of the things that attracted you to the subject in the first place."

He treasured the film "Dead Poets Society" in which Robin Williams plays an English professor, Mr. Keating. That portrayal reinforced many of the romantic feelings that led Benton to become an English major.

In the end, he decided that the romanticized Keating model was not for him. "It is not that I want to privilege some form of literary dilettantism as a substitute for professionalism. I simply want to demonstrate that the reasons most people get into English are different from the motives that will make them successful in graduate school and in professional life beyond that. They must, ultimately, purge themselves of the romantic motives that drew them to English in the first place -- or pretend to do so. If you want to be a literary professional, you must say goodbye to Mr. Keating."
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education

Did Blond Mammoths Have More Fun?

"Woolly mammoths, ice-age pachyderms that died out thousands of years ago, probably came in blond and red as well as the black and gray favored in museum reconstructions. According to a paper to appear in today’s issue of Science, a team of European scientists isolated a gene affecting hair coloration from a 43,000-year-old mammoth bone found in Russia. The gene, which appears in other mammals, can produce red or yellow hair.

The Science paper does not discuss whether the gene conferred any behavioral traits on blond mammoths."
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education

Libraries are Going Green

Many new library buildings are taking advantage of sustainable “green” technology. Some libraries are LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified, which is a green building rating system of the U.S. Green Building Council.

This National Resources Defense Council website explains how building green can boost the bottom line. There are tips for streamlining design and construction with strategies that deliver the biggest paybacks.
Source: National Resources Defense Council (NRDC)

Facts About Connecticut's Foreign Born Population

• Connecticut ranks 13th among the 50 states and the District of Columbia for the percent of the total population who are foreign born: 12%
• Connecticut's immigrants come from Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand (38%); Asia (22%); Latin America (22%); Caribbean (14%) and Africa (5%).
• The top 10 birth countries for Connecticut's foreign born are Poland (8%); Jamaica (7%); Canada (5%); India (5%); Italy (4%); Mexico (4%); Brazil (4%); Portugal (3%); China (3%) and the United Kingdom (3%).
• Almost three-quarters (72%) of Connecticut's foreign born speak a language other than English at home. Of those, 45% say they speak English "very well" and 6%, "not at all."

Source: CBIA News June

Espionage, Intelligence, Security

The Encyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence and Security, ebook version, is now available to Goodwin students. This encyclopedia is a comprehensive guide to the history, uses, related scientific principles and technology of espionage and intelligence. The Encyclopedia includes approximately 800 entries, written by experts in the field, ranging in length from 300 to 2,500 words. Topics covered range from the historical use of espionage to the emerging use of technology in modern espionage and counterintelligence. Additional features include more than 300 photographs and illustrations; a chronology, glossary and bibliography; and a comprehensive subject index.

This title is now available in eBook format through Gale Virtual Reference Library accessible by using www.iconn.org and looking under [eBooks for Colleges].

New Version NLM Gateway

A new version of the National Library of Medicine Gateway was released recently. Changes include the following:
Access to a new collection, "Bookshelf," was added to the NLM Gateway in the Bibliographic Resources category. The Bookshelf is a growing collection of full text biomedical books, and includes other resources such as GeneReviews and Health Services/Technology Assessment Text (HSTAT). The Bookshelf home page provides a complete book list.
Access to a new collection, "Household Products Database," was added to the NLM Gateway in the Consumer Health Resources category. The Household Products Database is a consumer's guide that provides information on the potential health effects of chemicals contained in more than 5,000 common household products used inside and around the home. The fact sheet provides additional information on this resource.
The results summary page will now display Error if an error is encountered in searching a particular collection or N/A if a search is not applicable to a particular collection. Previously, a hit count of zero was displayed. Default text and link colors are now being set. Visited results links will now change to the visited link color.
A warning message ("One or more search terms were dropped. See Search Details") is now displayed on the results page if part of a user search query is dropped, but the search is still run and results are returned to the user.
Additional fields - Investigator Link, Performing Organization Link, Performing Organization Phone, Supporting Agency Link, and Supporting Agency Phone - have been added to HSRPRoj.

For Your Reading Pleasure

The Notable Books Council of the American Library Association, annually selects titles for their significant contribution to the expansion of knowledge or for the pleasure they can provide to adult readers. Goodwin Library has the following titles from the current 2006 list:

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
Veronica by Mary Gaitskill
Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
American Sublime by Elizabeth Alexander
Hungry Tide by Amitav Ghosh
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishguro
Beasts of No Nation by Uzodinma Iweala
Saturday by Ian McEwan
Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
Hummingbird’s Daughter by Luis Alberto Urrea
Bound for Canaan by F. Bordewich

Stop in the library to find summer reading selections.

Goodwin College As Entrepreneur

Goodwin College's growth and riverfront campus are featured on the front page of the Hartford Courant today in an article by Dan Uhlinger. "Goodwin College as Entrepreneur" is the headline. Read the article here!
http://www.courant.com/hc-goodwin0703.artjul03,0,1938310.story

New ICONN Resources

We have added EBSCO's History Reference Center, Science Reference Center, Student Research Center and 5 new Gale e-book reference titles to iCONN. The new EBSCO resources replace the Gale History Resource Centers (U.S. and World) which have been removed from iCONN.

Check the E-Books page to see these new Gale Virtual Reference Library titles:
Encyclopedia of Espionage, Intelligence and Security
Encyclopedia of Population
Fashion, Costume, and Culture: Clothing, Headwear, Body Decorations and Footwear through the Ages
Renaissance: an Encyclopedia for Students
Encyclopedia of Landforms and Other Geologic Features