Healthcare 411

Healthcare 411 is a news series produced by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. AHRQ’s mission is to improve the quality, safety, efficiency, and effectiveness of health care for all Americans. These weekly audio and video programs feature news and information on current health care topics with a summary of the latest research findings. Healthcare 411 features and programs range from 2 to 10 minutes in length. All new and archived items remain available on the Healthcare 411 site.

You can download the programs to your mobile media player or computer by subscribing on the site. The AHRQ subscription is free. You could probably include them in powerpoint presentations for classes.

Podcast topics include:
catheter-related infections
recommendations against the use of Aspirin to prevent colorectal cancer
searching for health information on the Web
antidepressants
off-label use of anti psychotics
Source: Healthcare 411

New Homeland Security Resleases

Every two weeks, the Homeland Security Digital Library identifies "Critical Releases in Homeland Security," a targeted collection of recently-released documents that are expected to influence homeland security policy & strategy development.
Public Health Preparedness: Mobilizing State by State Centers for Disease Control (U.S.)
National Incident Management System (NIMS): Five-Year NIMS Training Plan United States. Federal Emergency Management Agency
Global War on Terrorism: An Assessment Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (Washington, D.C.)
Department of Homeland Security: Fiscal Year 2009 Overview, Congressional Justification United States. Dept. of Homeland Security
Source: Homeland Security Digital Library

Reading Crisis? CQ Researcher

Do today's youth read less than past generations?

The number of Americans who read for pleasure has been dropping for decades, and now recent data show the lowest levels ever, especially among Americans ages 15 to 24. At the same time, reading scores among teenagers are dropping. America may soon lack not only the skilled workers needed for an information-based economy but also the informed voters crucial to democracy. Others dismiss such views as alarmist, arguing the data don't capture the large amount of online reading today. Technology experts also note that computers and video may be simply changing the form of literacy needed today, just as the printing press and typewriter did in ages past. While book reading formed the core of 20th-century literacy, in the 21st century literacy is more likely to mean writing blogs and instant messages as well as skimming online video and audio, along with text, to gather information. Read the whole report in this week's CQ Researcher accessible from the library page.

Source: CQ Researcher

American Literature Reference

If you are looking to brush up on your literary knowledge, check a favorite author's work, or see a year's bestsellers at a glance, The Chronology of American Literature is the perfect resource. At once an authoritative reference and an ideal browser's guide, this book outlines the indispensable information in America's rich literary past - from major publications to lesser-known gems - while also identifying larger trends along the literary timeline. Who wrote the first published book in America? When did Edgar Allan Poe achieve notoriety as a mystery writer? What was Hemingway's breakout title? With more than 8,000 works by 5,000 authors, The Chronology makes it easy to find answers to these questions and more. Authors and their works are grouped within each year by category: fiction and nonfiction; poetry; drama; literary criticism; and publishing events. Short, concise entries describe an author's major works for a particular year while placing them within the larger context of that writer's career. The result is a fascinating glimpse into the evolution of some of America's most prominent writers. Perhaps most important, The Chronology offers an invaluable line through our literary past, tying literature to the American experience - war and peace, boom and bust, and reaction to social change. You'll find everything here from Benjamin Franklin's "Experiments and Observations on Electricity" to Davy Crockett's first memoir; from Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience" to Edith Wharton's "Ethan Frome"; from meditations by James Weldon Johnson and James Agee to poetry by Elizabeth Bishop. Also included here are seminal works by authors such as Rachel Carson, Toni Morrison, John Updike, and Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. Lavishly illustrated - and rounded out with handy bestseller lists from throughout the twentieth century, lists of literary awards and prizes, and authors' birth and death dates - The Chronology of American Literature belongs on the shelf of every bibliophile and literary enthusiast. It is the essential link to our literary past and present. You will find this full text reference work in the CredoReference database accessible from the ibrary homepage.

Source: CredoReference Database

Water, Water, Not Everywhere

Take the tour to investigate your water saving opportunities in each area of your home. Click on each location to show you both the facts and specific advice. Check out the Top 5 Actions to discover some of the best ways to save water in and around your home. Visit the Garden Guide to find inspiration for beautiful water conserving gardens.

This website was developed by the California Urban Water Conservation Council under a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Source: http://h2ouse.org/.

Do we Need to Forget in Order to Remember?

Having a "good mind" usually connotes the ability to stuff one's brain with memories, from useless details to important ideas, and to be able to retrieve them on cue. To help out, most of us formulate mnemonics to make ideas difficult to forget.But what if forgetting is key to the proocess of remembering?

Several years ago, neuroscientists found that the brain is able to predict which memorie will be important later, ultimately affecting the volume of retention. Further research suggested that dreaming erases our useless memories to make space for new and more relevant ones.

A recent study allowed researchers to test whether the brain benefitted from eliminating irrelevant thooughts. Participants memorized word pairs and were then asked to retrieve only some of them when prompted. Those who forgot more of the irrelevant word pairs were better able to retrieve the relevant pairs when prompted. Keep dreaming!
source: Quoted from New Ideas section of Seed magazine
September/October 2007

2008 Horizon Report

The annual Horizon Report describes the continuing work of the New Media Consortium's Horizon Project, a research-oriented effort that seeks to identify and describe emerging technologies likely to have considerable impact on teaching, learning, and creative expression within higher education. The 2008 report focuses on these areas:
Grassroots Video
Collaboration Webs
Mobile Broadband
Data Mashups
Collective Intelligence
Social Operating Systems
Horizon Project is a collaboration between the NMC and the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative. This is important research for higher education communities to consider as they plan for the future.

CQ Gobal Researcher: Looming Water Crisis

Are we running out of water? "In the past decade drought has marched across much of the globe, hitting China, the Mediterranean, southeast Australia and the U.S. Sun Belt. The amount of water used by humans has tripled since 1950, and irrigated cropland has doubled. About one-fifth of the world's population lacks sufficient water, a figure that could reach 40 percent by 2025 by some estimates, in part because of growing world economies. In the poorest societies more than a billion people lack access to clean water, and dirty water kills 5,000 children — enough to fill 12 jumbo jets — every day. By century's end drought is expected to spread across half the Earth's land surface due to climate change, causing hunger and higher food prices. The United Nations says it would cost an extra $10 billion or more annually to provide clean water and sanitation for all. Some recommend privatizing water supplies, while others suggest that charging more for water to encourage conservation would help to avoid future crises." (quote from the Global Researcher this week) Read the full report in the Global Researcher, an online resource available through the Goodwin Library.

Rethinking Wikipedia

Scholars often take swipes at Wikipedia, claiming that it dumbs down education and encourages intellectual laziness. Some professors have even banned their students from using it for research. But in an article this week in Science Progress, a scholar at the University of Texas at Dallas argues that such bans are irresponsible.

David Parry, an assistant professor of emerging media and communications at the university, writes that students need to become familiar with new and non-static forms of communication. He encourages his students to read Wikipedia’s “history” and “discussion” pages, saying they explain how articles were produced. And he says the online encyclopedia’s entry on global warming does a good job of explaining both the controversy and the science surrounding the issue. “Like it or not, the networked digital archive changes our basis of knowledge,” Parry writes “and training people for the future is about training them for this shift.”—Andrea L. Foster
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education February 15 2008

Biodiversity Heritage Library

Ten major natural history museum libraries, botanical libraries, and research institutions have joined to form the Biodiversity Heritage Library Project. The group is developing a strategy and operational plan to digitize the published literature of biodiversity held in their respective collections. This literature will be available through a global “biodiversity commons." The participating libraries have over two million volumes of biodiversity literature collected over 200 years to support the work of scientists, researchers, and students in their home institutions and throughout the world. The 10 member libraries of the Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) members now have over 1.124 million pages of key taxonomic literature available on the web.

http://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/

Greenwood Digital Collection: Free Trial

The Goodwin Library is planning to subscribe to a digital collection of from 3,000-15,000 books. The Greenwood Digital Collection has just started a month long free trial of reference, academic, and general interest ebooks of 3,000 titles. Please feel free to access this trial immediately and often. Please let us know if you like it.

Greenwood eBooks Complete Set (Trial)
Subscription Dates: 02/14/2008 - 3/13/08
To Access Go To: http://ebooks.greenwood.com/
.Enter UserName: GoodwinCollege
Enter Password: library
Click on submit.

Harvard Business Review

The Harvard Business Review is the featured journal from the Goodwin Library this week. The March issue has an article entitled "Survival of the Richest." According to this article, "in financial markets, as in many human endeavors, there’s a battle between reason and madness. On one side are the disciples of the efficient-markets hypothesis: the notion that markets fully, accurately, and instantaneously incorporate all relevant information into prices. These adherents assume that market participants are rational, always acting in their own interest and making mathematically optimal decisions. On the other side are the champions of behavioral economics: a younger discipline that points to bubbles, crashes, panics, manias, and other distinctly unreasonable phenomena as evidence of irrationality." Readers also recommend these articles:
Women and the Labyrinth of Leadership · Executive Summary
Mastering the Management System · Executive Summary
The Institutional Yes · Executive Summary
The Five Competitive Forces That Shape Strategy · Executive Summary
Manage Your Energy, Not Your Time · Executive Summary

Snoopy's Revenge

SNOOPY would be pleased. His breed, long passed over for glory at the Westminster Kennel Club's annual dog show, has finally triumphed. Uno, a 38-centimetre beagle, has won the coveted title of best in show. Through 131 previous events, no beagle has celebrated what terriers have more than 40 times Uno beat out two poodles, a top Sealyham terrier, a sleek Weimaraner, a lively Australian shepherd, and a spry Akita. (Frankly, I am glad. I have grown weary of so many golden retrievers and labs. Maybe beagles will become popular now.)

Spring Training

Will this be the year that I can say what it feels like to be a fan of the world champion Chicago Cubs? Anyway, it's that time of the year--time to think about baseball and spring training. Thousands of baseball fans read Spring Training Online.because this is a very cool site.
http://www.springtrainingonline.com/

College Board News

College Board Announces Advanced Placement Results: A Greater Percentage of the Nation’s Students Succeed on AP® Exams, Predictors of Success in College
More than 15 percent of the public high school class of 2007 achieved at least one AP® Exam grade of 3 or higher1—the score that is predictive of college success. This achievement represents a significant and consistent improvement since the class of 2002 when less than 12 percent of public school graduates attained this goal. Out of all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, Vermont captured the largest increase in the percentage of high school graduates who scored a 3 or higher on an AP Exam.
Source: College Board

Security Spotlight

The 2 Mistakes Schools Make in Deploying Wireless Networks
An interview with WiFi expert Frank Keeney

When the School District of Philadelphia announced last fall that it was deploying wireless Internet access at every school in the district--some 268 campuses--it was hyped as one of the world's largest enterprise wireless local area networks. Aside from the scale of the project (which involves the equivalent of 14,000 access points), the news barely raised an eyebrow among K-12 administrators. After all, announcements of new school deployments of WiFi have practically become a monthly occurrence on THEJournal.com.
Read Complete Article:
http://www.1105newsletters.com/t.do?id=877202:1202597

Free Country Report

ISA (International Strategic Analysis) Country Reports provide detailed coverage and analysis of the political, economic and demographic issues and trends in 117 countries. Each ISA Country Report provides you with the information you need to make strategic business decisions in international markets. Moreover, each ISA Country Report provides you with detailed economic and political forecasts that give you the insights you need to anticipate the changes that can impact your business, both in the near- and long-term.
Free Report: Japan
PDF File

Open Access, Here we Come

Publish or perish has long been the burden of every aspiring university professor. But the question the Harvard faculty will decide this week is whether to publish — on the Web, at least — free.

Faculty members are scheduled to vote on a measure that would permit Harvard to distribute their scholarship online, instead of signing exclusive agreements with scholarly journals that often have tiny readerships and high subscription costs.

Although the outcome of Tuesday’s vote would apply only to Harvard’s arts and sciences faculty, the impact, given the university’s prestige, could be significant for the open-access movement, which seeks to make scientific and scholarly research available to as many people as possible at no cost.
Source: The New York Times, February 12, 2008

Higher Education Act

House, focusing on cost, approves Higher Education Act. The next step is for members of the House and Senate to meet in conference committee to write the compromise bill that will go to the president. Once the compromise bill is produced and signed by the president, the HEA will finally be reauthorized -- five years overdue.
Source: Inside Higher Education http://insidehighered.com/news/2008/02/08/hea

Monthly Labor Review-January 2008

+ State labor legislation enacted in 2007
+ Changes in State unemployment insurance legislation, 2007
+ Older workers: increasing their labor force participation and hours of work

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics