Featured Goodwin Library ebook

Encyclopedia of Small Business, 3rd ed., 2007
Contains articles and overviews of all the key information needs of small business owners, including financing, financial planning, business plan creation, market analysis, sales strategy, tax planning, and human resource issues.

Music from the 1940's

For students in Paul LaRocca's class, you can find free music from the early 1940's online. You can listen to it and you can share it. It includes lots of artists--Nat King Cole, Peggy Lee, Ella Fitzgerald, Bing Crosby, and many others that you have never heard before. HERE IS THE PLACE You can download Rhapsody Music software at the site.

Source: Play List Central

No Nobel Prizes for U.S>

October 1st, 2008

Bad news for American writers hoping for a Nobel Prize next week: the top member of the award jury believes the United States is too insular and ignorant to compete with Europe when it comes to great writing.

Counters the head of the U.S. National Book Foundation: “Put him in touch with me, and I’ll send him a reading list.” As the Swedish Academy enters final deliberations for this year’s award, permanent secretary Horace Engdahl said it’s no coincidence that most winners are European. “Of course there is powerful literature in all big cultures, but you can’t get away from the fact that Europe still is the center of the literary world … not the United States,” he told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview Tuesday.
Source: AP News

EPA LibrariesOpen Doors--At Last

Shuttered EPA Libraries Open Doors…After Two Years

Under orders from Congress, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency tomorrow will again provide access to library services in 15 states and its own headquarters to agency employees and the public. This ends a 30-month campaign by the Bush administration to restrict availability of technical materials within EPA but leaves in its wake scattered and incomplete collections under new political controls of library operations.

Source: Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

Free Access to All SAGE Journals Online

Free Online Access to all SAGE Journals until October 31, 2008

Simply register HERE and you will have free online access to over 500 SAGE journals with content available from 1999-date. SAGE’s prestigious and highly cited journals are available electronically on the award winning SAGE Journals Online. Search more than 500 journals in Business, Humanities, Social Sciences, and Science, Technology and Medicine.

Source: Sage Journals Online

Banned Books Week--Day Five

Stop at our Banned Books Week exhibit in the education building today from 11-12. In the United States, the free expression of ideas is generally unlimited. But that doesn't prevent well-meaning people from trying to suppress information. As a college, we need to stand up and say we do not believe in censorship.

Oh No! More Earmarks!

Temporary Spending Bill Contains Billions in Earmarks for Colleges

Tucked into a spending bill that the U.S. Senate passed over the weekend are thousands of set-asides for pork-barrel projects, including many at colleges and universities. According to a tally by Taxpayers for Common Sense, a watchdog group, there are 2,321 earmarks totaling $6.6-billion in the bill, which would provide funds for three federal agencies in the 2009 fiscal year, while financing most others at this year’s levels until March.

Among the earmarks for colleges and universities are:
$2-million for “hibernation genomics” research at the University of Alaska, secured by Sen. Ted Stevens, a Republican who is on trial for allegedly lying on his financial-disclosure forms and concealing thousands of dollars in gifts. The project, which has received earmarks in the past, is investigating using hibernation to treat traumatic battlefield injuries.

Last year legislators channeled more than 2,300 such projects to 920 institutions, mostly for research, according to a Chronicle analysis. —Kelly Field


Source: Chronicle of Higher Education

Not to be Missed: Why Science Matters & the Election

"Choosing a Future: Why Science Matters",this week's U.S. Election special issue of Nature magazine, begins with a look at what's at stake in this campaign and beyond for science. A. Witze asks how the candidates have developed their stances on science overtime, who is advising them, and where they might take the country (page 442). The parties stances on science and technology matters are summarized (page 446)--Obama answers questions but McCain declined. Another article ponders the prospects of key science agencies such as NASA, EPA, and NIH, under a McCain or Obama administration (page 451). David Goldstone adds a personal viewpoint from Washington, D.C. (Party at One p. 453). See also the introductory editorial (page 431), advice to a potential president on what books to read (Books & Art p. 464) and the expanded on-line-election special on www.nature.com/uselection. Listen also to the series of election podcasts on www.nature.com/nature/podcast. There is also an issue in the Goodwin Library.
Source: Nature U.S. Election Special September 25 2008

Lists and Rankings

Everyone seems to love lists and rankings. There is perennial interest in biggest, richest, highest rated, most popular, etc., etc. Of course, some of these compilations are highly subjective. But many of these do have reference or research value, such as U.S. Census Bureau lists such as Fastest Growing Large Cities in the United States.

Boys Don't Like to Read

Problem: Boys Don’t Like to Read. Solution: Books That Are Really Gross

Publishers are hawking more gory and gross books to appeal to an elusive market: boys — many of whom would rather go to the dentist than crack open “Little House on the Prairie.” Booksellers are also catering to teachers and parents desperate to make young males more literate.

“There has been a real revolution” in books that “have more kid appeal,” especially when it comes to boys, says Ellie Berger, who oversees Scholastic’s trade division. “It’s a shift away from the drier books we all grew up with.”

Last year, U.S. publishers released 261 new works of juvenile fiction aimed at boys, more than twice the number put out in 2003, according to Bowker’s Books in Print database. There were 20 nonfiction entries for boys, compared with just four in 2003.

Source: Wall Street Journal

Doing What Works in Teaching

What is “spacing” learning and how does it benefit teachers and students? Do students learn more when solved problems are alternated with problems to be solved? And how do “higher order” questions enhance student learning and help students articulate their answers?

Visitors to the U.S. Department of Education’s “Doing What Works” Web site can find out the answers to these questions and much more. Just click on http://dww.ed.gov, and enjoy an engaging and interactive experience with Psychology of Learning: How to Organize Your Teaching, the latest addition to the site, which will empower educators and administrators with research-based strategies to help instructors organize their teaching and improve student learning.

Source: U.S. Department of Education

Send Your Name Around the Earth

Members of the public can send their names around Earth on NASA’s Glory satellite, the first mission dedicated to understanding the effects of particles in the atmosphere and the sun’s variability on our climate.

The “Send Your Name Around the Earth” Web site enables everyone to take part in the science mission and place their names in orbit for years to come. The Web site, where participants can submit their information, is located HERE


Participants will receive a printable certificate from NASA and have their name recorded on a microchip that will become part of the spacecraft. The deadline for submitting names is Nov. 1, 2008.

Writing for the Web

Arriving in the library this week will be the following books about writing for the web:

Hot Text and Web Writing That Works
Developing Online Content: Principles of Writing & Editing for the Web
Letting Go of the Words: Writing With Content That Works

Election 2008

Useful Links

Candidates
McCain-Palin Website: www.johnmccain.com
Obama-Biden Website: www.barackobama.com
Roll Call - Presidential Race: congress.org/election/home/
You Decide 2008: www.youdecide2008.com

Debates
League of Women Voters Debate Watching Tools: tinyurl.com/52oc5p

News
BBC News: news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/americas/2008/vote_usa_2008/default.stm
CNN: www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/
Fox News: elections.foxnews.com/
NPR: www.npr.org/templates/topics/topic.php?topicId=1102
Reuters: www.reuters.com/news/globalcoverage/2008candidates
The New York Times: elections.nytimes.com/2008/
U.S. News: www.usnews.com/Topics/tag/Subject/p/presidential_election_2008/

Books Most Frequently Challenged

Banned Books Week celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one’s opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox. Observed since 1982, this annual ALA event reminds Americans not to take this precious democratic freedom for granted. The “10 Most Challenged Books of 2007” reflect a range of themes, and consist of the following titles:

1) “And Tango Makes Three,” by Justin Richardson/Peter Parnell
2) The Chocolate War,” by Robert Cormier
3) “Olive’s Ocean,” by Kevin Henkes
4) “The Golden Compass,” by Philip Pullman
5) “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” by Mark Twain
6) “The Color Purple,” by Alice Walker
7) "TTYL,” by Lauren Myracle
8) "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” by Maya Angelou
9) “It’s Perfectly Normal,” by Robie Harris
10) "The Perks of Being A Wallflower,” by Stephen Chbosky

Off the list this year, are two books by author Toni Morrison. "The Bluest Eye" and "Beloved," both challenged for sexual content and offensive language.

Paulson's Plan

Here is the Legislative Proposal for Treasury Authority to Purchase Mortgage-Related Assets This is the plan submitted by Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson. (you may want to pay particular attention to Section 8).

Are the Scrub s Germ-Free?

"The Doctor's Hands Are Germ-Free. The Scrubs Too?" was published in the New York Times Tuesday. A Goodwin Student asked that I mention this article on the blog after she noticed that many students here come from or are going to medical settings wearing scrubs that may not pass the germ-free test.

A recent study at a Connecticut hospital "sought to gauge the role that clothing plays in the spread of methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, or MRSA. The study found that if a worker entered a room where the patient had MRSA, the bacteria would end up on the worker’s clothes about 70 percent of the time, even if the person never actually touched the patient.

Amid growing concerns about hospital infections and a rise in drug-resistant bacteria, the attire of doctors, nurses and other health care workers — worn both inside and outside the hospital — is getting more attention. While infection control experts have published extensive research on the benefits of hand washing and equipment sterilization in hospitals, little is known about the role that ties, white coats, long sleeves and soiled scrubs play in the spread of bacteria." (quoted from the article)

Reading Banned Books

Banned Books Week, which runs September 27 to October 3 this year, draws attention to the issue of censorship and how it can best be combated.

Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read is observed during the last week of September each year. Observed since 1982, this annual American Library Association event reminds Americans not to take this precious democratic freedom for granted. This year, 2008, marks BBW's 27th anniversary.

BBW celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one’s opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them. After all, intellectual freedom can exist only where these two essential conditions are met. Check the blog each day next week for more information.

I'll Take My Lecture to Go, Please

It looks like students can be open-minded after all: When provided with the option to view lectures online, rather than just in person, a full 82 percent of undergraduates kindly offered that they’d be willing to entertain an alternative to showing up to class and paying attention in real time.

A new study released yesterday suggests not only a willingness but a “clear preference” among undergraduates for “lecture capture,” the technology that records, streams and stores what happens in the classroom for concurrent or later viewing.

Source: Inside Higher Education September 23 2008

Respiratory Class: APA Paper

Click here for a copy of a research paper in APA format titled "Can Medication Cure Obesity in Children?" This is a research paper written by Luisa Mirano, a student in a psychology class. The assignment was to write a review of the literature paper documented with APA style citations and references. This sample research paper was published in The Bedford Handbook by Diana Hacker. The library staff is prepared to help you with research and the APA format.