Writing Women Back into History

About Women’s History Month
Before the 1970’s, the topic of women’s history was largely missing from general public consciousness. To address this situation, the Education Task Force of the Sonoma County (California) Commission on the Status of Women initiated a “Women’s History Week” celebration in 1978 and chose the week of March 8 to coincide with International Women’s Day.

The celebration was met with positive response, and schools began to host their own Women’s History Week programs. The next year, leaders from the California group shared their project at a Women’s History Institute at Sarah Lawrence College. Other participants not only became determined to begin their own local Women’s History Week projects but also agreed to support an effort to have Congress declare a national Women’s History Week.

In 1981, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Rep. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) cosponsored the first Joint Congressional Resolution proclaiming a “Women’s History Week.”

In 1987, the National Women’s History Project petitioned Congress to expand the celebration to the entire month of March. Since then, the National Women’s History Month Resolution has been approved every year with bipartisan support in both the House and Senate.

The overarching theme is “Writing Women Back into History.” In celebration of their 30th anniversary, the National Women’s History Project will be highlighting themes and honorees from previous years. Each of these past themes recognizes a different aspect of women’s achievements, from ecology to art, and from sports to politics.
Source: Library of Congress

Women's History Month Message from CT Senator

Senator Dodd Commemorates Women's History Month.

“March 1 marks the start of Women’s History Month, and during this month we reflect on the pivotal role women have played in the shaping of our country. In my home state of Connecticut, women have made countless contributions not only to our state’s rich history, but to the history and spirit of our entire nation.

“Harriet Beecher Stowe, a Hartford native and the author of the landmark novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, was called by President Abraham Lincoln ‘the little lady who started the Civil War’. Elizabeth Hart Jarvis Colt was one of America’s first woman CEOs and a distinguished philanthropist.

“Marian Anderson of Danbury was the first African-American woman to perform with the Metropolitan Opera and was invited by Eleanor Roosevelt to perform at the Lincoln Memorial after the Daughters of the American Revolution barred her from performing at Washington’s Constitution Hall. And Ella Grasso, a native of Windsor Locks, was the first female governor of Connecticut and the first female governor in the country elected in her own right."

Featured Title of the Month in Credo Reference

Now in the Credo Reference Database, The Encyclopedia of Public Choice offers a detailed and comprehensive account of the subject that deals with the intersection of economics and political science. Its fruitful exchange among ethics, moral and political philosophy, and law, as well as economics and political science, examines the image of man as a purposive and rational actor. Its balanced coverage, which reflects the various public choice methodologies and approaches, is thoughtful, comprehensive, lively, and original.The encyclopedia includes different types of entries, including: essays and concepts. Read a few of the interesting articles:
Environmental Politics
Public Schools

Source: Credo Reference can be accessed from the library page.

Health, United States, 2009

The use of medical technology in the United States increased dramatically between 1996 and 2006, according to “Health, United States, 2009,” the federal government’s 33rd annual report to the President and Congress on the health of all Americans.

The report was prepared by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics from data gathered by state and federal health agencies and through ongoing national surveys.

This year’s edition features a special section on medical technology, and finds that the rate of magnetic resonance imaging, known as MRI, and computed and positron emission tomography or CT/PET scans, ordered or provided, tripled between 1996 and 2007. Read the press release.
Source: Center for Disease Control and Prevention Press release February 17

Lowering Student Loan Default Rates

Colleges across the nation are struggling to confront a growing problem in higher education: student debt. As more students borrow more money than ever before, and recent graduates enter the worst job market in a generation, students are increasingly unable to pay back their loans.
…
Just over 10 years ago, a small group of historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in Texas confronted a similar crisis, one in which student loan defaults threatened the existence of the institutions. The steps they took to solve that problem have suddenly become relevant to a much broader set of colleges and universities today. Read the Full Report.
Source: Education Sector Report March 2010

How We're Doing in the World

Judged by most standards, America and the world are better off today than they were a year ago when President Obama entered office. While few Americans will forget the fear of global economic meltdown that accompanied the 44th president’s inauguration and the drastic stimulus and triage measures that had to be taken to arrest the economic freefall, public optimism, as measured by a variety of opinion poll measures, has recovered.

But many workers, especially those in the once-thriving Sun Belt, are still suffering severe unemployment. In some ways, we’ve faced a marked decline since 2006, when world GDP growth was at nearly 4 percent and world trade growth was more than 20 percentage points higher than in 2009. In this third “How We’re Doing” Index, a team of Brookings experts take a four-year look at key local, domestic and global indicators to gauge the shifting position of the United States and the larger international system.
Go here for Analysis and Charts.

Source: Brookings Institute

CQ Researcher: Modernizing the Grid

The U.S. electric power grid — the nationwide system of interconnected regional power systems — is a century old and under strain. Long-term power demand has grown steadily since the 1980s, but investments in transmission have lagged behind. Three major blackouts in the past decade have raised concerns about providing electricity reliably. Federal agencies are working with utilities, manufacturers and information technology companies to develop a modernized grid that uses computers to monitor the system. Advocates say this “smart grid” will be able to generate more electricity from renewable fuels and save money for businesses and families. The Obama administration calls the smart grid an urgent priority and is spending billions to help design it. But some experts worry that a digital grid could be vulnerable to cyberattacks or that it will violate consumers' privacy. Others say that promoting energy conservation or building new power plants near population centers would be more effective than building new high-voltage transmission lines. Read the entire report online (Text the librarian for user name and password.)
Source: CQ Researcher February 19
Image: Work crews restore power on high-voltage transmission lines outside New Orleans knocked down by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The Obama administration wants to upgrade the nation's century-old power grid, but critics say energy conservation and new power plants closer to population centers are better solutions. (Bloomberg via Getty Images/Rae Morris

iTunes passes the billion songs downloaded mark

Do you remember when you had to go to a music store or order music online? iTunes just passed a billion songs downloaded. To mark the occasion,iTunes published a list of the top songs downloaded since they opened--seven years ago in 2003. The list contains the all-time top songs--“top” as in sales. 20 songs are listed. (I hope this won't make you feel old.)

Here are the Top Five:

1. I Gotta Feeling by the Black Eyed Peas
2. Poker Face by Lady GaGa
3. Boom Boom Pow by the Black Eyed Peas
4. I’m Yours by Jason Mraz
5. Viva La Vida by Coldplay

Of course you want to see the entire list. Go for it.
Source: Apple

Web Pages Going Away Fast

The average life of a web page these days is apparently somewhere between 44 and 77 days. A lot of the web simply disappears into the ether, but the British Library Web Archive and other archives are doing a valuable job of preserving some traces of our digital lives in a time capsule.
Source: BBC about the British Library Web Archive

New Revolution

"Penguin Boss Unfazed by the March of ebooks"
From the Article:

"When it first appeared in the 1930s, the paperback was regarded with suspicion and alarm in the book industry. Deploying a brand new technology, it brought cheap literature to the masses, transforming reading habits. The revolution shook the gentlemanly world of publishing to its core.

Three quarters of a century later the British company behind this disruptive force, Penguin, finds itself at the centre of another epoch-defining upheaval. The relentless march of the electronic book – epitomised by Amazon’s Kindle reader and the forthcoming Apple iPad – threatens to hollow out the publishing world in the same way as the internet has altered forever the dynamics of the music industry.

Penguin boss John Makinson likens the rise of the ebook to the moment when Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press in the 15th century."

Access the entire article.

Source: Article in MailOnline February 25

Gotta Keep Reading

It's a gloomy day out there. I hope listening to this will brighten it for you.
Gotta Keep Reading - Ocoee Middle School

New Book: Checklist Manifesto

Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande
This book, now available in the library, is highly recommended by Paula Dowd, Program Director and Associate Professor of Health Sciences.

"We live in a world of great and increasing complexity, where even the most expert professionals struggle to master the tasks they face. Longer training, ever more advanced technologies—neither seems to prevent grievous errors. But in a hopeful turn, acclaimed surgeon and writer Atul Gawande finds a remedy in the humblest and simplest of techniques: the checklist. First introduced decades ago by the U.S. Air Force, checklists have enabled pilots to fly aircraft of mind-boggling sophistication. Now innovative checklists are being adopted in hospitals around the world, helping doctors and nurses respond to everything from flu epidemics to avalanches. Even in the immensely complex world of surgery, a simple ninety-second variant has cut the rate of fatalities by more than a third."

Atul Gawande is the author of Better and Complications. He is also a MacArthur Fellow, a general surgeon at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, a staff writer for The New Yorker, and an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard School of Public Health.
Source: Quotation from product information

New Feature for Credo Reference Database

Credo Reference has announced Topic Pages, a new approach to presenting and organizing information resources. They developed topic pages to provide context and vocabulary around a subject and act as a starting point for research - all on one page. Every Topic Page assembles topical material from many resources from within and outside of the library. You choose which resources will be displayed on your own customized version of Credo Topic Pages. Watch the video introduction.

Source: Credo Reference Database

Social Media: Not a Fad!

If you have any doubts about whether we are in the midst of a social media revolution, you need to watch this video. Compelling facts show we all need to get on board if we want to remain in the mainstream and not be left behind.

Source: Special Library Association Boston Chapter

Worldometers

Worldometers is part of the Real Time Statistics Project, which is managed by an international team of developers, researchers, and volunteers with the goal of making world statistics available in a thought-provoking and time relevant format to a wide audience around the world. Watch the increases speed by in population, Google searchers, and much more!

Sources are carefully selected to include only data published by the most reputable organizations and statistical offices in the world.

Source: Worldometers

African American Sites in the Digital Collections

Contributions by African Americans to the arts, education, industry, literature, politics and much more are well represented in the vast collections of the Library of Congress. The digital collections are no exception. American Memory, the flagship of the Library's digital collections, online exhibits and other areas of the Library's Web site provide a broad range of digitized materials pertaining to the African American experience. Many are represented here to provide the user with an electronic research tool.

This webliography, documenting electronic resources within this subject area, is organized by historical eras based on the American Memory timeline found on the Teachers Page. Its primary focus is to connect the user to full text online resources regarding significant people, major institutions and events from an African American perspective, historically related to an era. Complete essays from the Today in History Web site provide topical information and comprehensive search strategies to further research. This extensive resource enhances the use of the digital collections, allowing the user to explore more online materials. In addition, many subject entries were identified in America's Library, the Library's site for children and families.

Source: Web Guides

Featured Journal: Nurse Educator

The library subscribes to Nurse Educator. Now the library receives online access with that paid print subscription. Full text articles are available in issues dating back to 1971.

Nurse Educator's new website integrates journal content and rich media to allow a more personalized approach to content. Some of the new features designed to enhance readability, usability, and impact include Featured Articles, Editor's Picks, Most Viewed, and Quick Polls.

There are new options for article delivery, including an enhanced HTML format for easier reading, and ways to customize the site, including saved searches, personal article collections, e-mail, and RSS alerts. You also have the capability to export references into your favorite citation manager and figures from full-text articles into PowerPoint. You can even access from your smart phone.

In the months ahead new features will debut such as Published Ahead-of-Print papers and easy-to-find supplementary materials and media. Also notice the Classics from Nurse Educator to learn how issues faced today were addressed over the decades. Editor's Picks highlights background reading on a variety of issues, while Collections group like articles on various topics of interest. You can also take the Quick Poll.

Source: www.nurseeducator.com

Winter Pictures

This is the scene outside the library this morning at 7 a.m. (taken with an iPhone). The Library Advocacy Committee will soon announce how to enter your photos for the 2011 Goodwin Calendar. Keep posted!

Use the Buzz

"Google’s new microblogging service, is getting a lot of, well, buzz. “Hello World!” has literally been replaced by “Buzz! Buzz!” by new people trying it out. If you’re not familiar with it, here’s the best way to explain it:

It’s all of the elements that one could think of getting out of Twitter (more than 140 characters, the ability to post videos and photos) packed neatly into your gmail account. While there are still some kinks to work out (you get an email every time someone you’re following posts or comments, which could get really annoying fast), Gmail’s built-in active user base of 176 million users is making it a clear force to be reckoned with."

In comparison, Twitter claims to have 75 million users and about 25% of accounts are reported to be inactive. Foursquare, known by some as “The Twitter of 2010″ is similar in that you “check in” using GPS on your phone and has been building momentum in it’s growth. David Lee King recently had a great post about it called “Foursquare and Libraries – Definitely Something There!” And I would agree, but it seems Buzz might be hot on the trail as it has the same built-in GPS/Geo-Location features and it works directly with Google Maps. Granted, it’s currently missing the fun “Mayor” game element Foursquare has, but this is a numbers game and Google definitely has numbers.

Source: Mobile Reference in Libraries

Connecting to Library off campus

If you are having trouble connecting to the library off campus and have followed the instructions on the library page, please call the help desk. Ask them to check if you have dial-in VPN rights.

Help Desk: (860) 528-4111 extension 6743