Busy bees

A Short History of the Honey Bee [SF 523.7 .I45 2009] by E. Readicker-Henderson. History can be a recitation of facts in chronological order. This history reads like a story weaving between the authors childhood, Greek myths, Egyptian pharaohs, Medieval authors and 19th century scientists until the author comes to the current science of beekeeping. Photographs by Ilona are sprinkled liberally amidst the 160 page book.

I searched GALILEO for suburban beekeeping - peer reviewed, full text- but retrieved no hits. I tried again and used only the term beekeeping and full text. This turned up 125 articles in Academic Search Complete and 198 articles in Research Library.

I think I might like a bee hive in my back yard!

Get the current password to use GALILEO from your Georgia librarian.



-kls

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

At the Sirsi Users group meeting held at the Robert Woodruff library at Emory, we had time to explore the library a bit during breaks. Just outside the meeting room was a lovely display of new books, both fiction and non-fiction. The books were displayed in a way to entice the browser to try something just for fun.

I selected The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. I had just enough time during the breaks to get drawn into the story:

January 1946: writer Juliet Ashton receives a letter from a stranger, a founding member of the Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. And so begins a remarkable tale of the island of Guernsey during the German occupation, and of a society as extraordinary as its name.

I found myself at page 90 by the end of the day. I wondered if my public library would have the book?

I went to GALILEO
...clicked on Databases A-Z
.....selected W
.......and scrolled to WorldCat
.......... I searched for Guernsey literary
The search pulled up 38 records for books by this title.

I selected the first record (over 2000 libraries hold this title).
I clicked on Libraries Worldwide that own the item. The Georgia libraries are at the top of the list in alphabetical order.
I scrolled to my public library and clicked on the link. The public library catalog opened and I could see which branches had copies on the shelf.

Voila. My local branch had the book. I went the next morning and borrowed The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.

If my public library had not owned a copy, I could have clicked on the Borrow this item from another library link and filled in the Inter Library Loan form which would have started the process to borrow the book from another library.

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


- kls

Louis Riel

Today is the anniversary of the death of Louis Riel. Riel was a political figure in Canada during the late 1800's. Riel was a leader of the Metis, a people of Canada who have a mix of French and First Nations (Native American) heritage.

Riel is considered the father of the Manitoba, being associated with a provisional government in that province as part of a rebellion against the Canadian government. He was later exiled to the United States, only to return and be executed for his part in a second rebellion in 1885.

The legacy of Riel is a bit complicated. He is considered a hero to French Canadians, particularly in Quebec, and has been associated with the Quebec movement for independence. Riel was actually elected to the Canadian Parliament twice for the riding (district) of Provencher, which is still a riding in southeastern Manitoba. Bills have been introduced by MP's (member of Parliament) over the years to call for an official pardon of Riel, but none have passed in the House of Commons.

There are several good articles on Riel available in Credo Reference. These articles are entries from various reference books and are considered reliable sources of information that you could use when writing a report or reference paper. If you need information to access Credo Reference off-campus, please contact your Chattahoochee Technical College campus library staff.

JWF

Links to Louis Riel, Metis, and Manitoba are from Encyclopedia Britannica in GALILEO. Get the password to use GALILEO at home from your Georgia librarian.

Triskaidekaphobia

Today is Friday the 13th. Except in Australia, which by the time I write this it is Saturday the 14th I should think.

Triskaidekaphobia is the term given to the fear of the number 13. This is a fear common in North America and Europe. This fear has morphed into a fear of the date Friday the 13th. Fear of Friday the 13th has given rise to a slasher film franchise, which subsequently created higher sales of ice hockey goalie masks (but that's another story).

A search for triskaidekaphobia in Galileo yields 4 results in Academic Search Complete and 4 results in Research Library. The results span all the way back to 1980, and most of the articles deal with the psychological aspects associated with the number 13 and its perceived lack of luck.

And in unrelated news, the people of Sweden voted to join the European Union on this day in 1994.

JWF

Opening a business

I've heard pundits say real job growth is created by small businesses. How do you start your own business and grow it enough to hire a few folks who then help it grow even more?

Chattahoochee Technical College library subscribes to the ProQuest database Entrepreneurship.

Search worldwide publications and multi-media related to the topic of Entrepreneurship. Intended to bridge theory with practice, the Entrepreneurship database covers a wide spectrum of resources useful to educators, researchers, students and practitioners. Content ranges from the scholarly - including journals, dissertations, working papers and conference proceedings - to a full toolkit of practical guides, templates, forms, sample business plans, and tips from successful entrepreneurs.

The Basic (opening) page has Start-up tools links [right side toward the middle of the screen] to the tools mentioned in the description of Entrepreneurship.

The third tab [Data & Reports] offers options for searching for reports. I tried Pizza Delivery as my search term. I clicked on Articles (profiles/case studies). Over 61,000 articles were pulled up. I noticed the default Boolean term is OR. That makes the search huge. I went to advanced search. I entered pizza delivery as a general search AND Case studies as a subject term. That narrowed the field to 6 articles. I was intrigued that most of the articles are from the 1990's. Entrepreneurship suggests other search terms. One suggestion was case studies AND Pizza. This search turned up 19 articles - with three from 2006-2008.

Check Entrepreneurship out. See what ideas and lessons learned by others, you can gather to make the leap into being a small business owner who creates jobs.

The password to use Entrepreneurship at home is available through your CTC campus librarian.



-kls

Long distance users

At the Sirsi users group, Steven Abram noted that our military can use their public library resources from overseas! That had not occurred to me.

This morning when I was at my local library, I noticed the down loadable audio books poster. I asked how one used them? The instructions are online- you do need to create an account with the library. The books are checked out for 7, 14 or 21 days. They can be downloaded to your computer, mp3 player or i-pod!

If my local library offers this - I'll bet many others offer this great way to listen to books. Remind your military friends and family they can use their public library card even while overseas. I'll bet you could get the GALILEO password for them too....

-kls

Bob Kalsu

Bob Kalsu was the only professional football player to be killed while serving in the US Military during the Vietnam War (although not the only player to serve). Kalsu had played one year for the Buffalo Bills, then in the American Football League, before being sent to Vietnam. Kalsu's story first gained large attention in the media through a piece produced by NFL Films in 1999.

Information on Bob Kalsu is available through Galileo. Once in Galileo, click on the yellow 'search' button. Type 'Bob Kalsu' as your search term and select the full-text option. You will then get four results, two from Academic Search Premier and two from Research Library. Perhaps the best result is the one for the 2001 article from Sports Illustrated.

JF

Finding aids

How easy is it to find information on a web site? The Chattahoochee Technical College Library site is going through an upgrade. Check out the left column with the hints and tips on using the resources available to CTC students!

If you're a visual learner the How Do I... videos will be most helpful. They are short and sweet. Just enough information to get you on your way to successfully using a resource.

We're doing our best to help our students succeed not only in school but as life long learners!


-kls

What's new?

Yesterday I talked about the new books arriving at the North Metro campus. How would you find out what's new in the collection if I didn't tell you?

The catalog has a link just for NEW BOOKS [upper left corner]. When you click on NEW BOOKS a list of the campus libraries is revealed. You have a choice of a specific campus, all new books and new electronic books.The system is set to run the new books report each Friday evening at 9pm.

Now you know how you can find out what is new on the shelves of the Chattahoochee Technical College libraries.


-kls

the Berlin Wall

Today is the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The Berlin Wall separated communist controlled East Berlin from West Berlin, which was under democratic rule.

An oft remembered event related to the wall's end is the singing performance of American television actor David Hasselhoff.



Hasselhoff, quite the star in Germany and Austria, is best known in the States for his early 1980's work on the tv series Knight Rider and the 1990's lifeguard drama Baywatch. A few weeks after the wall's collapse, Hasselhoff was invited to perform near the wall, singing a collection of his musical tunes, songs that never really caught on in America, but were very popular in Europe. The singer's attire, a self-illuminating jacket, is remembered as much as is his performance. Some commentators have even suggested a reason the East Berliners poured into West Berlin in 1989 was to get their hands on copies of Hasselhoff's music.

JF

Potager

The new book orders are starting to arrive! It feels like Christmas to open the boxes and see what we've ordered.

Timber Press books have amazing photographs. The book that caught my eye was Design the New Kitchen Garden : an American Potager Handbook [SB 324.3 .B38 2006] by Jennifer R. Bartley. I admit to not knowing what 'potager' meant.

A potager garden is the French counterpart to the English kitchen garden, but with an emphasis on growing vegetables.

This seems to tie into the slow food movement - getting fresh food close to home. The potager brings the food right outside the kitchen door yet seems to provide the visual appeal of a formal garden. The gardens that inspired Ms. Bartley are Renaissance potager gardens (Chapter 2). They remind me of Williamsburg gardens, formal yet useful.

If you don't have the space or energy to create a formal potager, Ms. Bartley offers a section on container potager gardening (pg 186). Her suggestions for container gardening might meet the need for fresh food, right outside the kitchen door!


-kls

What do you think?

The folks at GALILEO really want your opinion:

How useful have you found the GALILEO Toolbar? Would you like to search GALILEO from your mobile device? How would you improve GALILEO? Your answers and your students' and patrons' answers to these questions matter.

When you open the GALILEO website today, you will see an invitation to participate in a the annual user survey. Don't miss this chance to provide your feedback on your experience with GALILEO and to enter the drawing to win an iPod Nano. Be sure to encourage your users to complete the survey to be entered into the drawing. The survey will be conducted November 9-15, 2009. Just click on the GALILEOUser Survey link on the GALILEO home page to participate.

Thank you for taking the time to contribute your opinions and ideas and for encouraging others to participate.

-kls

Another chance

Here's another opportunity to express your opinion:

The annual user survey offers you the chance to sound off on your experience using GALILEO and the chance to win an iPod Nano. The link to the survey will appear on the GALILEO website Monday, November 9—Sunday, November 15.

Questions on the survey are designed to measure the satisfaction and identify the issues experienced by everyone who uses GALILEO. To help ensure a broad representation of users, please encourage others to participate, including students, teachers and faculty, parents, your colleagues, and all your patrons.

Your feedback and that of the end users you work with is important, so add a note to your calendar or to-do list to look for the survey link on the GALILEO home page next week. If you have any questions or need more information, please use GALILEO's Contact Us feature or contact OIIT Customer Services at helpdesk@usg.edu.

Seventh Inning

Thanks to Britannica Blog for posting the Harpo Marx YouTube video "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" in honor of the World Series.

You can read about the World Series in GALILEO through NewsBank. CTC Library subscribes to this resource!

You may also peruse "Sports Illustrated" (back to 1992) in GALILEO.
..Select Journals A-Z
...type in Sports Illustrated
....Find it pulls up several versions of Sports Illustrated. Select one- notice which vendor has the magazine (Ebsco, ProQuest, Lexisexis).
Ebsco and ProQuest offer alerts and RSS feeds for magazines and searches!

There are a variety of ways to get the latest information. Don't limit yourself to a Google search.

-kls

Naked to the Bone

The information for x-rays in Credo Reference gave me the facts (Just the Facts, Ma'am). My interest was whetted and I wanted a bit more. A search in the CTC catalog turned up a fascinating history of X-rays in the 20th century - Naked to the bone [electronic resource] : medical imaging in the twentieth century by Bettyann Kevles [RC 78.7 D 53 ONLINE RESOURCE]. The best part is, the book is available 24/7 through NetLibrary.

From the Introduction:

On a warm summer afternoon in 1996, six middle-aged people sat around a conference table. It had been a long day and the men's ties lay limp on the backs of chairs while one of the women, her high-heeled shoes discarded nearby, wriggled her toes to restore circulation. ''That reminds me of Berlin in 1936," a man observed. "My mother used to take me to a shoe store where I put my feet under a fluoroscope to watch my bones." The group sat up, revived by nostalgia. They were all children again, recalling the same experience in Indianapolis, Bakersfield, Manhattan, Wellington, and Shanghai. The memory triggered grins at first, and moments later, the barefoot woman was the first to shudder. She was trying to estimate the quantity of radiation....

A little research is the impetus to life long learning!
This video walks you through creating your free account to use NetLibrary
Go to GALILEO
..Select Databases A-Z
...Select N
....Scroll to NetLibrary
......In the upper right corner select Create your free account

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

-kls

X-Rays

Today (Nov 4, 2009) is RAD TECH DAY at the North Metro Campus! You’re invited to stop by the RAD lab, room 221 in building 200 for “goodies and games” from 11:00am until 1:00pm. Our current RAD students will be there to answer any questions you may have about the program.

X-rays are a tool that I take for granted. My dentist uses X-rays to check the condition of my teeth and gums. My doctor uses X-rays to 'see' the broken bone in my arm. My doctor uses the mammogram to look for unusual features that might signal a cancer.

I don't know much about x-rays other than they are useful tools! A search in Credo Reference found over 4000 entries for "X ray" (put x ray in quotes or as x-ray to limit your search).

Credo Reference offers other ways to limit the search. Look at the left column which offers you links to search by entry types (articles noted as long or brief), media, person, and date published. Credo Reference is using Boolean logic to narrow the search for you with the links on the left.

I like the options offered by Credo Reference to narrow my search by clicking on a link. It's quicker. Yet, I think I have more control by using the search boxes and the And, Or, Not features of Boolean logic through the Advanced Search feature.

I accessed Credo Reference by going to GALILEO
...selecting Databases A-Z
.....selecting C
.......scrolling to Credo Reference

Try both options and see which one gives you more of what you are looking for. You get the current password to use GALILEO at home from your Georgia librarian.


-kls

Election Day

In many parts of the country, today is Election Day! By now you should feel pretty comfortable with the touch screen voting machines. However, if you need a refresher----



It's a beautiful day in the metro-Atlanta area neighborhood. No excuses not to exercise your right (and obligation) to participate in the democratic process.

-kls

The Discoveries

Alan Lightman wrote The Discoveries [Q 180.55 .D57 L54 2005] a science review of the 20th century.

Lightman outlines the intellectual and emotional landscape of each discovery, portrays the personalities and human dramas of the scientists involved, and explains the significance and impact of the work. In doing so, he explores such questions as how do scientists think, whether there are common patterns of discovery, the nature of creativity in science, which discoveries are accidental and which intentional, and whether the scientists are aware of the significance of what they have discovered. Finally, Lightman gives an exhilarating tour through each of the original discovery papers. In their own words, here are Einstein, Bohr, McClintock, and Pauling, grappling with the nature of the world. The Discoveries is an exploration into the process of scientific discovery and into the minds of the men and women who do it.

Mr. Lightman brings the familiarity of friendship to each scientists own words. It's a fascinating and enjoyable read!

-kls

Bones and more

Posters around the North Metro campus are filled with dancing skeletons to advertise the Rad Tech annual open house which will be held on the North Metro campus on Wednesday, November 4, from 11 to 1 in room 221.

The plethora of skeletons on view reminded me of the rollicking song, Dem Bones. While reading the lyrics (and humming the tune), I began to wonder about the scientific names for the bones.

Medical dictionaries are readily available online. I searched MedLine Plus for hip bone and quickly found

the large flaring bone that makes a lateral half of the pelvis in mammals and is composed of the ilium, ischium, and pubis which are consolidated into one bone in the adult -- called also innominate bone, os coxae, pelvic bone

I wondered if I might find a Medical Dictionary in GALILEO? Looking in Browse by Type and selecting Dictionaries did not reveal any medical dictionaries.

Going to Browse by Subject, selecting Medicine and Health, then Nursing and Allied Health, clicking on the tab Articles & Databases, scrolling down to Other databases in this category, I selected the Merck manual, which really is not a Medical Dictionary. A search for hip bone pulled up all sorts of diseases, treatments, etc but not the scientific name for the bone.

Checking Health Source : Nursing showed a Medical Dictionary link (4th tab from the left). I typed in hip bone, then selected hip bone from the list and the definition appeared....

the large flaring bone that makes a lateral half of the pelvis in mammals and is composed of the ilium, ischium, and pubis which are consolidated into one bone in the adult— called also innominate bone, os coxae, pelvic bone

To answer my question - yes, I can find a Medical Dictionary within a database in GALILEO. Not easily but it can be done!

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

-kls

Who has it?

Ebsco offers the option to show a link in NovelList that connects to the public WorldCat. When I've demonstrated the feature, the students eyes get wide with delight. The public WorldCat shows which library holds the book, how far that library is from the computer you're using, reviews, how to purchase the book, and what other books have been read by folks who read the book you're looking at.

What the public WorldCat does not offer is the option to request the book through inter-library loan. For that option, you need to go to GALILEO
...select Databases A-Z
.....select W
.......select WorldCat

This WorldCat is not as 'pretty' as the public WorldCat. The borrowing feature makes the clunky look acceptable. After you've searched for a title and found the one you'd like to read, click on the title. Scroll down a bit to the Availability section - see the link Borrow this item from another library? Select that link and complete the form. Make a note in Comments which campus you'd like the item delivered to. The request is sent to the main library. The Inter Library Loan assistant searches for a library to borrow the item from. Within ten days the item will be at the branch you noted for pick-up.

Knowing who has the book is important but knowing how to get the book delivered to your local branch - is priceless!

Ask your Georgia librarian what the current password is to use GALILEO at home.

-kls