New ICONN LOOK

Based on substantial feedback from users, ICONN staff members have made a number of changes to improve the usability of iCONN. You will see a new start page that provides two search boxes:

Use the top box to get articles from magazines and newspapers.
Use the bottom box to find books, DVDs, CDs, etc. in Connecticut libraries.

One glitch is that the Magazines/Journals tab in the Find Books search box does not produce any search results, and the search results screen is confusing. To produce any search results, you need to select "Statewide Magazine Catalog" on the search results page and redo the search.

Another glitch is that the “Request Tracking” link may not appear on the Find Books search box.

Lastly, the "Search Individual Resources" link on the new start page "may" require the user to login again before being taken to the classic menu page. The latter problem seems to exist only when using iCONN outside the library. These problems have been reported and should be corrected later today.

Credo Reference: Top Ten Entries Viewed in September

Theses were the top ten entries in the Credo Reference database viewed by members of the Goodwin community in the month of September:

Nutrition—New Harvard Guide to Women’s Health
Rabies Virus—Academic Press Dictionary of Science and Technology
Metabolism—Taber’s Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary
Black Pepper-Mosby’s Handbook of Herbs & Natural Supplements
Why Study Youth Culture—Contemporary Youth Culture: An International Encyclopedia
Metabolism—Encyclopedia of Insects
Man with his Head in his Hands--Bridgeman Art Library Archive
Sorrow, 1882—Bridgeman Art Library ArchiveFishing in the Spring, Pont de Clichy, 1887--Bridgeman Art Library Archive
Wheatfields Under Thunderclouds, 1890—Bridgeman Art Library Archive

And the winning reference book for the month is Bridgeman Art Library Archive.
Source: Credo Reference Administrator's Statistics

Credo Reference Highlight of the Week

Encyclopedia of Emancipation and Abolition in the Transatlantic World from M.E. Sharpe

The struggle to abolish slavery is one of the grandest quests--and central themes--of modern history. These movements for freedom have taken many forms, from individual escapes, violent rebellions, and official proclamations to mass organizations, decisive social actions, and major wars. Every emancipation has profoundly transformed the country and society in which it existed.

This unique A-Z encyclopedia in the Credo Reference database examines every effort to end slavery in the United States and the transatlantic world. It focuses on massive, broad-based movements, as well as specific incidents, events, and developments, and pulls together in one place information previously available only in a wide variety of sources. It centers on the United States.

The Encyclopedia of Emancipation and Abolition features primary source documents, a map of the transatlantic slave trade, illustrations, cross-references, a comprehensive chronology and bibliography, and covers a wide range of individuals and the major themes and ideas that motivated them to confront and abolish slavery.

Read a few of the interesting entries:
"Forty Acres and a Mule"

Sojourner Truth (ca. 1797-1883): former slave and inspirational leader of the abolitionist movement

Credo Reference is a database of more than 400 full-text reference books that can be accessed from the Goodwin Library page under "Find Articles".

Source: Credo Reference

Conforts of Home: Flannery O'Connor Repository

Comforts of Home was constructed as a Web portal leading to reasonably reliable information about O'Connor and her work. In selecting the information and links, it set up criteria for content and accessibility to cull out spurious information and sites that are permanently "under construction".

The site hosts articles on O'Connor--her works, her life, her influences--whether critical analysis, or personal reviews. This is not designed to be a storehouse of board review and advanced scholarship, so you will find opinion pieces with a definite slant. Keep this in mind if you plan to use material from Comforts in your own research.

Internet Public Library also has resources on Flannery O'Connor.

Panihari: Water Women of India: New DVD

Arriving today in the Goodwin Library is the DVD "Panihar: Water Women of India." The filmmakers document life in the desert communities of Rajasthan. Their journey leads them to the Panihari (women who fetch water). The film centers around one of these women, Paru, a shoemaker's wife, as she struggles against nature and society to attain self-relaince for her family and herself. Vibran imagery, music, and folklore combine to paint a vivid picture of life as a Panihari.

Source: Recommendation from Bruce Morton; information from the DVD;
Image from Arts & Culture jhalawar.nic.in/arts.htm

How Good is Windows 7 for Colleges?

With the new Microsoft operating system, Windows 7, hitting the shelves today, there has been a lot of hoopla surrounding the product. But will it help colleges? Microsoft representatives demonstrated the new operating system at The Chronicle of Higher Education offices to bolster a claim that the new Windows — unlike a previous effort, the much-reviled Vista -- will be a major boon for higher education.

To find out if the product lives up to the hype, The Chronicle spoke with a number of college CIO's and IT project managers who have already tested and, to various degrees, deployed Windows 7. Their conclusion: Microsoft has taken a solid step forward, creating something that could save institutions some money and improve security, and is decidedly not Vista.

Source: Quoted from "How Good Is Windows 7 for Colleges?" by Ben Terris in Wired Campus

Educators and APA Style and a Rubric--Oh My!

Nurse Educators and all APA users, this is for you! Authors of a recent article in the Journal of Nursing Education sought to gain a better understanding of faculty application and evaluation of APA style. It is an evidence-based, scientific article: abstract, literature review, method, results, discussion and recommendations.

The article includes eight tables and a bibliography. Table 8 is an example of the APA Style Rubric covering organization and format. Actually, this rubric could be used for MLA Style as well.
Highly recommended!

Source: "Faculty Applicationof the American Psychological Association Style"
Journal of Nursing Education Volume 48, Number 10

It's Happening in Hartford

The 46 annual New England Library Association Conference is meeting this week for the first time ever in Hartford. More than 500 regional librarians and close to 200 exhibitors will spend most of 3 days attending workshops, networking, banquets, and more. Christina Deptulski and I are among those 500.

At the banquet last night, the 2009 Emerson Greenaway Award for distinguished service to the library community in New England was presented to the Connecticut State Librarian, Mr. Kendall F. Wiggin.

Ken Wiggin is an outstanding library leader in Connecticut, across the region, and across the nation. His leadership has brought several important initiatives to the State Library and the entire Connecticut library community including iCONN, the Connecticut Education Network, the Historical Documents Preservation program and Connecticut History Online.

The workshop I attended was the "Operating Systems (OS) Smackdown." Linux landed a hit with the latest Ubuntu OS distribution. Apple has a new OS X update (Snow Leopard). Windows 7 OS will soon be out. The Information Technology panelists demonstrated and discussed the latest and greatest offerings in these operating systems--some very cool applications.

National Book Award Finalists

This week the National Book Award Finalists were announced. Have you read any of these?
Fiction
American Salvage by Bonnie Campbell
Let the Great World Spin by colum McCann
In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin
Lark and Termite by Jayne Anne Phillips
Far North by Marcel Theroux
Nonfiction
Following the Water: A Hydromancer's Notebook by David Carroll
Remarkable Creatures by Sean Carroll
Fordlandia: Rise & Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City by G. Grandin
Poison KIng: Life & Legend of Mithradates, Rome's Deadliest Enemy by A. Mayor
First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbility by T. J. Stiles
Poetry
Versed by R. Armantrout
Or to Begin Again by A. Lauterbach
Speak Low by C. Phillips
Open Interval by L. Van Clief-Stefanon
Transcendental Studies by K. Waldrop
Young People's Literature
Charles and Emma by D. Heiligman
Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice by P. Hoose
Stitiches by D. Small
Jumped by R. Williams-Garcia
Lips Touch: Three Times by L. Taylor

Winners will be announced on November 18.

YOU CAN ACCESS DATABASES OFF-CAMPUS

You can access databases off-campus now. The Virtual Private Network (VPN) is working again.NO PASSWORDS FROM EBSCO OR OTHER VENDORS ARE NECESSARY NOW.
Follow the instructions on the library page for setting up the computer with the VPN. Then they can go to the library page, choose a database, and start searching.

Thank you IT Department and Sandy Pearce!

Book Recommendation: Paula Dowd

Paula Dowd, Program Director and Assistant Professor of Health Sciences, strongly--very strongly--recommends Garden of Last Days by Andre Dubus III. She says "it is the best book I have read in recent times. Difficult to put down. Impossible to forget."

In similar fashion to his previous bestseller,House of Sand and Fog, Dubus shows profound empathy as he gets inside the heads of a number of characters, with coincidence, chance and a clash of cultures building to a shattering climax. Through quick-cutting chapters (few longer than ten pages, many as short as one or two), he propels the action while providing the back stories that have brought these characters together for a night that will change their lives.

If Paula's recommendation is not enough, here's what Stephen King says about this book. "As soon as you close the book, you want to grab someone and tell them to read it — don't wait for the movie, read it now. Or you want to write about it, partly so people will know there's something really good in the pipeline, really alive, but also for a baser reason: You want to be able to say later on, ''I was there first. I knew.'' Paula was there first for us.

You, too, may tell us about a book or books that you are reading. Many readers of the blog are "book" people and love to hear about good reads.

There's an App for that!

You can tell a lot about people by their apps. Here, randomly selected New Yorkers— some recognizable names, some not— reveal their current and free smartphone obsessions.

Salman Rushdie, writer
Favorite app: Bump (iPhone/iPod Touch), free
“It’s the one where, if you and I both had iPhones, you bump yours against mine and it exchanges our information.”

Katie Couric, anchor, CBS Evening News
Favorite app: TwitterBerry (Blackberry), free
“Makes tweeting really easy, like sending a text message.”

Will Swenson ,actor, Hair
Favorite app: Sheep Launcher (iPhone/iPod Touch), free
“You have to launch a sheep into space. If you’re good, he goes to the planets. I’ve gotten to Jupiter, but my 8-year-old son has sent him all the way to Uranus.”

Jason Chen, editor, Gizmodo
Favorite app: Kindle (iPhone/iPod Touch), free
“It’s basically the equivalent of a Kindle e-reader you can have with you anywhere.”

Nick Miscione, sales clerk, Metro Bikes
Favorite app: Big Oven (iPhone/iPod Touch), free
“You get 160,000 recipes. I punch in ‘lasagne’ or ‘chili’ while I’m walking into the grocery store.”

I personally like the Sheep Launcher.

Source: New York Magazine

Researchers Unite!

"Researchers today"--that's all of us--"are blessed with increasingly accessible and abundant information, but this proliferation brings challenges. Researchers can now access a wider range of resources, but must spend more time finding the right information. The volume of available information is also growing researchers’ responsibility for information management. To stay effective, researchers must keep track of current research, spot interesting articles not only inside but also outside their fields, and organize data to share with research groups.

Search methods haven’t changed fundamentally in recent years, but are starting to. New display technologies and mobile devices, as well as the ability to combine information across resources (e.g., mash-ups), are changing how researchers find information. Semantic search, data mining and visualization are starting to change how people find, navigate and organize information."

That's why you have a great library staff to help you--just another blessing.

Source: Elsevier LibraryConnect by Frans Heeman, Joy Van Baren from Amsterdam, Netherlands and just a small bit from Marilyn Nowlan

Engaging the Campus Community

According to Gloucestershire College, in England, Facebook and other social-networking Web sites can do more than provide a platform for vacation photos, favorite quotes, and status updates; they can help reduce dropout rates, the BBC reports.

The media-curriculum manager at the college, Perry Perrott, says that with the advent of social media, students have been better at keeping in touch with faculty members, which has lead to a “significant improvement in retention.”

After seeing how popular social-networking sites were with students, Mr. Perry says the college decided to embrace the technology as a cost-free way to further engage the campus.

The BBC also points out that the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency says sites like Facebook have a “positive effect on motivation.”

Source: Chronicle Today October 14

New CLEP Exams Coming Next Year

On July 1, 2010, CLEP will launch two new exams: College Composition and College Composition Modular. Simultaneously, three CLEP exams will be retired:

English Composition with Essay will be replaced by College Composition
English Composition will be replaced by College Composition Modular.
Freshman College Composition will be replaced by College Composition Modular.

Both of the new examinations will assess writing skills taught in most first-year college composition courses.

College Composition includes multiple-choice items and two mandatory essays scored by CLEP. College English faculty from throughout the country score the essays via an online scoring system.

College Composition Modular includes a multiple-choice section that may be supplemented either with an essay section provided by CLEP and scored by the college, or an essay section provided and scored by the college. This exam is intended for colleges that want a valid, reliable multiple-choice assessment and greater local control over the direct writing assessment.

Source: Inside Higher Education October 14

Less Green in the Bank More Green on Campus

New portal allows universal access to sustainability data from 332 schools

Despite budget-breaking investment losses and widely fluctuating energy costs, many schools became greener during the last year, earning higher grades on the College Sustainability Report Card 2010. Released this week on the new GreenReportCard.org website by the Sustainable Endowments Institute, a special project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, the annual publication provides school profiles and grades along with exclusive insights about sustainability in higher education.

To promote shared learning in the down economy, the Sustainable Endowments Institute’s in-depth research on 332 colleges is now available at a new online portal. For the first time, the Institute is offering universal access to 1,100 sustainability survey responses about campus, dining and student initiatives, as well as endowment investment. Access to endowment information is intended to foster constructive dialogue about investment in clean energy and in community development, as well as about sustainability considerations in shareholder voting.

I think this is way cool.
Source: Information quoted from the College Sustainability Report Card

Global Researcher: Saving the Children

OCTOBER GLOBAL RESEARCHER REPORT

"The numbers are grim: Every day more than 25,000 children under age 5 — the equivalent of 125 jetliners full of youngsters — die from hunger, poverty or easily preventable illnesses, such as diarrhea and malaria. Millions of others are abandoned, trafficked into prostitution, forced into armed conflict or used as child laborers — mostly in sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe. While governments and nongovernmental organizations struggle to help, aid cutbacks due to the world economic crisis could trigger 200,000–400,000 additional child deaths each year. Meanwhile, experts and policy makers disagree over how best to combat AIDS among children, and whether more foreign aid would do more harm than good. Others question whether the United States should ratify the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child. The United States is the only nation besides Somalia that hasn't adopted the treaty." (Introduction to the Saving the Children Report)

The CQ Global Researcher meets the increasing demand for balanced, reliable reporting on international issues and crises. Modeled after the weekly CQ Researcher, CQ Global Researcher delivers definitive, in-depth coverage of newsworthy global affairs from a multitude of international viewpoints. Available exclusively online, CQ Global Researcher offers focused, readable, single-topic reports on vital world issues.

Supplemental materials with each report include:
Visual aides such as maps, charts, tables, and graphs
Chronologies of major events
Excerpts from key primary source materials
A glossary and bibliography

The Global Researcher and CQ Researcher reports are available on and off campus from the Goodwin Library.

Hot Paper Topics

The Hot Paper topics list from St. Ambrose College was updated this week. For those of you pondering a topic for a paper due before the end of the semester, the topics on the list are also links to more information. Influenza(Pandemics) was recently added.

Source: Best Information on the Net from St. Ambrose Library created originally by MaryLaine Block, Librarian

Nobel Prize in Literature

Romanian-born German writer Herta Müller won the 2009 Nobel Prize in literature Thursday, honored for work that "with the concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts the landscape of the dispossessed," the Swedish Academy said. She made her debut in 1982 with a collection of short stories depicting the harshness of life in in Romania. It was promptly censored by the communist government. Two of her novels are available in English: The Appointment and The Land of Green Plums.

In 1984, an uncensored version was smuggled to Germany. That work was followed by "Oppressive Tango" in Romania but she was eventually prohibited from publishing inside her country for her criticism of dictator Nicolae Ceausescu's rule.

The prize includes a 10 million kronor ($1.43 million) prize and will be handed out Dec. 10 in the Swedish capital. Last year's literature prize went to French novelist Jean-Marie Le Clezio.

Source: Associated Press

Science, Health, Environment: Futurity.org

Futurity is an online news source featuring the latest discoveries in science, engineering, the environment, health, and more from North America's leading research universities. Futurity.org made its debut as a beta site in March 2009 and formally launched on September 15. As an online research magazine, Futurity highlights the latest discoveries from leading universities in the United States and Canada.

The Futurity site developers explain that "the way people share information is changing quickly and daily. Blogs and social media sites like YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook are just a taste of what’s to come. It will be easier than ever to share content instantly with people around the globe, allowing universities to reach new audiences and engage a new generation in discovery."

Goodwin Library has Informe

Goodwin Library has Informe. Created exclusively for Spanish-speaking users, this full-text electronic reference tool is the first system to provide indexing, images and full text of popular Hispanic magazines -- not just translations. Also included is a thesaurus and interface that are uniquely designed for Spanish-speaking users. Informe thinks through every query in Spanish. Terms and thesaurus are based on the expressions Spanish-speakers commonly use, allowing users to easily navigate through the database without experiencing inaccurate search terms. Informe also features title annotations in both English and Spanish to help non-Spanish speaking staff to easily assist users. Students of Spanish, as well as non-native speakers can also easily access resources through this bilingual approach.

Access: Go to Goodwin Library page--www.goodwwin.edu/library. Click on [Find Articles]. The next screen is a list of databases. It is the first database on the list.

Whot is that on Google?

In case you are wondering whose image is on Google today, I will tell you. It is Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who was born on October 2, 1869. He was one of the great spiritual and peace leaders of the 20th century and a strong advocate of non-violent social change in South Africa and India. Of course, you could have just clicked on the Google logo today and you would already have known who it was.

Database Trials

Access: Academic Search Premier

Academic Search Premier is the world's largest scholarly, multidiscipline full text database designed specifically for academic institutions. It offers critical information from many sources found in no other database. Academic Search™ Premier contains indexing and abstracts for over 8,450 journals, with full text for more than 4,650 of those titles. PDF backfiles to 1975 or further are available for well over one hundred journals, and searchable cited references are provided for more than 1,000 titles. Academic Search Premier contains unmatched full-text coverage in biology, chemistry, engineering, physics, psychology, religion & theology, etc.


Access: Literary Reference Center

Literary Reference Center™ is a comprehensive database that provides users with a broad spectrum of information on thousands of authors and their works across literary disciplines and timeframes. It has been specifically designed for public libraries, secondary schools, junior/community colleges, and undergraduate research.

Literary Reference Center is a full-text database that combines information from major respected reference works, books, literary journals as well as original content from EBSCO Publishing. Literary Reference Center contains full text for more than 31,000 plot summaries, synopses and work overviews, nearly 100,000 articles/essays of literary criticism, more than 159,000 author biographies (including more than 22,000 in-depth bios), 450 literary journals, more than 632,000 book reviews, more than 69,000 classic and contemporary poems, more than 18,000 classic and contemporary short stories, more than 5,600 author interviews, more than 8,200 classic texts and much more.

Please use these databases and let me know what you think. See below where it says "post a comment." That's where you tell me what you think. Don't be shy.

There are also handouts in the library with helpful suggestions on writing an article review of a short story.

Get Student IDs Next Week

It is mandatory that all Goodwin College students possess a valid student ID. Student ID photos will be taken in the Auditorium Annex (first floor by main entrance) The last photo sessions of the semester are Monday-Friday next week.

Schedule:
Monday, Oct 5th - 7:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.
2:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.
Tuesday, Oct 6th - 7:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.
2:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.
Wednesday, Oct 7th - 7:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.
2:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.
Thursday, Oct 8th - 7:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.
2:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.
Friday, Oct 9th - 7:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.

Celebrate the Freedom to Read

Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read!

Banned Books Week (BBW) is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment. Held during the last week of September,BBW highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books across the United States.

Did you know that BBW is the only national celebration of the freedom to read? It was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries. More than a thousand books have been challenged since 1982. The challenges have occurred in every state and in hundreds of communities. Click here to see a map of book bans and challenges in the US from 2007 to 2009. People challenge books that they say are too sexual or too violent. They object to profanity and slang, and protest against offensive portrayals of racial or religious groups--or positive portrayals of homosexuals. Their targets range from books that explore the latest problems to classic and beloved works of American literature.

According to the American Library Association, out of 513 challenges reported to the Office of Intellectual Freedom in 2008.

Nursing Students: Lexi-PALS Drug Guide

Knowing this may save you time. Lexi-PALS Drug Guide is part of the Health Source: Nursing Academic Edition database that you can acccess from the library page--wwww.goodwin.edu/library. On the page, click on Find journals. In the list of databases, choose Health Source. Try it out with prozac in the search box.

Lexi-PALS Drug Guide is a database of Patient Advisory Leaflets from Lexi-Comp that provides vital education on medications for patients. The database consists of over 1,450 medication and natural product leaflets, with an additional 600 Spanish language leaflets representing the most subscribed and commonly used medications.The approach for each pamphlet is to present each medication in an easy to follow and understandable question-and-answer format.

By the way, this database also provides nearly 550 scholarly full text journals focusing on many medical disciplines. Also featured are abstracts and indexing for nearly 850 journals. Coverage of nursing and allied health is particularly strong, including full text from Creative Nursing, Issues in Comprehensive Pediatric Nursing, Issues in Mental Health Nursing, Journal of Advanced Nursing, Journal of Child & Adolescent Psychiatric Nursing, Journal of Clinical Nursing, Journal of Community Health Nursing, Journal of Nursing Management, Nursing Ethics, Nursing Forum, Nursing Inquiry, and many more. (Doesn't this make up just a little bit for the powerpoint thing?)