Oprah's New Book: Say You're One of Them

Oprah has chosen Say You're One of them by Uwem Akpan as a 2009 selection for her book club. It is available in the library.

" Awe is the only appropriate response to Uwem Akpan's stunning debut, a collection of five stories so ravishing and sad that I regret ever wasting superlatives on fiction that was merely very good.... Akpan's characters are ordinary, flawed, sometimes funny kids who happen to be caught in a nightmare....The book should be depressing, but the blazing humanity of the characters and the brilliance of Akpan's artistry make this one of the year's most exhilirating reads."--Jennifer Reese Entertainment Weekly

The book was published last year and won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book (African Region), was longlisted for the Story Prize, and was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction. It was listed as one of the best books of 2008 by the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg News, Christian Science Monitor, Washington Post Book Club, and Entertainment Weekly, to name a few. Akpan was born in Nigeria. He was ordained a Jesuit priest in 2003 and received his MFA in creative writing from the University of Michigan several years ago.

When to Write a Cover Letter

"A cover letter is only helpful if it gets a hiring manager to look at your résumé — and many hiring managers don't bother to read them at all. Who can blame them? Most cover letters are a boring recap of a person's résumé or a form letter that doesn't relate to the company or position. Don't bother writing a cover letter unless you have something new to say. Skip "Dear Sir/Madam" and take the extra time to find the name of the hiring manager. Instead of repeating what is already in your résumé, talk briefly and specifically about how your skills and experience relate to the job you are applying for."

Today's Management Tip From Harvard Business Publishing was adapted from "The Best Cover Letter I Ever Received" by David Silverman.

Constitution Day Picture at Goodwin College

Goodwin student looking at the Library's Constitution Day display.

Welcome to the wondrous world of fairy tales. Whether a student, a parent or a teacher, here you can take a magical journey, filled with adventure, or just remember what it feels like to be a kid again. There is a little something for everyone among these pages, starting with the classical fairy tales.
Source: Information and image from World of Tales: Stories for Children from Around the World.

Constitution Day Resource

Encyclopedia of the First Amendment

CQ Press helps educate our students and ourselves with an extensive list of U.S. Constitutional resources. Here is one that we have recently purchased for the library: Encyclopedia of the First Amendment. It won the 2008 Booklist Editor's Choice, 2009 RUSA Outstanding Reference Source, and Library Journal Best Reference 2008.

In the first work of its kind, this exciting two-volume reference comprehensively examines all the freedoms in the First Amendment, including free speech, press, assembly, petition, and religion. Encyclopedia of the First Amendment covers the political, historical, and cultural significance of the First Amendment. It provides exclusive, singular focus on what most people consider the essential elements of the Bill of Rights and the basic liberties.

On Constitution Day and any other day, this is a great resource for all of us. We need to know and appreciate the freedoms reflected in this amendment. One of the volumes is in the display case in front of the elevators.

You Will Want iCYTE

iCyte enables you to highlight and save text on any webpage, allowing you to recall the most relevant information. You can save sections of webpages or the whole thing. This is a browser-based annotation tool that lets you highlight, tag, and comment on text on Web pages, and then manage those citations for reference or sharing--very nifty.

Webpages you Cyte are saved forever on ther server, letting you return to your research even if the webpage has been deleted or modified.Invite colleagues and friends to join your projects, discover new research, and share information.

Try iCyte now. Did I mention that it is free?

Source: Smart Computing and Henriette Pranger

Constitution Day and Citizenship Day

Constitution Day and Citizenship Day is a combined event that is annually observed in the United States on September 17. This event commemorates the formation and signing of the Constitution of the United States on September 17, 1787. It also recognizes all who, by coming of age or by naturalization, have become US citizens. The president may issue each year a proclamation calling on government officials within the nation to display the country's flag on government buildings on Constitution Day and Citizenship Day, as well as inviting the people to observe this event in schools, churches, or other suitable places, with appropriate displays or activities.

Please notice the library book display in front of the elevators and in the library. We also have a Constitution quiz available for library visitors today to check their knowledge of one of our country's most important documents.

The National Constitution Center in Historic Philadelphia is America's most interactive history museum. Located just two blocks from the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall, it is the only museum devoted to the U.S. Constitution and the story of We, the People. Visit their site online to find information, games, quizzes, lesson plans, and podcasts.

Interesting New Books

Going to Extremes: How Like Minds Unite and Divide by Cass Sunstein

"Harvard law professor Sunstein (Radicals in Robes) explores the nature of group decision making, largely expounding on his contention that homogenous groups of like-minded people tend to adopt more extreme positions than groups with a diversity of opinions. As in his previous, coauthored book, Nudge, in which he argued that small incentives can subtly push people toward making better decisions, Sunstein marshals empirical evidence in aid of his argument, which largely focuses on politics and public policy. As President Obama's nominee to head the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Sunstein's ideas about such matters have now attained a level of national importance, but with the exception of a few notable potshots at the decision making in George W. Bush's White House, the book is not ideological and displays a keen interest in diverse areas ranging from the mindset that leads to genocide to how conspiracy theories form and are propagated." (Publisher's Week Review)This book is available through Interlibrary Loan.

Age of Empathy: Nature's Lessons for a Kinder Society by Frans de Waal

"For those who still equate the term 'beastly' and 'apelike' with fundamentally selfish and aggressive behaviour, and who believe that evolution is always 'red in tooth and claw', The Age of Empathy is an excellent antidote." (This is from the review in Nature by Michael Tomasello.
Source: Nature September 3

NIST and the World Trade Center

The collapse nine years ago today of New York City’s World Trade Center structures following the terrorist attacks was the worst building disaster in recorded history, killing some 2,800 people. More than 350 fire and emergency responders were among those killed, the largest loss of life for this group in a single incident.

In response to the WTC tragedy, the National Institute of Standards and Technology conducted a 3-year building and fire safety investigation to study the factors contributing to the probable cause (or causes) of post-impact collapse of the WTC Towers (WTC 1 and 2) and WTC 7; expanded its research in areas of high-priority need such as prevention of progressive collapse, fire resistance design and retrofit of structures, and fire resistive coatings for structural steel; and is reaching out to the building and fire safety communities to pave the way for timely, expedited considerations of recommendations stemming from the investigation. Reports and other docutmentation are here.

Note: Many of the reports and other documents provided are presented in .pdf format. To read these files, you can download the latest version of Adobe Acrobat Reader free. If you have difficulty reading pdf files, you may need to update your version of Acrobat reader to the latest version.

Source: This information is quoted from the National Institue of Standards and Technology

Taking Notes Beyond the Classroom

In 2001, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced an OpenCourseWare system that would post videos and other course materials for virtually all MIT classes online for the world to see, thereby starting to break down the traditional barriers to higher education.

Eight years later, we may be seeing the student response. The development of free note sharing Web sites, where students upload their class notes to share with their peers, has begun to create an open stockpile of downloadable information that some say is further leveling the academic playing field. With an influx of note sharing sites -- from the innocuous sounding GradeGuru to the most "college" sounding isleptthroughclass.com (now relaunched as Wise Campus) -- many of them advocate the spread and collaborative use of knowledge beyond the classroom and university.

Source: "Taking Notes Beyond the Classroom"Inside Higher Education August 5
Photo: (c)istockphoto/diane39

Shuttle Flyover Tonight

Please look into the southern sky tonight. At 7:42 pm the International Space Station will appear in the South Southwest and fly towards the ENE. It will look like a very bright moving star. It is as big as a football field and it's solar panels will be reflecting sunlight back to Earth. It will be visible for about 5 minutes and will soar about 30 degrees above the horizon. Following 1 minute behind (and a lot less reflective) will be the Space Shuttle Challenger. They have been docked together but are scheduled to undock today. The shuttle will follow in roughly the same path for a while before landing

Here is the NASA link that gives exact info on tonights viewing and others:

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/sightings/cities/view.cgi?country=United_States®ion=Connecticut&city=Hartford

Use a cell phone to monitor the exact time and find a hill that gives you as unobstructed a view as possible to the South and East.

Source: Private information

International Literacy Day: September 8

This year’s theme, Literacy for Empowerment, highlights the staggering 776 million – or one in five - adults worldwide who still lack basic reading and writing skills. Two thirds of them are women.

Since its foundation in 1946, UNESCO has been at the forefront of global literacy efforts and is dedicated to keeping literacy high on national, regional and international agendas. However, with some 776 million adults lacking minimum literacy skills, literacy for all remains an elusive target. UNESCO’s literacy programmes aim to create a literate world and promote literacy for all.

Source: United Nations Education Scientific and Cultural Organization

World History Sources

World History Sources
A resource center designed to help college world history teachers and students locate, analyze, and learn from online primary sources and further their understanding of the complex nature of world history issues. World History Sources reflects three approaches central to current world history scholarship: an emphasis on comparative issues rather than civilizations in isolation; a focus on contacts among different societies and the economic, social, and cultural consequences of those contacts; and an attentiveness to “global” forces that transcend individual societies or even societies in mutual contact—forces such as technology diffusion, migration, disease transmission, extension and realignments of trade routes, or missionary outreach. World History Sources also benefits tremendously from recent advances in our understanding of how historical learning takes place, building on strategies designed to improve historical learning and history teaching.

The Center for History and New Media (CHNM) at George Mason University received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation to create World History Sources. Check it out here.

Source: Center for History and New Media, George Mason University

Financial Literacy

Financial Literacy--should courses be mandatory in schools?

Poor understanding of basic personal-finance and economic issues has left millions of students and adults mired in credit-card debt, prey to unscrupulous mortgage brokers and prone to making risky bets with their retirement money. High-school seniors correctly answer only about half the questions on personal-finance surveys, and those who take personal-finance courses tend to score no better than those who don't. Studies show similar deficits among adults. Yet experts disagree on a solution. Only a handful of states require at least a semester course on personal finance, and some advocates want Congress or state legislatures to mandate financial education for all K-12 students. Others question the effectiveness of financial-literacy programs in schools, and some worry that corporations may have too much influence on curriculum and instruction. A better approach to improving financial literacy, some argue, is to tighten government regulation to make credit cards, mortgages and other products easier to understand.

CQ Researcher is available online through the Goodwin Library (password protected).

Source: CQ Researcher September 4

Welcome to Faculty

WELCOME TO RETURNING AND NEW FACULTY MEMBERS!

The library staff is here to help you and your students have an exciting and successful semester. Click here to read about the services we have for you. Please stop in to see us and to let us know what more we can do to be of service.

The Lancet's H1N1 Resource Center

The Lancet's H1N1 Resource Centre is constantly growing, providing healthcare workers with freely available up-to-date content on the H1N1 pandemic:
Free content library of more than 240 research articles from over 56 Elsevier journals including The Lancet Infectious Diseases, International Journal of Infectious Diseases, and Vaccine

Newsfeed from Elsevier Global Medical News, providing reports from medical meetings, breaking news, journal summaries, and feature stories from medical experts. (Over 50 news stories already published)

The most up-to-date information on the H1N1 pandemic from the CDC, ECDC, Eurosurveillance, PandemicFlu.gov, UK Health Protection Agency, and WHO websites--saving you browsing time

Visit to The Lancet's H1N1 Resource Centre today a part of your personal preparedness plan for the H1N1 pandemic.

Source: The Lancet

Cost of High School Dropouts

If the high school students who dropped out of the Class of 2009 had graduated, the nation’s economy would have benefited from nearly $335 billion in additional income over the course of their lifetimes, according to a new issue brief from the Alliance for Excellent Education.

Not only do high school dropouts earn less when they are employed, they are much more likely to be unemployed during the current economic recession, the brief finds. In July 2009, the unemployment rate for high school dropouts was 15.4 percent, compared to 9.4 percent for high school graduates, 7.9 percent for individuals with some college credits or an associate’s degree, and 4.7 percent for individuals with a bachelor’s degree or higher.
Source: Alliance for Excellent Education September 2

The Long Budget Process is Over

As I'm sure you have seen, the legislature passed a state budget and the Governor has decided to let it become law on September 8 without her signature. She is making some line item vetoes but nothing that impacts libraries. So below I've listed our final numbers. There isn't a separate line for the service centers but they have been maintained! Also, CEN has maintained their funding. On behalf of all of us at this library and all the others in the state, thank you to all the supporters of Connecticut's libraries.

State-Wide Digital Library (iCONN) - All databases will be retained.
$1,968,794
Interlibrary Loan Delivery Service (Ccar) - All service will be maintained. $266,434
Legal/Legislative Library Materials (State Library Book Budget) This maintains funding at last year's level.
$1,140,000
State-Wide Data Base Program (reQuest) The statewide catalog and web portal will be maintained.$674,696
Info Anytime - This represents a reduction negotiated with CLC and the Appropriations Committee to maintain the service. Last year's funding was $150,000.
$42,500Support Cooperating Library Service Units (CLC) This restores funding to last year's pre- 5% reduction appropriated level $350,000
Grants to Public Libraries - This maintains last year's funding level.
$347,109
Connecticard Payments - This maintains funding at last year's level.
$1,226,028

What They are Reading on College Campuses

1. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith
2. My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult
3. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
4. Love the One You're With by Emily Giffin
5. Letting Go: A Parents' Guide to Understanding the College Years (Fourth Edition) by Karen Levin Coburn
6. Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri
7. The Shack by William P. Young
8. Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Barack Obama
9. Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace—One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
10. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling
Source: Chronicle of Higher Education August 31

WELCOME FROM THE LIBRARY STAFF

The library staff welcomes new and returning students, faculty and staff. We look forward to seeing all of you. Please stop by the library to say hello. We wish you all an exciting and rewarding semester. We are here to help that happen. See you soon.

Marilyn L. Nowlan
Director of Library Services