Katrina Aniversary and Hot Docs for the Month

Yesterday's event, a sharing of Katrina experiences, went well. I even have 15 seconds of fame captured on the FOX 10 website today. Missed it last night. In bed by 9:30. Nice clip, but who is that old lady in the turquoise jacket? js

Vickey Baggott, Government Documents Librarian, has sent her monthly "Hot Docs."

HOT DOCS at USA

Welcome to the Fall Semester at USA. These new government publications and video are available in the Government Documents Department located on the 2nd floor, South of the University Library. Come check us out and have a great year!

Funding Education Beyond High School : the Guide to Federal Student Aid. Dept. of Education, Federal Student Aid, 2006. ED1.45/7:2006/07. A comprehensive resource on student financial aid, through grants, loans, and work-study, available from the U.S. Department of Education's Federal Student Aid office. http://purl.access.gpo.gov/GPO/LPS69761

Youth Helping America : Educating for Active Citizenship : Service-Learning, School-Based Service and Youth Civic Engagement / authors, Kimberly Spring, Nathan Dietz, Robert Grimm, Jr. Corporation for National & Community Service, 2006. Y3.N21/29:2Y8. Takes a look at the 38 percent of students nationwide who have participated in school-based service as part of school activity or requirement and constructs a Service Quality Index that rates school-based service based on the level of high-quality service-learning elements that are incorporated into it. http://purl.access.gpo.gov/GPO/LPS71713

When your brain begins to frazzle from course work and other college pressures, check out this DVD and unwind. Lifelines : Your National Forest Roads / produced by the USDA Forest Service in partnership with the USDOT FHWA Federal Lands Highway Program. Dept. of Agriculture, Forest Service, San Dimas Technology and Development Center, 2006.
A13.140:L62/DVD. Explores the relationship between people (the USDA Forest Service, Federal Lands Highway Administration, and state and local communities) and the land (our national forests) past, present and future. vb

Where Were You on August 29th 2005

We're running a DVD created by the Meteorology Dept about the storm and its aftermath, a video about Katrina [I haven't looked at yet], and about 140 photos donated by students, faculty and staff --in the Library Auditorium today. About 80 photos are from Keith Helton who flew his ultralight plane over Dauphin Island and Bayou La Batre on August 30th, 2005.

Carolyn Barnes' House in Bayou La Batre

From 2:00 till 5:00 there will be an open mike for anyone who would like to talk about their experience during Katrina and after. A good time to vent about whatever you want. Or come and listen to how Katrina changed the lives of a lot of those around you everyday. One year later--often no house, families scattered, no insurance check and a wholly different landscape to see everyday. Don't think that this is minor inconvenience--it's life-altering, and needs to be acknowledged by the members of this academic community, if we are to be called a community at all!

Where Were You on August 29, 2005?

Tuesday, Library Auditorium, 2:00 till 5:00. Come. Tell your stories. Listen to other's stories. These are our history and need to be recorded in our memories.

TGIF:
And just for weekend fun try: Time Magazine's 2006 Coolest Websites. The Time Wasters are aptly named. But just play with them between class readings and assignments!
http://www.time.com/time/2006/50coolest/index.html

Katrina Anniversary

Two of the three tech problems from yesterday have been solved and the third one is not our problem it's our vendor, TDNet's, problem. Yeah!

The most frequently asked question at the Ref Desk the past few days is, "Where can I find a computer to print out my paper, or print powerpoint slides, or do my psychology online homework." We have to tell these students that we don't have any of the software they need on our Library computers--only browsers and a couple of readers--Acrobat, Quicktime, Flash--but no speakers. Students, please check out the computer labs in your major departments. SOUTHpaw lab is on the 1st floor of the Student Center and if you have paid any kind of computer fee, check out the labs in the Computer Center which are open when there are no classes scheduled in them. We are so sorry we can't help you here.

The anniversary of Katrina is Tuesday. If you have any really good photos of the hurricane and its aftermath--send them to me. I'm going to try to put together a slide show to be shown in the Library Auditorium, or maybe the plasma screen across from the Circ desk, on Tuesday.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/4755158.stm

Beloit College Mindset List

Every year Beloit (Wisconsin) College puts out a list of of things that they say have shaped the lives of the new Freshman Class, the Class of 2010. It's always fun to read and in many ways an eye-opener for us oldies, but if you think that all Freshman have the same experiences growing up, I think you are more than a bit naive. How many of our Freshmen are 18-year-olds who come from upper-middle class homes with ubiquitous computing gear, watch Law and Order, and prefer text messaging to talking on the phone. But try it--it might make you feel happier that you are older than 18! Drag down on this webpage to find this year's list. http://www.beloit.edu/~pubaff/mindset/

There's a new Chronicle of Higher Education article that disputes many of the items on the list, but you probably need to get it through Lexis [News Category>University News] or at the Library if you don't have a subscription.
http://chronicle.com/daily/2006/08/2006082305n.htm
23 Aug. 2006. "Annual Mindset List."

Education Department --Access Suspended

Now we are getting reports that no one in Education over in UCOM can get into any databases! Screen says "Account Suspended." Hey guys, we didn't suspend your account. Something fishy is happening and we will do our best to diagnose and fix the problem without causing irreparable harm. Dr. House-where are you?

EBSCO and TDNet--crash and burn

The world of database access is crashing in around us in this first week of classes. Two major sources of information are down.

Actually EBSCO is occasionally available -- if you wait long enough and it doesn't time out at 2 minutes. It has about 15 major databases which contain thousands of journal articles. And not all libraries or locations are affected, which makes it even more frustrating, because the company is less likely to worry about fixing it if it only our little "problem." GGGGRRRR.

TDNet is the company/server that holds the list of journals(Our Journal List) we subscribe to in full text, and where to find them. ALERT, ALERT, ALERT: It's now up and running

New Orleans and Libraries

If you watched the Spike Lee documentary on Katrina last night (actually half of it), the other half is tonight, you are probably feeling as depressed as I am this morning. I love New Orleans and to know what it used to be and where it is now is so disheartening. But I checked my email after watching this show and found that my kids, who live in N.O.. sent me this website with the perfect N.O. title. Boozocracy.org. Two guys, academics, have put out a challenge to the world for donations needed to build a public library in mid-city (this is also where my kids live, so I am over-determined, as they say, to contribute.) $1,000,000 by January 1st, 2007. Can they do it? Can you help?

When the Levees Broke: http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/whentheleveesbroke/index.html
Boozocracy.org: http://boozocracy.org/


For a USA Library note: Kathy Wheeler and I have mounted the SciFinder Scholar, the chemistry database, application and preferences needed to run it on a Macintosh running OS X. (The PC version has been available under SciFinder Scholar on the Articles, Indexes, Databases page under S.) You must login with your usual library login to access the zipped files. They can then be installed on a computer with an IP address on campus. No personal iBooks unless they are attached via an ethernet to a static IP address. Instructor Macs and lab desktop Macs can be configured following the instructions included. Need help? Call the library.
http://libproxy2.usouthal.edu/login?url=http://www.usouthal.edu/univlib/scifindermac.html

University Library Tours

Happy First Day of the New Semester. Have you vowed to attend all your classes all the time? "80% of success is showing up." Woody Allen

I just set up the schedule for some library tours for students who want a real human tour guide to show them what we have and tell them about the services we offer. Students also have the option of a photo tour of the highlights, of course no elevator rides, no bad library jokes, no question answered, no charming librarian. De gustibus non disputandum est.

Opening EBSCO to get to its popular databases has been incredibly slow for the past several days. We are in touch with them and will try to find out what's going on. It's very annoying to all of us. js

The Great Wikipedia Debate

To tell you the truth, I haven't paid much attention to the Wikipedia until a few months ago. Sure I read the article in Nature magazine comparing Encyclopaedia Britannica with the Wikipedia --result being very close to a tie. And Britannica's cry of foul condemning the quality of the Nature research. One of those excellent academic debates that don't make the headline news.
And the Library instruction list has been buzzing lately with Stephen Colbert's reverse-spin take off on the social construction of knowledge demonstrated in Wikipedia. But an article in July 31 New Yorker by Stacy Schiff, "Know It All" distilled many of these arguments and added other dimensions worth considering. EB has 120,000 entries. Wikipedia has 1,000,000, many of them on places, people and topics, like "the forty-five-minute Anglo-Zanzibar War or Islam in Iceland." Sudoku might never be considered worthy of the EB, but a lot of curious people would like a clear, concise explanation without having to troll through lily-pads of adverts on hundreds of webpages. But obviously "peer review" takes on greater weight when an editor may be a bored 14 year old hacker enjoying a prank on the world.

Should we not use Wikipedia, because it is untrustworthy? No one is keeping the scholars out of editorship. As a matter of fact as a non-profit, donation-only supported noble effort, I think scholars, students, and even librarians have an super opportunity to add to the world's knowledge. This is about the easiest place to do it. Won't count as a publication. Won't count for a grade. But if you know more about something than anyone else, and we all do about something (our hometown, local folklore, an ancestor) then maybe we have a responsibility to share it or at least fill-in what others have started. (Called STUBS)

p.s.
I just noticed that Felicity Huffman's page mentions nothing about her theatre experience. I added her OBIE, but need to make the time to go back and fill in with more. js

The Wikipedia http://wikipedia.org
The Britannica is available as Britannica Online under Electronic Reference Books link on the U. Lib Homepage.
The New Yorker article is available to South Alabama community through Gale/Infotrac's Expanded Academic ASAP. Go to Articles, Indexes, Databases link and choose the first database on the left.
Stephen Colbert video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmHm0rGns4I

LiBlog Archives

My First Blogger Post

This is my first post using Blogger. Previously I was using a homemade version that was way off the radar. Sometimes its a good idea to be off the radar. Guess I figured it was time to join the Web 2.0 revolution or evolution or convolution--so I'll try this for a while. It shouldn't affect what I usually do in this blog--that's ramble briefly about webpages or news that is interesting to me. Occasionally there is a guest poster, but mostly not. When I get confident enough using blogger, I'll switch over totally. For now--this is it. Pre-Blogger archives are at: http://www.usouthal.edu/univlib/BLOG/blogarchives.html