Fuel Economy Information

Since Connecticut has the highest gas prices in the country, we all could use some help with fuel economy. The federal government has stepped in with information on your car's gas mileage and energy impact rating.

The site

also tells you where to find the lowest gasoline prices, and even tips on improving your mileage.

source: Environmental Protection Agency

iTunes University: Global Perspective

Welcome to iTunes U.
Higher education has gone high tech. Thanks to iTunes U, professors can post lectures, discussions, and videos of classes on the school’s iTunes U site. Students can download them and put them on their iPods. Then they can learn wherever they are, whenever they want — all free of charge.

If Goodwin college doesn’t yet post content to iTunes U, no problem. Students can access free content from dozens of universities around the world, with topics on everything from business to science to law. At last count, there were more than 60,000 educational audio and video files available. Whether on or off campus, now college comes to you.
Source: Campus Technology June 4 2008

Locating E-resources in the Goodwin Library

The Goodwin Library has over 38,000 electronic periodicals--magazines, newspapers, journals. So how on earth do you find them? Very easy!On the library page, the "Finding Articles-Databases" is the EBSCO A to Z locator tool that now links to the Goodwin College academic databases with digitized peer-reviewed articles on a huge variety of topics. At this site, you can go directly to a database to search or you can choose to search in a particular journal or magazine or you can find journals or magazines by subject. You can use the list to see if the library has a specific source. This is incredibly easy to use. Please try it out.

National Trails Day June 7

Looking for a free and healthy weekend activity? Well,Saturday is National Trails and there are more than 130 guided hikes and outings scheduled in Connecticut. Trail Days events in Connecticut are coordinated by the Connecticut Forest and Park Association (CFPA). Trails Day is a nationwide celebration that brings awareness to trails and the many joys and benefits they provide. Organizations participating in our state include the Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC), the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), local and regional land trusts, town agencies,and outdoor-minded businesses. Brochures are available from the CFPA . You can download a complete Trails Day 2008 brochure. Connecticut is a beautiful state. Go out and enjoy it this weekend. Get in shape for the Goodwin hiking club outing later this month.

Source: Connecticut Forest and Park Association

Van Gogh Free Exhibit at Yale Art Gallery

The Yale University Art Gallery is exhibiting two of Vincent Van Gogh's most renowned paintings, Cypresses and Starry Night, side by side for the first time. Together, the paintings reveal the artist's vivid and tender vision of Saint-Remy as he observed the French countryside from his window--by day through the night. Exhibit runs from June 15-September 7.
Source: Yale Art Gallery

Ed-tech Success Story

Since the early 1990s, Maine has been at the forefront of educational innovation, thanks largely to the adoption of new standards--called the Maine Learning Results--as a driver for 21st-century teaching and learning. A critical outcome and guiding principle of these standards is to graduate all students from Maine high schools to be clear and effective communicators. Read this fascinating article about Maine's success story: "Maine writes a new ed-tech success story".

Source: eSchool News June 2, 2008

Women's Rights

Are violence and discrimination against women declining?

Women around the world have made significant gains in the past decade, but tens of millions still face significant and often appalling hardship. Most governments now have gender-equality commissions, electoral gender quotas and laws to protect women against violence. But progress has been mixed. A record number of women now serve in parliaments, but only 14 of the world's 193 countries currently have elected female leaders. Globalization has produced more jobs for women, but they still constitute 70 percent of the world's poorest inhabitants and 64 percent of the illiterate. Spousal abuse, female infanticide, genital mutilation, forced abortions, bride-burnings, acid attacks and sexual slavery remain pervasive in some countries, and rape and sexual mutilation have reached epic proportions in the war-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo. Experts say without greater economic, political and educational equality, the plight of women will not improve, and society will continue suffering the consequences. The full report is available online from CQ Global Researcher

Source: CQ Global Researcher May 30, 2008

Free Business Plans: Bplans.com

Bplans.com contains the largest single collection of free sample business plans online. In addition to that, it has helpful tools and know-how for managing a business. Bplans.com includes practical advice on planning, interactive tools, and a panel of experts who have answered more than 1,400 questions from people like our students.

Warning to Colleges from Accreditors

If colleges want to avoid onerous and ham-handed forms of government regulation, they should become much smarter about analyzing and responding to their own internal student-achievement data. That, in a nutshell, is the message that six representatives of major regional accrediting organizations delivered during a panel discussion Monday at the annual conference of the Association for Institutional Research.

The accreditors told the assembled scholars that they have a responsibility to persuade their deans and faculty colleagues of the importance of using internal data to improve student learning.

Several of the panelists emphasized that their accrediting organizations would continue to respect colleges' distinctive missions. But colleges must be candid with the public about how they measure their success, the accreditors warned, or risk inviting government regulation that is not so respectful of colleges' individual identities. Read the entire article in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Source: Chronicle of Higher Education May 27, 2008

EPA Libraries Re-open in Tiny Spaces

Closed Environmental Protection Agency libraries return in shamefully small spaces. Political appointee assert control over all libraries.

Ordered by Congress to re-open its shuttered libraries, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is grudgingly allocating only minimal space and resources, according to agency documents released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). At the same time, EPA is issuing a series of edicts placing virtually every aspect of library operations under centralized control of a political appointee.

In a May 8, 2008 e-mail to EPA employee unions, the agency announced its plan for re-opening four of the closed libraries effective September 1. The unions were given until May 22 to reply or object. The announced plan for the Chicago library, for example, formerly the largest regional library serving the entire six-state Great Lakes area, stipulates:

The re-opened library will be in a vacant reception area on the 16th floor of a federal building;
The re-opened library will occupy less than one-tenth the area of the closed library and will be only slightly larger than the typical men’s restroom in that same building; and
No provision is made to restore the unique Great Lakes ecological collection or to recover any of the other holdings from the former library.

Source: Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER)

Facebook-based Alumni Connections

Harris Connect has launched a new alumni and student relations tool built on the Facebook Platform. Dubbed "Community Connections," the application is designed to provide secure connections between schools and their Facebook-using constituents and keep them engaged with news and other information.

Read More!

Some New Books

Now or coming soon to Goodwin Library:

Skinny Bitch by Freedman and Barnouin
Our Iceberg is Melting by John Kotter
Last Lecture by Randy Pausch
Armageddon in Retrospect by Kurt Vonnegut
Audition by Barbara Walters
Oxymorons: The Mytth of the U. S. Health Care System by J. D. Kleinke
New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose by Eckhart Tolle (Oprah's Book Club)
Curious You: On Your Way by H. A. Roy
Flipping Brilliant: A Penguin's Guide to a Happy Life by Chester & Regan
Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
Just War: The Just War Tradition: Ethics in Modern Welfare by Guthrie & Quinlan

Basics of Investing

Smart Money University teaches the basics of investing - stocks, bonds, mutual funds, taxes, asset allocation, building portfolios, choosing a broker, and more. It includes a glossary of financial terms, and worksheets to help business students and others assess current finances and plan for the future.
Source: Smart Money Magazine online

Global Perspective with British Podcasts

The British newspaper, The Guardian, provides audio articles in a wide range of categories that will give our students an international perspective on current events. They may search or browse audios by categories. RSS feeds are available for the 13 subject-specific weekly podcasts.
Source: Marylaine Block, Librarian

Learn About Learning Communities

The reort on learning communities published by the National Center for Postsecondary Research has implications for Goodwin College as well as community colleges. As we know,community colleges have taken great strides in recent decades in providing access to college for millions of students with diverse ethnic and academic backgrounds. Now, however, community colleges and private colleges must tackle an even more formidable challenge: how to help increasingly large numbers of academically underprepared students succeed in college. The developmental courses to which over half of entering students are directed often prove to be too great a hurdle, and the majority who hope to earn a certificate or a degree, or to transfer, drop out before reaching their goals.

Learning communities are a popular strategy that community colleges nationwide have embraced in support of developmental students. In a learning community, a cohort of students takes two or more courses linked by integrated themes and assignments that are developed through ongoing faculty collaboration. Learning communities are intended to foster active and collaborative learning and to create stronger relationships among students and between students and faculty. These elements are theorized to increase students’ motivation and sense of belonging, which in turn drive their effort, learning, persistence, and, ultimately, success.

Read the whole report.

Health Information Technology: Costs and Benefits

Many people believe that health information technology (health IT) has the potential to transform the practice of health care by reducing costs and improving quality. The Government Budg just released a significant study, prepared at the request of the Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, examining the evidence on the costs and benefits of health information technology.

“Health IT” generally refers to computer applications for the practice of medicine. (Those applications may include computerized entry systems for physicians’ orders for tests or medications, support systems for clinical decisionmaking, and electronic prescribing of medications.) Relatively few providers—as of 2006, about 12 percent of physicians and 11 percent of hospitals—have adopted health IT.

Source: Congressional Budget Office

EPA's Report on the Environment

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued the 2008 EPA Report on the Environment yesterday, a document that provides the American people with information on trends in the condition of air, water, and land and related changes in human health in the United States.

The EPA 2008 ROE is a valuable resource that will inform and focus EPA activities to improve and protect America’s environment. The report frames key questions related to the protection of human health and the environment, and addresses each issue using scientifically sound indicators that have been developed with extensive public input. The 2008 ROE updates a draft report released by EPA in 2003. EPA’s 2008 Report on the Environment: http://www.epa.gov/roe.

Source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

Homeland Security Students: Trial Database!

NEW TRIAL STARTED TODAY IN YOUR HONOR!

International Security & Counter-Terrorism Reference Center™ (ISCTRC)
This database offers information on virtually every dimension of security & counter-terrorism and is designed to inform the analysis process, as well as to enhance the general understanding of security and terrorism-related issues. ISCTRC provides a comprehensive Open Source Intelligence Resource for analysts, risk management professionals, and students.

Content includes hundreds of full text journals and periodicals, hundreds of thousands of selected articles, news feeds, reports, summaries, books, blogs, FAQs, and proprietary Background Information Summaries that pertain to terrorism and security. ISCTRC also combines deep background from scholarly writings with expert commentary from a variety of organizations, agencies and publisher and timely reviews of recent developments across the international political, military, economic, social and technical spectrum.
An Images file of over 9,000 pertinent images has been added to the database. Users can access applicable images on a Result List, under the Images sub-tab.

Access: On library pagelook under Library Resources in "Find Articles-Databases." Then click on "EBSCO databases" and choose ISCTRC or

http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?authtype=ip,uid&profile=isctrc

What they're Reading on College Campuses

1. A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose by Eckhart Tolle
2. The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream by Obama
3. Armageddon in Retrospect by Kurt Vonnegut
4. The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch and Jeffrey Zaslow
5. Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
6. Flipping Brilliant: A Penguin's Guide to a Happy Life by Chester & Regan
7. Curious You: On Your Way by H. A. Roy
8. Eat, Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
9. I Am America (And So Can You) by Stephen Colbert
10. Skinny Bitch by Freedman and Barnouin

New Open Access Humanities Press

Scholars in the sciences have been light-years ahead of their peers in the humanities in exploring the possibilities of open-access publishing. But a new venture with prominent academic backers, the Open Humanities Press, wants to help humanists close the gap.

The nonprofit operation—described by those involved as "an international open-access publishing collective"—made its official debut last week with a roster of seven already-established journals in critical and cultural studies and related fields: Cosmos and History, Culture Machine, Fibreculture, Film-Philosophy, International Journal of Zizek Studies, Parrhesia, and Vectors.
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education

English class With an Edge

English teacher Andie Brown in Manchester, MO, believes in sedition--well, a form of it, anyway. She purposely gives her students the assignment to challenge the status quo, and they use technology as a means toward that end. The result is truly meaningful education; students learn that what they do may have a powerful impact. In her Vonnegut class, they study contemporary satire. The final assignment is for students in groups of two or three to create a three- to five-minute satiric film. (They used Mac computers and imovie as well as Youtube.)


"Ms Brown says, "figuring out a way to take advantage of something like YouTube was my aha moment. Students today sometimes don't believe that they can make a difference in society. In a pendulum swing that's polar, where my generation tuned out, this generation has plugged in, but the effect is the same. When the students see their small movie projects screened and really get to feel the response of the audience, they seem to deeply understand the place satire has in a free society. They also see that there are many, varied ways to seek change, but that humor and art are two of them." Wow!
Source: The Journal May 2008

Student Retention

Student Retention: Are Schools Taking Advantage of Technology?

College and university administrators consider personal attention to be the most critical factor in retaining at risk students. But what role should technology play in the effort? While many consider technology-based interventions important to student retention, few seem to be using such solutions, and only 2 percent have any kind of early warning system in place to identify at risk students, according to data released to Campus Technology by higher education strategy firm EducationDynamics.

Read Complete Article:
http://www.1105newsletters.com/t.do?id=1182711:1202596

National Library Legislative Day May 14

We need your voice to be heard on National Library Legislative Day (May 14)!
We need you to join the thousands of other librarians, library workers, trustees, and library users participating in "Virtual Library Legislative Day!"

Please take 10-15 minutes today or tomorrow to send a message to all of your congressional representatives, letting them know how important libraries are to society, and the need for:

more federal funding for libraries
a certified school media specialist in every school
fair copyright laws
an expanded role for libraries in E-Government
national security letter reform
ALA's Legislative Action Center provides you with talking points on these important issues. You can use them to craft your message as you wish, and send it to all of your representatives.

Thanks so much for taking a few minutes out of your day to help libraries across the nation

Book of the Week

Our Iceberg is Melting: Changing and Succeeding Under Any Conditions by John Kotter

This is a simple fable about doing well in an ever-changing world. The fable is about a penguin colony in Antarctica. A group of beautiful emperor penguisn live as they have for many years.Then one curious bird discovers a potentially devastating problem threatening their homes--and pretty much no one listens to him. It is based on Eight Steps that produce needed change in any sort of group. This book is now available in the library and was recommended by Jack Matthews.

Idea for Homeland Security

Idaho State Simulates Emergency Response in Second Life

Imagine entering the virtual world Second Life to discover that a flu pandemic requires you, a health care professional, to attend to stricken patients lying on the streets around an over-capacity virtual hospital. When you report in to collect your virtual uniform, you're told what your responsibilities will be during the disaster and to whom you'll report.

Read Complete Article:
http://www.campustechnology.com/articles/61150

The Blog is Back!

GREETINGS FROM CORNWALL

Celebrate Arbor Day

Today, April 25, is Arbor Day.a day to celebrate trees. Arbor Day is a nationally-celebrated observance that encourages tree planting and care. Founded by J. Sterling Morton in Nebraska in 1872, National Arbor Day is celebrated each year on the last Friday in April. Visit the Arbor Day Foundation online for more information.

Free Access to GreenFile

We now have free access to GreenFile, an EBSCO bibliographical database of information about environmental concerns such as global warming, energy conservation, natural resources, and pollution. GreenFile covers content going back more than 35 years and contains back files of volume one, issue one for Bioscience: Journal of Environmental Planning & Management, Journal of Ecology, and Conservation Biology. The database also contains bibliographic information for key non-scholarly titles such as E-The Environmental Magazine, Natural Life, and Mother Earth News. The database contains nearly 300,000 records, full text for certain titles and searchable cited references for more than 200 titles as well.

This resource offers a unique perspective on the positive and negative ways humans affect the environment. Drawing on the connection between the environment and disciplines such as agriculture, education, law, health and technology, GreenFILE serves as an informative resource for anyone concerned about the issues facing our planet.


To access GreenFile, go to http://www.greeninfoonline.com.

CQ Researcher this week: Cost of the Iraq War

The fifth anniversary of the Iraq War hit just as the subprime mortgage crisis and rising unemployment in the United States were turning the economic situation bleak. Against this backdrop, a Nobel laureate economist and a federal budget expert linked the economic downturn to the war and calculated its eventual total financial cost at $3 trillion and possibly even more, plus the tens of thousands of Americans and Iraqis killed or wounded. President George W. Bush dismisses the linkage argument, contending the war creates job opportunities at home and that military spending in Iraq and Afghanistan amounts to only a "modest fraction" of the U.S. economy. But even Republican lawmakers have been asking why taxpayers are funding much of the rebuilding of oil-rich Iraq while it reaps billions in profits thanks to record-high oil prices. For its part, the administration says Iraq is now starting to bear more of the reconstruction costs.

Source: CQ Researcher online

New Books for Homeland Security Students

Just War and Terrorism: The End of the Just War Concept edited by W. Smit. This book offers the interested reader a wide spectrum of views on one of the most challenging issues in politicis today--war and its justification. The essays here are offered as a call to stir up and reconsider our settled opinions on the matter.

How Just is the War on Terror? by Eileen Flynn. "In this timely treatment of nightmarish issues that make up the war on terror, Flynn flexes the moral muscle of the just war tradition. In her hands, the just war theory is not the mere plaything of an armchair philosopher, but compels real constraint on social and personal conduct in war." (quoted from Richard Gula, professor at Berkeley, California)

Both of these books were recommended by Ron Lee of the Homeland Security program.

Sand County Almanac

The library now has a stunning illustrated edition of Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac. It includes a new introduction discussing America's greatest naturalist's work and legacy and concludes with two of his most eloquent essays on conservation. You must read this for the first time or again.

"If the environmental movement has sacred texts--literary cornerstones--then they are Thoreau's Walden, George Perkins Marsh's Man and Nature, Caron's Silent Spring, and Leopold's A Sand County Almanac. The almanac is an epochal, seminal, ageless work. It is the bible still for land managers, koran for those who work the soil where literature overlaps ecology, urtext for the ecological restoeation movement."
-quoted from the introduction by Kenneth Brower.

A Nation at Risk: 25 Years Later

This week, Education Week kicks off a yearlong series:
A Nation at Risk: 25 Years Later.
The series includes exclusive commentaries, feature stories, profiles of educational systems in China, Japan, India, and the European Union, and an interactive timeline of more than 100 Education Week stories tracking developments since release of the original report. Read it in the library.
Source: Education Week April 23 2008

Belated Happy Birthday to William Shakespeare

Happy Birthday to William Shakespeare!
On April 23, 1564, William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-on-Avon.
Celebrate the bard with this strategy outlined in the following resourcs for college students:
Using Shakespeare's Plays to Teach Critical Thinking and Writing Skills
Source: National Council of Teachers of English Newsletter

HAPPY EARTH DAY

New Design for LexisNexis

LexisNexis Academic is getting a new look on April 26, 2008.

Summary
The Display Is Changing
Top navigation tabs will look slightly different
Navigation elements will move from the right side to the left side of the page
Sub-tab such as the "Easy" and "Power" tabs under the "General" tab are being replaced with navigation options on the left side of the page
The beige background will be removed from the search forms
On the results page, the results classification options have been changed from a dropdown box to an expandable list
The spacing and layout of elements on the page will change
A new "Selected Sources" tray is being added to the Source Selection page

The Functionality Is Not Changing
Procedures for searching, choosing sources, and working with results are not changing

End of National Library Week

The library staff thanks you for your supportive comments during National Library Week. National Library Week was sponsored by the American Library Association. ALA is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with more than 65,000 members. Its mission is to promote the highest quality library and information services and public access to information. ALA offers professional services and publications to members and nonmembers, including online news stories from American Libraries and analysis of crucial issues from the Washington Office. ALA includes members in academic, public, school, government, and special libraries. Melvil Dewey, Justin Winsor, C. A. Cutter, Samuel S. Green, James L. Whitney, Fred B. Perkins, and Thomas W. Bicknell founded the Association on October 6, 1876, in Philadelphia. The annual conference this year is in Anaheim from June 28 to July 2.

Global Researcher: Separatist Movements

Overview from the Global Researcher Report
When Kosovo declared its independence on Feb. 17, thousands of angry Serbs took to the streets to protest the breakaway region's secession from Serbia. Less than a month later, Chinese authorities battled Buddhist monks in Lhasa, the legendary capital of Tibet, where separatist resentments have been simmering since China occupied the Himalayan region more than 50 years ago. The protests were the latest flashpoints in some two dozen separatist “hot spots” — the most active of roughly 70 such movements around the globe. They are part of a post-World War II independence trend that has produced a nearly fourfold jump in the number of countries worldwide, with 26 of those new countries emerging just since 1990. Some nations, like the far-flung Kurds and the Sri Lankan Tamils, are fighting fiercely to establish a homeland, while others — like Canada's Québécois — seem content with local autonomy. A handful have become de facto states that are as-yet-unrecognized by the U.N., including Somaliland, Taiwan, South Ossetia and Nagorno-Karabakh. The entire report is available from the library catalog (password protected).

CQ Researcher this Week: Public Defenders

Over the years, several landmark Supreme Court decisions have established the right of an indigent defendant to the assistance of counsel at public expense. But today critics say the nation's public defender system is in crisis. Roughly 80 to 85 percent of all criminal defendants in state courts, where most crimes are prosecuted, are indigent and represented by some kind of public counsel at an annual cost to states and counties of more than $3.5 billion. But many public defense lawyers and researchers argue that much more needs to be spent because funding for many indigent defense systems is "shamefully inadequate." Excessive caseloads, high turnover of underpaid lawyers, poor training and supervision and judicial interference are also blamed for many of the deficiencies. According to one expert, in some poorly funded systems in the field, a single public defender handles 1,000 cases a year. CQ Researcher's reports are available through the Goodwin Catalog (password protected).

Climate and the Stock Market

Earth Day is coming next week and the stock market is low enough to tempt one to invest. Climate Counts encourages you to consider investing with the climate in mind.Climate Counts is a collaborative effort to bring consumers and companies together in the fight against global climate change. They are a nonprofit organization funded by Stonyfield Farm, Inc. and launched in collaboration with Clean Air-Cool Planet. You can use the Climate Counts Company Scorecard to see how serious companies are about stopping climate change - and how they compare to their sector competitors. The annually updated scorecard reflects the self-reported efforts of companies to address climate change - or avoid it altogether.

Science Research: Recommended Site

Deep Web Technologies presents ScienceResearch.com™ - a free, publicly available web portal allowing access to numerous scientific journals and public science databases. It allows students, teachers, professors, researchers, and the general public to access pertinent science information quickly and easily. Science disciplines include: astronomy, biology & nature, chemistry, computers & technology, earth & environmental sciences, engineering, general science, health & medicine, materials science,mathematics, physics, and social sciences.

CafeScribe and Electronic Texts

Will the CafeScribe Acquisition Give a Boost to Electronic Textbooks?

The digital textbook is one of those technologies that seem obvious but can take a long time to gain traction. In March, the concept got a boost when long-time textbook distributor and retailer Follet Corp. acquired Salt Lake City-based Fourteen40, and, along with it, CafeScribe, a Web site in its beta phase of offering electronic textbooks.

Read Complete Article:
http://www.1105newsletters.com/t.do?id=1084508:1202596

Improving Reading Skills in College

The review essay "Learning to Read as Continuing Education", from College Composition and Communication, works to convince readers that college composition instruction can capitalize on (and improve) students' high school reading experiences if instructors and program administrators think carefully about where their students are starting as readers and where they want them to get by the end of the course.

21st Century Literacies

This definition of 21st century literacies was adopted by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE)this year.

"Literacy has always been a collection of cultural and communicative practices shared among members of particular groups. As society and technology change, so does literacy. Because technology has increased the intensity and complexity of literate environments, the twenty-first century demands that a literate person possess a wide range of abilities and competencies, many literacies. These literacies—from reading online newspapers to participating in virtual classrooms—are multiple, dynamic, and malleable. As in the past, they are inextricably linked with particular histories, life possibilities and social trajectories of individuals and groups.

Twenty-first century readers and writers need to
• Develop proficiency with the tools of technology
• Build relationships with others to pose and solve problems collaboratively and cross culturally
• Design and share information for global communities to meet a variety of purposes
• Manage, analyze and synthesize multiple streams of simultaneous information
• Create, critique, analyze, and evaluate multi-media texts
• Attend to the ethical responsibilities required by these complex environments"

Margaret Spellings, Where Are You?

Walking from meeting room to meeting room at this week’s annual conference of the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools, and scanning the program, it was impossible not to be struck by the fact that a good half of the hundreds of sessions have embedded in their titles the words “student outcomes,” “assessment,” or “accountability.”

The volume and earnestness of the efforts was particularly jarring in the context of the mantra that has been heard so much from Education Secretary Margaret Spellings and other policy makers in Washington in the last two years, suggesting that colleges have been doing far too little to measure and make publicly available results about how much, and how effectively, their students are learning.
Read the article from Inside Higher Education

NATIONAL LIBRARY WORKERS DAY

National Library Workers Day
April 15, 2008

Our library works because they do!
Elizabeth Diamond
LaShonie Douglas
Shakira Greene
Crystalann Haines

Use the "Comment" to say something nice about our student workers!

Mental-Health Problems and Students

The facts and figures about mental-health problems on our campuses are sobering. When the American College Health Association's National College Health Assessment surveyed college students in the fall of 2006, 78 percent reported having felt very sad at least once within the preceding 12 months, 42 percent felt so depressed it was difficult to function, 9.4 percent had seriously considered attempting suicide, and 1.4 percent had attempted suicide. Fourteen percent of women and 10 percent of men reported feeling hopeless nine or more times.

Similarly, respondents to the 2007 National Survey of Counseling Center Directors reported that almost half of their student clients had severe psychological problems, and close to 8 percent had impairments so serious that they could not remain in college, or could do so only with extensive psychological or psychiatric help. On the 272 campuses surveyed, almost 2,000 students were hospitalized for psychological problems in 2007. Read the article in the Chronicle Review April 18.

Libraries in the News: Hastings Public Library

Built on a brownfield site, Hastings Public Library (Michigan) is targeted to receive a LEED Gold Certificate. Contributing to the library's rating are low VOC (volatile organic compound) furnishings and finishes, linoleum tabletops, condensing gas boilers, an underground air distribution system, vegetative roofs in the turrets, and toilet partitions made of recyled milk jugs.
Source: American Libraries April 2008

The day the Titanic Struck an Iceberg

A luxury liner on 14-15 April, 1912, struck an iceberg near Newfoundland on its maiden voyage and sank with the loss of 1513 lives. Thought to be unsinkable, the Titanic carried enough lifeboats for only half the passengers. As a result of the disaster safety rules for ships at sea were drawn up by the International Convention for Safety of Life at Sea (1913) and the International Ice Patrol was established. The wreck of the Titanic was located and photographed in 1985.
Source: CredoReference

Database Training: Health & Wellness Resource Center

The library is providing online web based training from Gale Publishers on Wednesday, April 16 in the conference room from 10 to ll a.m. The training is open to all members of the Goodwin community. Refreshments will be served.

Health & Wellness Resource Center is a comprehensive resource that provides integrated access to medical, statistical, health, and related information. Including the Gale Encyclopedia of medicine, Health & Wellness Resource Center delivers up-to-date reference material as well as full-text magazines, journals, and pamphlets from a wide variety of authoritative medical sources. Consumers, students, and professionals are provided with descriptions of and links to many pertinent websites selected for their usefulness and appropriateness. Topics covered in Wednesday's webinar include content and purpose of the database, database nivagation, searching techniques, and additional database features.

Library Statistics for March

Not suprising, 46% of the users of the library in March were students in the health sciences, nursing, and respiratory care. Of that group, 51% were in health sciences. Students from early childhood education and business were also well represented. 21% more students used the library in March this year over March of 2007. Circulation of materials increased by 21% in this March over March of 2007.

From January to April 1 this year the library loaned 111 books to other libraries while we borrowed only 49. This could indicate that our library resources are working well for the Goodwin community. It also indicates that we have materials that other libraries want to use.

Online College Fair

Check out a recent New York Times essay on a parent’s experience with CollegeWeekLive.com, a virtual college fair where students and parents chat live with admissions officers from 200 institutions.

One thing Michelle Slatalla, the essay’s author, seemed to miss about going to a real (offline) college fair was the ability to follow the crowd to the “most selective” institutions: “here there was no way to gauge whether more attendees were flocking to Bryn Mawr College or Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa.”

The next CollegeWeekLive fair, which is free, is scheduled for the fall.
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education Wire Campus

National Library Week

It's National Library Week, a time to celebrate the contributions of libraries, librarians, and library workers in schools, campuses and communities nationwide--and the perfect time to discover how you can join the circle of knowledge @ your library.
First sponsored in 1958, National Library Week is a national observance sponsored by the American Library Association (ALA) and libraries across the country each April.

THE LIBRARY STAFF INVITES YOU TO VISIT THE LIBRARY DURING NATIONAL LIBRARY WEEK. YOU WON'T BE SORRY!

Library of Congress Online Exhibit

The Library of Congress opened a new interactive Web site on Saturday, as a companion to a high-tech exhibit designed to give visitors a close-up view of some of the institution's treasures. A copy of the Gutenberg Bible, for instance, is in a glass case at the library, but the new Web site will let users flip through the book and zoom in on its pages virtually. An article in Ars Technica points out that the exhibit is the result of a $3-million gift from Microsoft to promote the use of the company's latest multimedia platform, called Silverlight. The exhibit sounds like a theme park ride -- it's called The Library of Congress Experience.
Source: Library of Congress Experience

U.S. Waterpipes are Breaking

"Two hours north of New York City, a mile-long stream and a marsh the size of a football field have mysteriously formed along a country road. They are such a marvel that people come from miles around to drink the crystal-clear water, believing it is bubbling up from a hidden natural spring. The truth is far less romantic: The water is coming from a cracked 70-year-old tunnel hundreds of feet below ground, scientists say. The tunnel is leaking up to 36 million gallons a day as it carries drinking water from a reservoir to the big city. It is a powerful warning sign of a larger problem around the country: The infrastructure that delivers water to the nation's cities is badly aging and in need of repairs.

The Environmental Protection Agency says utilities will need to invest more than $277 billion over the next two decades on repairs and improvements to drinking water systems. Water industry engineers put the figure drastically higher, at about $480 million. Water utilities, largely managed by city governments, have never faced improvements of this magnitude before. And customers will have to bear the majority of the cost through rate increases, according to the American Water Works Association, an industry group."
Source: Colleen Long reported for the Associated Press April 9, 2008.

Portals to the World

A simple and elegant site. Each link opens a country page where more links pages under each topic are given. Brief and sensible annotations are provided. These pages link you to the best web pages available for every and any country.
Library of Congress, Portals to the World.

Libraries in the News

Located underground beneath the campus's Sterling Memorial main library, Bass Library at Yale University houses 150,000 high-use items. The renovated facility includes individual study rooms, two electronic classrooms, a cafe, and a new entrance pavilion in Collegiate Gothic Style. This is in New haven--go see it!
Size: 59,800 sq. ft.
Cost of renovation: $47.5 million

Global Reach:: Europe

Vincent Van Gogh's down-at-heel boots were the first thing to appear on the test website of the European Digital Library last month. Btanded Europeana, the website will break new ground by bringing together millions of digitized resources from Europe's archives, museums, libraries, and audiovisual collections through a single portal. The full site is scheduled to launch in November.
Source: European Digital Library Network

Today, April 8: Flower Festival

Today is the Buddha’s birthday observed in Buddhist temples throughout Japan, where it is known as Kambutsu-e. The highlight of the celebration is a ritual known as kambutsue (“ceremony of ‘baptizing’ the Buddha”), in which a tiny bronze statue of the Buddha, standing in an open lotus flower, is anointed with sweet tea. People use a small bamboo ladle to pour the tea, made of hydrangea leaves, over the head of the statue. The custom is supposed to date from the seventh century, when perfume was used, as well as tea. Festivities often include a procession of children carrying flowers.
Source: Holidays, Festivals, and Celebrations of the World Dictionary

New Additions to Credo Reference

Keywords and Concepts in Evolutionary Developmental Biology, Harvard University Press in Science

Handbook of United States Economic and Financial Indicators, Greenwood in Business

Notable American Women: 1607-1950, A Biographical Dictionary, Harvard University Press in Biography

Notable American Women: The Modern Period, A Biographical Dictionary, Harvard University Press in Biography

Credo Reference is a leading provider of reference services for libraries and information centers. This service provides you with over 270 full-text titles consisting of an aggregate of 3.1 million entries all interconnected by over 100,000,000 links.

New Latin America: Global Researcher

Latin America is struggling to re-define its soul. The region's once ubiquitous military dictators in dark glasses have been replaced by a new generation of democratically elected leaders. Under their tutelage Latin America is enjoying steady growth and trying to bridge the notoriously deep chasm between the rich and the poor. Wealth and global trade have brought a new sense of cohesion and an unprecedented regional identity, while newly empowered women and indigenous and mixed-race populations are transforming the political landscape. Amid these positive signs, experts ask whether the future belongs to the more moderate, market-oriented democracies — such as those in Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Argentina — or to the more radical, left-wing populism inspired by Venezuela's bombastic socialist leader Hugo Chávez. Meanwhile, with the United States preoccupied in Iraq and elsewhere, the European Union, the Gulf States and China are increasing their economic presence in the region as U.S. influence declines. Read the report online from the Goodwin Library (password protected).

Preventing Memory Loss: CQ Researcher

As the nation's baby boomers age, they are increasingly worried that their memories will deteriorate — and with good reason. An estimated 10 million boomers will develop Alzheimer's disease or another memory-destroying neurodegenerative condition in the coming years. Policy makers and health officials worry that the resulting bulge in the number of sufferers will burden the nation's already strained health-care system. In the wake of these concerns, a vibrant brain-fitness industry is offering a variety of ways to help people keep their brains healthy, including the use of cognition-enhancing drugs and exercise. But many experts say much of what the public is being told is of limited value, at best. Intensified brain research begun years ago at the National Institutes of Health is just now beginning to produce data that scientists hope will advance efforts to prevent memory loss, but they worry that flat federal funding since 2003 may compromise the drive for solutions. Read the entire report available online from the Goodwin Library.
Source: CQ Researcher April 4, 2008

Oxford Reference Online Trial

Oxford Reference online: Premium Collection combines rich and scholarly resources with authoritative, quick-reference coverage of the full subject spectrum. It also offers excellent functionality, and a wide range of additional material such as maps, illustrations, and timelines.
175+ Oxford reference titles
Over 1.3 million entries, many from an expanding range of acclaimed titles in the Oxford Companions series
All 20,000+ quotation entries from the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
15,540+ illustrations, including colour photographs, line diagrams, tables, etc
42 Timelines
775+ maps
36,000+ invaluable bibliographies
167,000+ biographical entries
3,165+ external web links
Enhanced search functions to access results by category
New and revised titles added regularly
TRY IT!
Trial URL: http://www.oxfordreference.com
username: waldolib
password: waldolib

Shrug Off Remediation with Learning Communities

"Opening Doors" by Scrivener, Bloom, LeBlanc, Paxson, Rouse and Sommo

Currently one of the most significant challenges facing education is how to meet the needs of students who lack basic reading, writing and math skills. This problem is ever present in the need for remediation as 29% of incoming college freshmen enroll in at least one development/remedial class. To help these students, schools have turned to "learning communities" wherein students take remedial classess linked with other college-level courses. A new study of a one-semester learning community for freshmen offers the first experimental evidence that learnintg communities help students make a successful transition to college and move more quickly through developmental English requirements. The program places freshmen in groups of up to 25that take three classes together during their first semester. Also included is enhanced counseling and tutoring. Read the article.

Challenges of Low Literacy

How can we better communicate the challenges of low literacy in the 21st Century? Share your thoughts on this issue. The National Center for Family Literacy is launching a blog, Literacy Now, to provide an opportunity for anyone engaged or interested in the cause of literacy to share information, news, and insights. You can access the blog anytime at http://www.famlit.org/blog.
Source: National Center for Family Literacy

USPTO Rejects Blackboard Patent Claims

Blackboard's e-learning patent looks to be going down. The United States Patent and Trademark Office last week sent out a "non-final" determination on the reexamination of Blackboard's patent in which all of the claims on the patent were rejected. Blackboard still has a period of two months to respond to the determination.

We spoke with representatives from the two parties that filed for the reexamination of the patent: Desire2Learn and the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC). Their comments follow. Blackboard itself chose to release a statement (approximately 3:30 p.m. PDT) rather than speak directly with us today, although we might have additional comments next week.

While Desire2Learn and the SFLC celebrated the decision, Blackboard said that its patent still stands, that the company does not intend to back down, and that the decision has no effect on Blackboard's patent infringement suit victory over Desire2Learn.
Source: Campus Technology online March 28, 2008

Homeland Security Critical Releases

Critical Releases in Homeland Security [March 2008]
Every two weeks, the Homeland Security Digital Library identifies "Critical Releases in Homeland Security," a targeted collection of recently-released documents that are expected to influence homeland security policy & strategy development.

Review of the FBI's Use of National Security Letters: Assessment of Corrective Actions and Examination of NSL Usage in 2006, March 2008
United States. Dept. of Justice. Office of the Inspector General

Potential Impacts of Climate Change on U.S. Transportation: Special Report 209
National Academies Press (U.S.)

Financial Action Task Force: Terrorist Financing
Financial Action Task Force

Federal Guidance to Assist States in Improving State-Level Pandemic Influenza Operating Plans
United States Government

Air Force Cyber Command Strategic Vision
United States. Air Force

Source: Homeland Security Library

Power to the People?

Are our customers (students) talking about our brand right now on MySpace--probably in ways we wouldn't approve? Are conversations with students showing up on YouTube intercut with sarcastic comentary? This may have somone in administration tearing his or her hair out--no names mentioned. Like a flood, it can't be stopped in any one place and perhaps not at all. This is all leading up to--yes, you guessed it--a new book out in May called Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff. They explain how you can turn this "threat" into your greatest asset. With tools and data straight fromm one of the nation's top research firms, you'll learn how to evaluate new social technologies as they emerge and how to make them a part of your strategies. Who is first to reserve this book?? (Some of the clever comments here are revised a little from the book.)
Source: Harvard Business Review

Connecticut-Sized Ice Shelf Crumbling in Antarctica

Antarctica's Wilkins Ice Shelf is a plate of permanent floating ice that covers an area the size of Connecticut. The shelf started to collapse late last month, when a large iceberg 25 miles long broke off and floated away. Since then, an area the size of Chicago has broken up, probably because of warming and the action of waves.
Source: National Public Radio today

What is Grey Literature?

Grey Literature: That which is produced on all levels of government, academics, business and industry in print and electronic formats, but which is not controlled by commercial publishers. This includes materials that never make it into our databases.

But help is at hand. The Grey Literature Report is a bimonthly publication of The New York Academy of Medicine Library alerting readers to new grey literature publications in health services research and selected public health topics.
The current Grey Literature Report Vol. 10, No. 1 - January 2008 is available.

Women in Politics: CQ Researcher

The number of women holding political office in the United States has grown substantially over the past two decades. But even with a record number of 86 women in Congress today, men still outnumber women by more than 5-to-1. Historically, women faced significant disadvantages in running for office and winning voter approval. Experts say those barriers are lower today, but perhaps not completely gone.. . .
Source: CQ Researcher

NEW BOOKS IN THE LIBRARY

FICTION
Away by Amy Bloom
Other Boleyn Girl by Philippa Gregory
True to the Crime by Teri Woods
Five Forty-Five to Cannes by Tess U. Holthe
Complete Stories by David Malouf
Pesthouse by Jim Crace
Ministry of Special Cases by Nathan Englander

NONFICTION
Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris
Holler if You Hear Me by Michael Eric Dyson
Oil on the Brain by Lisa Margonelli
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
Spirituality in Nursing by Mary E. O’Brien
Sea Around Us by Rachel Carson
Life in the Soil: Guide for Naturalists and Gardeners by James Nardi
Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson
Right to Vote: Contested History of Democracy in the United States by Alexandr Yessar
World Without Us by Alan Weisman
Oxford Companion to English Literature edited by Margaret Drabble

Belated Happy Pi Day!

I was at a meeting Friday, March 14 (3.14) and missed Pi Day. It's not too late to celebrate! (Picture comes from GeekDads blog.)

Arthur C. Clarke 1917-2008

This week the worlds of science and science fiction lost one of their true visionaries, Arthur C. Clarke, author of seminal works like 2001: A Space Odyssey and Rendezvous with Rama. Mr. Clarke increased our fascination with science and technology. As one admirer wrote, "the sky is filled with one more star now."

This Week's Brain Teaser: All Things Blue

This week's brainteaser is all about things or people that are called blue.
1. "Big Blue" is a nickname for which computer company?
2. Which creature, with "blue" in its name, is generally considered to be the largest living animal?
3. The "Blue Peter" is a flag flown on a ship when it is about to do what?
4. "Blue berets" is the name by which the military members of which kind of operation are often described?
5. "Ol' Blue Eyes" was a nickname for which popular US singer?
6. In skiing, is a "blue run" an easy run or a difficult one?
7. The famous Blue Mosque, also known as the Mosque of Sultan Ahmed I, is in which country?
8. Which 1968 cartoon film incuded bizarre malevolent ogres called the Blue Meanies?
9. What was the title of the 1924 composition for piano and orchestra by George Gershwin with "blue" in the title?
10. "Bluenose" is an informal word for a native or inhabitant of which province?
(Answers Friday!)

New Book: Stressed Out About Nursing

Stressed Out About Your First Year of Nursing is a survival guide for new graduate nurses that steers them through the transition from student nurse to competent RN.

They will get the whole truth on what they didn’t learn in school and find out what to expect during the first year. Easy-to-read and full of sound advice, the book helps new graduates navigate through the first year on the job, from orientation and preceptors to communication and collaboration, including all the tips and tools they need to succeed.

With helpful icons that highlight tips to remember and secrets of success, they will find out all about:
why nursing is so demanding and how to survive
what to expect during orientation
the common causes of stress and how to handle them
how to transition from student nurse to new graduate
the stages of competence
how to handle horizontal hostility
survival skills
how to avoid legal pitfalls and stay out of trouble

This book just arrived in the library!

Change in LexisNexis Academic Database

Major improvements have been announced in the appearance and navigational elements of LexisNexis Academic. The change is scheduled to take place on Saturday April 26, 2008. With the exception of one enhancement to the Source Selection interface, these changes are purely related to visual design. The functionality of the product will not be changing, and we expect that most users will not be disorientated for more than a few moments by the change.
Source: News from LexisNexis

Women in Higher Education: Legacy of Leadership

The legacy of women in higher education is well documented and the legacy continues. Women in high level positions at colleges and universities across the country are spearheading the adoption of technology and shaping the future of higher education in the process. Join an exciting FREE webinar March 25th at 2 p.m. focusing on the use and benefits of class-capture technology in leading higher education institutions.

A panel of highly accomplished women, will discuss the impact of this new institution-wide technology on the core of educational mission, with-out changing tried and true teaching practices. The result is improved satisfaction and performance among students.

New to webinars? All you need is a computer with internet access and a telephone. Once you register, they will email easy-to-follow instructions. If you cannot attend just click on Send me a link to the Tegrity-recorded session.
Source: Tegrity

Academic Twittering: Breaking Down the Classroom Walls

We've noticed lots of interest in Twitter (and other micro-blogging services) at colleges, and so it's worth noting that David Parry, an assistant professor of Emerging Media and Communications at the University of Texas at Dallas, explains his philosophy for using Twitter. He offers some fresh pointers to others who have experimented with the service. For instance, he expands on what he means by using Twitter to break down the classroom walls: "Students attend college where their identity as a student is just part of what they do and who they are. Many of them have jobs, commute to school, etc., and thus the social aspect of the campus life has changed," he writes. "If this is the case then these 'new' ways of socializing such as Facebook and MySpace are where students are forming their learning communities, ones which do not entirely, perhaps only minimally, overlap with their classroom experience. Thus to extend the walls of the classroom, make education relevant to all aspects of students lives rather than just what they do four-five hours a day we need to think of ways to extend the ways we form and foster learning communities." What do you think?
Source: Wired Campus

Young Children Journal Now Online!

The new interactive version of the Young Chldren Journal is now online. Using the digital version of Young Children NAEYC members can:
Learn more about a topic by clicking on live links.
Search quickly for specific topics then save to your computer for offline viewing.
Zoom, turn pages, and scroll allowing for easy online reading.
View and search a growing archive (all future digital issues will remain accessible online in the archive)
Click on advertiser ads to get more information on their products or services.
Gather and save timely information on professional development.
Source: Young Children Journal

College Presidents: Tech Therapy Warning

Tech Therapy: 'If We Don't Pay Attention to IT, We're Dead in the Water.'

Robert E. Dunker, the president of Western Iowa Tech Community College, joins Warren Arbogast and Scott Carlson on Tech Therapy this week to talk about why presidents should pay attention to technology. The short answer: to keep the college doors open. “We see our face-to-face interaction going down and our online attendance skyrocketing up,” Mr. Dunker says. “As presidents, if we don't pay attention to IT and the impact IT has on our institutions, we are going to be dead in the water.” Mr. Dunker describes how he pays attention to what’s going on at the Detroit Auto Show or the Consumer Electronics Show, and how the college might take advantage of the technologies discussed there. For example, now that people can plug iPods into car stereos, how can colleges let people download lessons so that education can be part of their commutes? “Heck, I don't know how to do it,” Mr. Dunker says, “but we better make sure we're on top of it.” “A president who says, ‘I don't know,’" Warren responds. “I love it.”
Source: Quoted from Chronicle of Higher Education Wired Campus Newsletter

Writing Classroom Web Seminar

Free Web Seminar: Changing the Landscape of the Writing Classroom
National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) is offering a special free opportunity to participate in Chris Jennings Dixon's "7 Ways to Change the Landscape of the Writing Classroom" on Thursday, March 27, 2008, 3:30 p.m.-4:30 p.m. EDT. The online session will discuss how collaboration, a common denominator in altering the writing classroom, promotes student reflection, analysis, and empowerment. Logins are limited, so be sure to sign up early. Can't make it on Thursday? Don't worry -- you can order the free archive version of the seminar online.
Source: Nationcal Council of Teachers of English (NCTE)

English Teachers: Writing Poetry

Start planning your National Poetry Month celebration with the following lesson plans and classroom-ready resources, all of which invite students to write their own poetry:
"Found & Headline Poems," from Getting the Knack: 20 Poetry Writing Exercises (M-S-C)
"Sestinas and Villanelles from the Inner City" (C)
"Novices Encounter a Novice Literature: Introducing Digital Literature in a First-Year College Writing Class" (C)

For more ideas for teaching poetry, see the Poetry Teacher Resource Collection, which includes links to additional articles, lesson plans, and other resources.
Source: National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE)

Science Journal Weekly Podcasts

Science's weekly podcast takes you on a tour of some interesting stories in the journal and on its sister sites. You can listen to these audiocasts on your own computer simply by clicking on the "Listen to MP3" links of podcast announcements. If you use a podcast aggregator like iTunes or Juice, you can subscribe to the podcast feed to automatically download the files for syncing to portable audio devices. Science is the world's leading journal of original scientific research, global news, and commentary published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The journal is available in the library.
Source: Science Journal

WomenWatch for Women's History Month

For Women's History Month the library suggests WomenWatch, the central gateway to information and resources on the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women throughout the United Nations system, including the United Nations Secretariat, regional commissions, funds, programs, specialized agencies and academic and research institutions. This site includesUN news and research on international issues such as violence against women, women in power, and human rights of women.
http://www.un.org/womenwatch/

Website of the Week: GetBodySmart

GetBodySmart: An Online Examination of Human Anatomy and Physiology is a fully animated and interactive resource. Developed and owned by Scott Sheffield, who has taught this material at the university level for over twenty years, the website is appropriate for students and instructors. Aiming to explain the body's complex physiological interactions and to illustrate its important anatomical landmarks, the site includes diagrams and drawings as well as quizzes and a tutorial. General subject breakdowns thus far are: skeletal system, muscle tissue physiology, muscular system, nervous system, circulatory system, respiratory system, urinary system, and histology. Adobe Flash Player, which is required to view the animations, can be downloaded without charge by following a linke from the site.
http://www.getbodysmart.com/
Source: Medical Library Association News March 2008

More on Wikipedia

Author Nickolson Baker entertainingly reviews Wikipedia: The Missing Manual by John Broughton in the current issue of the New York Review of Books. From the review:
"Wikipedia is just an incredible thing. It's fact-encirclingly huge, and it's idiosyncratic, careful, messy, funny, shocking, and full of simmering controversies—and it's free, and it's fast. In a few seconds you can look up, for instance, "Diogenes of Sinope," or "turnip," or "Crazy Eddie," or "Bagoas," or "quadratic formula," or "Bristol Beaufighter," or "squeegee," or "Sanford B. Dole," and you'll have knowledge you didn't have before. It's like some vast aerial city with people walking briskly to and fro on catwalks, carrying picnic baskets full of nutritious snacks.

More people use Wikipedia than Amazon or eBay—in fact it's up there in the top-ten Alexa rankings with those moneyed funhouses MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube. Why? Because it has 2.2 million articles, and because it's very often the first hit in a Google search, and because it just feels good to find something there—even, or especially, when the article you find is maybe a little clumsily written. Any inelegance, or typo, or relic of vandalism reminds you that this gigantic encyclopedia isn't a commercial product. There are no banners for E*Trade or Classmates.com, no side sprinklings of AdSense."

He recommends the book and I recommend his review, "The Charms of Wikipedia."

Congratulations UCONN Women

Renee Montgomery scored 20 points and No. 1 Connecticut held off No. 23 Louisville 65-59 on Tuesday in Hartford to win the Big East tournament championship.

Charde Houston earned Most Outstanding Performer in the Big East Tournament. It was Connecticut's 14th Big East tournament title, including three of the past four. Congratulations!

Online Courses and Copyright Issues

Elsevier Agrees to Let MIT Use Bits of Journal Articles Online

Publishing courses online each year involves tracking down permissions for copyrighted items. A major challenge for colleges that want to post lecture materials on the Web involves making sure they have permission to use the copyrighted images from journals and other sources that professors have put in their power point presentations. This week the Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced that it has reached a deal with Elsevier, one of the largest journal publishers, to allow a limited amount of material from its journals to be used in MIT’s OpenCourseWare project.

The publisher hasn’t exactly given away the store: The agreement allows the project to use up to three illustrations per journal article, and up to 100 words of text. But what if you are not MIT??? Good question-no anwer.

Source: Chronicle of Higher Education Wired Campus

Brainteaser: Famous Women Answers

Here are the answers to last week's brainteaser:
1. Sigourney Weaver
2. Edith Piaf
3. Laura Ingalls Wilder
4. Dolly Parton
5. Jane Goodall

Was this too easy???

Women's History Month: Girl Scouts

Girl Scouts of America is founded

Juliette Gordon Low started the all-girls club in Savannah, Georgia in 1912 with the aim of promoting social welfare by encouraging members to participate in community service and outdoor activities. Among the many famous girl scouts alumni are: Lucille Ball, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Nancy Reagan and Gloria Steinem.Today the organization has around 3.7 million members.

Source: The Smithsonian

Brainteaser: Famous Women

Try to identify these five famous women from the descriptions of them.

1. American actress who rocketed to stardom as the astronaut Ellen Ripley in the 1979 movie "Alien".
2. French singer, born in Paris, she became a street singer at the age of 15. She was nicknamed "the kid sparrow" by a night-club owner in 1935. She was famous for such songs as "Non, je ne regrette rien" and "Milord".
3. American author of nine autobiographical novels about growing up on the frontier in the 1870s and 1880s, starting with "Little House in the Big Woods".
4. American country singer born in Locust Ridge, Sevier County, Tennessee, the fourth of 12 children of a mountain farmer.
5. British zoologist who gained fame for her research on chimpanzees in the wild, having conducted the longest continuous field study of wild animals in their natural environment.
(Answers provided next week)

CQ Researcher Weekly Report:Buying Green

The Chevrolet Volt concept car, a plug-in hybrid not yet on the market, will get 150 miles per gallon, according to General Motors. Americans will spend an estimated $500 billion this year on products and services that claim to be good for the environment because they contain non-toxic ingredients or produce little pollution and waste. While some shoppers buy green to help save the planet, others are concerned about personal health and safety. Whatever their motives, eco-consumers are reshaping U.S. markets. To attract socially conscious buyers, manufacturers are designing new, green products and packaging, altering production processes and using sustainable materials. But some of these products may be wastes of money. Federal regulators are reviewing green labeling claims to see whether they mislead consumers, while some critics say that government mandates promoting environmentally preferable products distort markets and raise prices. Even if green marketing delivers on its pledges, many environmentalists say that sustainability is not a matter of buying green but of buying less.

Read the article and CQ Researcher every week--available from the library homepage (password protected).

Science Podcasts

The library subscribes to the Science Journal published weekly by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Science's weekly podcast will take you on a tour of some interesting stories in the journal and on its sister sites. You can listen to these audiocasts on your own computer simply by clicking on the "Listen to MP3" links on the podcast announcements. If you use a podcast aggregator like iTunes or Juice, you can subscribe to their podcast feed to automatically download the files for syncing to portable audio devices.

March is National Women's History Month

The National Women's History Project, founded in 1980, is an educational nonprofit organization. Their mission is to recognize and celebrate the diverse and historic accomplishments of women by providing information and educational materials and program.The Project chose its 2008 national theme “Women’s Art: Women’s Vision” to honor the originality, beauty, imagination and multiple dimensions of women’s lives. Women in the arts have left their valuable mark upon history. Theirs is the story of amazing accomplishments often acclaimed at the time but later forgotten.This year’s theme provides a special opportunity to discover and celebrate women’s visual arts in a variety of forms that help expand the perceptions of each other and ourselves.

Source: National Women's History Project and the Library of Congress

Women's History Month Feature: Hester Prynne

National Women's History Month: Women's Art, Women's Vision.

Hester Prynne, protagonist of Nathaniel Hawthorne's masterwork The Scarlet Letter, is among the first and most important female protagonists in American literature. She's the embodiment of deep contradictions: bad and beautiful, holy and sinful, conventional and radical. I heard Professor Jamie Barlow on All Things Considered earlier this week suggest that this "proud adulterss is a mirror revealing readers' true feelings about the role of women in society." Listen to the twelve minute segment and you may want to re-read the book. I know I do.
Source: National Public Radio All Things Considered

Digital Aerial Views of Connecticut

Connecticut was the first state to complete a statewide aerial survey. Now Connecticut is the first state to put a complete statewide aerial survey online.The aerial survey of Connecticut was taken before the Hurricane of 1938 radically changed the topography of the state, but after a statewide paving project called "Get Connecticut Out of the Mud" enabled the popular new-fangled automobiles to climb the state's hills and cruise its valleys.The original photographic prints have long been one of the most heavily used collections at the Connecticut State Library.

The State Library has now digitized the 8,731 original 1934 aerial photographs, and published them as part of the State Library's DigitalCollections at http://cslib.cdmhost.com/cdm4/aerials.php. You can search for the aerials photos by town name, or by using either a street map locator ora topographic index sheet locator.

What makes Finnish Kids So Smart?

Did you miss this article in the Wall Street Journal last week? "Finnish high-school students rarely get more than a half-hour of homework a night. They have no school uniforms, no honor societies, no valedictorians, no tardy bells and no classes for the gifted. There is little standardized testing, few parents agonize over college and kids don't start school until age 7.
Yet by one international measure, Finnish teenagers are among the smartest in the world. They earned some of the top scores by 15-year-old students who were tested in 57 countries. American teens finished among the world's C students even as U.S. educators piled on more homework, standards and rules." Read the article. Read the Wall Street Journal everyday in the library so you won't miss articles like this!
Source: Wall Street Journal February 29, 2008

Prisons vs. Colleges

A report by the Pew Charitable Trusts shows that Vermont, Michigan, Oregon, Connecticut, and Delaware spend more on their prisons than they do on institutions of higher education.
Source: Inside Higher Ed, February 29, 2008

The Next Subprime Mortgages?

Private student loans are booming, and a consumer-advocacy group has taken a critical look at those nonfederal loans, which now account for nearly one-quarter of all education loans. The outlook: a feeling of “sad déjà vu” when compared to the subprime-mortgage industry.
In a report released yesterdat that outlined some of the dangers of private student loans, the National Consumer Law Center reviewed 28 private loans issued from 2001 to 2006. The group found all the loans to have variable rates, with initial annual percentage rates ranging from 5 percent to 19 percent. The average initial APR was 11.5 percent. The survey also found an average origination fee of 4.5 percent (the highest origination fee for a loan in the study was 9.9 percent). Federal direct loans now have an origination fee of 2.5 percent.
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education

Women's History Month

Women's Art: Women's Vision

The National Women's History Project, founded in 1980, is an educational nonprofit organization. Their mission is to recognize and celebrate the diverse and historic accomplishments of women by providing information and educational materials and program.The Project chose its 2008 national theme “Women’s Art: Women’s Vision” to honor the originality, beauty, imagination and multiple dimensions of women’s lives. Women in the arts have left their valuable mark upon history. Theirs is the story of amazing accomplishments often acclaimed at the time but later forgotten.This year’s theme provides a special opportunity to discover and celebrate women’s visual arts in a variety of forms and mediums that help expand the perceptions of each other and ourselves.

Source: National Women's History Project and the Library of Congress