Ethanol Cost and Environmental Factors

The use of ethanol in gasoline has increased substantially over the past decade. Most ethanol in the United States currently is produced from domestically grown corn, and the rapid rise in the fuel’s production and usage means that roughly one-quarter of all corn grown in the United States is now used to produce ethanol. Since 2006, food prices have also risen more quickly than in earlier years, affecting Federal spending for nutrition programs (such as school lunches) and the household budgets of individual consumers.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that the increased use of ethanol accounted for about 10 percent to 15 percent of the rise in food prices between April 2007 and April 2008. In turn, that increase will boost Federal spending for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly the Food Stamp program) and child nutrition programs by an estimated $600 million to $900 million in Fiscal Year (FY) 2009. In 2010, the use of ethanol reduced gasoline consumption in the United States by about 4 percent and greenhouse-gas emissions from the transportation sector by less than 1 percent.

Read the article in the Congressional Digest Debates Online, a Pro & Con Service.

Source: Ethanol Cost and Environmental Factors
Congressional Budget Office Analysis
Congressional Digest

Modernist Journals Project: 2nd Web Site of the Week

The Modernist Journals Project is a major resource for the study of modernism in the English-speaking world, with periodical literature as its central concern. This is a joint project of Brown University and the University of Tulsa. Their primary mission is to produce "digital editions of culturally significant magazines from around the early 20th century and make them freely available to the public on our website."

"The historical scope of the project has a chronological range of 1890 to 1922 (though the earliest journals that currently appear on the site date from 1896 and 1904), and a geographical range that extends to wherever English language periodicals were published. With magazines at its core, the MJP also offers a range of genres that extends to the digital publication of books directly connected to modernist periodicals and other supporting materials for periodical study.

They end at 1922 for both intellectual and practical reasons: the practical reason is that copyright becomes an issue with publications from 1923 onward; the intellectual reason is that most scholars consider modernism to be fully fledged in 1922, a date marked by the publication of James Joyce's Ulysses, Virginia Woolf’s Jacob’s Room, and T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land." This looks like a great place to do some original and interesting research.

Source: All of the information and the image came from the MJP page.

Opinion: A New Global Health Agenda

Last month (September 19-20), the General Assembly of the United Nations held a historic High-Level Meeting to discuss noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), an often overlooked burden on the world’s populations and economies. Only the second of its kind for a public health issue, the meeting was an unparalleled opportunity to put NCDs—including cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, stroke, and chronic respiratory disease—on the global health agenda. The successful meeting drew an impressive 34 heads of state, and member states unanimously adopted a political declaration that included important language to accelerate effective programs and resources to address NCDs. Read the article HERE.

Source: The Scientist October 4, 2011
Image: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS JOSEPH SCOZZAI

Free Trial Access to ARBonline

ABC-CLIO is offering free trial access to ARBAonline through December 30, 2011. ARBAonline, American Reference Books Annual, is the most comprehensive, authoritative database for quality reviews of print and electronic reference works. Recent updates include 100 reviews of new releases in the world of reference. ARBAonline currently features over 22,000 reviews of reference works published since 1997 and covers reference sources from more than 400 publishers in over 500 subject areas. User name and password are available at the library.

ProCon.org: Web Site of the Week

procon.org is a nonprofit public charity that has no government affiliations of any kind. They promote critical thinking, education, and informed citizenship by presenting controversial issues in a straightforward, nonpartisan, primarily pro-con format. They choose issues that are controversial and important, and present them in a balanced, comprehensive, straightforward, and primarily pro-con format at no charge on our websites.

Last week, ProCon was selected as "Website of the Week” by Booklist, a 100-year old monthly publication of the American Library Association (ALA). A division of the ALA voted ProCon.org as one the Top 25 Free Reference Websites of 2011.

Can it be only 13 years?

The search engine marks entering its teens by turning its home page into a birthday party scene. Surrounded by multi-coloured balloons and streamers, its logo is adorned with party hats and sits behind a table heaped with wrapped presents and a large white birthday cake with 13 candles.

Although Google's founders, Stanford University graduate students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, built their first search engine in 1996, it was not until 1998 that they formalised their work and created Google.

The search engine officially celebrates its birthday today, September 27. The pair came up with the name as a play on the word “googol”, the mathematical term for a 1 followed by 100 zeros.

Happy Birthday, Google.

Living in Connecticut

It is true that one of the best times to be living in Connecticut is in the fall. The October issue of Connecticut magazine offers lists of things to do: hikes and drives, cozy bars, comfort foods, and healthy living. Soon the view from the library will be worth a visit.

Science Times Every Tuesday

Small Fixes
"Sometime this year--if it hasn't already happened--the world population will reach seven billion. Many of those people lack the sophisticated medical care taken for granted in the industrial world, and they are still getting sick and dying from diseases that have been all but eradicated in countries like the United States. One way to address the problem is to make drugs and vaccines availble to everyone, but in many countries that remains an expensive dream. So what to do? This special issue is devoted to low-cost innovations that are making a big difference."

The Science section of the New York Times is published every Tuesday. Read about turning a square as big as a thumbnail into a miniature diagnostic clinic. In Mozambique patients share the burdens of living with AIDS. Other articles talk about sweet poison to lure mosquitoes, drug packages for newborns, self-adjustable eyeglasses for $19, vanquishing smallpox again, a straw that filters out pathogens, volunteer networks transforming health care, and more.

Source: New York Times September 27

Most Challenged Book of 2010

Topping the 2010 list is And Tango Makes Three, a children's book by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell about a same-sex penguin couple and its adopted baby. It was challenged for "homosexuality, religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group".

Banned Book Week

Banned Books Week (BBW) is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment. This event is observed this year from September 24through October 1.

What's 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. Due to the commitment of librarians, teachers, parents, students and other concerned citizens, most challenges are unsuccessful and most materials are retained in the school curriculum or library collection.

Please take a few minutes to look at the display by the elevators showing some books that have been banned or challenged.Banned Books Week is sponsored by the American Booksellers Association; American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression; the American Library Association; American Society of Journalists and Authors; Association of American Publishers; and the National Association of College Stores. It is endorsed by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress. In 2011, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund; National Coalition Against Censorship; National Council of Teachers of English; and PEN American Center also signed on as sponsors.

Remedial Education: Obstacle or Second Chance

The September issue of Youth Today has a long article on remedial education, "Remedial Education: Obstacle or Second Chance" by Andrew Atwal.
First paragraph

"Some call itthe Bermuda Triangle of highereducation. Some see it as a needless expense--double payment for students to attain skills they should have learned in high school. Others praise the programs for opening postsecondary education to students who have been underserved by their local schools."

This is an interesting article for those of us involved in remedial education English and math.

YouthToday is in the library now.

Become Code-Literate

It might be the case that everyone doesn’t have to learn how to program, but it’s true that people should at least be familiar with the rudiments of programming, or at least scripting. Even if you’re never going to program something from scratch, it’s helpful to understand a little bit about the basic structures underpinning so much of our lives and appreciate the people who do this for us.

For people without any experience in programming, but with some curiosity and a few minutes to spare, Codecademy is a clever website that provides a free, interactive overview of basic programming concepts. You, too, can learn to say “Hello, world,” teach a website your name, learn about if-then statements, variables, and a few other fundamental ideas.

Codecademy is simple, free, and more fun than frustrating. Folks who are interested in becoming more conversant with programming concepts, but don’t (yet) have the time to actually learn a language, will probably find it helpful.

Source: The Chronicle of Higher Education September 20

16,000 more books in Ebrary Academic Complete

New in Academic Complete
We have recently added over 16,000 multidisciplinary e-books from Ashgate Publishing Group, Brill Academic Publishers, Harvard University Press, Johns Hopkins University Press, Oxford University Press, University of Chicago Press, University of Michigan Press, and other leading publishers.

Preview all newly added e-books, or browse featured Doody's and CHOICE Outstanding Academic Titles of 2010. To open a document, click on the jacket.

THIS DATABASE NOW HAS 69,491 BOOKS FOR THE GOODWIN COMMUNITY.

CONSTITUTION DAY SEPTEMBER 16, 2011

The events of 9/11 have taken center stage over the past week as Americans remember that day 10 years ago. This week we need to remember a day that is arguably more important today than at anytime in our nation's history. Americans should not only celebrate this event but commit to learning about our country's founding principles. America celebrates Constitution Day on Friday, a day to reflect on what this document has done for our way of life and how to preserve it for our future.

On Sept. 17, 1787, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention met for the last time to sign the document they had created. The most important document in American history is the blueprint by which our government operates. Yet, many Americans have never read this short document, and most have an erroneous view of what it says.

22 percent of Americans can name all five family members of the Simpsons, but only one in 1,000 could name all five freedoms guaranteed in the First Amendment. Can you name those freedoms?

CONSTITUTION WEEK ACTIVITY

Goodwin College Celebrates the birthday of the United States of America government during Constitution Week beginning today, September 16.

On Monday, Sept. 19 at 2:30 p.m. in the Community Room, join us as Dr. Harold Schramm examines the landmark case, Snyder v. Phelps, and the extent of free speech in the United States. Light refreshments will be served.

In March, the Supreme Court ruled in Snyder v. Phelps that the Westboro Baptist Church had the right to protest military funerals, despite strong emotional reactions to the group, its mission, and its role in promoting intolerance.

The Library Advocacy Committee is sponsoring a discussion on the Constitution by faculty members on Friday, September 23, in the auditorium. Time will be announced next week.

Please look at the display on the Constitution by the elevators and the book exhibit in the library. In the library, volunteer to take a short quiz on the Constitution and enter a drawing for a MYSTERY prize.

Value of a College Education Questioned

Wired Campus of the Chronicle of Higher Education has an entry today on the Youtube video. I am quoting from that entry here. This is not the entire entry.

"Have you heard that higher education is a scam? That accusation is racing around YouTube these days, in a video that has been viewed more than two million times.

The hourlong video, College Conspiracy, was produced by a group called the National Inflation Association.

Most college officials would undoubtedly dispute those charges, and question some of the facts rattled off in the video. But the video’s popularity highlights a growing frustration among members of the public with the soaring costs of education at a time of rising unemployment.

The producers of College Conspiracy did not return calls and e-mail messages requesting comment. One professor who appears in the film, Karl Klein, an associate professor of computer studies at Onondaga Community College, said he was not aware of how the interview would be used when he talked to a member of the National Inflation Association.

I would have called it something like, ‘Is There a College Bubble?’” he said. “But I think there are some things in that video that we need to think about and talk about, and I’m not sure there is a real good conversation taking place in higher education about cost.”

Source: "Questions About Higher Education's Value go Viral on Youtube" by Jeff Young
Wired Campus, Chronicle of Higher Education
September 15, 2011

New Book Explores Academia, Digital Media and Technology

Hacking the Academy, about academe in the digital age, was compiled from blog posts and Twitter messages posted during a single week last year. The book is now out and freely available online, courtesy of the publishing division of the University of Michigan Library. It has sections on ‘Hacking Scholarship,” “Hacking Teaching,” and “Hacking Institutions.”
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education

Twitter Update

Five years ago, Twitter came to life when @jack sent the first Tweet to his seven followers. Now, 100 million active users around the globe turn to Twitter to share their thoughts and find out what’s happening in the world right now.

More than half of them log in to Twitter each day to follow their interests. For many, getting the most out of Twitter isn’t only about tweeting: 40 percent of our active users simply sign in to listen to what’s happening in their world

Copyright Basics Video

The Copyright Clearance Center has produced a new introductory video, Copyright Basics, available at this link.
Enjoy this fun and informative video about the ins and outs of U.S. copyright law.

Constitution Week Activity

Join Us for An Exploration on the Extent of Free Speech Monday, Sept. 19 In March, the Supreme Court ruled in Snyder v. Phelps that the Westboro Baptist Church had the right to protest military funerals, despite strong emotional reactions to the group, its mission, and its role in promoting intolerance. On Monday, Sept. 19 at 2:30 p.m. in the Community Room, join us as Dr. Harold Schramm examines the landmark case and the extent of free speech in the United States. Light refreshments will be served.

Text Books in the Library

The library does not keep text books for current classes. We know some of you are waiting for books to arrive in the book store. Faculty members may put texts on reserve for you until your books arrive. We now have texts for A & P I and II on reserve in the library. These may be used in the library and, with some restrictions, copies can be made of a section on which you may be tested before your books arrive. Please talk the the librarian when you come in.

CINAHL PLUS WITH FULL TEXT

THE LIBRARY NOW SUBSCRIBES TO THIS DATABASE. IT WILL BE AVAILABLE FROMT THE LIBRARY PAGE LIST OF DATABASES TONIGHT! Read about this amazing EBSCOHOST database below.

CINAHL Plus with Full Text is the enhanced online version of Cumulative Index to Nursing & Allied Health Literature (CINAHL). It is designed to meet the information needs of nurses and allied health professionals.It indexes virtually all English-language nursing journals, publications from the American Nurses' Association and the National League for Nursing, and primary journals from allied health fields. The allied health fields covered include: Athletic Training, Audiology, Cardiopulmonary Technology, Dental Hygiene, Emergency Services, Health Information Management, Medical Assisting, Medical/Laboratory Technology, Nutrition and Dietetics, Occupational Therapy, Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation, Physician's Assistants, Radiologic Technology, Respiratory Therapy, Social Service in Health Care, Speech-Language Pathology, and Surgical Technology. CINAHL Plus with Full Text also includes pertinent articles from the biomedical, education, behavioral science, management, and popular literature.

Materials indexed include journal articles, selected pamphlets, selected books, dissertations, selected conference proceedings, standards of practice for nursing specialties, audiovisuals, educational software, and selected poems and cartoons. Foreign language nursing & allied health journal articles are included when English abstracts are provided. Over 4,500 journals are indexed as of July 2010 -- indexing can cover as far back as 1937. A list of journals with dates of coverage is linked from EBSCO Publishing. Searchable cited references have been included since 1994 for over 1,300 journals.

CINAHL Plus with Full Text provides full text of over 770 journals and 275 books/monographs, plus legal cases, clinical innovations, critical paths, drug records, research instruments and clinical trials. There are also Evidence-Based Care Sheets and Quick Lessons available in full text from the search screen - simply click on the links at the top of the search screen to access these items. Other items indexed in CINAHL Plus with Full Text may be available in full text through the library either electronically or in print form.

Ebrary Cyberbullying Sources

Welcome to ebrary’s Searchable Information Center on Cyberbullying!
According to the National Crime Prevention Council, 43% of teens have been the victims of cyberbullying in the past year.

To help educators and students better understand, prevent, and take action against this growing concern, ebrary is subsidizing a collection of e-books on cyberbullying. Additionally, ebrary employees have uploaded a number of government documents from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, U.S. Department of Justice, and other organizations. Access here.

Hurricane Survival Kit

It is rare to see a hurricane forecast cone pointed toward the Northeast. Be prepared with this information from the Weather Channel. During a hurricane, and possibly for days or even weeks afterward, electricity and other utilities might not be available. Debris and/or water might block the roads, preventing vehicles from getting in our out of your neighborhood. Help might not reach you for days after the hurricane, so you’ll need to be completely self-sufficient during that period.

Here are some of the most critical supplies to have on hand, well before a hurricane threatens:
At least a 3-day and preferably a 7-day supply of water (1gallon/person/day)
Non-perishable food
Formula, diapers, and other baby supplies
Manual can opener
First aid kit
Prescription and non-prescription medicines
Toiletries
Cell phones and battery-powered cell phone chargers
Battery-powered radios and flashlights
Plenty of batteries
Extra cash
Blankets, sleeping bags, books, and games (especially if evacuating)

Smart Phones: Portal to the Library

Last week, an instructor came to our library to be oriented. She wanted to know what was available online and pulled out her iPhone. She wanted me to show her the applications she needed not only to access clinical and drug information, but also to access our other library resources, including online journals and information databases. It was clear she had no plans to come to the library ever again nor to sit at her computer in her office looking for information. This jolted me once more into recognition of how our librarianship field is changing. This instrucor is not alone. More than 70% of education professionals are now using smart phones, and the number is increasing. We can expect many, if not most, will want to use their smart phones as their standard portal to the library.

Focus on East Hartford PublicLibrary

The first in our series of featuring local libraries is a tribute to East Hartford Public Library. Within days, you will see that tribute in the display case in front of the elevators.

New Titles in Virtual Reference Database

As the final step in iCONN's special agreement with Cengage Gale for e-reference books, we now have the following titles added to iCONN's Gale Virtual Reference Library (GVRL) collection:

American History Through Literature 1870-1920
American Revolution Reference Library
American Social Reform Movements Reference Library
American Women Writers: A Critical Reference Guide from Colonial Times to the Present
Biographical Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa
Black Literature Criticism, Classic and Emerging Authors since 1950
Dictionary of Literary Biography, Nobel Prize Laureates in Literature
Dictionary of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Elizabethan World Reference Library
Encyclopaedia Judaica
Encyclopedia of American Industries
Encyclopedia of Bioethics
Encyclopedia of Buddhism
Encyclopedia of Emerging Industries
Encyclopedia of Food and Culture
Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity
Encyclopedia of India
Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World
Encyclopedia of Race and Racism
Encyclopedia of Sex and Gender
Endangered Species
Everyday Finance, Economics, Personal Money Management, and Entrepreneurship
Gale Encyclopedia of Diets, A Guide to Health and Nutrition
Gale Encyclopedia of Mental Health
Gale Encyclopedia of Science
Gale Library of Daily Life, American Civil War
Gale Library of Daily Life, Slavery and America
Gothic Literature: A Gale Critical Companion
Government, Politics, and Protest: Essential Primary Sources
Human and Civil Rights: Essential Primary Sources
International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences
New Encyclopedia of Africa
Presidents: A Reference History
Psychology of Classroom Learning, An Encyclopedia
Shakespeare for Students, Critical Interpretations of Shakespeare's Plays and Poetry
Social Policy: Essential Primary Sources
U*X*L Encyclopedia of Weather and Natural Disasters
World Eras

It just keeps getting better and better!

Hunger: New DVD

British filmmaker and artist Steve McQueeen has turned one of history's most controversial acts of political defiance into a jarring, unforgettable cinematic experience about the Irish Republican Army member Bobby Sands played by Michael Fassbender.

DVD Edition now available in the library
2008
96 Minutes
Color
Surround
2.35:1 Aspect Ratio

New From Google

This week Google launched two new services: Photovine and Magnifier.
The service, which debuted as an invitation-only application last month, lets users snap photos and share them with friends much the way they'd blurt out tweets on Twitter. With Photovine, though, photographers group pictures thematically, with one person taking a snap of, say, their desk and sharing it under the theme of "cluttered desks."

Magnifier will add features like videos of live performances, interviews with artists, explorations of different musical genres and free songs users can add to their Music Beta collection, Google said in a blog post.

As part of the new Magnifier launch, Google is giving away two tracks to Music Beta users, one of which is an exclusive to Magnifier: a live performance of "The Day is Coming."

U.S. Code Available in Online format.

The U.S. Code, a consolidation and codification by subject matter of the general and permanent laws of the United States, is now available in a searchable online format.

Book of the Week: Raging Grannies

Women’s courage is ancient. Women fought against slavery and offered shelter to hunted runaways, demanded economic justice for the starving or working poor, raised their voices when rights were trampled, raised their fists when their children were murdered. Women’s collective acts of resistance have played, and continue to play, a vital but often unacknowledged role in humanizing social, political and economic policies.

This is the tale of the Raging Grannies by Carole Roy. Their beginning and growth, the invention of their identity, the educational and daring potential of their activism, the values expressed in their actions and songs, and their impact on issues, stereotypes, media and people.

The Grannies’ distinctive approach is surprisingly effective: many groups of Raging Grannies exist across Canada, in the United States, and as far away as the U.K., Australia and Greece (Greek Grannies call themselves Furies). Their popularity reveals the desire of older women to claim their space on the political scene.

70,000 Students for Free Online Course

"Stanford University has opened up to the public an introductory artificial intelligence class, taught by two luminaries in the field. Anyone with high-speed Internet, anywhere in the world, can enroll in the online course.

Just don’t expect a lot of face time with the professors. As of Tuesday afternoon, more than 70,000 people had signed up to receive registration information for the AI course, which runs from October until December. Participants will be allowed to register in late summer, according to the course Web site."

Source: Scientific American Observations Blog, August 16--written by John Matson who is an online news reporter for Scientific American focusing on space, physics and mathematics. August 16, 2011

Future of Libraries: CQ Researcher

"As economic pressures wrought by the recession continue to squeeze millions of Americans, they are turning increasingly to the nation's libraries for help. Many are taking advantage of computer workstations to hunt for jobs and polish their résumés. Those who can no longer afford to buy DVDs or books are now borrowing them from the library. Yet state and local governments are slashing library budgets, and many public library systems have been forced to reduce hours and staff and close branches. Academic and school libraries also are struggling with budget cuts. Meanwhile, the role of reference librarians is evolving to meet emerging demands spurred by digital publishing. The myriad challenges facing libraries raise questions about their future: Should the physical library shrink as books, journals and other materials increasingly become available in digital form? What role will libraries play if e-books come to dominate the reading experience? And should public libraries be privatized in an effort to save money?"
Source: Introduction to the CQ Researcher Report on the future of libraries. Read it online, courtesy of the Goodwin Library. (password protected)
Image: Visitors to an online reading room at the New York Public Library can bring their own laptop or borrow one for free. (Getty Images/Spencer Platt)

Free Music Download

Every two weeks, Alexander Street and Smithsonian Folkways Recordings offer a free music download from the popular online collection.

This week it is "Cowboy Jim" from the album Pioneering Women of Bluegrass by Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard. When they were recording in the mid 1960s, bluegrass music was dominated by male performers. Their widely admired performance made them role models for future generations of women in bluegrass.

Find information for the free download HERE.

Proquest Central Library Search Steps

•At the flashing cursor type your search word or phrase; click on Scholarly journals, including peer-reviewed to search only scholarly, including peer-reviewed journals; and then click on Search.
Ex. elder abuse

•At the Results list click on the (blue) article title to view the full record with abstract.

•Mark records desired by clicking on the box to the left of each citation within the Results list.

•Click on the My Research tab to review selected records, print out a bibliography or email articles.

•Print out available articles by clicking on Page Image-PDF (first choice); or Full text (second choice); or Article Linker (third choice).

International Year of Forests

Forests are home to 80% of our terrestrial biodiversity. Forests cover 31% of total land area. Forests are home to 300 million people round the world. The livelihood of 1.6 billion people depend on forests.Trade in forest products was estimated at $327 billion in 2004.

Did you know that this is the International Year of Forests? The United Nations General Assembly declared 2011 as the International Year of Forests to raise awareness on sustainable management, conservation and sustainable development of all types of forests.

On their website, you will find information regarding events being organised throughout the International Year as well as interactive web tools and resources to promote dialogue on forests.

Reviving Manufacturing-CQ Researcher Report

"The United States is losing its place as the global leader in high-tech innovation and manufacturing, say many business and Obama administration officials. They point to a steady decline in manufacturing's share of the U.S. economy — and the corresponding erosion of a key source of well-paying jobs.

Most worrisome, they say, is the outsourcing of key high-tech products, including certain semiconductors, screens for some electronic reading devices and batteries for portable electronics. Defenders of globalized manufacturing argue that U.S.-based inventors and engineers devised most of those outsourced products and that high-end manufacturing will survive in the United States even if more factories are built abroad. Yet, both advocates and critics of globalization agree that young Americans aren't getting the training needed to keep the United States competitive in the high-tech arena."
Source: CQ Researcher July 22 issue Available online through the library

Image: A worker assembles a recreational vehicle at the Middlebury, Ind., Jayco plant, where layoffs in 2009 cut the workforce by about one-third. More than 5 million U.S. manufacturing jobs have been lost since 2001. (Cover: Getty Images/Scott Olson)

Botnet Steals Passwords from Facebook Photos

Think twice before uploading your holiday pictures to Facebook-you could be helping someone steal information from your computer. A botnet called Stegobot was created to show how easy it would be for a crook to hijak Facebook photos to create a secret communication channel that is very difficult to detect. Read the article on page 18 in the July 23 issue of New Scientist available in the library. Very scary!

Book of the Week: Give Some Take More

Sherell Simonet, a graduate of Goodwin College, published her first novel in April, Give Some Take More: Is Blood Thicker than Water.
Sherell, a native of Hartford, received an associate degree in Medical Assisting here. She now lives in Baton Rouge where she is completing a Master's Degree in counseling education at Southeastern Louisiana while working on her next novel.

The book is highly recommended by members of the Goodwin community. It is currently available in the Goodwin Library.

New Books in ebrary Academic Complete

This database has recently added over 16,000 multidisciplinary e-books from Ashgate Publishing Group, Brill Academic Publishers, Harvard University Press, Johns Hopkins University Press, Oxford University Press, University of Chicago Press, University of Michigan Press, and other leading publishers.Y our library has access to Academic Complete, a growing e-book collection spanning all academic subject areas.

The list of new additions includes:
Accidental Archaea: Molecular and Cellular Biology, by Ricardo Cavicchioli
Fruit, the Tree, and the Serpent: Why We See So Well, by Lynne A. Isbell
Odes of Horace,by Quintus Horatius Flaccus Horace
Oxford Bible Atlas, by Adrian Curtis
Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States, by Trita Parsi

Required Reading: Zeitoun

Zeitoun by David Eggers is required reading for incoming freshmen at Northeastern University in Boston and Tulane University in New Orleans. It is available in the Goodwin Library.

Eggers returns to his journalistic roots with this nonfiction account of one family's surreal experiences in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Eggers spent three years researching these events and working closely with the Zeitoun family to understand what happened, and the disturbing details of story he uncovered illustrate the atmosphere of fear which pervaded the Big Easy in the wake of the disaster. He uses Zeitoun's experience to brilliantly illuminate how the most pertinent issues of our time--xenophobia, terrorism, the flawed justice system, and FEMA's abysmal response to Katrina--are mere branches protruding from a trunk of distrust between the American government and the citizens of the world. Selected by the New York Times Book Review as a Notable Book of 2009.

CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics

The 92nd edition of the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics: A Ready Reference Book of Chemical and Physical Data is now available in the reference section of the library. Faculty members may take it to classes. This edition, published in June this year, includes new tables, major updates, and a reorganization of several sections.

There is no search engine to help you navigate through the pages, but the index should be sufficient. "As ever in science, the serendipity of a detour by accident into a new territory", accordingto Sir William Wakeham's foreward, "is itself often fruitful when one can have confidence in what you find."

This is not a handbook to be read from cover to cover, but is to be dipped into from time to time as a source of secure information.

Library of Congress Call number
REF QD64.H3 2011

Booker Prize Long List Announced!

The long list for the 2011 Man Booker Prize for Fiction - the 'Man Booker Dozen' - is announced today, Tuesday 26 July. The 13 books on the list include: one former Man Booker Prize winner; two previously shortlisted writers and one longlisted author; four first time novelists and three Canadian writers. The list also includes three new publishers to the prize - Oneworld, Sandstone Press and Seren Books.

Julian Barnes - The Sense of an Ending (Jonathan Cape - Random House)
Sebastian Barry - On Canaan's Side (Faber)
Carol Birch - Jamrach's Menagerie (Canongate Books)
Patrick deWitt - The Sisters Brothers (Granta)
Esi Edugyan - Half Blood Blues (Serpent's Tail - Profile)
Yvvette Edwards - A Cupboard Full of Coats (Oneworld)
Alan Hollinghurst - The Stranger's Child (Picador - Pan Macmillan)
Stephen Kelman - Pigeon English (Bloomsbury)
Patrick McGuinness - The Last Hundred Days (Seren Books)
A.D. Miller - Snowdrops (Atlantic)
Alison Pick - Far to Go (Headline Review)
Jane Rogers - The Testament of Jessie Lamb (Sandstone Press)
D.J. Taylor - Derby Day (Chatto & Windus - Random House)

The prize aims to reward the best novel of the year written by a citizen of the Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland. Howard Jacobson won last year with "The Finkler Question." Hilary Mantel won with "Wolf Hall" in 2009. The prize is one of the world's most important literary award and has the power to transform the fortunes of authors and even publishers.

The short list will be announced some time in early September. The prize is awarded in October.

Bottlemania: Required Reading

College Confidential is currently featuring required reading for incoming freshmen at colleges and universities across the country. In the next few days and weeks, we will be featuring more great reads from that list.

Incoming freshmen at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland are reading "Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought it" by Elizabeth Royte--available in the Goodwin Library.

Even as tap water rises to its highest levels of purity and cleanliness, the bottled-water industry has inexplicably grown into a $60 billion dollar industry. Royte pulls back the curtain on the marketing monster (masterminded by Pepsi, Coke, and Nestle) that has not only created an absolutely unnecessary product, but has generated massive amounts of waste via mountains of plastic water bottles and fleets of water bottle trucks.

iPad App for Biology

Howard Hughes Medical Institute BioInteractive launched their first iPad app – the Virtual Bacterial ID Lab http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/the-virtual-bacterial-id-lab/id443867462?mt=8 – last week, and one for the iPhone and iPad – the all-in-one Click and Learn App just today http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/click-and-learn/id443814512?mt=8!

These are both free (of course), and they would love to hear your feedback on them. More are on the way!

Jennifer Bricken
Department of Science Education
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
www.BioInteractive.org

Latest News on State Library Budget Cuts

iCONN must postpone the restoration of CINAHL Full Text and ProQuest Newsstand.The state library received a summary of the Governor’s proposed budget adjustments for the Library that represents a 23% cut from their budget that was previously approved for the next biennium. Since the Governor now has authority, it is believed that the agencies will be asked to implement the reductions. Obviously, in addition to personnel cuts, there would have to be significant cuts to library programs in order to reach the $2,670,034 reduction.

Our library has already begun negotiations to purchase CINAHL Full Text, if possible.

Filmakers Library Online Now Available

For more than 40 years, Filmakers Library has worked to offer high-quality, issue-based documentaries and independent films from around the world. Now more than 1,000 of these titles are available online in a single, easy to search, multidisciplinary collection of streaming video designed specifically to meet the needs of researchers and teaching faculty. If we wished to purchase each film individually, the collection would cost more than $250,000 to build. The library has purchased this database through Alexander Press as part of our membership in Westchesters Academic Library Directors Organization (WALDO).

Here is the access URL. Enjoy!
http://flon.alexanderstreet.com/

New Audio-Visual Resources

All from the CT Department of Environmental Protection

Expedited Site Assessment: the CD-Multimedia technicl guidance on investigating fuel releases at underground storage tank sites.
Better Birdwatching in the East: DVD Field Guide-Three hours of video and audio for 270 birds commonly found in the Eastern U.S.
An Introduction to the Threatened Turtles of Massachusetts: Why They Need Our Help-How they have survived for 200 million years and why they need our help today.
Topo USA: Terrain, Trail, and Street Maps for GPS and PCs East Region-Plan trips for maximumenjoyment and navigate with complete confidence.

Don't Do What You Love

It's common wisdom to do what you love. Management experts usually promise that happiness and fulfillment will follow. But that's not always the case. Here are three reasons you may want to avoid pursuing your passion:
It's not your strength. You may love to do something you are just not good at. Because it can be hard to self-assess, ask for frank feedback from those around you to know where your strengths are.
You're too emotionally attached. Passion may cloud your judgment. When you care deeply about something, it can be hard to be take criticism or let others get involved.
It's a hobby, not a job. Sadly, you can't be paid for everything. What you love may not be lucrative. Instead find something you like that pays.
Source: Harvard Business Review Tip of the Day, July 1

State Budget and Goodwin Library

STATE BUDGET AND OUR LIBRARY

Kenneth Wiggin, State Librarian, received a summary of the Governor's proposed budget adjustments. The Governor will seek to gain legislative authority during the upcoming Special Session to implement these adjustments. If he receives that authority, Wiggin believes the expectation is that the agencies will be asked to implement the reductions. There is, at this point, no proposed line by line budget reduction for the State Library (or any agency). But the proposed adjustments for the State Library represent a 23% cut from the budget that was approved for the next biennium. Obviously, in addition to personnel cuts, there would have to be significant cuts to library programs in order to reach the $2,670,034 adjustment that is proposed. They have not been asked for specifics and he does not have them at this time.

FILMAKERS LIBRARY ONLINE

Great News! Soon you can search, find, click, and watch videos on your computer screen, iPad, or smart phone. The Goodwin Library is subscribing to Filmakers Library Online. In partnership with electronic publisher Alexander Street Press, this new online collection gathers together for the first time all of the superb documentary films in the Filmakers catalog on a single cross-searchable streaming platform. Encompassing more than 1,000 films at launch and with new titles being added all the time, this multidisciplinary collection will include documentaries that present points of view and historical and current experiences from diverse cultures and traditions worldwide.
Source: Information and illustration from Filmakers Library Online website.

EBRARY SURPASSES 70,000 TITLES

Just when you thought our ebrary's Academic Complete™ database couldn't get any bigger, they have added over 16,000 e-books! Our subscription database now offers unlimited, multi-user access to over 70,000 titles. The newly added selection spans all academic subject areas from Amsterdam University Press, Brill Academic Publishers, MIT Press, National Academies Press, Oxford University Press, University of Minnesota Press, World Scientific, and other leading publishers.

Academic Complete gives you,our library users, access to new content at no additional cost, along with powerful research technology.

Featured Reference Title of the Month

Meet the Philosophers of Ancient Greece (Ashgate Publishing)

Ancient Greece was the cradle of philosophy in the Western tradition. Meet the Philosophers of Ancient Greece brings the thoughts and lives of the pioneers of Western philosophy down from their sometimes remote heights and introduces them to a modern audience. Comprising essays written by internationally distinguished scholars in a lively and accessible style, this book presents the values, ideas, wisdom and arguments of the most significant thinkers from the world of ancient Greece.

Commencing with Thales of Miletus and continuing to the end of the Ancient Period of philosophy by way of Heraclitus, Parmenides, Protagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Archimedes, Epictetus this book explores the major contributions of each philosopher as well as looking at archaeological and historical sites where they lived, worked and thought. This book is an outstanding introduction to the world of the philosophers of Ancient Greece.

This reference book is available in the Credo Reference Database.

Summer is here!

The summer solstice – the annual moment at which the sun is the highest it ever gets in the sky – occurs today at 1:16 p.m. ET. This time also marks the beginning of astronomical summer in the Northern Hemisphere.

Specifically, the summer solstice is the moment when the sun is directly above the Tropic of Cancer. This is the farthest north the sun ever moves in the sky, which is why the days near the solstice have the most daylight of any days of the year. Today, for instance, Washington, D.C., will have almost 15 hours of daylight and only about nine hours of darkness.

New In the First Person Database

Some of the exciting new documents on In the First Person database include:
A full text oral history interview with an anonymous British civilian female aid worker serving in Afghanistan. (Afghanistan Provincial Reconstruction Team, Interview #37, July 22, 2005).
A travel diary written by a man named Alvan Stewart. Included is mention of his new friendship with world-renown author James Fennimore Cooper while visiting Paris. (Alvan Stewart Papers, July 4, 1831).
Letters written by American Civil War veteran, Calvin Shedd, to his wife from the lonely, perilous battlefront and from remote cities, where he roamed looking for post-war work. (Calvin Shedd Papers, 1861-1869).
Audio excerpts voiced by Chicana feminists and activists from 20th century Los Angeles. (Women's History: Chicana Feminists).
There are also 788 new memoirs, oral histories and letters from the Veterans History Project at the Library of Congress.

In case you have forgotten, In the First Person is a free, high quality, professionally published, in-depth index of close to 4,000 collections of personal narratives in English from around the world. It lets you keyword search more than 700,000 pages of full-text by more than 18,000 individuals from all walks of life. It also contains pointers to some 4,300 audio and video files and 30,000 bibliographic records.

Emergency Preparedness Information

The Preservation Directorate of the Library of Congress (LC) redesigned and updated its Web site in acknowledgement of MayDay 2011. MayDay is an initiative promoted by Heritage Preservation to increase the emergency preparedness and response capabilities of cultural heritage organizations. LC’s new Web site features information about emergency preparedness, protecting family treasures, collections care, preservation science, and where to get help. It also highlights the activities of the Preservation Directorate, including conservation projects, outreach opportunities, and upcoming lectures and events.

CQ Global Researcher: Brazil on the rise

Centuries ago, Brazil was a remote Portuguese colony. Today the biggest nation in Latin America has evolved into a stable democracy, a regional power and an important U.S. and European Union partner. Economic growth has been steady, fueled by rising food exports, and the burgeoning oil and ethanol industries have helped the country become energy independent. Twenty-eight million Brazilians have been lifted out of poverty in the past decade. Globally, Brazil participates in numerous peacekeeping missions and is becoming an aid donor rather than recipient. The picture is not all rosy, however. Brazil needs major infrastructure upgrades before it hosts the 2014 FIFA World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics. The Amazon rain forest continues to disappear, drug gangs control many city slums and the country increasingly relies on cheap Chinese imports. Nevertheless, as Brazil's new President Dilma Rousseff — a former guerrilla fighter — begins to make her mark, Brazil is a booming regional power.
The full CQ report is available online (password protected).

New Reference: Berkshire Encyclopedia of China

NEW CREDO REFERENCE BOOK
BERKSHIRE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF CHINA

The Berkshire Encyclopedia of China is now available in the Credo Reference database accessible from the library home page. The encyclopedia features lavishly illustrated articles (over 1,100 unique photographs and maps) that appear in English and in Chinese with pinyin transliterations and tones (that will help those studying the language). 800 articles and over 1,100 photographs on Chinese history and culture are now live on Credo.

Berkshire's collection, 5,000 years in the making, is not just the history of
China! With information on blogging and Internet use, human rights, and overseas returnees (the "sea turtles"), Berkshire's Encyclopedia of China looks to the future with articles on renewable energy and other political and environmental challenges.With additional subject coverage ranging from arts and education to social welfare and technology, these volumes are specifically intended to help students and professionals improve their knowledge of all aspects of China.

Credo Reference is an online database of 535 full-text reference books.
http://www.goodwin.edu/library/libdatabases.htm

NURSING STUDENTS: AWONN Convention 2011

You have free access to the proceedings of the the Association of Women's Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses (AWONN)--134 pages of valuable research information. Nurses from throughout the United States and Canada and a good handful of other countries gathered in Denver this year with the goal of inspiring, leading and forging new directions in the care of women and newborns.

You can view a summary of the knowledge shared in the papers and posters presented at the meeting HERE.

Academic Leadership Journal Online

Academic Leadership Journal is an open access journal (publications available online for users to read, download, copy, distribute,and use with attribution). The journal, provides a professional learning community with innovative user tools to allow readers and editors to add ratings, comments, editor notes, and discussions to published articles. An International team of editors reviews the peer-reviewed articles from India, Greece, Canada, and the United States. Articles are multidisciplinary and broadly focused. This journal provides four issues each year and is available online free from 2002-current.

www.academicleadership.org/

Research Accounts in ProQuest

Now that iCONN has migrated its ProQuest resources to the new ProQuest platform, any of you who have created My Research accounts in ProQuest will want to migrate the contents to My Research in the new platform as soon as possible. For advice on how to accomplish this, point to:

http://search.proquest.com/help/Import_to_MR.html

For help with th1se operation, feel free to contact ProQuest Technical Support at:
tsupport@proquest.com
(800) 889-3358 x2513

Free for All: 4000 books from National Academies Press

WOW!Yesterday the National Academies Press announced it would offer its entire PDF catalog of books for free, as files that can be downloaded by anyone. The press is the publishing arm of the National Academies of Sciences and Engineering, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Research Council, and publishes books and reports that scientists, educators, and policy makers rely on.

The first new title taken was Surrounded by Science: Learning Science in Informal Environments, which sells in hardcover for $24.95. A more technical tome, but very popular among researchers, is Prudent Practices in the Laboratory: Handling and Management of Chemical Hazards, which costs $99.95 in hardcover.

Go to National Academies Press HERE.

Hit the Trails June 4 and 5

Connecticut Trails Day Celebration 2011

Dust off your favorite hiking shoes and grab your water bottle. Connecticut Trails Day 2011 is almost here! This year's celebration will be held Saturday and Sunday, June 4 and 5, as part of National Trails Day. The theme is "Made With All Natural Ingredients." Our natural ingredients should be easy to find with 193 Trails Day events scheduled in 115 towns on over 500 miles of trails across Connecticut.

For more information, go HERE.

Printing Slides in Outline Format

Directions for printing Powerpoint slides in outline format are available in the library. These directons were created by Amy Beauchemin of the computer literacy faculty. We will also post them on the library page this week.

Please pick up a copy at the circulation desk.

Library Open Computer Lab

The Goodwin College Library and computer Literacy Faculty bring you the Goodwin College Open Computer Lab for the summer semester. The lab is available Monday through Thursday in Room 142 from 8:30 to 10:30 and Thursday afternoon from 2:30 to 4:30. Help on Goodwin tools (such as Blackboard, Email, etc), Microsoft Office, and standard software tools. Please take advantage of this opportunity to work with faculty to solve any problems you may have.

Gale Virtual LIbrary Update

ebook titles in Gale Virtual Reference Library collection provide access to the most recent editions available. These are titles iCONN provide access to of our subscription contract with Gale Cengage Learning.

The Technical Solutions team will be automatically installing the titles below on or before May 13. The old editions of these titles will be automatically removed from our Collection on Friday, May 20 .
The Gale Encyclopedia of Alternative Medicine, 3rd edition (2009) ( ISBN 9781414448770)
The Gale Encyclopedia of Cancer, 3rd edition (2010) (ISBN 9781414476018)
The Gale Encyclopedia of Genetic Disorders, 3rd edition (2010) (ISBN 9781414476056)

Additionally, when the 4th edition of The Gale Encyclopedia of Medicine publishes in late June 2011, we’ll follow up then with install date for this new edition.




Please pass this information on. Thank you.



Marilyn

Choose Privacy Week May 1-7

We invite library users of all ages and backgrounds into a conversation about privacy rights in a digital age May 1–7, Choose Privacy Week, now in its second year. The national public-awareness campaign coordinated by the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom gives libraries the resources their users need to think critically and make informed choices about their privacy. Librarians have a long history of protecting the freedom to read, learn, and receive ideas anonymously. This makes libraries ideal places for people to think and talk about privacy.
http://www.privacyrevolution.org

Library Staff to Attend ALA Virtual Town Hall Meeting

The library staff will be part of the 1000 ALA members invited to ALA’s first Virtual Town Hall on Wednesday, June 1st from 3:00pm – 4:30pm CDT, online! We will be discussing reports on e-books and the Association’s response to this emerging issue, along with progress on ALA’s 2015 Strategic Plan and a report on advocacy initiatives. (ALA is the American Library Association.)

Free Trial of Filmakers Library Online

From the Library
Free Trial of Filmakers Library Online through June15

Great News! Now you can search, find, click, and watch videos on your computer screen, iPad, or smart phone. Filmakers Library is proud to announce the April 2011 launch of Filmakers Library Online. The result of partnership with award-winning electronic publisher Alexander Street Press, this new online collection gathers together for the first time all of the superb documentary films in the Filmakers catalog on a single cross-searchable streaming platform. Encompassing more than 1,000 films at launch and with new titles being added all the time, this multidisciplinary collection will include documentaries that present points of view and historical and current experiences from diverse cultures and traditions worldwide. For more information, go to their web site http://www.filmakers.com/.

You can access Filmakers Library Online through June 15, 2011, using the credentials below:
URL: http://flon.alexanderstreet.com
username: sneakpeek
password: film2011

Resources for Civil War Study

To commemorate the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War, iCONN has prepared a web page with links to rich resources for the study of our War Between the States. We are grateful to Cengage Gale for temporary access to Sabin Americana, and to Gail Hurley of iCONN for custom search links to relevant materials in reQuest and Connecticut History Online. The link to this page will be added to the iCONN landing pages and classic menus very soon. In the meantime, feel free to use the direct link, below:

http://www.cslib.org/iconnsitemap/staff/CivilWar.aspx

Government Shutdown and Higher Education

If the federal government shuts down on Saturday, some students will have to wait longer for their aid, federal oversight of colleges and lenders will lapse, and the Education Department's controversial "gainful employment" rule could be further delayed.

But a government shutdown probably would not have long-term consequences for students and colleges, according to lobbyists, student-aid administrators, and former government officials who lived through the last shutdown 15 years ago.

During that 21-day shutdown, which spanned late 1995 and early 1996, federal contractors and servicers weren't paid, and questions submitted the Education Department went unanswered. New regulations were postponed, and federal audits and program reviews were suspended.
Source: The Chronicle of Higher Education

Use it or Lose it Series

Use it or Lose it Series

We have many great magazines and journals in the library that are not getting the attention they deserve. So the blog will be mentioning some of the forlorn periodicals from time to time.

Fast Company April
Page 55 “Buy me some peanuts and …crepes? The foodie movement has invaded the most American of venues: the baseball stadium.
Page 100 The New Junk Food. Jeff Dunn plans to generate millions—and promote healthy eating—by marketing baby carrots like Doritos.

Journal of Nursing Scholarship First Quarter 2011
Page 13 Early Indicators and Risk Factors for Ethical Issues in Clinical Practice
Page 30 Culture Change Models and Resident Health Outcomes in Long-Term Care+

Yoga Journal May 10
Page 29 et al. The Blue Issue healing ideas to save our seas, streams, and life on earth.

The Chronicle of Higher Education March 25
Cover Lawmakers likely to undo expansion of Pell Grants

Acclaimed Documentary from Sundance to Goodwin Library

The feature documentary, "Connected: An Autoblogography about Love, Death and Technology", offers an exhilarating stream-of-consciousness ride through the interconnectedness of humankind, nature, progress,and morality. With insight, curiosity, and humor, the film weaves both a personal and global story about interdependence. For centuries we’ve been declaring independence. This film asks if perhaps it’s time to declare our interdependence instead. "Connected" won the Women in Film National Geographic all Roads film Grant at Sundance 2011.

Director Tiffany Shlain is an award-winning filmmaker, artist, Internet pioneer, and activist. Founder of the Webby Awards and cofounder of the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences, she was honored by Newsweek as one of the “Women Shaping the 21st Century.” Shlain’s films are known for their whimsical yet provocative approach to unraveling complicated subjects, like politics, cultural identity, technology, and science. A screening of the film opened the Association of College and Research libraries conference last week in Philadelphia. Shlain was one of the keynote speakers at the conference.

The DVD is available in the library as part of a kit designed to facilitate conversation, questions, insight, action and change.

Watch the trailer!

ACRL Conference

Greetings from Philadelphia!

The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) conference began here Wednesday. ACRL 2011, “A Declaration of Interdependence,” is the premier professional development event dedicated to meeting the interests of academic and research librarians.

Award-winning filmmaker, artist, internet pioneer and activist, Tiffany Shlain, kicked off as the opening keynote speaker on March 30. With over 3000 other academic librarians, I saw Shlain’s most recent film, “Connected: An Autoblogography about Love, Death & Technology,” described as a journey through the interconnectedness of humankind, nature, progress and morality at the dawn of the 21st century. Her new educational kit, which includes a DVD copy of “Connected,” curriculum and discussion guides—was released for the first time at the conference followed her keynote address. The library now owns a copy that will have interest for many programs and classes at Goodwin. It is awesome.

The exhibits opening reception followed the keynote. Over 200 companies are here showcasing the latest in library products and services.

More e-reference books

Thanks to iCONN's arrangement with Cengage Gale for the addition of e-reference book titles based on statewide sales of other e-reference titles, I am pleased to announce that iCONN has added the following e-reference titles to its collection at no additional charge:

American Civil War Reference Library
Colonial America Reference Library
Environmental Issues
Essential Primary Sources Family in Society
Essential Primary Sources Gender Issues and Sexuality
Essential Primary Sources Great Depression and the New Deal Reference Library Immigration and Multiculturalism
Essential Primary Sources Reconstruction Era Reference Library

All of the above appear in the list of e-reference books that you see after clicking on our E-Reference Books link.

Japan's Killer Quake

NOVA: Japan’s Killer Quake - Wednesday, 3/30 at 9pm
Don’t miss an eyewitness account of the human drama behind the quake, tsunami and nuclear crisis in Japan in this special NOVA.

Why You Should Watch:
Exclusive and chilling new footage and a scientific investigation that wonders: Will science and technology ever be able to stop the power of nature?

Source: NOVA

New Books in Today

1.Black Business Secrets: 500 Tips,Strategies, and Resources for the African American Entrepreneur by Dante Lee
2.The Choir Director, a novel by Carl Weber
3.Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters from Barack Obama
4.Savion Sequence by D.Jackson
5.True You: A Journey to Finding and Loving Yourself by Janet Jackson
6.Reality is Broken: How Games Make us Better and How They can Change the World by Jane McGonigal
7.Hidden Harmonies: The Lives and Times of the Pythagorean Theorem by the Kaplans
8. A Professor, A President,and a Meteor: The Birthplace of American Science by Cathryn Prince (It happened in Connecticut!)
9. Modern Critical Interpretations: Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God edited with an introduction by Harold Bloom

Happy Green St. Patrick's Day

Happy St. Patrick's Day! On this very green-oriented holiday, there are many ways that you can make your holidays truly green and environmentally friendly as well.

Fifteen things to never buy again: Styrofoam cups, paper towels, bleached coffee filters, overpackaged food and products, teak and mahogany,chemical pesticides and herbicides, conventional housecleaners, higher octane gas than you need, toys made with PVC plastic, plastic forks and spoons, farm raised salmon, rayon, beauty and bdy care prducts made with Phthalates and Parabens, plastic wrap, high VOC paints and finishes.

Have a very green St. Patrick's Day and ffor the rest of the year.

Source: Green America Come Together

LIBRARY CLOSING EARLY FRIDAY

BECAUSE OF STAFF ILLNESS, THE LIBRARY IS CLOSING AT 5 P.M. FRIDAY,MARCH 11.

Library Rights are at Stake

Does Congress have the right to restore copyright protection to foreign works that have fallen into the public domain?

That issue is at the heart of a major copyright case that the Supreme Court agreed to hear Monday. Its resolution could have implications for libraries’ ability to share works online, advocates say.

Read more about this case here.

Source: Chronicle of Higher Education March 8

Fast Facts: Foreign Language Enrollment

Undergraduate enrollments in foreign language courses at American colleges and universities rose 6.6 percent between 2006 and 2009. Spanish, French, German, and American Sign Language are the four most popular languages. Arabic is now the eighth most popular.
Source: C&RL News February

Featured Library Magazine This Week: Granta

Granta, the magazine of new writing, has published many of the world’s finest writers tackling some of the world’s most important subjects, from intimate human experiences to the large public and political events that have shaped our lives. Every issue since 1979 is still in print. In the pages of Granta, readers met for the first time the narrative prose of writers such as Bill Bryson, Romesh Gunesekera, Blake Morrison, Arundhati Roy and Zadie Smith; and have encountered events and topics as diverse as the fall of Saigon, the mythology of the Titanic, adultery, psychotherapy and Chinese cricket fighting. The latest issue, Aliens, explores the idea of what it is to be an outsider. Writing in this issue are Roberto Bolano, Robert Macfarlane, Juan Felipe Herrera, Ann Patchett, and Paul Theroux. The issue also includes "Here is What You Do", the first published story by Chris Dennis. Beacon writers, take notice!
Source: Granta Magazine

Celebrate International Women's Day

So make a difference, think globally and act locally !! Make everyday International Women's Day. Do your bit to ensure that the future for girls is bright, equal, safe and rewarding.

Literacy Funding in Jeopardy

Congress appears on track to deal a heavy blow to federal aid for literacy.

The Republican-led House yesterday delivered a bipartisan vote of 335-91 on a stopgap spending measure that would abolish federal funding for several literacy programs at the U.S. Department of Education, part of a planned government-wide reduction of $4 billion.

The proposed cuts include funding for the $250 million Striving Readers program, the $66 million Even Start family-literacy program, the $25 million Reading Is Fundamental program, and the $26 million National Writing Project.

The Democratic-controlled Senate is widely expected to go along with the package, which is intended to keep the government running for two more weeks while lawmakers and the White House continue to negotiate a budget plan. A vote is scheduled there today.

Source: Education Week March 2

Smart Phones Make Book Citations a Snap

A new smartphone application helps you cite books in scholarly papers.

Quick Cite, which costs 99 cents and is available for both iPhones and Android-based phones, uses the camera on a smartphone to scan the bar code on the back of a book. It then e-mails you a bibliography-ready citation in one of four popular styles—APA, MLA, Chicago, or IEEE.

Point the phone at the bar code on the book and Quick Cite will send you the citations in APA style or in MLA style.

Source: Wired Campus February 14

March is National Women's History Month

The theme for National History Month this year is "Our HISTORY is Our Strength."

The stories of women’s achievements are integral to the fabric of our history. Learning about women’s tenacity, courage, and creativity throughout the centuries is a tremendous source of strength. Until relatively recently, this sphere of women’s history was overlooked and undervalued. Women’s achievements were often distorted, disdained, and denied. But, knowing women’s stories provides essential role models for everyone. And role models are genuinely needed to face the extraordinary changes and unrelenting challenges of the 21st century.

Source: National Women's History Project

Free Resource for Teachers

Academic Earth offers video lectures from elite universities, and it allows viewers to grade the professors. Academic Earth also offers a “Playlists” feature based around themes such as “Laws of Nature,” “Wars Throughout History,” or “You Are What You Eat.”

Free Access to Music Online!

Alexander Street's Music Online: Listening collection has tripled in size!

All the classical, jazz, American, and world music content you need—in every format. Cross-search all of our recordings, scores, reference, and video content from a single interface. Listen to the best recordings from the best record labels—while you follow along with the score and read the composer's biography.


Access the complete Music Online suite of recordings, scores, reference, and video content, now through March 15th by registering at:

http://alexanderstreet.com/MUSICtrial2011.htm

Using SQL Webcast February 17

Using SQL to Explore Any Data on Hadoop in the Cloud
- February 17 Webcast at 11 am PT/ 2 pm ET

This webcast will cover how to explore big data in the cloud from within a graphical SQL environment in five minutes, with virtually no learning curve. Attendees will see how to discover or create schema from existing data, whether structured or unstructured and then explore and visualize the results with SQL from your desktop. The webcast will also showcase customer implementations and how this solution delivers value to enterprises challenged with large, complex and quickly growing data.

Let the library staff know if you are interested in this.

Streaming Videos

Alexander Street Press (ASP) has been rapidly growing streaming media collections and is releasing three major new video products for libraries in early 2011. Some of these may work for us.

ASP has just acquired Filmakers Library, the highly regarded New York-based distributor of documentary films. For 40 years, Filmmakers Library has distributed high-quality, issue-based documentaries to the academic market. ASP plans to launch the complete Filmakers Library as a subscription-based online streaming database, Filmakers Library Online, in early 2011. The publisher will also make it possible for libraries and educational institutions to order individual films via the ASP streaming platform.

Education in Video is the first online collection of streaming video developed specifically for the training and development of teachers. More than 1,000 video titles totaling 750+ hours of teaching demonstrations, lectures, documentaries, and primary-source footage of students and teachers in actual classrooms.

World History in Video is an online collection of 1,750 global documentaries covering everything from early civilizations to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Many of the critically acclaimed documentaries from filmmakers worldwide are the most used today in university-level classes.

Access to information about the Collections:
Filmakers Library
Education in Video
World History in Video

Let me here from you.

Free Access to Visual Arts Journals!

Taylor & Francis Offers Free Access to Visual Arts Journals Throughout February
February 9, 2011

Taylor & Francis is offering us free online access to their complete range of visual arts journals throughout the month of February. Read articles from each journal’s online archive, including the most recent issues.

Complete access to 19 Routledge visual arts journals is provided via Art Acess. The journals in this promotion cover art history, photography, art therapy, visual anthropology, visual culture and more. These visual arts journals are included in the T&F Arts & Humanities Online Collection and Arts & Humanities Online Archive.


Start your free access here:
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/artaccess

Black History Month Resources

These resources will be freely available in the month of February, courtesy of ICONN.

EBSCO-African American Archives
The African American Archives provides over a million pages of original historical documents pertaining to the African American experience over several centuries, the earliest coming from the collection of Essential Records Concerning Slavery and Emancipation from the Danish West Indies (1672-1917). There are several other slavery-related collections, including letters, account books, annual reports, news clippings, and related manuscripts from the American Colonization Society. The African American Archives also includes Records of the Southern Claims Commission, government records, original muster and hospital rolls, descriptive books, lists of deserters, returns, notational cards, enlistment papers, casualty sheets, death reports, prisoner of war papers, and correspondence.

The African American Archives also includes Records of the Southern Claims Commission, government records, original muster and hospital rolls, descriptive books, lists of deserters, returns, notational cards, enlistment papers, casualty sheets, death reports, prisoner of war papers, and correspondence.

Gale Cengage
this resource includes biographical and historical resources.

ProQuest Black Historical Newspapers
ProQuest Historical Newspapers-Black Newspapers offers primary source material essential to the study of American history and African-American culture, history, politics, and the arts. Examine major movements from the Harlem Renaissance to Civil Rights, and explore everyday life as written in the Chicago Defender, The Baltimore Afro-American, New York Amsterdam News, Pittsburgh Courier, Los Angeles Sentinel, Atlanta Daily World, The Norfolk Journal and Guide, The Philadelphia Tribune, and Cleveland Call and Post.

Collection: American Environmental Leaders

American Environmental Leaders: From Colonial Times to the Present
A comprehensive and diverse, award-winning collection of biographies of the most important figures in American environmentalism. As our environment changes, and environmental concerns become more and more prevalent, this encyclopedia provides much-needed information on the key players in the environmental movement.

The biographies are arranged alphabetically, from Edward Abbey to David Zwick. This is a full text reference book in the Credo Reference database accessible on and off campus.

Happy New Year

Happy Chinese New Year
Years 1915, 1927, 1939, 1951, 1963, 1975, 1987, 1999, 2011, 2023
If you were born in any of those years, the rabbit is your Chinese zodiac sign.

Rabbit personality traits
Although generally calm, gentle and loving, Rabbit people can be very ambitious and intuitively know how to get ahead in the world.


They are good listeners, kind and sweet by nature, and are therefore often sought out as popular and trusted friends. Generally noted for their physical beauty, Rabbits like to surround themselves with beautiful things. They have a good eye for art, design and fashion, and are usually at the top of anyone's Best Dressed list.

Others may call the Rabbit timid, but those born under this sign rightly view themselves as wise and cautious.

Disappearing Forests: Global CQ Researcher Report

"As the U.N. celebrates the International Year of Forests to promote forest conservation, thousands of square miles of the planet's woodlands are destroyed each year to make way for sprawling suburbs, palm oil and soybean plantations, cattle ranches and farms. Experts say deforestation threatens a delicate balance in which forests act as Earth's lungs: absorbing carbon dioxide — the biggest contributor to climate change — and expelling oxygen. Now, scientists say, deforestation could soon release enormous amounts of carbon gases stored in the trees, undergrowth and melting permafrost. Such a “carbon bomb,” experts warn, would exacerbate climate change, triggering even more deforestation and threatening a variety of crucial environmental functions forests perform, such as air and water purification, erosion prevention, rain production and the creation of fuel, shelter, medicines and endangered species habitat. Efforts by world leaders to slow deforestation are showing progress, but scientists say more aggressive action is needed."

Source: Global CQ Researcher January 28
Image: Jamanxim National Forest on Nov. 29, 2009, that has been illegally burned down. Brazil, which lost more rainforest over the past decade than any other country, is using a $1 billion grant from Norway to crack down on deforestation. (AFP/Getty Images/Antonio Scorza)

Managing Nuclear Waste: CQ Researcher Report

"Thousands of tons of lethal nuclear waste from civilian power plants and military sites are stored at more than 100 sites around the country. But the federal government doesn't have a long-term plan today for managing nuclear waste. In the 1980s, Congress decided to build a single underground repository for spent fuel and highly radioactive defense waste in the southern Nevada desert. But work on the Yucca Mountain complex has faced political and technical problems and was canceled by President Obama, who advocates a new storage solution. Cancellation has created uncertainty for the nuclear power industry and for states where military waste is stored. It also is forcing utilities to pay to store used nuclear fuel at reactors — costs they pass on to customers. Some utilities have won multimillion-dollar lawsuits against the federal government, and more cases are pending. Obama supports expanding nuclear power as a clean energy strategy, but if the waste problem isn't solved, new reactors may be a hard sell in many states."
Source: CQ Researcher January 28
Image: Spent nuclear fuel is moved to a storage area at Dominion Virginia Power's North Anna Nuclear Generating Station, which supplies electricity to Richmond and Northern Virginia. Nuclear plants around the country store such radioactive waste on-site because the U.S. does not have a nuclear waste repository. (AP Photo/The Daily Progress/Bill Clark)

Black History Month: Art Database

Database of Published Images of African Art from Yale Unuversity





The James J. Ross Archive of African Images presents approximately 5000 pictures of African art published before 1921. The Archive aspires to include all the figurative African objects in books, periodicals, catalogues, newspapers, and other publications appearing in 1920 and earlier - the oldest dates to 1591.
RAAI is a collection of rich historical data and images extensively catalogued and annotated. Its historic sources afford exceptional insight into early European and American views - literal and figurative - of Africa's art.

ACCESS DATABASE!

Source: Image and information Yale Art Gallery

APA: How to cite an interview

How do you cite an interview?
An interview is not considered recoverable data, so no reference to this is provided in the reference list. You may, however, cite the interview within the text as a personal communication.

Examples:

(W. Wilson,personal communication, February 2, 2011)
W. Wilson (personal communication, February 2, 2011)

Adapted from the APA Manual

February is Heart Month

Cardiovascular diseases, including stroke, are our nation's No. 1 killer. To urge Americans to join the battle against these diseases, since 1963 Congress has required the president to proclaim February "American Heart Month." The American Heart Association (AHA) led initial efforts to develop Annual American Heart Month.

Although heart disease is one of the most costly and widespread health problems in the United States, it is among the most preventable.

Each year, the AHA, in conjunction with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, and other government agencies, brings together the most up–to–date statistics on heart disease, stroke, other vascular diseases, and their risk factors and presents them in its Heart Disease and Stroke Statistical Update. The Statistical Update is a valuable resource for researchers, clinicians, healthcare policy makers, media professionals, the lay public, and students who seek the best national data available on disease morbidity and mortality and the risks, quality of care, medical procedures and operations, and costs associated with the management of these diseases in a single document.
Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics—2011 Update
A Report From the American Heart Association

Source: American Heart Association