STAT!Ref

 

Watching medical shows gives one enough of the lingo to realize STAT means in a hurry, quickly, right now. Our subscription to STAT!Ref provides our students with  immediate access to a  complete medical  reference library. The mobile app provides on-the-go information at their fingertips.

 

26 titles were selected from the collection. These are accessible through the catalog. Type in Stat!Ref to pull them up.

 

We do have a varied collection of medical resources to support our programs. Check us out. The health resources are just below the citations resources.

 

-kss

Changing view

The view  has changed from where I sit. In June, I noted the wooden wall was removed as the renovation of the Student Center was being completed. The Student Center is now finished. Students are gathering to study, chat, and eat.

Through the arch just outside the library, can be seen a green circle picture on the far wall. It reminds me of those Fair art projects where you drip paint on a spinning piece of paper. There's a happy feel to it. The windows are just barely visible, giving a hint of what the weather is like.

picture c. Henry Estes, Sept 2012

Henry Estes has done a series of exterior and interior shots of the renovated space. If you squint, you can just  see the Library edge through the opening to the lobby which is to the right of the brown weave rectangle.

Soon the library space will begin its transformation. My View will really be different!


-kss

A long summer

It's been awhile since I posted. The thought had been running through my head to just stop posting. Time slipped by and it was easier and easier to let the blog wither. Till this morning when a faculty member e-mailed how much they enjoyed the View from the Library. I was touched and inspired, so here I am, back again.

A friend on Facebook posted the link to Emily Asher-Perrins' blog on the 25th Anniversary of the movie, The Princess Bride.  25 years, time does speed by. It is the only movie I've seen twice in one day. My sons, now 38 and 35, were the impetus to see the movie. Immediately when it was over, I said, Daddy has to see this. We went home and got Dad,  to return to the movie theatre that very day to see it again. "As you wish".

World Cat offers a way to find out which library has the movie or William Goldman's book that inspired the movie. If you're not close to a computer but you have a smart phone, World Cat Mobile lets you check who has what and where, while you're on the go.

Inconceivable!

-kss

The walls are down

Last October a wooden wall was erected between us and the construction area for new entry. Today the wall is coming down. It looks like the student area will be usable by August, for sure!

Rumor has it, the library on the North Metro campus will be enlarged when the entry area is completed. Our view will definitely change.

-kss

In the voting mood?

is holding an election for your favorite library blog.

The View from the Library began in May 2005. Our purpose has been to talk about what we see from the circulation desk at the North Metro campus of Chattahoochee Technical College. We talk about events and resources. The resources range from books to online databases. Our emphasis has been on the online resources available through GALILEO. Our audience has been those involved in academics at the school.

The View is in Salem's directory of Library blogs (I’ve asked them to edit the institution to reflect the merger with CTC). Please do consider nominating  the View. Seven years, oh my.

-kss

Memory Eternal- Leo Dillon

Sharron McElmeel has written a very touching testimonial to the memory of Leo Dillon.

The Dillon's Caldecott award titles were a staple in my Caldecott unit for second graders. February became the Dillon's author of the month slot with 8 of the books they illustrated read to first graders. The illustrators were an important part of my work with elementary children.

Thank you, Sharon, for sharing your memories. Thank you, Leo, for sharing your talent.

You can learn more about the work of Leo and Dianne Dillon by going to GALILEO, selecting Databases A-Z, selecting N, and going to Novelist K-8.

Skimming the list of 51 titles illustrated by Leo and Dianne, I saw the reprise of Margaret Wise Brown's book about the Two Little Trains. The illustrations are very different from their Caldecott winners. The reviews reveal warm details about the illustrations. Doing a quick compare and contrast has been most refreshing!

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

-kss

Seven Year Itch

A peek at the start date for this blog, startled me. I've been writing for seven years.

May 4, 2005, when the library entry was opened up with glass panels replacing the solid wood doors, is the date of my first blogging entry. Our view then was of the passing throng in the hallway. Soon we'll have an expanded view of the Student Area. The renovation begun last fall is coming to a close. Walls have been removed and huge glass expanses have been created. What will we see in the next seven years?

-kss

Citations

Citations are the bane of my existence. My library information spiel tells students the formula for a citation is "who did it, what did they do, how does my reader find it". That formula sets eyes a glowing because it isn't  difficult. It's the punctuation that causes consternation.

To help students with citations, we subscribe to the enhanced EasyBib. I have shown students how it works. Just fill in the blanks with the correct information. That can become tricky but it isn't impossible to do.
Today I learned one can type or scan in an ISBN number. EasyBib will create the complete citation. My mouth dropped open. How easy is that?

It works great with books but what about journal articles? Most students citing an article, have retrieved the article from vendors that  provide a citation. EasyBib will provide a citation for an article that has a DOI number. Finding an article with a DOI number isn't as easy as it sounds. Not every article has a DOI number. Scholarly journals seem to have DOI's while 'regular' articles do not.

Truly, there is no excuse for not citing your sources correctly when you're provided a tool like EasyBib.


-kss

Look who is 60!

Charlotte's Web is a classic children's story that was first published in 1952. It's hard to believe it is sixty years old. The story seems fresh each time it is read aloud. There is someting about friendship that is timeless.  The  setting is the least familiar space for most sub-urban and urban dwellers - the barn.  Michael Sims, blog author, wrote  The Story of Charlotte's Web [PS3545 H5187 Z925 2011]  which he began by noting he was "standing in the barn that had belonged to E.B.White". The real barn where E.B. White discovered Charlotte, Wilbur and Templeton.

Find out more about "E. B. White's eccentric life in nature and the birth of an American classic" by reading The Story of Charlotte's Web [PS3545 H5187 Z925 2011].



-kss

The Alexandria Link

Plucked randomly from the shelves is a book I couldn't put down. It's a mystery that twists and turns with good guys being bad and bad guys being good. The ending leaves one breathless. The point of the mystery is to find what was once the worlds most complete library, the library at Alexandria.  Does it really exist? Can it be found?

The author, Steve Berry, notes Why Preserving History Matters in his blog entry at the Huffington Post. Libraries do preserve history. Librarians share that information. The real mystery is why our culture doesn't value the collection and sharing of  knowledge?

-kss

Word arrived that "a new interface for History Reference Center is now available in GALILEO. Users can now browse subjects and popular resources as well as searching for historical topics. To limit to a time period or a Lexile reading level range, click the Advanced Search. "

A trip to History Reference Center through GALILEO pulled up the standard Ebsco search page. A search for Abraham Lincoln revealed a number of articles. Where is the "browse subjects" area? A return to the standard page, a scroll down showed a Timeline box with drop down subjects. I picked the U.S. History - Civil War and reconstruction. Over 10000 articles appeared. So how do I browse? On the left side there's a column. Scroll past 'Refine your results' and keep going. There are the options for subject and publication browsing. Click on the arrows to reveal the options. They call it a 'new interface' but it looks so much like the standard Ebsco interface that it took me awhile to figure out what was 'new'.

-kss

Students may access all Library Resource passwords (including GALILEO) by going to the CTC page http://www.chattahoocheetech.edu
Select Quicklinks (upper right hand corner)
Select Library
Select Find Books
Put in your Student ID# and your Banner password
Select My Account (middle of the gray bar)
Select Off Campus Access link (all the Library Resource passwords are there)

Quoth for Poetry Month

Obviously not my work but struck my fancy.



We do have several Poe works in our collection. Just check the catalog.


-kss

All the news

Just received this bit of news:

http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/athnewspapers

The Athens Historic Newspapers Archive now provides access to nine newspaper titles published in Athens from 1827 to 1928. Consisting of over 77,000 newspaper pages, the archive provides historical images that are both full-text searchable and can be browsed by date. The site will provide users with a view into the history of Athens in its early years as the home to the first state-chartered university in the nation and its eventual growth into the largest city in northeast Georgia.

The archive now includes the following Athens newspaper titles: Athens Herald (1913-1923), Athens Banner-Herald (1923-1928), Southern Whig/Southern Herald (1838-1850), Clarke County Courier (1903-1913), in addition to the titles previously included in the archive: Athenian (1827-1832), Southern Banner (1832-1882), Southern Watchman (1855-1882), Daily/Weekly Banner-Watchman (1882-1889), Daily/Weekly Athens Banner (1889-1922).

The Athens Historic Newspapers Archive is a project of the Digital Library of Georgia as part of the Georgia HomePLACE initiative. The project is supported with federal LSTA funds administered by the Institute of Museum and Library Services through the Georgia Public Library Service, a unit of the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia. Digitization is also made possible through a grant provided by the Francis Wood Wilson Foundation, Inc.

Other newspaper archives available through the Digital Library of Georgia include the Atlanta Historic Newspapers Archive (1847-1922), the South Georgia Historic Newspapers Archive (1845-1922), the Macon Telegraph Archive (1826-1908), the Columbus Enquirer Archive (1828-1890), the Milledgeville Historic Newspapers Archive (1808-1920), the Southern Israelite Archive (1929-1986), and the Red and Black Archive (1893-2006). These archives can be accessed at http://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/MediaTypes/Newspapers.html

Local newspapers were full of information about the community. If you had any kin in the Athens area during this time period, there is bound to be some bit of family lore that can be gleaned easily.

-kss

Bones dem Bones

To assist the Allied Health students taking Biology 2113, we have created a Library Guide for this class.

Our Library Guides follow a pattern. The opening page offers boxes for the catalog and Galileo along with information about the class. The Book tab has links to new books, electronic books, and our catalog. The articles tab has links to the resources that tie to anatomy like Anatomy TV and Health Reference Center. Each tab has specific information tied to the class.

Let the Library Guides help you get the most out of the library resources for each class and program.

-kss

Current CTC students may get off campus access information by opening My Acount after logging into Find Books.

Twister

The Digital Library of Georgia has pictures and film from the 1936 Tornado that devastated Gainesville, Georgia. A search of the CTC catalog for tornado pulled up 17 titles. It is intriguing to note what gets pulled up with a word search. I did find a Project Gutenberg title A full description of the Great Tornado in Chester County, Pennsylvania published in 1877.

There are no photographs. The two line drawings complement the words to illustrate what happened. The author describes the path of the storm. The individuals affected by the tornado are quoted. The description of the damage includes an estimate of the monetary loss. There is a list at the end of the 'book' noting the name of the person and the monetary loss.

The comparison between this book and the 1936 Gainesville tornado information is fascinating. This book, even without photos, is personal. You begin to know the people who were affected by the storm.

 A picture may be worth a thousand words but a thousand well chosen words create a picture that can't be duplicated.

-kss

Spring storms

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Every tornado seems like a totally unique event to a community. The pictures and film clips from the 1936 storm are eerily familiar.

The 1936 Gainesville Tornado: Disaster and Recovery provides online access to a historical film depicting the extensive damage from the severe multi-funnel tornado strike that devastated Gainesville, Georgia, on April 6, 1936. The thirty-two-and-a-half minute film, probably shot for insurance purposes, focuses on the devastation of the commercial and governmental center of Gainesville, but also includes footage of damage to nearby residential areas.
 In particular, it features the damage to the public square, the county courthouse, the Georgia Power Company, the Cooper Pants Factory, and the First Methodist Church. The 1936 Gainesville tornado (part of a massive tornado outbreak across the Deep South that also heavily damaged Tupelo, Mississippi) is generally regarded as the fifth deadliest in U.S. history. Extensive recovery efforts involving many local, regional, state, and national resources eventually rebuilt Gainesville, culminating in the 1938 dedication of the new city hall and county courthouse by President Franklin Roosevelt.

The site provides an introductory essay, as well as a multi-media exhibition on the tornado and the extensive recovery effort afterwards. An interactive map offers geographically-based access to selected film clips for which shooting locations have been identified. The site also includes links to related images in Vanishing Georgia and the Hall County Library System Historical Photograph Collection.

The interactive map is very easy to use. It is more for the stranger looking at the devastation, than for a person who had kin in the area. There is no search box. You can't look for a particular person (I didn't see any names listed) nor a particular business (though businesses are tagged in some photos). The pictures are in black and white which lends a seriousness to the display.
The The 1936 Gainesville Tornado: Disaster and Recovery is part of the Digital Library of Georgia. The site is available through GALILEO by selecting Databases A-Z, selecting all databases, it's at the top of the list, 1936 Gainesville Tornado


-kss

Current CTC students may get off campus access information by opening My Acount after logging into Find Books.

Breathing Space

The pollen count is at the ridiculous level in the Atlanta area. Yesterday it was over 9000, today it is over 5000 and we're grateful for the decrease.

Breathing space [electronic resource] : how allergies shape our lives and landscapes by Gregg Mittman offers an intimate portrait of how allergic disease has shaped American culture, landscape, and life. Drawing on environmental, medical, and cultural history and the life stories of people, plants, and insects, Mitman traces how America's changing environment from the late 1800s to the present day has led to the epidemic growth of allergic disease.

The nice thing about this book is, it is available online in both Ebsco and Ebrary. You don't have to go outside and breath the yellow air. Ebsco and ebrary offer downloadable options for many e-readers.

You will need the login to use either vendor off campus. Current CTC students may get the off campus access information by opening My Acount after logging into Find Books.

-kss

Pollen

Red cars look orange, white cars look yellow, black cars look golden. The pollen is settling on everything, changing the color of our world. Why?

Garden, Landscape & Horticulture Index 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.

The Garden, Landscape & Horticulture Index is not just an index. One can limit the search to full text. There are plenty of articles to be found. A search for 'pollen' pulled up 1500+ articles. Limiting the search to 'pollen management' retrieved 8 article. Admittedly, those eight articles were aimed at the professional horticulturist not the average urban pollen sufferer.

If you neglect to click Full text and find the perfect article but all you can access is the abstract. You may borrow the article from another library by clicking on the purple Find It button. Select the OCLC World Cat link. Click on the hyperlink for the title. Look to the bottom right in teeny tiny print for the 'Borrow/Obtain a copy' link. Fill in the request form. Because you're logged into GALILEO through CTC, the article will be sent to the Marietta campus. You may request that it be sent to your home campus by noting in the comments box where you'd like the article delivered.

Hopefully the rains will come soon to clear the skies.

-kss

The off campus access information is now available to current CTC students through My Account after they login to Find Books.

Farewell print EB

A fellow librarian shared this link to an article about Encyclopedia Britannica.

Fingers flipping through pages while the eyes scan the columns, till what you're searching for pops out, can be quicker for the researcher trained in using print. A digital search requires that you spell what you're looking for accurately. I would hold races between students and myself to find infornation. I'd use print, they'd use digital. Invariably, I won. Not that I'm smarter but if you can't spell, you can't find digitally.


We do subscribe to the online edition of Encyclopedia Britannica. Just this week, I noted I couldn't easily find what I was looking for in the database. We don't have a print set of the Encyclopedia Britannica in our collection for me to compare the ease of finding the information.  We do have a circulating set of World Book. I was able to find 'daylight savings time' in the D volume. Sometimes the print encyclopedia is just what you need for quick answers.


-kss

Springing about

We set the clock ahead one hour so there's 'more' daylight at the end of our day. Why do we do this? How is it 'helpful'?

My initial search in our collection turned up nothing. In a second search, I limited my search to electronic books and selected a random electronic book. A search within the Ebsco electronic book collection pulled up computer books that made reference to Day Light Savings Time in the text. . This is something I tell English literature students to do when searching for information on a single poem. Sometimes information on a particular topic doesn't rate an entire book but is mentioned within a book on a different subject. Anyway, it wasn't the history of Day Light Savings time.

GALILEO has multiple resources I thought might help. My favorite quick answer place did have enough information : daylight-saving time - Credo Reference Topic (click on the continue reading link).

My search in Encyclopedia Britannica did not pull up an article but when I clicked on Standard Time, within that article was a link to Daylight Savings Time. The article was short but informative. I wonder why it didn't come up in the initial search?

The source that had the most information (with resources noted) was Wikipedia. Yes, the bane of instructors existence had the most complete information with sources. Because I have loaded the GALILEO Toolbar, there were purple Find It buttons next to articles that can be found in GALILEO.

I found  answers in 'authoritative' resources but I found the most detail in Wikipedia.

-kss

CTC students may get the current passwords by logging into our catalog, selecting My Account, and then selecting Off Campus Access.

Do you feel OK?

Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition provides over 500 scholarly full-text journals focusing on nursing, allied health fields, and many medical disciplines. Patient education sheets from the Lexi-PAL Drug Guide are also included.

I went looking for the 'Patient education sheets from the Lexi-PAL Drug Guide'. A simple search for 'patient education sheets' turned up a plethora of articles, none that met my preconceived notion on what a 'patient education sheet' would look like. When I read the words, 'patient education sheets', I think of a pdf, a single sheet handout with illustrations.

The publications link in Health Source lets me search by title, by clicking on the first letter of the title, and by scrolling through the whole list. I selected the letter L, then looked for  Lexi-Pal Drug Guide. There are two issues of the Drug Guide. The results do not match my preconceived notion. The 'patient education sheet' is an html view of an article on the drug. It seems clear and informative. It requires scrolling through multiple screens.

I wonder why they refer to it as a 'patient education sheet'?

-kss

CTC students can get the current password to GALILEO by logging into My Account in the Library catalog and looking at the Off Campus Access link.

Did you vote?

Super Tuesday. Georgia is part of the big primary day. Please do think about your vote and what it may mean to you in the long run.



-kss

Leaping about

An odd day, it only appears on the calendar every four years. Where can I find the how and why we have this extra day?

A scroll through GALILEO turned up an Ebsco science database and Salem Science. I figured one of them might have information about the added day. Neither had the facts I was looking for on 'leap year'.

Encyclopedia Britannica did have an article with facts and suggested resources. It didn't 'feel' like there was enough information.

The best resource for 'leap year' facts has been Credo Reference with articles from an Astronomy reference, a literature reference, and several dictionaries. Credo Reference gave me just what I wanted to know.



-kss

CTC students may get the passwords to all CTC resources by logging into the Find Books My Account and selecting the Off Campus Access link.

I found these resources in GALILEO
I selected Databases A-Z
I selected the first letter of the resource to find it it in GALILEO

Affirmative Action

What does affirmative action mean to you? A random survey showed fifty percent think of race, the civil rights movement and the sixties, when asked about affirmative action. The other fifty percent think of the 90's, gender, sports and Title IX. It seems to depend on the respondents age.

The random survey was inspired by Salem History which has two 'decades' books in the History database - the Forties and the Sixties. The section in the Sixties  on Affirmative Action begins :

The term “affirmative action” first appeared in the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, which required employers to engage in affirmative action, that is, to voluntarily rehire those who had been fired because they were union members and, in the future, to hire without regard to union membership rather than awaiting lawsuits to enforce the law.

The chapter goes on and refers to "1941 and 1943, after President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Orders 8802 and 9346, which mandated nondiscrimination by defense contractors, African Americans were hired in record numbers by contracting corporations in a voluntary effort to demonstrate compliance."

Salem History notes sources for this chapter -

For a history of the earliest uses of affirmative action, see Frank W. Andritzky and Joseph G. Andritzky’s “Affirmative Action: The Original Meaning,” Lincoln Law Review (1987), and William B. Gould’s Black Workers in White Unions (1977). Criticisms of affirmative action are expressed in Nathan Glazer’s Affirmative Discrimination (1975) and Stephen L. Carter’s Reflections of an Affirmative Action Baby (1991). A pro-affirmative action view is presented in Gertrude Ezorsky’s Racism and Justice: The Case for Affirmative Action (1991) and Susan Sturm and Lani Guinier’s “The Future of Affirmative Action: Reclaiming the Innovative Ideal,” California Law Review (1996).

Based on the resources used, I wonder if the union issues had to do with African Americans? I hunted around GALILEO searching in WestLaw, Legal Collection, ProQuest, &  Ebsco for Affirmative Action: The Original Meaning. The 1987 reference is too old for the databases we have access to. A search in Google Scholar noted more sources that have cited the 1987 article. A search in World Cat for the Lincoln Law Review revealed I could request a copy of the article through inter-library loan.


Wandering around looking for answers to my own questions can be entertaining.

-kss

What does the picture say?

Historic Architecture and Landscapes of Georgia: The Hubert Bond Owens and John Linley Image Collections at the Owens Library, a joint project between the College of Environment and Design, University of Georgia and the Digital Library of Georgia, contains 1500 images of important and representative architectural sites and landscapes in the state with an emphasis on Athens and Middle Georgia.

The intriguing part of this database is the Teacher Resources (on the left side, 4th link). How do you take the pictures, which are nice but still are just pictures of places I haven't been and have no connection with, and use them as a learning tool? This article, Creating Place Based Classroom Resources suggested that photographs:

Rather than serving merely as illustrations, the visual materials in each lesson are documents that help students achieve the lesson’s objectives. Because analyzing and extracting information from visuals are not necessarily skills students have developed, new lessons now include a Photograph Analysis Worksheet. The worksheet directs students to describe a photo after looking at it briefly and then again after careful examination. They might be surprised at the information they can gather, or at least surmise, about when and where the photo was taken, the reason the photo was taken, etc. Appropriate for analyzing both historical and modern photographs, the worksheet helps students learn how to “read” visual materials.

A picture is worth a thousand words. You do need to know how to read those 'words'. Use the resources available through the Digital Library of Georgia and GALILEO to expand your 'vocabulary'.

-kss

Our view is limited

From our door we see  the wooden wall that separates us from the construction. We hear pounding, sawing , and voices.  We can see workers moving through the doorway carrying debris out. It is a limited view.

A walk outside provides a view through the spaces that have been cut out for spacious windows. We can  see the open space that used to be an auditorium.  The plans we've seen, show the area lined with tables and chairs. The front entry is beginning to take shape. There will be a curved cover over the glass entry. The outdoor patio area  will be a welcoming space.

The contractors have made great progress since October. Rumor has it construction will be complete by April. I haven't heard when in April - just April!

The view from the library will change.

-kss

Subject terms

Ashes, ashes.... What do we have in our collection on Ash Wednesday. A subject search turned up one item. A word or phrase search turned up two items.

The people who catalog materials are extraordinarily detail oriented. They care about the size of the material, the authorship, the publisher, and the contents of the item. I was a bit surprised that Holy Wednesday [electronic resource] : a Nahua drama from early colonial Mexico by Louise M Burkhart has the subject 'Ash Wednesday-Mexico.' Identified only in 1986, the Nahuatl Holy Week play is the earliest known dramatic script in any Native American language. This play deals with the end of Lent (Holy Week) not the beginning (Ash Wednesday). I wonder what the cataloger was thinking?

-kss

Students may access all passwords by going to the CTC page
Select Quicklinks (upper right hand corner)
Select Library
Select Find Books
Put in your 900# and then your Banner password (6 digit birthday)
Select My Account (middle of the gray bar)
Select Off Campus Access link
Scroll down for the electronic book passwords

Ash Wednesday

Have you seen many 'dirty' foreheads today? Christians of the western liturgical churches are having ashes rubbed on their foreheads in the sign of the cross. Why?

Our online reference collection of 587 titles in Credo makes it a cinch to find the answer.

A search for 'ash wednesday' retrieved 235 entries. The left side bar tells you the number of entry types- 69 articles, 52 definitions, 51 events, 32 persons, etc. I wondered how there could be persons referred to by searching for 'ash wednesday'. Skimming through the results, they are poets, authors, actors, politicians, and clergymen who wrote or did something relating to Ash Wednesday.

The children's rhyme "Ring Around the Rosy...ashes, ashes, we all fall down" has been dancing in my head this Ash Wednesday. The poem has nothing to do with the day but it still is sticking in my thoughts. I wondered if Credo Reference would have a literary reference? A straight search for the phrase turned up a wealth of sources but the search engine had pulled individual words from the phrase rather than the whole phrase. A second search with the phrase in quotes only turned up two references. Neither were as informative as Wikipedia, which has 20 footnotes and 5 Reference books cited.

Sometimes you have to use the wild web to get the answer. Just make sure they note their sources!

-kss


Current students may now access all passwords by going to the CTC page
Select Quicklinks (upper right hand corner)
Select Library
Select Find Books
Put in your Student ID # and the Banner password (upper right hand corner)
Select My Account (middle of the gray bar)
Select Off Campus Access link
Scroll to the bottom for the electronic book collections passwords

Found it!

My question was about beads (throws) and Mardi Gras. I searched through four databases in GALILEO and found a history of how Mardi Gras started its rise in New Orleans. There was no mention of the beads.

A search in our catalog for Mardi Gras as a subject did not turn up any titles. A word or phrase search pulled up 15 titles. I looked through several electronic books searching for the word beads. It is so easy to search the electronic books.

I found success with Creating the Big Easy [electronic resource] : New Orleans and the emergence of modern tourism, 1918-1945 by Anthony J. Stanonis. The 5th Chapter, A City that Care Forgot, The Reinvention of New Orleans Mardi Gras, on page 187 contained the tidbit I was looking for. In 1921 the Krewe of Rex started throwing beads! Prior to 1921, Krewe members had blown kisses but not given any tangible items away.

There you go. 90 years of bead throwing started with businessmen trying to get tourists to come, stay, and spend money. It seems to have worked.

-kss

Ebrary does require a login.
Current students may now access all passwords by going to the CTC page http://www.chattahoocheetech.edu
Select Quicklinks (upper right hand corner)
Select Library
Select Find Books
Put in your 900# and then your Banner password (6 digit birthday)
Select My Account (middle of the gray bar)
Select Off Campus Access link
Scroll to the bottom for the electronic book collections passwords.

Throw me something, mister

Viewers along the Mardi Gras parade routes stand with arms raised, shouting for the costumed benefactors on the float, to share the wealth. How did Mardi Gras, as we know it, get started in New Orleans?

A search in multiple GALILEO databases is pretty easy to do. The Search tab (5th tab over) provides steps to complete the search.
- Step 1 Enter search keywords. There are three search boxes with drop down limiters for title, author, subject, etc.
- Step 2 Select Search Options. You have three choices- full text, peer reviewed, and dates. I suggest selecting full text and peer reviewed. Full text to make sure you get the entire article and not an abstract. Peer Reviewed so the articles aren't from People magazine.
- Step 3 Choose Databases to search. Academic Search Complete (Ebsco) and Research Library (Proquest) are the two displayed. There is a Show more databases link that opens a long list of options.

To answer my questions about Mardi Gras,
Step 1. I entered Mardi Gras as a subject search.
Step 2. I limited my search to Full Text. I'm looking for articles with information not acadamic treatises.
Step 3. I added the two Religion databases. Mardi Gras is the last day before the Christian season of Lent.
I clicked on the Search 4 databases button
The results are in date order.
There is a box on the left that tells me Results by Source. Interesting that Ebsco's general database has no articles with Mardi Gras as a subject but Proquest has 596.

The article from ProQuest that shared some early history of Mardi Gras was published in 2002, in the New Orleans magazine, The men who made Mardi Gras. There isn't any information about the bead throwing. I need to go back and look some more. Meanwhile, I can think of the folks lining the streets of New Orleans with arms waving!


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This Glorious Struggle

This Glorious Struggle : George Washington's Revolutionary War Letters [E 203 .W298 207] by Edward G Lengel is available at our North Metro campus. The reviews and summary that are part of the catalog help inspire the reader to dip right into the book.  Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com) noted "Many readers of this collection of Washington's letters probably will experience some surprise: he was not, as history texts have often maintained, always the unflappable leader. Lengel (history, U. of Virginia) has extracted many of the jewels from the roughly 140,000 letters Washington wrote to family, friends, Congress, and fellow soldiers during the war to present a picture of a man given to depression and doubt as well as a good joke and a bountiful table". Richard Fraser, M.I.L.S., Los Angeles (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC wrote, "This selection of General Washington's letters constantly reminds us that the course of the American Revolution need not have gone as it did and that when "history" happens, there's no knowing how it will turn out". Booklist said, "In topical range and variety of recipients, the collection conveys the types of problems that came to Washington's attention and captures aspects of his personality as he dealt with them"

Learn more about our first President by reading his own words.

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POTUS

If you watch enough political dramas on television, you know POTUS means President of the United States. On the third Monday in February, we celebrate the office of the Presidency with Presidents Day.

It seemed appropriate to use a CTC resource for information. I went to  Encyclopedia Britannica for the story behind Presidents Day. The first time I searched for Presidents Day, I missed seeing it at the top of the results column. I scrolled through the listing and wondered where this information might be. The front page didn't have a large (or even small) story about the commemoration. At the bottom of the screen, there was a set of icons for 'spotlight'ed stories. George Washington's picture was there. That link did take me to Presidents Day information. A second search for Presidents Day had the link to the holiday information at the top of the list above a yellow line. Was the link there the first time and I missed it?

Of course, the quick and favorite research site, Wikipedia did have a fairly easy to see link to On This Day with a Washington's Birthday/Presidents Day link.  At the bottom of the Wikipedia article there were references that could be checked.

It would be nice if vendors would think like novice searchers and make results clear and visible!
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Students may now access all passwords by going to the CTC page
Select Quicklinks (upper right hand corner)
Select Library
Select Find Books
Put in their student ID and use the Banner password
Select My Account (middle of the gray bar)
Select Off Campus Access link

While we're waiting

CTC offers degrees in Digital Production and Television Production. We teach the production side of the art rather than the performance side.

The Library staff has created several Library guides to support these programs.

A timely one for this week before the Oscar's is the library guide for Film. The News Sources tab with RSS feeds from Variety, Screen Daily, and Film Journal is most informative.

Stay tuned!

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The envelope please

We have a week to wait till the 2012 Academy Awards. While we're waiting, try your hand at this weeks Credo Reference brain teaser.

The British film critic Barry Norman recently produced his list of "The 100 Greatest Films of All Time". See if you can identify these films chosen from his list.

1. Walt Disney computer-animated film (2001) about an ugly smelly green ogre with a heart of gold.
2. 1989 film for which Meg Ryan is best known for the scene in which she fakes sexual ecstasy in a busy restaurant.
3. 1941 film that looks back on the life and career of a fictional newspaper magnate played by Orson Welles.
4. 1972 film musical starring Liza Minnelli as the cabaret singer Sally Bowles.
5. 1959 film comedy starring Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis as two jazz musicians who disguise themselves as women.
6. 1938 Errol Flynn film about the outlaw hero of innumerable tales and legends set in medieval England.
7. 2007 film of book by Cormac McCarthy about the violent world of drug-trafficking near the Rio Grande.
8. 1933 Marx Brothers movie whose title refers to an easily accomplished task or assignment.
9. Award-winning 1997 film adapted from 1990 novel by James Ellroy.
10. Stanley Kubrick's 1957 film about mutinies in the French Army during the First World War.
Questions set by Tony Augarde (www.augardebooks.co.uk)

Find out the answers here, or copy and paste this link into your browser address bar: http://blog.credoreference.com/2012/02/credo-reference-brainteaser-100-greatest-films/

What I found fascinating, when I checked the citations, is that none of the references are from Film or Cinema reference books!

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Compare and Contrast

A search for the subject 'diary' in our catalog pulled up six titles. Five are electronic books. The compare and contrast comes in because two titles are offered in two electronic formats, Ebsco and ebrary.

I've talked about the differences between the two vendors. This gives us a chance to compare and contrast with the same content. I selected Mary Chesnut's Civil War epic as the book to compare.

- To open the Ebsco version, you click on the ebook full text link on the left. Don't click on the book cover on the right.
- The ebrary version opens with no extra steps.
One less step to get to the content, sets ebrary ahead in terms of ease of use.

- To search in Ebsco, after the book is open, the tool bar on the right has a magnifying glass icon at the top. Select that icon and a search bar appears above the contents.
- To search in ebrary, the search box for the document is visible above the right column that contains the links to move through the book.
No extra steps needed to search through the text in ebrary.

- To cite the book, Ebsco has a citation link which gives you APA, MLA, etc formatted citations
- There are no formatted citations in ebrary. They do give you the information you need at the bottom of the right hand column to create your citation. In My Settings, they offer the option to use 2 outside vendors to create a citation.
Here Ebsco definitely makes it easy.

- Ebsco offers the option to e-mail the citation and up to 60 pages of text .
- ebrary does not seem to have an e-mail option.
Here Ebsco leads the way.

- Ebsco offers download information for an e-reader
- ebrary offers download information for a pdf file for this title
Neither has an advantage in this area.

-Ebsco has a print icon in the tool list on the right side of the screen.
-ebrary has a print option when you click on Info Tools on the upper left side.
Ebsco makes the print option obvious.

- Ebsco has a create note icon that opens a word document above the text. I see how I can save the notes and print the notes but not how to e-mail the notes.
- ebrary has a  bookshelf where you can place books for future reference.
ebrary has a highlighter feature that allows you to mark passages for future reference
This seems like a draw.

Both vendors offer a service that is invaluable- 24/7 access to books. Ebsco excells in a few areas. ebrary excells in a few areas. I prefer the look of Ebsco. I prefer the e-mail options available in Ebsco. Which works best for you?

To access the electronic books off campus, you will need to use a log in.
As of  February 14th, you may find all the logins through our catalog.
Put your student ID and password in upper right corner boxes.
.. Select My Account.
.....Select the Off Campus Access link.
Scroll to the bottom for the Electronic Books section.



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Dear Diary

It's Black History month. Using the GALILEO, Databases A-Z tab, Find a Database search box and looking for 'African' pulled up eleven resources in GALILEO.

One of the eleven is Samuel Hugh Hawkins Diary, January - July 1877 which chronicles Americus, Georgia entrepreneur, lawyer, and banker Samuel Hawkins' financial, agricultural, civic, and religious activities in Sumter County during the final months of Reconstruction. Diary entries briefly illustrate Hawkins' work at the Bank of Americus and his real estate interests in the county. Having an interest in agriculture and horticulture, Hawkins describes his participation in the Sumter County Agricultural Society and Horticulture Society, attendance at the 1877 Georgia State Agricultural Society meeting in Milledgeville, entrepreneurial interest in the Bell Cultivator, and role in the founding of the Americus Fair Association. While later known for his role as president of the Savannah, Americus and Montgomery Railroad Company, Hawkins mentions railroad issues only in passing. An active member of Bethel Baptist Church (later Americus Baptist Church), Hawkins records his religious observances throughout the journal. On a national level, Hawkins comments on the contested presidential election of 1876 and the resulting presidency of Republican candidate, Rutherford B. Hayes. Locally, he chronicles city and county elections and appointments to the constitutional convention, the efforts of an emigrant agent to lure local African Americans to Louisiana as contract laborers as well as events surrounding the murder of a white woman by an African American man.

The diary has no search box. You use the 'find' feature to search through the document. I wondered how Mr. Hawkins refered to the people of a darker skin. Did he call them African, Negro or Black?  Mr. Hawkins refers to African Americans as Colored. He capitalizes the word when referring to a group of Colored people. The word isn't capitalized when he refers to an individual.

Words change meaning over time. A diary reminds us of that change. What words do you use in your diary to describe a group of people?

Samuel Hugh Hawkins Diary, January - July 1877 is available through the Digital Library of Georgia.

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Fraternity

Fraternity by Diane Brady "tells the unforgettable story of how Father Brooks, a Jesuit priest, transformed the lives of a remarkable group of men during one of the most fraught racial periods in the history of our country."

"Among the twenty students he had a hand in recruiting that year were Clarence Thomas, the future Supreme Court justice; Edward P. Jones, who would go on to win a Pulitzer Prize for literature; and Theodore Wells, who would become one of the nation’s most successful defense attorneys."read more

Check with your CTC librarian to borrow this 2012 copyright book. We have current materials available on many topics.

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Memories

Vanishing Georgia contains nearly 18,000 photographs from the Georgia Archives documenting over 100 years of the state's history. Topics covered include, but are not limited to, family and business life, street scenes and architecture, agriculture, school and civic activities, important individuals and events in Georgia history, and landscapes.

This collection is easy to search. There is the basic search box and an advanced search page.

Using the basic search, I looked for 'Blacks' and retrieved over 400 pictures. 'African American' retrieved over 300 images. 'African American' would be a focused search. 'Blacks' brought up people, locations, and items that have nothing to do with Black History.

The fun search began on the Advanced search page using 'African American' as the subject and selecting a random family name that is notable in Georgia as the keyword.

There are some wonderful group pictures of African American families in Georgia. The group pictures of families standing by their car during a vacation are priceless.

The portraits of African Americans in the late 1800's are just like portraits you see of Caucasians from the late 1800's. People who wanted to, and could afford to, have a formal portrait taken are very similar in social stature, no matter the race.

Wander through the collection and compare your family pictures with those preserved by the Digital Library of Georgia. Families are families!



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Get the passwords

At last, all students registered at CTC have been downloaded into our library circulation system. No more having to enter the student record as they stand there waiting to check out a book. This is a time saver  for the library staff and the student.
What really benefits the student  is the ability to 'login' to the library catalog with their student ID number and  their Banner pin. How is this a benefit? The passwords for GALILEO, the electronic books, and the databases CTC subscribes to are behind the login protection, yet available 24/7.

Go to Chattahoochee Technical College
..Select Quicklinks (tab on the upper right corner)
...Scroll to Library
.....Select Find Books (far left side, center of the screen)

..In the upper right side- fill in your Student ID and Banner pin
....Select My Account (middle of the gray bar)
.....Select Off Campus Access to Library Resources (third link to right)
Now you have access to the current passwords.

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Party tonight

The timing is a bit tight but you might be able to pull it together for a Valentines family party this evening.

Holiday story play [electronic resource] : costumes, cooking, music, and more, preK-4 is available as an e-book online. Chapter 6 is for Valentines Day. There are patterns for a King, Queen and Knave puppet to print out and color. There are directions for heart shaped sandwiches. There are suggestions for writing your Valentines story.

The holiday activity book is aimed at classroom teachers in grades pre-kindergarten through fourth grade. What is your home but a little classroom, even if your students are over the age of 9?

To get to the book (and the chapter on Valentines Day)
.. go to the CTC catalog
... search for Valentines Day
.....Holiday story play was the second book on the search list
...click on the URL
....don't click on the cover of the book. My pet peeve with this version of the Ebsco e-books is clicking on the cover does not open the book. Though, you'd think it would.
....select the e-book full text link on the left.
....select the magnifying glass on the right at the top of the Tool bar
....type in Valentines. The links take you to the pages where that word is used

You do need a login to use the Ebsco e-books off campus. You may ask your CTC librarian for the login or you may get the passwords by logging into the catalog with your student ID and your Banner pin. Once you're logged in- select My Account, then select Off Campus Access to Library Resources, scroll down to Electronic Books.


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Pro/Con, Persuasive, Argumentative, Compare/Contrast

In English 1101, the standard research paper revolves around a 'hot' topic. Depending on the instructor, the written product may be a persuasive paper, an argumentative paper, something as simple as compare and contrast, or a pro and con essay. All of these responses involve knowing both sides of the issue. When I share library resources with these classes, I confess I have trouble seeing the 'other side' of some topics. I laugh and note that I'm 'shocked' everyone doesn't agree with my point of view.

After sharing the online resources like Facts.com in GALILEO, I conclude with a tour of the Library Guides.

Our ENGL 1101 Library Guide pulls together the various resources that will help these students easily find both sides of a subject. The Books tab lists links to series  in our collection. Two large series are Opposing Viewpoints and Current Controversies. Each title has enough information to give the student a handle on what could be used to persuade or compare and contrast. If they aren't sure about their topic- these series can jump start their thinking process.

Our 74 Library Guides do provide links to the resources most appropriate for a particular class or program.


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And the question is?

Each week Credo Reference sends out a quiz. I've been posting the questions. Today I thought I'd post the answers to the topic 'Just William' and let you think up the questions.

1. William Shakespeare.^Citation
2. Bill Gates.^Citation
3. Bill Clinton.^Citation
4. William Wordsworth.^Citation
5. Buffalo Bill.^Citation
6. William Penn.^Citation
7. Bill Haley.^Citation
8. William Wilberforce.^Citation
9. Count Basie (William Basie).^Citation
10. William Caxton.^Citation       

If you aren't sure who the William is or was, the citation takes you to the article about that person.

Check with your CTC librarian for the login information to search through over 500 reference sources..

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80 years ago

Open Culture is celebrating Francois Truffaut's birth by "bringing back a wonderful series of audio recordings — Truffaut’s lengthy interview with another legendary director,Alfred Hitchcock".

CTC does not own Truffaut's classic work Alfred Hitchcock : A Definitive Study. Over a thousand libraries do own this title. It could be borrowed through inter-library loan. Do a search in World Cat, then fill in the Request Item form to have the book sent to your library.

A search through our collection pulled up over 30 titles about Alfred Hitchcock. Hitchcock on Hitchcock : Selected Writings and Interviews refers to the interviews with Truffaut in a number of places. (Using the search feature in an electronic book is so wonderful).

Listen to the interviews and read the quotes to see if you think Truffaut captured the real Hitchcock.


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Birthday wishes

Happy Birthday, Alice Walker!

Literary Reference Center by Ebsco, includes thousands of plot summaries, synopses, and work overviews; articles of literary criticism; author biographies; full text of over 430 literary journals; book reviews; classic and contemporary poems and short stories; full text of over 7,000 classic novels; author interviews; and images of key literary figures.

It feels easy to search in the basic Literary Reference Center. Fill in the box with the authors name and voila, information appears that is sorted under tabs that clearly tell you what you'll find- biographies, criticism, images, short stories, and reference.

The Advanced Search screen looks just like the Ebsco Advanced Search screens. This makes sense since Literary Reference Center is an Ebsco product.

Again a heart felt Happy Birthday, Alice Walker. Thank you for sharing your literary gifts with all of us!

To access information about Ms. Walker or her work, go to GALILEO.
Select Databases A-Z
...Select L
.....Select Literary Reference Center
Get the current GALILEO password from your CTC Librarian.

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Not just a fan

Do you read the bulletin (program) at a funeral? Some contain a wealth of information about the person who is being remembered.As a genealogist, I treasure these printed mini-histories for the details they share about a person. Most people won't get a paragraph in a history book. Even a narrowly focused history of a county won't have information about all the people who lived, worked, and contributed in some way to the life of the community. The funeral program tells just a bit of their story

The African American Funeral Programs from the East Central Georgia Regional Library online collection consists of over one thousand funeral programs ranging from 1933 to 2008 (with the bulk of the collection beginning in the 1960s) from the Eula M. Ramsey Johnson Memorial Funeral Program Collection.

A majority of the programs are from churches in Augusta, Georgia, and the surrounding area, with a few outliers in other states such as New York and Florida. The programs typically contain a photograph of the deceased, an obituary, a list of surviving relatives, and the order of service. The collection provides extensive genealogical information about the deceased, including birth and death dates, maiden names, names of relatives, past residences, and place of burial.

Alongside this genealogical information, the obituaries provide a rich source of local history about African Americans. Many of the people included in this collection were prominent in their communities, and many were involved locally in the struggle for civil rights.

Read the histories of real people. Let them be remembered.

GALILEO
...Select Databases A-Z
....Select A
......The African American Funeral Programs

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Amazing Grace

Voyages: The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database is the result of the African Origins Project, a scholar-public collaborative endeavor to trace the geographic origins of Africans transported in the transatlantic slave trade. Many have contributed to this international research project, which is based at Emory University. The database provides information on almost 35,000 slaving voyages that forcibly embarked over 10 million Africans for transport to the Americas between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries.

It's very interesting to look at the maps, read the charts, and begin to think about the statistics. I wandered around trying to figure out how I might use this information. I looked at how many voyages were done by various countries, Spain and Portugal had 18,000+ voyages while Great Britain had 12,000+. Over 4 million Africans were brought to the Caribbean. That struck me as a lot of people for the islands. Just over 300,000 were brought to North America. I wonder if those numbers are based on the first landing?

Still thinking about how to use the information, Amazing Grace began to resonate in my brain. The author of the hymn was a slave trader who gave up slave trading and preached the Christian Gospel. A search in Credo Reference gave me his name, John Newton.

When did he cross the Atlantic? I selected Basic Variables, Captain and crew, Captain's name. I typed Newton as the Captain's name. 25 men named Newton were Captains. John Newton is listed for three voyages in 1751, 1753, and lastly in 1754. His middle voyage had an insurrection. Forty slaves died during the 1753 voyage. The 1754 voyage had no deaths of slaves.

Fascinating to look at the statistics and tie the facts to a person.

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What month is it?

Various groups claim a month as their time for concentrated rememberance. February used to be Presidents month with Abraham Lincoln and George Washington's birthdays both falling in February.
Currently we emphasize Black History during February. An interesting resource for Black History in Georgia is, The New Georgia Encyclopedia which provides access to authoritative information on people, places, events, history, and other topics about the state of Georgia.

The search box is in the middle of the left column. The search engine looks for each word in a phrase. A search for 'Black History' retrieved many articles that had black or history in the article. Quotation marks didn't  keep the words together as a phrase.

The link for Advanced search gave me the option to limit the search to 'exactly matches the terms'. Limiting the search by subject didn't pull up any articles. Limiting the search to keywords pulled up 6 articles. It is intriguing that so little in the encyclopedia refers to 'Black History'. A similar search in Advanced search for 'Civil Rights', limited to 'exactly matches the terms',  and subject turned up a wealth of articles.

It seems like so much of Civil Rights in Georgia ties to Black History. I wonder why they didn't use both terms as subject categories?

The New Georgia Encyclopedia is accessible through GALILEO as well as the web .

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It's nifty, this book turned 50

From Booklist Online "February 1st was the 50th anniversary of One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest."
"For many, the iconic 1975 movie may be the most familiar version of this story, either because they’ve never read the book or because they’ve seen the movie more often. Kesey wasn’t a fan of the film, and there’s a different tone to the novel that make it worth revisiting. The final scenes of the film are powerful, but still not quite the gut punch that Kesey creates." read more

If you have not read the book, we have two copies in our collection. We also have an e-book with critical commentaries if you're interesting in digging a bit more into this  work of 20th century literature.


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It's also Candlemas

Not only are we celebrating waking up the Groundhog to get word of Springs arrival, some Christians celebrate Candlemas today. What pray tell is Candlemas?

The majority of databases in GALILEO contain articles published in magazines. There are some encyclopedic databases, like Credo that give facts about a subject.

If Candlemas Day be dry and fair,
The half of winter’s to come and mair.
If Candlemas Day be wet and foul,
The half of winter’s gone at Yule.

Candlemas from Holidays, Festivals, and Celebrations of the World Dictionary
This ties nicely with Groundhog Day.

I think I want more than plain facts, though Credo's offering was definitely not just plain facts. There is a Religion and Philosophy Collection by Ebsco that has informative articles. My search for 'candlemas' retrieved seven items. The articles being longer than a reference blurb had just a bit more 'local color' about the celebration.

Using more than one resource in GALILEO gets you the most information for the least amount of searching. Your CTC Librarian can give you the passwords to access these resources off campus!


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Who to believe?

It's Groundhog Day. A furry animal is awoken, peaks out of his burrow, and men in top hats pronounce the forecast! Will Spring come sooner or later?

"Pennsylvania's Punxsutawney Phil emerged from his lair to "see" his shadow on Thursday, in the process predicting six more weeks of winter". Yet, "on a rainy Groundhog Day reminiscent of the September floods that nearly swept away his Gwinnett County home, a slightly wounded and very reluctant Gen. Beauregard Lee declared that spring is just around the corner."

There you have it. The definitive answer is "Spring will come sooner or later"!

Image Quest provided the picture of Punxsutawney Phil.

Finding pictures is very easy in the Encyclopedia Britannica product.There are drop down options to help you narrow the search to specific collections and subjects.

Staring at the Groundhog Day images, I couldn't see a way to use them. The quick Guided Tour cleared up my confusion. There are two icons at the upper left corner of each image. Clicking on the top icon provided a larger picture, the citation, and information about the picture. The + sign icon, adds the image to the 'Lightboard'. The 'Lightboard' allows one to print, download and e-mail the image. I did e-mail the image to myself. The caption and credit information arrived as a separate text file.

This is a great resource for finding pictures that can be used in presentations by students. It eliminates the hassle of finding copyright usable pictures!

Your CTC librarian can give you information on accessing Image Quest off campus.


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Image Credits: Gregory K. Scott / Photo Researchers / Universal Images Group