Knowledge is power

So you've checked out the ConsumerEd.gov page. You've searched through Encyclopedia of contemporary American social issues [HN59.2 ONLINE RESOURCE 2011]. What else can you do to make sure your shopping adventures are more fun and less traumatic?

Knowledge is power. If you know how advertisers and businesses place products to catch your eye,  then you can make a less emotional  decision to buy or not to buy. Our Marketing program " is designed to prepare students for employment in a variety of positions in today’s marketing and management fields. The Marketing Management program provides learning opportunities that introduce, develop, and reinforce academic and occupational knowledge, skills, and attitudes required for job acquisition, retention, and advancement."

How does that help you right now? We have created 9 Library Guides for Marketing classes. Check out the Intro to marketing for clues to arm yourself to withstand the onslaught of temptations this shopping season.

-kss

Consumer rights

After thinking about shopping and consumer rights, I did a search in our catalog for the words "consumer rights". This pulled up 23 titles. I sorted by newest to oldest.

Do you know how to sort in our catalog?
- You can sort before you search by selecting 'Power Search'. Scroll to the bottom of the screen and see the drop down box for "Sort" options.
- If you've already searched and you'd like to organize your results, you can select the 'Limit search' link in the yellow bar. This opens the same screen you see with 'Power Search'. Leave your search term alone, scroll to the bottom of the screen and change the 'Sort' option. Click the blue 'search' button in the middle of the screen to arrange your search.

Encyclopedia of contemporary American social issues [HN59.2 ONLINE RESOURCE 2011] is the newest title in our collection after a quick search on the topic of consumer rights. By rights, I mean protection by the law against individuals or businesses who just might like to use my buying power for their advantage.

I figured a current encyclopedia would have both brief articles and timely information. My hunch was correct. Encyclopedias offer  the right amount of information. The 2011 copyright date implies current information. After you've opened the book (use the 'ebook full text' link on the left to open the book), you may search within the book by using the search tool that looks like a magnifying glass on the right side at the top of the column.

To use the ebook off campus you'll need to login. Ask your CTC librarian about the login information for our electronic books.


-kss

Shopping season

It's the shopping season. Do you know how your purchases may affect your buying power? ConsumerEd.com was created by the Governor's Office of Consumer Affairs to help Georgians be more informed consumers by learning to make wise purchasing and financial decisions, knowing their rights, and avoiding becoming victims of scams or deceptive practices in the marketplace.

This is an 'open' site available to everyone on the web. I discovered it by scrolling through GALILEO.

The nice thing about the Georgia online library is GALILEO links to sites like the ConsumerEd.com which was created by The Governor’s Office of Consumer Protection for Georgia residents.

Using the Georgia online library is very easy.
Get the current password from your Georgia librarian.
...Log in.
......Select Databases A-Z.
.........Select all databases.
............Scroll through the list to see what treasures are 'on the shelf' at your Georgia online library .

-kss

Where is it?

All this talk about Pearl Harbor, Oahu, Japan, Hawaii made me aware that geography is not my strong suit. There are no classes at CTC specifically for geography. Yet, it seems that the knowledge of geography is integral to understanding why an event took place. The Library provides a Geography Library Guide to supplement the courses in History, Humanities, Political Science, and even Allied Health.

The Books tab has several subject searches ready to go. The one for 'human geography' surprised me with 143 titles. Scrolling through that list revealed a Dictionary of Human Geography available in two electronic collections (one could be downloaded into an e-reader).

The Articles tab points to Global Road Warrior. Practical information about many countries is readily available through this resource.

Internet tab, of course lists sites that deal with geography, including links to Google Earth, Google Moon, and Google Mars.

The Geography News tab includes RSS feeds  for news and views about the planet.

My favorite tab in the guide is the Atlas Stand. Here you can see which physical books are located on the atlas stands of each campus. The over sized atlas' are a tactile delight to peruse.

The steps to find the Geography guide seem lengthy but the destination is worth it:

Go to the CTC main page
...Select Quicklinks
.....Scroll and select Library
.......On the far right on the 'scrap of notepaper' select Library Guides
...Select Library Guide
.....Select Program and Special Topic Guides
.......Scroll down to Geography

You'll discover how important the knowledge of geography can be to just about any topic!


-kss

70 years

Today is the 70th anniversary of the Attack on Pearl Harbor. In Annals of American History you can hear FDR tell the country what happened on December 7, 1941. For the 5oth anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor , Robert S. LaForte collected the 'eyewitness accounts by U.S. military men and women'
for Remembering Pearl Harbor.

The seven chapters cover the areas of Oahu that were attacked. The interviews are in the words of the military personnel remembering where they were and what happened. Mr. LaForte included information about what happened to the military person after the war. This makes it a genealogical treasure as well as a historical find.

Remembering Pearl Harbor is an electronic book that can be downloaded onto your reader. The index has the name of each person mentioned in a story. By any chance is one of them kin to you or from an area you're familiar with?

When you are in the book, use the search tool, which is on the far right at the top of the column, to look for a word or phrase. I didn't find any family names that I'm familiar with but I did find people from Georgia.

First person history brings an event to life. Your CTC librarian can give you the access information to use this e-book off campus.

-kss

Date that will live in infamy

Franklin D Roosevelt's radio address to the country following the attack on Pearl Harbor is available through Annals of American History in GALILEO.

There are two ways to find the speech. A straight search for 'Pearl Harbor' brought the 1941 speech up first on the results list. Using the index for authors, click on R, select Franklin D Roosevelt, and scroll through the articles in date order till you get to 1941.

The audio of the speech may be downloaded. The full text may be printed. The speech is more than it's most famous phrase. Listen or read the entire speech to get a feeling for what our country was going through.

Have you listened  to any members of your family talk  about their memory of December 7, 1941? Consider taking this person to a Story Corps location and interviewing them about that "date that will live in infamy". Remembering is one thing, making sure the story is not forgotten is another!


-kss

The password to use GALILEO is available from your Georgia librarian
...Select Databases A-Z
.....Select A
.......Select Annals of American History

Shoes full?

Were your shoes filled with treats this morning? Do you know who should have come by and filled them? I know who should have visited, which gives me a head start in my search.

But what if I wasn't sure what should be remembered on December 6th. A search for December 6 in Credo Reference turned up over 7000 entries. Credo makes it easy to narrow the search using the links on the left side. Select event, then select celebration. The first entry is for St. Nicholas's Day. The basic info on the day is there.

A search for Saint Nicholas, in quotes, gives me information about the man himself. Again, I do need to narrow my search using the column on the left. Selecting entry type, biography, and then religion, narrowed the search to one entry for Nicholas (? fourth century) from Who's Who in Christianity, Routledge

Resembling the game of telephone, the Bishop of Myra has morphed into our Santa Claus!

-kss

You may access Credo through GALILEO. Ask your CTC librarian for the login.

Second Star to the Right

While searching for Peter Pan in our catalog, I noticed that we have 2 copies of "Second star to the right [electronic resource] : Peter Pan in the popular imagination" by Allison Kavey, available as e-books. Both e-books may be downloaded to a reader. The Choice review, from the MARC record,notes:

Perhaps responding to the modern phenomenon known as Peter Pan syndrome, Kavey (history, CUNY, John Jay College) and Friedman (media studies, Hobart and William Smith Colleges) collect nine excellent essays that explore the social and artistic impacts of J. M. Barrie's classic tale over the past century. The contributors treat subjects ranging from the Disney versions of Peter Pan and Steven Spielberg's Hook to what constitutes children's literature. Among the questions addressed: Is the Peter Pan story suitable for children (a lot of not-so-buried sexual tension)? Do children even read Peter Pan anymore? How does content determine the categorization of a book as children's literature or adult literature? And, perhaps most important, how does a work like Peter Pan address the shifting boundary between adult- and child-appropriate reading? [More].

The third essay, "I do believe in fairies, I do, I do", caught my attention. I found myself pulled into the relationship between Peter Pan and the Greek Pan. In the TV movie, Neverland, Peter used his flute to give directions to his band of Lost Boys. I hadn't tied the flute playing of Peter Pan to the Greek Pan!

I'm going back to read the other essays. Who knows what other insights I will pick up.

Check with your CTC Librarian for information on how to access the e-books off campus.


-kss

If you believe

...clap your hands. Do you remember Peter Pan? From Chapter 13, pg 216 in J. M. Barrie's story

Her voice was so low that at first he could not make out what she said. Then he made it out. She was saying that she thought she could get well again if children believed in fairies.

Peter flung out his arms. There were no children there, and it was night time; but he addressed all who might be dreaming of the Neverland, and who were therefore nearer to him than you think: boys and girls in their nighties, and naked papooses in their baskets hung from trees.

"Do you believe?" he cried.

Tink sat up in bed almost briskly to listen to her fate.

She fancied she heard answers in the affirmative, and then again she wasn't sure.

"What do you think?" she asked Peter.

"If you believe," he shouted to them, "clap your hands; don't let Tink die."

Many clapped.

Some didn't.

A few beasts hissed.

The clapping stopped suddenly; as if countless mothers had rushed to their nurseries to see what on earth was happening; but already Tink was saved. First her voice grew strong, then she popped out of bed, then she was flashing through the room more merry and impudent than ever. She never thought of thanking those who believed, but she would have like to get at the ones who had hissed.

Did you clap when you heard the request from Peter?

I was reminded of this classic when I watched Neverland the past few nights. We have two copies of the story in our collection. I've borrowed the print edition to read aloud! Cold winter nights are the perfect time to read aloud to the family. Do you have a favorite read aloud?

-kss

Lists

Sometimes you want a list of titles on a particular subject. Our catalog can help you pull together that list by selecting the 'keep' box next to an item. Yet, we may not have the variety you want. Where else can you get a list of books on a subject?

There is a print resource that is most helpful in providing lists by subject and author.

For teachers, librarians, and parents, this reference of nonfiction and fiction children's picture books has about 28,000 titles in 1,350 subjects to aid in book choice. The volume begins with a subject guide listing books alphabetically by author name, followed by a bibliographic guide by author, with publication information and correlated subjects, and indexes by title and illustrator. Book listings only feature their subjects; they are not described. The introduction outlines the origins of the picture book in the English language. Carolyn and John Lima are former librarians at the San Diego Public Library. Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Children's books aren't just for children anymore. Some children's books have amazing illustrations which convey the information from the text. Children's books can usually be read aloud in under 30 minutes.

See how a picture book can spark a discussion or illuminate your presentation!

-kss

What to read next?

Sometimes people ask the librarian, what do you suggest I read next? We call that conversation 'Readers Advisory'. One tool to use for Readers Advisory is NoveList.

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.

Who else do you ask, besides the librarian and the book store clerk, about something good to read? Did you check out books in the pre-computer era where there were cards in the back of the book that you signed? At my first library, students would use that card to figure out if the book was any good, solely based on who had read it before them! Word of mouth is a fine way to find out what might be a fun read.

On a cataloging list, an article was shared about the Muncie Library circulation ledgers. As a genealogy bug, I know the 1890 census was destroyed. This database gives a clue as to who lived in Muncie from 1891 to 1902. Better yet, it tells you what they were reading. What we consider the classics of Mark Twain and Jane Austen were regularly read by the folks of Indiana.

If you had kin in Muncie at the end of the 19th century, would you like to know if they were using their public library and what they were reading? This Readers Advisory just might help you find your relative and get to know a little bit about them. It might inspire you to read what they read.

We no longer keep the record of individual borrowers after an item is returned. Privacy is a two edged sword. I'm glad the Muncie ledgers survived to let us know what really was being read!

-and another thought- American Lit aficionados might find this database extraordinarily enlightening. What was the MidWest reading at that time?

-kss

If you want a current Readers Advisory tool use NoveList
Your Georgia librarian can give you the current password to GALILEO
..Select the tab Databases A-Z
....Select N
......Scroll down a bit to NoveList