Howard Zinn

Historian Howard Zinn passed away today. Zinn was 87.

Zinn is best remembered for his book, A People's History of the United States [E 178 .Z75 2005]. The book takes a bit of a populist and left leaning stance toward US history. Zinn's history grew in popularity over time, by word of mouth. The book was briefly mentioned in one of the therapy scenes between Matt Damon and Robin Williams in the film Good Will Hunting.

A copy of the book is available at the North Metro campus library. Remember that if you are not a student at the North Metro campus, you can contact your Chattahoochee Technical College campus librarian to have the book sent to the campus location most convenient for you.

JF

and we say farewell

J.D.Salinger ,RIP

I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, ...I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be.

~The Catcher in the Rye , Holden Caulfield in Chapter 22

The Catcher in the Rye [PS3537 .A426 ] was published in 1951 to horror and acclaim, depending on whether you were young or old. If you missed reading this classic work of adolescent angst- you can read the cliff notes version in our electronic collection.
Go to Chatahoochee Technical College
...Select Quicklinks
.....Select Library
.......Select Find books
Search for Catcher in the Rye, limited to Just Electronic Books.

There are two electronic books - both in NetLibrary - the Cliff notes and Blooms. You will need to create your 'free account' [library card] on campus to use NetLibrary.

-kls

What's it about?

A few days ago, I wrote how you may find the new titles added to our catalog by:
...going to Chattahoochee's main page
.... selecting Quicklinks
......selecting Library
....... selecting Find Books
.........clicking on the blue New Books box in the top left corner

Some of our fiction titles do not have a complete description. The title, author, publisher and a few subject descriptions are displayed - but what about the plot?

If you go to GALILEO
....select Databases A-Z
......select N
.........go to NoveList where you'll find more information about many fiction works!

NoveList is an online readers' advisory tool that helps readers find new books based on books they've read or on topics in which they are interested. NoveList provides enhanced subject access to over 125,000 fiction titles and more than 90,000 full-text book reviews or annotations.

As an experiment let's look for one of our newest books which was mentioned in the PeachBuzz in Sundays AJC [link from NewsBank], The Help by Kathryn Stockett. We have a brief description of the story in our catalog

In Jackson, Mississippi, in 1962, there are lines that are not crossed. With the civil rights movement exploding all around them, three women start a movement of their own, forever changing a town and the way women--black and white, mothers and daughters--view one another.

That might give me enough of a clue on whether I wanted to read this book but what if it wasn't quite enough.

A search for The Help in NoveList limited to title and adult pulled up 6 titles. The Help I was looking for was on this list.

NoveList has a slightly different summary

Limited and persecuted by racial divides in 1962 Jackson, Mississippi, three women, including an African-American maid, her sassy and chronically unemployed friend, and a recently graduated white woman, team up for a clandestine project.

There are two book reviews, three study guides, a Find Similar Books link and the World Cat link which allows me to see the closest library to my IP address that carries this book!

If you aren't getting enough information in any catalog about a fiction title - open a second internet tab and go to NoveList in GALILEO.


-kls

What's it worth to ya?

Instructors regularly suggest that students look for information to compare and contrast. History, Sociology, Marketing, Accounting and the Allied Health programs look for statistics to use in these academic comparisons.

It seems like it ought to be easy to find statistics from one historical period that can be compared to the same type of event from another historical period. I've had trouble doing this online. I've rediscovered a book that pulls numbers from 1860 to 2004. These economic indicators can be used by a variety of program areas.

The Value of a Dollar 1860-2004, 3rd edition [REF HB 235 .U6 V35 2004] by Scott Derks is reviewed on Amazon by Booklist:

This engaging statistical summary presents the history of the American people through the prices they paid for a wide variety of products and services. The first section is organized into six chapters covering 20-year periods and then into subchapters covering 5-year spans. Each subchapter presents a chronology of mostly economic events; tables showing typical wages and incomes, expenditures, and investment yields; a representative "food basket" comparing prices in different cities; prices on items from alcoholic beverages to travel; and more. Following these summaries is a new section called "Pricing Trends," which tracks changes in the costs of goods and services in various categories and also show values compared to today's dollar.

Sometimes a print resource is easier to use than wandering through the wild web! Stop by your library and peruse the Reference collection. Let your fingers do the walking through the print information.

-kls

Australian Coups

Today is Australia Day, which is the national holiday of Australia. The holiday celebrates the arrival of the 'First Fleet' under the command of Arthur Phillip at Sydney Cove in the year 1788. This British fleet would mark the first permanent European settlement of Australia. (Remember that the Aboriginal peoples were living in Australia for centuries prior to the first Europeans doing so.)

Twenty years to the day after the arrival of the first fleet, Australia went through its first and only coups. The Governor of the colony of New South Wales, one William Bligh (yes, that William Bligh), was overthrown by elements of the military and economic and political elements within the colony. This event is called the Rum Rebellion. The government of Australia has remained stable since then, although Prime Minister Harold Holt did disappear while swimming in 1967.

Going to the History Reference Center database in Galileo and performing a search for Australia and Rum Rebellion yields some articles related to the event.

JF

What's new on the shelf?

An anonymous benefactor has gifted the North Metro campus library with 121 hardback books from their collection. Mostly fiction, mostly current fiction which is even better for our readers!

How do you figure out what's new to a campus library? Each Friday our catalog updates and produces a list of titles added to the catalog. Go to our catalog.

Chattahoochee Technical College
..Click on Quicklinks (upper right corner)
....Select Library
......Select Find Books (middle of column in red letters)
Now you're in the catalog. In the upper left corner right under Web cat- there is a blue box that says NEW BOOKS.
Select that blue box.
Click on the campus you're interested in or select All New Books!

That's it! Now you can explore what's new on our shelves.



-kls

Happy Birthday season, Mr. Burns!

Encyclopedia Britannica blogger, Robert McHenry, notes the poet Robert Burns 251st birthday was January 25th. I like to celebrate birthdays for weeks before and weeks after the actual day.

We have access to Encyclopedia Britannica through GALILEO. We also have several literary databases that can give an indepth look at the poet.

I went to the Browse by Subject tab inGALILEO
..selected Literature, Language, and Literary Criticism
...then selected the Literature and Literary Criticism link

Here I can do a bulk search of 5 resources.
I chose to search for Robert Burns and limit my search to the Subject.
This definitely limited the results to under 50 hits.

The Literature Resource Center (Gale) had no results at all, which I admit I thought was odd.
I went to Databases A-Z, selected L, and directly selected Literature Resource Center (Gale).

The same search pulled up 96 biographies of Robert Burns. I quickly realized that I needed to limit my search to the radio button person- by or about. I continued to have to drill down through the various Robert Burns (who knew there were so many authors named Robert Burns) till I found the correct Robert Burns.

Literature Resource Center (Gale) allows you to create a bookmark that can link you to the specific article you found. Literature Resource Center (Gale) also offers the opportunity to listen to the article or download it in an mp3 file!

Learn more about poets who have literary longevity by using the resources in GALILEO.

You may get the password to access GALILEO resources from your Georgia librarian!

-kls

Monday morning quarterback

Big games on TV with exciting finishes will lead to intense discussions about who did what best and when. Getting sports stats is pretty easy- just go to ESPN.

If you're looking for analysis there are resources in GALILEO that are used by the students in the Sport and Recreation Management program. They need access to something a little more indepth than just numbers for sports management.

You are already aware I really like LexisNexisfor news articles. Chattahoochee Tech Library subscribs to NewsBank with articles going back to 1985.

Here's another source that the Chattahoochee Tech Library subscribes to: Facts.com.

Facts.com highlights articles on current issues and controversies in society and science. Additionally, Facts.com contains a World Almanac Reference Database, World Almanac Encyclopedia, Reuters news articles, and World News Digest special features and articles from 1940 - present.

Go to GALILEO
...Databases A-Z
.....Select F
.......Select Facts.com
In the right hand column, they offer a News Services Cross Search
This will search three of the Facts. com resources - World News Digest, Todays Science and Issues and Controversies.

A search for "Minnesota Vikings" (put the words in quotes or you'll get references to Norway and vikings) turned up 195 articles. Facts.com
doesn't put the results in any order. I discovered I can click on the date link at the top of the right column and sort the articles with the most recent at the top.

There's another handy tool in Facts.com. The last tab is Reference Shelf. Clicking on that tab reveals the source for the articles - either encyclopedia or almanac. There is the citation in MLA and APA at the very bottom of the article!

Go looking for something to wow the folks around the water cooler with your indepth understanding of the recent sports event.

-kls