30,000 ebooks in Project Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg this month has officially passed 30,000 original eBooks, bringing the the original Project Gutenberg editions to as many titles as the average U.S. public library. Another major landmark is that the number of books in the Chinese language has now passed Dutch to become the newest member of Project Gutenberg’s “Top 5 Languages”, with a total of over 375 books in the Gutenberg archives.

There are still around 300 Chinese titles being held on the PrePrint site so we really need help in cataloging these. If you can work in Chinese you are encouraged to look into the directory called /china over at PrePrints, or get the .zip file (one directory above) to downloaded all the files in one go.

Project Gutenberg encourages the creation and distribution of digital books. They have provided copyright free eBooks for downloading since 1971.
Source: Project Gutenberg

Read The Federal Register

Federal Register announces launch of new Electronic Public Inspection Desk.The Office of the Federal Register has created an Electronic Public Inspection Desk to provide free worldwide electronic access to public documents. For the first time in the 72-year existence of the daily Federal Register, the documents on file are available for viewing anytime, anywhere. Every Federal business day, anyone with access to a computer now can read critical documents governing Federal regulations relating to business, health, and safety as soon as the documents are placed on file.
Source: Peter Scott's Library Blog

National Book Awards 2008

Here are the winners of the National Book Awards for 2008 announced this week:


Young People's Literature

Judy Blundell
What I Saw and How I Lied
(Scholastic)

Poetry

Mark Doty
Fire to Fire: New and Collected Poems
(HarperCollins)

Nonfiction

Annette Gordon-Reed
The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family
(W.W. Norton & Company)

Fiction

Peter Matthiessen
Shadow Country
(Modern Library)

Source: National Book Foundation

Seven Titles Added to Credo Reference Today

Today Credo Referenc, online reference library, integrated seven Edward Elgar titles into the Credo General Reference collection. Elgar is recognized as a leading publisher in the fields of economics, business and finance, as well as publishing other cutting-edge titles in law and public policy. The seven titles will provide Credo researchers with key content in the area of economics:

A Biographical Dictionary of Dissenting Economists
A Biographical Dictionary of Women Economists
Elgar Companion to Feminist Economics (Choice Outstanding Academic Title)
An Encyclopedia of Macroeconomics (Choice Outstanding Academic Title)
An Encyclopedia of Keynesian Economics (Choice Outstanding Academic Title)
Nobel Memorial Laureates in Economics
Who's Who in Economics, 4th edition

The Credo Reference Library is available to the Goodwin Community. This is always a good place to start research.

Equal Opportunity Day

At the dedication of the Gettysburg National Cemetery in southern Pennsylvania on November 19, 1863, President Abraham LINCOLN delivered the GETTYSBURG Address, a 270-word speech that is considered one of the greatest in American history, though it didn’t receive much attention at the time. Equal Opportunity Day is observed at Gettysburg National Cemetery each year, where ceremonies commemorating Lincoln’s address are held under the sponsorship of the Sons of Union Veterans and the Lincoln Fellowship of Pennsylvania. Sometimes this day is referred to as Gettysburg Address Day.

Source: From Holidays, Festivals, and Celebrations of the World Dictionary in the Credo Reference database at Goodwin Library. The painting is by Franz Marc called "The Fox."

Biodiversity Heritage Library

Ten major natural history museum libraries, botanical libraries, and research institutions have joined to form the Biodiversity Heritage Library Project. The group is developing a strategy and operational plan to digitize the published literature of biodiversity held in their respective collections. This literature will be available through a global “biodiversity commons.” Most of the literature is in the developed world, in the Northern Hemisphere, but most of the biodiversity is in the developing world and the Southern Hemisphere. One ofthe most desirable outcomes of the project is to repatriate literature to the originating countries of
publication by making it accessible to anyone with an Internet connection.
Source: WORLD LIBRARY AND INFORMATION CONGRESS INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF LIBRARIES AND ASSOCIATIONS

World Wide Science Resource

WorldWideScience.org is a global science gateway connecting you to national and international scientific databases and portals. WorldWideScience.org accelerates scientific discovery and progress by providing one-stop searching of global science sources. The WorldWideScience Alliance, a multilateral partnership, consists of participating member countries and provides the governance structure for WorldWideScience.org. This site enables anyone with Internet access to launch a single-query search of 32 national scientific databases and portals from 44 countries, covering six continents and nearly half of the world’s population. Users of WorldWideScience.org can search more than 200 million pages of science and technology information not typically accessible through popular search engines.

CA Researcher: National Debt: Too Big?

With the national debt now more than $10 trillion — twice what it was eight years ago — the country faces a dire financial future, some analysts argue. Over the past eight years, the Bush administration has run larger and larger annual deficits, adding to the national debt and restricting the government's ability to respond to a new crisis. Now, with the U.S. and global financial meltdown. . . .

Source: CQ Researcher
Read the Full Report online. (Ask the library staff for password.)

Medical Image Search Engine

OmniMedicalSearch.com - Medical Image Search Engine
http://www.omnimedicalsearch.com/images.html

For students looking for medical imatges, this is a great site. It also includes
1. Web: The Web search option finds authoritative, consumer-oriented health and medical information.

2. News: the news search option reports the latest health & medical news from around the world.

3. Forums: Here one can discover what other patients, caregivers and health professionals are discussing about the conditions, diseases and treatments. Communicating with others about the progress and mutual support may be one of the most underestimated aspects of recovery.
Source: Omni Medical Search

Freshmen Success Studies

Three new studies of college freshmen suggest that even the most promising can run into academic difficulties as a long-term consequence of experiences like attending a violent or run-down high school or being raised by parents who never went to college.

Two of the studies call into question a large body of research on the educational benefits of racial and ethnic diversity on campuses, concluding that most first-year students do not reap any gains from diversity that can be measured objectively.Taken together, the studies not only challenge many of the assumptions colleges make in admitting and educating freshmen but could also influence discussions of how to improve the nation’s high schools to promote college preparation.

Source: "Studies Focus on Factors That Influence Freshmen's Success" in The Chronicle of Higher Education November 13

New York Public Library Treasures Online

The New York Public Library quietly rolled out a new video series last month. Titled "Treasures," it showcases 11 gems of the library's vast collection of more than 50 million items. And since then it has joined Facebook, broadening an online reach that already included YouTube and iTunes pages to gain more of an audience.
The library has made the videos available on its site, nypl.org, as well as on YouTube— where its photography piece is by far its most popular with more than 13,000views. (Picture: Harlem Renaissance)
Source: USA Today

LeWitt Retrospective Opening

Sol LeWitt American minimalist conceptual artist 1928-2007
Something really great is happening in New England Sunday. Sol LeWitt: A Wall Drawing Retrospective, a collaboration between the Yale University Art Gallery, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (Mass MoCa) , and the Williams College Museum of Art. opens Sunday, November 16, , at MASS MoCA in North Adams, Massachusetts. The retrospective is housed in a three-story 27,000 square foot historic mill building. The exhibition will consist of more than 100 works –-nearly one acre of wall surface -- that LeWitt created over 40 years. Sol LeWitt was born in Hartford and later lived in New York City.

The opening at noon is free and about a two hour drive from the Hartford area. Of course, there is no hurry. The exhibit will be on view for 25 years!

Seatle Public Library

The Seattle Public Library is the first in a new series here about libraries in the United States. Twenty-nine major national, international and local firms sought the opportunity to design the new Seattle Library. The surprise winner was Rem Koolhaas and his Office for Metropolitan Architecture in Rotterdam, in partnership with the Seattle firm of LMN Architects. The iconoclastic Dutch architect had no major buildings built in America when the Library Board selected him. His 11-floor, 362,987-square-foot library, a dazzling avant-garde symphony of glass and form, has many innovative features, including: A "Books Spiral" that displays the entire nonfiction collection in a continuous run; A towering "living room" along Fifth Avenue that reaches 50 feet in height; A distinctive diamond-shaped exterior skin of glass and steel. The new Central Library opened May 23, 2004, and immediately prompted international interest.

Veteran's Day Message

"Ninety years ago today, the guns fell silent in Europe. World War I – the “war to end all wars” – was over. Almost five million Americans served during that first modern, mechanized war. Our last living link with them, 107-year-old Army veteran Frank Buckles, observes this Veterans Day at his farm in West Virginia. It is important, on Veterans Day, for all Americans to reflect on the service and sacrifice of our veterans."
Source: VA Secretary Dr. James B. Peake

Military Photographers on the Frontlines

"The assignment… simple. The objective… illusive. The cost… immeasurable. We are the men and women who go through great risks to get the shot. We extraordinary videographers and photojournalists train with the best, operate in the worst and get noticed the least. Our mission is to be there when history happens. Ever notice that photo or video clip in the news, book, or documentary? Well, someone had to be there. Someone had to get the shot. Someone had to tell the story. We are that someone.” This is a nice collection of slideshows.
Source: Department of Defense

Unde Obama, Web Would Be the Way

Armed with millions of e-mail addresses and a political operation that harnessed the Internet like no campaign before it, Barack Obama will enter the White House with the opportunity to create the first truly “wired” presidency.

Obama aides and allies are preparing a major expansion of the White House communications operation, enabling them to reach out directly to the supporters they have collected over 21 months without having to go through the mainstream media.

Source: Washington Post

Measuring Skills for the 21st Century

When ninth-graders at St. Andrew’s School, a private boarding school in Middletown, Delaware, sat down last year to take the school’s College Work and Readiness Assessment (CWRA), they faced the sort of problems that often stump city officials and administrators, but rarely show up on standardized tests, such as how to manage traffic congestion caused by population growth.

Students were given research reports, budgets, and other documents to help draft their answers, and they were expected to demonstrate proficiency in subjects like reading and math as well as mastery of broader and more sophisticated skills like evaluating and analyzing information and thinking creatively about how to apply information to real-world problems. Ninth Graders? Do we do this in Connecticut?
Source: Educator Sector

New Book: Politics in Music

Politics in Music: Music and Political Transformation From Beethoven to Hip-Hop by Courtney Brown
ML3916.B76 2007

"This book is a fascinating and wide-ranging exploration of the growing role of political activism in music. Starting with Beethoven's politics and the political battles in Germany to exploit Beethoven's legacy, Brown explores the growing understanding of the political power of music as shown in the nationalist fervor of Verdi, the philosophical and political goals of Wagner and Bob Marley, the legacy of the union struggles of Joe Hill, the 60's era of protest music embodied by Bob Dylan, and on to the modern juggernaut of hip-hop. There are so many interesting facets of music history presented here that are never discussed in traditional music study programs. An easy and engaging read, the book shows clearly the theme of political awareness that has developed in modern music. This book is essential reading for those interested in understanding where music is today and where it will be heading in the future."
— Albert Ahlstrom, D.M.A. (from The Juilliard School), Director of Music, Holy Spirit Catholic Church, Atlanta, Georgia.

The book is in the Goodwin Library now.

Sample APA Research Paper

Click here for a copy of a research paper in APA format titled "Can Medication Cure Obesity in Children?" This is a research paper written by Luisa Mirano, a student in a psychology class. The assignment was to write a review of the literature paper documented with APA style citations and references. This sample research paper was published in The Bedford Handbook by Diana Hacker. The library staff is prepared to help you with research and the APA format.

American Diabetes Month

November is American Diabetes Month®, a time to bring even greater awareness and attention to the seriousness of diabetes, its deadly complications, and the importance of proper diabetes control. This year, the American Diabetes Association is asking the American public, "Why should you care about diabetes?"

Throughout the month, the American Diabetes Association will conduct activities – and encourage others across the country – to get involved in efforts to raise awareness about diabetes and its serious complications such as heart disease, stroke, kidney disease, and blindness.

Source: American Diabetes Association

Blog Readers Get New Books First

Some New Books in the Library

Hot, Flat, and Crowded by Thomas L. Friedman
Film as Social Practice by Graeme Turner
Short Guide to Writing About Psychology by Dana Dunn
Birthday Party & The Room: Plays by Harold Pinter
The Widow of Eastwick by John Updike
Cultural Resistance Reader edited by Stephne Duncombe
Joe Orton Complete Plays
DIY The Rise of LO-FI Culture by Amy Spencer
Politics in Music by Courtney Brown
Amerioa on Film Benshoff and Griffin
Saved by Edward Bond
Death with Interruptions by Jose Saramago

Ccoming soon: The Post-Modern American World by Fareed Zakaria

The Lancet has Relaunched

Welcome to your new online resource for The Lancet, The Lancet Infectious Diseases, The Lancet Oncology, and The Lancet Neurology. In addition to the Lancet journals' medical news, research, review, and opinion, the new site, The Lancet Global Health Network, offers more functionality and features and will continue to expand in the coming months. The Lancet is the British medical journal available in full text on several of our subscription databases.

Listen to Richard Horton and Harriet Bell introducing the new website in the launch podcast. (mp3, 10:27 mins, 9.57Mb) The directions are on the Lancet page.
Source: The Lancet

Taking Notes: Evernote

Here is a look at a new (to me) Web 2.0 tool that has the potential to help students do better in school, collaborate with their fellow students, and save them time

Evernote is a great note taking application, but that only scratches the surface of what it can do. If you are in a lecture, for example, you can also take a picture of the blackboard with your phone, upload it to the Evernote server, and thanks to Evernote's clever OCR algorithms, even pictures of handwritten notes become instantly searchable.

You can also use it to bookmark web pages and write down your own lecture notes. Best of all, you can use a web app, a Windows or Mac desktop app, or a Windows Mobile and iPhone app, all of which seamlessly synch with each other, so that your notes are always up to date.

Source: Evernote

Google's RSS Feed

Google’s been the lone hold out among major search engines on RSS but the company quietly enabled feeds for web search results this week. The offering is pretty limited and frustrating, you have to go through Google Alerts to get an obscure RSS URL, but ReadWriteWeb offers a tutorial and some strategic advice in this post.

Web search RSS is useful for being alerted whenever search results for your keywords or link have changed; subscribing to at least a few searches will let you know when Google users are seeing something new in the first few pages of search results for Goodwin College, for example.
Source: ReadWriteWeb

USA.gov--Presidential Election 2008

USA.gov now offers a new page on the presidential election. You’ll find information about President-elect Barack Obama, inauguration day (January 20, 2009), and the 2008election. It also has biographies of President- and Vice President-Elect Obama and Biden, and their wives.

Source: USA.gov

New Dog for the White House

Sasha and Malia," Obama said in his victory speech at Chicago's Grant Park, "I love you both so much, and you have earned the new puppy that's coming with us to the White House."

Harry Truman once said, “If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.” But presidents have kept an unusual assortment of animals other than dogs and cats, according to CNN this morning. Thomas Jefferson kept two grizzly bears in a cage on the White House lawn, while John Quincy Adams is said to have let his alligator use a bathtub inside. Calvin Coolidge walked his raccoons on a leash. Theodore Roosevelt's sons escorted their pet pony onto the White House elevator to cheer up a sick sibling. And perhaps the strangest of all: Martin Van Buren briefly owned two tiger cubs, a gift from the Sultan of Oman. Some of us remember Nixon’s Checkers speech and Lyndon Johnson lifting his beagles by their ears. I wonder what kind of dog the Obama girls will have--a Bichon maybe?

New Directions for Youth Development

The fall issue of this journal, New Directions for Youth Development, is just in at the library. The topic for the articles in this issue is "Youth, Violence, and Social Disintegration." This volume examines violent behavior and addresses these questions in an international context. The theoretical framework for all of the articles is the theory of disintegration.

Reminder: Reference Help Any Time

InfoAnyTime is a real-time, web-based reference service that provides live librarians to assist Goodwin students and faculty in finding information to support research. When the library is closed or you cannot get here, InfoAnyTime connects to a professional librarian 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Sessions are conducted via online chat, using pushing and co-browsing technology to display information found on the web and in the iCONN databases. Anyone with a web browser can access the service - there is no special software required. You can access InfoAnyTime from the library page.

Nursing 210 Students: Critical Thinking Study Guide

The library does have the Critical Thinking Study Guide to accompany Medical-Surgical Nursing by Ignatavicius & Workman. The book is on reserve to be used in the library.

Wharton Experience Online for Business Students

The Wharton School of Pennsylvania gives us free access to knowledge@Wharton, the school's online business journal that includes:
--analysis of current business trends
--interviews with industry leaders and Wharton faculty
--articles based on the most recent business research
--conference overviews, book reviews, and links to relevant content
--searchable database of over 1,500 articles and research abstracts

Assessing 21st Century Skills

Finding ways to assess 21st century learning skills should top the list of education technology priorities for the next Administration and Congress, according to the more than 500 school leaders that responded to a survey issued yesterday by the National School Boards Association at the organization’s annual technology and learning conference, T+L.

More than 50 percent of the district leaders surveyed agreed that their top education technology priority for the new Administration and Congress should be assessing 21st century skills. An additional 43 percent called for supporting increased professional development around educational technology, while 38 percent wanted an increased focus on S.T.E. M. subject areas (science, technology, engineering, and math).

Read the survey.

Round and Round

"Athletics tracks are always run anticlockwise. Does this favour particular runners? Races could surely be run either way, so why never clockwise?" Please comment!!

Source: Peter Hallberg, Stockholm, Sweden from The Last Word
Image: Image: dlritter, stock.xchng

Psychology Articles

The library subscribes to PsycARTICLES, a database of full-text articles from journals published by the American Psychological Association, the APA Educational Publishing Foundation, the Canadian Psychological Association, and Hogrefe Publishing Group. It doesn't get any better than that for psychology students! Here is the list of journals in the database.

A Poem for Election Day

Here is Langston Hughes poem, "Let America be America Again"

This poem was online today in Worldchanging,a solutions-based online magazine that works from a simple premise: that the tools, models and ideas for building a better future lie all around us. The editors say plenty of people are working on tools for change, but the fields in which they work remain unconnected. The motive, means and opportunity for profound positive change are already present. Another world is not just possible, it's here. We only need to put the pieces together.
Source: Worldchanging

New E-Book of Essays

Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity, Copyright, and the Future of the Future by Cory Doctorow

"The Internet’s favorite high-tech culture maven is celebrated with the first collection of his infamous articles, essays, and polemics. He leads off with a mutinous talk given at Microsoft on digital rights management, insisting that they stop treating their customers as criminals. Readers will discover how America chose Happy Meal toys over copyright, why Facebook is taking a faceplant, how the Internet is basically just a giant Xerox machine, why Wikipedia is a poor cousin of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, and how to enjoy free e-books.

Practicing what he preaches, all of the author’s books, including this one, are simultaneously released in print and on the Internet under Creative Commons licenses that encourage their reuse and sharing."

Source: Regina Schroeder in Booklist

Resource of the Week

United National Audiovisual Library of International Law

The Audiovisual Library is a unique, multimedia resource which provides the United Nations with the unprecedented capacity to provide high quality international law training and research materials to an unlimited number of recipients on a global level. The Audiovisual Library consists of three pillars: (1) the Historic Archives containing documents and audiovisual materials relating to the negotiation and adoption of significant legal instruments under the auspices of the United Nations and related agencies since 1945; (2) the Lecture Series featuring a permanent collection of lectures on virtually every subject of international law given by leading international law scholars and practitioners from different countries and legal systems; and (3) the Research Library providing an on-line international law library with links to treaties, jurisprudence, publications and documents, scholarly writings and research guides. The Audiovisual Library is available to all individuals and institutions around the world for free via the Internet.

This is a very rich resource, but there is plenty of helpful information on how to access the content — for example, this detailed page on what is in the Historical Archives and how to navigate this section of the site. Topics included here: Criminal Law, Decolonization, Diplomatic and Consular Relations, Disarmament, Education / Science / Culture, Environmental Law, Health, Human Rights, International Economic Law, International Organizations, Law of Outer Space, Law of the Sea, Law of Treaties, Peace and Security, Refugees and Stateless Persons, Succession of States.

Source: United Nations Blog