Fellowship opportunity: UNC Chapel Hill

The School of Information and Library Science (SILS) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, is seeking applicants for fellowships for a new program called "Educating Stewards of Public Information in the Twenty-First Century" or ESOPI-21. These Fellowships are funded through a grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services.

The fellowships will be for students enrolled in the Master of Public Administration (MPA) and Master of Science in Information/Library Science (MSIS/MSLS) dual degree program between the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's School of Information and Library Science and the School of Government.

The two-year fellowships offer:

* A 15 hour per week position as a Fellow in Public Information Stewardship at the National Records and Archives Administration, the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, Archives & Records Section, and/or the UNC at Chapel Hill University Archives.

* An annual stipend of $16,000.

* In-state tuition and health coverage

* One time enrichment fund of $2,500 which can be used for travel or other resources such as a computer.

* Opportunities to meet experts in public information curation via symposia, conferences and workshops.

As a component piece of the project, two cohorts of four ESOPI-21 Fellows (eight Fellows in total over the grant period) will each combine coursework with internship assignments in one or more governmental digital records environments, leading to a dual master's degree in Information Science or Library Science and a master's degree in Public Administration. The program's goal is to prepare the next generation of public information stewards. It offers Fellowship recipients the opportunity to engage in government records archiving and curatorial duties and to receive supervision and mentorship from senior public records experts in various types of government records management and other information management settings.

About ESOPI-21

The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)-funded project, "Educating Stewards of Public Information in the Twenty-First Century" or ESOPI-21, is a collaboration of SILS, UNC at Chapel Hill's School of Government (SOG), the University Archives (UA) at UNC at Chapel Hill, the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources, Archives and Records Section (NCDCR-ARS), and the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). ESOPI-21 seeks to prepare the next generation of public information stewards by building on the Digital Curation Curriculum IMLS-funded projects at SILS and by developing fellowships, curricula, courses, and experiential components designed specifically for the needs of public sector information professionals.

Applying for the Fellowship: The ESOPI-21 Fellowship is provided to masters level students who are pursuing the dual degree program offered by SILS and the SOG. Acceptance into both programs is a requirement for the award.

Steps for application are:

1. Apply to SILS via the regular admissions process found on the MSIS Admission page at http://sils.unc.edu/programs/msis/admissions.html or the MSLS Admissions page at http://sils.unc.edu/programs/msls/admissions.html

Students are encouraged to apply by January 1, 2010 as this ensures consideration of the greatest amount of university funding, but we are accepting applications for this program up to February 15.

2. Apply to the SOG via the regular admissions process found on the MPA Admissions page at http://www.sog.unc.edu/uncmpa/applicants/admission.html. Students must apply by February 1.

3. In addition to the required written statement of your intended research focus, we ask that you write a separate essay elaborating on these goals and how they are related to the goals of ESOPI-21. Please see the ESOPI-21 Web page for more details (http://ils.unc.edu/esopi21/index.html). Please send this essay in an e-mail message to Dr. Helen Tibbo (tibbo (at) email (dot) unc (dot) edu) or Dr. Cal Lee (callee (at) ils (dot) unc (dot) edu) no later than February 15, 2010. Earlier applications are encouraged. Please note that we are only able to accept applications from
United States Citizens at this time.

*******************************************
Wanda Monroe
Director of Communications
School of Information and Library Science
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
100 Manning Hall
Campus Box 3360
Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3360
Phone: 919.843.8337
Web site: sils.unc.edu
___________________________________________

Scholarship opportunity: University of Southern Mississippi receives IMLS grant

The University of Southern Mississippi (USM) recently received a grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Studies (IMLS) to recruit ten minority students for its fully accredited, online, master of library science program. Students who are chosen for the grant will receive full tuition waiver, $400.00 per semester for the purchase of books, a laptop computer, and $9,000.00 per year as a stipend. They also will attend special programming and training from the Mississippi Library Commission (MLC), and will attend the American Library Association annual meeting in 2011. The students must take nine hours of classes each semester and work five hours per week at either USM’s Cook Library in Hattiesburg or the MLC in Jackson.

For more information, please visit: http://www.misslib.org/index.php/2009/11/30/university-of-southern-mississippi-receives-imls-grant/

Scholarship opportunity: E-government Librarianship Scholarship Program

The Center for Library and Information Innovation at the iSchool at the University of Maryland College Park in partnership with the Government Information Online Initiative and the University of Illinois at Chicago, is accepting applications for 20 Master of Library Science (MLS) scholarships. The scholarships are for a new online MLS program focused on e-government services and digital government information. Applications are due by 1 February 2010, and the program is scheduled to begin in Fall 2010.

For more information, please visit: http://liicenter.org/libegov

Multiple Database Searching

The USA Biomedical Library has purchased WebFeat, a cross-database search engine, in order to facilitate searching of their electronic books. Because access includes the University Library, we have set it up so that many of our databases, such as Oxford Journals Online, Sage Journals Online, ACLS Humanities E-books, JSTOR and Wiley Interscience, can all be searched using one interface.

You can search by keyword, title, author, abstract, or subject and choose your own databases, or you can enter a search term and choose a general topic, such as Art & Humanities or Business, where the databases have already been chosen for you. WebFeat includes the ability to limit your search to Full-text articles only and/or Peer-reviewed articles.

Check out the University Library's implementation of WebFeat here: http://wfxsearch.webfeat.org/wfsearch/menu?cid=13098&cat=72060

EBSCO Databases Go Mobile

Ever wished you could access the University Libraries' databases from your phone? Well, now you can; at least the EBSCOhost databases, which include Academic Search Premier, Business Source Premier, CINAHL, Medline with Fulltext, PsycARTICLES, SocINDEX with Fulltext, Education Research Complete, and a variety of other databases.

This access is only in its infancy and I've only tested it on two phones -- the iPhone and the Blackberry Curve (mine is an 8320) -- but to try mobile access to our EBSCO databases go to:

http://libproxy2.usouthal.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.asp?profile=mobsmart

You will need to login with your usual remote credentials.

Javascript needs to be enabled to use the libraries' databases. To do this for the Blackberry:

1. Check your Blackberry's OS version first by clicking on the Options icon (mine is a wrench) and then About. Your OS will need to be version 4.0 or higher; older versions do not support JavaScript.
2. Open your Blackberry Internet Browser by clicking on your Internet icon.
3. Click on the button and choose Options.
4. Choose Browser Configuration and scroll down to Support JavaScript. Check that box and save your changes.

The iPhone and iTouch seem to run these databases beautifully; the Blackberry's implementation is much uglier and I haven't been able to open a pdf file as a native pdf -- instead I get an ugly rendering of the text.

Try mobile access on your phone and let me know how it goes (kwheeler@jaguar1.usouthal.edu); be sure to tell me the type of phone you've used and any issues you've had accessing pdf files.

Favorite Banned Book

Thanks everybody for participating in the University Library's vote for your favorite banned book. Here are the results:

The Winner: The Giver by Lois Lowry

Runners Up:

Curses, Hexes and Spells by Daniel Cohen
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling

Honorable Mentions:

The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Goosebumps series by R.L. Stine
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’ Engle
Scary Stories by Alvin Schwartz
Bible
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Peterson
The Color Purple by Alice Walker
Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
The Witches by Roald Dahl
And Tango Makes Three by Richardson and Parnell
Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Beloved by Toni Morrison
Canterbury Tales by Chaucer
A Clockwork Orange by Antony Burgess
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
The Great Santini by Pat Conroy
His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman
The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Kama Sutra
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Native Son by Richard Wright
Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs
Where’s Waldo by Martin Hanford

Banned Books Week

Banned Books Week, September 26 - October 3

Banned Books Week is an annual recognition, held in the last week of September, of the importance of the First Amendment to readers and writers. It celebrates the freedom to read what we want to read and emphasizes the significance of open access to information. The American Library Association lists the most Frequently Challenged Books in libraries at http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/banned/frequentlychallenged/index.cfm

Check out the posters of Frequently Challenged and Banned Books at the University Library -- you can't miss them when you come in the doors. Also, don't forget to vote for your favorite banned book at the Circulation Desk.

AVL Databases

The Alabama Virtual Library has been a boon to our state as far as research is concerned. It has provided databases for all ranges and ages of researchers -- from kindergarten to graduate student to general public. Having access to the AVL has allowed the University of South Alabama Libraries to subscribe to very subject-specific databases such as ArtStor and IEEE Xplore, knowing that the general use databases had already been taken care of by the AVL.

Like the rest of the state, the AVL has been affected by the economic situation and finds its funding to be less this year than previous years. Keeping its mission in mind -- to provide information for all levels of researchers -- the AVL recently decided to cut the following databases from its list. Access will not be available after September 31:

OCLC FirstSearch databases

1. CAMIO - Catalog of Art Museum Images Online
2. ArchiveGrid
3. ArticleFirst
4. ClasePeriodica
5. Electronic Collections Online
6. GPO Monthly Catalog
7. MEDLINE
8. OAIster
9. PapersFirst
10. ProceedingsFirst
11. World Almanac
12. WorldCat
13. WorldCat Dissertations

H.W. Wilson's Biography Reference Bank
SIRS Knowledge Source databases

1. SIRS Issues Researcher
2. SIRS Government Reporter
3. SIRS Renaissance

Britannica's add-on databases

1. World Data Analyst
2. Annals of American History
3. Enciclopedia Juvenil
4. Enciclopedia Universal en Español

In addition to the above resources not being renewed, EBSCO's Academic Search Premier will be downgraded to Academic Search Elite.

Fair Use

Determining whether your use of an item falls within Fair Use guidelines can be more problematic than you might think. Luckily, there's a tool that can help with that -- Fair Use Evaluator, from the American Library Association's Office for Information Technology Policy. By providing information about an article and your intended use of that item, the Fair Use Evaluator can provide you with an idea of where on the spectrum from "Fair" to "Infringing" that your use may fall.

The makers of the Fair Use Evaluator are careful to note that this tool is not intended to provide you with legal advice and point out that only "a court of law can definitively rule whether a use is fair or unfair." However, the Fair Use Evaluator does provide you with information that can help, such as a time-stamped pdf document showing your use of the evaluator and the criteria you used to reach your decision about whether your use of a document falls within Fair Use guidelines. Check it out. Try it with the Exceptions for Instructor eTool if you are a faculty member.

Formatting Bibliographies

Sue Medina, the director of the Network of Alabama Academic Libraries, recently sent an email about an article discussing the top five online citation applications. I loved the one called BibMe -- it allows you to save citations for books, articles, web sites and other formats in the citation style you need whether MLA, APA, Chicago or Turabian. You can download these and or save them to a free account.

Check out Bibme at http://www.bibme.org/

Farewell

Jan

"If I didn't believe it with my own mind, I never would have seen it."

Bard College graffiti, 1972.


Or: "If I believe it, I will see it -- wrong."
Or: "Context is all."
Or: "Don't believe much of what you see--it is more complicated!"

Try this:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2009/06/24/the-blue-and-the-green/

Sorry! Should be http://www.worldcat.org/advancedsearch

Identities: Cool new feature on Worldcat.org

This just released from OCLC WorldCat

"We’ve just incorporated WorldCat Identities into WorldCat.org navigation proper, rather than having to satellite out to a listing and then find your own way back. You can get to a WorldCat Identities page from the “Find more information about” drop-down in the Details section of a detailed record:

WorldCat Identities is one of those fun things we like to play around with, here at OCLC. It showcases things you don’t find many other places–like you can see the most widely held works by a writer, or how one fictional character is related to another one, or get a visual for publication timelines, or audience recommendation levels, or, or, or…there’s a lot of good stuff there."


It took me a few tries to find this info, but it really is cool. Do title search for a book by an author you want to find more about (doesn't seem to work for films and articles) on worldcat.org--the advanced search. Drag down on the page past the libraries that hold the item to the "Details" section and "Find more information about" and click GO.

Much info on your author: most popular titles(library holdings and number of editions); most popular books about; languages; related people; a related items cloud, and several bookcovers.

I love WorldCat and Google Books and Google Scholar--long may they be free! (Keep your fingers crossed about this--most anything of value is ripe for a price tag these days.)js

Best Places to Work in the Government 2009

Still looking for a job? This survey's results might interest you, as they are based on employee satisfaction and commitment in federal agencies. And check out the link for job seekers at the top of the page. Do it for your parents!
http://data.bestplacestowork.org/bptw/overall/large

The Colors of Your College Degree

(OOPs! Graduation is next Saturday, not tomorrow.) With graduation tomorrow, I thought this link to be most appropriate. What do those colors worn by the graduates stand for? http://www.colourlovers.com/blog/2007/11/06/the-colors-of-your-college-degree/ Glad Library Science is lemon yellow and not "drab."
Thanks to Sue Medina for this one.

Best Study Strategy: "Close the Book. Recall. Write It Down"

Excepted from
The Chronicle of Higher Education: The Faculty
From the issue dated May 1, 2009

That old study method still works, researchers say. So why don't professors preach it?
By DAVID GLENN

The scene: A rigorous intro-level survey course in biology, history, or economics. You're the instructor, and students are crowding the lectern, pleading for study advice for the midterm.

If you're like many professors, you'll tell them something like this: Read carefully. Write down unfamiliar terms and look up their meanings. Make an outline. Reread each chapter.

That's not terrible advice. But some scientists would say that you've left out the most important step: Put the book aside and hide your notes. Then recall everything you can. Write it down, or, if you're uninhibited, say it out loud.

Two psychology journals have recently published papers showing that this strategy works, the latest findings from a decades-old body of research. When students study on their own, "active recall" — recitation, for instance, or flashcards and other self-quizzing — is the most effective way to inscribe something in long-term memory.

. . . .

Brain Games for the Weekend

Took me a few games to even figure out the rules.
Cognitive Labs
http://cognitivelabs.com/game_list2.htm

Ain't No Such Thing as a Free Lunch!

I've just read a synopsis of Google's settlement with the book publishers and the librarians concerning Google Books (http://books.google.com). See below.

For the past few years I've been showing relevant upper-division classes the value of Google Book Search. Google has been digitizing the books from a couple of dozen of big libraries for several years now. Till now (and I really don't know the date when this will change) anyone anywhere could search this website and pull up records of the books already digitized in three different possible formats: full view for out-of-copyright items (generally 1925 and earlier), limited preview (several pages) for copyrighted with no active publisher-prohibition, and snippet for publisher-restricted viewing.

Publishers didn't like the fact they they had to ask Google to restrict their books to limited preview,and they claimed copyright violation, and sued (of course). Below is the gist of the settlement. What it seems to say is that no longer will out-of-copyright books be available full-text from any computer anytime as it is now. Only authorized computers in libraries will have this ability. [I'm sure the librarians fought hard to get this one so full-view access of copyright-free books remains available, but also so libraries don't become completely irrelevant as providers of classic and historical sources of information.]

Google and the publishers will also LET YOU personally and We, libraries, BUY access to copyrighted books. You could buy individual titles. Libraries would buy subscriptions (To Collections? How much? Will libraries will be able to afford the price publishers deem reasonable. Will access be restricted to the University community or can anyone come in and use it? Will libraries ever need to buy another print monograph? Is licensing the same as owning? Will we be able to interlibrary loan electronic items?)

The two research center idea is interesting, but I'm not really sure of any broadly useful value, other than archival. Where will they be? Will access be free at these sites?

There are so many more questions about the ramifications of this settlement that we don't even know how to pose them yet, much less what the answers will be. ANSTAAFL. I guess we always knew that Google wasn't doing all this scanning because of their generosity and their love of knowledge. Sometime the stockholders would seek a profit. We also know that publishers are not easily adjusting to this electronic world. This is another attempt at control. Will it work? How will it affect libraries?

Here's an excerpt of what Google just sent out:[ Note the enthusiastically positive spin.]

Increasing access to books: the Google Book Search settlement agreement

by Daniel Clancy, Engineering Director for Google Book Search

. . .  The <http://www.google.com/googlebooks/agreement/>agreement, which settles two lawsuits brought against the <http://www.google.com/googlebooks/library.html>Google Books Library Project, proposes to dramatically increase access to millions of books in the U.S., while at the same time expanding the opportunities for authors and publishers to earn money from their works.  The agreement also provides a wealth of new opportunities for libraries, academics, and researchers, a few of which we'd like to share with you:


Expanded access to millions of in-copyright books: Librarians have been providing access to books for thousands of years, and over time they have increased the size of their collections and broadened their reach into the community. The agreement dramatically expands the reach of <http://books.google.com/googlebooks/partners.html>Book Search Library Partners by enabling readers across the U.S. to <http://books.google.com/googlebooks/agreement/#2>preview millions of in-copyright out-of-print books preserved in their collections. Readers will be able to search these books through Google Book Search and where previously they have only been able to view bibliographic information and a few snippets of text from the book, they will be able to view a limited preview (up to 20%) of the book to find out if it suits their needs.  From there, they can click through to a list of libraries which hold that book, to online bookstores (which carry used books) or to purchase instant online access to the rest of the book so that they may read the book in its entirety. 

Free online viewing of books at U.S. public and university libraries: In most communities, your local library is one of your primary access points to information. Through this agreement, public libraries, community colleges, and universities across the U.S. will be able to provide free full-text reading to books housed in great libraries of the world like Stanford, California, Wisconsin-Madison and Michigan. A newly-created Public Access Service license will allow full-text viewing of millions of out-of-print books to readers who visit library facilities. Public libraries will be eligible to receive one free Public Access Service license for a computer located on-site at each of their library buildings in the United States. Non-profit, higher education institutions will be eligible to receive free Public Access Service licenses for on-site computers, the exact number of which will depend on the number of students enrolled. 

Institutional subscriptions to millions of additional books: Imagine never having to ask a patron to wait until a book is returned or arrives through interlibrary loan. Beyond the free license described above, libraries will also be able to purchase an institutional subscription to millions of books covered by the settlement agreement.  Once purchased, this subscription will allow a library to offer patrons access to the incredible collections of Google's library partner when they are in the library itself as well as when they access it remotely.

Services for People with Print Disabilities: One of the advantages digitization presents is the opportunity to enable greater accessibility to books.  Through the agreement, the visually impaired and print disability community will be able to access millions of in-copyright books through screen enlargement, reader, and Braille display technologies.

New Research Opportunities with the Creation a Research Corpus: The vast database of books that Google is digitizing is not just a resource for readers, but also a one-of-a-kind research tool. The agreement allows for the creation of two research centers that will include a copy of almost all of the books digitized by Google. These research centers will enable people to conduct research that utilizes computers to process or analyze the text of the books. Examples of the types of research they will facilitate include automatic translation, analysis of how language has evolved over time, next generation search technology, image processing research and others.

This agreement would not have been possible without the work of librarians who have preserved and maintained books for years, and <http://www.google.com/googlebooks/partners.html>Google Book Search's library partners, who worked with Google to make so many of them discoverable online.  To learn more about what they have to say about the agreement, check out our <http://books.google.com/googlebooks/agreement/thoughts.html>thoughts and opinions page.
___________

Staff Appreciation Awards Go To . . .

Brenda Hunter and Nancy Trant received this year's National Library Week "Staff Appreciation Awards" in the University Library during a luncheon on Wednesday.

This Year's Excellence in Librarianship Award goes to . . .

Deborah Lynn Harrington, the Mitchell College of Business Librarian. Congratulations Deborah for doing excellent work in setting up and running the "Business" Library.

Celebrate National Library Week--April 12-18

World Connect @ USA Libraries

Monday Thru Thursday--Roving Reference, Student Center Breezeway, 11:30-1:00. Need help with your assignments? Face-to-face with a reference librarian--what could be better!

Thursday-- 7 P.M., Library Auditorium, "Ruben's Mobile." Dr. Sue Brannan Walker and Ms Kathryn Seawell.

Kids & Teens Book Drive for USA Chidren's and Women's Hospital--Drop any new or gently-used children's or young adult books at one of our libraries.

Twitter a Book Review--share your bookish experiences @usabaldwin.

Rare Books at the USA Archives on Springhill Ave.

Prize Drawing--draw a quote at any of our Circulation Desks for a chance to win a prize.

Twenty-First Century Literacy Skills

by Henry Jenkins, Director of Media Studies, MIT, excerpted:

"We have also identified a set of core social skills and cultural competencies that young people should acquire if they are to be full, active, creative, and ethical participants in this emerging participatory culture:

Play — the capacity to experiment with your surroundings as a form of problem-solving

Performance — the ability to adopt alternative identities for the purpose of improvisation and discovery

Simulation — the ability to interpret and construct dynamic models of real world processes

Appropriation — the ability to meaningfully sample and remix media content

Multitasking — the ability to scan one’s environment and shift focus as needed to salient details.

Distributed Cognition — the ability to interact meaningfully with tools that expand mental capacities

Collective Intelligence — the ability to pool knowledge and compare notes with others toward a common goal

Judgment — the ability to evaluate the reliability and credibility of different information sources

Transmedia Navigation — the ability to follow the flow of stories and information across multiple modalities

Networking — the ability to search for, synthesize, and disseminate information

Negotiation — the ability to travel across diverse communities, discerning and respecting multiple perspectives, and grasping and following alternative norms."

Bodleian 19th Century Collection Online

Just got this from Google Book Search Blog:
http://booksearch.blogspot.com/2009/03/bodleians-treasures-available-to-all.html


"In 2004, Google began a partnership with Oxford University Library to scan mostly 19th century public domain books from its Bodleian library. Five years on, we're delighted to announce the end of this phase of our scanning with Oxford, our first European partner. Together, we have digitized and made available on Google Book Search many hundreds of thousands of public domain books from the Bodleian and other Oxford libraries, representing the bulk of their available public domain content.

From English to German, to Spanish and French, most of the digitized works date from the 19th century and range from classic literature to more scientific volumes in fields including Geography, Philosophy or Anthropology. Among some of the works now available through Book Search, you can find the first English translation of Newton's Mathematical principles of natural philosophy from 1729, the first edition of Jane Austen's Emma, and John Cassell's Illustrated History of England. You can search and read the full text of these works on Google Book Search, and download and print a pdf if you wish to.

TODAY: Writing Outreach--Finding Scholarly Articles

Today in the University Library Auditorium I will be doing an instruction session on how to find the best scholarly articles for your research papers. Bring your topic and we can explore where to go and how to "talk to" the general and specific databases that will yield articles to help inform your papers.
3:30 Thursday
March 26th
Univ. Lib. Auditorium
about 45 minutes in length
http://www.usouthal.edu/univlib/sauer/outreacharticles.html

Web 2.0 PETAL Brownbag

Faculty and Staff,
Ellen Wilson and I will be talking about some Internet applications that may enhance your teaching and make your life more efficient at the PETAL BrownBag Tuesday. 12:15 in Room 312 on the Southside of the University Library.

The Commons

"The Commons: Your opportunity to contribute to describing the world's public photo collections."
http://www.flickr.com/commons/
These collections from institutions and corporations are all published under usage guidelines called "no known copyright restrictions" meaning that they have been unable to locate the copyright owner. These photos are probably public domain. They can certainly be used under fair use guidelines for academic purposes.

The cool thing about this collection of collections is that "the public" are asked to tag the photos to make them more accessible to others.

FYI: At the bottom of the sign in page is this warning:
*Any Flickr member is able to add tags or comment on these collections. If you're a dork about it, shame on you. This is for the good of humanity, dude!!

Momentous Day 200 Years Ago Today

Arguably, the two men who most influenced our lives and our thinking were born on the exact same day, 200 years ago. One is obvious. Who is the other?

Writing Outreach--Googling for Information

What do we even mean when we say we Googled it? Plain old Google, Google Books, Google Scholar, iGoogle, Google Docs, Google Calendar, Google Finance, Google Maps, Google Images, Google Reader?

Is searching Google academically anathema? Why, when, where and how students and faculty can use Google as one of the research tools in the scholarly scavenger hunt to find the best information available. And when is it best not to use it!

See you (anyone):
Tomorrow--Thursday, Feb 12th
3:30-4:30
Library Auditorium

The Best of the Best

I am constantly squirreling away websites that I plan to get back to when I retire--email, delicious, favorites, bookmarks--any way I can, so I have them at my fingertips sometime in the near future. Two came across my email in past two days and are perfect for my dilettantish [better:interdisciplinary] mind. The second one I am already addicted to, because it is the perfect iPhone app--short, often graphically interesting, and highly entertaining (remember this is for a librarian's mind.)

Academic Earth--"Thousands of video lectures from the world's top scholars." Choose them by subject, by instructor, thematically, or the Editor's choice. Most of them seem to be about an hour long. http://www.academicearth.org/

TED "Ideas worth spreading" An annual conference that invites the best and brightest to spend 18 minutes each talking about their ideas in fields that include science, business, the arts and the global issues. Watch them on your computer and now on your iPhone. Perfect length. Fascinating people and ideas. http://www.ted.com/

Find Out About Study Abroad? British Tea Today

London, Mexico, Spain, Germany, Ghana--Programs offered by USA for studying abroad. Come have some biscuits and find out about them.

British Tea
5:30-7:00 Today
Alumni House

.edu and spammers

I've gotten a couple of these emails this week purporting to be from university webmasters. They come from gawab.com which seems, according to a few webforums, to be home of lots of spammers. Universities use the .edu domain, not the .com domain and have no reason to change domains.

Dear Webmaster of http://www.southalabama.edu ,
I´m the webmaster of indiana.edu and and I want to inform you about the changing of our domain name.
Old name: http://www.indiana.edu
New name: http://indiana-edu.com

Whitehouse.gov

Here's the ABC website with a transcript of the inaugural address and a video of the address.

As of 12:01, today, January 20th, the White House has a new webpage. The first blog post on it promises transparency of government to the point that it says this: "One significant addition to WhiteHouse.gov reflects a campaign promise from the President: we will publish all non-emergency legislation to the website for five days, and allow the public to review and comment before the President signs it." Wow. I wonder who is going to read all of the posts, many of which, given the tenor of comments I see on other blogs, will be venomous. Let's hope for a new era of civility on the web, as well as the transparency promised by our new President and the new Administration. Perhaps information will again flow freely from our government to the people.

MLK Quote

Power without love is reckless and abusive. Love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice. Justice at its best corrects everything that stands against love.

PMLA Alternative Source Citations

Being a reference librarian in an academic institution means being bombarded by questions about the rules for citing information using the most common stylesheets, particularly the MLA. This alternative source, the PostModern Language Association, offers guidelines for citing the cutting edge sources of information now so common in research papers.
http://www.pmla.org/altsource.html
Thanks to Ellen Wilson for this site.

SilverPlatter to OVID

Just got this from Amy Prendergast, our sci/tech librarian:

All our SilverPlatter databases have now been moved to the Ovid platform. I have changed the links on the database pages - please let me know if you find any I have missed. The databases concerned are:

Biological Abstracts
GeoRef
Mental Measurements Yearbook
Social Work Abstracts
NASW Clinical Register

Unfortunately we don't seem to be connecting correctly with Social Work Abstracts and NASW Clinical Register but the others should all be working. I have sent a message about the problem to Ovid and hopefully we can get it resolved soon.

When you click on one of the database links, it will take you to a search page. At the top of the page is a box for Search History - you can close this by clicking on "(Click to close)". This makes more room at the top of the screen and enables you to see all the available limits for the database.

A Junkbin of Catalogs

Is there anyone who hasn't resolved to be more organized; to be more environmentally aware; to work smarter this year? Here's a website to help: Catalog Choice You do have to register and supply a snail mail address to which the catalogs you receive are posted. Find the ones you really don't want and this org will make contact with the business and request that they desist. Go through all those Christmas catalogs and thin the selection. Save space, save trees, save work AND eliminate temptation.

https://www.catalogchoice.org/