Finding aids

How easy is it to find information on a web site? The Chattahoochee Technical College Library site is going through an upgrade. Check out the left column with the hints and tips on using the resources available to CTC students!

If you're a visual learner the How Do I... videos will be most helpful. They are short and sweet. Just enough information to get you on your way to successfully using a resource.

We're doing our best to help our students succeed not only in school but as life long learners!


-kls

What's new?

Yesterday I talked about the new books arriving at the North Metro campus. How would you find out what's new in the collection if I didn't tell you?

The catalog has a link just for NEW BOOKS [upper left corner]. When you click on NEW BOOKS a list of the campus libraries is revealed. You have a choice of a specific campus, all new books and new electronic books.The system is set to run the new books report each Friday evening at 9pm.

Now you know how you can find out what is new on the shelves of the Chattahoochee Technical College libraries.


-kls

the Berlin Wall

Today is the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The Berlin Wall separated communist controlled East Berlin from West Berlin, which was under democratic rule.

An oft remembered event related to the wall's end is the singing performance of American television actor David Hasselhoff.



Hasselhoff, quite the star in Germany and Austria, is best known in the States for his early 1980's work on the tv series Knight Rider and the 1990's lifeguard drama Baywatch. A few weeks after the wall's collapse, Hasselhoff was invited to perform near the wall, singing a collection of his musical tunes, songs that never really caught on in America, but were very popular in Europe. The singer's attire, a self-illuminating jacket, is remembered as much as is his performance. Some commentators have even suggested a reason the East Berliners poured into West Berlin in 1989 was to get their hands on copies of Hasselhoff's music.

JF

Potager

The new book orders are starting to arrive! It feels like Christmas to open the boxes and see what we've ordered.

Timber Press books have amazing photographs. The book that caught my eye was Design the New Kitchen Garden : an American Potager Handbook [SB 324.3 .B38 2006] by Jennifer R. Bartley. I admit to not knowing what 'potager' meant.

A potager garden is the French counterpart to the English kitchen garden, but with an emphasis on growing vegetables.

This seems to tie into the slow food movement - getting fresh food close to home. The potager brings the food right outside the kitchen door yet seems to provide the visual appeal of a formal garden. The gardens that inspired Ms. Bartley are Renaissance potager gardens (Chapter 2). They remind me of Williamsburg gardens, formal yet useful.

If you don't have the space or energy to create a formal potager, Ms. Bartley offers a section on container potager gardening (pg 186). Her suggestions for container gardening might meet the need for fresh food, right outside the kitchen door!


-kls

What do you think?

The folks at GALILEO really want your opinion:

How useful have you found the GALILEO Toolbar? Would you like to search GALILEO from your mobile device? How would you improve GALILEO? Your answers and your students' and patrons' answers to these questions matter.

When you open the GALILEO website today, you will see an invitation to participate in a the annual user survey. Don't miss this chance to provide your feedback on your experience with GALILEO and to enter the drawing to win an iPod Nano. Be sure to encourage your users to complete the survey to be entered into the drawing. The survey will be conducted November 9-15, 2009. Just click on the GALILEOUser Survey link on the GALILEO home page to participate.

Thank you for taking the time to contribute your opinions and ideas and for encouraging others to participate.

-kls

Another chance

Here's another opportunity to express your opinion:

The annual user survey offers you the chance to sound off on your experience using GALILEO and the chance to win an iPod Nano. The link to the survey will appear on the GALILEO website Monday, November 9—Sunday, November 15.

Questions on the survey are designed to measure the satisfaction and identify the issues experienced by everyone who uses GALILEO. To help ensure a broad representation of users, please encourage others to participate, including students, teachers and faculty, parents, your colleagues, and all your patrons.

Your feedback and that of the end users you work with is important, so add a note to your calendar or to-do list to look for the survey link on the GALILEO home page next week. If you have any questions or need more information, please use GALILEO's Contact Us feature or contact OIIT Customer Services at helpdesk@usg.edu.

Seventh Inning

Thanks to Britannica Blog for posting the Harpo Marx YouTube video "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" in honor of the World Series.

You can read about the World Series in GALILEO through NewsBank. CTC Library subscribes to this resource!

You may also peruse "Sports Illustrated" (back to 1992) in GALILEO.
..Select Journals A-Z
...type in Sports Illustrated
....Find it pulls up several versions of Sports Illustrated. Select one- notice which vendor has the magazine (Ebsco, ProQuest, Lexisexis).
Ebsco and ProQuest offer alerts and RSS feeds for magazines and searches!

There are a variety of ways to get the latest information. Don't limit yourself to a Google search.

-kls

Naked to the Bone

The information for x-rays in Credo Reference gave me the facts (Just the Facts, Ma'am). My interest was whetted and I wanted a bit more. A search in the CTC catalog turned up a fascinating history of X-rays in the 20th century - Naked to the bone [electronic resource] : medical imaging in the twentieth century by Bettyann Kevles [RC 78.7 D 53 ONLINE RESOURCE]. The best part is, the book is available 24/7 through NetLibrary.

From the Introduction:

On a warm summer afternoon in 1996, six middle-aged people sat around a conference table. It had been a long day and the men's ties lay limp on the backs of chairs while one of the women, her high-heeled shoes discarded nearby, wriggled her toes to restore circulation. ''That reminds me of Berlin in 1936," a man observed. "My mother used to take me to a shoe store where I put my feet under a fluoroscope to watch my bones." The group sat up, revived by nostalgia. They were all children again, recalling the same experience in Indianapolis, Bakersfield, Manhattan, Wellington, and Shanghai. The memory triggered grins at first, and moments later, the barefoot woman was the first to shudder. She was trying to estimate the quantity of radiation....

A little research is the impetus to life long learning!
This video walks you through creating your free account to use NetLibrary
Go to GALILEO
..Select Databases A-Z
...Select N
....Scroll to NetLibrary
......In the upper right corner select Create your free account

Your Georgia librarian can give you the current password to access GALILEO.

-kls

X-Rays

Today (Nov 4, 2009) is RAD TECH DAY at the North Metro Campus! You’re invited to stop by the RAD lab, room 221 in building 200 for “goodies and games” from 11:00am until 1:00pm. Our current RAD students will be there to answer any questions you may have about the program.

X-rays are a tool that I take for granted. My dentist uses X-rays to check the condition of my teeth and gums. My doctor uses X-rays to 'see' the broken bone in my arm. My doctor uses the mammogram to look for unusual features that might signal a cancer.

I don't know much about x-rays other than they are useful tools! A search in Credo Reference found over 4000 entries for "X ray" (put x ray in quotes or as x-ray to limit your search).

Credo Reference offers other ways to limit the search. Look at the left column which offers you links to search by entry types (articles noted as long or brief), media, person, and date published. Credo Reference is using Boolean logic to narrow the search for you with the links on the left.

I like the options offered by Credo Reference to narrow my search by clicking on a link. It's quicker. Yet, I think I have more control by using the search boxes and the And, Or, Not features of Boolean logic through the Advanced Search feature.

I accessed Credo Reference by going to GALILEO
...selecting Databases A-Z
.....selecting C
.......scrolling to Credo Reference

Try both options and see which one gives you more of what you are looking for. You get the current password to use GALILEO at home from your Georgia librarian.


-kls

Election Day

In many parts of the country, today is Election Day! By now you should feel pretty comfortable with the touch screen voting machines. However, if you need a refresher----



It's a beautiful day in the metro-Atlanta area neighborhood. No excuses not to exercise your right (and obligation) to participate in the democratic process.

-kls

The Discoveries

Alan Lightman wrote The Discoveries [Q 180.55 .D57 L54 2005] a science review of the 20th century.

Lightman outlines the intellectual and emotional landscape of each discovery, portrays the personalities and human dramas of the scientists involved, and explains the significance and impact of the work. In doing so, he explores such questions as how do scientists think, whether there are common patterns of discovery, the nature of creativity in science, which discoveries are accidental and which intentional, and whether the scientists are aware of the significance of what they have discovered. Finally, Lightman gives an exhilarating tour through each of the original discovery papers. In their own words, here are Einstein, Bohr, McClintock, and Pauling, grappling with the nature of the world. The Discoveries is an exploration into the process of scientific discovery and into the minds of the men and women who do it.

Mr. Lightman brings the familiarity of friendship to each scientists own words. It's a fascinating and enjoyable read!

-kls

Bones and more

Posters around the North Metro campus are filled with dancing skeletons to advertise the Rad Tech annual open house which will be held on the North Metro campus on Wednesday, November 4, from 11 to 1 in room 221.

The plethora of skeletons on view reminded me of the rollicking song, Dem Bones. While reading the lyrics (and humming the tune), I began to wonder about the scientific names for the bones.

Medical dictionaries are readily available online. I searched MedLine Plus for hip bone and quickly found

the large flaring bone that makes a lateral half of the pelvis in mammals and is composed of the ilium, ischium, and pubis which are consolidated into one bone in the adult -- called also innominate bone, os coxae, pelvic bone

I wondered if I might find a Medical Dictionary in GALILEO? Looking in Browse by Type and selecting Dictionaries did not reveal any medical dictionaries.

Going to Browse by Subject, selecting Medicine and Health, then Nursing and Allied Health, clicking on the tab Articles & Databases, scrolling down to Other databases in this category, I selected the Merck manual, which really is not a Medical Dictionary. A search for hip bone pulled up all sorts of diseases, treatments, etc but not the scientific name for the bone.

Checking Health Source : Nursing showed a Medical Dictionary link (4th tab from the left). I typed in hip bone, then selected hip bone from the list and the definition appeared....

the large flaring bone that makes a lateral half of the pelvis in mammals and is composed of the ilium, ischium, and pubis which are consolidated into one bone in the adult— called also innominate bone, os coxae, pelvic bone

To answer my question - yes, I can find a Medical Dictionary within a database in GALILEO. Not easily but it can be done!

Your Georgia librarian can give you the current GALILEO password to use GALILEO at home.

-kls

Who has it?

Ebsco offers the option to show a link in NovelList that connects to the public WorldCat. When I've demonstrated the feature, the students eyes get wide with delight. The public WorldCat shows which library holds the book, how far that library is from the computer you're using, reviews, how to purchase the book, and what other books have been read by folks who read the book you're looking at.

What the public WorldCat does not offer is the option to request the book through inter-library loan. For that option, you need to go to GALILEO
...select Databases A-Z
.....select W
.......select WorldCat

This WorldCat is not as 'pretty' as the public WorldCat. The borrowing feature makes the clunky look acceptable. After you've searched for a title and found the one you'd like to read, click on the title. Scroll down a bit to the Availability section - see the link Borrow this item from another library? Select that link and complete the form. Make a note in Comments which campus you'd like the item delivered to. The request is sent to the main library. The Inter Library Loan assistant searches for a library to borrow the item from. Within ten days the item will be at the branch you noted for pick-up.

Knowing who has the book is important but knowing how to get the book delivered to your local branch - is priceless!

Ask your Georgia librarian what the current password is to use GALILEO at home.

-kls

All Hallows Eve eve

It's drizzly, overcast, and cool feeling today. I'm wearing my skull and crossbones knee socks in honor of the holiday weekend.

Halloween has evolved into a more grown up holiday from my childhood experience where we wore home made costumes and gathered in groups to trudge around the neighborhood collecting treats.

For current articles about the growth of Halloween as an adult holiday, I decided to check the Religion And Philosophy collection which "includes more than 300 full-text journals covering topics such as world religions, major denominations, biblical studies, religious history, epistemology, political philosophy, philosophy of language, moral philosophy, and the history of philosophy." A search for All Hallows Eve only turned up three articles. Halloween, though, brought up 81 articles.

The Economist article (yes, the Economist is in Religion And Philosophy) ,The Nightmare Before Christmas notes the economic engine powered by the purchasing of consumables.

Using GALILEO can provide you with interesting articles to read while the weather outside is less than ideal!

Get the current password to use GALILEO from your Georgia librarian.





-kls