New Titles in Virtual Reference Database

As the final step in iCONN's special agreement with Cengage Gale for e-reference books, we now have the following titles added to iCONN's Gale Virtual Reference Library (GVRL) collection:

American History Through Literature 1870-1920
American Revolution Reference Library
American Social Reform Movements Reference Library
American Women Writers: A Critical Reference Guide from Colonial Times to the Present
Biographical Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East and North Africa
Black Literature Criticism, Classic and Emerging Authors since 1950
Dictionary of Literary Biography, Nobel Prize Laureates in Literature
Dictionary of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Elizabethan World Reference Library
Encyclopaedia Judaica
Encyclopedia of American Industries
Encyclopedia of Bioethics
Encyclopedia of Buddhism
Encyclopedia of Emerging Industries
Encyclopedia of Food and Culture
Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity
Encyclopedia of India
Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World
Encyclopedia of Race and Racism
Encyclopedia of Sex and Gender
Endangered Species
Everyday Finance, Economics, Personal Money Management, and Entrepreneurship
Gale Encyclopedia of Diets, A Guide to Health and Nutrition
Gale Encyclopedia of Mental Health
Gale Encyclopedia of Science
Gale Library of Daily Life, American Civil War
Gale Library of Daily Life, Slavery and America
Gothic Literature: A Gale Critical Companion
Government, Politics, and Protest: Essential Primary Sources
Human and Civil Rights: Essential Primary Sources
International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences
New Encyclopedia of Africa
Presidents: A Reference History
Psychology of Classroom Learning, An Encyclopedia
Shakespeare for Students, Critical Interpretations of Shakespeare's Plays and Poetry
Social Policy: Essential Primary Sources
U*X*L Encyclopedia of Weather and Natural Disasters
World Eras

It just keeps getting better and better!

Hunger: New DVD

British filmmaker and artist Steve McQueeen has turned one of history's most controversial acts of political defiance into a jarring, unforgettable cinematic experience about the Irish Republican Army member Bobby Sands played by Michael Fassbender.

DVD Edition now available in the library
2008
96 Minutes
Color
Surround
2.35:1 Aspect Ratio

New From Google

This week Google launched two new services: Photovine and Magnifier.
The service, which debuted as an invitation-only application last month, lets users snap photos and share them with friends much the way they'd blurt out tweets on Twitter. With Photovine, though, photographers group pictures thematically, with one person taking a snap of, say, their desk and sharing it under the theme of "cluttered desks."

Magnifier will add features like videos of live performances, interviews with artists, explorations of different musical genres and free songs users can add to their Music Beta collection, Google said in a blog post.

As part of the new Magnifier launch, Google is giving away two tracks to Music Beta users, one of which is an exclusive to Magnifier: a live performance of "The Day is Coming."

U.S. Code Available in Online format.

The U.S. Code, a consolidation and codification by subject matter of the general and permanent laws of the United States, is now available in a searchable online format.

Book of the Week: Raging Grannies

Women’s courage is ancient. Women fought against slavery and offered shelter to hunted runaways, demanded economic justice for the starving or working poor, raised their voices when rights were trampled, raised their fists when their children were murdered. Women’s collective acts of resistance have played, and continue to play, a vital but often unacknowledged role in humanizing social, political and economic policies.

This is the tale of the Raging Grannies by Carole Roy. Their beginning and growth, the invention of their identity, the educational and daring potential of their activism, the values expressed in their actions and songs, and their impact on issues, stereotypes, media and people.

The Grannies’ distinctive approach is surprisingly effective: many groups of Raging Grannies exist across Canada, in the United States, and as far away as the U.K., Australia and Greece (Greek Grannies call themselves Furies). Their popularity reveals the desire of older women to claim their space on the political scene.

70,000 Students for Free Online Course

"Stanford University has opened up to the public an introductory artificial intelligence class, taught by two luminaries in the field. Anyone with high-speed Internet, anywhere in the world, can enroll in the online course.

Just don’t expect a lot of face time with the professors. As of Tuesday afternoon, more than 70,000 people had signed up to receive registration information for the AI course, which runs from October until December. Participants will be allowed to register in late summer, according to the course Web site."

Source: Scientific American Observations Blog, August 16--written by John Matson who is an online news reporter for Scientific American focusing on space, physics and mathematics. August 16, 2011

Future of Libraries: CQ Researcher

"As economic pressures wrought by the recession continue to squeeze millions of Americans, they are turning increasingly to the nation's libraries for help. Many are taking advantage of computer workstations to hunt for jobs and polish their résumés. Those who can no longer afford to buy DVDs or books are now borrowing them from the library. Yet state and local governments are slashing library budgets, and many public library systems have been forced to reduce hours and staff and close branches. Academic and school libraries also are struggling with budget cuts. Meanwhile, the role of reference librarians is evolving to meet emerging demands spurred by digital publishing. The myriad challenges facing libraries raise questions about their future: Should the physical library shrink as books, journals and other materials increasingly become available in digital form? What role will libraries play if e-books come to dominate the reading experience? And should public libraries be privatized in an effort to save money?"
Source: Introduction to the CQ Researcher Report on the future of libraries. Read it online, courtesy of the Goodwin Library. (password protected)
Image: Visitors to an online reading room at the New York Public Library can bring their own laptop or borrow one for free. (Getty Images/Spencer Platt)

Free Music Download

Every two weeks, Alexander Street and Smithsonian Folkways Recordings offer a free music download from the popular online collection.

This week it is "Cowboy Jim" from the album Pioneering Women of Bluegrass by Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard. When they were recording in the mid 1960s, bluegrass music was dominated by male performers. Their widely admired performance made them role models for future generations of women in bluegrass.

Find information for the free download HERE.

Proquest Central Library Search Steps

•At the flashing cursor type your search word or phrase; click on Scholarly journals, including peer-reviewed to search only scholarly, including peer-reviewed journals; and then click on Search.
Ex. elder abuse

•At the Results list click on the (blue) article title to view the full record with abstract.

•Mark records desired by clicking on the box to the left of each citation within the Results list.

•Click on the My Research tab to review selected records, print out a bibliography or email articles.

•Print out available articles by clicking on Page Image-PDF (first choice); or Full text (second choice); or Article Linker (third choice).

International Year of Forests

Forests are home to 80% of our terrestrial biodiversity. Forests cover 31% of total land area. Forests are home to 300 million people round the world. The livelihood of 1.6 billion people depend on forests.Trade in forest products was estimated at $327 billion in 2004.

Did you know that this is the International Year of Forests? The United Nations General Assembly declared 2011 as the International Year of Forests to raise awareness on sustainable management, conservation and sustainable development of all types of forests.

On their website, you will find information regarding events being organised throughout the International Year as well as interactive web tools and resources to promote dialogue on forests.

Reviving Manufacturing-CQ Researcher Report

"The United States is losing its place as the global leader in high-tech innovation and manufacturing, say many business and Obama administration officials. They point to a steady decline in manufacturing's share of the U.S. economy — and the corresponding erosion of a key source of well-paying jobs.

Most worrisome, they say, is the outsourcing of key high-tech products, including certain semiconductors, screens for some electronic reading devices and batteries for portable electronics. Defenders of globalized manufacturing argue that U.S.-based inventors and engineers devised most of those outsourced products and that high-end manufacturing will survive in the United States even if more factories are built abroad. Yet, both advocates and critics of globalization agree that young Americans aren't getting the training needed to keep the United States competitive in the high-tech arena."
Source: CQ Researcher July 22 issue Available online through the library

Image: A worker assembles a recreational vehicle at the Middlebury, Ind., Jayco plant, where layoffs in 2009 cut the workforce by about one-third. More than 5 million U.S. manufacturing jobs have been lost since 2001. (Cover: Getty Images/Scott Olson)

Botnet Steals Passwords from Facebook Photos

Think twice before uploading your holiday pictures to Facebook-you could be helping someone steal information from your computer. A botnet called Stegobot was created to show how easy it would be for a crook to hijak Facebook photos to create a secret communication channel that is very difficult to detect. Read the article on page 18 in the July 23 issue of New Scientist available in the library. Very scary!

Book of the Week: Give Some Take More

Sherell Simonet, a graduate of Goodwin College, published her first novel in April, Give Some Take More: Is Blood Thicker than Water.
Sherell, a native of Hartford, received an associate degree in Medical Assisting here. She now lives in Baton Rouge where she is completing a Master's Degree in counseling education at Southeastern Louisiana while working on her next novel.

The book is highly recommended by members of the Goodwin community. It is currently available in the Goodwin Library.

New Books in ebrary Academic Complete

This database has recently added over 16,000 multidisciplinary e-books from Ashgate Publishing Group, Brill Academic Publishers, Harvard University Press, Johns Hopkins University Press, Oxford University Press, University of Chicago Press, University of Michigan Press, and other leading publishers.Y our library has access to Academic Complete, a growing e-book collection spanning all academic subject areas.

The list of new additions includes:
Accidental Archaea: Molecular and Cellular Biology, by Ricardo Cavicchioli
Fruit, the Tree, and the Serpent: Why We See So Well, by Lynne A. Isbell
Odes of Horace,by Quintus Horatius Flaccus Horace
Oxford Bible Atlas, by Adrian Curtis
Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States, by Trita Parsi

Required Reading: Zeitoun

Zeitoun by David Eggers is required reading for incoming freshmen at Northeastern University in Boston and Tulane University in New Orleans. It is available in the Goodwin Library.

Eggers returns to his journalistic roots with this nonfiction account of one family's surreal experiences in New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Eggers spent three years researching these events and working closely with the Zeitoun family to understand what happened, and the disturbing details of story he uncovered illustrate the atmosphere of fear which pervaded the Big Easy in the wake of the disaster. He uses Zeitoun's experience to brilliantly illuminate how the most pertinent issues of our time--xenophobia, terrorism, the flawed justice system, and FEMA's abysmal response to Katrina--are mere branches protruding from a trunk of distrust between the American government and the citizens of the world. Selected by the New York Times Book Review as a Notable Book of 2009.

CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics

The 92nd edition of the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics: A Ready Reference Book of Chemical and Physical Data is now available in the reference section of the library. Faculty members may take it to classes. This edition, published in June this year, includes new tables, major updates, and a reorganization of several sections.

There is no search engine to help you navigate through the pages, but the index should be sufficient. "As ever in science, the serendipity of a detour by accident into a new territory", accordingto Sir William Wakeham's foreward, "is itself often fruitful when one can have confidence in what you find."

This is not a handbook to be read from cover to cover, but is to be dipped into from time to time as a source of secure information.

Library of Congress Call number
REF QD64.H3 2011

Booker Prize Long List Announced!

The long list for the 2011 Man Booker Prize for Fiction - the 'Man Booker Dozen' - is announced today, Tuesday 26 July. The 13 books on the list include: one former Man Booker Prize winner; two previously shortlisted writers and one longlisted author; four first time novelists and three Canadian writers. The list also includes three new publishers to the prize - Oneworld, Sandstone Press and Seren Books.

Julian Barnes - The Sense of an Ending (Jonathan Cape - Random House)
Sebastian Barry - On Canaan's Side (Faber)
Carol Birch - Jamrach's Menagerie (Canongate Books)
Patrick deWitt - The Sisters Brothers (Granta)
Esi Edugyan - Half Blood Blues (Serpent's Tail - Profile)
Yvvette Edwards - A Cupboard Full of Coats (Oneworld)
Alan Hollinghurst - The Stranger's Child (Picador - Pan Macmillan)
Stephen Kelman - Pigeon English (Bloomsbury)
Patrick McGuinness - The Last Hundred Days (Seren Books)
A.D. Miller - Snowdrops (Atlantic)
Alison Pick - Far to Go (Headline Review)
Jane Rogers - The Testament of Jessie Lamb (Sandstone Press)
D.J. Taylor - Derby Day (Chatto & Windus - Random House)

The prize aims to reward the best novel of the year written by a citizen of the Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland. Howard Jacobson won last year with "The Finkler Question." Hilary Mantel won with "Wolf Hall" in 2009. The prize is one of the world's most important literary award and has the power to transform the fortunes of authors and even publishers.

The short list will be announced some time in early September. The prize is awarded in October.

Bottlemania: Required Reading

College Confidential is currently featuring required reading for incoming freshmen at colleges and universities across the country. In the next few days and weeks, we will be featuring more great reads from that list.

Incoming freshmen at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland are reading "Bottlemania: How Water Went on Sale and Why We Bought it" by Elizabeth Royte--available in the Goodwin Library.

Even as tap water rises to its highest levels of purity and cleanliness, the bottled-water industry has inexplicably grown into a $60 billion dollar industry. Royte pulls back the curtain on the marketing monster (masterminded by Pepsi, Coke, and Nestle) that has not only created an absolutely unnecessary product, but has generated massive amounts of waste via mountains of plastic water bottles and fleets of water bottle trucks.

iPad App for Biology

Howard Hughes Medical Institute BioInteractive launched their first iPad app – the Virtual Bacterial ID Lab http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/the-virtual-bacterial-id-lab/id443867462?mt=8 – last week, and one for the iPhone and iPad – the all-in-one Click and Learn App just today http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/click-and-learn/id443814512?mt=8!

These are both free (of course), and they would love to hear your feedback on them. More are on the way!

Jennifer Bricken
Department of Science Education
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
www.BioInteractive.org

Latest News on State Library Budget Cuts

iCONN must postpone the restoration of CINAHL Full Text and ProQuest Newsstand.The state library received a summary of the Governor’s proposed budget adjustments for the Library that represents a 23% cut from their budget that was previously approved for the next biennium. Since the Governor now has authority, it is believed that the agencies will be asked to implement the reductions. Obviously, in addition to personnel cuts, there would have to be significant cuts to library programs in order to reach the $2,670,034 reduction.

Our library has already begun negotiations to purchase CINAHL Full Text, if possible.