What's new at GGP

An announcement from the Digital Library of Georgia:

The Digital Library of Georgia is pleased to present the redesign of the Georgia Government Publications.

Developed in 1996 as GALILEO's first digital conversion initiative, the Georgia Government Publications database contains born-digital publications and scanned print documents produced by Georgia state agencies. The GGP provides a comprehensive repository of state publications 1994 to the present, and project participants are actively scanning documents printed before 1994 to provide researchers with a valuable source for online historical research.

The Georgia Government Publications(GGP) database consists of over 44,000 documents produced by 100 Georgia state agencies. Georgia agencies are required by law to submit print and electronic publications that they produce for the public to the official depository at the University of Georgia Libraries. These publications are all included in the GGP, which features such publications as Guide to Alligator Hunting in Georgia, Members of the General Assembly of Georgia, rack cards on the Georgia state parks, images of Georgia's song birds from the Traveling Songsters poster, and thousands of other items generated by Georgia's executive branch of government.

The Georgia Government Publications database is part of the Digital Library of Georgia, a GALILEO initiative.

I will say the Guide to Alligator Hunting in Georgia looks especially intriguing to this city girl!


-kls

the Great Game

The term the Great Game denotes the imperial struggles between Russia and Great Britain in central Asia during the 1800's. The nation of Afghanistan was used as a buffer state between the Russian and British colonial holdings in southern Asia. It has been suggested that some of the blame for the recent geopolitical troubles in Afghanistan can be traced back to the playing of the Great Game. The Great Game started a long history of involvement in Afghanistan by foreign powers for various reasons.

Doing a general search in Galileo for 'Great Game' and 'Afghanistan' (don't put in the quote marks when searching) then sorting the results by relevance, yields some good results. Some of the highest relevancy ranked results deal with a new playing of the game in Afghanistan, now involving India and Pakistan.

JF

Afghanistan

Did you do a Google search on Afghanistan after the Presidents speech? Google pulled up Wikipedia (the 122 references in the Wikipedia article had more than a few Find It buttons connecting to GALILEO ) and the CIA Factbook.

Thinking about those reference links in Wikipedia, I did a search on Afghanistan in GALILEO, I selected:
Browse by subject
..History
....History
......Typed in Afghanistan
........ I unclicked the Digital Library of Georgia. I selected more resources and clicked on Encyclopedia Britannica.

Thousands of articles were pulled going back years. The Google search did give me resources for basic facts. GALILEO provided depth for my quest for information about the topic.

Sometimes "just the facts" is enough. Sometimes depth is necessary.


-kls

You may get the password to use GALILEO at home from your Georgia librarian.

Little cat feet

When I see fog, I think of the poem by Carl Sandburg that I had to memorize in elementary school. This picture of Fog is copyright © copyright-free-pictures.org.uk

CTC Library subscribes to Literature Resource Center which provides biographies on thousands of authors, as well as literary criticism, historical context, and social implications of literature .

A basic search for Carl Sandburg turned up 56 biographical references. As I scrolled the list, I noticed only 4 that seemed to be specifically about Carl Sandburg. I'm guessing the others referenced him in some way. I started playing to see how I could narrow the search to just biographies on Carl Sandburg.

At the Basic Search page, I typed in Carl Sandburg
..I clicked on the radio button Person - By or about
....I unclicked the content type options leaving only biographies
Search pulled up 5 biographies - a much easier to peruse selection!

Narrowing the search by learning what buttons to click is worth the time and effort! Play with the databases till you can create a search that pulls just what you want - not too much and not too little (as Goldilocks might say - it's just right)!

-kls

Get the current password to access GALILEO at home from your Georgia librarian.

How does your garden grow?

Frost was again on the roof (and yard) this morning. People who like to garden are curling up with seed catalogs. They are preparing for the spring planting!

What if you aren't sure what you might be able to do with your garden? Garden, Landscape & Horticulture Index in GALILEO provides access to articles about gardens and plants, including topics such as horticulture, botany, garden and landscape design & history, ecology, plant and garden conservation, garden management, and horticultural therapy. A highlight of the database is its focus on environmentally sustainable horticultural and design practices. This index and abstract product is designed for gardening enthusiasts, professionals, and students of horticulture and of garden and landscape design & history. It covers more than 300 core serial titles that include general gardening titles of national, international, and regional interest, and titles devoted to specialty gardens and plant groups.
Because Garden, Landscape & Horticulture Index is an index - you'll mostly pull up citations with a Find It button to let you know which library has the journal. If you select Linked Full Text- this will limit your search to those articles available in the database full text. PDF files have full color pictures.

Curl up with your lap top and peruse the articles. You can beginning planning your spring garden while enjoying the warmth of the fireplace!

-kls

The password to use GALILEO at home is available from your Georgia librarian.

More H1N1 resources

Online vendors are sharing their expertise and resources to help all of us get the most accurate information available to help us weather the flu season.

ebrary understands there is a lot of anxiety, confusion, and frustration regarding H1N1. In fact, we are experiencing it ourselves.

This site was created by ebrary employees, who in the course of researching H1N1 to protect our families and friends, realized that our technology can help.

While some of the most important information in the world is contained within PDF documents, it is a very difficult format to search, use, and manage online. To enable people to discover valuable H1N1 data, we created a highly interactive database of PDF documents from government agencies and other authoritative sites (copyrights permitting or with permission).

We plan to continually grow this collection and welcome your feedback by emailing h1n1@ebrary.com.


-kls

The sky is falling!

Do you remember fire drills in school? Some were a surprise to instructors, some were noted on a faculty calendar. All were intended to prepare students (and staff) to exit the building in an orderly fashion without panic or confusion. At an education conference, meeting in a hotel banquet room, there were over 300 instructors seated for a meal. The hotel fire alarm went off. 300 adults calmly stood up, pushed in their chairs and exited the space. The hotel people were trying to tell us it was a mistake and we should stay inside. We continued to exit down the stairs, not taking the elevator and gathered at a safe distance from the building - practice does make it possible to cope with an emergency without chaos.

Which brings me to disaster movies (and books). Are they the fire drill for the mind? Do we watch the end of time movies and get ideas on how to best respond when the end appears?


The Road [PS 3563 .C337 R63 2006] by Cormac McCarthy which won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize has been turned into a movie.

The book discussion guide in NoveList through GALILEO offers thought provoking questions, several responses to the questions noting that each reader brings their own thoughts to the task.

The book discussion guide concludes with 6 other titles to read that have similar themes. I was glad to see Alas, Babylon c1959 mentioned.

The survivors of a nuclear holocaust are forced to rely on their own resources as they join together in the struggle for survival amidst the ruins of Fort Repose, a small town in Florida.

I was intrigued that 50 years ago the apocalyptic story revolved around a group gathering together to help each other rather than individuals struggling on their own.

What do we learn from these two stories? Has our societal response changed so much in 50 years? Books can be fire drills for the mind!

-kls

Get the password to use GALILEO from your Georgia librarian.