Mayflower Compact

How did we get to the Constitution of the United States?

Some folks say the Mayflower Compact written in 1620 was a seed for the US Constitution. Read more about both documents in Annals of American History an Encyclopedia Britannica resource in GALILEO

Yesterdays questions were pretty easy- the scavenger hunt gets a little tougher as the week goes by. The answers to the scavenger hunt will be provided on Friday.

4) Which two signers of the Constitution later became U.S. Presidents?
5) Fill-in-the-blank: The Constitution consists of a preamble, 7
articles, and _____ amendments.
6) The first 10 amendments are also known as the _________________.

Thanks to Cheri Jost of Garland, Texas on LM_NET for the scavenger hunt.

The password for home use of GALILEO is available to the citizens of Georgia from your librarian. Some resources noted in this BLOG are only available to NMTC patrons.

Remembering

Yesterday many remembered 9/11 with official memorial services. Remembering in an official way is good for the community. Public remembering brings the community together.

This Saturday, September 17, is another official day of remembering. It's the day we remember those men who wrote and signed our Constitution.

Each day this week, I'll have something about the Constitution. Here are a few questions- like a scavenger hunt- the answers are easily found online- I'll give you all the answers on Friday!
Here are the first questions:

• 1) Which of the following men did NOT sign the Constitution? George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Abraham Lincoln, James Madison, Jr.
• 2) What year was the Constitution signed?
• 3) In what city was the Constitution signed?

Thanks to Cheri Jost of Garland, Texas on LM_NET for compiling this scavenger hunt.

The password for home use of GALILEO is available to the citizens of Georgia from your librarian. Some resources noted in this BLOG are only available to NMTC patrons.

Where did they come from?

I mentioned yesterday that I'm into genealogy. On July 1, the DTAE libraries gained access to a wonderful resource through GALILEO - Ancestry.com. One can only access Ancestry on campus.

If you're doing your family tree- you start with yourself and work backwards- one generation at a time. Ancestry has the US census online from 1790-1930. You can see who your grandparents neighbors were by checking the census!

What do you need to know to find your family in the census ? - It helps to know the state they lived in. If you know the county they lived in your search will be focused.

What will you find out about them? Each census gathered different information. Ancestry notes that "The 1930 United States Federal Census is the largest census released to date and is the most recent census available for public access. The census gives us a glimpse into the lives of Americans in 1930, and contains information about a household’s occupants including: birthplaces, occupations, immigration, citizenship, and military service."

Check it out- those family stories just might be true.

The password for home use of GALILEO is available to the citizens of Georgia from your librarian. Some resources noted in this BLOG are only available to NMTC patrons.

Cite your sources

I do genealogy for fun. Sometimes I look at information I've gathered and I wonder if I copied it correctly- the data just doesn't seem correct. Fortunately, I've cited my sources for information so I can go back and check myself (and anyone who uses my data can check my research by referring to the sources I've cited).

How do I cite my sources? The basic formula is:

• Who did it (the author- last name first- like the phone book)
• What did they do (the title)
• How does my reader find it (the publisher, copyright date, and page)

APA (American Psychological Association) and MLA (Modern Language Association) follow this formula- the differences are where the commas, periods, quotes, and parenthesis are placed (at least that's how it looks to me).

Yesterday I noted that Encyclopedia Britannica online gives you the way to cite their articles in both APA and MLA style.

GALILEO has a tutorial on citing articles in their Quick Help drop down box. Also in the Online Library Learning Center #8 "Giving Credit Where Credit is due".

The password for home use of GALILEO is available to the citizens of Georgia from your librarian. Some resources noted in this BLOG are only available to NMTC patrons.

Who had a birthday today?

Elmer Hader, a children's author of some reknown, was born this day in 1889. He and his wife Berta wrote and illustrated "The Big Snow" (the Caldecott winner in 1949).

I saw his birthday on an Author Calendar. I looked for Elmer Hader in Book Index with Reviews and also in NoveList. The books he wrote/illustrated are listed but I was having trouble finding a biography for him. I went to Google - you can tell I was desperate- 612 sites came up by using "Elmer Hader" biography of Elmer Hader- I was trying to reduce the number of hits. Nothing was clearly marked as a free biograpgy- I could pay for some information.

Where else could I look- for free?

I went back to GALILEO (our Georgia tax dollars have already paid for this) and skimmed the list Databases A-Z till it hit me- a basic reference source is the encyclopedia!

In Encyclopedia Britannica- there was the biography I was looking for.
Here's a portion..."Elmer Stanley Hader was born on Sept. 7, 1889, in Pajaro, Calif. He received art training in San Francisco and Paris, the latter excursion financed by three years of touring on a vaudeville circuit. His budding career as a painter was interrupted by World War I, and he served in the United States Army Camouflage Corps."

There's a wonderful resource at the bottom of each article in Encyclopedia Britannica online...how to do the citation for that article in APA and MLA style!

I must remember that the basic reference sources are the best for getting quick general reliable information!

The password for home use of GALILEO is available to the citizens of Georgia from your librarian. Some resources noted in this BLOG are only available to NMTC patrons.

How do you feel?

Do you have symptoms that baffle you? You're sure you're not sick enough for a doctor visit but you'd like a clue about what could be causing the aggravation- and then you may discover you are sick enough for a doctor visit.

We've added the Med Web @ Emory University site to NMTC's portion of GALILEO. They have collected all sorts of medical sites in one place. They even have compiled links for Katrina information.

The password for home use of GALILEO is available to the citizens of Georgia from your librarian. Some resources noted in this BLOG are only available to NMTC patrons.

Labor Day

We sang "Come Labor On" at church this weekend. One of my favorite old hymns. We usually sing it on Labor Day weekend. No, it wasn't written for the Labor movement.

The hymn was written by Jane Laurie Borthwick (1813-1897) based on Matthew 25:23. Ms. Borthwick wrote the hymn in 1859, revised it in 1863.
Found this info at The Blue Letter Bible http://www.blueletterbible.org/hymns/htm_c_o_comlabor.html

There are, of course, articles and editorials about Labor Day in GALILEO.
You can check Lexis-Nexis Academic (Databases A-Z, jump to L)
.....Guided News Search
..........General News, Major papers, Labor Day, today

I turned up 58 articles for today- a grand variety of opinions!

Gasoline prices

You can read about the rising gas prices all over the country by looking at ABI Inform on GALILEO.

Select the News/Facts Reference tab
....ABI Inform Dateline
...... search for Gasoline prices
...........limit date range to last seven days

Lexis/Nexis will give you the transcripts from CNN if you'd like to read what they are saying on TV.

Visual Dictionary

We are becoming a pictographic society- symbols are used in so many public locations to present information.

We acquired The Firefly Five Language Visual Dictionary: English, Spanish, French, German, and Italian (REF P 361 C668 2004).

It is fascinating- pictures with the word in a column next to the picture. The topics are divided by subject. It's not alphabetical by the words.

It's fun to just thumb through the book looking at the pictures and comparing the words. Spanish, French and Italian are so similar since they are based on Latin. English and German have common roots in the Anglo Saxon heritage.

GOOGLE alerts

OK- I usually just send you to GALILEO but GOOGLE does have a link on their page for News about Hurricane Katrina . Get the latest news on hurricane katrina with Google Alerts.

You click on this link, scroll to the bottom and they offer you the option of getting an alert once a day, as it happens, once a week-

This is for the true news junky!

International News

You can use LexisNexis to get wire service news. LexiNexis doesn't provide the e-mail alerts that Ebsco and ProQuest offer.
GALILEO
...Databases A to Z
......Jump to L
..........LexisNexis

The password for home use of GALILEO is available to the citizens of Georgia from your librarian. Some resources noted in this BLOG are only available to NMTC patrons.

Getting the news

You're a news junky but you just can't keep on surfing the web to get the latest story. You can create an e-mail alert in EbscoHost or Proquest to have current info sent to your e-mail.

I just set up an alert in Proquest to cover Hurricane Katrina (my brother lives in New Orleans). The alert will last two weeks and will be sent daily as new information is posted in Proquest.


Here's how to do this in Proquest:

Go to GALILEO
Select Proquest (to the right of South America on the left side of the screen)
Select Advanced search (second tab in)
Fill in your topic
Select date range (I picked the last 7 days)

Search
If anything comes up that interests you, then click on Set Up Alert

If you didn't get the results you hoped for- edit your search
Fill in the form- (select how long you want to get alerts)
Save

Proquest will send you an e-mail confirming that you really do want this alert.

The password for home use of GALILEO is available to the citizens of Georgia from your librarian. Some resources noted in this BLOG are only available to NMTC patrons.

Deerproofing your yard

A new book on the shelf at NMTC-

Deerproofing your Yard & Garden by Rhonda Massingham Hart (SB 994.D4 H375 2005).

The deer are nibbling away at your garden- how do you stop the deer from using your garden as a buffet line without harming the deer? Ms. Hart has a chapter on Deer-o-scaping, Deer deterrents, and the Deerproof garden.

Will her suggestions work? Jim Wilson, former host of the Victory Garden on PBS, wrote in the forward: "Other than high fences, Deerproofing your Yard & Garden doesn't offer a universal recommendation for protecting gardens from damage, but it does offer you a sampler of strategies that work most of the time under most conditions, and it gently but firmly pooh-poohs ineffective gadgets and panaceas."

Read and try!

New books arrive!

We sent in Purchase Orders as soon as the money was released for this fiscal year.
The new books are arriving!

It's a party - opening boxes, oohing and ahing over what we ordered.

The new books will be on the shelves with in two weeks.

26th of August 1920

So- what happened on the 26th of August in 1920?

• I looked in GALILEO - couldn't find anything by date in either Annals of American History or Encyclopedia Britannica.
• I looked in The American Book of Days, 3rd edition by Jane M. Hatch (Ref GT 4803.D6 1978) and found the answer
• I tried Google and this site gave me the answer Women's History http://womenshistory.about.com/od/suffrage1900/a/august_26_wed.htm

The 19th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified.

The amendment reads:
"The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."

Now you know what happened on the 26th of August in 1920!

The password for home use of GALILEO is available to the citizens of Georgia from your librarian. Some resources noted in this BLOG are only available to NMTC patrons.

Early registration

All day long
...new students wandering the halls
......for advisement and early registration for Fall Quarter.

Fall quarter begins on October 4th.

Whew- the summer quarter is almost over!
Get ready for Fall.

If you register early, you need to pay the new $35 per quarter fee (DTAE requires this new technology fee) before September 2.
If you pay the $35 fee before Friday August 26, you'll automatically be entered in a drawing for a $25 gift card.

The little girl with the curl

Are you familiar with the children's rhyme about the little girl with the curl?
....When she was good,
....She was very, very good,
....But when she was bad,
....She was horrible

or something to that effect

That's how I feel about computers- when they work- wonderful- when they don't - horrible

Have you wondered where you could find authoritative information about computers?
Yes, I'm going to send you to GALILEO:

"Computer Source: Consumer Edition provides the latest information and current trends in high technology. This database features over 120 full-text periodicals covering market information in computers, telecommunications, electronics, and the Internet. "

This is a part of the EbscoHost database. Ebsco has already limited your search to just articles about computers/computing. Here are a few of the magazines they are using:

Computer Artist
Bibliographic Records: 01/01/1995 to present; Full Text: 01/01/1995 to present

MacUser
Bibliographic Records: 01/01/1992 to present01/01/2001 to present

MacWeek
Bibliographic Records: 08/19/1996 to 08/03/1998

Macworld
Bibliographic Records: 01/01/1992 to present; Full Text: 01/01/2001 to present


The password for home use of GALILEO is available to the citizens of Georgia from your librarian. Some resources noted in this BLOG are only available to NMTC patrons.

And they wrote

E-mail, text messaging, voice mail- ephemeral- nothing solid to pass down to the next generation. Have you saved any letters from friends or family?

The Digital Library of Georgia has digitized a collection from Robert Toombs, Letters to Julia Ann DuBose Toombs, 1850-1867. This consists of correspondence from Robert Toombs to his wife, Julia Ann DuBose Toombs in Washington, Wilkes County, Georgia from 1850-1867. During 1850-1859 his letters come from Washington, D.C. while he served in the U.S. Senate. During the Civil War, he wrote from Virginia (1862) and Atlanta, Georgia (1864). Following the war, letters are written from Paris (1866-67) while he was in exile. The correspondence generally discusses current events; his land holdings in South Georgia, Alabama, and Texas; people; other soldiers; and his wish to be with his wife and family.

Just folks writing about everyday events. Some things never change.

The password for home use of GALILEO is available to the citizens of Georgia from your librarian. Some resources noted in this BLOG are only available to NMTC patrons.

Too hot

Whew- it's hot outside.
.....Too hot
.........What to do?
..............Oh, what to do?

Come to the library (room 103). We have a small group study room. We have a silent study room with study carrels. We have a comfy sofa by a window for relaxing.

While you're at the library you can:

• watch a video- there are videos available at NMTC- check with your instructor
• drift through the offerings in GALILEO - lots of interesting links
• read a book- we have a cart with paperback books for swapping- bring one, take one

It's cool at the library.

The password for home use of GALILEO is available to the citizens of Georgia from your librarian. Some resources noted in this BLOG are only available to NMTC patrons.

Are you worth the best?

If you want the best information available- most reliable and most timely- go to GALILEO. The banner on the masthead of GALILEO says it all:

"Welcome to the best in subscription, research databases and selected Internet sites. Funded by the Governor and the General Assembly of Georgia for the citizens of Georgia since 1995. "

Aren't you better than "just good enough"? Use GALILEO.


The password for home use of GALILEO is available to the citizens of Georgia from your librarian. Some resources noted in this BLOG are only available to NMTC patrons.