Blackboard expands

Blackboard, known for its course-management software, is moving into a whole new sector. Yesterday the company announced that it bought Presidium Inc., which provides outsourced call centers and consulting services for admissions, financial aid, and other student services, and also runs IT help desks for many colleges.

Blackboard paid $53-million to acquire the company. lackboard already held about 10 percent of the company, which was founded by former Blackboard employees. Presidium is based in Reston, Va., and has 160 full-time employees.

WELCOME TO NEW STUDENTS

Welcome to the Goodwin College Library.

Please consult the library page to help you become familiar with our library and identify key services and personal contacts you may find helpful in your first weeks here. www.goodwin.edu/library

The library supports the college's educational and service goals by ensuring that all students, faculty, and staff receive the best possible service, information, resources, and equipment in an environment conducive to learning. We look forward to meeting you and helping you become successful college students, college graduates, and employed members of the your chosen field of study.

Build a Tower Challenge

Tom Wujec presents some surprisingly deep research into the "marshmallow problem" -- a simple team-building exercise that involves dry spaghetti, one yard of tape and a marshmallow. Who can build the tallest tower with these ingredients? And why does a surprising group always beat the average?

Watch the video.

MLA Format Hint

MLA Cover Page is not numbered. Here are directions for removing the number from the first page so that the second page will be number 1.

On the Insert tab, in the Headers & Footers group, click Page Number, and then click Format Page Numbers.
2. In the Start at box, type 0.

Embed YouTube in PowerPoint 2007

To embed a YouTube video in PowerPoint 2007 follow these simmple steps:

1. First turn on the Developer Tab on the Ribbon by clicking on the Microsoft logo at the top left of the window and selecting PowerPoint Options all the way at the bottom of the menu. Next put a check next to the unchecked item to show the developer Tab.
2. Go to YouTube and select a video to embed
3. Copy the URL
4. On the Developer menu choose "More Controls"
5. Select Shockwave Flash Object
6. Click and drag on the PowerPoint slide to add the Flash object
7. Right Click the object placeholder and select properties
8. Set the Movie property to the URL you copied
9. In the URL delete "watch?" and change the "=" sign to a ⁄
10. Adjust the options for Looping or AutoPlay if desired
Make sure to test the presentation and keep in mind that the video is streaming from YouTube, so an Internet connection is required at the time of presentation.

Good luck!

Solstice, Full Moon, and Lunar Eclipse

How great is this? The Winter Solstice, December 21st, the longest night of the year, coincides with a full moon and full lunar eclipse.

According to NASA, the total eclipse of the moon will occur on this schedule, EST
• Moonrise Monday, Dec 20 3:55 pm
• Moon enters penumbra Tuesday, Dec 21, 12:28 am
• Partial Eclipse Begins(moon enters umbra) 1:32am
• Total Eclipse Begins (moon fully within umbra) 02:40 am
• Middle of Total Eclipse 3:16 am
• Moon Leaves Totality (begins re-entry into penumbra) 3:53 am
• Partial Eclipse Ends (moon leaves umbra) 5:01 am
• Partial Eclipse Ends (moon leaves penumbra) 6:04 am
• Moonset 7:29 am

EXTENDED LIBRARY HOURS

EXTENDED HOURS WEEK BEFORE AND DURING FINAL EXAMS

Weekend Dec. 4, 5, 11, 12, 18-9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Weekdays Dec. 6-17-7 a.m. to 10 p.m.

NOTE: You must be out of the building by 5 p.m. on weekends and 10 p.m. during the week.

Free Music Download

Every two weeks, from Alexander Street and Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, the Goodwin Library is offering a free music download from Smithsonian Global Sound for Libraries.

Currently available for download is:
"Tetigo" from Discover Indonesia, performed by M. Sarif and Kondang


Indonesia is a huge country, spread over hundreds of islands, encompassing peoples of many different languages, religions, and musical cultures. Fifteen tracks from the widely acclaimed 20-CD series Music of Indonesia have been selected to provide an exciting and varied introduction to musical styles from different parts of the country. This is a xylophone duet performed by Petalangan musicians of mainland Riau, Sumatra.

All tracks are owned by Smithsonian Folkways Recordings and are available, free of charge, for a limited time only.

Download the mp3.

Library Advocacy Committee Event tomorrow

Friday, November 19 in the auditorium 10:30-11:30

Crossfire Clash
Conservatives vs. Liberals discuss the 2010 midterm election and where we go from here.
Participants:
Mike Rotondo
Dan Noonan
Janet Jefford
Howard Satinsky
Alex Nye
Seymoure Oliviera
Paul LaRocca will moderate.

GOODWIN COMMUNITY PARTICIPATION WELCOME!

Credo Reference Databases User Statistics

In October, library users consulted 94 titles from the Credo Reference database.
133 sessions
324 searches
129 entries views
970 pages viewed

Top Entries Viewed:
Gender socialization and gender stereotypes
Attention Deficit Disorder
Rape and rape prevention
Alcohol and alcoholism
Euthanasia
Pregnancy
Kashmir
Art, religious
Hartnup disease
Latora disease
Breast cancer
Prisons and punishment

Thank you, library users, for appreciating this great database!

National Book Award Winners announced

The National Book Award winners were announced last night at the 61st National Book Awards Benefit Dinner and Ceremony at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City.

Fiction Lord of Misrule by Jaimy Gordon
Nonfiction Just Kids by Patti Smith
Poetry Lighthead by Terence Hayes
Young People's Literature Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine
Lifetime Achievement Award Tom Wolfe

The winners get $10,000,a statue, and probably increased sales.

1100 more books in ebrary Academic Complete

New in Academic Complete
Ebrary recently added over 1,100 multidisciplinary titles from National Academies Press, New Age International, World Trade Press, University of Chicago Press, and other leading publishers. Some of the titles include:
Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook: A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal, by Ben Mezrich (Anchor, 2010)

Brain Sense: The Science of the Senses and How We Process the World Around Us,
by Faith Hickman Brynie (AMACOM, 2009)

Discrete Mathematics, by B.S. Vasta and Suchi Vasta (New Age International, 2009)

Innocent Bystanders: Developing Countries and the War on Drugs, by Philip Keefer and Norman Loayza (World Bank, 2010)

Spirituality and Aging, by Robert C. Atchley (The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009)

Wild Justice: The Moral Lives of Animals,by Marc Bekoff and Jessica Pierce
(University of Chicago Press, 2009)

African American Experience Database

Even with the best of intentions, most librarians can't find the materials or the funding to satisfy students investigating the historical impact of African Americans on today's world. However, we now have a new resource offering students and teachers a wealth of cultural materials specifically designed for classroom research and personal inquiry.

The widest ranging and easiest-to-use online collection on African American life ever assembled, The African American Experience is the definitive electronic research tool for African American history and culture from one of the most respected publishers in the field. It provides rock-solid information from authorities in the field and to allows African Americans to speak for themselves through a wealth of primary sources. Drawing on over 450 titles, and designed under the guidance of leading librarians, this database gives voice to the black experience from its African origins to the present day.

-New material from print reference titles and multivolume sets, such as Barack Obama, the New Face of American Politics; The Martin Luther King, Jr. Encyclopedia; Encyclopedia of the Middle Passage; Encyclopedia of African American Women Writers [2 Volumes]; and Icons of Hip Hop [2 Volumes].
-A deep backlist of reference books and monographs, many now available in electronic format for the first time
-Over 5,000 primary documents: manuscripts, speeches, court cases, quotations, -advertisements, statistics, and other papers
-Over 3,500 interviews with former slaves-the WPA slave narratives-from the acclaimed The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography, now re-indexed and for the first time fully searchable
-Sixty-seven University Press texts from the early 1800s to the early 1970s—classics in black scholarship.

Try it here.

Ebrary Academic Complete

Ebrary Academic Complete is a highly interactive eBook database that covers all academic subject areas. The collection currently includes more than 50,000 titles from more than 220 of the world’s leading academic publishers.




Each individual eBook in Academic Complete integrates with information in ourlibrary and on the web through the ebrary Reader™ and InfoTools™ software. Just by highlighting any word of interest in Academic Complete, you can instantly search against our OPAC or other online resources in the library, and information
on the Internet, without leaving the current document.

New Environmental Database

GREENR (Global Reference on the Environment, Energy, and Natural Resources) is a new online resource that offers authoritative content on the development of emerging green technologies and discusses issues on the environment, sustainability and more. GREENR is an important part of a new generation of solutions from Gale designed with users in mind.

GREENR is interactive and current, allowing users to navigate issue, organization and country portals. It's a one-stop site dedicated to studying sustainability and the environment.

This database will be available for Goodwin Students beginning Monday, November 15.

Latest Additions to Credo General Reference

Credo's General Reference collection continues to grow each month and now has over 515 titles.

The following well-regarded titles were added in October:
• Culture Wars: An Encyclopedia of Issues, Viewpoints, and Voices, M.E. Sharpe
• Encyclopaedic Dictionary of Psychology, Hodder Education
• The Encyclopedia of Strikes in American History, M.E. Sharpe
• The Essentials of Global Politics, Hodder Education
• The World of Child Labor: An Historical and Regional Survey, M.E. Sharpe

Video: Academic gap widens for black males

A new study showing that most black American male students perform worse then their peers by almost every measure suggests that some of the obstacles to their academic success start before school the school bell even rings. NBC's Ron Allen reports.

WATCH VIDEO HERE.

Source: New York Times Novembeer 9 2010

Imagine Science Short Film

At the Imagine Science Film Festival in New York last month, Skhizein directed by Jeremy Clapin won honorable mention. It uses sophisticated computer graphics as its hero descends into schizophrenia.

SKHIZEIN is a strange film that begins with a man at a psychiatrist's office talking about his problem. It seems that since a meteorite struck nearby, he's been "out of phase". In other words, every thing he does is 91 centimeters off (that's a yard for all of us non-metric folks)!

Unique, compelling and clever--what more could you want from an animated short of about 13 minutes.
SKHIZEIN Part 1

SKHIZEIN Part 2

Source: "learning to Love Science Films" Nature November 4 2010

Environmental Health

"Our environment affects our health. Our average life span has almost doubled over the past century or so mainly because we have clean, safe drinking water. If parts of the environment, like air and water, or soil become polluted, it can lead to health problems. For example, asthma attacks can result from pollutants and other chemicals in the air and in the home.

Some environmental risks are a part of the natural world, like radon in the soil. Others are the result of human activities, like lead poisoning from paint, or exposure to asbestos or mercury from mining or industrial use."

MedlinePlus includes Environmental Health among its many topics. The site is available in Spanish as well as English and includes abundant additional information on related topics. You can sign up for an email update: www.medlineplus.org

Source: NIH: National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences

Library Circulates Kill a Watt Monitor

It's more than books here, folks. The library is now circulating Kill A Watt EZ electricity usage monitor.

The device measures the energy consumption of electrical appliances. Just plug it into a wall socket and then plug in your appliance to assess how efficient it is. Program in your local utility rate and display projected costs. The meter will circulate with a protective case and complete instructions. Pick it up at the circulation desk. The knowledge you gain can save you thousands of dollars.

No Cureballs for Higher Education

WASHINGTON -- Final tallies of exactly how many seats Republicans gained Tuesday in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate are days -- if not weeks -- away (though by early Wednesday morning, the major news networks were projecting gains of more than 60 seats in the House). But anyone who didn’t stay up all night watching election results pour in has woken up to a GOP-led House of Representatives and a Senate guided by a small Democratic majority.

What do the results mean for federal higher education policy and the members of Congress who’ve played key roles in crafting those policies?

Read this article from Inside Higher Ed.

Source: Inside Higher Ed November 3, 2010

Sign at Rally to Restore Sanity

Do you think this sign at the Rally to Restore Sanity could be associated with a college?

The Gulf Between Us

"The oil is not gone. This story is not over. We smelled it in the air. We felt it in the water. People along the Gulf Coast are getting sick and sicker. Marshes are burned. Oysters are scarce and shrimp are tainted. Jobs are gone and stress is high. What is now hidden will surface over time.

Meanwhile, 1 billion birds are migrating through the Gulf of Mexico this fall, resting, feeding, and finding sanctuary as they have always done, generation after generation. The endangered piping plover will be among them. Seventy percent of all waterfowl in North America fly through the Mississippi Delta. Their energy will be compromised, with food not as plentiful. Their health will be vulnerable to the toxic traces of oil and dispersants lingering in the marshes."

Please read this article by Terry Tempest Williams in Orion Magazine:
"The Gulf Between Us:Stories of terror and beauty from the world's largest accidental offshore oil disaster."

A web extra, and companion to Terry Tempest Williams's article about the 2010 BP Gulf oil spill, containing extra images and audio narrative from photographer J Henry Fair.

CQ RESEARCHER REPORTS IN OCTOBER

Animal Intelligence October 22
Do animals think?
Australian scientists recently reported that octopuses were the first invertebrates to be observed using tools. In January, in a laboratory, a crow became the first bird to show “insight” — grasping the solution to a problem by mental activity, not trial-and-error behavior. Today virtually all animal scientists agree that animals — down through the insect kingdom — have amazing powers of mind.

States and Federalism October 15
Is the federal government usurping states’ rights?
Arizona enacted Medicaid cuts early this year only to have the action countermanded by the Obama administration's recently passed health care law. Arizona is now one of 20 states challenging the new law as unconstitutional. Meanwhile, the state is also tangling with the federal government over national immigration policy. The cases highlight the recurrence of high-profile clashes over federal power and state prerogatives.

Journalism Standards in the Internet Age October 8
Are the news media sacrificing news ethics online?
Press critic A.J. Liebling of The New Yorker wrote in 1960 that “freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.” A half-century later, everyone with an Internet connection owns a virtual press. And many of them scorn the journalism standards that have guided America's mainstream media since before Liebling penned his famous aphorism.

Preventing Obesity October 1
Do Americans face too many obstacles to healthy eating?
The number of obese Americans has increased dramatically over the last 40 years, and in 2001 the nation's surgeon general went so far as to call obesity an epidemic. One-third of children and two-thirds of adults are overweight or obese, posing a daunting public-health challenge.

The last report of the month will be Democrats’ Future.

PROQUEST CENTRAL coming soon!

The library has signed up for a free trial of Proquest Central beginning November 1.

ProQuest Central is the largest aggregated full-text database in the market today totaling more than 13,970 titles—with over 10,910 titles in full text. It serves as the central resource for researchers at all levels in all markets.

While ProQuest Central provides access to millions of much-coveted full text articles from thousands of scholarly journals, it also provides access to information not available in other aggregated resources such as:

•Over 880 full text U.S., Canadian and international newspapers including exclusive access to the full text of The Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times
•Over 34,200 full text dissertations in the areas of business, psychology, physical sciences, health, education and more, helping end users build a more robust results set
•Concise business information from nearly 9,000 market reports across 43 industries in 40 countries, spanning the UK, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific, North America, and Latin America.

Format: Abstract and index, Full Text, Full Image, Text+Graphics
Media: Electronic/Online
Coverage: 1905-Present
Total Sources Covered: 13,970+
MARC Records: YES | Counter COMPLIANT: YES | ATHENS enabled: YES
Open URL enabled: YES | z39.50 enabled: YES

Book Display in Honor of the Half-Moon

Fatal Journey: The Final Expedition of Henry Hudson by P. Mancall

Rhinecliff: A Hudson River History. The Tangled Tale of Rhinebeck’s Waterfront by C. Philip

The Hudson: A History by T. Lewis

Henry Hudson in Holland: An Inquiry into the Origin & Objects of the Voyage Which Led to the Discovery of the Hudson River by H. Murphy

Peekskill’s African American History: A Hudson Valley Community Untold Story by J. Curran

Denning’s Point: A Hudson River History by j. Heron

Official Program, Hudson-Fulton Celebration; Discovery of the Hudson River by Henry Hudson, 1609; Inauguration of Steam Navigation by Hudson-Fulton Celebration Commission

Island at the Center of the World by R. Shorto

Henry Hudson and the Algonquins of New York by E. Pritchard

Dutch New York: The Roots of Hudson Valley Culture edited by R. Panetta

Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving

Ethnographic Video Online From the Library

A new online resource lets you stream, cross-search, annotate, and share hundreds of classic and contemporary documentaries. The library has arranged free access to this exciting resource through December 31. Call the library for access information.



A comprehensive online resource for the visual study of human culture and behavior and the largest, most affordable streaming video collection of its kind, Ethnographic Video Online contains more than 750 hours of classic and contemporary documentaries produced by leading video producers in the discipline; previously unpublished footage from working anthropologists and ethnographers in the field; and select feature films. Wherever possible, videos include accompanying field notes, liner notes, filmmaker biographies, related articles, study guides, and other context-enhancing, full-text materials. Learn more about Ethnographic Video Online here

FREE COUPONS IN THE LIBRARY

FREE COUPONS IN THE LIBRARY
TAKE SOME
ADD SOME

What CT Government does for us

Interlibrary Loan Service 2010
Our Interlibrary Loan services is provided by the Connecticut State Library with delivery by Connecticar (Ccar). It serves 226 libraries with 2.75 million items shipped. The average delivery time is usually several business days.
Cost using Ccar =$580,000
Cost to do this using USPS =$7,101,000
Cost to our library =$0

ICONN
-over 8 million page views
-2,312,183 searches in statewide catalog
-200 libraries lent 130,448 items through reQuest, a 6% increase
-22.1 million items now in reQuest
-$27 million-the value of all iCONN databases to local communities

Source: Connecticut State Library/Division of Library Development

New England Library Association Conference

Yesterday, I attended the opening day of the New England Library Conference at Boxborough, MA. The New England Library Association (NELA) is a membership organization for library staff and supporters in the New England States. The theme of this year’s conference was “Outside the Box; Results Support Sustainability.”

The first session was “Meeting the Challenge: Libraries in a Time of Change presented by American Library Association Executive Director, Keith Michael Fiels” who refuted the many myths about libraries and librarians. The Jordan Miller Storytelling program featured Judith Black, nationally recognized storyteller, who explored expanding literacy through stories and the current problem of the rampant self-censorship of children's literature. In the annual discussion group, State of the States, representatives of each state agency provided gloomy status reports on coping with current realities of decreasing funding and increasing service demands. Featured speaker at the banquet was Joe Raiola, Senior Editor of MAD magazine and a long-time First Amendment champion. His Joy of Censorship presentation included an illuminating, satiric and sometimes disturbing look at censorship and related issues. He also traced the unlikely and colorful history of MAD magazine and presented a survey of MAD’s most controversial covers and articles.

Next year's conference will be at Burlington, Vermont, earlier in October.

Source: Marilyn Nowlan

Mark Twain's Autobiography just arrived!

The library has an early release of Volume One of Mark Twain's uncensored autobiography. This major literary event brings us the first of three volumes presenting Twain's authentic and unsuppressed voice, brimming with humor, ideas, and opinions, and speaking clearly from the grave--as he intended. He left strict instructions that it not be published until 100 years after his death.

Who will be the first of the Goodwin Community to read it?

Autobiography of Mark Twain
Edited by Harriet Elinor Smith
University of California Press, 2010
PS1331.A2 2010

Highlighted Service: Text a Librarian (TAL)

Text a Librarian (TAL) allows members of the Goodwin community to text questions from mobile phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs). Answers are disseminated by library staff who text messages back during library hours. Questions are responded to in turn and in brief (320 or fewer characters). Face-to-face research consultations can be scheduled, or patrons can be directed to other options such as real-time chat or web forms.See directions for accessing on the library page.

Some of the other libraries using TAL include Kresge Engineering Library, University California, Berkeley; Cushing/Whitney Medical Library, Yale University; BioMedical Library, University of Pennsylvania; biology and chemistry house librarians, CalTech; and Mann Library, Cornell University.

Librarian of Congress here October 12

All students, faculty, and staff are invited to join Congressman John Larson and the Librarian of Congress, Dr. James Billington, for a discussion about resources available on the Library of Congress website for teachers and students. The discussion will take place Tuesday, October 12, from 4 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. in the Goodwin College auditorium.

Under Dr. Billington’s leadership, the Library of Congress has expanded its public outreach through the establishment of a new National Digital Library and other electronic services. The Library of Congress has made digitized versions of collection materials available online since 1994, concentrating on its most rare collections and those unavailable anywhere else. These services are your gateway to a growing treasury of digitized photographs, manuscripts, maps, sound recordings, motion pictures, and books, as well as "born digital" materials such as Web sites. In addition, the Library maintains and promotes the use of digital library standards and provides online research and reference services.

By providing these materials online, those who may never come to Washington can gain access to the treasures of the nation’s library. Such online access also helps preserve rare materials that may be too fragile to handle.

Source: Library of Congress online

Recommended site: Population Reference Bureau

The Population Reference Bureau informs people around the world about population, health, and the environment, and empowers them to use that information to advance the well-being of current and future generations.

•Inform. PRB analyzes complex demographic data and research to provide the most objective, accurate, and up-to-date population information in a format that is easily understood by advocates, journalists, and decisionmakers alike.

•Empower. Our commitment to putting information into action sets us apart. PRB builds coalitions and conducts workshops around the world to give our key audiences the tools they need to understand and communicate effectively about population issues.

•Advance. PRB works to ensure that policymakers in developing countries and in the United States rely on sound evidence, rather than anecdotal or outdated information, when creating population, health, and environmental policies.

Source: Populaton Reference Bureau

New Resources: Children's Lit Database

Goodwin College's subscription request for The Children's Literature Comprehensive Database (CLCD www.childrenslit.com ) is active using the following:
User name: goodwin
Password: hartford
both are case sensitive

The CLCD is a subscription-based information retrieval service designed to meet the needs of organizations and individuals who work with children's books. Children's Literature Comprehensive Database (CLCD) contains annotations, reviews, curriculum tools, and awards, honors, and reading lists for thousands of children's books. Overall, the database contains 200,000+ critical reviews of children’s literature, ranging from baby board books to novels and nonfiction for young adults. About 1,500 new reviews are added to the database monthly.

About Banned and Challenged Books

During Banned Book Week, perhaps you might wonder what is the difference between a challenge and a banning. A challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group. A banning is the removal of those materials. Challenges do not simply involve a person expressing a point of view; rather, they are an attempt to remove material from the curriculum or library, thereby restricting the access of others.

According to the American Library Association, there were 460 challenges reported to the Office of Intellectual Freedom in 2009. Among the titles are "And Tango Makes Three," by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson; "The Perks of Being a Wallflower," by Stephen Chbosky; and "Twilight," by Stephanie Meyer.

The ten most challenged books last year were:
ttyl; ttfn; 18r, g8r (series ) by Lauren Myracle
And Tango Makes Three by Peter Parnell & Justin Richardson
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Twilight (series) by Stephanie Meyer
Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
My sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult
The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big, Round Things by Carolyn Mackler
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier

Source: American Library Association

Special Library Association 100th Anniversary

Marilyn Nowlan, Goodwin library director, attended the 100th anniversary celebration of the Boston Special Library Association (SLA)at the Artists for Humanity Epicenter in Boston Tuesday, September 28. Boston SLA now includes Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, and all of Connecticut except for Fairfield County. Marilyn is a past president of the Connecticut Valley SLA Chapter that merged with Boston in 2007. Plans are underway to rename SLA Boston to reflect the regional membership. SLA is an international association of information professionals/special librarians in corporations, business, science, hospitals, government and academic institutions.

CT Science Education Conference October 30

Be sure not to miss the 2010 Connecticut Science Education Conference, held October 30th, 2010, at Hamden Middle School in Hamden, CT. This annual professional development conference draws educators from all across the state of Connecticut and Southern New England. There are over 60 workshops that address all grade levels from Kindergarten through University and all areas of science education, including life science, earth/space science, physical science, assessment, technology, and literacy. An Exhibit Hall features more the 50 commercial and non-profit organizations. The Keynote Speaker, Jeff Winokur, is nationally known for his work in the science-literacy connection. He is part of the author team for Science & Literacy, Heinemann’s groundbreaking professional development program.

Mark your calendars and vist www.csta.org to register and for more information.

Celbrating the Freedom to Read

Banned Book Week
September 25−October 2, 2010

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, Banned Books Week 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.

Intellectual freedom—the freedom to access information and express ideas, even if the information and ideas might be considered unorthodox or unpopular—provides the foundation for Banned Books Week. BBW stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints for all who wish to read and access them.

The books featured during Banned Books Week have been targets of attempted bannings. Fortunately, while some books were banned or restricted, in a majority of cases the books were not banned, all thanks to the efforts of librarians, teachers, and members of the community to retain the books in the library collections.

Watch this week for activities celebrating our freedom to read. Start with the display case in front of the elevators.

The Constitution and Religious Freedom

Speaker: Attorney Richard Voigt
Topic: The Constitution and Religious Freedom
Community Room
6:30 p.m.
Thursday, September 23
Sponsored by the Library Advocacy Committee

Freshman Reading

The library has a collection of topical titles that will stimulate conversation and critical thinking while engaging students in full discussions of timely, popular subjects. We proudly present you with a list of thought-provoking books ideal for freshman-year reading and first-year seminars.

The Soulful Science:
What Economists Really Do and Why It Matters (Revised Edition)
Diane Coyle

Lincoln on Race and Slavery
Edited and introduced by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Coedited by Donald Yacovone

On Bullshit
Harry G. Frankfurt

The Founders on Religion:
A Book of Quotations
Edited and Introduced by James H. Hutson

Cop in the Hood:
My Year Policing Baltimore's Eastern District
Peter Moskos

Scroogenomics:
Why You Shouldn't Buy Presents for the Holidays
Joel Waldfogel

Guesstimation:
Solving the World's Problems on the Back of a Cocktail Napkin
Lawrence Weinstein & John A. Adam

The Invisible Hook:
The Hidden Economics of PiratesPeter T. Leeson

Constitution Day Today

Educational institutions receiving Federal funding are required
to provide educational programs or displays pertaining to the United States Constitution on September 17 of each year.

Notice Constitution resources in the display case in front of the elevators.Try answering sample questions from the naturalization test to see if you could become a citizen.

Please check the library page for lots of information about the Constitution and Constitution Day.

Next week we will continue our celebration of the Constitution by having a debate between two Goodwin professors on health care reform, a panel discussion on Constitution issues, and an attorney who will speak on the Constitution and religious freedom. Watch the library page for date, times and place!


Online today!
In the meantime log on to www.constitutioncenter.org/constitutionday ANY TIME today, September 17, 2010 for Constitution Hall Pass, an online event that will feature an introduction by former Supreme Court Justice and Trustee of the Center Sandra Day O'Connor, and teaches students about the importance of the U.S. Constitution, while escorting them on a staff-led virtual tour of the Center's Signers' Hall, an iconic interpretation of the Assembly Room where the signers of the Constitution met.

Source: The Goodwin Library and the Library Advocacy Committee

Accesing Library Off Campus with Shibboleth

The library is hoping to have a new method of accessing the library resources off campus. The Shibboleth System is a standards based, open source software package for web single sign-on access. It allows sites to make informed authorization decisions for individual access of protected online resources in a privacy-preserving manner. If all goes well, it should be operational in October.

The word shibboleth comes from ancient Hebrew and meant 'ear of grain'. Some groups pronounced it with a sh sound, but speakers of related dialects pronounced it with an s. In the story, two Semitic tribes, the Ephraimites and the Gileadites, have a great battle. The Gileadites defeat the Ephraimites, and set up a blockade across the Jordan River to catch the fleeing Ephraimites who were trying to get back to their territory. The sentries asked each person who wanted to cross the river to say the word shibboleth. The Ephraimites, who had no sh sound in their language, pronounced the word with an s and were thereby unmasked as the enemy and slaughtered.

News for Students Using EBSCO Databases

Results List Enhancements for EBSCO Databases

EBSCO has applied a fresh new design to the EBSCOhost interface, and enhanced the Result List for greater usability:
•Limiters and the date slider are now in the left column, consolidating all the ways to refine and work with results.
•To the right of the Result List are search/content expansion tools: Related Information, access to integrated search (EHIS) connectors, widgets.
•You can now select multiple clusters and source types when managing results.
•A "breadbox" tracks which limiters, expanders and source types have been selected and allows one-click removal.
•Menu organization for page options and alert/save/share has been improved.

The Library has these EBSCO Databases:
CINAHL (Cumulative Index for Nursing and Allied Health)
Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition
PsycINFO
GreenFILE
LISTA (Library Information Science & Technology Abstracts)
Education Research Complete
ERIC (Education Resource Information Center)
Academic Search Premier

New Books Cartel, Cartel 2, and Cartel 3

The Cartel Trilogy by Ashley JaQuavis is now available in the Goodwin Library. Last November, these authors joined only a few others from the street literature genre to make the New York Times Best Seller list. Making the Times list establishes a stronger presence for street literature that tells stories about the struggles and realities of urban black life on the street. This is a new style of writing that has been mostly ignored by mainstream America until recently. It hasn't been ignored by the Goodwin College community.

World Water Day is Coming

On September 18th, World Water Monitoring Day will focus on protecting and preserving water resources around the world. American Leak Detection encourages everyone to conserve water in the home.

Do you have dripping faucets? If a drip fills an 8 ounce glass in 15 minutes, the faucet will waste about 180 gallons of water per month, or 2,160 gallons a year.

Pick up information in the library about World Water monitoring Day provided by Bruce Morton, Program Director and Associate Professor of Environmental Science.

Source: Water Efficiency

Happy 40th Birday

The Clean Air Act was 40 yesterday. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson hosted a day-long party to celebrate. We should celebrate, too. The Clean Air Act is an effective and beneficial pieces of public health legislation. For four decades this landmark law has successfully protected the health of millions of Americans from dozens of different air pollutants.

Fastest Growing Jobs in America

"The number of registered nurses is expected to swell to 3.2 million by 2018, accounting for approximately 581,500 new jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That's up from 2.6 million today, and it represents the largest overall growth projection out of all occupations in the U.S. economy, for good reason.

Americans aged 65 and older will make up 19% of the population in 2030. As the population ages, there will be an increased demand for health care services in general, and home health care services in particular. In the past year, the home health care services industry has experienced sales growth of 11.2%, making it the fastest growing industry in the U.S

Along with registered nurses, Sageworks projects that home care aids, physician assistants, pharmacists, and other medical professions will be in high demand for the foreseeable future."

Source: Fortune September 7 2010

Welcome to New and Returning Students

The staff of the library welcomes new and returning students. The library has new computers on the first floor and will soon have additional computers on the second floor. Please stop by if you have any questions about library services.

We look forward to working with you this year. Be sure to get your student ID as soon as possible because it will be required for using library resources by Monday, September 13.

Best wishes to all of your for a successful and exciting year!

FORGET WHAT YOU KNOW ABOUT STUDY HABITS

In recent years, cognitive scientists have shown that a few simple techniques can reliably improve what matters most: how much a student learns from studying. The findings can help anyone, from a fourth grader doing long division to a retiree taking on a new language. But they directly contradict much of the common wisdom about good study habits, and they have not caught on.

“We have known these principles for some time, and it’s intriguing that schools don’t pick them up, or that people don’t learn them by trial and error,” said Robert A. Bjork, a psychologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. “Instead, we walk around with all sorts of unexamined beliefs about what works that are mistaken.”

Read the article to improve your study habits!

Source: New York Times September 6, 2010

Rubik's Mystery Solved

Remember this? My children used to compete on who could solve it in the shortest time. What is the maximum number of moves needed to solve any possible scrambling of a Rubik's cube? They didn't know the answer back then. But we now know the answer is 20, thanks to a team who combined the computing might of Google with some clever mathemtical insights to check all 43 million billion possible positions. Their feat solves the biggest remaining puzzle presented by the cube. You did care, didn't you?

Source: New Scientist August 21

New Book for Faculty

Integrated General Education
Catherin M. Wehlburg, Editor
96 pages, 9 chapters
New Directions for Teaching and Learning Series
published Spring, 2010, by Jossey-Bass

"General educaton has been an essential part of American higher education for a long time. Unfortunately, it is often seen as something to'get out of the way' so that the student can go on to take the more 'important' courses within a chosen major. This way of thinking does a disservice to the student, the student's learning, and the overall expectations for a baccalaureate degree." (From the Editor)

In our on-going discussion of baccalaureate culture, this is relevant reading. It was recommended for the library by Henriette Pranger.

CQ Researcher This Week

Drone Warfare
Are strikes by unmanned aircraft ethical?

"Unmanned “drone” aircraft controlled from remote video consoles are being used in increasing numbers by the U.S. military in Afghanistan and by the CIA in Pakistan and other places outside of recognized war zones. Some scholars argue the CIA strikes in Pakistan are illegal, while others say they comply with the laws of war. The spread of armed drones, along with resulting civilian deaths . . . ."

The full report is available on line user name and password required).
Other Recent Reports:
Financial Industry Overhaul
America at War
Gangs in the U.S.

Mirthless Senate

In a devastating profile this month of the broken Senate, George Packer of The New Yorker reveals a place that might as well be stuffed with mummies. Senators from opposite parties avoid eye contact, even a few feet apart. The choreography is as well-plotted as an old-style Soviet party congress — everything known in advance. Senators work a three-day week, and spend about 50 percent of their free time raising money for reelection.
(Quoted from editorial in the New York Times today by Timothy Egan.)

Citing Indirect Sources: MLA format

I am quoting from the MLA Handbook (7th edition 6.4.7 page226)

"Whenever you can, take material from the original source, not a secondhand one. If only an indirect surce is availabe--for example,someone's published account of an author's spoken remarks [or published work]. If what you quote or paraphrqase is itself a quotation, put the abbreviation qtd. in ("quoted in") before the indirect source you cite in your parenthetical reference."

Y:ou may document the original source in a note (5.5.1 page 230)

Examples:
Parenthetical Reference:
In “On Her Own Work”, O’Connor suggested her interpretation of the gesture to the misfit (qtd.in Petit 312).

Works Cited
Petit, Susan. “Finding Flannery O’Connor’s ‘Good Man’ in Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead and Home.” Christianity and Literature 59.2 (Winter 2010):
301-318. Web. 11 Aug. 2010.

Note
1.The original source of the paraphrase of O’Connor's comment on the grandmother’s gesture to the misfit was on page 112 in “On Her Own Work” Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose selected and edited by Sally and Robert Fitzgerald published in 1969 by Farrar.
[Notes would precede the Works Cited Page.]

CINAHL Features for Nursing Students' Research

Do you need articles on coronary thrombosis written by a nurse? Sometimes your instructors require you to find peer-reviewed articles written by a nurse. Perhaps you have already discovered that CINAHL has a new feature that will help you.

You can limit articles to those ”Written by a Nurse.” You can also limit to articles where the first author is a nurse, or you can limit to articles where any author is a nurse. These limits are only good for articles 2009-forward and a nurse is considered any author with RN, BSN, MSN, and in the case of international publications the appropriate international license/credentials/degree. I always emphasize that this is not a perfect solution either because it eliminates nurse authors in non-nursing journals. I do not know if this feature will become retroactive and include articles before 2009. Stay tuned.

Some additional information:

.The DOI (Digital Object Identifier) has been added to all records 2009-forward.
•The PMC ID (PubMed Central ID) has been added to records 2009-forward.

Credo Reference Concept Map

Have you used the Credo Reference Concept Map lately? The Concept Map is a great tool that enables you to quickly find information when you don’t know exactly what to look for or want to expand your knowledge of a given area. Students have had great success in using the Concept Map to help brainstorm and focus a topic, or to help them find a new angle or direction to research.

The concept map needs Java 1.4.19 or newer to work. That is the only requirement. For the users that don’t have Java installed this link provides installers for all operating systems: http://www.java.com/en/download/manual.jsp. After installation the browser will need to be restarted. Windows users might need to reboot their computer.

In some cases Java is already installed but it is disabled in the browser. How to enable it is browser-specific but it usually means opening the browser’s Preferences dialog and enabling Java. In Firefox the checkbox to enable Java is in the Preferences window under the ‘Content’ tab. In Safari the option is under the ‘Security’ tab. The option is usually placed besides the option to enable Java Script. It is important to note, though, that ‘Java’ and ‘Java Script’ are two completely different/independent things and enabling one does not enable the other

New Gale Resource Centers

On Sunday, August 1, the following resources will have a significantly different look/feel in order to improve the relevancy and currency of search results:

History Resource Center: U.S.
History Resource Center: World
Science Resource Center

The names of these resources will change from Resource Center to In Context (e.g., Science Resource Center will become Science In Context). The Biography Resource Center will undergo a similar redesign in late August to early September. Other resource centers (Health, Business) will follow later.

We hope you like the changes!

You Thought the Library was Small? THINK AGAIN!

You thought the library was small? Think again! Besides what you see on the shelves in the library, we have 70,000 books you do not see. That's right--70,000. Where are they, you may ask?

They are electronic or ebooks. Libraries of the future,and we are one of them, want expanding space for users and less for books sitting on shelves. That’s why Goodwin Library has eBrary Academic Complete, a database with full text books. Ebrary has just added 1,100 new titles and they added 5,100 in June. They also provide 140 full-text books and other materials specifically for librarians and knowledge managers. That means that we now have that database of over 60,000 full text books. You won’t see them on the shelves, but you will if you go to the library page and click on eBrary. If you add Credo Reference’s full text reference books—also online-we have at least 70,000 electronic books. (By the way, we still plan to fill up the existing shelves.)

Letting Go: A Healthcare Issue

Atul Gawande, Doctor and author, has an article in The New Yorker called "Letting Go" about what medicine should do when it can't save our lives. It is an important discussion for healthcare students of how we deal with end of life issues.

"People have concerns besides simply prolonging their lives. Surveys of patients with terminal illness find that their top priorities include, in addition to avoiding suffering, being with family, having touch of others, being mentally aware, and not being a burden to others. Our system of technological medical care has utterly failed to meet these needs, and the cost of this failure is measure in far more than dollars. The hard question we face,then,is not how we can afford this system's expense. It is how we can build a health-care system that will actually help dying patients achieve what's most important to them at the end of their lives."

This is a quote from the article. Dr. Gawande is a surgeon at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and a professor at Harvard Medical School, His most recent book, A Checklist Manifesto, is available in the library as is the article.
Source: The New Yorker August 2 2010

CPR with Chest Compression Alone

The current issues of the New England Journal of Medicine has three articles on CPR with chest compression alone. There was interesting commentary on these articles on the radio this morning. This might make a good research paper topic.

"in CPR, Less May Be Better" M. Weisfeldt
"CPR with Chest Compression Alone or with Rescue Breathing" T. Rea et al.
"Compression-Only CPR or Standard CPR in Our-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest L. Svensson et al.

New England Journal of Medicine
July 29

500 million Facebook Users

This week Facebook reached 500 million users. To give an idea of what 500 Million people would look like, using world population, the Resource Shelf staff built an estimate. 500 million people would mean that every citizen in the following countries were active Facebook Users (in alphabetical order):

The ENTIRE Populations of:

+ Australia
+ Bermuda
+ Canada
+ Cayman Islands
+ Guatemala
+ New Zealand
+ Singapore
+ South Africa
+ United Kingdom
+ United States

Source: BBC Press

Have you got anything by the Ugandan xylophonists?

The new BBC archive of indigenous music from around the world has!

BBC will tomorrow launch a globally-accessible online archive that features indigenous music from some of the world's most dangerous conflict zones, as well as its most inaccessible states. There are audio clips of singing waitresses performing sea shanties on the coast of North Korea, and harp-playing cowboys in rural Venezuela. In all, there will be 100 hours of programming on the BBC's World Music Archive, alongside dozens of photographs of recordings being made in the most remote locations. Essentially the resource comprises the output of Radio 3's world music programmes from the past decade an extraordinary collection of some of the most unlikely and most beautiful music ever recorded.

Listen here. new BBC archive of indigenous music from around the world

Source: The Independent July 22, 2010

Development Reading & Learning communities

Learning Communities for Students in Developmental Reading: An Impact Study at Hillsborough Community College

This report presents results from a rigorous random assignment study of a basic learning community program at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa Bay, Florida. Hillsborough is one of six community colleges participating in the National Center for Postsecondary Research’s Learning Communities Demonstration. The demonstration’s focus is on determining whether learning communities are an effective strategy for helping students who need developmental education. Hillsborough’s learning communities co-enrolled groups of around 20 students into a developmental reading course and a “college success” course. Three cohorts of students (fall 2007, spring 2008, and fall 2008) participated in the study, for a total of 1,071.
Full Report
Source: Education on Docuticker

Retaining Experienced Nurses

With the nation’s nursing workforce aging and many nurses approaching retirement just as the population ages, creating a greater demand for hospital care, retaining experienced nurses will be critical in coming years. Hospitals, medical centers and other health care organizations can keep more veteran nurses at patient bedsides by implementing a variety of employee-retention strategies identified in a new study supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Read the full report.
Source: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Livemocha for Learning Languages

Livemocha is a Web site for learning languages. The site was started by a group of former Microsoft employees who saw a need for language skills in the growing international economy. It combines immersion language learning with Web 2.0 features, allowing students to connect with others who are learning the same language as well as native speakers so that they can practice conversation, exchange study tips, and contribute new learning materials.

Livemocha is a useful resource for people who want to study a language without investing in expensive products such as Rosetta Stone. It is also a good way to supplement a language class or learn basic expressions for travel.

Source: Reference on the Web By Barbara Bibel

Students Not Encouraged to use Technology

According to the 21st-Century Classroom Report: Preparing Students for the Future or the Past? students think technology is important now and will be in the future, but their schools aren’t adequately preparing them to use technology in college and their careers. Students use technology extensively as a learning tool and expect to use technology in college and the workforce. 94% anticipate using technology to complete assignments in college.

Call to Action for Goodwin College
Survey students to understand their technology expectations. Consider using the 21st-Century Classroom survey tool, or your own survey, to get an accurate picture of what students and teachers want and need
Bring together faculty and IT to discuss must-have resources. Use that discussion to create or augment your district's technology plan
Leverage 21st-century tools to achieve educational goals. Focus on professional development to ensure faculty understand and use technology

Source: T.H.E. Journal, June 28, 2010

Recommended Books This Week

Patrons recommend this week:

Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Blindness by Jose Saramago
Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson
Differentiate or Die: Survival in Our Era of Killer Competition by Jack Trout
Making the Best of Basics: Family Preparedness Handbook By James Stevens
Fire by Kristin Cashore
Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson
Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson
Death and Life of the Great American School System by Diane Ravitch
Trick Baby by Iceberg Slim
No More Sheets by Juanita Bynum
American Women and World War II by Doris Weatherford

What are you reading??

American Library Association: Technology Trends

At the annual American Library Association Conference, a panel of expert technology librarians held forth on most interesting library-tech trends. I will be reporting on these all week.

Super Fast Book Scanning: 200 pages in one minute or less
University of Tokyo professor Masatoshi Ishikawa (covered a few months ago on IEEE Spectrum's Automaton blog), which could, in just a few years, allow a handheld device, such as a phone, to scan an entire 200-page book in one minute or less. I'm not really sure how we deal with this but it's not avoidable.

Click on Automaton blog in the previous paragraph for more information and to see the scanner in action on YouTube.

Credo Reference has Topic Pages

We're excited to announce the launch of Credo Topic Pages, now available on http://www.credoreference.com!

Topic Pages can now also assist you in finding your library. By allowing search engines to index Topic Pages, Credo aims to direct even more users to their local libraries - and to your library resources. After finding topic pages in a search engine, users can find their local library on our login page that lists nearby subscribers.

How to find Topic Pages
To find Topic Pages, simply start searching Credo. If a Topic Page exists for your query, it will appear at the very top of your search results.

Technology in Higher Education

The National Center for Academic Transformation (NCAT), a small nonprofit considered to be the intellectual center of the technology-based course transformation movement, has labored mightily and with much success to help more colleges bring their undergraduate courses into the modern age. But it has labored precisely because colleges have yet to decide, en masse, that adopting a proven method to produce better student learning outcomes for less money is the kind of thing they should naturally do on their own.

At Fairfield University here in Connecticut, seven different professors all taught a general biology course with a total enrollment of 260 students. Fairfield consolidated the biology course into a single section co-taught by two professors and used technology, such as clickers and laptops, to supplement the learning experience and to make sure the larger setting was not too impersonal. The changes reduced course costs by 31 percent. At the same time, student retention of concepts covered in the course also improved, as measured by questions given to students in the required second-year course for biology majors specifically designed to test concepts covered in both the redesigned and traditional class.
Here is the full report.

What Do Colleges Want Students to Read?

"In the last decade, the number of colleges that assign summer reading to incoming freshmen has soared. The National Association of Scholars has tracked and analyzed 290 such programs—the most comprehensive study of “common reading” programs to date. The study reveals national patterns in book selection. Major findings include a widespread assignment of books that promote liberal political views; a preponderance of contemporary writing; and a surprisingly low level of intellectual difficulty."
Read the report.
Source: National Association of Scholars Web Page

Dr. Chocolate

Meet Andy McShea, a scientist using his training to make better—and healthier—chocolate. He’s known as Doc Choc, because he came to Theo Chocolate in 2007, after 7 years at the Seattle biotechnology company CombiMatrix and 3 years as a postdoctoral fellow at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. He’s now using his science background to make better—and healthier—chocolate.

Read more.
Source: Dr. Chocolate - The Scientist - Magazine of the Life Sciences

Visualizing U.S. Health Data

It was a busy day yesterday for tools from Bing (Microsoft's search engine) and Google to assist in visualizing health information.

Bing's application will allow you to overlay health data onto Bing Maps so you can better understand and visualize the health of a community.

Access the Bing Health Maps

Categories of Data Include:
+ Birth Measures (Low Birth Weight, Premature Births, etc.
+ Death Measures (Homicide, Lung Cancer, etc.)
+ Health Risk Factors (Smoker, Diabetes, etc.)
(Data sources: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
Institute of Medicine
The map is part of the Community Health Data Initiative)

Shortly after the Bing announcement hit the web, Google made their announcement.
HHS has published useful data about communities, hospitals and nursing homes and made it available for download. So Google combined some of this information using Google Fusion Tables, a database service in the cloud that makes it easy to explore, visualize and share structured data.

Access the Google Health Map (Hospital Data)

At the moment (of course this will likely change), the Bing Health Map has a lot more data to “play with.”
Source: Report of Greg Sterling from Search Engine Land (SEL)

Google Lists Top Most Visited Web Sites

June 2nd, 2010--In a resource prepared for its advertisers, Google has listed the top 1000 most-visited web sites based on unique visitors. Google.com is not on the list.

The Top 10

1. Facebook
2. Yahoo
3. Live.com
4. Wikipedia.org
5. MSN.com
6. Microsoft
7. Blogspot (owned by Google)
8. Baidu.com
9. QQ.com
10. Mozilla.com

Here are a few other rankings:

18. Twitter
22. Amazon.com
31. Flickr.com
44. IMDB
56. Linkedin.com
83. NY Times
102. Scribd
166. Reference.com
179. Reuters.com

Library Workshop June 3

Students, Faculty, Staff--you are invited!

We are repeating the workshop on accessing library resources from home presented by Dan Bonacum of the IT department.

Library Workshop
Accessing Library resources off-campus: Conquering the Virtual Private Network
Room 142 (next to the library)
Thursday, June 3
begins at 10 a.m.

Break free from Oil Addiction

This Memorial Day weekend the Sierra Club and the American Security Project released a joint report showing how America’s addiction to oil threatens our national security, our economy and our environment. Read "Ending Our Dependence on Oil" that highlights the connections between national security and energy and lays out solutions for mitigating the threats posed by continued oil dependence.
Source: Sierra Club Currents June 1

Need Info on the Go? Text a Librarian

Need Info On the Go? Remember to Text a Librarian!

Students, faculty and staff at Goodwin College now ask questions and get information from the library by text message. For patrons who are unable to ask a librarian in person or online, or those who simply prefer texting over talking, the Text a Librarian service provides a convenient option for getting info on their mobile phones. The service does not display phone numbers and generates an anonymous ID for each patron in order to reference conversation history.

Try it now!
Text ASKGOOD to 66746 for instructions
Save 66746 in your contacts as ASKGOOD

LIBRARY CLOSED SUNDAY AND MONDAY

The library will be closed Sunday and Monday because of Memorial Day Weekend. We will be open Saturday from 9:30 to 1:30 as usual.

Please visit the library this week and next week to see the display of books related to Memorial Day.

Condition of Education 2010

The National Center for Education Statistics today released The Condition of Education 2010, a Congressionally mandated report to the nation on education in America today. It covers all aspects of education, with 49 indicators that include findings on enrollment trends, demographics, and outcomes.

The report projects that public school enrollment will rise from 49 million in 2008 to 52 million by 2019, with the largest increase expected in the South. Over the past decade, more students attended both charter schools and high-poverty schools (those in which more than 75 percent of the students qualified for free or reduced-price lunch). One in six U.S. students attends a high-poverty school; and the number of charter school students has tripled since 1999.

This year’s report features a special section that looks closer at these high-poverty schools in America, examining the types and locations of schools, the characteristics of the students and their teachers and principals; and student achievement. It finds a wide and persistent gap in educational achievement.

Read the report.The Condition of Education 2010
Source: National Center for Education Statistics

NEW MAGAZINE: URBAN FARM

It doesn’t take a farm to have the heart of a farmer. Now, with this burgeoning sustainable-living movement, you don’t have to own acreage to fulfill your dream of raising your own food. Urban Farm magazine will guide you down the path to self sustainability.

Goodwin Library now subscribes to Urban Farm. Published quarterly, this magazine promotes the benefits of self-sufficiency and provides the tools with which to do it on any size property. Between the covers, you’ll find how-to projects, backyard-livestock advice, profiles of urban farmers, “green” and innovative products, and of course, recipes for preparing your homegrown vegetables, eggs and other farm bounty.

Urban Farm reaches out to those in the city and suburbs, those who are inspired by the local-food movement, and those who want to raise chickens and grow food for themselves, supporting local agriculture and living more sustainably.

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest is here!

The Girl With the Dragon Tatoo
The Girl Who Played With Fire
Now you can read the third novel in the Stieg Larsson's best selling trilogy--The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest--just arrived in the library today!

Also new to the library today:
Total Eclipse of the Heart by Zane
Savor the Moment by Nora Roberts

Google announces CloudCourse

When will Google stop? Google last week announced a new course-scheduling system, CloudCourse,that could potentially have implications for higher education. CloudCourse is integrated with Google Calendar and allows users to schedule classes, look up user profiles, and sync the service's data with internal university systems. CloudCourse was built entirely on Google's App Engine, which allows users to build and host Web apps. Google hopes that CloudCourse can serve as an example of how to use the App Engine.

One potential use for CloudCourse is to manage class rosters with tools that allow users to look at enrolled versus waitlisted students, mark student attendance, and change a student's enrollment status in a course. Universities typically already have an internal system to complete the tasks CloudCourse can perform.

CloudCourse might help university administrators who don't have the time or resources to worry about hardware hosting and dealing with traffic bursts that occur during class enrollment periods.
Source: Wired Campus

Workshop: Connect to Databases Off Campus

LEARN HOW TO CONNECT TO THE LIBRARY RESOURCES OFF CAMPUS!
Room 142 (next to the library)
10 a.m. May 27

Dan Bonacum of the IT Department will demonstrate how to use the Virtual Private Network successfully. Please tell everyone!

Guide to Online Learning

Power Up: A Practica Student's Guide to Online Learning by Barret, Poe, and Spagnola-Doyle (124 pages)

Many students have asked for help with online learning and not just how to get on to Blackboard. Now in the library, this book discusses the realities of online learning and highlights the resources available to online students. The tips and techniques will help you succeed in the virtual classroom. You will discover how to regulate your learning paces and processes--skills that will serve you well into the future. This book is published by Pearson Prentice Hall who also has a Student Success Supersite where students and faculty can find an arrray of resources.

Educational Video

Accessible Educational Technology Series

Australia's open access repository of research and scholarly output at Bond University includes a video series on education, accessibility, and assitive technology. The videos are posted on Vimeo, the high-definition video sharing and networking site. The series include videos on topics such as "Issues of Online Learning ina disability Studies Context," "Braille Literacy," and "Over-Reliance on Assisted Technology." Videso feature inerviews with disabled students and scholars.
Access here. http://vimeo.com/8205436
Source: Association of College and Research Library News May 2010

Book of the Day: Gift of Fear

Recommended by Pam Kudra and Oprah

Gift of Fear by Gavin De Becker
Available in the Goodwin Library

The Gift of Fear is a must-read for everyone, particularly women. It teaches people how to stay safe, how to avoid becoming a victim, how to listen to your instincts and react. The author developed the Mosaic (a threat assessment tool) that is used nation wide by the court systems, police departments, and schools. Gavin De Beckers believes that most violent acts are random and have clear warning signs enabling us to stay safer in the community.

The Gift of Fear educates the reader on situations that involve stalkers, men who abuse woman, predators, death threats, disgruntled employees, or mass killers. He offers the readers lessons on survival signals, relying on one's intuition, separating what is real from imagined danger, and predicting dangerous behavior. He also teaches the readers to evaluate whether someone will use violence against them or not.

Baby's Hearing Test

Nowadays, 97 percent of babies born in this country have their hearing screened in the newborn nursery. That means essential follow-up testing and treatment can begin very early indeed. But the key term is “follow-up.”

As many as 46 percent of children who failed the newborn screening test in 2007 did not have documented repeat testing and treatment, said Marcus Gaffney, a health scientist with the Early Hearing Detection and Intervention program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “Screening a child doesn’t do a lot of good,” Mr. Gaffney told me, “if you don’t take the appropriate follow-up.”

To learn more, read the full story, “What to Do When a Newborn Can’t Hear”.
Source: New York Times May 20 2010

21st Century Literacies

The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) defines 21st Century literacies.

“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.”

Source: NCTE Inbox

Most Challenged Books of 2009

The Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF) has released the list of the Top Ten Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2009. New to the list this year are Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series and Jodi Piccoult’s My Sister’s Keeper.

Lauren Myracle’s Internet girl series – ttyl, ttfn, and l8r g8r - tops the list, replacing the children’s book, And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, in the #1 spot. Tango had appeared at the top of the list for the prior three years in a row. Myracle’s series has been challenged for reasons that include nudity, sexually explicit, offensive language, and drugs.

OIF recorded a total of 460 challenges in 2009. For every challenge reported to OIF, however, we estimate that there are 4 or 5 challenges that go unreported. Thanks to the dedication of countless individuals, materials do remain accessible to users in a majority of cases. Banned Books Week will be held September 25 through October 2, 2010.
Source: OIF Blog May 19, 2010

Census Controversy

Should undocumented immigrants be counted?

Now under way, the 2010 census has sparked bitter partisanship. Some conservative Republicans, for example, have criticized the census as an unconstitutional intrusion on privacy; others warn that census participation is important for maintaining GOP power, since the count is used to apportion congressional seats and allocate federal money to cities and states. Liberal Democrats have been more supportive of census procedures, which for the first time will count same-sex couples. To raise response rates, the Census Bureau sent every household the same brief 10-question form and dropped use of the “long form” — a lengthy questionnaire seeking data on housing, transportation, education and income. The long form has been replaced by a separate, ongoing monthly survey that will provide timelier data, but from a smaller sample of households. Researchers generally hail the change but say it will cause some problems, at least initially.
Source: Introduction: CQ Researcher May 14, 2010
Image: Despite controversy over this year's count, U.S. households returned census forms at the same 72 percent rate as in 2000. Census data determine the number of seats in congressional districts and how nearly $5 trillion in federal funds will be distributed to states and localities over the coming decade. (AFP/Getty Images/Paul J. Richards)

Statistical Directory For Social Sciences

The EBSS division of the Association of College and Research Libraries created this directory for those of us who regularly need to find statistics.
General United States Statistics
Education Statistics
Gerontology Statistics
Psychology Statistics
Social Work Statistics
Demographics

New DVDs in the Library

Dimming the Sun: What does this Climate conundrum Mean for the Future of the Earth-56 minutes (NOVA)
Global Warming: The Signs and the Science-60 minutes (PBS)
World in the Balance: The Population Paradox-120 minutes (NOVA)
An Inconvenient Truth: A Global Warning-96 minutes (Paramount)
Black Gold: The Story of Oil-50 minutes (History Channel)
Future of Food-88 minutes (Arts Alliance America)

Sociology Journal Online

Founded January 28th, 2010, the Socjournal is a new media journal of sociology and society intended to offer sociologists a window into the world of new media communications. Recognizing that traditional scholarly publication in traditional scholarly journals is limited, slow, and isolated (i.e. sociological research remains hidden behind an academic wall that is impenetrable to most people), the Socjournal aims to bring sociology to the world by providing blog space, regular columns, and academic reports designed to popularize and disseminate the fascinating world of sociological research.

I particularly like "What is Sociology?" Please read it!

Students: Credo Partners with EasyBib

Exporting citations to EasyBib is now available from Credo!

The Credo Reference Database has partnered with EasyBib.com to simplify the research process. You can research a topic using Credo Reference, and with just one click, you can export to EasyBib to keep track of bibliographic data. EasyBib exporting on Credo is available from:

Entry pages: an icon appears at the top (shown below) and EasyBib is listed in the citation drop-down menu at the bottom of each entry
Saved results: EasyBib has been added as an exporting option

EasyBib provides citation formatting tools to over 16 million users yearly and is geared towards students of all levels. With over 55 different source types, EasyBib is designed to be simple yet comprehensive, making it the most popular bibliography tool amongst students.

Credo Reference can be acessed from the database list on the library page.

New DVDs Just Arrived

Who Killed the Electric Car? (93 minutes)
Fast Food Nation (114 minutes)
Bad Seed: The Truth About Our Food (112 minutes)
Genetically Modified Food: Panacea or Poison? (70 minutes)
Developmentally Appropriate Practice: A Focus on Play (85 minutes) 2 copies
Drinking Water Consumer Information (no time listed)

Feature Film
Day After Tomorrow (121 minutes)

CDs
Storms of My Grandchildren: The Truth About the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity (12

New Beginning

The philosopher Seneca said that every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end. On 5 May, Nature Reports Climate Change will close. The site will no longer be updated, but the archived content will still be freely available online. In April 2011, Nature journal will launch Nature Climate Change, a full-fledged journal, whose mission will be to publish original research on climate change and its impacts, as well as to place such change in a wider social and political context. As an interdisciplinary publication, Nature Climate Change will be the first Nature-branded title to publish research from social scientists.
Source: Condensed from an editorial by Oliver Heffernan in the May 5 issue of Nature.