NEW TITLES IN EBRARY

We are pleased to announce the addition of over 1,100 new titles  to our ebrary subscription collection,  College Complete with DASH! (Data sharing, Fast)  from  publishers such as Wiley, AMADCOM, Packt Publishing, Nova Science and more.  Now with more than 31,100 titles, College Complete serves as a great basic academic collection.

NEW BOOKS

There seems to be a theme or two here.

All That is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity by Marshall Berman
Back to School: Why Everyone Deserves a Second Chance at Education by Mike Rose
Designing the Creative Child: Playthings & Places in Midcentury America by Amy Ogata
The Fault is in Our Stars by John Green
Giving Kids a Fair Chance: A Strategy That Works by James Heckman
Giving Our Children a Fighting chance: Poverty, Literacy, and the Development of Information Capital by Neuman and Celano
Literacy for All Students: An Instructional Framework for Closing the Gap edited by Powell & Rightmyer
Meditations on a Hobby Horse and Other Essays on the Theory of Art by E. H. Gombrich
Reading With Meaning: Teaching comprehension in the Primary Grades by Debbie Miller
The Rule of the Clan: What an Ancient Form of Social Organization Reveals About the Future of Individual Freedom by Mark Weiner

"American Students are a delight to teach."

 So says Terry Eagleton in an article in this week's Chronicle of Higher Education. This what he says about American students:

"Generally speaking, American students are a delight to teach. Yet they are not always able to voice a coherent English sentence, even at the graduate level. Some of them are easy to mistake for Turks or Albanians who have only just arrived in America and are still struggling with the language. Only later does one realize that they grew up in Boston. They tend to tie themselves up in great chains of unwieldy syntax, overlain with a liberal layer of jargon. Disheveled syntax is true of both genders, but jargon is confined largely to the men. This is part of the painful demise of the spoken word in the United States.

Perhaps the real threat to freedom of speech in the United States is not to freedom but to speech. Perhaps the nation will end up free to say anything it likes while being incapable of saying it. Nor is logical precision a strength of American students. Many of them have had their brains severely addled by an overdose of media. Perhaps they should all have a compulsory first year in which they learn nothing but how to think and speak straight, ridding themselves of the language of texting as a clinic purges its patients of cocaine.

Despite all this, no more generous, open-minded, and enthusiastic group of students can be found in the world. American students tend to be courteous, responsive, cooperative, eager to acquire ideas and ready to criticize anything whatsoever, not least themselves. They are also the last group of students on the planet who are prepared to speak up in class."

 "No Self-Mockery, Please, We're American" by Terry Eagleton

The Chronicle of Higher Educatin

July 5, 2013 Volume 59, Number 4

B11-B13

The Chronicle is in the library periodical section, but it is also full text in the  MasterFILE Premier database.

Terry Eagleton is a visiting professor at Lancaster University in England, the National University of Ireland, and the University of Notre Dame.

Library Habits and Expectations of Younger Americans

Latest Pew Internet Study Reveals Library Habits and Expectations of Younger Americans

Younger Americans—those ages 16-29—exhibit a fascinating mix of habits and preferences when it comes to reading, libraries, and technology. Almost all Americans under age 30 are online, and they are more likely than older patrons to use libraries’ computer and internet connections; however, they are also still closely bound to print, as three-quarters (75%) of younger Americans say they have read at least one book in print in the past year, compared with 64% of adults ages 30 and older.

Source: 

From Pew Internet & American Life Project by Africa S. Hands
Resource Shelf, July 9

CHILD POVERTY RISING

Twenty-three percent of America's children are currently living in poverty, reveals the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey for 2011.  This poverty rate is seven percentage points higher than it was in 2000.  Only three years have recorded higher child poverty rates dating back to 1965.  Child poverty rates are especially acute in major urban areas, with the following cities at the top of the list....

1.	Detroit	57.3%
2.	Cleveland	53.9%
3.	Buffalo	46.8%
4.	Cincinnati	45.3%
5.	Newark	44.0%
6.	Miami	43.8%
7.	Toledo	43.7%
8.	Milwaukee	43.0%
9.	New Orleans	42.2%
10.	Memphis	42.1%

“These numbers shame our nation,” says Curtis Skinner, PhD, director of family economic security at the National Center for Children in Poverty.” 

Sources: Exchange Every Day July 9  U.S. Census Bureau is great resource for national statistics.

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NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC VIRTUAL LIBRARY

 DATABASE OF THE WEEK

The Hoffman Family Library now has the National Geographic Virtual Library Database. This vast collection brings together a complete archive of National Geographic magazines starting in 1888--every page of every issue--along with a cross-searchable collection of National Geographic books, maps, images and videos. I tried searching this morning for canals in Manchester, England. It brought me to a 1905 article about the building of the canals--very cool!

WOW! ONESEARCH AVAILABLE JULY 1

OneSearch for colleges  and universities searches simultaneously all content in iCONN considered to be most useful to colleges and universities of Connecticut, using one search interface and a unified index of all content. That content includes:

• Academic Search Premier
• Biography Reference Bank (H.W. Wilson)
• Christian Science Monitor (1997 – present)
• CINAHL with Full Text
• Connecticut Digital Collections
  
• ERIC
• GreenFILE
• History Reference Center
• Legal Information Reference Center
• MainFILE
• MAS Ultra
• MasterFile Premier (includes Consumer Reports)
• Newspaper Source
• OneClickdigital audio books (Recorded Books) (requires public library card)
• Professional Development Collection
• PsycINFO
• Referencia Latina
• Science Reference Center
• Teacher Reference Center
• TOPICSearch

HFL EBSCO DISCOVERY SERVICE BEGINS SOON THAT WILL INCLUDE ALL OF ICONN SOURCES AND ALL OF HFL SOURCES!

ASSISTED SUICIDE: CQ RESEARCHER May 17, 2003

Should doctors  be allowed to help terminally ill patients die?

Introduction--Decisions about sustaining life, allowing it to end or even hastening death are among the most difficult choices terminally ill patients and their families can face. Such decisions also are at the heart of a debate about what is commonly called “physician-assisted suicide” — or “aid-in-dying” by supporters. Oregon and Washington — and now likely Vermont — allow physicians to write a prescription for lethal drugs if requested by someone who is terminally ill and mentally competent. A Montana court also has allowed the procedure. Supporters of assisted suicide say it allows the terminally ill to avoid unnecessary suffering and meet death on their own terms, and they say safeguards in the laws prevent abuse of the procedure. But opponents say assisted suicide devalues life, opens patients to exploitation by relatives or others and could lead to widespread euthanasia of the sick and vulnerable.

THE REPORT INCLUDES THIS INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND, OVERVIEW, CURRENT SITUATION, OUTLOOK, PRO/CON, CHRONOLOGY, SHORT FEATURES, MAPS/GRAPHS, BIBLIOGRAPHY, NEXT STEPS, CONTACTS, AND FOOTNOTES.

HINT: BEST PLACES TO FIND TOPICS FOR PAPERS AND SPEECHES!
CQ RESEARCHER ONLINE AT HFL

HAPPY NATIONAL NURSES WEEK!

Delivering Quality and Innovation in Patient Care

National Nurses Week is celebrated annually from May 6, also known as National Nurses Day, through May 12, the birthday of Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing. For Nurses Week, American Nurses Association  is offering a free continuing education webinar, "Innovation in Nursing Practice: Are :You leading the Charge?" on May 9 at 1 p.m. EST. The webinar will focus on incorporating innovation into nursing practice and leading the innovation process within organizations, and spotlight innovations that are improving patient outcomes.

For more information, go to http://nursingworld.org/nnw

Website Compatability: BrowserStack

Incredibly useful site for testing website compatability: BrowserStack.


BrowserStack lets users test websites on all different browsers and operating systems. This ist invaluable since one usually doesn't  have immediate access to computers that run IE, Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Opera, and various iOS mobile browsers in all their varieties. With BrowserStack, users can create a free trial account (which is limited to 30 minutes of testing time) and then enter the URL and the operating system/browser pair they would like to test. How great is that?

Source: Chronicle of Higher Education from a guest post by Joanna Swafford, a PhD candidate in English at the University of Virginia April 9.

2013 Orion Book Award

Apocalyptic Planet Wins the 2013 Orion Book Award!


Congratulations to Craig Childs, whose book Apocalyptic Planet: Field Guide to the Everending Earth has won the 2013 Orion Book Award. "An engaging mix of adventure, science, and thoughtful storytelling," is how Orion's editors describe Childs's book, which puts an entirely new spin on our usual preoccupations with climate change and catastrophe in general. It will soon be in the Hoffman Family Library.

HOFFMAN FAMILY LIBRRY MAKERSPACE BEGINS

Professional Button Machine

The Hoffman Family Library has purchased a professional Button Machine for our Maker Space. We have  button machine a\nd circle cutter that allows us to design online and make our own buttons in a wide variety of types. Our first run of buttons was this afternoon and only a few are left.

Picture of the Week

Rush Hour takes on a whole new meaning at Yellowstone!

Picture from the National Park Service

84,900 EBOOKS IN EBRARY!

ebrary has recently added over 3,800 scholarly titles to our subscription database, Academic Complete, from over 150  publishers. An ideal base collection, Academic Complete now includes a growing selection of more than 84,900 e-books.
But, that's not all. The most used e-book titles in universities and colleges are often backlist! In addition to adding 3,500 quality titles to Academic Complete, ebrary has also added must-have 850+ backlist titles selected from featured lists such as CHOICE Outstanding Academic Titles and Doody’s Core Titles.

In addition, Wiley E-books is coming to Academic Complete soon and will add 2,000 front-list titles over the coming months. A full title list and update schedule will be available shortly.

Workshops on using ebrary are available for faculty and students.

Happy First Day of Spring

HAPPY FIRST DAY OF SPRING!

(from the San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Complex in California)

PICTURE OF THE WEEK:: ARTIC TERN

These images are from the famous Birds of America
These imThesThis e images are from the famous Birds of Americaages are from the famous Birds of America
This image is from  the famous Audubon's Birds of America

What is included in the CINAHL Evidence-Based Practice limiter?

If you use the CINAHL Evidence-Based Practice Limiter, do you wonder what is it really limiting? This is EBSCO's explanation:

Evidence-Based Practice is a value that can be found in the Special Interest field of some CINAHL records. This value is associated with a record when an article is about the application of Evidence-Based medicine.
Evidence-based medicine is a medical movement based upon the application of the scientific method to medical practice, including long-established existing medical traditions not yet subjected to adequate scientific scrutiny. According to the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, "Evidence-based medicine is the conscientious, explicit and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients."

When applied, the Evidence-Based Practice limiter searches the Special Interest field for the value "Evidence-Based Practice." Applying this limiter allows you to limit results to:
• Articles from evidence-based practice journals
• Articles about evidence-based practice
• Research articles (including systematic reviews, clinical trials, meta analyses, etc.)
• Commentaries on research studies (applying practice to research)
It does not limit searchers to articles that report evidence-based conclusions.

Improving Patient Safety: Systematic Reviews

"Making Health Care Safer: A Critical Review of Evidence Supporting Strategies to Improve Patient Safety" is the title of the supplement to the March 5th Annals of Internal Medicine. An introduction provides a detailed explanation of this evidence-based assessment of patient safety strategies followed by 10 systematic reviews based on that research. This is valuable information for health care providers. The supplement also is an example of how to set up evidence-based research and what sets a systematic review apart.

What is a systematic review?

A systematic review attempts to collate all empirical evidence that fits pre-specified eligibility criteria in order to answer a specific research question. It uses explicit, systematic methods that are selected with a view to minimizing bias, thus providing more reliable findings from which conclusions can be drawn and decisions made. The key characteristics of a systematic review are:
•a clearly stated set of objectives with pre-defined eligibility criteria for studies;
•an explicit, reproducible methodology;
•a systematic search that attempts to identify all studies that would meet the eligibility criteria;
•an assessment of the validity of the findings of the included studies, for example through the assessment of risk of bias; and
•a systematic presentation, and synthesis, of the characteristics and findings of the included studies.

Many systematic reviews contain meta-analyses. Meta-analysis is the use of statistical methods to summarize the results of independent studies. Meta-analyses can provide more precise estimates of the effects of health care than those derived from the individual studies included within a review. They also facilitate investigations of the consistency of evidence across studies, and the exploration of differences across studies.
(This information comes from Cochrane Handbook for Systematic Reviews of Interventions Version 5.1.0 updated March 2011.)

Enculturation: Faculty Publication Opportunity

David Parry, an assistant professor of emerging media and communications at the University of Texas at Dallas, argues that scholars have an obligation to publish their research in journals that make free copies available online. The debate over open access to research has heated up in recent months among college faculty and librarians. Libraries are finding it increasingly difficult to purchase excessively high priced journals--some running as much as $40,000 a year. With that in mind, this blog will regularly post information about this debate and professional journals offering open issues who encourage faculty to submit publications. Enculturation is the first one in this series.

Enculturation is a refereed journal devoted to contemporary theories of rhetoric, writing, and culture. They accept academic work in all media forms suitable for web-based publication, including conventional articles, hypertexts, videos, and multimedia projects. Submitted articles and projects are blind-reviewed and considered for publication on the understanding that they are not under consideration elsewhere. Traditional articles should be approximately 4000-6000 words long, reviews 1000-2000 words. They also invite unsolicited reviews for books, CDs, films, websites, media events, and conferences. Enculturation is published under an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike Creative Commons License.


Current Isssue 15: Open Issue
Table of Contents:
http://enculturation.gmu.edu/15

National Women’s History Month Begins Friday

Women Inspiring Innovation through Imagination

Each year, March is designated as National Women’s History Month to ensure that the history of American women will be recognized and celebrated in schools, workplaces, and communities throughout the country.
The 2013 National Women's History Month theme, Women Inspiring Innovation through Imagination, recognizes American women's outstanding contributions to the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics commonly referred to as STEM.

The 2013 Honorees for National Women’s History Month include:
Hattie Elizabeth Alexander (1901-1968) Pediatrician and Microbiologist
Marlyn Barrett (1954) K-12 STEM Educator
Grace Murray Hopper (1906-1992) Computer Scientist
Olga Frances Linares (1936) Anthropologist and Archaeologist
Julia Morgan (1872-1957) Architect
Katharine Burr Blodgett (1898-1979) Physicist and Inventor
Edith Clarke (1883-1959)  Electrical Engineer
Rita R. Colwell (1934) Molecular Microbial Ecologistand Scientific Administrator
Susan Solomon (1956) Atmospheric Chemist
Flossie Wong-Staal (1946) Virologist and Molecular
Patricia Era Bath (1942) Ophthalmologist and Inventor
Elizabeth Blackwell (1821-1910) Physician
Louise Pearce (1885-1959) Physician and Pathologist
Jill Pipher (1955) Mathematician
Mary G. Ross (1908-2008) Mechanical Engineer
Diane Fossey (1932-1985) Primatologist and Naturalist
Susan A. Gerbi (1944) Molecular Cell Biologist
Helen Greiner (1967) Mechanical Engineer and Roboticist