70,000 More Books in the Library

Ebook Academic Collection

The library this week has added 70,000 new books to our collection—just like that! The library now has EBSCO’s Ebook Academic collection, a new database somewhat comparable to the collection we have from ebrary. Both subscription packages with unlimited simultaneous users and downloads contains a large selection of multidisciplinary eBook titles representing a broad range of academic subject matter—from Business and Science, to Engineering and Humanities. Nearly 70,000 titles are included in this package, and additional titles will be added to the package each month at no additional cost. The library staff will offer instruction classes on how to use this exciting new resource.

You can view EBSCO e-books on your mobile devices now! Popular devices that are compatible with e-books on EBSCOhost include: Barnes & Noble Nooks. Sony Readers, Apple iPads, and many smart phones. Please contact the library for a complete list. Instructions for downloading will be on the library page this week.

We will be comparing this product with ebrary’s,  so please share your comments in the comments below or email me directly. In particular, we would like comments on ease of downloading, search capabilities, on-screen display, marking, saving and emailing capabilities, and any other feature you may consider important

You may access the Ebook Academic Subscription Collection on or off campus from the library page in the research database section--www.goodwin.edu/library.

This is very special Applause, please!

Plagiarism Research from Turnitin

Classroom instructors who deal with plagiarism regularly are acutely aware that plagiarism takes many forms; not all plagiarized material can be defined as a simple act of cut and paste. Turnitin recently compiled data from nearly 900 secondary and higher education instructors about the types of plagiarism they most frequently encounter and the problematic nature of each type.

The resulting white paper, "The Plagiarism Spectrum: Instructor Insights into the 10 Types of Plagiarism," classifies the most common types of plagiarism and includes a severity scale based on student intent. This study moves plagiarism beyond the black-and-white definition of “literary theft” to one that captures the nuances of how plagiarism can take form in student writing. The paper includes recommendations for educators on how to address plagiarism through academic integrity policies, honor codes and classroom intervention. The paper,  webcast, and video are available at Turnitin's web page or contact the library for the report.

Ebrary Apps

Yesterday, less than six months after launching a dedicated iOS app, ebrary announced a new Android app that will be freely available on Google Play this summer. With the increasing popularity of smart phones, tablets, and other devices, students and faculty will have a more optimized way to discover and use e-books, online and offline, on any Android device in addition to the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch. ebrary’s Android and iOS apps work with e-books acquired under all of ebrary’s acquisition models including the 75,000 titles available through Academic Complete, which we have.

Statistical Abstract of US is alive

 ProQuest has rescued one of researchers’ most valued reference tools when it took on publication of the Statistical Abstract of the United States beginning with the 2013 edition. This ensures continuation of this premier guide to an extraordinary array of statistics, which has been published since 1878. 

The U.S. Census Bureau, responsible for publishing the work, announced in March 2011 that it would cease production of the Statistical Abstract after the 2012 edition. Why?

Graduates Return Library Items Before Graduation

Graduates!

Be sure to return any items checked out of the library to ensure you are cleared for graduation. Do this before June 7 to be on the safe side.

Publishers Reject Libraries

Did you know that these publishers refuse to sell or license eBooks to libraries?
Brilliance Audio
Hachette Book Group
Macmillan Publishing
Penguin Group
Simon & Schuster

Does this seem right to you? If you would like to know why this is happening, access HERE.

EDITIONS TO CREDO GENERAL REFERENCE

Credo's General Reference collection continues to grow each month and now has over 590 titles. The following well-regarded titles were recently added.

•American Human Development Project: The Measure of America 2010-2011: Mapping Risks and Resilience

•Comprehensive Handbook of Psychopathology

•Encyclopedia of Capital Punishment in the United States

•Encyclopedia of Chinese-American Relations

•Encyclopedia of Philosophers on Religion

•If the Paintings Could Talk, National Gallery

•Key Concepts in Health Psychology

•Key Concepts in Marketing

•Key Concepts in Radio Studies

•Making of Modern Economics: The Lives and Ideas of Great Thinkers

•Reformist Voices of Islam: Mediating Islam and Modernity

•Scientific Exploration and Expeditions: From the Age of Discovery to the Twenty-First Century

•Springer International Handbooks of Education: International Handbook of Educational Evaluation

•Springer International Handbooks of Education: International Handbook of School Effectiveness and Improvement

COLLEGES AND "FAIR USE" DOCTRINE

A federal judge on Friday outlined many ways colleges can continue to cite the doctrine of "fair use" to permit their making electronic copies of books and other materials for use in teaching and scholarship. In a landmark ruling over many issues not previously litigated to this degree in the digital era, the judge rejected many of the claims in a suit by three prominent publishers against Georgia State University. In 94 of the 99 instances cited by the publishers as copyright violations, the judge ruled that Georgia State and its professors were covered by fair use. And the judge also rejected the publishers' ideas about how to regulate e-reserves -- ideas that many academic librarians said would be unworkable.

At the same time, however, the judge imposed a strict limit of 10 percent on the volume of a book that may be covered by fair use (a proportion that would cover much, but by no means all, of what was in e-reserves at Georgia State, and probably at many other colleges). And the judge ruled that publishers may have more claims against college and university e-reserves if the publishers offer convenient, reasonably priced systems for getting permission (at a price) to use book excerpts online. The lack of such systems today favored Georgia State, but librarians who were anxiously going through the decision were speculating that some publishers might be prompted now to create such systems, and to charge as much as the courts would permit.

Source: Inside Higher Education Mary 14, 2012

Don't Pick Up: Kids Need to Break Away From Their Parents

 The cover story of the latest issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education features an article by Terry Castle, English professor at Stanford University, about the case for children breaking away from their parents. The following paragraph is a quote from her article:

"The sentimental pathology of the American middle-class family--not to mention the mind-warping digitization of everyday life--usually militates against such ruthless candor. But what the Life of the Orphan teaches-has taught me at least--is that it is indeed the self-conscious abrogation of one's inheritance, the "making strange" of received ideas, the cultivation of a willingness to defy, debunk, or just plain old disappoint one's parents, that is the absolute precondition, now more than ever, for intellectual freedom."

The article begins on page B6. It is available in the library.


Source: The Chronicle Review Section B of The Chronicle of Higher Education
 May 11, 2012

New Books

Cracking the New Job Market by R. William Holland just came in. The book includes a forward by Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed.

We also received Mastering APA Style Instructors Resource guide by American Psychological Association. The guide includes eight multiple-choice assessment surveys, correction keys, and answer sheets, along with instructions on how to incorporate this material into a curriculum.

More on the way!

Access vital issues from 1923 to the present!

CQ Researcher Plus Archive

Within hours we shall have access to the complete archive of Editorial Research Reports—the venerable precursor to CQ Researcher—dating back to 1923. CQ Researcher Plus Archive expands the utility of the CQ Researcher making it a rich resource for historical research by offering the Goodwin community:

• ·         3,000 additional in-depth reports, expanding coverage from 1923 to the present
• ·         Powerful search and browse functions, including a linkable cumulative index
• ·         User profile features that save searches and documents for later use
• ·         Robust advanced-search functionality that allows users to search the full text of all reports and limit their search by date range or topic categories
• ·         New search features including the “Issue Tracker,”which lets users trace vital issues over time
• ·         CiteNow!™, a unique CQEL feature that enables users to automatically generate citations in APA, Bluebook, Chicago, or MLA styles
•  

CQ Researcher Plus Archive allows access to reports of the past that pertain to our nation’s welfare today. Coverage includes reports on historical events such as passage of the Social Security Act of 1935, as well as reports that give background on issues of current debate such as abortion, health insurance, and responses to global terrorism. CQ Researcher Plus Archive offers a special way to understand American policy at home and abroad with over eighty years of reports at your fingertips.We also subscribe to CQ Global Researcher that comes out once a month. CQ Researcher reports are weekly.

LEGAL TRAC NEW FEATURES

LegalTrac, a database collection of major legal publications, has new features:

• On-demand language translation includes three newly added languages: Chinese, Japanese, and Korean.
• Technology delivers audio versions of articles and downloadable MP3 files.
• Easy-to-use citation tools facilitate research results.
• Sear Assist provides web-search functionality and recommendations similar to Yahoo and Google.

Access LegalTrac from the Goodwin Library page
www.goodwin.edu/library

Cracking the New Job Market: The 7 Rules for Getting Hired in Any Economy

Safe jobs and lifelong careers are things of the past. People today may change jobs as often as nine times during a career and even change careers three or four times. It is not about you. The rules for finding professional work have changed and this book by R. William Holland delivers new job-hunting strategies. It is a must-read for all job seekers whatever their age. Be the first to reserve this book. It will be here next week.

Distracted Drivers CQ Researcher May 4 Report

Should driver texting and cellphone use be banned? "Drivers have long tried to manage any number of distractions ranging from eating a snack and reading a map to dealing with unruly children in the backseat and putting on makeup. But with the increasing popularity of cellphones and texting, distracted driving has emerged as a central concern of safety experts. Studies indicate that distractions are involved in more than 5,000 traffic fatalities every year. Most states have enacted laws to restrict texting or talking on handheld cellphones, and policymakers face calls for a near-total ban even on hands-free communications devices — including those that are built into the dashboards of new cars and heavily marketed by automakers. But even if more restrictive laws were passed, many motorists would find it hard to set aside the devices they have come to rely upon to make business and personal calls and also to check websites or update their Facebook pages." Full report is available from the library page (password required). Source: CQ Researcher May 4, 2012

Fiction Books most Borrowed in U.S. Libraries

1. The Hunger Games
2. Private: #1 Suspect
3. Explosive Eighteen: A  Stephanie Plum Novel
4. Kill Alex Cross
5. Catching Fire
6. V is for Vengeance
7. The Drop
8. Love in a Nutshell
9. The Affair: A Reacher Novel
10. The Help

Let us know if you want to read any of these!

Friday is Arbor Day

National Arbor Day is Friday, April 27. It's a time to celebrate the wonders of nature, and to plan for an even greener future by planting and caring for trees.

Turn Off Your Lights at 8:30 tonight for Earth Hour!

Tonight, the largest voluntary action for the environment is reaching further than ever before. Earth Hour is being celebrated in a record 150 countries and territories and 6494 towns and cities to send the message that our combined efforts are needed to change our future to one that is sustainable.

Hundreds of millions of people, businesses and governments around the world unite each year to support the largest environmental event in history – Earth Hour.
More than 5,200 cities and towns in 135 countries worldwide switched off their lights for Earth Hour 2011 alone, sending a powerful message for action on climate change. It also ushered in a new era with members going Beyond the Hour to commit to lasting action for the planet. Without a doubt, it’s shown how great things can be achieved when people come together for a common cause.

This year Earth hour has launched “I Will If You Will” on YouTube to showcase how everyone has the power to change the world we live in, bringing together the world’s biggest social video platform with the ‘world’s largest action for the environment’. The ask is simple, head to YouTube to tell us what you are willing to do to save the planet or accept one the challenges we’ve already received from our supporters.

Earth Hour is organised by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).

INFORMATION LITERACY & HEALTH

"What has traditionally been understood as literacy has been disrupted, like so much else, by the advent of the Internet. No longer is it regarded as simply the ability to read and write. In the Information Age, information literacy is a concept that recognises skills in judging trustworthiness and quality as critical. The flood of information unleashed by the Internet has exposed the many area of life to which a literacy of some sort applies, and thus how many more people need to ecome information literate.

Information literay of various kinds has become a growing issue, and perhaps no more so than in the field of health. Health is a universal yet personal concern, where to be literate ranges from knowing the correct dosage of medication to take to the implications of new researhc, and can be literally vital."

Information literacy is a major focus of the Hoffman Family Library this and every year.

Source: Information from a report by Adrian Janes

Most Students don't use social media for research

Some 59 percent of students are not using social media for research or study, according to ebrary’s 2011 Global Student E-book Survey – Social Media Addendum.

Lynn Brainard, ebrary’s media relations sales coordinator, told the Library Journal, “The survey was taken by undergraduate and post-graduate students. We also pushed this out to community colleges, so it could be first year, second years there too. Over 6,600 students participated in the survey.”

The students seemed receptive to the idea of using social media to connect with fellow students: 69 percent said they are likely or very likely to use social media to connect with students with similar academic interests, and 58 percent said they would use social media to share research with peers.

However when authority figures enter the picture, the numbers drop to a minority. Only 45 percent said they would usual social media to pose a question to faculty, and even fewer, at 35 percent, would use social media to pose a question to a librarian.

Are you surprized?

Wednesday, 29th February 2012

Springer added six new quarterly clinical review journals to its existing medicine portfolio this month. These new journals will expand the publisher’s medical specialty coverage, focusing on dermatology, geriatrics/gerontology, nutrition, obesity, obstetrics/gynecology and respiratory care.

Gale Public Library Announcement

March 14, 2012
Gale, part of Cengage Learning and a leading publisher of research and reference resources for libraries, schools and businesses, today announced Gale Gateways, an innovative program for public libraries. Designed to represent the unique way in which a community interacts with its public library, Gale Gateways bring together thematic products and services to provide an organized approach to help patrons find and use information. Unlike anything else on the market, Gale Gateways will help libraries demonstrate their value and worth to their community.

Resource of the Week: Yahoo Search Clues

Yahoo! now has a "trends" service. OK, so they're a little late to the party on this one -- Google, after all, launched Google Trends back in 2006 -- but now you can see what's trending on Yahoo!

Yahoo! Clues can be accessed directly, via http://clues.yahoo.com/, or from a link on the search results page. Type a search term of interest into the "Find Trends" text box or click on the link from one of the "popular searches" you'll see on the lefthand side. Then click "Discover." (You also have the option of comparing trends for two search terms, side by side.)

The Corporate Professor: The Hedgehog Review

"A specter of determinism seems to be hanging over every aspect of our lives. We are constantly told that we are being shaped by inexorable forces--biological, economic, technological, historical--against which resistance is more or less futile, so we should quit worrying and get on board." (from the editors)

In thie current issue of The hedgehog Review: Critical Reflections on Contemporary Culture, each essay responds to some form of determinism. In the thematic section on corporate professor, the authors contend with the corporatization of higher education and scholarship. This is a very important issue with many thought-provoking essays:
Pressured and Measured: Professors at Wannabe U
Do College Teachers Have to Be Scholars?
Under the Sign of Satan: William Blake in the corporate University
Why Google isn't Making us Supid...or Smart
Family Income and Student Achievement
Blue Tube, Red Tube
Capitalism, Modernity, and the Politics of Place

This issue is available in the Hoffman Family Library
The Hedgehog Review: Critical Refelctions on Contemporary Culture (published by the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia)
Spring 2012

Best Recent Articles

On January 30, Adam Gopnik addressed the scandal of our prison system in "The Caging of America" in the New Yorker beginning on pge 72. That issue of the New yorker is available in the library.

Internet Resources: Hepatitis C

1)American Liver Foundation: Hepatitis C
2)Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Hepatitis C & Information for the public
3)C. Everett Koop Institute, Dartmouth Medical School: Hepatitis C: An Epidemic for Anyone
4)Hep C Connection
5) National LIbrary of Medicine: Medline Plus: Hepatitis C Interactive Tutorial
6) World Health Organization Media Centre: Heaptitis C, Fact Sheet No. 164
7) US Department of Health and Human Services: NationalDigestive Diseases Information Clearinghouse (NDDIC): What I Need to Know About Hepatitis C

Source: Mary Spalding, Western Maryland Area Health Eeduation Center-Cumberland
MLA News February 2012

Women's History Month

Congressional Resolution Designating the Month of March as "Women's History Month

"be it resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, that March is designated as "Women's History Month. The President is authorized and requested to issue a proclamation each March, calling upon the people of the United States to observe March as Women’s History Month with appropriate programs, ceremonies, and activities."

~ This resolution was passed by Congress in 1987 and successive years since then.

Free Trial of eHRAF World Cultures and Archaeology

I have arranged a free 30 day trial for eHRAF World Cultures & Archaeology databases. HRAF produces two major full-text databases (eHRAF World Cultures and eHRAF Archaeology), encyclopedias, and other resources for teaching and research.

The Human Relations Area Files, Inc. (HRAF) is an internationally recognized organization in the field of cultural anthropology. The mission of HRAF is to encourage and facilitate worldwide comparative studies of human behavior, society, and culture. Founded in 1949 at Yale University, HRAF is a financially autonomous research agency of Yale.

The trial will be available this week.

2011 Best Overall Database: Credo Reference

The Library Journal staff polled a group of librarians and Library Journal reviewers to choose the “best” of 2011

Best Overall Database
Credo Reference
Credo; www.credoreference.com
Looking for material from the Library of Congress? Elsevier? Edinburgh University Press? Credo Reference hosts more than 550 reference titles from those and other respected houses. Some librarians say the best are the database’s “Topic Pages” gathering materials by subject, which adds accessibility options to a resource that the considered awesome to begin with. Others nominated the collection for “Best Integration of Media” and “Best Integration of External Content.”
They also praised Credo’s Mind Map feature for narrowing and broadening topics, helping students to visualize their topic and identify keywords. The upcoming Credo ­literati is an information literacy add-on that includes subject-specific tutorials and videos, customization that reflects the language an institution uses for information literacy instruction, pre- and postassessment surveys, and library marketing programs.

Go to the library page section, "Research Databases" to use Credo Reference and any of our other databases.

Source: Library Journal

Rising Tension over Iran: CQ Global Researcher

Is Iran trying to develop a nuclear weapon?
Successive U.S. presidents have insisted that a nuclear-armed Iran is “unacceptable.” Iran's Islamic leadership insists that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only. A nuclear Iran would alter the strategic balance in the tense Middle East and, some say, possibly trigger a regional atomic arms race. Although the United States and Europe have imposed tough economic sanctions on Iran, the Iranians have not stopped enriching uranium or begun operating their nuclear program with more transparency. But with Israel reportedly considering a pre-emptive strike on nuclear facilities in Iran — which has vowed to destroy Israel — the question of the sanctions' effectiveness may be moot.

This report is available online through the Hoffman Family Library (password protected).

Source: CQ Global Researcher February 7, 2012
Picture: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (center) inspects some of the 9,000 centrifuges used to enrich uranium at the Natanz nuclear facility, 200 miles south of Tehran. (Getty Images/Office of the Presidency of the Islamic Republic of Iran/April 2008)

Hoffman Family Library Staff opposes HR 3699

The staff of the Hoffman Family Library joins the Medical Library Association (MLA) and the Association of Academic Health Sciences Libraries(AAHSL)in opposing HR 3699, the Research Works Act. HR 3699 would restrict access to information generated through public funds, overturn the successful National Institutes of Health public access policy, and prohibit other federal agencies from establishing similar policies.

MLA and AAHSL worked to promote access to quality health information for the health care community and the public. The academic library community maintains that government-generated information, including online access to articles that report the results of federally funded research, is a public good and must be disseminated with as few barriers as possible. This act would restrict access to information generated through public funds, overturn the successful NIH public access policy, and prohibit other federal agencies from establishing similar policies.

Can Obama Withstand the Rebpulican Challenge?

CQ Researcher Report
February 3, 2012
"The 2012 contest pitting President Obama against a yet-to-be-determined Republican challenger ranks as one of the most intriguing presidential campaigns in history. Two powerful populist factions — the conservative Tea Party movement and Occupy Wall Street protest against income inequality — are helping to shape campaign ideologies and stump speeches. An unusually large field of Republican candidates, including multimillionaire Mormon Mitt Romney and thrice-married Newt Gingrich, have fought each other as aggressively as they have Obama, leaving the GOP so fractured that some think a nominee won't emerge until the party convention in August. Meanwhile, following a controversial Supreme Court ruling on campaign finance, wealthy donors are pouring millions of dollars into TV attack ads through so-called SuperPACs. And overshadowing the entire spectacle is the shaky U.S. economy and the question of which candidate is best equipped to turn it around."

The CQ Researcher weekly reports are available through the library (password protected). Ask in the library for username and password.

Source: CQ Researcher February 3, 2012
Picture: President Obama stops for a campaign photo op in Phoenix on Jan. 25. (AFP/Getty Images/Jewel Samad)

Granta Magazine of New Writing

Issue 118: Exit Strategies

In this latest issue John Barth contemplates the end of writing fiction. Alice Munro explores the interior world of an elderly woman losing her memory. Aleksandar Hemon tells the story of his family's escape from the Bosnian War, and the love and fate of Mek, their Irish setter. David Long writes about a man haunted by a sexual encounter decades ago. Claire Messud searches for her father's Beirut, long since gone, as he himself lies dying in a hospice in Connecticut. Other well-known writers in this issue include Adrienne Rich, Ann Tyler, ad Ann Beattie. The cover is by Michael Salu.
Granta has publishes many of the world’s finest writers tackling some of the world’s most important subjects. Granta does not have a political or literary manifesto, but it does have a belief in the power and urgency of the story, both in fiction and non-fiction. This is one of the most exciting publications in the library—highly recommended by the library staff.

Previous Issues
117: Horror
116: Ten Years Later
115: The F Word
114: Aliens
113: Best of Young Spanish-Language Novelists
112: Pakistan
Source: Information from Granta

New Information on TOXMAP

TOXMAP helps users create nationwide, regional, or local area maps showing where TRI chemicals are released on-site into the air, water, and ground. It also identifies the releasing facilities, color-codes release amounts for a single year or year range, and provides multi-year aggregate chemical release data and trends over time, starting with 1988. Maps can also show locations of Superfund sites on the National Priority List (NPL) (http://www.epa.gov/superfund/sites/npl), listing all chemical contaminants present at these sites.

TOXMAP now includes the 2010 Toxics Release Inventory data (TRI) (http://www.epa.gov/tri/tridata/tri10/nationalanalysis/index.htm).

TOXMAP maps the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) chemicals reported to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), as required by the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act (EPCRA).

A complete list of TRI chemicals required to be reported to the EPA can be found at http://www.epa.gov/tri/trichemicals/index.htm.

Access information HERE.

Source: United States National Library of Medicine
February 8, 2012

Registration Window Opens

February 20 –March 7
Registration windows will be open for students who wish to ADD a second half class for February 29th.

Official ACCUPLACER Study App is here!

ACCUPLACER® launches the official ACCUPLACER study app for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. For only $1.99, students can brush up on their skills and become familiar with the style and content of questions asked on an ACCUPLACER test.

Product Features
•Interactive practice tests for ACCUPLACER Arithmetic, Elementary Algebra, College-Level Math, Reading Comprehension and Sentence Skills tests
•Immediate feedback and a detailed explanation of the correct response to multiple-choice questions

For more information go HERE

Evaluating Drug Information: Avoid Wikipedia

Be careful about using Wikipedia for drug information.While Wikipedia provides some basic drug information, students are encouraged to supplement that information with traditionally edited sources. Quality drug information is freely available from US government–provided sites such as the National Library of Medicine's Drug Information Portal,or MedlinePlus: Drugs, Supplements, and Herbal Information. Commercial consumer sites such as WebMD's RxList, Medscape: Pharmacists, and DailyMed are also available.

American Slaves Narrative

From 1936 to 1938, over 2,300 former slaves from across the American South were interviewed by writers and journalists under the aegis of the Works Progress Administration. These former slaves provided first-hand accounts of their experiences on plantations, in cities, and on small farms. Their narratives remain a peerless resource for understanding the lives of America's four million slaves. What makes the WPA narratives so rich is that they capture the very voices of American slavery, revealing the texture of life as it was experienced and remembered. Each narrative taken alone offers a fragmentary, microcosmic representation of slave life. Read together, they offer a sweeping composite view of slavery in North America, allowing us to explore some of the most compelling themes of nineteenth-century slavery, including labor, resistance and flight, family life, relations with masters, and religious belief.

The web site provides an opportunity to read a sample of these narratives, and to see some of the photographs taken at the time of the interviews. The entire collection of narratives can be found in The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography .
READ IT HERE.
Source: University of Virginia Archives
Photograph: Picture taken at the time of the interviews

Literature to Life Web Cast: Zora

Zora Neale Hurston was one of the most important and celebrated figures to emerge from the Harlem Renaissance. Outspoken, spirited and gifted, Ms. Hurston was the most prolific African-American woman writer of the 1930's. Adapted from the theatrical biography of her life by Laurence Holder, this performance brings to life her story. The introduction is not so easy to hear, but the performance is very strong!
Source: Library Congress Web Casts

As Journal Boycott Grows, Elsevier Defends Its Practices

Librarians and scholars are pushing back at the high prices of journals and the supression of research by publishers.

According to Josh Fischman, "A protest against Elsevier, the world's largest scientific journal publisher, is rapidly gaining momentum since it began as an irate blog post at the end of January. By Tuesday evening, about 2,400 scholars had put their names to an online pledge not to publish or do any editorial work for the company's journals, including refereeing papers.

The boycott is growing so quickly—it had about 1,800 signers on Monday—that Elsevier officials on Tuesday broke their official silence to respond to protesters' accusations that they charge too much and support laws that will keep research findings bottled up behind a company paywall."

Read the article in today's edition of The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Source: "As Journal Boycott Grows, Elsevier Defends Its Practices" By Josh Fischman
The Chronicle of Higher EducationFebruary 1, 2012

"

Readings for Kim Reese's Class

The library purchased all of the books on Professor Reese's list. We have additional copies through Interlibrary Loan that are available in the library now.
Don't Kill the Birthday Girl
Year of Wonders
Fever 1793
Molo'kai

Extended Library Hours

Beginning this Saturday, February 4, the library will be open every Saturday from 8 am to 4 pm. We have many requests for longer hours during the week, which we are considering. Thanks to all of the students who have put suggestions in the suggestion box. That helps us provide all of you with better service.

DSM-5: The Future of Psychiatric Diagnosis

Publication of the fifth edition of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) in May 2013 will mark one the most anticipated events in the mental health field. As part of the development process, the preliminary draft revisions to the current diagnostic criteria for psychiatric diagnoses are now available for public review. Use this opportunity not only to learn more about the proposed changes in DSM-5, but also about its history, its impact, and its developers. If you are writing research papers or giving speeches on such topics as autism, for example, you should include information on these revisions.
Source: American Psychiatric Association DSM-5 Development

Librarians oppose Research Works Act

A bill introduced December 16 in the House of Representatives has exacerbated tensions between open access advocates and the scholarly publishing industry over the dissemination of publicly funded scientific and medical research.

The Research Works Act (H.R.3699), co-sponsored by Darrell Issa (R-CA) and Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), has only just been referred to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, a zone from which few bills emerge unmodified (if they emerge at all), but the measure’s import has had, nevertheless, the effect of a 3 a.m. tocsin on librarians and other open access champions who wish to raze paywalls that enclose taxpayer-funded, peer-reviewed research.

The American Library Association said today that it “vehemently opposes the bill.”

Essentially, the bill seeks to prohibit federal agencies from conditioning their grants to require that articles reporting on publicly funded research be made accessible to the public online. The proposed bill, if it were to pass, would roll back the National Institute of Health’s Public Access Policy, which was introduced in 2008 and which makes NIH-funded research publicly available within 12 months via PubMed Central (many scholars object even to this 12-month delay before posting on this free online repository).

Free Access to Theses and Dissertations

A new web property called OpenThesis (www.openthesis.org) has been launched. It exposes theses and dissertations, making them highly accessible, useful, and shareable-at absolutely no cost. OpenThesis.org will allow authors to upload their theses/dissertations, and the documents will then be vaulted for posterity and made searchable anywhere in the world. If an author (or an author's family) has only a paper copy of a thesis/dissertation, the site will give guidance on how to get it scanned into computer-readable form for subsequent uploading.

Death Comes to Pemberley

For those of you who have read Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice and wonder what happened to Elizabeth and Darcy, P.D. James has written a murder mystery about just that subject--Death Comes to Pemberley: A Novel. James is a famous British writer of mysteries. The book is now available in the library.

New Subscription: Lapham's Quarterly

The library now subscribes to Lapham's Quarterly published four times annually. The current issue focuses on Family. In the introductory essay, Lewis Lapham tell us that "families grow as do the flowers and the weeds, of their own accord and as they will. Sometimes they lay waste to empires; sometimes they achieve the dignity of a dress label, but always they furnish a society with its living tissue and its intimations of immortaily, impart to the individual a sense of self if not a criminal record or a noble name."

Each issue of Lapham’s Quarterly adopts and explores a single theme. A typical issue features an introductory Preamble from Editor Lewis H. Lapham; approximately 100 “Voices in Time” — that is, appropriately themed selections drawn from the annals and archives of the past — and newly commissioned commentary and criticism from today’s preeminent scholars and writers. Myriad photographs, paintings, charts, graphs, and maps round out each issue.The current issue, Winter 2012, is dynamite! Last year's issues, which will be available, focused on Lines of work (Spring), Food (Summer), The Future (Fall), and Celebrity (Winter).

JSTOR Tests Free, Read-Only Access to Some Articles

Now you may have some access to JSTOR articles!
"It’s about to get a little easier—emphasis on “a little”—for users without subscriptions to tap JSTOR’s enormous digital archive of journal articles. In the coming weeks, JSTOR will make available the beta version of a new program, Register & Read, which will give researchers read-only access to some journal articles, no payment required. All users have to do is to sign up for a free “MyJSTOR” account, which will create a virtual shelf on which to store the desired articles.

But there are limits. Users won’t be able to download the articles; they will be able to access only three at a time, and there will be a minimum viewing time frame of 14 days per article, which means that a user can’t consume lots of content in a short period. For more information, contact the librarian.

Source: Chronicle of Higher Education January 16

LIBRARY HOURS 2012

LIBRARY HOURS FOR SPRING SEMESTER:

Monday-Friday 7am-9pm
Saturday 9am-2:30pm
Sunday 11am-4pm

The library will have extended hours on the week before final exams. That will be posted.