How We're Doing in the World

Judged by most standards, America and the world are better off today than they were a year ago when President Obama entered office. While few Americans will forget the fear of global economic meltdown that accompanied the 44th president’s inauguration and the drastic stimulus and triage measures that had to be taken to arrest the economic freefall, public optimism, as measured by a variety of opinion poll measures, has recovered.

But many workers, especially those in the once-thriving Sun Belt, are still suffering severe unemployment. In some ways, we’ve faced a marked decline since 2006, when world GDP growth was at nearly 4 percent and world trade growth was more than 20 percentage points higher than in 2009. In this third “How We’re Doing” Index, a team of Brookings experts take a four-year look at key local, domestic and global indicators to gauge the shifting position of the United States and the larger international system.
Go here for Analysis and Charts.

Source: Brookings Institute

CQ Researcher: Modernizing the Grid

The U.S. electric power grid — the nationwide system of interconnected regional power systems — is a century old and under strain. Long-term power demand has grown steadily since the 1980s, but investments in transmission have lagged behind. Three major blackouts in the past decade have raised concerns about providing electricity reliably. Federal agencies are working with utilities, manufacturers and information technology companies to develop a modernized grid that uses computers to monitor the system. Advocates say this “smart grid” will be able to generate more electricity from renewable fuels and save money for businesses and families. The Obama administration calls the smart grid an urgent priority and is spending billions to help design it. But some experts worry that a digital grid could be vulnerable to cyberattacks or that it will violate consumers' privacy. Others say that promoting energy conservation or building new power plants near population centers would be more effective than building new high-voltage transmission lines. Read the entire report online (Text the librarian for user name and password.)
Source: CQ Researcher February 19
Image: Work crews restore power on high-voltage transmission lines outside New Orleans knocked down by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The Obama administration wants to upgrade the nation's century-old power grid, but critics say energy conservation and new power plants closer to population centers are better solutions. (Bloomberg via Getty Images/Rae Morris

iTunes passes the billion songs downloaded mark

Do you remember when you had to go to a music store or order music online? iTunes just passed a billion songs downloaded. To mark the occasion,iTunes published a list of the top songs downloaded since they opened--seven years ago in 2003. The list contains the all-time top songs--“top” as in sales. 20 songs are listed. (I hope this won't make you feel old.)

Here are the Top Five:

1. I Gotta Feeling by the Black Eyed Peas
2. Poker Face by Lady GaGa
3. Boom Boom Pow by the Black Eyed Peas
4. I’m Yours by Jason Mraz
5. Viva La Vida by Coldplay

Of course you want to see the entire list. Go for it.
Source: Apple

Web Pages Going Away Fast

The average life of a web page these days is apparently somewhere between 44 and 77 days. A lot of the web simply disappears into the ether, but the British Library Web Archive and other archives are doing a valuable job of preserving some traces of our digital lives in a time capsule.
Source: BBC about the British Library Web Archive

New Revolution

"Penguin Boss Unfazed by the March of ebooks"
From the Article:

"When it first appeared in the 1930s, the paperback was regarded with suspicion and alarm in the book industry. Deploying a brand new technology, it brought cheap literature to the masses, transforming reading habits. The revolution shook the gentlemanly world of publishing to its core.

Three quarters of a century later the British company behind this disruptive force, Penguin, finds itself at the centre of another epoch-defining upheaval. The relentless march of the electronic book – epitomised by Amazon’s Kindle reader and the forthcoming Apple iPad – threatens to hollow out the publishing world in the same way as the internet has altered forever the dynamics of the music industry.

Penguin boss John Makinson likens the rise of the ebook to the moment when Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press in the 15th century."

Access the entire article.

Source: Article in MailOnline February 25

Gotta Keep Reading

It's a gloomy day out there. I hope listening to this will brighten it for you.
Gotta Keep Reading - Ocoee Middle School

New Book: Checklist Manifesto

Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande
This book, now available in the library, is highly recommended by Paula Dowd, Program Director and Associate Professor of Health Sciences.

"We live in a world of great and increasing complexity, where even the most expert professionals struggle to master the tasks they face. Longer training, ever more advanced technologies—neither seems to prevent grievous errors. But in a hopeful turn, acclaimed surgeon and writer Atul Gawande finds a remedy in the humblest and simplest of techniques: the checklist. First introduced decades ago by the U.S. Air Force, checklists have enabled pilots to fly aircraft of mind-boggling sophistication. Now innovative checklists are being adopted in hospitals around the world, helping doctors and nurses respond to everything from flu epidemics to avalanches. Even in the immensely complex world of surgery, a simple ninety-second variant has cut the rate of fatalities by more than a third."

Atul Gawande is the author of Better and Complications. He is also a MacArthur Fellow, a general surgeon at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, a staff writer for The New Yorker, and an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health.
Source: Quotation from product information

New Feature for Credo Reference Database

Credo Reference has announced Topic Pages, a new approach to presenting and organizing information resources. They developed topic pages to provide context and vocabulary around a subject and act as a starting point for research - all on one page. Every Topic Page assembles topical material from many resources from within and outside of the library. You choose which resources will be displayed on your own customized version of Credo Topic Pages. Watch the video introduction.

Source: Credo Reference Database

Social Media: Not a Fad!

If you have any doubts about whether we are in the midst of a social media revolution, you need to watch this video. Compelling facts show we all need to get on board if we want to remain in the mainstream and not be left behind.

Source: Special Library Association Boston Chapter

Worldometers

Worldometers is part of the Real Time Statistics Project, which is managed by an international team of developers, researchers, and volunteers with the goal of making world statistics available in a thought-provoking and time relevant format to a wide audience around the world. Watch the increases speed by in population, Google searchers, and much more!

Sources are carefully selected to include only data published by the most reputable organizations and statistical offices in the world.

Source: Worldometers

African American Sites in the Digital Collections

Contributions by African Americans to the arts, education, industry, literature, politics and much more are well represented in the vast collections of the Library of Congress. The digital collections are no exception. American Memory, the flagship of the Library's digital collections, online exhibits and other areas of the Library's Web site provide a broad range of digitized materials pertaining to the African American experience. Many are represented here to provide the user with an electronic research tool.

This webliography, documenting electronic resources within this subject area, is organized by historical eras based on the American Memory timeline found on the Teachers Page. Its primary focus is to connect the user to full text online resources regarding significant people, major institutions and events from an African American perspective, historically related to an era. Complete essays from the Today in History Web site provide topical information and comprehensive search strategies to further research. This extensive resource enhances the use of the digital collections, allowing the user to explore more online materials. In addition, many subject entries were identified in America's Library, the Library's site for children and families.

Source: Web Guides

Featured Journal: Nurse Educator

The library subscribes to Nurse Educator. Now the library receives online access with that paid print subscription. Full text articles are available in issues dating back to 1971.

Nurse Educator's new website integrates journal content and rich media to allow a more personalized approach to content. Some of the new features designed to enhance readability, usability, and impact include Featured Articles, Editor's Picks, Most Viewed, and Quick Polls.

There are new options for article delivery, including an enhanced HTML format for easier reading, and ways to customize the site, including saved searches, personal article collections, e-mail, and RSS alerts. You also have the capability to export references into your favorite citation manager and figures from full-text articles into PowerPoint. You can even access from your smart phone.

In the months ahead new features will debut such as Published Ahead-of-Print papers and easy-to-find supplementary materials and media. Also notice the Classics from Nurse Educator to learn how issues faced today were addressed over the decades. Editor's Picks highlights background reading on a variety of issues, while Collections group like articles on various topics of interest. You can also take the Quick Poll.

Source: www.nurseeducator.com

Winter Pictures

This is the scene outside the library this morning at 7 a.m. (taken with an iPhone). The Library Advocacy Committee will soon announce how to enter your photos for the 2011 Goodwin Calendar. Keep posted!

Use the Buzz

"Google’s new microblogging service, is getting a lot of, well, buzz. “Hello World!” has literally been replaced by “Buzz! Buzz!” by new people trying it out. If you’re not familiar with it, here’s the best way to explain it:

It’s all of the elements that one could think of getting out of Twitter (more than 140 characters, the ability to post videos and photos) packed neatly into your gmail account. While there are still some kinks to work out (you get an email every time someone you’re following posts or comments, which could get really annoying fast), Gmail’s built-in active user base of 176 million users is making it a clear force to be reckoned with."

In comparison, Twitter claims to have 75 million users and about 25% of accounts are reported to be inactive. Foursquare, known by some as “The Twitter of 2010″ is similar in that you “check in” using GPS on your phone and has been building momentum in it’s growth. David Lee King recently had a great post about it called “Foursquare and Libraries – Definitely Something There!” And I would agree, but it seems Buzz might be hot on the trail as it has the same built-in GPS/Geo-Location features and it works directly with Google Maps. Granted, it’s currently missing the fun “Mayor” game element Foursquare has, but this is a numbers game and Google definitely has numbers.

Source: Mobile Reference in Libraries

Connecting to Library off campus

If you are having trouble connecting to the library off campus and have followed the instructions on the library page, please call the help desk. Ask them to check if you have dial-in VPN rights.

Help Desk: (860) 528-4111 extension 6743

Sleep Deprivation: CQ Researcher This Week

New research links sleep deprivation to a large number of automobile and other accidents. Moreover, chronically sleep-deprived people are at higher risk for poor memories, mental illnesses, obesity, cardiovascular disease and early death. Yet today's 24/7 culture fights against the human body's biological need for about seven hours of sleep a night. Some people are especially sleep deprived, notably teenagers and late-shift workers such as police officers, nurses and medical residents. Meanwhile, some experts worry that overuse of sleeping medications is becoming a serious problem. Newer medications like Ambien and Lunesta are in some ways “safer” than older drugs, but they also affect brain function and sleep patterns in ways that are still not fully understood. With primary-care doctors now able to prescribe these medications because of their greater apparent safety, more people may get into trouble with sleeping pills. This is just the introduction. Read the whole report online (Password protected). Ask or text the librarian for password.

Source: CQ Researcher February 12
Image: Working in bed trains the brain to stop associating beds with sleep, which can cause insomnia. More than 40 million Americans have sleep disorders. (Getty Images/Time Life Pictures/Joe McNally)

Great Backyard Bird Count

The weekend of February 12-15, 2010 is the annual Great Backyard Bird Count, sponsored by the Cornell University Laboratory of Ornithology. Birders across the country count birds in parks or fields or their own back yards, and then report the numbers on-line. If you are able to identify your common local species, join the count! Learn more and sign up at BirdSource.org.
Source: Birdnote

Works Cited Page Hints

Working on a Works Cited page for a research paper? Get it right. Use the resources available and make your life easier.

If you are using one of the EBSCO databases, when you are viewing an article detail, you can see how the citation for that article should be formatted in a variety of popular citation formats, including MLA, APA, etc.
To view citation formats for an article:
1.Run a search on EBSCOhost and view a search result. From the article details, click the Cite icon.
2.When you have decided which citation format you want for the article, copy and paste the citation directly into the Works Cited or References page of a document created in a word processing program such as Word.
3.Be sure to consult your library resources for the exact formatting and punctuation guidelines for the citation format you are using. That would be a librarian or the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. Be sure to use the sixth edition.

The EBSCO databases available through the Goodwin Library include: CINAHL (Cumulative Indext to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition, PsycARTICLEs, PsycINFO, GreenFILE, and Library, Information Science, and Technology Abstracts.

Databases from other vendors, such as Gale or Proquest, also provide similar access to citation formats. Life is good.

Do you know about GreenFILE?

GreenFILE is a database provided by the Goodwin Library from EBSCO. GreenFILE offers well-researched information covering all aspects of human impact to the environment. Its collection of scholarly, government and general-interest titles includes content on the environmental effects of individuals, corporations and local/national governments, and what can be done at each level to minimize these effects. Multidisciplinary by nature, GreenFILE draws on the connections between the environment and a variety of disciplines such as agriculture, education, law, health and technology. Topics covered include global climate change, green building, pollution, sustainable agriculture, renewable energy, recycling, and more. The database provides indexing and abstracts for approximately 384,000 records, as well as Open Access full text for more than 4,700 records.

Be sure to set a bookmark for http://www.greeninfoonline.com. This link takes you directly to the GreenFILE database.

U.S. Health Care Resources

HCS 310 and everyone else

"According to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the United States is projected to spend more than $2.5 trillion on health care in 2009, or $8,160 perU.S. resident. Health spending in 2009 is projected to account for 17.6 percent of gross domestic product." (The citation for this information is at the end of this guide.)

This guide highlights free Web sites with data and information on issues relevant to the national health care debate, including health care cost, coverage, expenditure, access, delivery, utilization, disparities in quality, and outcomes. This report was prepared by Shikha Sharma, the business, economics, and legal studies librarian at the University of Connecticut. It was published in the College and Research Library News September 2009.

Here is the link to this report. All of the sites mentioned in the report can be link directly from the report. Students in HCS U.S. Health Care Delivery are exploring the health care system. We hope they will add comments to this post about information sources they find.

For those writing papers with APA format, here is the Goodwin Library APA Guide.

Go to Goodwin College Library Academic Databases If you are accessing off campus you will have to set up your computer with the Virtual Private Network (VPN). Directions for the VPN are on the library page .

NEW BOOKS

NEW BOOKS JUST IN TODAY

Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice (2009)
Plagiarism: Why it Happens How to Prevent (2009)
Wish her Safe at Home (novel) (2010)
Free: The Future of a Radical Price (2009)
Murder at Longbourn (novel) (2009)
Checklist Manifesto (2010)
Brightest Star in the Sky (novel) (2010)
Plagiarism: A How-not-to Guide for Students (2009)
Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar: Understanding Philosophy through Jokes (2007)
Promised Land: Thirteen Books that Changed America (2008)
I Will Make Miracles (children’s book)

Gale Acquires Questia

Gale yesterday announced the acquisition of Questia Media, a subscription platform for humanities and social sciences content, providing access to "76,000 books from 300+ publishers and millions of articles from journals, magazines and newspapers," according to the company.

The assets, acquired for an undisclosed sum, include university press authors and titles from big commercial companies like Elsevier, Wiley, Taylor & Francis, and Perseus, said John Barnes, Gale executive VP of strategic marketing and business development.

Gale®, part of Cengage Learning, is a world leader in e-research and educational publishing for libraries, schools and businesses. Many of the resources available to us through ICONN are Gale products.

Source: Library Journal Newsletter

Climate Change: CQ Researcher Report

Will the Copenhagen Accord slow global warming? by Reed Karaim

"Delegates from around the globe arrived in Copenhagen, Denmark, for the U.N. Climate Change Conference in December hoping to forge a significant agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and temper climate change. But despite years of diplomatic preparation, two weeks of intense negotiations and the clamor for action from thousands of protesters outside the meeting, the conferees adopted no official treaty. Instead, a three-page accord — cobbled together on the final night by President Barack Obama and the leaders of China, India, Brazil and South Africa — established only broad, nonbinding goals and postponed tough decisions. Yet defenders of the accord praised it for requiring greater accountability from emerging economies such as China, protecting forests and committing billions in aid to help poorer nations. But the key question remains: Will the accord help U.N. efforts to forge a legally binding climate change treaty for the world's nations?"

A sidebar lists related reports from CQ Researcher going back to 1991. A link also will take you to related topics.This report also includes:
Overview,Background,Current Situation,Outlook,Pro/Con, Chronology, Short Features, Voices from Abroad, Maps/Graphs, Bibliography, Next Step, Contacts, Footnote, and About the Author.

Source: Introduction from CQ Global Researcher February 2010
Image: Villagers displaced by flooding and erosion in Bangladesh move their house to higher ground in September 2008. Rising seas caused by climate change threaten to flood low-lying nations worldwide. (AP Photo/H. Rahman)

Text-a-Librarian

Text-a-Librarian, a quick way to ask questions and get a response, is now offered at the Goodwin Library.

Text the numbers 66746 on your cell phone. The first time you text a question put the keyword "ASKGOOD" at the beginning of the text, then type a question and send it. This first question will get an acknowledging text back immediately and when we have your answer, we will send a text to you. After the first text to ASKGOOD, you no longer need to use the keyword; the database will assign you a patron identification number.

GUEST BLOGGER: PAULA DOWD

I recently finished reading “The Checklist Manifesto: How To Get Things Done Right” by Atul Gawande and I tore through it. Dr. Gawande, a surgeon, author and chairman of the WHO’s Safe Surgery Saves Lives initiative, writes a compelling book on how, through the use of checklists, horrendous mistakes made in surgery that kill and injure thousands of people a year could be virtually eliminated. He suggests that because medicine ( especially surgery) is becoming more & more complicated each year, even the simplest of steps can be missed in treating patients. Everything from forgetting to infuse a preop patient with antibiotics ( or doing it too soon) to operating on the wrong patient is discussed. Dr. Gawande makes the point that checklists are used in the field of aviation to complex construction projects and proves that they were successful in averting disaster. But make no mistake,this is not a book filled with facts and figures. His discussions are rich and compelling. I would recommend this for anyone who has ever been on the receiving end of health care.
Source: Paula Dowd, Program Director and Associate Professor of Health Science

Wear Red Tomorrow

February is American Heart Month! The American Heart Association (AHA),along with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, encourages everyone to wear red on Friday, February 5, 2010 in support of women's heart disease awareness. This is part of the Go Red For Women initiative, designed to raise heart disease awareness and prevent cardiovascular disease and related conditions in women. (National Wear Red Day is really February 6, but let's go along with Health and Human Services.)

Blog Followers

It is embarrassing to have so few acknowledged followers. I know that there are secret followers out there. Please sign on as a follower. No-one will bother you or try to sell you anything. I promise.

GUEST BLOGGER: MARY HENDERSON

ENOUGH : The Phony Leaders, Dead –End Movements, and the Culture of Failure That Are Undermining Black America---and What we Can Do About It
by Juan Williams

You know there are some books that you never lend; well this one should be on the top of your list. This is a book that should be read often, it should be kept close at hand almost like a reference to be pulled out when we forget that we as Blacks need to help ourselves. This book needs to be required reading for so many of us. The first time I picked it up I started reading sections aloud, I was so excited! Juan Williams speaks in a voice that we can all understand, he wakes us up, makes you say right and if you’re like me as soon as you finish you’ll need to start over because you read it so fast the first time.

Source: written by Mary Henderson

Black History Month Information

In the early 1900s, the most influential black leader in the United States was educator and former slave Booker T. Washington, the principal of Tuskegee Institute. Read a biography on Washington at the Library of Congress African American Pamphlets Home Page. (The Library of Congress is also the home of the African-American Mosaic Exhibition).

Although many African-Americans agreed with Washington's philosophy that blacks should strive for economic advancement before political and social equality, some did not. One of Washington's chief critics was sociologist and historian W.E.B. Du Bois of Atlanta University. The full text of Du Bois's famous 1903 work "The Souls of Black Folk" is available at Bartleby's Great Books Online.

Source: Library Spot

New in Credo Reference: Encyclopedia of Women's Autobiography

This encyclopedia has just been added to Credo Reference. Women have been writing about their lives for hundreds of years, and their autobiographical works are a record of the eras and cultures in which they lived. Through alphabetically arranged entries (from Jane Addams through Zami: A New Spelling of My Name), written by more than 130 expert contributors, the Encyclopedia of Women overviews women autobiographers and autobiography from the Middle Ages to the present. Entries discuss individual writers, major works, national and ethnic autobiographical traditions, particular autobiographical genres, and special terms, issues, and themes related to women's autobiography from around the world. Multicultural in scope and the first work of its kind, this encyclopedia overviews more than 400 years of autobiographical writing by women.

Credo Reference is a full-text online reference service provided by Goodwin Library. The collection includes over three million entries from hundreds of well-regarded titles from some of world's the best reference publishers.

Credo has also added images from the National Gallery, London. The collection is comprised of over 2,200 high definition images from the National Gallery. Each entry includes a description of the work along with its artist, medium, dimensions, acquisition credit and date made. The image with this post is from that collection: A Wheatfield, with Cypresses, Vincent van Gogh.

Tackling Writer's Block

"First, I cannot stress enough the importance of simply allowing yourself a draft. When I write, I often get mired down in the need to self-edit every sentence as I go. When I first started writing papers and stories, that meant I rarely had a first draftor final draft. Writing two versions of the same thing seemed like way more work than writing something once. However, I ended up writing that one draft so slo-o-owly that it took me far longer than writing three drafts of a paper does now. The reason for this is that a first draft often turns out better than you think it is when you’re writing it. So type with abandon, type like the wind, and don’t let questions of grammar or phrasing or vocabulary hold you back. You can vanquish writer’s block by writing everything that comes into your head, even if you think it’s beyond awful at the time. You can always fix it later, though you may find that, more often than you think, you won’t have to do so."

This is good advice from Betsy Cornwell writing in the Teen Ink Newsletter this week.

Employer-Led Higher Education

"It is a sign of things to come. Most students enroll in college to pursue careers. The most popular undergraduate major, by far, is business, while education and health professions check in at Nos. 3 and 4. Institutions that give the demands of the professional workplace short shrift will eventually exhaust the good will of students and employers. With information technology breaking down barriers to entering the higher-education market, and the economic stakes of postsecondary learning intensifying for students and society alike, the inclination to sacrifice teaching for research will grow less tenable by the year."

Here is the link to the article by Kevin Carey published December 14, 2009, in The Chronicle of Higher Education.
'Teacher U': A New Model in Employer-Led Higher Education

Just in This Morning

These magazines and journals are just in this morning:
The Economist--special report on social networking
Nature--Fixing the communications failure
Science News--Flesh on bone: new work adds meat to dino skeletons
The Nation--Haiti: A just response
Fortune--100 best companies to work for
Journal of the Medical Library Associatiion--Information-seeking behavior of basic science researchers
Time--The most dangerous game
Education Week--Measuring teaching effectiveness

Black History Month

To commemorate and celebrate the contributions to our nation made by people of African descent, American historian Carter G. Woodson established Black History Week. The first celebration occurred on Feb. 12, 1926. For many years, the second week of February was set aside for this celebration to coincide with the birthdays of abolitionist/editor Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln. In 1976, as part of the nation’s bicentennial, the week was expanded into Black History Month. Each year, U.S. presidents proclaim February as National African-American History Month.

The library has a special exhibit in the showcase in front of the elevators and in the library.

If you have never heard Cornel West, you should. One of America's most provocative public intellectuals, Cornel West has been a champion for racial justice since childhood. He is currently a professor at Princeton University. His writing, speaking, and teaching weave together the traditions of the black Baptist Church, progressive politics, and jazz.Listen to Cornel West on "why reading matters".

Connecticut Chuckles & Groundhog day

Groundhog Day is tomorrow

Will it be a long winter or an early spring? Only "Connecticut Chuckles" knows for sure.

The official rodent prognosticator of Connecticut’s weather resides at the Lutz Children’s Museum. Hundreds of people flock to the museum each year to hear the news straight from the groundhog’s mouth (with a little help from the Mayor).

The museum will open at 6:00 AM. Connecticut Chuckles, also known as Molly, makes her grand entrance at exactly 7:03 AM. This event is free and open to the public.

Library Blog Comment Change

You can now comment anonymously to library blog posts. I have eliminated the requirement of a user name and email account. That was cumbersome and time consuming. Who can remember all those user names and passwords? So now your comments will be posted from Anonymous unless you choose to sign your name. You can immediately react to something you read without wasting time.

I hope this will encourage more of you to comment and start discussions. I welcome guest entries for the blog on any topic of interest to the Goodwin community. That should be almost anything.

Congratulations Goodwin College

The February issue of the Hartford Magazine has a Greater Hartford Report Card for 2009. Goodwin College received an A. The only other A was UCONN Sports. AWSOME!

The magazine is in the Goodwin Library.

Ohio State's New Smartphone Mobile Site

January 25th, 2010
The staff, students, faculty, and alumni at The Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio now have a new mobile site that’s optimized for smartphones (like the iPhone). Another version for traditional mobiles is also available.

This page has a quick overview of what’s available for the smartphone version.

1. It’s location aware.
2. Directions to campus locations (freshmen will love this feature)
3. Real-Time arrival times for campus buses
4. Ohio State “backgrounds, ringtones, links to Ohio State on Facebook and Twitter. OSU’s devoted fans will love this. Smart move to include it.
5. Access the Library Catalog (but no other databases at this time).

I like number 5 myself. Don't forget that the Goodwin Library has Text-a-Librarian.

Source: Ohio State University via Gerry McKiernan, Lorcan Dempsey (via Twitter)

Preprint: Reframing Information Literacy as a Metaliteracy

This blog is starting to capture ideas in education about information literacy. This is a preprint quote from an article to be published next year. The definition of information literacy as a stand-alone library research entity seems to be no longer valid in the world of today's college students and faculty using collaborative technologies.

"Social media environments and online communities are innovative collaborative technologies that challenge traditional definitions of information literacy. Metaliteracy is an overarching and self-referential framework that integrates emerging technologies and unifies multiple literacy types. This redefinition of information literacy expands the scope of generally understood information competencies and places a particular emphasis on producing and sharing information in participatory digital environments."

What do you think?

Source: Authors: Thomas P. Mackey, Trudi E. Jacobson
Accepted: January 24, 2010
Anticipated Publication Date: January 2011
Source: College and Research Libraries PREPRINT

Google Advances

Google has announced several new search and other applications allowing users to use voice, location, and sight to find information, mostly on mobile devices.

Google Goggles visual search enables users to take a snapshot of a landmark or business and receive results based upon the image.

Google Translate has added a mobile application that translates audio from one language to another on the go.

Google Favorite Places returns information on businesses that choose to display a special barcode.

A local results application for mobile devices returns results based upon one’s GPS coordinates.

Real Time search will automatically update search results as content is updated, for example, with Twitter, MySpace, or Facebook.

Source: Greg Sterling, Google Mobile Gets ‘What’s Nearby,’ Voice Search Expands & ‘Goggles’ Search By Snapping Pictures, Search Engine Land, December 7, 2009, cited December 8, 2009, searchengineland.com/google-mobile-announcements-voice-languages-whats-nearby-goggles-31374.

In-demand Occupations

The top five in-demand and desirable occupations in the United States, using Bureau of Labor Statistics, are regisered nurses, general and operations managers, physicians and surgeons, accountants and auditors, and elementary school teachers.

The projected need for nurses (2006-2016) is 1,001,000. The projected need for elementary school teachers is 545,000. Of all the occupations regardless of wage, the highest need is for retails salespeople with 1,935,000 needed during the time period 2006-2016.

Are you surprised?

Source: U.S. Department of Labor and U.S. Department of Education, 2009

Preserving Biomed Central Articles

January 14, 2010 – CLOCKSS has partnered with BioMed Central, the world’s largest open access publisher, to preserve over 60,000 articles in CLOCKSS’s geographically and geopolitically distributed network of redundant archive nodes, located at 12 major research libraries around the world.

A non-profit joint venture between the world’s leading scholarly publishers and research libraries, CLOCKSS’s mission is to build a sustainable, geographically distributed dark archive for the benefit of the greater global research community. By archiving with CLOCKSS, BioMed Central ensures that its open access articles remain open access forever. If necessary, CLOCKSS will make this content available, under a creative commons license, for free to all scholars around the world.

All original research articles published by BioMed Central are made freely and permanently accessible online immediately upon publication. BioMed Central views open access to research as essential in order to ensure the rapid and efficient communication of research findings. BioMed Central's portfolio of 206 journals includes general titles such as Journal of Biology alongside specialist journals (e.g. BMC Bioinformatics, Malaria Journal) that focus on particular disciplines.

Source: CLOCKSS on Resource Shelf January 14, 2009

OECD Factbook 2010 on Credo Reference

Credo Reference Database has signed has integrated the Organzation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) Factbook 2010 into the Credo collection. This is the first OECD title to be made available on Credo.

The OECD Factbook 2010 is a key reference tool in economic and policy issues. The most comprehensive and dynamic statistical annual from the OECD, it contains extensive information, as well as graphs and tables for more than 100 indicators covering a wide range of areas. Topics include economy, agriculture, education, energy, environment, foreign aid, health and quality of life, industry, communications, population, trade, and taxation. With the new agreement, the Factbook’s content will now be accessible and completely cross-searchable by researchers worldwide, within Credo’s collection of more than 440 full text reference books. This reference book database is available to the Goodwin community on the library page A to Z list of databases.

Source: Credo Reference Update January 2010

End of Men

It takes a man to carry a Y chromosome, and it takes the Y chromosome to make sperm, which is necessary for human reproduction. So men are essential to the future of the species.

But researchers have found that, over the millennia, the Y chromosome has lost most of it genes. What if it were to disappear altogether? NPR's Joe Palca explores that possibility in the first report of a three-part series on the End of Men.

Source: National Public Radio January 14

Animal Rights: CQ Researcher Report

Is the treatment of animals improving? Do animals have rights?
Are we doing enough to protect farm animals?
Is animal research necessary to achieve medical progress?

"The passage of dozens of tough state animal-protection laws last year reflects growing public interest in animal welfare. Today, many Americans view pets as family members, and some even leave bequests to pets in their wills. Vegetarianism has gone mainstream as people have become concerned about the conditions on factory farms, and many scientists say farm animals have feelings. Fifteen years ago, only 10 of the country's law schools offered animal-law courses; today about 130 do. At the same time, however, billions of animals are slaughtered for food each year in our meat-eating society, and live-animal research is a major tool of biomedicine. The food industry, researchers and others who depend on using and killing animals are fighting back against what they call overblown concerns about animal rights. Last November, for example, Ohio voters approved an amendment to the state's constitution barring the legislature from approving any animal-protection laws that would apply to farms."

This is just the introduction to the CQ Researcher report. Read the full report accessible from the library page (password protected). Call or text the librarian for the user name and password. A new report us published weekly. The Global CQ Researcher has a monthly report.

Source: CQ Researcher January 14 2010. This reports was written by Marcia Clemmitt.
Picture Source: Rhesus monkeys hug at a research facility in Great Britain, where labs must protect the physical and mental well-being of social animals like monkeys by housing them in groups and giving them toys. Similar laws apply to primates and some other research animals in the U.S. (Understanding Animal Research/Wellcome Images)

The 6th edition of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association was revised and updated last year. For those students who are writing research papers with APA format, one of the best resources is the Online Writing Lab at Purdue University (OWL)
"Summary: APA (American Psychological Association) is most commonly used to cite sources within the social sciences. This resource, revised according to the 6th edition of the APA manual, offers examples for the general format of APA research papers, in-text citations, endnotes/footnotes, and the reference page. Please use the example at the bottom of this page to cite the Purdue OWL in APA."

This resource was written by David Neyhart and Erin Karper. Additional material by Kristen Seas & Tony Russell.. Last full revision by Jodi Wagner, Elena Lawrick, Elizabeth Angeli, Kristen Moore, and Michael Anderson.Last edited by Allen Brizee on January 11 2010.

Tip on News Sources

"Google News has been one of the usual suspects when you want to monitor current news. The challenge of Google News is that the layout and organization of the stories is done by algorithm rather than by a real live human. This sometimes results in stories from less reliable sources being featured, at the expense of providing links to more trustworthy sources. Perhaps the more significant issue is that, in order to read any of the news, you need to click through to the story. Want another perspective? You'll have to go back to Google News, skim the headlines and decide what other sources offer better coverage.

Google has partnered with The Washington Post and The New York Times to provide a more journalistic approach to providing news. This new offering, called Living Stories and still in Google Labs, provides more in-depth coverage of ongoing stories. Right now, the news items being covered include the war in Afghanistan, H1N1 flu, health care reform, global warming and the debate over executive compensation. Yes, a bit US-centric, but I have hopes that Google will expand to more global issues.

Each story includes an in-depth review of the issues involved, a timeline showing key events, selected news articles and features, videos, slideshows, graphics, profiles of the key players, and links to key resources. Because these "living stories" are maintained by editors rather than generated algorithmically, they offer a way to get a good introduction and perspective on a current issue.

Living Stories may not be the go-to source for late-breaking news stories, but this is an exciting initiative. In fact, I hope that newspapers everywhere look at how Living Stories is received; this is a great way to leverage all the content that newspapers produce and tap into the knowledge of reporters by including links to the key primary sources as well."

Source: Tips from Mary Ellen Bates, author and well-known business researcher

WELCOME STUDENTS

Welcome to returning students and to those just starting here. We hope you have an exciting semester. Please come to the library soon!

I think you should also have fun here, so check this out. This will also explain the picture of piano keys.

(The Fun Theory on Youtube was suggested by Henriette Pranger, Director of Educational Assessment.)

NEW BOOKS

NEW BOOKS RECOMMENDED BY FACULTY (SOME ON RESERVE):

I Never Promised You a Rose Garden
College of the Overwhelmed: The Campus Mental Health Crisis & What to Do About it
Emotional Freedom: Liberate Yourself From Negative Emotions & Transform Your Life
Food Rules: An Eater's Manual
Daughter of the Queen of Sheba
Mind That Found Itself
Impaired: A Nurse's Story of Addiction and Recovery
Divided Minds: Twin Sisters & Their Journey Through Schizophrenia
The Help: A Novel

These books are now in the library.

Text a Librarian

If you have a mobile phone and want to text us a question, it’s easy:
1. Compose a text message to 66746.
2. Start your message with ASKGOOD.
3. Send your message and wait for a reply!
[Example: ASKGOOD what time do u close tonight]

The Text a Librarian service is available when the library is open.You can text us whenever you like, but we will only be able to reply when the library is open. (Hours are listed on the library page).We will respond as soon as possible during those hours. If the service is not available, you will receive an automated response and we will answer your question the next day we are open.

Use Text a Librarian to ask simple, quick questions (up to 160 characters) that can be answered in brief responses (up to 320 characters). If our responses exceed 160 characters, they appear as two messages.

To use the service, you need a mobile phone which is enabled to send and receive text messages. Goodwin Library does not charge for this service, but charges from your cell phone provider may apply. These charges vary among plans and among telephone providers. The library does not take any responsibility for any charges your mobile phone provider may assess you for sending or receiving messages while using this service.

You only need to include ASKGOOD for the first question you send to us. Text a Librarian is private and secure. Our Text a Librarian service by Mosio assigns a random User ID number to each patron. Your phone number is never visible to us at any time. Your phone number is never accessible by us.

Have further questions? Call Goodwin Library at 860-727-6782 or text us!

Program for Science Education

Discovery Education has announced the Discovery Educator Network SCIcon (DENSCIcon) 2010, a free, virtual professional development event demonstrating the many ways educators can integrate digital content and educational technologies into science education.

The event will be held Saturday, Jan. 9 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. EST and will offer a variety of individual sessions on the topic, including teaching global climate change issues, real-world applications for classroom science instruction; paperless instruction; hands-on activities; challenge-based learning; teaching with video from Mythbusters (Discovery Channel's series that subjects all sorts of myth to hands-on testing); and fun, easy and effective science experiments.

DEN SCIcon 2010 is an online conference (with a twist) focused on providing participants with some of the most effective strategies for transforming their science classes through the meaningful and effective integration of digital media content. Join thousands of educators from around the world for an amazing day of professional development sessions, networking and sharing.

Saturday, January 9, 2010
9 AM to 4 PM ET
Drop by for an hour or stay for the whole day!
It’s virtual and it’s FREE!
Register for the online sessions at:
http://links.discoveryeducation.com/denscicon

Source: The Journal

Most Admired Woman

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton continues her reign as the Most Admired Woman in the eyes of Americans, but barely edges out former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin this year, 16% to 15%. Talk show host Oprah Winfrey and first lady Michelle Obama finish third and fourth, with former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Queen Elizabeth II, former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and poet Maya Angelou — all regulars on the list — joined by newcomers German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Elin Woods in the top 10.
Source: Gallup Poll

Legal Opinions Using Google Scholar

You may now research full text legal opinions from U.S. federal and state district, appellate and supreme courts using Google Scholar. Search for cases or by topics. Your search results will include links to the famous cases and others of importance on the topic but less familiar. Try it.

Source: Quoted from Google Scholar

About Student Learning Styles

"If you've ever sat through a teaching seminar, you've probably heard a lecture about "learning styles." Perhaps you were told that some students are visual learners, some are auditory learners, and others are kinesthetic learners. Or maybe you were given one of the dozens of other learning-style taxonomies that scholars and consultants have developed.

Now four psychologists argue that you were told wrong. There is no strong scientific evidence to support the "matching" idea, they contend in a paper published this week in Psychological Science in the Public Interest. And there is absolutely no reason for professors to adopt it in the classroom." Read the article by David Glenn in the Chronicle. A copy is available in the library and in the faculty room on the second floor.

Source: Chronicle of Higher Education December 17 Illustration by Howard J. Radzyner, MedNet, Corbis

Definition of 21st Century Literacies

National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE)has established policies that define and explain how to work with students in this 21st century world.

"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
Document and Site Resources."
Source: NCTE Inbox December 2009

Count Down to the New Year

Every day until 2010 this blog will point you to tips on preparing for your New Year's resolutions--only 21 days away.
Top Ten List in 2009
Lifehacker

Here are useful items on a specific topic you may have forgotten about, or that are just very cool. This is one of the most popular personal development and productivity blogs with tips to help you make the most of technology. Who doesn't want to work faster and keep important and useful information at our fingertips--like the last draft of a NEASC standard?

Value of a College Education: CQ Researcher

Introduction to "Value of a College Education"

President Obama's $12 billion American Graduation Initiative — announced in July — aims to help millions more Americans earn degrees and certificates from community colleges. The president wants the United States to have, once again, the highest proportion of college graduates in the world. Along with the administration, economists and many students and parents embrace the notion that higher education offers the most promising ticket to financial security and upward mobility. However, some argue that many young people are ill-prepared or unmotivated to get a four-year degree and should pursue apprenticeships or job-related technical training instead. The debate is casting a spotlight on trends in high-school career and technical education — long known as vocational education — and raising questions about the ability of the nation's 1,200 community colleges to meet exploding enrollment demand.
Read the complete report online in the Goodwin Library.
Source: CQ Researcher

Featured Reference Book of the Month

Dictionary of Race, Ethnicity & Culture

Race, ethnicity and culture are concepts of extreme relevance in society today, and yet continue to be interpreted in various and often contradictory ways. The Dictionary provides the historical background and etymology of a wide range of words related to these concepts, looking at discourses of race, ethnicity and culture from a broadly multicultural perspective.

This new and up-to-date dictionary contains numerous references to both European and American concepts, debates and terms that are relevant today-words such as 'boat people', 'cybernazis', 'ebonics' as well as more established words and terms, such as 'affirmative action', 'caste', 'fortress Europe' and many more.

World AIDS Day

In order to promote more social tolerance and a greater awareness of HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) and AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome), the World Health Organization (WHO) declared December 1 as World Aids Day in 1988. Every year various global agencies, including the American Association for World Health, take the lead in coordinating this day and in educating people about HIV/AIDS, which has claimed nearly 22 million lives in the 20 years since the first AIDS cases were diagnosed.

Source: Holidays, Festivals and Celebrations of the World Dictionary in Credo Reference Database

Teaching Core Skills: Recommended Faculty Reading

The Chronicle of Higher Education, November 20th issue, highlights the teaching experiment of Indiana University professors at Bloomington to teach cores skills in history: assembling evidence and interpreting it. Their work has attracted attention from educators worldwide.

An article by Joan Middendorf and David Pace about the Indiana experiment is on reserve in the library:

"Decoding the Disciplines: A Model for Helping Students Learn Disciplinary Ways of Thinking" from New Directons for Teachers and Learning, no. 98, Summer 2004.

National Book Award Winners

Last Wednesday winners of the National Book Awards:

Fiction Winner
Colum McCann Let the Great World Spin about daring, luck and mortality in the world of 1970s New York. AVAILABLE IN THE LIBRARY
Nonfiction
T. J. Stiles The First Tycoon, a biography of Cornelius Vanderbilt. AVAILABLE IN THE LIBRARY
Young People's Literature
Claudette Colvin Twice Toward Justice,story of a teenager arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger on a Montgomery bus months before Rosa Parks.
Poetry
Keith Waldrop Transcendtal Studies: A Trilogy

A special prize, voted on by the public, was given to "The Complete Stories" of Flannery O'Connor as the best of all fiction winners in the awards' history.

Gore Vidal and Dave Eggars received lifetime achievement awards.

National Book Awards Announced Tonight

The winners of the National Book Awards for 2009 will be announced tonight. This seems like good time to give some statistics. In 2009, 193 publishers submitted 1,129 books for the 2009 National Book Awards. The total number by genre:
236 fiction
481 nonfiction
161 poetry
251 young people's literature
I will announce the winners here tomorrow.

2008 winners included:
Fiction--Peter Matthiessen, Shadow Country
Nonfiction--Annette Gordon-Reed, The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family
Poetry--Mark Doty, Fire to Fire: New and Collected Poems
Young People's Lit--Judy Blundell, What I Saw and How I Lied

ECAR Report: Undergraduates and the Mobile Revolution

Among students, desktop computer ownership is down, laptop ownership is way up.
Most students have new computers (79% of freshmen own a laptop one year old or less, two-thirds own a laptop or desktop 2 years old. 18% say their computer is four years old or older).

51% own an internet-capable handheld device, with 12% more planning to purchase one within a year. Among those who own one, 35% say they never access the internet on it. Cost and other ways to access Net were the most cited reasons.

Cell phone ownership is nearly ubiquitous. One-third say that they use their cell phones in class for non-class activities.

SNS’s (Social Networking Sites) and texting are up (nearing saturation), while Instant Messenging is declining. SNS’s were used by 90% of students outside class, and wikis by 42%, but only around a quarter of students used SNS’s or wikis in a course. One-third of students used podcasts personally but only 6% in courses.

Students generally like Course Management Systems! Students don’t think instructors use IT well. The percent that say their instructors effectively use IT or have adequate IT skills– 45%. Only one-third say instructors adequately train them for the IT used in their courses.

Students who say the greatest benefit of IT in education is convenience – 70%. Only 49% agree or strongly agree that IT improves learning. One possible reason for this low number is that only 53% of students agree or strongly agree with the statement “My institution’s IT services are always available when I need them for my coursework.”
Source: Mobile Libraries Blog and [http://purdueetech.wordpress.com/2009/10/23/ecar-study-of-undergrads-and-it/]

New ICONN LOOK

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

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

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

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

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

Credo Reference: Top Ten Entries Viewed in September

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

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

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

Credo Reference Highlight of the Week

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Source: Credo Reference

Conforts of Home: Flannery O'Connor Repository

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

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

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

Panihari: Water Women of India: New DVD

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

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

How Good is Windows 7 for Colleges?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's Happening in Hartford

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

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

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

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

National Book Award Finalists

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

Winners will be announced on November 18.

YOU CAN ACCESS DATABASES OFF-CAMPUS

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

Thank you IT Department and Sandy Pearce!

Book Recommendation: Paula Dowd

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

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

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

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

There's an App for that!

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

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

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

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

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

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

I personally like the Sheep Launcher.

Source: New York Magazine

Researchers Unite!

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

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

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

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

Engaging the Campus Community

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

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

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

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

Source: Chronicle Today October 14

New CLEP Exams Coming Next Year

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

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

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

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

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

Source: Inside Higher Education October 14

Less Green in the Bank More Green on Campus

New portal allows universal access to sustainability data from 332 schools

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

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

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

Global Researcher: Saving the Children

OCTOBER GLOBAL RESEARCHER REPORT

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

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

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

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

Hot Paper Topics

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

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

Nobel Prize in Literature

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

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

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

Source: Associated Press

Science, Health, Environment: Futurity.org

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

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

Goodwin Library has Informe

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

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

Whot is that on Google?

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

Database Trials

Access: Academic Search Premier

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


Access: Literary Reference Center

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

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

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

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

Get Student IDs Next Week

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

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

Celebrate the Freedom to Read

Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read!

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

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

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

Nursing Students: Lexi-PALS Drug Guide

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

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

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