Applachian Trail Thru-Hike

I know some of you are planning to hike the entire Applachian trail some day. Maybe you have already started making plans. Just for your information, the average thru-hike takes 5-7 months and that's at a 13-15 mile per day average, but only 20% of the people who start the hike actually finish. As of 2005, only 8,425 people have completed the whole trail. I know some of your names will be added to that list.

For those of you who don't know about this, the Appalachian National Scenic Trail is a 2,174-mile footpath along the ridgecrests and across the major valleys of the Appalachian Mountains from Springer Mountain in northern Georgia to Katahdin in Maine. The trail traverses Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina and Georgia. Doing it all at once is very difficult!

Just for fun, you can follow two people from Connecticut who did the northerly hike of the entire trail last year. Carrie and Derrick Ellis have a web site with pictures, movies, a well-
researched gear list, and more. Keep hiking!
The web site: www.ellishiking.com

Environmental-Health Journal

Plan to privatize Environmental-Health Journal is on hold amid congressional inquiry.
The plans to turn a well-respected public-health journal, published by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, over to a private publisher should be put on hold, says a Congressional oversight committee that is investigating the matter.

The journal, Environmental Health Perspectives, consistently ranks among the top journals in environmental science and public health. It has been slated for privatization since September 2005, but that process has been marred by ethics concerns. The entire journal, including the student edition, is now freely available online. News, feature articles, and commentary, which account for about half of the printed edition, will also be curtailed if it is privatized.Reports of peer-reviewed original research are not slated for cuts at this time.
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education

New Books for Hospitality

These are new books in the library for the hospitality program:

Hospitality 2010 by Cetron, DeMocio, and Davies
At Your Service by the Culinary Institute of America
Art of the Event by James C. Monroe
I Like You: Hospitality under the Influence by Amy Sedaris
Hospitality Financial Accounting by Weygandt, Kieso, Kimmel & DeFranco

Partnership for Global Security Website

The Partnership for Global Security mounts a global effort to decrease the dangers posed by weapons of mass destruction by working for a world in which all such weapons are secured and the threat of their use is eliminated. The website offers Nuclear News; U.S., Russian, and United Nations documents; the partnership’s own reports; and news links.

Source: Weekly Homeland Security Newsletter

All Dogs Great and Small

A new study conducted by an international team of scientists led by researchers at the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) has identified the gene responsible for this great range of dog sizes. The answer, it seems involve a number of different versions of the gene that encodes for insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF1). The gene, IGF1, was identified following genetic analysis that began with screening 463 Portuguese water dogs, a breed that has a lot of diversity in size. The researchers measured the dogs, took X-rays, and then sequenced their DNA and looked for different regions of interest. This research team will plans on turning their attention to identifying genetic markers that control other aspects of canine appearance. Whether they find the gene for adorable remains to be seen. The study was published in Science today.

Measuring UP 2006

Measuring Up 2006 consists of the national report card for higher education and fifty state report cards. Its purpose is to provide the public and policymakers with information to assess and improve postsecondary education in each state. Measuring Up 2006 is the fourth in a series of biennial report cards.
This Web site provides state leaders, policymakers, researchers and others with access to the national report card as well as access to all fifty state report cards. In addition, the site can compare any state with the best-performing states in each performance category, compare indicator scores and state grades for any performance category, obtain source and technical information for indicators and weights, and allow visitors to download the reports. Further, the Measuring Up Web site has the capacity to view previous report cards from 2000, 2002, and 2004.
Source: Marylaine Block's Neat New Stuff

Homeland Security Information

The Homeland Security Information Center at NTIS (National Technical Information Service) is an invaluable resource for scientific and technical information from the U.S. government, its contractors, and complementary material from international sources. The site is divided into five major categories with subcategory listings of recent reports: health and medicine; food and agriculture; biological and chemical warfare; preparedness and response; and safety training.
Source: http://www.ntis.gov/hs

African-American Registered Nurses

"From Their Own Voices: The Lived Experiences of African American Registered Nurses"
Journal of Transcultural Nursing April 2007

"Within this century, the United States will experience drastic demographic and cultural changes in the population. The majority of the people living in this country will belong to groups now considered minorities. Because nurses will be caring for an increasingly diverse patient populations, the workforce must include more registered nurses who share similar backgrounds as the patients. Of the 2.7 million registered nurses in the United States (Bureau of Health Professionals, 2000), only 13.4% are minorities." (from the article)

The article by Deborah W. Wilson of Howard University describes a study of the lived experience of African American nurses providing nursing care in the south. She concludes with recommendations to address the immediate needs concerning diversity in the nursing profession. The article is available in the Goodwin Library

Source: Journal of Transcultural Nursing April 2007

Simplify FAFSA

This report outlines a plan for simplifying the financial aid application process by letting financial aid applicants ask the IRS to automatically answer many of the most difficult and important questions on the FAFSA. In addition to dramatically simplifying the process for students and families, this reform would cut down on costly verification paperwork for colleges and universities and improve accuracy and data security. (Don't hold your breath.)
Going to the Source: A Practical Way to Simplify the FAFSA
Source: The Institute for College Access & Success
+ Executive Summary
+ Full Report

Congressional Hearing and No Child Left Behind

Experts Tell Congress About Alternative Methods for Measuring Student Progress Under No Child Left Behind

At a House Education and Labor Committee hearing today, education experts offered specific ideas for changing the way states and schools measure schools’ progress under the federal No Child Left Behind law. Under the law, states are required to set benchmarks each year for the share of students who can read and do math at grade level. If the percentage of a school’s students who are proficient does not meet these annual benchmarks, then the school does not make adequate yearly progress. The experts at today’s hearing all testified that there may be more accurate and fair methods that to help schools measure their progress.
Source: U.S. House of Representatives Education and Labor committee

Spring has Sprung

On March 20, 2007, at precisely 8:07 P.M. EDT (March 21, 00:07 Universal Time), the Sun crossed directly over the Earth's equator. This moment is the vernal equinox in the Northern Hemisphere. For the Southern Hemisphere, this is the moment of the autumnal equinox.
Translated literally,equinox means "equal night." Because the sun is positioned above the equator, day and night are about equal in length all over the world during the equinoxes. A second equinox occurs each year on September 22 or 23; in 2007, it will be on September 23 at 5:51 A.M. EDT (09:51 UT). This date will mark the autumnal equinox in the Northern Hemisphere and the vernal equinox in the Southern (vernal denotes "spring"). I do remember something from fifth grade and that was a long time ago.

Autism Video

Mary Ellen Bates says that BoingBoing pointed her to "this amazing YouTube video by a woman with autism, along with a translation of her language. The first part, she says, is in my 'native language," and then the second part provides a translation, or at least an explanation. "
Source: Mary Ellen Bates

Recommended book: Girls of Tender Age

Sandra Ward, Janet Jefford, and I strongly recommend Girls of Tender Age by Mary-Ann Tirone Smith. Smith's book is far and away the most in demand book on the Goodwin campus and generally across the greater Hartford area. Smith tells her story of growing up in low-income housing in Hartford just after WW II--a riveting family memoir like no other.

Call the library now--today. The Goodwin book club will meet to discuss this book in April.

Wikipedia's Growth

(The following is excerpted and condensed from an op-ed in the Washington Post earlier this year.)

"In the past year, Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that "anyone can edit," has been cited four times as often as the Encyclopedia Britannica in judicial opinions, and the number is rapidly growing. In just two years, YouTube has become a household word and one of the world's most successful Web sites. Such astounding growth and success demonstrate society's unstoppable movement toward shared production of information, as diverse groups of people in multiple fields pool their knowledge and draw from each other's resources." (College students are generally discouraged from using Wikipedia as an authoritative source in research papers.)

"Wikipedia is merely one of many experiments in aggregating knowledge and creativity, that have been made possible by new technology. The track record of the new collaborations suggests that they have immense potential. In just a few years, Wikipedia has become the most influential encyclopedia in the world, consulted by judges as well as those who cannot afford to buy books. If the past is prologue, we're seeing the tip of a very large iceberg."

Working Moms Find Time for Children

A new study finds that somehow, working mothers are spending the same amount of time with their children as stay-at-home moms did in the 1970s. They're giving up sleep, housework and time with the spouse. Listen to the broadcast online.
Source: National Public Radio Morning Edition March 21

For Sociology and Life Span Students

Here is a valuable site to find data for research in sociology and life span classes. The Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), begun in 1968, studies a representative sample of U.S. individuals and their family units. The study emphasizes the dynamic aspects of economic and demographic behavior, but also includes other sociological and psychological measures.

The sample size has grown to more than 7,000 families. The PSID has collected information about more than 65,000 individuals spanning as much as 36 years of their lives. The study is conducted at the Survey Research Center, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan. The study includes a Child Development supplement.

The site includes tutorials that could be used in the classroom, a user guide, related sites of studies around the world, and updates. The PSID 2005 family, individual and family history files have been released recently been released.

Source: http://psidonline.isr.umich.edu/

Changing the Student-aid Application

"Congressional Democrats introduced legislation on Tuesday that would cut the basic federal student-aid application form in half by using financial information from income-tax returns.
College-access advocates and members of both political parties have long said that the complicated and slow process of applying for financial aid discourages thousands of low-income students from going to college or from receiving grants and loans. Cutting the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or Fafsa, would be a move toward simplifying the process."
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education March 21

Is the No Child Left Behind Act Working?

“President Bush says it is, pointing to student-achievement results from a single subsection of the National Assessment of Educational Progress and tentative Reading First data. But the evidence available to support his claim is questionable.

The data Mr. Bush cited at that event are from just the “long-term trend” NAEP in reading and math, researchers say. All available data, they add, show modest improvements that can’t be attributed to the 5-year-old law. Instead, progress in achievement is more likely a continuation of trends that predate the law.

“There’s not any evidence that shows anything has changed,” said Daniel M. Koretz, a professor of education at Harvard University’s graduate school of education.”
Source: Education Week March 9, 2007

This Week in the Chronicle's Brown Bag:

Are Accreditors the Education Department's Police Force?

Thursday, March 15, at 12 noon, U.S. Eastern Time

Live web chat with Judith S. Eaton

Even before the federal Commission on the Future of Higher Education delivered its final report last September, the secretary of education, Margaret Spellings, seems to have been leaning on accreditors to carry out some of the report's key recommendations on making colleges more accountable. She wants them to put more emphasis on "outputs," like graduation and employment rates, and on gauges of what students have learned. Join the Chronicle of Higher Education discussion on Thursday for a live Web chat at noon.

Judith S. Eaton, who represents the accreditors, has long championed a cooperative approach, even as she expresses accreditors' concerns that the Education Department has imposed new and arbitrary interpretations of the rules under which they operate. Ms. Eaton will take your questions about those and other issues, including new efforts in the fight against diploma mills.

Eaton, president of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation, will take your questions about the changing role of accreditors, what the Bush administration wants accreditors to do, the fight against diploma mills, and other issues.
SEE http://chronicle.com/live/

Homeland Security: National Security Agencies

American military and intelligence agencies have increasingly been turning to anthropologists and other social scientists for "cultural knowledge" about actual and potential adversaries. But many anthropologists are deeply anxious about offering such assistance, fearing, among other things, that their insights might be used simply to help torture and kill people more effectively.

At a panel discussion that was Webcast from Brown University on Monday afternoon, several members of a temporary committee of the American Anthropological Association discussed how and where the discipline should draw ethical lines when anthropologists engage with national-security agencies. (An archive of the Webcast should be available later this week.)
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education

Histology Learning System Database

Histology learning System is for all histology students! It has been recommended by Zoe Durkin.

Success in a histology course depends on the student's understanding of the course objectives. These are:
To learn microscopic anatomy of the tissues and organs of the human body.
To learn histological terms and concepts for the purpose of identification and precise communication.
To develop a systematic thinking process as a means to identify histological preparations correctly.
To understand the relationship between microscopic structure and function.
To understand the preparative procedures used in histology and how they affect the visual image.

By methodically reviewing images in this database you will learn to identify cells, tissues, organs, and parts of organs correctly. You learn to do this, not by memorizing the images, rather, by learning how morphological features relate to function and by understanding which features are most diagnostic of organ systems and organs of the systems. In medicine, as in histology, this intellectual process involves art as well as science. The art lies in knowing which questions to ask, and in what order, in your systematic process of elimination!
http://www.bu.edu/histology/m/index.htm

Financial Management for Nonprofit Organizations

We have a new book in the library, Financial Management for Nonprofit Organizations: Policies and Practices by Zietlow, Hankin, and Seidner. Written in the light of increased scrutiny and accountability of nonprofits, this book weaves legal and ethical considerations into a comprehensive treatment of nonprofit strategy and finance, furnishing financial officers with a firm knowledge of ethical business management--indispensable for all types and sizes of organizations.

Is College Worth It? What do you Think?

The cover story for U.S. News and World Report (March 12) is titled "The Measure of Learning." Can we test what colleges teach? Academics are appalled that the government wants to try but the government is going to demand an accounting by assessing college learning with one or a number of standardized tests. "We're the best in the wolrd, give us money and leave us alone, " says Charles Miller, the chairman of the Commission on Higher Education. "The higher-ed community needs to fess up to the public's concerns."

What should a student learn in college? And whatever that is, which colleges teach it most effectively? With the average cost of private college soaring, it's a question being asked more and more. There are currently two major tools used to measure student learning. The Collegiate Learning Assessment measures critical thinking and analytical reasoning. Many school use it, but they keep the results confidential. Hundreds of schools also administer the National Survey of Student Engagement, which tracks how much time students spend on education and other activities.

In a few weeks, colleges will hear how U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings intends to move forward. Colleges, meanwhile, according to this article, "continue to search for that elusive value-added measure that can lead to better teaching."It is important that we read this.
Source: U.S. News and World Report article by Alex Kingsbury (available in the library)

ICONN Statistics

Since its inception, users, including members of the Goodwin Community, have conducted 65 million searchs in ICONN. In FY 206 alone, Connecticut residents and students searched 33.5 million times, 75% increase over the previous year. In addition, reQuest was searched 2.1 million times, a 22 % increase over last year. Over 200 libraries successfully lent more than 91,000 items through reQuest interlibrary loan, a 23% increase over the previous year. Holdings in reQuest increased to 21.2 million items. Three resources were recently added: Academic OneFile, LegalTrac, and WorldCat.org.

Under consideration for the coming fiscal year:
Career & testing resources
Science resources
Historical Hartford Courant
Online Encyclpedias
Literature resources
Current Issues resources
Source: The ICONN Times

Past, Present and Future of Food

Here is a webcast on the past, present, and future of food from the co-founder and CEO of Whole Foods, John Mackey. He then discusses these issues with Michael Pollan, author of "The Omnivore's Dilemma." Whole Foods Market is the largest organic and natural retailer in the world.
View the Webcast (Real Player. The program runs 124 minutes. )
Source: Graduate School of Journalism, UC Berkeley

Health Science: Management of Chronic Disease

“Our study showed that participating in a collaborative improved the processes of care related to prevention and screening and disease monitoring and treatment for diabetes and asthma, but participating in a collaborative did not improve these processes for hypertension. The study did not show improvements in intermediate outcomes of care. Whether these differences in diseases and outcomes are related to the nature of each targeted condition, aspects of the participating organizations, ease of patient adherence, or the specific collaborative under study is not known. Finally, improvements over time were seen in both intervention and control centers for almost every individual measure. Whether this broad improvement reflects general secular trends or the general quality-improvement environment at community health centers is not known.”
Source: New England Journal of Medicine

Early Child Education: Language Skills

Very Early Processing Skills as Predictors of Later Language Disorders

“First concerns that a child is not developing language as expected typically arise when a child is 2-3 years old, and children up to 4 constitute a substantial proportion of first referrals to speech and language therapy services. Long-term outcome for these children is a critical issue for all concerned: are they simply ‘late bloomers’, or will they have persisting problems with language and communication? This project aimed to identify predictors of outcome in 2- to 3-year-olds referred with concerns about language.”
+ Full Report (PDF; 2.1 MB)
Source: Economic & Social Research Council

Search Mash

"This is an unbranded Google site, where Google is trying out a new search engine interface. For starters, it sorts the results by web pages, images, blogs, videos, and Wikipedia entries, all on one screen. The first 20 web pages are displayed in a somewhat abbreviated format, but with a new way to drill down into any of the retrieved web sites. And Google finally has something close to MSN Live's "infinite scroll." When you click SearchMash's link for "More web results", the next 20 results are added at the end of the search results list; you can now scroll through 40 results at a time. Click "More web results" and another 20 are added at the end of the list, and so on." (Mary Ellen Bates)
http://www.searchmash.com

Featured Podcast This Week

Civil Liberties in War Time (MP3)Two of our nation's constitutional law experts, Judge Richard Posner and Professor Geoffrey Stone, debate the tension between civil liberties and national security when America is at war. You can listen to it online or download to an MP3 device.
Source: National Constitution Center

Research & Authority in an Online World

The English Journal article "Research and Authority in an Online World: Who Knows? Who Decides?" (G) is a must-read on the evolving role of Internet-based research (and the research paper) for teachers at all levels. Though the specific activities mentioned take place in a secondary classroom, the general discussion of Wikipedia and online research is significant for any classroom.
Source: English Journal

Critical Literacy: Teacher Learning

As we think about the Nation's Report Card (NAEP Results), we should worry that the scores of many high school students did not demonstrate the high critical literacy skills essential to their future success. What part do teachers play? We know teachers greatly impact student learning, so teachers' own learning is vital as well. The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Principles of Adolescent Literacy Reform and Principles of Professional Development describe how teacher learning can take place in schools to build the capacity to support students' 21st century learning.
Sources: NCTE

Overhaul No Child Left Behind

Critics of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) ask Congress to overhaul it. The Forum for Educational Accountability has called on Congress to scrap the accountability system under the current No Child Left Behind Act in favor of an accountability system that holds schools responsible for teacher training and parental involvement.
Source: Education Week, February 23, 2007

Political Interference in Science

A-Z Guide to Political Interference in Science

The Union of Concerned Scientists produced this guide to the ways in which the work of scientists at federal agencies has been suppressed or distorted for political purposes. Browse alphabetically, by agency, or by topic, or view the timeline. See also Scientists and Engineers for America <http://www.sefora.org/index.php>, an organization devoted to explaining to the public the importance of scientific integrity. It includes a "scientific bill of rights.”
http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity/interference/a-to-z-guide-to-political.html.
Source: Marylaine

The Big Read

The Big Read is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts, designed to restore reading to the center of American culture. The NEA presents The Big Read in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services and in cooperation with Arts Midwest.

The Big Read answers a big need. Reading at Risk: A Survey of Literary Reading in America, a 2004 report by the National Endowment for the Arts, found that not only is literary reading in America declining rapidly among all groups, but that the rate of decline has accelerated, especially among the young.

The Big Read in the Hartford area is Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, an African American classic. Read it or read it again.

One Word Sets Off Uproar and Talk of Book Banning

You must have heard that The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron is this year's winner of the Newbery Medal.and that one word on the first page of the book is causing some school librarians to say they will pull the book from the shelves. This New York Times article explores the controversy. For advice, rationales and other help with challenges to literary works, films and videos, drama productions, or teaching methods, visit the NCTE Anti-Censorship Center.
The New York Times, February 18, 2007

More Students in Online Classrooms

According to the North American Council for Online Learning, one million students from kindergarten through 12th grade have enrolled in online classes. Nearly half of the states offer online learning for students. However, some educators are urging caution, saying teacher-student interaction in person is crucial in the learning process.
Source: The Boston Globe, February 18, 2007

Faculty Issues and the Law in Higher Education

Thursday, February 15, at 12 noon

Join Chronicle editors every Thursday at noon for the Brown Bag, a new online discussion. Each week you will be joined by an expert from the world of college finance, technology, management, or other fields for a free and freewheeling discussion on higher education's hot topics. Today's discussion is on faculty issues and the law in higher education.

One of the most vexing problems facing college administrators is hiring and managing faculty members and other college personnel. A leading expert on the law and faculty issues, Barbara A. Lee, will talk about negotiating some of the most common problems, such as how colleges can manage successfully through cutbacks and financial strains without disregarding anyone's rights. She will also talk about ever-evolving issues that colleges must watch, such as the increasing use of adjunct professors, threats to tenure, and rising legal risks for colleges prompted by blogging, file sharing, and other new technologies.

Join the discussion
Submit a question

Major Changes in Homeland Security

The Department of Homeland Security will merge three of its existing academic research centers and create four new centers, to study natural disasters, border security, explosives detection, and maritime security, Congressional Quarterly reported last week.
The merger, scheduled for 2010, is part of the department’s effort to eliminate overlap in its Centers of Excellence program, which finances homeland-security research by university consortia. The three centers that will be merged — the Center for Advancing Microbial Risk Assessment, the National Center for Foreign Animal and Zoonotic Disease Defense, and the National Center for Food Protection and Defense — all conduct research on chemical and biological terrorism.
Major Changes Planned for Academic-Research Centers in Homeland Security
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education

YouNiversity

Imagine what would happen if academic departments operated more like YouTube or Wikipedia, allowing for the rapid deployment of scattered expertise and the dynamic reconfiguration of fields. MIT instructor Henry Jenkins calls this new form of academic unit a "YouNiversity."

Jenkins ask that we "Consider these developments: At the end of last year, Time named "You" its Person of the Year "for seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game." Earlier in the year, Newsweek described such sites as Flickr, MySpace, Craigslist, Digg, and YouTube as "putting the 'We' in the Web." The business "thought leader" Tim O'Reilly has termed these new social-network sites "Web 2.0," suggesting that they represent the next phase in the digital revolution — no longer about the technologies per se but about the communities that have grown up around them. Some are even describing immersive online game worlds such as Second Life as the beginnings of Web 3.0. All of this talk reflects changes that cut across culture and commerce, technology and social organization."

His article about dramatic changes in higher education is in the latest Chronicle of Higher education-very interesting.

Demonstration Today of Xreferplus

The free trial to the Online Reference Library, Xreferplus, is now set-up for Goodwin College. For trial access, go to http://www.xreferplus.com/ . This trial will be available until March 15th, 2007. The reference library will be demonstrated in the conference room at 11:30 today.

The Xreferplus trial guide - an introduction to Xreferplus with links to sample Xreferplus images, dynamic tables, voice pronunciations, our interactive atlas, and concept maps can also be accessed at www.xrefer.com/trialguide

Xreferplus is the world's largest online reference service featuring over 200 full-text reference titles with over 2 million entries from 50 highly-respected publishers integrated in a robust search engine with many unique interactive features.

Xrefer has also recently launched a new Specialist Reference (SR) service with subject-specific expertise and added many new unique interactive features such as dynamic table functionality for world state, and county statistics, an interactive world atlas, and our concept map. Xrefer also features over 66,000 images, over 180,000 audio pronunciations, and a citation formatter in APA, MLA, and Chicago formats.
Source: James Slattery, Account Executive for Xrefer

Journal of Nursing Education

February issue of the Journal of Nursing Education is here with major articles focusing on content and competency for the 21st century:
Curriculum Revisited
Statistics Used in Current Nursing Research
Emancipatory Teaching-Learning Philosophy and Practice Education in Acute Care
Rescuing Nursing Education from Content Saturation: The Case for a concept-Based Curriculum
Cultural Competence Revisited: Nursing Students with Disabiities
Patient Safety: Where is Nursing Education
A Survey of Physical Assessment Techniques: Lessons for Nusing Education

New Directions for Youth Development

The winter issue of New Directions for Youth Development has arrived! The whole issue is devoted to rethinking programs for youth in middle years. The everyday life of a nine to fifteen year old is in the middle. This in-between-ness challenges our ideas about the purpose and design of youth programs and the roles and responsibilities of young people in these activities. This issue explores young people's journey into community during their nonschool hours.

Table of Visualization Methods

Visual-literacy.org is an "online introductory tutorial about how data, abstract thoughts, and concepts can be graphically represented to more easily gain useful insights. One of their knowledge map examples is this excellent Periodic Table of Visualization Methods. Rolling your mouse over each form of visualization brings up an example of the technique. It looks like it would very useful if you think a visualization is in order but you're not sure which specific kind to try." Very cool!
Link to Periodic Table
Link to PDF paper "Towards a Periodic Table of Visualization Methods for Management"
Source: boingboing and Mike Love

Science Times on Tuesdays

This is just a reminder that every Tuesday The New York Times publishes a science section. This week it included articles about the nuisance of orbiting junk, climate change, how we see red, the brain region linked to smoking, the debate on the wolf's comeback, the danger of teenagers with cars, and the ecosystem of the skin, treatment of sleep apnea, --and more. The New York Times is available to you from the library page.

Baghdad Day to Day: Librarian's Journal

When the Saddam regime was toppled in 2003, the Iraq National Library and Archive in Baghdad was set alight and looted. Much damage was done, in particular to the library’s archive collections. For several months, the diary entries ofDr. Saad Eskander, the director of Iraq's National Library and Archives, have apeared on the Web site of the British Library and they detail the daily hurdles of keeping Iraq's central library open, preserving the surviving archives and books and just staying alive. An article about Eskander and the library appears in the Arts section of the New York Times today available on the library page. You can read the diary entries at http://www.bl.uk/iraqdiary.html.

New England Watershed: Best New Publication

Place is an important part of how we construct our identities and now we have a new regional magazine. Utne magazine nominatedd New England Watershed as the best new publication of 2006. You will find the Winter 2006-2007 issue in the library.

According to Utne editors, "New England Watershed casts an exceptionally wide lens on a variety of questions pertaining to regional identity. Each issue of the magazine focuses on one them--food and farming, mental health, interstate 91, and examines it through a variety of cultural and historical perspectives." Don't miss out!

New Book: What's Toxic, What's Not

What's Toxic, What's Not by Gary Ginsberg and Brian Toal (published Dec., 2006)

The authors are toxicologists for the Connecticut Department of Public Health. This is a comprehensible bible of hazardous substances that impact every individual in the United States. While explaining the major toxins of lead, radon, mold, and asbestos, they also delve into pesticides and chemicals in consumer products, food, water, air, and soil. Chapters describe each toxin, address the myths and realities surrounding it, and discuss how people come into contact with the substance and how to avoid it. Charts illustrate the toxicity, exposure, and risk index for each contaminant. Suggestions for testing one’s own environment through local health department, water service, and so forth are concrete and achievable. Important points are boxed for emphasis. Tips are provided for diverse subjects such as how to microwave foods in plastic safely and how to make a homemade “green bubble” bath. This is a fascinating but frightening account that is well worth considering for class bibliographies.
Source: Library Journal December 2006

What They are Reading on College Campuses

• Iraq Study Group Report
• Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama
• For One More Day by Mitch Alborn
• America (The Book) by writers of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart
• Next by Michael Crichton
• Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwrds
• The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
• Bad President by Rosen, Friedman, Prichett, and Battles
• Freakonomics by Levitt and Dubner
• The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town by JohnGreisham

Source: Chronicle of Higher Education

Annual Report on Nation's Health

The American College of Physicians, or ACP, has released its annual overview, which highlights problems in the U.S. health care system and calls for sweeping payment reforms designed to shift the nation’s focus back to patient-centered primary care and prevention. ACP’s report, “State of the Nation’s Health Care” contains a laundry list of red flags, including 47 million Americans without health insurance; astronomical per capita spending for health care; underuse of preventive care; overuse of invasive procedures; and a lack of patient-centered, coordinated care. And the situation is only getting worse, according to the ACP.
Source: American College of Physicians (via American Academy of Family Physicians)
+ Full Report

New Database: Academic OneFile

Academic OneFile is a comprehensive, subscription-based database of more than 8,000 journals covering everything from STM to the humanities. It was created in response to the academic community’s need for a sophisticated, up-to-date, easy-to-use database for serious research. All of the things you’ve come to love about InfoTrac® remain the same. The powerful search engine, Thomson Gale PowerSearch,™ continues to simplify navigation with a “breadcrumb trail” that shows the path a search has taken. An exciting, innovative added value is the inclusion of hundreds of podcasts and transcripts from NPR, CNN, and the CBC, as well as full-text New York Times content to 1995.
Find it at www.iconn.org!

LegalTrac is here

Iconn.org now provides us with the LegalTrac database. Drawing on a wide variety of the most highly regarded legal publications, LegalTrac provides indexing for approximately 1,300 titles: major law reviews, legal newspapers, law specialty publications, bar association journals and international legal journals. Each title included in LegalTrac is selected by a spe­cial advisory committee of the American Association of Law Libraries. LegalTrac also contains law-related articles from more than 1,000 additional business and gen­eral interest titles. It is easily accessible at www.iconn.org.

Spelling's Summit on Higher Education

The “summit” that Education Secretary Margaret Spellings promised (or threatened?) to hold as part of her plan to carry out the recommendations of her Commission on the Future of Higher Education will take place in Washington March 21-22, the Education Department said in invitations sent out just before Christmas. The summit was designed to “focus on galvanizing action and distributing leadership and accountability across all sectors.” Its work will emphasize five key priorities: “aligning K-12 and higher education expectations; increasing need-based aid; using accreditation to support and emphasize student learning outcomes; serving adults and other non-traditional students; expanding affordability through increased transparency of costs.”

The report, "A Test of Leadership: Charting the Future of U.S. Higher Education", was commissioned by Secretary of Education Margaret Spelling and completed last year. the work of the panel, which engaged in a year of study and debate, challenges college leaders, policy makers and the public to help improve an American higher education system that Spelling describes as slipping.
Source: U.S. Department of Education

Campus Pandemic Flu Planning

All Connecticut colleges and universities are encourage to send a campus team to a one-day conference on planning for pandemic influenza, capitalizing on the approach utilized by Yale University The Conference is at the Michael J. Adanti Student Center, SCSU on February 22 from 8:30 to 2:30.

In late 2005, the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) began in earnest to alert the world’s countries to the possibilities of a pandemic flu outbreak on a scale similar to that of the Spanish Flu of 1918. Higher Education will be among the industries most severely impacted. The impact on college or university operations may include unprecedented demands on student health services, the establishment of quarantine sites, debilitating sickness among staff and faculty causing severe reductions in the work force, essential services hampered and perhaps unavailable, and significant loss of tuition revenues from closure of the institution, and non-returning students.Further information on the February conference is available at greimanj@theccic.org

New Book: A Hand To Guide Me

In A Hand to Guide Me, Denzel Washington shares his personal story of the mentors who helped guide his life--more than 70 of America's leading personalities in theater, sports, business, and politics who in turn tell their life-changing stories of mentorship. The library has four copies.

The book "showcases how the kindness of mentors has shaped the lives of people you know and respect. In their own words, legendary personalities tell how people stepped up to guide them. From Hank Aaron and Muhammad Ali to Bob Woodard and James Worth, the voices in this book may be household names now, but they credit their success to the guidance of others long ago." (book jacket)

Bookfinder.com

BookFinder.com is an one-stop ecommerce search engine that searches over 100 million books for sale—new, used, rare, out-of-print, and textbooks. They save time and money by searching which booksellers are offering the best prices and selection.

The BookFinder.com website is part of the BookFinder.com/JustBooks network, produced by a team of high-tech librarians and programmers based in Berkeley, California, and Düsseldorf, Germany.
Source: Free Pint

21st Century Literacies.

During this week's 21st Century Literacies Impact Conference, more than 170 attendees invited from all sectors of education, business, and policy leadership will explore how teacher education, ongoing professional development, and assessment practices need to change to support the core 21st century skills framework.
Source: The Council Chronicle Online, January 25, 2007

Facts on File: Free Trial

We have a free trial to Facts on File until February 9, 2007. Facts On File is one of America’s leading publishers of print and online reference materials since 1941. The list has grown to more than 1,300 titles and spans a multitude of subject areas such as:
American History
American Women's History
African-American History
American Indian History
Modern World History
Ancient and Medieval History
World Atlas
Science
Health Reference Center
Curriculum Resource Center
Bloom's Literary Reference
Ferguson's Career Guidance Center
Personal and Business Forms

The URL to access our site via username/password is:
http://www.fofweb.com/demo
*. Enter your Username: Goodwin
*. Enter your Password: Trial

Put Another President in Your Pocket

Put Another President in Your Pocket

"Third time’s a charm? The U.S. Mint is set to give the $1 coin another go, but this time they’re using the power of dead presidents. Starting with Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison in 2007, the Mint will release four presidents each year, in the order in which they served—much like the state quarters, which were released in the order in which states joined the union."
Source: the World Almanac blog

People Places Plants, Oh My

This blog is way too serious. So here is a change of pace. The early spring issue of People Places Plants is now in the library. Find out about all the glorious flower shows of the Northeast. The Connecticut Flower and Garden Show moves this year to the Convention Center and runs from February 22-25. Visit the web page www.ctflowershow.com for more information.

The New England Spring Flower show at Boston's Bayside Exposition & Executive Conference Center features its larget garden in a decade showcasing the principles of xeriscaping--the cover article in the magazine. If you are headed for Logan Airport with a ticket for out of state between March 17-25, you will miss it! The theme of the show this year? "Yes You Can!" The web page is www.masshort.org.

Health Care Tax Deductions

A new analysis released by the Tax Foundation suggests that tax deductions for purchasing healthcare insurance would help less than half of the uninsured. Fifty-three percent of Americans without health insurance pay nothing in federal taxes and would therefore be unable to take the deduction, according to the study by staff economist Gerald Prante.
Health Care Tax Deductions Would Reach Less than Half of Uninsured
Source: Tax Foundation“

Homeland Security Information

Rethinking Research, Development, and Acquisition for Homeland Security

In 2004, a joint research project by The Heritage Foundation and the Center for Strategic and Interna­tional Studies (CSIS) offered extensive recommendations on how to improve the organization and operations of the newly established Department of Homeland Secu­rity (DHS)[1]. After appointment as Secretary of Home­land Security, Michael Chertoff undertook a “Second Stage Review” that adopted many of the recommenda­tions in The Heritage Foundation/CSIS report.

However, both efforts at rethinking the department gave scant attention to the Directorate for Science and Technology (S&T Directorate). At the time, the directorate was still establishing its organization and research priorities. Now, five years after its creation, its track record is clear enough, and it is not good. Reorganization of the S&T Directorate is unfinished business that the department can no longer ignore.
Source: The Heritage Foundation

Preventing Plagiarism Tips

New out this week, National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Preventing Plagiarism: Tips and Techniques offers secondary and college teachers effective strategies for heading off plagiarism at its sources. Read chapter one of the book, "The Rewards of Original Thinking," online now!
Source: NCTE

Video Lecture: Introduction to Chemistry

Introduction to Chemistry
Video Lectures: Course Chem 1A (Berkeley)
Course Website
Course covers:Atoms, Molecules, Stoichiometry, Atomic Structure, Molecular Formulae, Reactions in Solution, Light waves, Absorption, Emission, Light, Particles, Photons, Matter: Particles/Waves, Quantum Particles in 1-Dimension, Quantum Mechanics: H Atom, QM Orbitals, Radiation and Matter, Many Electron Atoms, Spin, Pauli Principle, Electronic Configuration, Periodic Properties, Trends, Chemical Bonds, Lewis Structures, Covalent Bonding, Resonance, Oxidation Numbers, Formal Charge, Molecular Structure, VSEPR, Isomers, Colavent Bonding, Molecular Orbitals, Hybridization, Molecular Orbitals, Resonance, Ideal Gases, Kinetic Theory, Absolute Temperature, Real Gases, Phase Transitions, Thermodynamics: First Law, Thermochemistry, Enthalpy, Calorimetry, Human Thermochemsitry, Bond Energies, Entropy, Second Law, Free Energy, Direction of Change, Equilibrium, Mass Action, Equilibrium, Temperature, Le Chatelier, Free Energy, Equilibrium Constant, Heterogeneous Equilibrium, Strong Acids and Bases, Weak Acids and Bases, Titration of Weak Acids, Buffers, Indicators, Acid Strength, Amino Acids, Polyprotic Acids, Reduction Potentials, Galvanic Cells, Chemistry vs. Biochemistry, Nuclear and Radiochemistry, Nuclear and Radiochemistry, Nuclear Applications, UC Berkeley and the Actinides
Source: Free Science and Video Lectures Online

Recommended Sociology Internet Resources

Dictionary of Social Sciences
http://socialsciencedictionary.nelson.com/ssd/default.html
This dictionary is designed for undergraduate students and the entries cover basic concepts and events relevant to the study of anthropology, sociology, criminology, political science, and women’ studies.

American Sociological Association
http://www.asanet.org/index.ww
There is a student section that gives you access to the Student Sociologist, A semi-annual newsletter for students and their departments from the American Sociological Association. The December 2005 issue has an article “Teach for America: Using Sociology in Education” that includes a fascinating list of websites designed to enhance the learning of sociology.
Internet Resources for Sociology (University of Delaware Library)

http://www2.lib.udel.edu/subj/soc/internet.htm
This helpful site has organized internet sites into general resources, social theory resources, social research resources, associations and organizations, discussion groups, electronic journals & newsletters, and resource centers.

Sociology Timeline
http://www.ac.wwu.edu/%7Estephan/timeline.html
A “quirky" list from Western Washington University

Sociology Tour through Cyberspace
http://www.trinity.edu/%7Emkearl/index.html#re
This is a must--a stimulating site from Trinity University in Texas.
It includes general sociological resources, sociological theory, data resources and other useful websites, methods and statistics, guide to writing a research paper, exercising the imagination (subject based inquiries) I like the section on stimulating the sociological imagination. This is just a super site!

Statistical Resources on Sociology
http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/stsoc.html
University of Michigan Library

Top Twenty Sociology Sites
.http://www.top20sociology.com/
This is a commercial site, but has useful information

WWW Virtual Library of Sociology
http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/w3virtsoclib/ (McMaster University)

United States National Library of Medicine
http://gateway.nlm.nih.gov
Gateway is "One-stop shopping" for an increasing number of the information resources of the National Library of Medicine (NLM). It is targeted to the user who comes to NLM not knowing examly what is there or how to search for it. But many students find that one resource, such as PubMed or MedlinePlus, has information they would like to know more about. they may then choose to go straight to that resource for a more focused search.

President Bush Opposes Student Loan Change

President Bush opposes a bill that would halve the interest rate on federally subsidized student loans, the White House announced on Tuesday.

The announcement, which came the evening before the U.S. House of Representatives was scheduled to take up the legislation, stopped short of saying the president would veto the bill, HR 5. But it strongly hinted at that possibility.

"The administration opposes HR 5," the White House statement reads in part. "Reducing student-loan interest rates would direct federal subsidies to college graduates, not to students and their families who are struggling to meet current and future educational expenses."
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education

Open WorldCat Availa le

Open WorldCat will be added soon to allow you to search for materials in libraries not currently part of reQuest, the statewide catalog. WorldCat is the world's largest network of library content and services. WorldCat libraries are dedicated to providing access to their resources on the Web, where most people start their search for information.
Source: WorldCat

Another New Database: LegalTrac

Later this month LegalTrac will be available to the Goodwin community. LegalTrac provides indexing for 1,300 titles: major law reviews, legal newspapers, law specialty publications, bar association journals and international legal journals. The database also contains law-related articles from more than 2000 additional business and general interest titles. This will give the students instant access to a comprehensive range of major legal publications. Watch for it on the library web page.
Source: Thomson-Gale

New Database Available: Academic OneFile

WOW! Academic OneFile is a comprehensive, subscription-based database of more than 8,000 journals covering everything from STM to the humanities. It provides the academic community with a sophisticated, up-to-date, easy to use database for serious research. The majority of the journals are in full text, available in HTML andPDF formats. This database also includes hundreds of podcasts and transcripts from NPR, CNN, and CBC, as well as the full text New York Times content to 1995. This database will be available later this month. InfoTrac OneFile will still be there!
Source: Thomson-Gale

American Fact Finder

The library staff recommends this government resource. It provides access to thematic maps, community fact sheets, housing reports, and census data. Most notable is the includes of the new American Community Survey what will provide annual rather than decennial demographic, socioeconomic, and housing information.
Access: http://factfinder.census.gov
Source: American FactFinder

Open Access to Research

Open access to research is one of the most important issues for academic libraries and strongly supported by the Association of College and Research Libraries. Increased access to federally funded research accelerates the pace of discovery and innovation.It is critical that this new research be readily available to researchers and all taxpayers.

In May last year, Senator Lieberman and Senator Cornyn (R-TX) introduced the "Federal Research Public Access Act of 2006." (FRPAA) The bill, S.2695, would have required federal agencies that fund more than $100 million in annual external research to make electronic manuscripts of peer-reviewed journal articles stemming from their research publicly available via the Internet within six months of publication. It is anticipated that FRPAA will be reintroduced early by the 110th Congress in the Senate and in the House of Representatives.

For further information, please go to the Alliance for Taxpayer Access (www.taxpayeraccess.org/frpaa/), a coalition that supports reforms that will make publicly funded research accessible to the public. You might also send a message to Senator Lieberman.

Teenage Brains

Now we know why surly teenagers storms off in a huff after being told to tidy their bedrooms. The medical name for the part of the brain associated with teenage sulking is "superior temporal sulcus." Adolescents do not put the part of the brain that considers others' feelings to full use, scientists have found.

It seems our neural decision-making processes mature quite slowly, and researchers think this might help to explain typical teenage behaviour. The adolescent brain undergoes massive changes and does not reach maturity until 20 or 30 years old. Oh my!
Source: Seeing the Teenager in the Brain

Finding Government Information

This month, FirstGov.gov changed its name to USA.gov because last year more than 600,000 people typed "usa.gov" into their web browser when searching for government information. USA.gov is more intuitive. It describes what the site is--the official information and services from the U.S. government. New features include:
Visitors to the United States Gateway
GobiernoUSA.gov (Spanish version)
Web chat

The Next Pandemic?

The Deutsche Press today reported that bird flu claimed its 59th Indonesian. The press reported the second human death from bird flu in as many days, and Japan said it suspected it had discovered its first cases in two years of the deadly H5N1 strain of the disease in poultry as avian influenza makes a resurgence in Asia.

Why worry about 150 or so deaths from bird flu (H5N1)? According to the author of Bird Flu: A Virus of Our Own Hatching, "go back to 1916, to Etaples in northern France, where a form of flu causing heliotrope cyanosis with a case fatalify of 60% was beginning to spread. There were only 143 cases, but at some point in the next two years it became more infectious. Then it killed 50 million people. Doesn't this ring a nasty bell?" He goes on to say that in 1916 they were also too preoccupied with war and too busy to read the warnings in The Lancet that a new disease was lurking. Greger says they could have prepared themselves.

Michale Greger's book is reviewed in December 27/28 issue of Nature and has been ordered for the library. Thanks to Kim Reese, we are acquiring a special collection on infectious diseases and pandemics.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Learning Resources

Monday, January 15, is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Here are some excellent resources for all of us to remember.

We Shall Overcome, Historic Places of the Civil Rights Movement shows 41 churches, houses, and other properties related largely to the post-World War II civil rights movement. The links to these properties consist of photographs and texts, and the exhibit offers a bibliography and links to websites relating to civil rights. (National Park Service)

History and Politics Out Loud lets us hear key speeches by Martin Luther King Jr., Winston Churchill, Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and others. Listen to King's "I have a dream" speech, President Roosevelt's speech to Congress declaring war on Japan, Churchill's "iron curtain" speech, and more. (Michigan State University, National Endowment for the Humanities)

Voices of Civil Rights documents the civil rights movement in the U.S. Nearly 50 photos, posters, and descriptions depict important events and individuals: school integration in Little Rock (1957), the lunch counter sit-in in Greensboro (1960), the memorial service for Medgar Evers (1963), the March on Washington (1963), the Selma-to-Montgomery March (1965), the Voting Rights Act (1965), and others. (Library of Congress)
Source: Federal Resources for Educational Excellence

Testing Technology Literacy

Professors, librarians, and other college officials are increasingly coming to grips with the somewhat confounding reality that despite students’ affinity for IPods and their complete comfort with Google, many of them lack the technological literacy they need to navigate today’s information landscape. The California University System is creating a test to measure students' technology literacy. University officials are contemplating making this test mandatory for students to pass before moving on to higher level courses.
Source: Inside Higher Ed, January 4, 2007

Martin Luther King's Word Choice

For details on the ways that King's word choice shapes his message, consider the Teaching English in the Two-Year College "Using 'I Have a Dream' to Teach Strong Repetition (What Works for Me)" (S-C).
Source: National Council of Teachers of English

Go to M.I.T. for Free

By the end of 2007, Massachusetts Institute of Technology will offer all of its 1,800 courses online for free. Students do not have to register for classes and all will be accepted. It's part of the OpenCourseWare Movement, and it has spread to 120 universities worldwide.
Source: The Christian Science Monitor, January 4, 2007

High Schools: Relics of the Past

Will High Schools Be a Relic of the Past? North Carolina is combating its large school drop-out rate with a program called "early college." It combines high school and college courses, allowing students to start earning a college degree while still in high school.
CBS News, December 28, 2006

ESL Resource Guide

Useful guide to books, audio-visual materials, web sites, and databases for ESL instructors and students.
http://www.epcc.edu/nwlibrary/esl_research_guide.htm
Source: Mary Laine, Librarian

Transcultural Nursing Sensitivity

By the year 2050, less than one half of the American population will be of European ancestry. The 2000 census revealed that 29.4% of the United States population already represents a variety of ethnic backgrounds. Because the nursing profession predominately consists of European Americans, a major challenge in nursing education is to educate and prepare future nurses with skills in transcultural nursing. A recent article in the Journal of Transcultural Nursing describes one school's multicultural curriculum for nursing students and a tool to measure changes in behaviors and attitudes. The article presents the psychometric properties of the Cross-Culutral Evaluation Tool that yields a cross-cultural interaction score. Successful teaching strategies are presented as well. Issues of of this journal are available in the Goodwin Library. This issue also devotes an entire supplementary volume to integrating culutural competence into nursing education and practice.
Source: Journal of Transcultural Nursing Vol. 18 No.1, January 2007 56-62.

Participant-Centered Learning for Educators

Participant-Centered Learning and the Case Method

This popular program has previously been available only on CD. In order to reach a wider range of case teachers, Harvard Business Review Educator section has made this resource available online at no cost. Participant-Centered Learning and the Case Method is designed to help instructors develop skills and confidence in leading case discussions. It features eight Harvard Business School professors discussing fundamental issues of participant-centered learning, such as:
What are the qualities of effective discussion teachers?
Adopting and supporting participant-centered learning
Specific teaching techniques
Evaluation
Timing and feedback
The program also uses actual HBS classroom examples to demonstrate case teaching in action. For access, contact the Goodwin Library.
Source: Harvard Business Review

Answers.com 2006 From A to Z

As we usher in the new year, here's a look at what was on the news, the web and our minds in 2006. I couldn't resist making this available.
Answers.com Year-in-Review
The site is titled: 2006 From A to Z
Source: Answers.com

Colleges & Social Software

From the article:
MOVE OVER, MYSPACE. STEP ASIDE, FACEBOOK. These two technologies may have been pioneers in the world of social software, but nowadays, colleges and universities across the country are embracing better and more targeted forms of technology, to enable their campus users to interact. Today, the world of social software includes traditional venues and formats: blogs, wikis, and podcasts.
Social Software >> Social Revolution
Source: Campus Technology

Homeland Security & Immigration Updates

Roundup of Recent/Updated CRS Reports: Immmigration and Homeland SecuritySource:
+ 9/11 Commission Recommendations: Implementation Status
+ Border Security: Barriers Along the U.S. International Border
+ Federal Emergency Management Policy Changes After Hurricane Katrina: A Summary of Statutory Provisions
+ FY2007 Appropriations for State and Local Homeland Security
+ Homeland Security: Establishment and Implementation of Northern Command+ Immigration Consequences of Criminal Activity
+ U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology Program (US-VISIT)+ Visa Waiver Program
Source: Congressional Research Service

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.