Support Connecticut Libraries

Libraries across Connecticut need your support this week!

This week is National Library Week, a perfect time for you to send a quick e-mail to you state legislators and governor to let them know how important libraries are to you!

Libraries are busier than ever helping families survive during these tough economic times, yet public, school, and academic libraries are facing closures and elimination of librarians and library workers—the people who help those with a job application, teach 21st century skills, and nurture the love of reading in kids that will serve them the rest of their lives.

State governments provide much needed funding for libraries to provide public access to the Internet for everyone, databases for individuals and small businesses, homework help, and much more. Without this funding, libraries are in peril, and residents in Connecticut are denied critical resources when they need them most.

Please send an e-mail to your governor and your representatives today, and pass this message on to your friends and colleagues. Thank you for advocating for libraries and library staff in Connecticut.

What does Your Library do for You?

The library staff would like to remind you during National Library Week that your library allows you to:

1) borrow books, DVDs, CDs and other library materials from participating mambers of the ICONN interlibrary loan consortium and have them delivered right here.

2) search online databases from your home, office or school.

3) download ebook from your home, office or school.

4) Check your library account online from your home, office or school.

5) access the Internet at any library location.

6) renew library materials on the phone or online.

7) access unique collections including rare and historic books and photographs.

8) call, email, or text one of our friendly librarians for answers to your questions.

What do you like about the Goodwin Library? Post your comments.

Environmental Science News: Storms of My Grandchildren

The library just purchased Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth About the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity on CD, the latest book by climate scientist, James Hansen. After years focused on science, he said he started speaking out more about risks of global warming in 2004, reckoning his grandchildren would not forgive him if he stayed silent. Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, testified to the U.S. Congress as long ago as 1988 about the risks of global warming from human activities led by the burning of fossil fuels.

Last week, Hansen won the $100,000 Sophie Prize for decades of work trying to alert politicians to what he called an unsolved emergency of global warming. The award was set up in 1997 by Norwegian Jostein Gaarder, the author of the 1991 best-selling novel and teenagers' guide to philosophy "Sophie's World." "Hansen has played a key role for the development of our understanding of human-induced climate change," the prize citation said.

This is National Library Week: Free Access

National Library Week will be observed this week April 11-17, 2010 with the theme, "Communities thrive @ your library®."

National Library Week is a national observance sponsored by the American Library Association (ALA) and libraries across the country each April. It is a time to celebrate the contributions of our nation's libraries and librarians and to promote library use and support. All types of libraries - school, public, academic and special - participate.

Lots of announcements will be in the blog this week. To start the week off, ProQuest is celebrating National Library Week with us by providing free access this week to some of their most popular online resources at http://www.proquest.com/go/celebrate.

-- CultureGramsTM explore the world's cultures with local experts that document the history, customs, government, and daily life in multimedia reports on over 200 countries.

-- eLibrary(R) this easy to use resource brings together content about in-demand subjects from millions of multimedia-rich, global resources.

-- ProQuest(R) African American Heritage brings together records critical to African American family history research and connects users to a community of research experts.

-- ProQuest Historical NewspapersTM - Black Newspapers experience history firsthand via continuous runs of the following full-image titles: The Baltimore Afro-American, Chicago Defender, Los Angeles Sentinel, and New York Amsterdam News.

This is a good time to stock up on some resources for teachers to use in preparing for next semester courses or for students looking for research material.

State Medical Boards’ Serious Disciplinary Actions

Using an analysis of data just released by the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) on all disciplinary actions taken against doctors in 2009, Public Citizen has calculated the rate of serious disciplinary actions (revocations, surrenders, suspensions and probation/restrictions) taken by state medical boards in 2009.

Connecticut was one of the ten worst states with the lowest three-year rate of serious disciplinary actions for 2007-2009. Here is the list of 10 worst states starting with the worst:

Minnesota (1.07 actions per 1000 physicians)
South Carolina (1.09)
Wisconsin (1.59)
New Hampshire (1.65)
Connecticut (1.80)
Massachusetts (1.93)
Mississippi (2.17)
Florida (2.25)
Maryland (2.30)
Vermont (2.34)

Read the full report.

Public Citizen April 5, 2010

Clinical Report on Asthma

"Asthma is a common respiratory condition, affecting hundreds of millions of people around the world. Beta-agonists have been used for over a century to reduce wheezing in asthma, by relieving smooth muscle contraction in the airways. However, two epidemics of increased asthma deaths have been linked to the use of short-acting beta-agonists (isoprenaline forte in the 1960s and fenoterol in the 1980s).

The two currently available inhaled long-acting beta2-agonists used in asthma are regular salmeterol and formoterol, and concerns remain about their safety. Two large surveillance studies (SMART and SNS) reported an increased risk of death from asthma with regular use of salmeterol in adults with asthma in comparison to placebo and regular salbutamol, respectively. Both showed a roughly three-fold increase in deaths from asthma, which was statistically significant in SMART but not in SNS."

Source: This is from the reprint of a Cochrane review, prepared and maintained by The Cochrane Collaboration and published in The Cochrane Library
2010, Issue 1

Second Life Destination: Easter Spring Town

Maybe I have been working too hard, but this destination in Second Life looks appealing right now. Easter Spring Town is full of fun, interactive entertainment. Besides shopping, there is an easter egg hunt, a group bunny hop dance, a jelly bean dance, free easter egg costumes, a pool of easter coloring to jump in, free hoppy balls & much more.
Source: Special Lib rary Association blog

CQ Researcher This Week

Breast cancer is the second most common cancer among women in the United States, after skin cancer, and the second-leading cause of cancer death, after lung cancer. Yet breast cancer mortality rates have been declining, most probably the result of early detection and better treatment. Advances in hormone therapy and discoveries of antibody treatments have markedly improved the outcome for breast cancer patients, along with the development of genetic tests on tumor tissue to determine which patients will best benefit from chemotherapy. While progress is being made, some debates seem never to fade. There continue to be disagreements about the age at which women should begin mammography screening, how to treat the increasing number of “zero stage” breast cancers that screening detects and the extent to which environmental pollutants cause breast cancer. In addition, disparities in treatment and racial outcomes continue to be documented.
Source: CQ Researcher introduction to report available online
Image: Singer/actress Olivia Newton-John, a breast cancer survivor who was diagnosed at age 43, is a critic of a scientific panel's recent recommendation against routine mammography screening for women in their 40s. An advocate of early detection, she poses with the pink ribbon symbol of breast cancer awareness. (AP Photo/Ronald Zak)

Best Free Reference for Students

Title: FastWeb: Scholarships, Financial Aid, and Colleges
URL: http://www.fastweb.monster.com/

Students fill out a detailed questionnaire about academic achievement, future plans, interests, and awards and then receive information on scholarships and internships for which they are eligible. The beauty of this site rests in its organizational features. Students can set up e-mail reminders about application due dates, mark favorites or delete entries from their lists, e-mail descriptions to friends, and add personal notes about a scholarship. The site also contains advice on test preparation, navigating the admissions process, and transitioning to college. FastWeb boasts that their database searches “1.3 million scholarships worth over $3 billion,” making this a valuable resource for busy students.

Free/Fee-based: Free registration required

American History in Video FREE during April

Please note that American History in Video is freely available through April 30.No username or password required—enjoy! Go there now.

American History in Video provides the largest and richest online collection of video available for the study of American history—2,000 hours and more than 5,000 titles on completion. The collection's wealth of video and multiplicity of perspectives allow students and scholars to see, experience, and study American history in ways never before possible. A Critical Video Edition, American History in Video's suite of tools—searches and browses powered by Semantic Indexing and searchable transcripts synchronized to video—give the ability to drill down in seconds to find the footage of interest from thousands of hours of video. This collection is an exclusive collaboration with A&E Television Networks and features some of their most important documentaries and series from The History Channel®, A&E Network®, and Biography®.

Historical coverage in the collection ranges from the early history of Native Americans, to the lost colony of Roanoke, to the 1988 Vicennes Affair in the Persian Gulf. Biographical coverage ranges from eighteenth century figures such as Benedict Arnold and Daniel Boone to modern day figures such as Thurgood Marshall and Helen Thomas.

Pritzker Architecture Prize

The Pritzker Architecture Prize usually goes to just one architect. But this year, two Japanese partners are being honored — a woman, Kazuyo Sejima, and a man, Ryue Nishizawa — who lead the firm SANAA.

The Pritzker jury praised their buildings for being "deceptively simple" — and, perhaps in a jab at contemporary architecture, the jurors wrote: "SANAA's architecture stands in direct contrast with the bombastic."

Simplicity greets visitors to the Glass Pavilion for the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio. Set among trees, its layers of ultraclear glass walls fluidly curve between thin white ceiling and floor. The building almost disappears into a pool of reflections and transparencies.

Source: National Public Radio
Image: Courtesy of SANAAGlass: Pavilion for the Toledo Museum of Art in Ohio.

First Three Weeks of College are Crucial

What happens in the first three weeks of classes is crucial to whether students will persist and graduate, says a report on a survey of 50,000 students. Even though most community-college students say they are motivated, many haven't developed the habits that could lead them to actually achieve their academic goals.

That was a key finding of a new national survey of community- and technical-college students that was released Monday. A report on the survey, "Benchmarking and Benchmarks: Effective Practice With Entering Students," provides six benchmarks for colleges that are trying to improve students' habits during the critical first three weeks of class.

The Survey of Entering Student Engagement, or Sense, which is administered by the Center for Community College Student Engagement, was given to more than 50,000 new students at 120 community colleges during the fourth and fifth weeks of classes in fall 2009 to assess early impressions of institutional practices and student behaviors. The survey began in 2007 with a pilot test involving 22 colleges.

While 90 percent of community-college students said they agreed or strongly agreed that they had the motivation to do what it took to succeed in college and 85 percent believed they were academically prepared, about 33 percent said they had already turned in an assignment late and 24 percent of students said they neglected to turn in an assignment at all. A quarter of the students surveyed also reported that they skipped class one or more times within the first three weeks of class.

CQ Researcher: Tea Party Movement

Will angry conservatives reshape the Republican Party
Introduction to CQ Researcher weekly report by Peter Katel

"The Tea Party movement seemed to come out of nowhere. Suddenly, citizens angry over the multi-billion-dollar economic stimulus and the Obama administration's health-care plan were leading rallies, confronting lawmakers and holding forth on radio and TV. Closely tied to the Republican Party — though also critical of the GOP — the movement proved essential to the surprise victory of Republican Sen. Scott Brown in Massachusetts. Tea partiers say Brown's election proves the movement runs strong outside of “red states.” But some political experts voice skepticism, arguing that the Tea Party's fiscal hawkishness won't appeal to most Democrats and many independents. Meanwhile, some dissension has appeared among tea partiers, with many preferring to sidestep social issues, such as immigration, and others emphasizing them. Still, the movement exerts strong appeal for citizens fearful of growing government debt and distrustful of the administration." Read the entire report. Call or text a librarian for the user name and password.
Source: CQ Researcher March 19
Image: Tea kettle held high, a Tea Party activist dressed like a Revolutionary War soldier rallies tax protesters in Atlanta on April 15, 2009. It was among several protests held in cities around the nation. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)

Academic Search Premier

The Goodwin College Library now has the Academic Search Premier database
Academic Search™ Premier contains indexing and abstracts for over 8,450 journals, with full text for more than 4,600 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.
Academic Search Premier is considered 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

Quote for the Day

"So, impolitic as it might be, I'd like to believe that I teach because I want students to think of true education not as a frivolous mental gymnastics but as a compulsion to bring their intellect to bear on more than their textbooks. Maybe that way I can finally understand my place in the classroom--for both my students' and my own sake."

Darryl Campbell,a Ph.D. sttudent in history at the University of Notre Dame, wrote the above as part of "Wisdom as Secret Learning Objective" in the March 19 issue of the Chronicle Review. A copy of the Chronicle is in the library.

Is That Really True?

Do you ever wonder when you listen to the news if the people being interviewed are actually giving you correct information? One of the places to check on that is Stats now affiliated with George Mason University in Virginia.

The non-profit, non-partisan Statistical Assessment Service - STATS - has become a much-valued resource on the use and abuse of science and statistics in the media. They correct scientific misinformation in the media and in public policy resulting from bad science, politics, or a simple lack of information or knowledge. This is a great resource for all of us.
Source: http://www.stats.org/

Weight Watchers, Take Note

Seven Foods That Will Prevent You from Overeating

David A. Kessler, the author of The End of Overeating, confirms what most of us know. We have become addicted to foods that are high in sugar, fat, and salt. But when we stop eating those foods, we perhaps do not know the right foods to choose as replacements. He has seven suggestions:
bananas, eggs, almonds, avocados, peanut butter, and oatmeal.
Source: Body and Soul

Health Care Reform

Without significant reform to the current health care system, the number of uninsured Americans could grow by 10 million people in just five years, and spending on government health care programs for the poor could more than double by 2020, according to a new report released today by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF).

The report projects that by 2015, there could be as many as 59.7 million people uninsured—and further estimates that the number could swell to 67.6 million by 2020. An estimated 49.4 million individuals were without health coverage in 2010.

Analysts at the Urban Institute used their Health Insurance Policy Simulation Model to assess the changes in coverage patterns and health care costs that will occur nationally from 2010 to 2020 in the event that major reforms are not enacted.Read the Complete report.
Source: Posted in Business and economics, Consumer issues, Government and politics, Health and health care

Warm, Warmer, Warmest

Last month’s combined global land and ocean surface temperature made it the sixth warmest February ever recorded. Additionally, the December 2009 – February 2010 period was the fifth warmest on record averaged for any similar three-month Northern Hemisphere winter-Southern Hemisphere summer season, according to scientists at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C.

Based on records going back to 1880, the monthly NCDC analysis is part of the suite of climate services NOAA provides to businesses, communities and governments so they may make informed decisions to safeguard their social and economic well-being.
Source: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

When will Connecticut's Misery End?

"There is no jobs recovery in sight. Assuming national growth trails off from the unsustainable 5.7% of the fourth quarter, Connecticut continues to lose jobs through 2011. The rate of loss simply slows from the predicted rate in the previous CCEA Outlook.

The state’s economy has undergone a critical structural change as the degree of outsourcing—whether to other states or abroad—has grown quickly for more than a decade. The result is that even strong growth in total output may not translate into rapid improvement in employment. The effect shows in a pattern of progressively slowed jobs recovery. Before 1990, Connecticut’s economy recovered jobs lost in recessions in ten months or less; recovery took 23 months and then 39 months in the last two recessions."

Connecticut Economic Analyis
Read the full report.

New Books in the Library Today

New Books in the Library
Swamp Man by Donald Goines
Return to Sender by Julia Alvarez
Bauhaus Group: Masters of Modernism by Nicholas Fox Weber
Essentials of Nursing Research: Appraising Evidence for Nursing Practice by Polit & Beck
Evidence-Based Geriatric Nursing Protocols for Best Practice by Capezuit et al.
Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared to Dream by Tanya Lee Stone
Best European Fiction 2010 edited by Aleksandar Hemon
Clashing Views on Environmental Issues by Thomas Easton (Taking Sides Series)

Children's Books
When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead (Newberry Medal Award 2010)
An Eye for Color: The story of Josef Albers by Wing and Breckenreid
Bad News for Outlaws: Remarkable Life of Bass Reeves by Vaunda Nelson
The Lion and the Mouse by Jerry Pinkney (Caldecott Medal Winner 2010)
Big Wolf & Little Wolf: The Little Leaf that Wouldn't Fall by Brun-Cosme & Tallec
Red Sings from Treetops: A Year in Colors by Sidman illustred by Zagarenski (Caldecott Honor Book 2010)
Benny and Penny in the Big No-No by Geoffrey Hayes
Faraway Island by Annika Thor (Batchfelder Award 2010)

Batchfelder Award-outstanding children's book published in a foreign language and translated into English.
Newberry Award- the most distinguished American Children's book published the year 2009
Caldecott Medal Winner-recognizes the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children.

MORE COMING!

Can Good Teaching be Learned?

All the teachers at the high school in Central Falls, RI, have been fired because it is one of the worst performing schools in the state. What do you think of that decision? Can teachers be taught to teach better?

"Can Good Teaching be Learned" by Elizabeth Green is the lead article in Sunday's New York Times Magazine. Since everyone here is involved with teaching or being taught, this article is definitely worth your time.

New York Times March 7, 2010

International Women's Day March 8

On International Women's Day, women around the world join together in celebration of the intelligence, strength, courage and beauty of women. Since 1908 this has been a day to celebrate the achievements of women around the world without regard to their national, ethnic, linguistic, cultural, economic or political differences.

Celebrate!

New Books in the Goodwin Library

Roy Adaptation Model by Sister Callista Roy
Essential Study Skills for Science Students by Daniel Chiras
Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah
Vegetable Gardener's Bible by Edward Smith
First Responder Handbook by Andrea Walter et al.
Complete Illustrated History of World War II by Donald Sommerville
Understanding by Design by Wiggins and McTighe
Teaching Kids with Learning Difficulties in the Regular Classroom by S. Winebrenner
Furniture of the New Haven Colony The Seventeenth Century Style by P.Kane
Winning Strategies for Classroom Management by C. Cummings
Introduction to Criminal Justice by L. siegel et al.
Oxford Picture Dictionary by N. Shapiro and J. Adelson-Goldstein
Complete Works of Mark Twain 24 volumes
Teaching the Digital Generation: No MoreCookie-Cutter High Schools by Kelly et al.
Library Instruction Cookbook edited by R. Sittle and D. cook
West of the World by D. Sherman and J. Salisbury

Horizon Project Report

The annual Horizon Report
describes the continuing work of the New Media Consortium’s Horizon Project,a qualitative research project established in 2002 that identifies and describes emerging technologies likely to have a large impact on teaching, learning, or creative inquiry on college and university campuses ithin the next five years. The 2010 Horizon Report is the seventh in the series and is produced as part of an ongoing collaboration between the New Media Consortium (NMC) and the EDUCAUSE.

Source: Henriette Pranger, Director of Educational Assessment, and the executive summary of the report.

Glossary of Genetic Terms

The Talking Glossary of Genetic Terms was created by the National Human Genome Research Institute to assist in the understanding of the terms and concepts. The glossary offers definitions and spoken pronunciations of the terms,and specialist in the field provide clarifying commentary. Colorful illustrations, images, and three-dimensional animations are included to enhance comprehension.
Source: National Human Genome Research Institute

Memory Boosting Tool for Students

World's Database of Medical Mnemonics is a free, nonprofit online searchable database of medical mnemonics--memory-boosting tools to assist students in mastering the detailed medical information that they need to know. Users can search the database by filters and keywords, browse mnemonics by category and charts, add a mnemonic to the database, customizethe database, and download the database to a personal digital assistant.

Source: Medical Library Association News February issue

Round Monopoly Board? No More Paper Money?

In 75 long years, the game of Monopoly has seen a lot of tweaks, but nothing like the 2010 edition unveiled at Toy Fair. The game board is now round, and the famous paper dollar bills have been replaced by a credit card. Players now collect $2 million when passing "GO" instead of $200, and the die and decks of cards have been replaced with an electronic card scanner. Will it be dust, or magic? A Toy Fair preview is here.
Source: Children's Technology Review

Writing Women Back into History

About Women’s History Month
Before the 1970’s, the topic of women’s history was largely missing from general public consciousness. To address this situation, the Education Task Force of the Sonoma County (California) Commission on the Status of Women initiated a “Women’s History Week” celebration in 1978 and chose the week of March 8 to coincide with International Women’s Day.

The celebration was met with positive response, and schools began to host their own Women’s History Week programs. The next year, leaders from the California group shared their project at a Women’s History Institute at Sarah Lawrence College. Other participants not only became determined to begin their own local Women’s History Week projects but also agreed to support an effort to have Congress declare a national Women’s History Week.

In 1981, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Rep. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) cosponsored the first Joint Congressional Resolution proclaiming a “Women’s History Week.”

In 1987, the National Women’s History Project petitioned Congress to expand the celebration to the entire month of March. Since then, the National Women’s History Month Resolution has been approved every year with bipartisan support in both the House and Senate.

The overarching theme is “Writing Women Back into History.” In celebration of their 30th anniversary, the National Women’s History Project will be highlighting themes and honorees from previous years. Each of these past themes recognizes a different aspect of women’s achievements, from ecology to art, and from sports to politics.
Source: Library of Congress

Women's History Month Message from CT Senator

Senator Dodd Commemorates Women's History Month.

“March 1 marks the start of Women’s History Month, and during this month we reflect on the pivotal role women have played in the shaping of our country. In my home state of Connecticut, women have made countless contributions not only to our state’s rich history, but to the history and spirit of our entire nation.

“Harriet Beecher Stowe, a Hartford native and the author of the landmark novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, was called by President Abraham Lincoln ‘the little lady who started the Civil War’. Elizabeth Hart Jarvis Colt was one of America’s first woman CEOs and a distinguished philanthropist.

“Marian Anderson of Danbury was the first African-American woman to perform with the Metropolitan Opera and was invited by Eleanor Roosevelt to perform at the Lincoln Memorial after the Daughters of the American Revolution barred her from performing at Washington’s Constitution Hall. And Ella Grasso, a native of Windsor Locks, was the first female governor of Connecticut and the first female governor in the country elected in her own right."

Featured Title of the Month in Credo Reference

Now in the Credo Reference Database, The Encyclopedia of Public Choice offers a detailed and comprehensive account of the subject that deals with the intersection of economics and political science. Its fruitful exchange among ethics, moral and political philosophy, and law, as well as economics and political science, examines the image of man as a purposive and rational actor. Its balanced coverage, which reflects the various public choice methodologies and approaches, is thoughtful, comprehensive, lively, and original.The encyclopedia includes different types of entries, including: essays and concepts. Read a few of the interesting articles:
Environmental Politics
Public Schools

Source: Credo Reference can be accessed from the library page.

Health, United States, 2009

The use of medical technology in the United States increased dramatically between 1996 and 2006, according to “Health, United States, 2009,” the federal government’s 33rd annual report to the President and Congress on the health of all Americans.

The report was prepared by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics from data gathered by state and federal health agencies and through ongoing national surveys.

This year’s edition features a special section on medical technology, and finds that the rate of magnetic resonance imaging, known as MRI, and computed and positron emission tomography or CT/PET scans, ordered or provided, tripled between 1996 and 2007. Read the press release.
Source: Center for Disease Control and Prevention Press release February 17

Lowering Student Loan Default Rates

Colleges across the nation are struggling to confront a growing problem in higher education: student debt. As more students borrow more money than ever before, and recent graduates enter the worst job market in a generation, students are increasingly unable to pay back their loans.
…
Just over 10 years ago, a small group of historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in Texas confronted a similar crisis, one in which student loan defaults threatened the existence of the institutions. The steps they took to solve that problem have suddenly become relevant to a much broader set of colleges and universities today. Read the Full Report.
Source: Education Sector Report March 2010

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