Special Library Association 100th Anniversary

Marilyn Nowlan, Goodwin library director, attended the 100th anniversary celebration of the Boston Special Library Association (SLA)at the Artists for Humanity Epicenter in Boston Tuesday, September 28. Boston SLA now includes Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, and all of Connecticut except for Fairfield County. Marilyn is a past president of the Connecticut Valley SLA Chapter that merged with Boston in 2007. Plans are underway to rename SLA Boston to reflect the regional membership. SLA is an international association of information professionals/special librarians in corporations, business, science, hospitals, government and academic institutions.

CT Science Education Conference October 30

Be sure not to miss the 2010 Connecticut Science Education Conference, held October 30th, 2010, at Hamden Middle School in Hamden, CT. This annual professional development conference draws educators from all across the state of Connecticut and Southern New England. There are over 60 workshops that address all grade levels from Kindergarten through University and all areas of science education, including life science, earth/space science, physical science, assessment, technology, and literacy. An Exhibit Hall features more the 50 commercial and non-profit organizations. The Keynote Speaker, Jeff Winokur, is nationally known for his work in the science-literacy connection. He is part of the author team for Science & Literacy, Heinemann’s groundbreaking professional development program.

Mark your calendars and vist www.csta.org to register and for more information.

Celbrating the Freedom to Read

Banned Book Week
September 25−October 2, 2010

Banned Books Week (BBW) is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment. Held during the last week of September, Banned Books Week highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books across the United States.

Intellectual freedom—the freedom to access information and express ideas, even if the information and ideas might be considered unorthodox or unpopular—provides the foundation for Banned Books Week. BBW stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints for all who wish to read and access them.

The books featured during Banned Books Week have been targets of attempted bannings. Fortunately, while some books were banned or restricted, in a majority of cases the books were not banned, all thanks to the efforts of librarians, teachers, and members of the community to retain the books in the library collections.

Watch this week for activities celebrating our freedom to read. Start with the display case in front of the elevators.

The Constitution and Religious Freedom

Speaker: Attorney Richard Voigt
Topic: The Constitution and Religious Freedom
Community Room
6:30 p.m.
Thursday, September 23
Sponsored by the Library Advocacy Committee

Freshman Reading

The library has a collection of topical titles that will stimulate conversation and critical thinking while engaging students in full discussions of timely, popular subjects. We proudly present you with a list of thought-provoking books ideal for freshman-year reading and first-year seminars.

The Soulful Science:
What Economists Really Do and Why It Matters (Revised Edition)
Diane Coyle

Lincoln on Race and Slavery
Edited and introduced by Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Coedited by Donald Yacovone

On Bullshit
Harry G. Frankfurt

The Founders on Religion:
A Book of Quotations
Edited and Introduced by James H. Hutson

Cop in the Hood:
My Year Policing Baltimore's Eastern District
Peter Moskos

Scroogenomics:
Why You Shouldn't Buy Presents for the Holidays
Joel Waldfogel

Guesstimation:
Solving the World's Problems on the Back of a Cocktail Napkin
Lawrence Weinstein & John A. Adam

The Invisible Hook:
The Hidden Economics of PiratesPeter T. Leeson

Constitution Day Today

Educational institutions receiving Federal funding are required
to provide educational programs or displays pertaining to the United States Constitution on September 17 of each year.

Notice Constitution resources in the display case in front of the elevators.Try answering sample questions from the naturalization test to see if you could become a citizen.

Please check the library page for lots of information about the Constitution and Constitution Day.

Next week we will continue our celebration of the Constitution by having a debate between two Goodwin professors on health care reform, a panel discussion on Constitution issues, and an attorney who will speak on the Constitution and religious freedom. Watch the library page for date, times and place!


Online today!
In the meantime log on to www.constitutioncenter.org/constitutionday ANY TIME today, September 17, 2010 for Constitution Hall Pass, an online event that will feature an introduction by former Supreme Court Justice and Trustee of the Center Sandra Day O'Connor, and teaches students about the importance of the U.S. Constitution, while escorting them on a staff-led virtual tour of the Center's Signers' Hall, an iconic interpretation of the Assembly Room where the signers of the Constitution met.

Source: The Goodwin Library and the Library Advocacy Committee

Accesing Library Off Campus with Shibboleth

The library is hoping to have a new method of accessing the library resources off campus. The Shibboleth System is a standards based, open source software package for web single sign-on access. It allows sites to make informed authorization decisions for individual access of protected online resources in a privacy-preserving manner. If all goes well, it should be operational in October.

The word shibboleth comes from ancient Hebrew and meant 'ear of grain'. Some groups pronounced it with a sh sound, but speakers of related dialects pronounced it with an s. In the story, two Semitic tribes, the Ephraimites and the Gileadites, have a great battle. The Gileadites defeat the Ephraimites, and set up a blockade across the Jordan River to catch the fleeing Ephraimites who were trying to get back to their territory. The sentries asked each person who wanted to cross the river to say the word shibboleth. The Ephraimites, who had no sh sound in their language, pronounced the word with an s and were thereby unmasked as the enemy and slaughtered.

News for Students Using EBSCO Databases

Results List Enhancements for EBSCO Databases

EBSCO has applied a fresh new design to the EBSCOhost interface, and enhanced the Result List for greater usability:
•Limiters and the date slider are now in the left column, consolidating all the ways to refine and work with results.
•To the right of the Result List are search/content expansion tools: Related Information, access to integrated search (EHIS) connectors, widgets.
•You can now select multiple clusters and source types when managing results.
•A "breadbox" tracks which limiters, expanders and source types have been selected and allows one-click removal.
•Menu organization for page options and alert/save/share has been improved.

The Library has these EBSCO Databases:
CINAHL (Cumulative Index for Nursing and Allied Health)
Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition
PsycINFO
GreenFILE
LISTA (Library Information Science & Technology Abstracts)
Education Research Complete
ERIC (Education Resource Information Center)
Academic Search Premier

New Books Cartel, Cartel 2, and Cartel 3

The Cartel Trilogy by Ashley JaQuavis is now available in the Goodwin Library. Last November, these authors joined only a few others from the street literature genre to make the New York Times Best Seller list. Making the Times list establishes a stronger presence for street literature that tells stories about the struggles and realities of urban black life on the street. This is a new style of writing that has been mostly ignored by mainstream America until recently. It hasn't been ignored by the Goodwin College community.

World Water Day is Coming

On September 18th, World Water Monitoring Day will focus on protecting and preserving water resources around the world. American Leak Detection encourages everyone to conserve water in the home.

Do you have dripping faucets? If a drip fills an 8 ounce glass in 15 minutes, the faucet will waste about 180 gallons of water per month, or 2,160 gallons a year.

Pick up information in the library about World Water monitoring Day provided by Bruce Morton, Program Director and Associate Professor of Environmental Science.

Source: Water Efficiency

Happy 40th Birday

The Clean Air Act was 40 yesterday. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson hosted a day-long party to celebrate. We should celebrate, too. The Clean Air Act is an effective and beneficial pieces of public health legislation. For four decades this landmark law has successfully protected the health of millions of Americans from dozens of different air pollutants.

Fastest Growing Jobs in America

"The number of registered nurses is expected to swell to 3.2 million by 2018, accounting for approximately 581,500 new jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That's up from 2.6 million today, and it represents the largest overall growth projection out of all occupations in the U.S. economy, for good reason.

Americans aged 65 and older will make up 19% of the population in 2030. As the population ages, there will be an increased demand for health care services in general, and home health care services in particular. In the past year, the home health care services industry has experienced sales growth of 11.2%, making it the fastest growing industry in the U.S

Along with registered nurses, Sageworks projects that home care aids, physician assistants, pharmacists, and other medical professions will be in high demand for the foreseeable future."

Source: Fortune September 7 2010

Welcome to New and Returning Students

The staff of the library welcomes new and returning students. The library has new computers on the first floor and will soon have additional computers on the second floor. Please stop by if you have any questions about library services.

We look forward to working with you this year. Be sure to get your student ID as soon as possible because it will be required for using library resources by Monday, September 13.

Best wishes to all of your for a successful and exciting year!

FORGET WHAT YOU KNOW ABOUT STUDY HABITS

In recent years, cognitive scientists have shown that a few simple techniques can reliably improve what matters most: how much a student learns from studying. The findings can help anyone, from a fourth grader doing long division to a retiree taking on a new language. But they directly contradict much of the common wisdom about good study habits, and they have not caught on.

“We have known these principles for some time, and it’s intriguing that schools don’t pick them up, or that people don’t learn them by trial and error,” said Robert A. Bjork, a psychologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. “Instead, we walk around with all sorts of unexamined beliefs about what works that are mistaken.”

Read the article to improve your study habits!

Source: New York Times September 6, 2010

Rubik's Mystery Solved

Remember this? My children used to compete on who could solve it in the shortest time. What is the maximum number of moves needed to solve any possible scrambling of a Rubik's cube? They didn't know the answer back then. But we now know the answer is 20, thanks to a team who combined the computing might of Google with some clever mathemtical insights to check all 43 million billion possible positions. Their feat solves the biggest remaining puzzle presented by the cube. You did care, didn't you?

Source: New Scientist August 21

New Book for Faculty

Integrated General Education
Catherin M. Wehlburg, Editor
96 pages, 9 chapters
New Directions for Teaching and Learning Series
published Spring, 2010, by Jossey-Bass

"General educaton has been an essential part of American higher education for a long time. Unfortunately, it is often seen as something to'get out of the way' so that the student can go on to take the more 'important' courses within a chosen major. This way of thinking does a disservice to the student, the student's learning, and the overall expectations for a baccalaureate degree." (From the Editor)

In our on-going discussion of baccalaureate culture, this is relevant reading. It was recommended for the library by Henriette Pranger.

CQ Researcher This Week

Drone Warfare
Are strikes by unmanned aircraft ethical?

"Unmanned “drone” aircraft controlled from remote video consoles are being used in increasing numbers by the U.S. military in Afghanistan and by the CIA in Pakistan and other places outside of recognized war zones. Some scholars argue the CIA strikes in Pakistan are illegal, while others say they comply with the laws of war. The spread of armed drones, along with resulting civilian deaths . . . ."

The full report is available on line user name and password required).
Other Recent Reports:
Financial Industry Overhaul
America at War
Gangs in the U.S.

Mirthless Senate

In a devastating profile this month of the broken Senate, George Packer of The New Yorker reveals a place that might as well be stuffed with mummies. Senators from opposite parties avoid eye contact, even a few feet apart. The choreography is as well-plotted as an old-style Soviet party congress — everything known in advance. Senators work a three-day week, and spend about 50 percent of their free time raising money for reelection.
(Quoted from editorial in the New York Times today by Timothy Egan.)

Citing Indirect Sources: MLA format

I am quoting from the MLA Handbook (7th edition 6.4.7 page226)

"Whenever you can, take material from the original source, not a secondhand one. If only an indirect surce is availabe--for example,someone's published account of an author's spoken remarks [or published work]. If what you quote or paraphrqase is itself a quotation, put the abbreviation qtd. in ("quoted in") before the indirect source you cite in your parenthetical reference."

Y:ou may document the original source in a note (5.5.1 page 230)

Examples:
Parenthetical Reference:
In “On Her Own Work”, O’Connor suggested her interpretation of the gesture to the misfit (qtd.in Petit 312).

Works Cited
Petit, Susan. “Finding Flannery O’Connor’s ‘Good Man’ in Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead and Home.” Christianity and Literature 59.2 (Winter 2010):
301-318. Web. 11 Aug. 2010.

Note
1.The original source of the paraphrase of O’Connor's comment on the grandmother’s gesture to the misfit was on page 112 in “On Her Own Work” Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose selected and edited by Sally and Robert Fitzgerald published in 1969 by Farrar.
[Notes would precede the Works Cited Page.]

CINAHL Features for Nursing Students' Research

Do you need articles on coronary thrombosis written by a nurse? Sometimes your instructors require you to find peer-reviewed articles written by a nurse. Perhaps you have already discovered that CINAHL has a new feature that will help you.

You can limit articles to those ”Written by a Nurse.” You can also limit to articles where the first author is a nurse, or you can limit to articles where any author is a nurse. These limits are only good for articles 2009-forward and a nurse is considered any author with RN, BSN, MSN, and in the case of international publications the appropriate international license/credentials/degree. I always emphasize that this is not a perfect solution either because it eliminates nurse authors in non-nursing journals. I do not know if this feature will become retroactive and include articles before 2009. Stay tuned.

Some additional information:

.The DOI (Digital Object Identifier) has been added to all records 2009-forward.
•The PMC ID (PubMed Central ID) has been added to records 2009-forward.