Remembering Robert Altman

While MASH was not Robert Altman's first film, it catapulted him into the pantheon of major figures in American cinema. Five years later, Altman solidified his reputation with Nashville, a crowded spectacle of a film that featured a cast of memorable characters and improvised, overlapping dialogue — a hallmark of Altman's filmmaking style. Last month Altman died of complications from cancer at the age of 81. For a list of his films, go to imdb.com.

Colleges: Rethink Electronic Records!

New federal rules that took effect on Friday allow evidence stored in PDA's, printers, home computers, and even cellphones to be used routinely in lawsuits involving individuals and organizations, including colleges. And experts say the rules could prompt changes not only in how college lawyers approach cases but also in how long colleges store electronic information.
The new rules require that parties involved in litigation in federal courts make available to their opponents a wide array of electronically stored information, lawyers familiar with the rules said last week.

Tuition Tax Credits

Members of the U.S. Senate Finance Committee showed strong interest during a hearing on Tuesday in a witness's proposal to combine tuition tax credits, an expired income-tax deduction, and the Pell Grant into a refundable "super credit" that would simplify higher-education tax incentives and assist students from middle- and lower-income families
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education

Holiday Booklists are here!

Connecticut Library Consortium's annual booklist project, "Best Books for Children & Teens: Lists for Holiday Gift Giving" is ready and waiting for you. Enjoy!
Babies & Toddlers (ages 0-3) (PDF, 496 KB)
Young Readers & Listeners (ages 3-8) (PDF, 904 KB)
Middle Readers (ages 8-12) (PDF, 416 KB)
Teens (ages 12+) (PDF, 460 KB)

High School Reform

High school reform has moved to the top of the education policy agenda, commanding the attention of the federal government, governors, urban school superintendents, philanthropists, and the general public. All are alarmed by stubbornly high dropout rates and by the low academic achievement of many high school students. These problems disproportionately affect disadvantaged young people, especially those who are African-American and Hispanic and who attend urban schools and certain rural schools in the South and Southwest.

This is the first in a series of reports for policymakers, practitioners, and others who must make hard choices about how to change high schools. It discusses three comprehensive initiatives evaluated by MDRC — Career Academies, First Things First, and Talent Development — that have grappled with the challenges of improving low-performing urban and rural schools. Together, these three interventions are being implemented in more than 2,500 high schools across the country, and various components of these models are being used in thousands more schools.
+ Executive Summary+ Full Report (PDF; 1.65 MB)
Source: MDRC

Welcome to NationMaster

This is a dream site for statistical information. Welcome to NationMaster, a massive central data source and a handy way to graphically compare nations. NationMaster is a vast compilation of data from such sources as the CIA World Factbook, UN, and OECD. You can generate maps and graphs on all kinds of statistics with ease. NationMaster wants to be the web's one-stop resource for country statistics on everything from soldiers to wall plug voltages. You can also view profiles of individual countries including their maps and flags, use correlation reports and scatterplots to find relationships between variables, and refer to fully integrated encyclopedia with over one million articles.

But, wait--there's more! NationMaster also recently rolled out StateMaster.com, a sister site that offers similar data mining on US state statistics, using sources such as the US Census Bureau, FBI, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and a variety of non-profit organizations such as the March of Dimes.
Source: Mary Ellen Bates

homeland Security Career Guide

The library has ordered Homeland Security and Federal Law Enforcement Career Guide with CD-Rom. This guide provides a comprehensive introduction to the hiring process, career profiles, a complete directory of agencies to contact, and other useful tips and material for acquiring a position with Homeland Seucrity or federal law enforcement. The CD affords quick and easy access to this information, along with direct links to the agency websites. Delivery is expected next week.

New Markets Data Center

On January 2, the Wall Street Journal will launch a state-of-the-art online Markets Data Center, combining news, data and tools from across Dow Jones. Beyond contributions from the Journal’s markets-data group, this new Web site and associated services such as email roundups and alerts will include coverage from Dow Jones Newswires, authoritative data from Dow Jones Indexes, investment tools from the MarketWatch unit and personal-finance tips from the SmartMoney joint venture.

The Markets Data Center will be available free on the Web.
Source: WSJ.com

Robert Gates Bibliography

New, Robert M. Gates, Secretary of Defense Nominee: A Bibliography
On November 8, 2006, President George W. Bush nominated Mr. Gates to be Secretary of Defense. Confirmation hearings for that position begin today.

Mr. Gates previously served as director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The Senate held two confirmation proceedings for that position. The Georgetown Law Library has created this bibliography of documents authored by and related to Mr. Gates.
Source: Georgetown University Law Center Library

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Agroterrorism: Why We are not Ready

An agroterrorism attack could dramatically impact many aspects of American life, including law enforcement, which—especially in rural areas—is financially and strategically unprepared to respond. This Research for Policy looks at the impact the introduction of foot-and-mouth disease would have on the United States, including the slaughter of millions of animals and an impact of up to $60 billion tax dollars. The publication outlines why law enforcement is not currently ready for such a terrorist attack and gives procedures for preparing for and responding to agroterrorism.
Source: National Institute of Justice
Summary Full Text (8 pages; PDF)

Leave No Child Behind and James Comer

James P. Comer, a professor of child psychiatry at Yale University, is the winner of the 2007 Grawemeyer Award for Education, the University of Louisville announced this morning. The award carries a $200,000 cash prize.

Dr. Comer is being recognized for his efforts to promote a focus on child development as a method of improving education. In books such as Leave No Child Behind: Preparing Today's Youth for Tomorrow's World, he argues that the best way to guarantee a student's well-being is to involve everyone with a stake in a school a role in the educational process.

Jack Matthews recommends "Setting the Table"

In Danny Meyer's book, Setting the Table, he distinguishes between customer service and hospitality. Meyer writes, " Hospitality exists when you believe the other person is on your side. The converse is just as true. Hospitality is present when something happens for you. It is absent when something happens to you. Those two simple prepositions –for and to express it all." The book is available in the Goodwin Library.

Mirror Neurons: Monkey See, Monkey Do

Yesterday three scientists at the University of Parma, Italy, received the 2006 Grawemeyer Award for discovering the "mirror neuron" system of brain cells in monkeys. Mirror neurons have been referred to by scientists as one of the most important neuroscientific breakthroughs of recent history.

There is now strong evidence to suggest that humans have the same type of "mirror neurons" found in monkeys. It's what these neurons do that's amazing--they activate in the same way when you're watching someone else do something as they do when you're doing it yourself! This mirroring process/capability is thought to be behind our ability to empathize, but you can imagine the role these neurons have played in keeping us alive as a species. We learn from watching others. We learn from imitating (mirroring) others. The potential problem, though, is that these neurons go happily about their business of imitating others without our conscious intention. Hmmm. Although the neuroscientific findings are new, your parents didn't need to know the cause to recognize the effects:
"Choose your role models carefully."
"You're hanging out with the wrong crowd; they're a bad influence."

HubMed for Health Science Research

Many students have problems finding literature resources for their needs and then of trying to maintain current awareness around those resources. One solution, and one only among many, might be HubMed. HubMed is found at http://www.hubmed.org/ and is a parallel search engine to PubMed, or as some people have said “HubMed is like PubMed on steroids.” Any search strategies you use in PubMed may be used in HubMed and once you have the core skills for efficient searching of PubMed, HubMed offers many options that are not found in the original PubMed. The library offers workshops on core skills in searching. Another possibility would be using SUMSearch. (See information in following entry.)

What does SUMSearch do?

SUMSearch is a unique method of searching for medical evidence by using the Internet. SUMSearch combines meta-searching and contingency searching in order to automate searching for medical evidence. Meta-searching, which is used by from general Internet search engines such as from Go2Net, Dogpile, and SavvySearch, means simultaneously searching multiple Internet sites and collating the results into one page. In addition, SUMSearch adds the idea of contingency searching. If SUMSearch finds too many ‘hits’ from an Internet site, SUMSearch will execute more restrictive, contingency searches. For example, if a search finds 1000 articles at PubMed, SUMSearch may do up to four additional searches until an optimal number is received.
http://sumsearch.uthscsa.edu/

Climate Change

Europe is leading the way in the fight against climate change, according to the 2007 Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI). The Index ranked 56 countries (together making up over 90% of global carbon dioxide emissions) based on their domestic and international efforts to combat climate change. Sweden is ranked number one and is joined by six other European countries, including the United Kingdom and Germany, in the top 10. The world’s two largest emitters of greenhouse gases, the United States and China, are ranked 53 and 54, respectively.

Love Your Library This Weekend

Goodwin library supports The Connecticut Library Association, Connecticut Library Consortium, and the Connecticut State Library in partnership with Barnes & Noble Booksellers to Love Your Library this holiday season in a special fundraiser that will support a statewide online information service called InfoAnytime.

With InfoAnytime, the Goodwin community can access the help of a librarian online 24x7. As with most innovative new services, funding is a key to ensuring its success. That's why this year's Love Your Library proceeds will go to InfoAnytime, for libraries and their patrons throughout the state to enjoy.

What can you do to help? Shop at a participating Barnes & Noble with your Love Your Library voucher (available at Goodwin LIbrary or online) on Love Your Library days. Get your voucher now - print it out & use it at a Barnes & Noble Friday, December 1st through Sunday, December 3rd.

Last year's pilot event raised over $7,000, which helped to underwrite the Historical Hartford Courant database now freely available this year to all Connecticut libraries and their patrons via iCONN, the CT Digital Library.

This year's proceeds will go toward InfoAnytime - the statewide virtual reference project coordinated by CLC.
Thank you for your support! -The Love Your Library Team

JAMA Auditory Commentary

For just a few minutes of listening time while you are multi-tasking, you can keep up with what’s happening in the American medical scene. Catherine DeAngelis, editor of The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) summarizes and comments on the week’s issue. You can listen to this audio commentary in one of 4 ways:
1. Subscribe to the podcast using iTunes.
2. Subscribe to the podcast using another podcast software client.
3. Use the JAMA Audio Commentary interface.
4. Download the MP3 file.
By the way, it's free!

Historic Building Database

"Curious about an unused college literary-society hall or a restored Old Main? Interested in comparing campus plans or approaches to arboretums? A searchable database of historic buildings, master plans, and landscape features on nearly 370 college campuses is now available online, thanks to the Council of Independent Colleges and the J. Paul Getty Trust. "--Introduction
Historic-Buildings Database Goes Live Online
Source: Wired Campus

Women in the Labor Force

Every semester students are looking for statistical information on women in the labor force. Here is an online databook from the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Statistics.
This report presents historical and current labor force and earnings data for women and men from the Current Population Survey (CPS). The CPS is a national monthly survey of approximately 60,000 households conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau for the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Statistics: Women in the Labor Force: A Databook (2006 Edition)
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics