Library Catalog: One Stop Shop for Resources

Students, you can now access the library catalog from home! After you log in, you can review your library account, renew materials, update your address, and find passwords that are necessary for accessing library resources from off campus, including GALILEO.

Stop by any campus library, create an account, and get started!

lbm

July 21 - One small step

Here is a YouTube video of an amazing day. If you want to read all about it - try some of the resources in GALILEO.

I did a search using the History search screen.
select Browse by Subject (main screen)
...select History
.....select History

I used one small step and moon as my search terms. A variety of articles pulled up to refresh my memory of that unbelievable day!

You get the password to access GALILEO from your Georgia librarian.

-kls

Who us?

Could we become popular? NPR seems to think so.

-kls

Vive la France

Today being Bastille Day offers an opportunity to showcase our newest resource, Global Road Warrior.

Global Road Warrior is a massive database of constantly updated proprietary editorial and graphics for 175 countries of the world. It provides deep content coverage in major topic areas of society and culture, travel, communications, business, trade, marketing, and security. Currently, the database has7,000,000+ words of editorial, 1,750+ country maps and 12,000+ photographs This product and others create a product line that distinguishes World Trade Press in the field of electronic data publication.

It's easy to use. The opening page offers three options for searches. The screen is open and easy to navigate. I looked for a specific country (France) and a specific topic in the country (Bastille Day). Two articles were displayed. I selected the government one because of this paragraph:

Fete de la Federation, 14 July (1790); note - although often incorrectly referred to as Bastille Day, the celebration actually commemorates the holiday held on the first anniversary of the storming of the Bastille (on 14 July 1789) and the establishment of a constitutional monarchy; other names for the holiday are Fete Nationale (National Holiday) and quatorze juillet (14th of July)

Play inside Global Road Warrior, see what interesting tidbits you can find. I'd love to hear about your experience within our newest resource.

-kls

Bastille Day

Today is Bastille Day, the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille prison in Paris. This was one of the key early events of the French Revolution. Today, France is a republic similar to the United States. However, the economic crisis heralds great changes for the French. There is particular concern in France, as well as other European states, regarding the survival of the famous welfare system. Known for its low retirement age, modest work weeks, and generous vacation times, the French system is in danger due to budget shortfalls.

A story regarding this matter is part of a recent NPR series on the European Union and its member states.

-JWF

Westlaw

GALILEO is now providing Campus Research (Westlaw) instead of Lexis Nexis for our Business Law and Paralegal programs.

I tried finding Westlaw in Databases A-Z under W. It wasn't there on July 1st or 2nd or 3rd. I finally put Westlaw in the Find A Database search box on the Databases A-Z page and voila Campus Research (Westlaw) in the C's came up!

You will need to scroll through the access agreement and click on "I agree" to get to the Campus Research (Westlaw) database.

It is different from Lexis Nexis. Our Business Law students will need to click on the Law tab (News & Business is the default screen). A search in Campus Research (Westlaw) is more forgiving than Lexis Nexis. One can use upper or lower case in the Find a Document by citation: (e.g., 98 S.CT 2733) search. For our Business Law students the left column with Find a Document by citation: (e.g., 98 S.CT 2733) will make searching very easy!

I'll be playing with the Campus Research (Westlaw) with the Business Law instructor. As we discover helpful hints and tricks, I'll let you know what we discover!

-kls

Get the current GALILEO password from your Georgia librarian.

To Kill a Mockingbird

This Sunday July 11th will be the 50th anniversary of the publication of Harper Lee’s novel: To Kill A Mockingbird. There is an excellent article about the book and its anniversary on the USA Today website. 'To Kill a Mockingbird': Endearing, enduring at 50 years - USATODAY.com.

The Marietta and Paulding campuses have print copies [PS3562 .E353 T6]. The Cliffs notes are available through NetLibrary. You do need to create your free account to use NetLibrary from an on campus computer.


-kls

Pillars of the Earth

from our Woodstock campus Librarian, Lauren Barnes :

"Looking forward to the new TV movie THE PILLARS OF THE EARTH on Starz (July 23)?

Read the book 1st! The CTC Libraries have 3 copies.This is a powerful story of medieval life written by the renowned author Ken Follett. Love, hate, murder, intrigue & mystery, suspense & action all revolving around the building of a medieval cathedral. Enjoy!"
LB

The local call number for Pillars of the Earth is PR6056. O45 P55 1989. Marietta, North Metro and Woodstock campus libraries have a copy. For more information about the novel try NoveList in GALILEO. NoveList has a discussion guide for Pillars of the Earth that will help you explore the deeper meaning to the story!


kls

You may get the current password for GALILEO from your Georgia librarian.

Lazy days of summer

Slowly but surely, the warm days build. What can one do when it gets too hot to play outside? NPR published a list of summer reading suggestions for 2010. They include a link to Nancy Pearl's list from 2009. I admit, I missed the list from 2009. I'm grateful for the North Metro campus Library assistants efforts at keeping all of us informed!

I'm going to do Inter Library Loan (ILL) requests for the novels that intrigue me on Nancy's 2009 list! I'm thankful libraries are willing to share their resources.

I'll go to GALILEO
...select Databases A-Z
.....select W
........go to WorldCat
-type the title
-click search
-then select "Borrow this item from another library"
-fill in the form and our Inter Library Loan department will follow through!
It takes about ten days to get a book through ILL. Well, worth the time.

Get the password for GALILEO from your Georgia librarian.


-kls
The Nancy Pearl Action figure is prominently on display in my office!

Bayeux Tapestry

Clever bit of art and animated history! For more information about The Bayeux Tapestry-
go to GALILEO
..select Browse by Subject
...select History
....select History again
......type in Bayeux Tapestry, select full text

and then begin reading about this famous piece of needlework.

Of course, you get the password to use GALILEO from your Georgia librarian.

-kls

Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill

As you sit here reading this blog, oil is gushing from an underwater pipe in the Gulf of Mexico. This not only affects the wildlife and the animals in the Gulf’s ecosystem, not only the tourist and tourism industries, not only the food and restaurant industries; this disaster affects you too.

An entire region of America is changing every second and will never be the same again. Are you interested in learning more details about the destruction to the ecosystem? Are you interested in learning about the federal government and BP’s efforts to stop the oil spill? You can find answers to these questions and more from your library WEBSITE.

To find information about oil debates and past spills, click on the FIND BOOKS link on the library’s main website. This will take you to the library catalogue, searching all campus libraries and ebooks (NETLIBRARY and EBRARY). Typing “OIL SPILLS” into the search tab brings up sixteen titles. Such titles include: Should drilling be permitted in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge? and Before and after an oil spill [electronic resource] : the Arthur Kill. Remember, if logging in from home, you will need to have created a free account for NETLIBRARY. If the book is located in EBRARY, you may access it with your 900#.

If you are more interested in the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, click on the NEWSBANK link on the library’s main website. Located on the left is a “SPECIAL EVENTS” sidebar with WORLD ENVIRONMENT – GULF OF MEXICO OIL SPILL listed as number two. Click on the heading and it will direct you to news articles about the spill, starting from April 23, 2010. Remember, if logging into NEWSBANK from home, you must go through GALILEO first. Obtain the password from your college librarian!

lbm

something more

CTC Library subscribes to the online edition of Encyclopedia Britannica. Many folks are quick to use Wikipedia because it's just easy to get to online.

Encyclopedia Britannica is easy to access through GALILEO. Encyclopedia Britannica has vetted resources - check out what they offer:

The foundation of Britannica Online is the Encyclopedia Britannica, the largest, most authoritative encyclopedia in the world. You'll be happy to find the below features within Britannica Online Academic Edition :

• Encyclopedia Britannica – All of the articles in the print set plus thousands more, as well as maps, photos, illustrations, videos, multimedia clips, and Yearbooks dating back to 1993 !
• eBook / Primary Sources – Since Fall 2008, Britannica has been adding an extensive collection of eBook resources through a partnership with Project Gutenberg. Users are able to link from biographies and history articles to related full-text primary source documents. Britannica expects the collection to eventually have over 500,000 primary source documents. Some sample articles to check out include: Mark Twain, Sigmund Freud, Abraham Lincoln, JFK, Herman Melville, and Thomas Jefferson. There will be no charge for this added service.
• World Data Analyst – Britannica’s exclusive database of current and past statistics on the countries of the world
• Gateway to the Classics – An extensive collection of significant works in literature, philosophy, history, and science
• Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary & Thesaurus – Completely integrated into the site and easily accessible
• Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of Quotations – A lively collection of more than 4,000 quotations, both contemporary and classic
• Full-text Journal and Magazine articles from EBSCO – more than 700 titles, hand-selected for college needs
• BBC & New York Times daily headlines – top stories from two trusted sources
• The Web’s Best – a collection of Web sites carefully selected by Britannica’s editorial department
• World Atlas – Access Britannica maps through this interactive resource
• Advanced search capabilities and Britannica’s exclusive “Workspace”, a research organizer.
• Extensive video collection – over 3,000 videos and video clips that cover a variety of subjects, including History, Science, the Arts, and Social Studies. Video topics include Toulouse-Lautrec, Botticelli, Lewis & Clark, Asia, Ancient Cultures, World Wars, Economics, Native Americans, Insects, the Chaos Theory, and the expanding Universe, among others. Short video clips are 1-5 minutes long and full length extended play videos are between 15 to 45 minutes long. All videos can be played online or downloaded and used in Power Point Presentations.
• Britannica Blog – stimulating dialogue covering a wide range of topics
• Britannica’s Core Databases support Web 2.0 – Use the Share this Article and Widget features to publish selected articles and interactive topic widgets to your blog or Web site. Interact with Britannica Blog, our award-winning (2008 CODiE) moderated forum and blog. Store, organize and share your research with the Workspace tool. Interact with the Internet by clicking on Britannica’s Web’s Best Sites.

Get the password to access GALILEO from your Georgia librarian!

-kls

Conversations with directors

Do you ever wonder why directors of films do what they do? Is it really art or is it money that drives their efforts?

New on our shelf- Conversations with Directors : an anthology of Interviews from Literature/Film Quarterly [PN 1998.2 .C615 2008]

From Amazon - Founded in 1973, the journal Literature/Film Quarterly has featured interviews with some of the most prominent and influential filmmakers from around the world. In Conversations with Directors, the journal's coeditors have assembled an exciting collection of interviews spanning 35 years. Interviewees include directors like Robert Wise, Billy Wilder, Frank Capra, Federico Fellini, William Friedkin, and Robert Altman. Organized chronologically, each interview is preceded by a short introduction that establishes a contemporary context, along with providing the reader with a clear sense of the interview's primary concerns, usefully illuminating the many fascinating, and sometimes surprising, points of connection and difference between the directors.

The journal Literature/Film Quarterly is available through GALILEO.
...Go to the tab Journals A-Z
.....Type in Literature
.......Select the radio button "Starts with"
Scroll down a bit till you find Literature/Film Quarterly (full text)
It's available from Ebsco (1973), Gale(2005), and Proquest (1973)

Catch up on all the people interviewed to get an indepth picture of the link between literature and film!

-kls

- and of course, get the password to use GALILEO from your Georgia librarian.

and the band plays on

Over the weekend, several of my friends posted You Tube videos of current and past musicians. It inspired me to rummage through our LP collection and play a few discs.

While wandering down memory lane, I wondered what info I could find in GALILEO. I was pretty sure there was a music database. Imagine my surprise when I did a database search and discovered - nope, no music database for the tech college. Hmm...I scrolled through the databases we do have, wondering which might give me information about musicians - Encyclopædia Britannica seemed like a good bet but I thought surely there's something more. And yes, we subscribe to Credo Reference. Our subscription is to the complete Credo with 487 reference works and over 3 million full text entries!

Under the subject, Music, Credo offers these 7 reference works (with a see also):

Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World: Locations

Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World: Media, Industry and Society

Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World: Performance and Production

The Faber Companion to 20th Century Popular Music

The Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music

The Harvard Dictionary of Music

The New Penguin Dictionary of Music

and a see also for A Biographical Dictionary of Artists, Andromeda

We do have a resource in GALILEO that can help you find more information (citable information) about a musician!


-kls

The current password to use GALILEO is available from your Georgia librarian. Credo is a database that CTC library subscribes to and is available through our portion of GALILEO.

NoveList

E-mail announcement from NoveList. I use this database for Early Childhood resources. They offer teacher resource ideas for extending the story! The Readers Advisory portion is so helpful at letting you know who else writes stories like the one you just read!

Check NoveList out in GALILEO. Your Georgia librarian can give you the password to access GALILEO at home!

-----------

We know it can sometimes be challenging to adapt to a new version of a trusted resource after a major user interface change. To help, we've taken several measures to ensure that you're ready to transition by the time the new version of NoveList is released this summer. There are three ways to explore the new version before the official release:

1. Play in the Beta version. In the center of the homepage of your version of NoveList, you'll find a link to the Beta version of our forthcoming release. By clicking on the preview link, you'll have access to all of the exciting new features coming this summer, along with the entireNoveList database to try. While you can practice using appeal factors in your Readers' Advisory work and using NoveList to find title, series, and author recommendations, you won't be able to use yourNoveList folders, set your personalization, or use your catalog link in the Beta.
2. Check out the NoveList Support Center (http://support.ebsco.com/novelist). Here, you will find everything you need to know about the new version and its release, including a timeline, screenshots, and information on reading recommendations and the addition of appeal factors like writing style and pace. We'll be adding training and promotional materials along with additional information up until the release date.
3. Sign up for a webinar. We will begin offering webinars on the new version of NoveList to walk you through the new interface and demonstrate the new features. We've designed these sessions to make sure you don't miss anything. We'll begin offering two 45-minute sessions each week beginning Tuesday, May 4th at 10:00 am EDT (GMT - 4:00). To view the complete list of dates and times, visit the EBSCO Training Site and sign up today!


-kls

Bibliography of the History of Art (BHA)

The Bibliography of the History of Art (BHA) is the world’s most comprehensive bibliography of scholarly writing about the history of western art. On April 1, 2010, the Getty Research Institute announced it would be providing free access to the BHA via its website.

GALILEO has now added this free resource to GALILEO menus.
..Databases A-Z
.....following subject categories (depending on your user view):
.....Art, Art History, and Architecture.

The direct GALILEO Express Link that can be used on library and media center websites is: http://www.galileo.usg.edu/express?link=gett.

BHA includes articles from over 1,200 journals. This link leads to a list of names and ISSNs of each of those journals. Journals Included in BHA (PDF, 308 K) . BHA includes all articles within the subject scope of BHA regardless of the subject focus of a particular journal. Thus, many of the journals on this list are covered partially, as only some of their articles are within BHA’s scope.

BHA on the Getty Web site offers both basic and advanced search modules, and can be searched easily by subject, artist, author, article or journal title, and other elements. Note that the database search includes both BHA (covering 1990-2007) and the International Bibliography of Art (IBA), covering the years 2008 and part of 2009. The Répertoire de la litterature de l’art (RILA), one of the predecessors of BHA, with records that cover 1975-1989, will be online by May 1.

The Getty Research Institute has no plans to continue the databases into the future. It is a static resource. There are not any plans for the RAA data currently because that data is owned by the French INIST, not by the Getty.


From GALILEO News

-kls

You may get the current GALILEO password for home use from your Georgia librarian

ProQuest celebrates National Library Week

ProQuest celebrates National Library Week

Communities thrive @ your library

ProQuest is proud to celebrate National Library Week with you.

From April 12-18, 2010, ProQuest is offering free, open access to some of our most popular online resources at www.proquest.com/go/celebrate.

 CultureGrams™ explore the world's cultures with local experts that document the history, customs, government, and daily life in multimedia reports on over 200 countries. [Try it out!]

 eLibrary® this easy to use resource brings together content about in-demand subjects from millions of multimedia-rich, global resources. [Try it out!]

 ProQuest® African American Heritage brings together records critical to African American family history research and connects users to a community of research experts. [Try it out!]

 ProQuest Historical Newspapers™ - Black Newspapers experience history firsthand via continuous runs of the following full-image titles: The Baltimore Afro-American, Chicago Defender, Los Angeles Sentinel, and New York Amsterdam News [Try it out!]

 And more!

Visit http://www.proquest.com/go/celebrate to access these resources and more, during National Library Week. No username or password needed!

-kls

Gotcha

My brother-in-law posted : "Before the Gregorian calendar was adopted, new years was on April 1st. Makes more sense being in the spring anyway. Those who continued to celebrate new years on April 1st were called fools. Happy New Year to everyone!" Where can I corroborate his statement?

I went to GALILEO and searched in several places at once by using the Search tab and adding more databases. Encyclopedia Britannica had just what I was looking for on April Fools' Day.

Use reliable sources to verify information posted on the internet.

For fun, check out what Google posted about their name change! Note the date and time stamp. Someone was up late/early!


-kls

Spring

Amazing how time has flown by. The quarter break is almost over. I realized I haven't posted in weeks. Between time changes, St. Patrick's Day, the Sweet Sixteen, finals, staff meetings, and state wide library meetings, I have been out of contact.

There's always tomorrow!


-kls

Spring forward

Daylight savings time begins this weekend. We spring forward an hour. Why do we do this?

A search in GALILEO turned up this interesting article from the Washington Post. How did I find a current article with a brief history of Daylight Savings Time?

I went to Search in GALILEO
..Typed in Daylight Savings Time
....Clicked on Full Text
....Selected 2010 as the year
....I unclicked Academic Search Complete and Research Library
....I clicked on Show More Databases
I scrolled through the list looking for newspapers. I figured a newspaper might have a current history on Daylight Savings time.
....I selected Newspaper Source and ProQuest Newspapers

Selected the Search 2 databases button (I like how it tells me how many databases I've selected)

It was in ProQuest Newspapers that I found the Washington Post article

I like the ending...

In 2005, Congress moved the start date up three weeks and moved the end date back one week, adding an entire month to daylight saving -- and saving energy. That, however, may not apply to you, with all the energy you will spend playing outside in the extra daylight.

Lets go outside and play (if it quits raining).

-kls

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

To be or not to be

Little kids are regularly asked - what do you want to be when you grow up? Some of us have yet to make that determination and we're well into being a grown up. NPR posted a fascinating look at

the jobs humans once held, entire professions are now extinct. Click through the gallery below to see examples of endangered professions, from milkman to telegrapher, and hear from people who once filled those oft-forgotten jobs.

If you're thinking about what you'd like to do before the job becomes obsolete - check out the Georgia Career Information Center. It is a stand alone site that I'm sending you to through the listing in GALILEO.

What I like the most about the GCIS is the Skills Assessment because SKILLS helps you identify occupations that use the skills you like. It also helps you recognize skills that transfer between occupations. You can use SKILLS to select occupations to explore, identify ways to modify your career direction, or prepare for a job interview. When I took this self assessment the job it said I was most likely to succeed in was - drum roll, please - librarian. I admit to laughing out loud.

If you're not sure what you want to be - check out the GCIS.

You will need the password to get into Galileo. Select Databases A-Z, then G, scroll to Georgia Career Information Center. The login and password for GCIS is in the more information section.


-kls

In like a lion

Sometimes we get a classic proverb confused - is March coming in like a lamb and going out like a lion or is it coming in like a lion and going out like a lamb?

The first week of March has definitely come in like a lion with cold, rain, and snow in Georgia.

In our Reference collection we have several books of proverbs. The Facts on File dictionary of proverbs [PN 6421 .M36 2002] compiled by Martin H. Manser, notes this weather related proverb dates to before 1625.

I also checked the OED [Oxford English Dictionary PE 1625 .O8 1991, vol. IX pg 358] for the word march. The OED provided pages of information about the month and the physical activity of the march. Three proverbs are noted in the section defining the month, including the Facts on File Reference to Fletcher's 'Wife for a Month'.

There are free resources online but the free resources don't have the depth of information available in our print resources. Come inside, get out of the March weather and peruse our print resources!

-kls

Green Eggs and Ham Cookbook

March 2nd is the anniversary of the birthday of Dr. Seuss. The Mountain View campus library has a cookbook related to a very famous tale by Dr. Seuss. The book 'Green Eggs and Ham Cookbook' contains recipes related to various characters and stories of Dr. Seuss. Included are recipes for Schlopp with a Cherry on Top, Blueberry Bumplings, Glunker Stew, and other exotic fare.

Please drop by the Mountain View campus and check the book out. Or, if you are based on another campus, please remember that your Chattahoochee campus librarian can request that the book be sent to the campus library most convenient for you through intralibrary loan.

JWF

I like them, Sam-I-am

Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss turns 50 this year. Many teachers and librarians are sharing the story with classes as part of Read Across America.

I'm reading it to English literature classes where the instructor has tied it to Hamlet. NoveList offers other Curricular Connections to extend the poem into various classes. You may like it if you try!


Thank you to Susan Grigsby, Teacher-Librarian, for sharing her Wordle.



-kls

the Girls' Guide to Rocking

Rock bands of past years that featured all female lineups are going to get some more attention with the release of the film the Runaways this spring. The film tells the story of an all-girl rock band of the late seventies that featured Joan Jett and Lita Ford, who would later go on to become big stars as solo acts during the 1980's. Other notable all female bands include the Go-Go's, the Bangles, the Indigo Girls, and the Donnas.

The Chattahoochee Technical College Library has a book about female rock bands. The Girls' Guide to Rocking [ML 3795 .H775 2009] is a book about how to start an all female band. The book includes basic information on getting started in the music business, writing songs, and choosing equipment. The book also provides some information on the history of women in rock.

This book is located at the Mountain View campus library. Remember that current Chattahoochee Technical College students can have library books located at one campus sent to another campus library for pickup and checkout. So check it out and start rocking!


JF

To see or not to see

We are becoming a society of visual learners. We absorb information from pictures rather than by making pictures of our own from the text we read.

YouTube has become one source for visual information. It is a veritable 'how to' library. GALILEO has a channel with 14 videos to help one learn how to use what is available in GALILEO!



The videos are also available on the GALILEO home page. On the right - under Getting started, select what can I do in GALILEO? You may click on Related tutorials to begin opening up other titles!

Learn how to use GALILEO!
You may get the current password to use GALILEO at home from your Georgia librarian.

-kls

Something new

The upgraded Library catalog is up and running.

It has many new (to us) features- including book covers and a visual search. I’m enjoying playing with the visual search – I clicked on the Visual Search link (the link is in the gray bar toward the middle of the screen) .


There are a few options pictured in alphabetical order - I picked Food.
When I click on a picture, the books available in the CTC collection are displayed.
Select a book by clicking on the details tab.

Some titles will display the Table of Contents

and some extra information about the book- including reviews.

Do you see the subject links? Clicking on one of them narrows your search to just that subject!

What a superb tool to help you make the best selection.

I’m looking forward to showing classes how delightfully fun this catalog is.

I have 8 English classes scheduled next week- they are in for a treat!





-kls

5 letters across

Do you do crossword puzzles? Do you ever find yourself just stuck? Janice Levine, one of the librarians at the Paulding campus, attended a webinar for Credo Reference. Here are her notes with the great hint for solving crossword snafus!

Some of the features that I liked:
• Citations at the end of each entry, in four possible formats, MLA , APA, and 2 others
• I liked the "Related Resources" that show up in the left column when you go to an entry, that link you back to our CTC online catalog and to Encyclopedia Brittanica
• There is also easy access back to the table of contents/index and to biographical entries and images and videos (if there are any) in a reference source through the "Browse Book" feature at the bottom left of any entry
• The advanced search feature allows you to limit your search by specific subjects or book titles, as well as by date, image, etc.
• Also, like in some other systems, one can save results as you flip from one article/entry to another, then delete unneeded info, and save or email info that you would like to keep
• The Gadgets box to the right was also very neat-it allowed you to do a quick search for definitions, people, images, pronunciations, crossword puzzle clues, quotations, holidays and festivals, and to easily convert from one type of measurement to another.
• *Yes-for those of you who are crossword puzzle fans you can actually put in the clues you have so far for a particular crossword puzzle word in the Gadgets box under "Crossword" and the computer will give you options as to what the word should be. So, next time you are doing a crossword puzzle while you are near a computer and you get stuck, you can try out this feature of Credo Reference!

JWF pointed out that Credo Reference has updated the MLA citations to MLA 7!

You may access Credo Reference through GALILEO and through the CTC Library page
Get the password to use GALILEO at home from your Georgia librarian.

-kls

A Librarian read....

Do you remember when Wolf Hall [PR 6063 .A438 W65 2009] arrived at Chattahoochee Tech, North Metro campus? I did a blog noting it was two inches thick and I just wasn't sure if I'd wade through it all. I did start it but couldn't, just couldn't finish it. Another librarian, Lauren Barnes at the Woodstock campus, borrowed the book.
Lauren e-mailed:

I have to say the work getting through the book was worth the interesting viewpoint. It was an interesting angle on the familiar Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII story. It was written from Cromwell’s viewpoint, who usually is painted as a villain. This time he’s the main character. The author starts talking about someone and you don’t know who she’s talking about. Like towards the end of the book there’s a conversation with “The Maid”. In this case, I would say it would make a better movie than a book! It was difficult to read, but if you’re a student of this era in time, it’s worth the time spent.

Maybe I'll try again.....

-kls

Black New Yorkers

The Black New Yorkers : The Schomburg Illustrated Chronology, 400 years of African American History [F 128.9 .N4 D63 2000] written by Howard Dodson, Christopher Moore, and Roberta Yancy offers a chronological history of African Americans in New York.

There are two lists with brief biographies of African Americans - Early Black New York leaders (pg 425) and The New York Black 100 (pg 426). Both offer just a bit of information - birth year, death year, and their accomplishments. If you're looking for Black History tidbits- this book offers you a plethora of opportunities to explore not only New York but America's Black History.

Amazon.com offers a peak inside the book as well as reviews.

-kls

Literature Resource Center

Literature Resource Center is a literature database in Galileo. The database allows you to look up articles of literary criticism, as well as information on various authors.

When you conduct a search in LRC, you will be given a list of search results. Select one of the results from your search. The page displayed for this item will have a red box on the right hand side of the page that is labeled 'tools.' One of the links in the tools box is for 'citation tools.' Clicking on this link will open up a new window that will allow you to select from a variety of citation formats for that particular article. One of these options is for MLA 7, which is the latest update to the MLA citation format.

You should also note that databases in Galileo that are produced by the GALE group, such as Literature Resource Center, all now carry the updated version of MLA. This should make life a bit easier for students citing in the updated MLA format.

Remember that the Chattahoochee Technical College Library has a PDF handout for the updated MLA, with examples, posted on the library's website.

JF

It's here!

The new and improved Lexis Nexis is available through GALILEO!

Today is Fat Tuesday also known as Mardi Gras . The day many Christians clean out the cupboard of dairy and meat products to spend the next 6 weeks fasting. I did a search in the new Lexis Nexis for Fat Tuesday.


Searching for Fat Tuesday (no quotes) turned up 971 articles that emphasized fat. It must have only looked for the word fat.
Searching for "Fat Tuesday" (with quotes) pulled 993 articles.
Sorting both results by publication date shows -
- the no quotes search has a GlaxoSmithKline Health care article first.
- the quote results search lists the Feb 16, 2010 Washington Post article on DC Fat Tuesday activities first.

The sort options are intriguing - chronological puts the articles in publication date order so the oldest article is first. Publication date puts the most recent article at the top of the list. I wonder why they didn't choose one term and note oldest and most recent as options for the sort?

And then, as long as I'm complaining - after you've selected an article, look to the right of the screen. See the icons? The printer, the envelope, the disc are all self explanatory . It was the open book that confused me. It is the icon they are using to send the bibliographic notes to RefWorks (Export of RefWorks format will be redirected to the RefWorks login center.). I know my institution does not subscribe to RefWorks but as an experiment, I clicked on the links.

I could apply for a 30 day trial account (an individual RefWorks subscription would be $100 per year). Why can't they just use whatever ProQuest and Ebsco use to create the citation?

I like Lexis Nexis for the legal information for our Business Law classes. I like it for transcripts of television or radio programs that I want to check.

It isn't as friendly for students to use for research because of the lack of a durable URL to an article. The lack of citation information isn't critical but they obviously know people want citation information or they wouldn't have the link to RefWorks.


I'm glad the new interface for Lexis Nexis is available. I hope they'll add a durable URL and a better citation system.

Get the password to access GALILEO from your Georgia librarian.

-kls

The links for Fat Tuesday and Mardi Gras are thanks to Encyclopedia Britannica, another resource available through GALILEO!

Why we read for fun!

Thank you to Non Sequitur's author Wiley Miller for making it so clear why reading can be anything but boring.

-kls

Happy New Year

Coinciding with Valentines Day this year is the Chinese New Year of 4708. That juxtaposition seems appropriate. A New Year is a perfect time to get on the right foot with ones sweetheart. Though saying just what you want to say is sometimes harder than it seems!

ProQuest through GALILEO offers two tools that might assist you - the first tool will translate the article - look under Document view for a drop down box that says Select Language. The options are astonishing ranging from English to Chinese (Simple))to English to Spanish! If you aren't looking to impress your sweetheart - this would a super place to practice that language you need to suceed in your program. You could open two windows - going back and forth between the English version and the Other Language version.

Proquest does offer this caveat "You have requested "on-the-fly" machine translation of selected content from our databases. This functionality is provided solely for your convenience and is in no way intended to replace human translation."


The other translation tool allows you to change the Interface Language only. This way you could practice following the directions, while being able to read the article in the language you are most comfortable reading.

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


-kls

Nelson Mandela and Interlibrary Loan

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the release of activist Nelson Mandela from prison in South Africa. Mandela had been jailed for decades for speaking out against Apartheid. Apartheid was the political system by which a white minority dominated and segregated the other races of the country of South Africa. Mandela's release, along with the legal restoration of his African National Congress party, began a swift process which saw the dismantling of Apartheid and the eventual election of Mandela in the country's first elections open to people of all races.

This anniversary proved to be a bit ironic as I am currently reading a book about Mandela and the fall of Apartheid. The book is entitled Playing the Enemy and was written by John Carlin. The book was recently adapted into a film version entitled Invictus.

However, you will notice by looking through the Chattahoochee Technical College Library catalog that the book isn't part of our collection. So how then, did I get the book? It was through a process called Interlibrary Loan. This is a service that the college library provides to you. We are able to get books not in our collection by borrowing them from other participating libraries all around the United States. Go to Worldcat and type in a book title to see what libraries near your present location own the book.

There are exceptions to Interlibrary Loan. Please read the rules regarding Interlibrary Loan on the library's section of the Chattahoochee Technical College website. The biggest exception students need to be aware of is that the library will not request textbooks for students through Interlibrary Loan.

JWF

Snap Judgement

The Chattahoochee Technical College Library has some books on cd-rom for patrons and staff.

One such book is entitled 'Snap Judgement: When to Trust Your Instincts, When to Ignore Them, and How to Avoid Making Big Mistakes with Your Money,' by David Adler.

This book examines, primarily through the medium of finances, how humans tend to make decisions based more on emotion than on empirical evidence. This explains the level of gambling consumers apply to the rise and fall of stocks on the open market. The book points out that we, as humans, need to slow down with our decisions and apply empirical knowledge and evidence to our choices before we make a decision.

JF

You can find more audio titles by going to the CTC Library catalog
...select the Power Search tab
.....type in your topic
.......look down at the search options - select itemtype
.......select cd or cassette tape

Learning tips

A co-worker shared:

I took a webinar this morning that gave instructions on how to access and use Credo Reference,located both on our main website and on GALILEO. Credo has a huge database (400+) of reference resources focused on a wide selection of topics.

The organizers enjoy receiving feedback on ways to add or improve their title selection in case you notice something lacking in a certain area.

A couple of interesting tips I learned:

 Credo is linked to our online catalogue and Encyclopedia Britannica.
.....To access this tab, type in a search word into Credo .
.....After reviewing the Credo hits, you may browse our catalogue or Britannica by selecting the search box on the right called “Continue searching in…”

 At the bottom of each article, students will find how to cite the material using the APA, Chicago, Harvard, or MLA format.

 Medical students would be interested in the Taber Cyclopedic Medical Dictionary, which has a pronunciation feature.

I hope you find the information useful!

- LM

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

Scouting turns 100

Robert McHenry wrote

Today is the 100th anniversary of the chartering of the Boy Scouts of America. The scouting movement had begun in England in 1907, when Robert S.S. Baden-Powell, hero of the siege of Mafeking in the Boer War, organized a camp for boys on an island off the Dorset coast. The next year he published Scouting for Boys, based in part on Aids to Scouting, a handbook he had written some years earlier for use in the army.

...to read the rest of the story

Robert McHenry does ask a valid question - is scouting still relevant? Check the official Boy Scouts of America site to see what you think!

Happy Birthday- and Be Prepared!

-kls

Encyclopedia Britannica online is a resource subscribed to by Chattahoochee Technical College Library. There is a link to EB from our library page.

Who is free to vote

Reading The First Emancipator by Andrew Levy [F229 .C34 L48 2005] has made me wonder a bit about what I really know concerning black history. The concluding sentence of the introduction intrigues me - "The mystery of Robert Carter, then is really two mysteries: why he freed his slaves, and why we couldn't care less."

I went to GALILEO, selected Databases A-Z, selected show all and began to scroll through, looking for a database that might tell me more about emancipation. The Annals of American History which
includes the full text of primary documents in American history, including historical accounts, speeches, memoirs, poems, editorials, landmark court decisions, and cultural criticism seemed like a great place to start.

Searching for emancipation brought up 100 articles. The difficulty with using this database is I can't see how to sort the articles by time/date, author, title, or something. I just get a list of articles. The Help menu notes there should be a Sort By link - I'm not seeing that option after the results come up from a search.

Letting serendipity guide me by scrolling through I noticed an article that refers to African Americans right to vote in Pennsylvania being denied in 1838 ["Appeal of Forty Thousand African Americans, Threatened with Disfranchisement"].
The document is quite clear- African Americans had been voting in Pennsylvania since the Revolution- not all blacks, not everywhere in Pennsylvania but enough to warrant a protest with 40,000 people. Free blacks voting in a northern state prior to the Civil War. Why don't we know about this?

A Google search on Black voting rights turned up the 15th Amendment and the Voting Rights Act and an ACLU voting rights timeline. None of these sites noted blacks voting in
Pennsylvania pre-1838. This article from the Historical Society of Pensylvania shed a bit of light on who was voting and what happened in 1838.

I did get distracted didn't I? Started out looking for emancipation- ended up with voting.

Following a trail can lead you to a destination unthought of- get the password to use GALILEO at home from your Georgia librarian.


-kls

The First Emanicpator

[F 229 .C34 L 48 2005]

Black History month is a time set apart to emphasize the contributions of African Americans. There have been Caucasians who assisted African Americans on the long road to being freely integrated in society. Andrew Levy wrote a biography of one Caucasian who put words into action at a time in our countries history when the words of liberty were frequently used. Robert Carter, a Virginia Planter, Founding Father of the United States, and neighbor to George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, freed his slaves in 1791. Mr. Levy pieces together the path Robert Carter took to doing something others said would be nice but they just couldn't do right then.

A search in GALILEO using the basic search tab and typing The First Emancipator as a Keyword search, turned up several reviews of the book including this review from Journal of Southern History.

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

-kls

Slave Narratives

My co-worker attended an Ancestry.com webinar. She was sharing a feature I wasn't aware of- the slave narratives.

go to GALILEO.
..select Databases A-Z.
....select A.
......Ancestry.com (only available on campus).
Click the Search tab (middle tab).
Notice on the right side- a column with Browse records.
Scroll down to Stories and Publications.
Select Slave Narratives.

Now here's where the fun begins! See Type and Location?
Click on the drop down box under type - here are wonderful options from Famous Personalities to War stories! You may limit your search to a specific state.

Keep in mind that the stories told by the former slaves were collected by the Works Project Administration. Federal Writers Project. Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves. Washington, D.C.: n.p., n.d. in the 1930's. The people telling the stories and remembering would have been over 70 years old.

This is a wonderful resource to use with students during Black History month. Ancestry.com is only available on campus but it's available through any computer on campus!

A caveat- I searched for Lincoln as a surname, limited the search to Georgia and Lincoln county came up in the results.


-kls

Only the Shadow Knows!

Today is Groundhog Day. The day men in fancy dress disturb Punxsutawney Phils rest to see if spring will come soon to the north east!

For fast news:
GALILEO.
..Databases A-Z.
....L.
.....LexisNexis.
Search for groundhog.
Limit to previous week and newswire services.

LexisNexis has posted multiple articles from the AP wire (8:45am, 2 Feb 2010).

Meanwhile in Lilburn, Georgia General Beauregard Lee noted:

It's an early spring! Beau did NOT see his shadow when he emerged at 7:35a in rainy, 40 degree weather

Georgians are looking forward to living into the truth of Gen. Beau Lee, Ph.D's forecast!

-kls


For those too young to remember, the title refers to the classic mystery, The Shadow!

Grammy

The 52nd Grammy awards were given out on January 31. The official award site has a cornucopia of information about winners past and present!

GALILEO has resources that will offer a different perspective than the industry promotes. I started my quest with
Browse by Subject
...Arts and Humanities
.....Music.
I was disappointed in the search options. I was offered Academic Search Complete and Research Library with GIL and Encyclopedia Britannica as the Show More Options. I thought there might be something more musical in the list.

I went to the Basic GALILEO Search tab at the far right.
I typed in Grammy Awards
...Selected full text
......Selected 2010 only
Clicked on Show More Options which allowed me to add Newspaper Sources and ProQuest Newspapers (though I can not add Lexis Nexis or NewsBank) to the Basic Search alongside Academic Search Complete and Research Library .

Voila- enough articles to satisfy my curiosity about what happened and why!

Interesting to see that Research Library and ProQuest Newspapers offered more stories dated February 1 than the others!

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


-kls

Full Moon Names

Saturday you experienced the Full Wolf Moon. This is the old Native American name for the full moon of January. Lacking formal calendars, some Native American tribes attached names to the full moon for each month as a way of marking the seasons. January is the Full Wolf Moon due to the packs of wolves that were often found near villages during the cold months. You can read more about the various moon names here.

JF

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

the Poe Toaster

The Poe Toaster was a mysterious visitor to the grave of Edgar Allen Poe. Each year, the toaster would leave some roses and a bit of cognac at Poe's grave in Baltimore on the anniversary of Poe's birthday. 2010 marked the first time in over sixty years that the toaster failed to arrive. This disappointed a crowd of observers at the grave, many of whom gather each year just to watch the toaster's early morning visit.

Information on Poe and his macabre works can be found in Galileo. One good database to use is Literature Resource Center. A search for Edgar Allen Poe in this database provides you with links to biographies on Poe, news about Poe, and critical analysis of Poe's works.

JF