Reminder: Reference Help Any Time

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

Nursing 210 Students: Critical Thinking Study Guide

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

Wharton Experience Online for Business Students

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

Assessing 21st Century Skills

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

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

Read the survey.

Round and Round

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

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

Psychology Articles

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

A Poem for Election Day

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

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

New E-Book of Essays

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

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

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

Source: Regina Schroeder in Booklist

Resource of the Week

United National Audiovisual Library of International Law

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

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

Source: United Nations Blog

What to do if You Have Problems Voting

Some of the numerous voting problems already seen in early voting include machines flipping votes from your candidate to another, other kinds of machine failures, discovering that your name has been purged from the voter registration database, too few machines leading to waits as long as 6 hours, etc. Print this advice out and take it with you so that if you encounter problems, you'll know how to insist that your vote be counted.

Seeing Race and Seeming Racist?

White people—including children as young as 10—may avoid talking about race so as not to appear prejudiced, according to new research. But that approach often backfires as blacks tend to view this “colorblind” approach as evidence of prejudice, especially when race is clearly relevant.

These results are from two separate sets of experiments led by researchers from Tufts University and Harvard Business School. Their findings are reported in the October issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and the September issue of Developmental Psychology. Both journals are published by the American Psychological Association and available in the library.

"Seeing Race and Seeming Racist? Evaluating Strategic Colorblindness in Social Interaction" Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

"Learning (No,t) to Talk About Race: When Older Children Underperform in Social Categorization" Developmental Psychology

Source: American Psychological Association

Blackboard unites with Moodle

Blackboard has taken another step toward making the next version of its course-management system work alongside open-source competitors. The company announced today that it is working with Iowa State University to create a software plug-in for the company’s course-management system so that it can integrate with Moodle, a popular open-source alternative. The move comes just three months after the company announced the creation of a similar connection tool for Sakai, another open-source course-management system.

The new software tool, called the Learning Environment Connector for Moodle, will let students access course Web sites created with Moodle from within the Blackboard software interface. The goal is to let students see all of their course information in one space, regardless of which software was used to produce the Web pages.

Source: Chronicle of Higher Education Wired Campus October 28 2008

Focus on Native American Heritage

National American Indian Heritage Month is recognized each November as a time to learn more about the history and heritage of Native American peoples. Resources on the library web pge provide strategies for exploring Native American literature and heritage in your own classroom.

What is Happening To State Universities?

"State universities have been established as bold testament to the democratic belief that, regardless of students' race, status, or economic condition, the doors of learning and promise will be opened equally to all with the wit and will to master the challenge. But the universities don't always operate that way." (Gene Nichol)

Christopher Newfield, in his new book, Unmaking the Public University: The Forty-Year Assault on the Middle Class, writes about how certain myths exacerbate the financial plight of those institutions. Newfield, a professor of English at the University of California at Santa Barbara, talks about his book in an article in the current Chronicle of Higher Education. He claims that the crises threatening public universities are not primarily the result of economic downturns or altered cost structures. They stem, according to Newfield, from a conservative-led campaign to end higher education's democratizing influence on the nation.

Source: Gene Nichol's and Christopher Newfield's articles in The Chronicle of Higher Education

Last Day to Register!

IN CONNECTICUT, YOU HAVE UNTIL 8 P.M. TONIGHT TO REGISTER TO VOTE IN NEXT TUESDAY'S ELECTION.

Small Business Savings

Here are some tips, actually 78 tips, for Small Businesses To Save Money in This Economy. It includes technology that helps reduce utility and travel costs, and methods for reducing overhead, office expenses, insurance, and advertising costs.

New Titles in Academic OneFile

All of the titles below have been added to the Academic OneFile database and can be found on product using Basic or Advanced Search forms. Titles can be found via Publication Search within the next two weeks.

American Journal of Health Behavior
Discrete Mathematics and Theoretical Computer Science
European Law Reports
Hebrew Studies Journal
Indian Journal of Industrial Relations
Journal of Australian Political Economy
Journal of Centrum Cathedra
Journal of Information, Law and Technology
Journal of Services Research
Law, Social Justice and Global Development Journal
PT: Magazine of Physical Therapy
Southwestern Naturalist (
The King's Law Journal
Revista Iberoamericana de Ciencia, Tecnología y Sociedad

Higher Educaton Assessment Resources

Colleges and universities are grappling with a need for new forms of assessment, often designed by faculty, that can address multiple types of learning and evaluate nuanced capacities, such as critical thinking and analytical ability.

This list of Internet resources includes some excellent comprehensive sites on all facets of assessment in higher education. Potentially even more valuable to faculty, however, are the selected links to university sites, which provide practical methods for creating a variety of alternative assessments and integrating them into college course work. Serving less as final measurements than as vital components of the classroom dynamic, these alternative or authentic assessments can inform ongoing course development and invigorate teaching and learning.

Source: Bonnie Chauncey, Northeastern Illinois University Education Librarian from
Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL)

Early Childhood Education Databases

Two popular iCONN databases will have a new feature soon. Kids InfoBits and the Discovering Collection will have ReadSpeaker added on about November 1st. ReadSpeaker is a simple to use audio text reader that will “speak” the text of items retrieved in searches.

The ReadSpeaker player will appear when a file has been selected for
viewing, printing, e-mailing, or listening. Users with questions about how ReadSpeaker works can click on the ReadSpeaker Help button.

ReadSpeaker comes with the ability to play or download the audio text as an MP3 file. To download the file, the user must first agree that the use will be for educational, noncommercial use only.

The White Tiger Wins Booker Literary Prize

Aravind Adiga, one of the two debut novelists on the 2008 shortlist, won the Man Booker prize this week for The White Tiger, a bracingly modern novel about the dark side of the new India. The White Tiger takes a sharp and unblinking look at the reality of India's economic miracle. Its antihero and narrator, Balram Halwai, is a cocksure, uneducated young man, the son of an impoverished rickshaw driver. By lying, betraying and using his sharp intelligence, Balram makes his ascent into the heady heights of Bangalore's big business.

The Man Booker Prize for Fiction is a literary prize awarded each year for the best original full-length novel written in the English language by a citizen of either the Commonwealth of Nations or Irleand. The White Tiger and other novels on the short list are available in the library.

Webcasts from the Library of Congress

Everyone can pick and choose from among the many, many webcasts available online from the Library of Congress. Browse by general topic (biography/history, culture/performing arts, education, government, poetry/literature, religion, science/technology), choose from among the current top ten (listed at the upper right), or check out what was recently added — such as playwright and screenwriter Mark Stein discussing How the States Got Their Shapes. You’ll even find webcasts and podcasts from the 2008 National Book Festival. Access Library of Congress Webcasts here.

Health Care and Presidential Candidates

The editors of the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) asked both candidates to describe their plans for reforming the U.S. Health System. Their statements are published in the October 9th issue of NEJM. The Journal and the Harvard School of Public Health cosponsored a roundtable last month on health care in the next administration. A video of the symposium can be seen at www. nejm.org--could be used for class discussions. Be informed.

Source: NEJM

NLM's Haz-Map Updated

Haz-Map, from the National Library of Medicine (NLM), has been updated. The latest update includes 180 new chemical profiles, submitted by the United States Department of Labor. Haz-Map is an occupational health database designed for health and safety professionals and for consumers seeking information about the health effects of exposure to chemicals and biologicals at work. Haz-Map links jobs and hazardous tasks with occupational diseases and their symptoms. It covers 2030 agents, and 225 occupational diseases.

Source: National Library of Medicine

2008 Great Places in America

American Planning Association's flagship program celebrates places of exemplary character, quality, and planning. Places are selected annually and represent the gold standard in terms of having a true sense of place, cultural and historical interest, community involvement, and a vision for tomorrow.The 2008 designees are not ranked, but listed alphabetically. They are located in 21 states and the District of Columbia. My favorite, pictured here, is Summit Avenue in St. Paul, Minnesota. Check it out at 2008 Great Places in America.

Source: American Planning Association

Educational Data at Your Fingertips

DataLab, a new website from the Institute of Education Sciences’ National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), puts a wide range of survey data collected by NCES at your fingertips. Whether you want a quick number or an in-depth look at education data, the tools in the DataLab are designed to do both.

QuickStats, available now, is a guided table generator that allows users to produce a table with ease. Designed for those who are new to NCES data, or those who wish to answer basic questions — what percent of college students are from low-income families? what percent of adults are taking coursework outside of the traditional college setting? what are the teaching challenges most often cited by public school teachers? — QuickStats provides easy access to frequently used variables in many NCES studies of students, teachers, schools, and postsecondary institutions.

PowerStats, available in the spring of 2009, will permit users to produce complex tables and to run regressions, and to draw upon thousands of variables from many NCES studies. Powerstats will allow for many kinds of regression analyses, including weighted least squares and logistic regression. To view the site, please go to NCES.

Source: National Center for Education Statistics

French Writer Wins Nobel Prize

The Swedish Academy today awarded the 2008 Nobel Prize for literature to Jean-Marie Gustave lL Clézio, a French novelist, children’s author and essayist regarded by some French readers as one of the country’s greatest living writers. For more information, read this article.

Source: New York Times

Featured Goodwin Library ebook

Encyclopedia of Small Business, 3rd ed., 2007
Contains articles and overviews of all the key information needs of small business owners, including financing, financial planning, business plan creation, market analysis, sales strategy, tax planning, and human resource issues.

Music from the 1940's

For students in Paul LaRocca's class, you can find free music from the early 1940's online. You can listen to it and you can share it. It includes lots of artists--Nat King Cole, Peggy Lee, Ella Fitzgerald, Bing Crosby, and many others that you have never heard before. HERE IS THE PLACE You can download Rhapsody Music software at the site.

Source: Play List Central

No Nobel Prizes for U.S>

October 1st, 2008

Bad news for American writers hoping for a Nobel Prize next week: the top member of the award jury believes the United States is too insular and ignorant to compete with Europe when it comes to great writing.

Counters the head of the U.S. National Book Foundation: “Put him in touch with me, and I’ll send him a reading list.” As the Swedish Academy enters final deliberations for this year’s award, permanent secretary Horace Engdahl said it’s no coincidence that most winners are European. “Of course there is powerful literature in all big cultures, but you can’t get away from the fact that Europe still is the center of the literary world … not the United States,” he told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview Tuesday.
Source: AP News

EPA LibrariesOpen Doors--At Last

Shuttered EPA Libraries Open Doors…After Two Years

Under orders from Congress, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency tomorrow will again provide access to library services in 15 states and its own headquarters to agency employees and the public. This ends a 30-month campaign by the Bush administration to restrict availability of technical materials within EPA but leaves in its wake scattered and incomplete collections under new political controls of library operations.

Source: Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

Free Access to All SAGE Journals Online

Free Online Access to all SAGE Journals until October 31, 2008

Simply register HERE and you will have free online access to over 500 SAGE journals with content available from 1999-date. SAGE’s prestigious and highly cited journals are available electronically on the award winning SAGE Journals Online. Search more than 500 journals in Business, Humanities, Social Sciences, and Science, Technology and Medicine.

Source: Sage Journals Online

Banned Books Week--Day Five

Stop at our Banned Books Week exhibit in the education building today from 11-12. In the United States, the free expression of ideas is generally unlimited. But that doesn't prevent well-meaning people from trying to suppress information. As a college, we need to stand up and say we do not believe in censorship.

Oh No! More Earmarks!

Temporary Spending Bill Contains Billions in Earmarks for Colleges

Tucked into a spending bill that the U.S. Senate passed over the weekend are thousands of set-asides for pork-barrel projects, including many at colleges and universities. According to a tally by Taxpayers for Common Sense, a watchdog group, there are 2,321 earmarks totaling $6.6-billion in the bill, which would provide funds for three federal agencies in the 2009 fiscal year, while financing most others at this year’s levels until March.

Among the earmarks for colleges and universities are:
$2-million for “hibernation genomics” research at the University of Alaska, secured by Sen. Ted Stevens, a Republican who is on trial for allegedly lying on his financial-disclosure forms and concealing thousands of dollars in gifts. The project, which has received earmarks in the past, is investigating using hibernation to treat traumatic battlefield injuries.

Last year legislators channeled more than 2,300 such projects to 920 institutions, mostly for research, according to a Chronicle analysis. —Kelly Field


Source: Chronicle of Higher Education

Not to be Missed: Why Science Matters & the Election

"Choosing a Future: Why Science Matters",this week's U.S. Election special issue of Nature magazine, begins with a look at what's at stake in this campaign and beyond for science. A. Witze asks how the candidates have developed their stances on science overtime, who is advising them, and where they might take the country (page 442). The parties stances on science and technology matters are summarized (page 446)--Obama answers questions but McCain declined. Another article ponders the prospects of key science agencies such as NASA, EPA, and NIH, under a McCain or Obama administration (page 451). David Goldstone adds a personal viewpoint from Washington, D.C. (Party at One p. 453). See also the introductory editorial (page 431), advice to a potential president on what books to read (Books & Art p. 464) and the expanded on-line-election special on www.nature.com/uselection. Listen also to the series of election podcasts on www.nature.com/nature/podcast. There is also an issue in the Goodwin Library.
Source: Nature U.S. Election Special September 25 2008

Lists and Rankings

Everyone seems to love lists and rankings. There is perennial interest in biggest, richest, highest rated, most popular, etc., etc. Of course, some of these compilations are highly subjective. But many of these do have reference or research value, such as U.S. Census Bureau lists such as Fastest Growing Large Cities in the United States.

Boys Don't Like to Read

Problem: Boys Don’t Like to Read. Solution: Books That Are Really Gross

Publishers are hawking more gory and gross books to appeal to an elusive market: boys — many of whom would rather go to the dentist than crack open “Little House on the Prairie.” Booksellers are also catering to teachers and parents desperate to make young males more literate.

“There has been a real revolution” in books that “have more kid appeal,” especially when it comes to boys, says Ellie Berger, who oversees Scholastic’s trade division. “It’s a shift away from the drier books we all grew up with.”

Last year, U.S. publishers released 261 new works of juvenile fiction aimed at boys, more than twice the number put out in 2003, according to Bowker’s Books in Print database. There were 20 nonfiction entries for boys, compared with just four in 2003.

Source: Wall Street Journal

Doing What Works in Teaching

What is “spacing” learning and how does it benefit teachers and students? Do students learn more when solved problems are alternated with problems to be solved? And how do “higher order” questions enhance student learning and help students articulate their answers?

Visitors to the U.S. Department of Education’s “Doing What Works” Web site can find out the answers to these questions and much more. Just click on http://dww.ed.gov, and enjoy an engaging and interactive experience with Psychology of Learning: How to Organize Your Teaching, the latest addition to the site, which will empower educators and administrators with research-based strategies to help instructors organize their teaching and improve student learning.

Source: U.S. Department of Education

Send Your Name Around the Earth

Members of the public can send their names around Earth on NASA’s Glory satellite, the first mission dedicated to understanding the effects of particles in the atmosphere and the sun’s variability on our climate.

The “Send Your Name Around the Earth” Web site enables everyone to take part in the science mission and place their names in orbit for years to come. The Web site, where participants can submit their information, is located HERE


Participants will receive a printable certificate from NASA and have their name recorded on a microchip that will become part of the spacecraft. The deadline for submitting names is Nov. 1, 2008.

Writing for the Web

Arriving in the library this week will be the following books about writing for the web:

Hot Text and Web Writing That Works
Developing Online Content: Principles of Writing & Editing for the Web
Letting Go of the Words: Writing With Content That Works

Election 2008

Useful Links

Candidates
McCain-Palin Website: www.johnmccain.com
Obama-Biden Website: www.barackobama.com
Roll Call - Presidential Race: congress.org/election/home/
You Decide 2008: www.youdecide2008.com

Debates
League of Women Voters Debate Watching Tools: tinyurl.com/52oc5p

News
BBC News: news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/americas/2008/vote_usa_2008/default.stm
CNN: www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/
Fox News: elections.foxnews.com/
NPR: www.npr.org/templates/topics/topic.php?topicId=1102
Reuters: www.reuters.com/news/globalcoverage/2008candidates
The New York Times: elections.nytimes.com/2008/
U.S. News: www.usnews.com/Topics/tag/Subject/p/presidential_election_2008/

Books Most Frequently Challenged

Banned Books Week celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one’s opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox. Observed since 1982, this annual ALA event reminds Americans not to take this precious democratic freedom for granted. The “10 Most Challenged Books of 2007” reflect a range of themes, and consist of the following titles:

1) “And Tango Makes Three,” by Justin Richardson/Peter Parnell
2) The Chocolate War,” by Robert Cormier
3) “Olive’s Ocean,” by Kevin Henkes
4) “The Golden Compass,” by Philip Pullman
5) “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” by Mark Twain
6) “The Color Purple,” by Alice Walker
7) "TTYL,” by Lauren Myracle
8) "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” by Maya Angelou
9) “It’s Perfectly Normal,” by Robie Harris
10) "The Perks of Being A Wallflower,” by Stephen Chbosky

Off the list this year, are two books by author Toni Morrison. "The Bluest Eye" and "Beloved," both challenged for sexual content and offensive language.

Paulson's Plan

Here is the Legislative Proposal for Treasury Authority to Purchase Mortgage-Related Assets This is the plan submitted by Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson. (you may want to pay particular attention to Section 8).

Are the Scrub s Germ-Free?

"The Doctor's Hands Are Germ-Free. The Scrubs Too?" was published in the New York Times Tuesday. A Goodwin Student asked that I mention this article on the blog after she noticed that many students here come from or are going to medical settings wearing scrubs that may not pass the germ-free test.

A recent study at a Connecticut hospital "sought to gauge the role that clothing plays in the spread of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA. The study found that if a worker entered a room where the patient had MRSA, the bacteria would end up on the worker’s clothes about 70 percent of the time, even if the person never actually touched the patient.

Amid growing concerns about hospital infections and a rise in drug-resistant bacteria, the attire of doctors, nurses and other health care workers — worn both inside and outside the hospital — is getting more attention. While infection control experts have published extensive research on the benefits of hand washing and equipment sterilization in hospitals, little is known about the role that ties, white coats, long sleeves and soiled scrubs play in the spread of bacteria." (quoted from the article)

Reading Banned Books

Banned Books Week, which runs September 27 to October 3 this year, draws attention to the issue of censorship and how it can best be combated.

Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read is observed during the last week of September each year. Observed since 1982, this annual American Library Association event reminds Americans not to take this precious democratic freedom for granted. This year, 2008, marks BBW's 27th anniversary.

BBW celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one’s opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them. After all, intellectual freedom can exist only where these two essential conditions are met. Check the blog each day next week for more information.

I'll Take My Lecture to Go, Please

It looks like students can be open-minded after all: When provided with the option to view lectures online, rather than just in person, a full 82 percent of undergraduates kindly offered that they’d be willing to entertain an alternative to showing up to class and paying attention in real time.

A new study released yesterday suggests not only a willingness but a “clear preference” among undergraduates for “lecture capture,” the technology that records, streams and stores what happens in the classroom for concurrent or later viewing.

Source: Inside Higher Education September 23 2008

Respiratory Class: APA Paper

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

Tell-All Campus Tour: Unigo

"The Tell-All Campus Tour" is an article about Unigo in yesterday's New York Times magazine section. Unigo is the world’s largest platform for college students to share reviews, photos, videos, documents, and more with students on their campus and across the country.

Jordan Goldman, orignator of Unigo, says it’s also the best place for high school students to find out what life is really like at America’s colleges, and to make friends to help them find the school that’s right for them. Unigo is the result of a nationwide grassroots movement to get the truth out about college life, and it’s growing bigger every day. The story of how this young man brought this idea to Internet life is fascinating. Read the article here. To see the site itself, go to www.unigo.com.



Source: New York Times September 21 2008

Constitution Day Quiz

GOODWIN COLLEGE CELEBRATES CONSTITUTION DAY
WHAT’S YOUR CONSTITUTION IQ? TAKE THE QUIZ NOW!

1. Our country’s first constitution was called:
a. the Articles of Confederation
b. the Declaration of Independence
c. the “Federalist Papers”
d. the Emancipation Proclamation

2. Laws for the United States are made by:
a. the President
b. the Senate
c. Congress
d. the Supreme Court

3. The longest possible time a person could now
serve as President is:
a. 4 years
b. 8 years
c. 10 years
d. 12 years

4. A man accused of a crime in court has a right to:
a. hear the witnesses against him
b. be tried wherever he wants
c. have any judge he wants
d. change courts

5. Invoking the Fifth Amendment means an accused
man:
a. refuses to testify against himself
b. refuses to be tried again
c. demands a grand jury
d. wants to appeal his case

6. Our first Vice-President was:
a. Alexander Hamilton
b. Thomas Jefferson
c. Benjamin Franklin
d. John Adams
7. The Bill of Rights is:
a. the first ten amendments
b. the Fifteenth Amendment
c. the entire Constitution
d. all of the amendments

8. If neither the President nor Vice-President can
serve, the position would be filled by:
a. the Speaker of the House
b. the Chief Justice
c. the elected President of the Senate
d. the Secretary of State

9. The major department head who is appointed by
the President to deal with foreign countries is the:
a. Secretary of Defense
b. Secretary of State
c. Attorney General
d. Secretary of Commerce

10. The President is elected if he:
a. wins a majority of the electoral votes
b. wins most of the country’s vote
c. wins all of the States’ votes
d. wins most of the States’ votes

ANSWERS ARE AVAILABLE ON ANOTHER ENTRY ON THIS BLOG.
•Learn more about the Constitution — the people, the events, the landmark cases—lots of information in the library, on the library page, and on the library blog.
•Be an informed citizen!
•Register to vote! Registration forms are available in the library.
•Vote!

Constitution day
September 17, 2008

Answers to the Constitution Quiz

ANSWERS TO THE CONSTITUTION QUIZ

1-a Articles of Confederation
2-c Congress
3-b two terms or 8 years. Under the 22nd Amendment, a vice president succeeding to the presidency would still be eligible to two elected terms provided he had served not more than two years of the unexpired term—10 years.
4-a hear the witnesses against him
5-a refuses to testify against himself
6-d John Adams
7-a the first 10 amendments
8-a Speaker of the House
9-b Secretary of State
10-a wins a majority of the electoral vote

Constitution Day

Today we join schools across the country to celebrate Constitution Day. On September 17, 1787, 55 delegates to the Constitutional Convention gathered in Independence Hall in Philadelphia to sign the document that would determine the structure and function of our federal government. The original Constitution is on permanent display in the Rotunda for the Charters of Freedom and the National Archives in Washington, D.C.

It is one of the oldest written constitutions in the world. Its genius lay in its solutions to such problems as balancing strong government against too much individual or institutional power and preventing large states from dominating smaller ones.

The first issue was dealt with by dividing the government into three branches. The second issue, negotiating power between states, was resolved by having a senate with two senators from each state and a House of Representatives based on population. Four years after the Constitution was written, the first 10 amendments to the Constitution, known as the Bill of Rights specified a list of individual freedoms, including freedom of speech, assembly, and worship.

U.S. Copyright Records

U.S. Copyright Records are Available to download.

This article from Google BookSearch explains resources for determining the copyright status of a work, and links to a new downloadable XML file Google's engineers have created from US Copyright Office records.

Financial Literacy on College Campuses

Financial-literacy training is gaining ground on college campuses, according to a survey released today by Student Lending Analytics, a college advisory firm.

Nearly 40 percent of financial-aid administrators surveyed said their colleges provided financial-literacy training to students. Of those who said their colleges did not offer such a program, half indicated the institution planned to start one in the next 12 to 18 months. Only 15 percent of respondents said that financial-literacy programs at their colleges were mandatory for students.

The most popular topics covered in such programs were budgeting, planning for loan repayment, credit cards, identity theft, and understanding a credit report, according to the survey, which covered 200 financial-aid professionals and was conducted from September 3 to 5. Almost 90 percent of respondents said such training was handled by the financial-aid office on their campus.
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education

Significance of Ramadan

When he was forty years old, a man named Ubu'l Kassim went into the Cave of Hira (located in Saudi Arabia) during the Arabic month of Ramadan in the year 610 C.E. A world-changing event began when, alone in the cave, he heard someone say the Arabic word "Iqraa!" Ubu'l Kassim (later known as the Prophet Muhammad) thought he must be dreaming. Muslims believe the voice was that of Gabriel, an angel who began dictating - to Muhammad - the words one now sees in the Koran. Ramadan is significant for Muslims worldwide because it is the month when the Koran was first dictated. This year, Ramadan began at sunset on September 1st.

Xi'an Ancient Culture Festival.

In September we have Labor day and Constitution Day. In September, China celebrates the Xi'an Ancient Culture Festival for the entire month. Beautiful Xi'an adds some fine traditional dance, music, song and opera to its formidable list of attractions for this festival. The Ancient Culture Festival celebrates traditions that originate back in the mists of the past 4000 years - at the very dawn of Chinese civilisation.

Xi'an is a must-see destination for any traveller to China. From 1000 BC to 1000 AD it served as the imperial capital for 11 dynasties, and its famous landmarks are a fascinating history lesson. The highlight for most people is the underground Terracotta Army, just north of Xi'an. Vault one alone contains 1000 figures of solidiers, each with individual facial expressions, dating from the last centuries BC and only discovered in 1974. The Banpo Museum is the excavated site of a Neolithic village - confirming Xi'an as among the oldest cities in the world.

Source: New England Library Association

Classroom Assessment Techniques for College Teachers

This revised and greatly expanded handbook of Classroom Assessment Techniques o by Angelo and Cross offers college teachers how-to advice on classroom assessment, including what classroom assessment entails and how it works. It includes twelve case studies that detail the real-life classroom experiences of teachers carrying out successful classroom assessment projects, fifty classroom assessment techniques, step-by-step procedures for administering the techniques, and practical advice on how to analyze your data. This book is now available in the Goodwin Library.

Learning-Centered Assessment: Important New Book

Learner-Centered Assessment on College Campuses by Huba and Freed integrates current thinking and research regarding the learning of undergraduate students with principles of best practice in assessment and teaching. The book helps us see the connection among three powerful trends in higher education today: the focus on learning and learners, the emphasis on the assessment of learning, and the need to continually improve what those in higher education do. Grounded in principles of constructivist learning theory and continuous improvement, the book provides opportunities to make connections with what we already know about assessment, integrate new information with current knowledge, and try new approaches to enhance the learning of students.

The authors emphasize the shift from a teacher-centered paradigm of instruction to a learner-centered paradigm. The book also offers practical approaches to help formulate intended learning outcomes, gather feedback from students to guide instruction, and develop scoring criteria for guiding and evaluating student work. Reading the book will help us learn how to assess students' ability to think critically, address enduring and emerging issues and problems in their disciplines, and use portfolios to promote and evaluate student learning. Numerous questions to guide implementation, as well as examples from a variety of disciplines and institutions are provided. This is a must for administrators and/or those in faculty development. It is available now in the Goodwin Library.

Get Moving and Think Better

Exercise is strongly associated with improving cognition. As the majority of mortality benefit of exercise is at the highest level of cognition, and declines as cognition declines, the net effect of exercise should be to improve cognition at the population level, even with more people living longer. This information comes from "Changes in Cognition and Mortality in Relation to Exercise in Late Life: A Population Based Study."
Source: PLoS ONE September 3rd, 2008

CareLINK Web Based Training Directions

Nursing 100 students, save yourself some frustration. Directions on accessing the CareLINK Web Based Training from the library computers are available at the reference desk and on the bulletin board in my office.

Dropout and Completion Rates in the U.S. Report

This report builds upon a series of National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) reports on high school dropout and completion rates that began in 1988. It presents estimates of rates for 2006 and provides data about trends in dropout and completion rates over the last three decades (1972-2006), including characteristics of dropouts and completers in these years. Report highlights include: The averaged freshman graduation rate (AFGR), which provides an estimate of the percentage of public high school students who graduate with a regular diploma 4 years after starting 9th grade, was 74.7 percent for the class of 2005. Students living in low-income families were approximately four times more likely to drop out of high school between 2005 and 2006 than were students living in high-income families. In October 2006, approximately 3.5 million civilian noninstitutionalized 16- through 24-year-olds were not enrolled in high school and had not earned a high school diploma or alternative credential.
Source: National Center for Education Statistics

How Should We Teach the 'Digital Natives'?

Last month, Thomas H. Benton in the Chronicle of Higher Education reviewed a collection of recent books "arguing that Americans, particularly those now entering college, have been rendered "stupid" by a convergence of factors including traditional anti-intellectualism, consumer culture, the entertainment industry, political correctness, religious fundamentalism, and post-modern relativism, just to name some of the usual suspects." This week Benton's Part 2 on Stupidity is available in the Chronicle. He is an English professor who grades at least 1,000 essays a year. His focus is on those skills, not on math or science.
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education Section C September 5, 2008

What the Survey Didn't Say...

I am an avid listener to BBC World News and a reader of BBC News magazine. The magazine ran a series recently on understanding surveys, polls, studies and statistics. Since they are everywhere (especially during an election year), wouldn't it be good to have the mental agility to separate the wheat from the chaff? In the first of a weekly series, author Michael Blastland gives some hints at getting to grips with surveys. Here is installment one.
Source: BBC World News

McCain & Obama on Healthcare Reform

The New England Journal of Medicine published an article in August comparing the McCain and Obama plans for U.S. healthcare reform. This is valuable information from a trusted source for health science and nursing students--and all of the rest of us.

Here is the first paragraph of that article. "In the face of escalating costs, uneven quality of care, and the growth of the uninsured population, there is broad agreement that the U.S. health care system requires reform. However, Democrats and Republicans remain sharply divided over how to reform it, as evidenced by the health care plans offered by the parties' presidential candidates. The ambitious reform agendas of Senators John McCain (R-AZ) and Barack Obama (D-IL) would take the U.S. health care system in very different directions."

Read the entire article by Jonathan Oberlander, Ph.D.
"The Partisan Divide: The McCain and Obama Plans for U.S. Healthcare Reform."

WildFilmHistory

WildFilmHistory is a unique multi-media guide to the history and heritage of wildlife filmmaking. As well as bringing together the most important wildlife films, the project is collecting ‘behind the scenes’ photographs, and recording oral histories with industry pioneers. This historically valuable material has been donated by the most famous names in Natural History broadcasting, as well as from a whole host of specialist and private collections. The resulting collection is freely available at www.wildfilmhistory.org. as an interactive multi-media resource, and is being stored at high resolution in the WildFilmHistory media vault for the benefit of future generations.

Consumer Health Websites

The Medical Library Association has a "top ten" list of the most useful consumer health websites. Each week we are featuring one of these. This week it is cancer.gov.

Cancer.gov is the official website for The National Cancer Institute (NCI), a component of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), one of eight agencies that compose the Public Health Service (PHS) in the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). The NCI, established under the National Cancer Act of 1937, is the Federal Government's principal agency for cancer research and training. NCI coordinates the National Cancer Program, which conducts and supports research, training, health information dissemination, and other programs with respect to the cause, diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of cancer, rehabilitation from cancer, and the continuing care of cancer patients and the families of cancer patients.

Source: Cancer.gov (http://www.cancer.gov/)

Science Videos Online

http://sciencehack.com/

ScienceHack is a unique video search engine for science videos. Every video is screened and approved based on accuracy and quality by scientists. The fields of science are featured on the main page. Search for science experiments, science projects, science movies and science news. The project aims to index every science video on the Internet. Popular categories to search include physics, checmistry, space, psychology, robotics, biology, mathematics, computer science, nature, green energy, and civil engineering. The latest videos include:
quantum mechanics
wind turbines make bat lungs explode,
solve the cube in less than 100 moves
slime mold and mushrooms
from cell to embryo

Welcome New Students

All new students are invited (enthusiastically encouraged even) to come to the Library. Drop by anytime to meet the library staff and learn about how you can take advantage of the library's great resources. You will be studying in our new library overlooking the Connecticut river in only a few months. We are delighted that you have chosen goodwin College.

Patient Care for Diverse Populations

A new grant from The Commonwealth Fund will be used by The Joint Commission to revise and develop accreditation standards for culturally competent patient-centered care in hospitals across America. Access a free copy online of the latest research report, "One Size Does Not Fit All: Meeting the Needs of Diverse Populations." (60 pages)

This standards development initiative builds upon The Joint Commission’s ongoing Hospitals, Language, and Culture: A Snapshot of the Nation study that examines how hospitals in the United States respond to the diverse cultural and language needs of their patients. The Institute of Medicine’s “Crossing the Quality Chasm” report identified patient-centered and equitable care as important elements of quality. However, The Joint Commission study found that practices used to promote effective communication and cultural competence – critical elements of patient-centered and equitable care - vary widely from hospital to hospital.

Source: Nursing & Allied Health Resources Section of the Medical Library Association

New Periodical: Trusteeship

Issues of Trusteeship, the publication of the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges (AGB), are now available in the library. Trusteeship reports trends, issues, and practices in higher education to help board members and chief executives better understand their distinctive and complementary roles and to strengthen board performance. Digital Trusteeship is an interactive, electronic version of Trusteeship magazine.

New Online Reference Book

Propaganda and Mass Persuasion: A Historical Encyclopedia, 1500 to the Present has been added to the CredoReference list of online reference books. This is a truly international, authoritative A-Z guide to five centuries of propaganda, in both wartime and peacetime, which covers key moments, techniques, concepts, and some of the most influential propagandists in history.

What were the secrets of both Hitler's and Stalin's success? Why did so many Americans approve of Senator Joseph McCarthy? How did FDR maintain his image with the electorate? The answers to these questions can be found in the realm of propaganda: the art of mass political persuasion. This fascinating survey provides a comprehensive introduction to propaganda, its changing nature, its practitioners, and its impact on the past five centuries of world history.

CredoReference is prominently displayed on the library page.

Educational Leadership

The library has joined the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) and now receives their publication, Educational Leadership. It is published monthly throughout the school year (except for the combined issue in December/January). Our first issue will arrive in September, but we have received a complimentary May issue as a sample of the tips, techniques, and case studies in this publication. The May issue focuses on reshaping high schools. It is available in the library.

Sol LeWitt Retrospectives

An originator of “conceptual art,” Sol LeWitt was born in Hartford and lived mostly in Chester until his death in April last year. LeWitt consistently pushed the limits of art history and contemporary trends, making him one of the most influential artists of the mid-Twentieth Century. LeWitt’s monumental wall drawings—produced for public and private spaces since the 1960s—may be the works for which he is best known. The New York Times described his wall paintings as “ecstatically colored and jazzy.”

Nearly an acre of these wall drawings are now in preparation for a fall showing at MASS MoCa in North Adams, MA. The Williams College Museum of Art also features LeWitt’s art in November. If you happen to take drive to the Berkshires this fall, don’t miss these exhibits. Few art venues have space to display massive wall drawings. A retrospective also takes place at Yale University Art Gallery with two wall drawings on display. This is a major collaboration between these three institutions conceived by the Yale gallery before LeWitt’s death.

This is special opportunity to view the work of an important American artist. See it this fall: don't waituntil 2033. For further information on the exhibitions, read the article from the Yale gallery.

Sol LeWitt A Wall Drawing Retrospective: Two wall drawings currently on view
Yale Art Gallery

Sol LeWitt: A Wall of Drawing Retrospective
MASS MoCa
Opens Nov. 16 and will be on view for 25 years

The ABCDs of Sol LeWitt
Williams College Museum of Art
Nov. 14 through March 8, 2009

Nursing & Health Science: PubMed Update

PubMed Now Indexes Videos of Experiments and Protocols in Life Sciences!
PubMed Central, the National Library of Medicine’s online database, is now indexing videos from The Journal of Visualized Experiments. According to the publication’s official blog, JoVE is “the first video-journal to ever be accepted for publication in PubMed.” The Goodwin Library Staff strongly commends this PubMed decision to support new ways of communicating information,

The online, open-access journal publishes videos of experiments and protocols in the biological and life sciences and offers its video-articles to science bloggers to illustrate their posts. You will see some of them featured on this blog weekly.

Watch the article "Human Embryonic Stem Cells: Starting Culture From Frozen Cells"
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education August 21

Resources for English Teachers

Quality, Value, Flexibility—
NCTE resources delivered to your desktop!

With National Council of Teachers of English Web seminar series, you’ll get high-quality, professional development delivered by some of NCTE’s most experienced presenters in an easy-to-use format that is perfect for individuals or learning communities. I know spending a day away from your classroom isn’t always an option. Whether you’re participating on your own or planning professional development for an early release day, you’ll find these sessions informative, interactive and a great value!

What is a Web seminar?
NCTE Web seminars are interactive, multimedia professional development experiences delivered over the Internet. During a Web seminar, attendees are able to participate in the session by responding to polls, providing feedback on the whiteboard, and asking/answering questions in the chat area. Elluminate Live!TM, the application used for the NCTE Web seminars, ensures that all participants are in sync, regardless of Internet connection speeds.

See Frequently Asked Questions

Book to Read Again and Again: Native Son

Richard Wright's story of his childhood, Black Boy, made him one of America's most popular writers in the 1940s. In addition to Black Boy, which he dedicated to his 3-year-old daughter, he also wrote Native Son, a fictional account of a black youth in the segregated North.

Native Son tells the story of Bigger Thomas, an uneducated black man from Chicago who unintentionally kills a young white woman. Bigger is a study in contrasts: Strong, ignorant and angry, he's also confused, vulnerable and at a loss about how to deal with a racist society. Wright's novel makes Bigger into America's native son — the offspring of a nation's bigotry.

(from the library's "Books to Read Again and Again" shelf)

Workforce Clinging to the Status Quo?

Here is today's management tip from Harvard Business Publishing.

Your major change initiative won't succeed if the people who must lead the charge lack a sense of urgency--the conviction that the status quo is dangerous. How to spot a lack of urgency so you can address it? Red flags include the following:
1) Managers over-rely on consultants to analyze the business and recommend changes.
2)Key people aren't participating in the task force charged with executing the initiative.
3)Task-force members procrastinate in setting up their meetings.
4)Task-force discussions only generate complaints about the company's situation, not active decisions.
5)Task-force members focus more on office politics and finger-pointing than on what's causing the company's problems.

(This Management Tip was adapted from Chapter 2 of A Sense of Urgency, bestselling author John P. Kotter's latest book from Harvard Business Press.)

Terrorism: Locating Sources

Doing research on this topic requires not only knowing the definition of the topic but looking at all of the racest involved and breaking down and analyzing the topic of research to insure looking in all the relevant sources available. Here is a list prepared by Kay Collins, U.S. government information librarian at the University of California.
Source: CRL News June 2008

Global Researcher: Race for the Arctic:

With oil prices soaring, revelations that the Arctic could contain up to 22 percent of the world's undiscovered oil and gas have given extra impetus to an international race to claim the region's $1 trillion in oil and other riches. Russia kick-started the race last summer when it stunned the world by planting its flag on the North Pole seabed — two miles below the Arctic Ocean. Global warming has dramatically shrunk the ice covering the ocean, raising the prospect of new, shorter transcontinental shipping routes and spurring the United States, Canada, Russia, Denmark and Norway to begin gathering data to prove they own large swaths of offshore Arctic territory. But environmentalists warn that tougher international rules are needed — possibly an Arctic treaty — to prevent energy exploration from exacerbating global warming and damaging the fragile region. The Inuit and other indigenous groups also fear their concerns will be ignored in the dash to extract riches from the region.
Source: Full report available online (password protected)

CQ Researcher: Political Conventions

Political Conventions
Have they outlived their usefulness?

The Democrats and Republicans share a fundamental goal for their upcoming national conventions: to produce scripted television shows that will boost their candidates' prospects in the general election without showcasing any intra-party squabbling. Under that scenario, convention delegates seem to have nothing to do but cheer Barack Obama and John McCain, whose nominations were virtually assured before. . . .

Source: CQ Researcher August 8 available online (password protected)

What the Goodwin Community is Reading This Month

Blindness (Saramago)
Boleyn Inheritance (Gregory)
Cheating at Canasta (trevor)
Eat Pray Love (Gilbert)
Flat Belly Diet (Vaccariello)
Friday Night Knitting Club (Jacobs)
Game Changer (Lafley & Charan)
Gravedigger's Daughter (Oates)
Twenty Years at Hull House (Addams)
Last Lecture (Pausch)
No Country for Old Men (McCarthy)
Secret Life of Bees (Kidd)
You Never Call! You Never Write! (Antler)

Focus on International Education

In a set of policy recommendations for the next administration released this week, NAFSA: Association of International Educators urges presidential leadership for a “revived public diplomacy” that would put international education and exchange front and center in the effort to repair the country’s reputation in the world and advance its global leadership.

The report goes on to set out specific policy recommendations in the areas of attracting international students and scholars; internationalizing U.S. education, especially through study abroad; and bolstering educational exchanges and volunteer-service programs. Among the priorities outlined in the report are: passage and implementation of the Senator Paul Simon Study Abroad Foundation Act; security and immigration policies that strike a better balance between control and openness; a proactive approach to attracting the world’s talented students and scholars to the United States; and expanding support for time-tested educational exchanges and the Peace Corps. Read the entire report HERE.

Online Journal of Nursing Informatics

The Online Journal of Nursing Informatics (OJNI) is a professional, refereed, electronic journal for healthcare professionals who are interested in nursing informatics. Topical areas covered deal with the theoretical and practical aspects of nursing informatics as it relates to the art of nursing.

OJNI is published every 4 months and is launched at the end of February, June, and October. OJNI publishes peer-reviewed, original, high quality scientific papers, review articles, practice-based articles, and databases related to nursing informatics. And it's free!

Have You Read?

Now that we are more than half way through 2008, have you read any of the 10 best books of 2007 (New York Times list)? Here is the list:
FICTION
Man Gone Down by Michael Thomas*
Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson*
Savage Detectives by Robert Balafio
Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris*
Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson*

NONFICTION
Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone by Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Little Heathens: Hart Times & High Spirts on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression by Mildred Armstrong Kalish*
The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court by J. Toobin*
Ordeal of Elizabeth Marsh: A Woman in World History by Linda Colley*
The Rest is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century by Alex Rosa*

*Available in the Goodwin Library. The other two are available through interlibrary loan.

An Academic in America: On Stupidity

A cartload of recent books suggests that it's time to reverse the customer-service mentality plaguing academe. Here is an excerpt from English teacher Thomas Benton's article in the Chronicle of Higher Education yesterday. Read the entire article here.

"'No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public,' said H.L. Mencken in the era of Babbitt and the Scopes "monkey" trial. Several generations later, one might speculate that no publisher has ever lost money with a book accusing Americans — particularly young ones — of being stupid.

As an English professor, I can attest to the power of that element in American culture, as can just about anyone in any academic field without direct, practical applications. When a stranger asks me what I do, I usually just say, "I'm a teacher." The unfortunate follow-up remarks — usually about political bias in the classroom and sham apologies for their poor grammar meant to imply that I am a snob — usually make me wish I had said, "I sell hydraulic couplers," an answer more likely to produce hums of respectful incomprehension.

Now, in the post-9/11 era, American anti-intellectualism has grown more powerful, pervasive, and dangerous than at any time in our history, and we have a duty — particularly as educators — to foster intelligence as a moral obligation. Or at least that is the urgent selling point of a cartload of books published in the past several months."

(Thomas H. Benton is the pen name of William Pannapacker, an associate professor of English at Hope College, in Holland, Mich. He welcomes mail directed to his attention at careers@chronicle.com.)

Is Information on the Internet Reliable?

Wikipedia banned Stephen Colbert, host of Comedy Central's "The Colbert Report," from editing articles on the popular online site after he made joke edits. So how reliable is the Internet really?

That is the subject of this week's CQ Researcher available online in the library. The Internet has been a huge boon for information-seekers. In addition to sites maintained by newspapers and other traditional news sources, there are untraditional sources ranging from videos, personal Web pages and blogs to postings by interest groups of all kinds — from government agencies to hate groups. But experts caution that determining the credibility of online data can be tricky, and that critical-reading skills are not being taught in most schools. In the new online age, readers no longer have the luxury of depending on a reference librarian's expertise in finding reliable sources. Anyone can post an article, book or opinion online with no second pair of eyes checking it for accuracy, as in traditional publishing and journalism. Now many readers are turning to user-created sources like Wikipedia, or powerful search engines like Google, which tally how many people previously have accessed online documents and sources — a process that is open to manipulation comic and otherwise.

Source: CQ Researcher
Image Source: Getty Images for Meet the Press/Alex Wong

Fitness Pill: A Dream Come True

Scientists are moving closer to developing a pill which could deliver some of the benefits of exercise - even for those who do not move a muscle. The journal Cell reports US researchers now have two possible pills which appear able to build muscle, increase stamina and even burn fat. In tests, mice were able to run 44% further - suggesting humans may be able to do the same without prior training.

Source: BBC World News August 1

Around the World in 80+ Books

"It's just a book, just ink on paper. But be careful when you open it. There's a universe inside. A good travel book has wings and the ability to transport us, word by word, tale by tale. It introduces us to the people and places that make travel—and, one could argue, life itself—worthwhile. Good travel stories are, in a word, magic. Not only do they show us the world, they help us define our place within it."
(National Geographic)

National Geographic has asked dozens of travelers (writers, photographers, explorers, editors, and others) to name the books that have most enriched their sense of place. The editors of National Geographic added their own to complete the ultimate library of travel books—not guidebooks, but novels and narrative nonfiction and classic photography books--organized by geographic region. If the price of gas is keeping your travel plans low or non-existent, live vicariously by reading one or more. Bon voyage!(If we don't have it, we can usually get it for you through Interlibrary Loan.)

Around the World in 80+ Books
National Geographic July/August 2008

Future of Reading

The Future of Reading
Digital Versus Print

Last Sunday, July 27, the New York Times printed the the first in a series of articles that will look at how the Internet and other technological and social forces are changing the way people read. Access first article HERE.

African Americans in Connecticut

Citizens All: African Americans in Connecticut 1700-1850
Yale University

"Citizens All" is the collaborative work of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition (GLC) and the Center for Media and Instructional Innovation (CMI2) at Yale University. Aimed at both students and teachers, this project illustrates the importance of local history in creating as well as challenging how national and global histories are retold. The stories of international history begin with local events, with the stories of individuals, real people and places in our own backyards.

The project provides a scholarly introduction to the history of slavery in Connecticut, the process of gradual emancipation, and the struggle for citizenship rights by free blacks and abolitionists both within and beyond the state's boundaries.

The story of African Americans' efforts to become full citizens raises important questions about the very definition of "citizenship" and the ideals upon which the United States was founded. We hope that the project contributes to larger discussions of issues such as freedom, education or citizenship and stimulates new discoveries about the legacies of slavery and racism at local, regional, national and international levels. "Citizens All" grew out of GLC involvement with the US Partnership of the UNESCO Transatlantic Slave Trade Education Project: Breaking The Silence.

Don't forget other resources for local history.

CT Freedom Trail.Developed by the CT Historical Commission, this site includes information on ites in the state that are associated with the movement towards freedom of African-American citizens.

CT Historical Society. This website includes an online guide to African American Resources at the historical society.

Connecticut State Library. The library has a research guide on African Americans in CT and Slavery in CT.

Does Google Go Deep Enough?

Does Google's Web Search Go Deep Enough Into Scholarly Archives?

Many scholarly archives on college and public Web sites don’t show up in Google because the search engine doesn’t index them — they’re in what many call the “deep Web,” below the level that most search engines look. A new study found that fewer than half — just 44 percent — of a sample group of deep-Web pages from scholarly archives showed up in Google searches. This is just another reason to use the databases provided by the Goodwin Library.

Source: Wired Campus: The Chronicle of Higher Education July 29 2008

Digital Collection: New York Public Library

New York Public Library Digital Gallery.

Launched in 2005, the NYPL Digital Gallery is one of the largest open-access image databases available on the Internet. Featuring more than 600,000 digital images, content covers a variety of subjects from the arts to science and technology and includes all kinds of primary materials, such as manuscripts, maps, photographs, prints, restaurant menus, sheet music covers, and much more from the special collections of the NYPL Research Libraries and the Mid-Manhattan Library Picture Collection. The Digital Gallery offers basic and advanced searches and also allows users to browse alphabetized lists of names, subjects, and libraries. As an added enhancement, users may select and store around 50 or more images for later viewing using the “selections” option.

(Illustration: Charting North America: Maps from the Lawrence H. Slaughter Collection: Part of New England, New York, east New Iarsey and Long Iland)

Access: New York Public Library Digital Gallery

Frontiers of Science

U.S. News & World Report features "Frontiers of Science" in the August 4-11 issue. The editors pulled together some of the big scientific questions with these stories:
How will humanity evolve?
What will we eat?
Where will global warming hit home?
How did life begin?
Will we find it in the heavens?

The magazine is in the library and may be checked out. This issue makes for very interesting reading.

Try a New Search Engine: CUIL

Welcome to Cuil—the world’s biggest search engine. (Cuil is an old Irish word for knowledge--pronounced "cool".)

The Internet has grown. It’s time searching did too. The Internet has grown exponentially in the last fifteen years but search engines have not kept up—until now. Cuil searches more pages on the Web than anyone else—three times as many as Google and ten times as many as Microsoft.

Rather than rely on superficial popularity metrics, Cuil searches for and ranks pages based on their content and relevance. When it finds a page with your keywords, it stays on that page and analyzes the rest of its content, its concepts, their inter-relationships and the page’s coherency.

Then Cuil offers you helpful choices and suggestions until you find the page you want and that you know is out there. Cuil developers believe that analyzing the Web rather than users is a more useful approach. Cuil doesn't collect data about you and your habits. With Cuil, your search history is always private. Very cuil!


Source: www.cuil.com

Highlighting Academic OneFile

This week's highlighted database is Academic OneFile. Academic OneFile is a comprehensive, subscription-based database that currently contains more than 12,000 journals covering topics from Science, Technology and Medicine to the humanities. This easy-to-use database is the perfect fit for academic libraries, providing both academics and students at undergraduate and postgraduate levels with the ultimate periodical resource for serious research.

Use Basic Search to define your own search strategy. Results are presented in reverse chronological order. Choose Basic Search from the navigation bar. For a broader or more limited search, you may use and, or and not connectors, or limit the results to documents with full-text, peer-reviewed publications, documents with images, publication date or publication title. You may select one or more articles for viewing from the results list in full-text. Academic OneFile is available 24/7 and effortlessly delivers quality content researchers can trust.

Occupational Outlook-Summer 2008

Occupational Outlook Quarterly — Summer 2008

Occupational Outlook Quarterly provides practical information on jobs and careers. Articles are written in straightforward, non-technical language and cover a wide variety of career and work-related topics such as new and emerging occupations, training opportunities, salary trends, and results of new studies from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

In this issue:
+ Working in politics (PDF; 881 KB)
+ The class of 1993: Earnings and occupations by college major, 1 and 10 years after graduation (PDF; 2.1 MB)
+ Healthcare jobs you might not know about (PDF; 664 KB)
+ Brief items of interest to counselors and students
+ You’re a what? Home stager (PDF; 216 KB)
+ Job openings by industry (PDF; 280 KB)

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

Randy Pausch

Carnegie Mellon professor Randy Pausch, author of The Last Lecture, died Friday morning at his Virginia home.

Diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and given three to six months to live, Pausch responded last September 12 by delivering a last lecture at Carnegie Mellon called "Achieving Your Childhood Dreams." A videotape of the lecture became a YouTube hit and Pausch expanded its text into the best-selling book, The Last Lecture. Full of humor and common sense, and addressed to his three young children, the lecture urged listeners to dream and play and to not allow obstacles to discourage them. The book is available in the Goodwin Library.

Today in History: Collision at Sea

July 25, 1956

En route from Genoa, Italy, to New York City on a foggy July night, Italy's postwar pride, the passenger liner SS Andrea Doria, collides with the eastbound liner MS Stockholm off Nantucket, Massachusetts, and sinks, killing 46 Andrea Doria passengers and 5 crew members from the Stockholm. Later investigations determine the accident is a result of faulty radar signals and poor ballast. Legal claims against the two shipping firms, who established a joint legal fund, eventually exceed $40 million.
Source: Smithsonian Magazine July 2008

CQ Researcher: Human Rights in China

When the curtain rises on the Summer Olympics next month in Beijing, China will eagerly showcase its hypersonic economic growth and its embrace of what it calls the "rule of law." But 19 years after its bloody suppression of protesters in Tiananmen Square, China will also be displaying its human-rights record for all to judge. Human-rights advocates say the sheen of Chinese progress and prosperity hides repression and brutality by the Chinese Communist Party, including the violent repression of pro-independence protesters in Tibet, forced abortions stemming from China's one-child policy and the trampling of basic freedoms of speech, religion and assembly. Chinese government officials say their nation of 1.3 billion people has made huge strides on the legal and human-rights fronts and that the West has no business interfering in China's internal affairs

(The picture: A Tibetan protester in Brussels, Belgium, last April calls for a boycott of the Summer Olympics in Beijing following a violent crackdown by Chinese security forces on pro-independence demonstrators in Tibet. (AFP/Getty Images/John Thys)) CQ Researcher is available online from the Goodwin Library (password protected)

MapJack

Immerse yourself in panoramic views of Yosemite National Park; Chiang Mai, Thailand; and San Francisco using MapJack, a new alternative to Google Street View and Microsoft's Live Search Maps. MapJack has brighter, sharper photos than the others, and better navigation tools. To start exploring, just click and drag the icon of a person along the map in the bottom half of your browser; the photographic images in the upper portion will automatically refresh. Start-ups like Earthmine and EveryScape are developing similar next-gen maps, but for now, MapJack offers the best preview of the future of digital mapping.
Source: www.mapjack.com

Visual Introduction to the Periodic Table

The Royal Society of Chemistry has provided a free, online visualization of the Periodic Table of Elements. Click on the info button for html and pdf files that provide background information on any element. Adobe Acrobat Reader is required to read pdf files.
AccessL Royal Society of Chemistry Periodic Table

Digital Collection: Duke University

Duke Digital Collections. Founded in 1995, the Duke University Libraries’ Digital Collections have amassed impressive digital image holdings from various collections. Subjects cover an array of national and international subjects. While the database allows for federated keyword searching across the featured collections, other collections must be browsed by subject or through the alphabetized list of collection names. Access the collection here

Featured collections are freely available on the Internet and include the Emergence of Advertising in America, Ration Coupons on the Home Front (1942–1945), and the 50,000 item William Gedney Photographs and Writings collection.