Tips on note taking

Brainstorming by flickr user Marco Arment

Have you ever been sitting in class, furiously scribbling down every word the professor is saying and thinking to yourself “there HAS to be a better way to do this!”?

Brett & Kate McKay on the blog The Art of Manliness, offer some great study and note-taking tips: http://artofmanliness.com/2012/01/27/write-this-down-note-taking-strategies-for-academic-success/

So how do you know what the professor’s main points are? Pay attention to cues your professor gives off either consciously or subconsciously. Here are a few cues your professor may give during the lecture. Whenever you see them, it probably means he’s saying something important, so write it down.

• Anytime the professor says, “You need to know this,” or “This will be on the test.” Duh.
• Anytime the professor repeats himself.
• Anything the professor writes on the board or includes in a Powerpoint slide.
• Anything the professor repeats very slowly so that it can be taken down word for word.
• If your professor starts talking more quickly, or loudly, or with more emphasis.
• Watch for language that shows relationships between ideas. These sorts of points are often where professors get their exam questions from:
  • first, second, third
  • especially, most significant, most important
  • however, on the other hand
  • because, so, therefore, consequently

There are some great tips on the page, as well as the comments. What are some of your best study or note-taking tips? Share them here or on our Study Skills guide!

Charles Dickens- 200th Birthday Celebration!

February 7, 2012 marks the bicentenary of Charles Dickens.

According to a literary exhibit at Southern Methodist University, this Victorian author “was born February 7, 1812, and wrote more than 34 major novels until his death on June 9, 1870. Two hundred years after his birth, his literary legacy remains unparalleled. His 19,000 published editions ranks behind only the King James Bible and Shakespeare in number of editions published.”

From the exhibit catalog: “The world loves Charles Dickens because Charles Dickens loved the world. He was a man who would today describe an automobile ride with the same gusto as he described a mail coach ride; a broad minded man whose religion and philosophy embraced all of mankind, not merely the Englishman; a man who believed that foreigner and countryman were both works of the same Divine Creator; a man who believed and taught that all men were brothers. Although considered a Victorian, he was actually a man that transcended time periods. This is why the star of Dickens does not show any signs of waning.”

His books remain topsellers in the age of the Kindle.

Explore the myriad ways you can experience this great literature at JSRCC libraries- print books, online books, downloadable audio books, videos, streaming videos, and more!

New Workshop Registration page

We’ve launched a new way to find and register for workshops! When you click on the “Workshops” from the homepage, you’ll see a description of all of our workshops, as well as a calendar for upcoming events. As you can see from the red arrows below, you can click on either the name of the workshop for a list of all upcoming workshops of that kind, or click on the name of any individual workshop under the calendar.

Different ways to register

Registration Form

Once you’ve chosen a workshop to register for, fill out the form. Be sure to use a correct email, because if you need to cancel for any reason, you’ll be able to do so from the confirmation email you receive.

If you have any questions, please contact us!

Oldest book in the world?

Flood Story Tablet from Epic of Gilgamesh, by Flickr user atonal

In a previous post, we answered  a student’s question: “What is the oldest book in the library?”

Then we promised to find an answer to a related question: “What is the oldest book in the world?” This was not so easy! Many people might guess The Bible, or Homer’s Iliad.

Because archeologists are constantly unearthing new antiquities and developing new technologies for dating them, and because it is difficult to come to a consensus definition of “book”, this question has proved daunting. It seems that to be defined as a book, a piece of writing should have a binding and consist of pages or leaves. Does this leave out writings on ancient papyrus scrolls and clay tablets, the slabs of stone carvings, inscriptions inside ancient burial sarcophagi, and other strange and ancient methods of recording human thought?

Was the first book only the first one to be created on a printing press? What about earlier books printed by the Chinese using woodblock? What materials were used, and how were they handled? Was it truly possible to accurately date the book? Was it found in ancient Egypt, Sumer, China, or India? Maybe it was written in hieroglyphics, cuneiform, or other ideogram or pictogram?

According to many sources, the oldest book in the world is The Teachings of Ptah-Hotep, alternately known as The Maxims, The Instructions, or The Wisdom of Ptah-Hotep. This ancient Egyptian work, preserved both on clay tablet and papyrus, instructed people on how to live a virtuous life of civic duty and to reject selfishness and greed. Various creation dates of 2700-2200 BC, and even earlier exist.

Another exciting book discovery, untitled, has been housed in Bulgaria’s National Museum of History since 2003. Six pages of beaten 24 carat gold covered in Etruscan script make up this ancient book, estimated at about 2,500 years old. Discovered in an old tomb, it carries text and images of a horseman, a mermaid, a lyre, and warriors.

Yet another widely mentioned candidate is a Sumerian epic poem, The Epic of Gilgamesh, owned by the British Museum. It is written in cuneiform on clay tablets and dated at about the seventh century BC. Read the astounding story of its discovery in The Buried Book: The Loss and Discovery of the Epic of Gilgamesh, at JSRCC libraries.

The Chinese have their I Ching, or Book of Changes; the Indians have the Hindu Vedas; and then there are the Sutras, ancient writings of both Hindu and Buddhist cultures.

You can see the problem in answering this question. Maybe you have come across some interesting candidates for this honor yourself…please post and share them here!

New trial database: Films on Demand

The library has arranged a trial with Films on Demand from now till November 23^rd.  It is a web-based digital video delivery service that allows unlimited simultaneous access to streaming videos from Films Media Group.

Films on Demand offers the following features:

8,000 full length videos, 90,000 video clips, 4,600 hours of educational movies from Films Media Group.

• Unlimited, simultaneous access from on- or off-campus
• Faculty can embed clips or whole video in Blackboard
• Faculty can create personal playlists to assemble full-length videos and/or segments into a classroom presentation or to share with students for out-of-class viewing

To access the trial, please visit http://library.reynolds.edu/find/databases/trial.asp.  The access is only available from on-campus at this moment.  Off-campus access will be available after we officially subscribe to the service.  Your feedback on the service is highly appreciated!

How-To Books at the Library

A new display of How-To books at the Downtown Library.

And the winners are… !

This past weekend, the Library of Virginia announced their 14th annual Library of Virginia Literary Award winners, honoring both Virginia authors of  fiction and authors of non-fiction on a Virginia subject.

Most exciting for us here at JSRCC is the Library of Virginia Literary Award for Non-Fiction winner, Rebecca Skloot, for her book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, a wonderful piece of research and writing on the fascinating human story behind the development of the HeLa cell for cancer research. This book will be featured in our third Around the World Through Books event of the 2011-2012 year on Thursday, March 29th.

Other winners include Earl Hamner, who received the Lifetime Achievement Award, and is the beloved author of  The Homecoming; a Novel About Spencer Mountain.  Belle Boggs, another Virginia native, received the Emyl Jenkins Sexton Literary Award for Fiction for Mattaponi Queen: Stories, a beautifully written collection of short stories set on Virginia’s Mattaponi Indian Reservation and in the surrounding counties.

Jan Karon was the winner of the People’s Choice Award in Fiction for In the Company of Others, one of her many popular novels about Father Tim. In this recent book, he is off to Ireland for a 64th birthday celebration for his wife, Cynthia.

Read these award-winning books and more at your JSRCC Libraries!

Tonight at 5:00 PM – Around the World Through Books!

Around the World Through Books kicks off its first book discussion of the year on October 13 with Andre Dubus III’s House of Sand and Fog  – now is the time to get started reading the book!

“Colonel Massoud Amir Behrani was once a powerful and respected officer in the Shah of Iran’s air force. Having fled the country with his family, he works by day spearing trash on California highways and by night as a clerk in a convenience store while deceiving his family into believing that he has a loftier job. Now, willing to risk the modest remainder of his fortune to restore his family’s dignity, he buys a small house at a county auction, planning to sell it again for three or four times what he paid. But the house has been auctioned because of a bureaucratic error, and Behrani’s fragile plans are jeopardized when Kathy Nicolo, the owner of the house, begins to protest the sale. A recovering alcoholic and addict, Kathy is desperate to regain her only tie to stability—her home. In doing so, she enlists the help of Deputy Sheriff Lester Burdon, a married man who has fallen precipitously in love with her. As Kathy and Lester become obsessed with seeking justice by whatever means possible, the three characters converge on an explosive collision course.

Combining unadorned realism with profound empathy, House of Sand and Fog is a devastating exploration of the American Dream gone awry.”                                                                                                                                                    Knopf-Doubleday Reading Group Center website

Don’t miss the discussion of this book on Wednesday, October 13, 2011 at Parham Campus! The event will be held in The Gallery, Room 101 in Georgiadis Hall from 5:00-6:30 pm. (PLEASE NOTE EARLIER TIME) Refreshments will be served.

Copies of House of Sand and Fog are available for checkout  at all JSRCC libraries.

Around the World Through Books is a free community event sponsored by the Multicultural Enrichment Council at JSRCC.

Pay-for-Print system is Back

Much like the Terminator, our pay for print system promised to be back… and here it is. After a brief hiatus during our upgrade to Windows 7 system, Equitrac is back online.

If you had not yet purchased a print card, you will need to do so. The card itself costs $1 and is reusable; you will need to add anywhere from $1 to $10 to be able to make copies or prints. Be sure to keep your card in a safe place, away from your cell phone! The machines only take $1 and $5 bills, and cannot make change, so please come prepared!

Prices for black and white prints have been lowered to $.05 a side, and you will have the option to print in color for $.20 a side in the library.

Of course staff will be happy to help you figure out the process as you need it, but for more details and answers to frequently asked questions, please see the post on the Reynolds website: http://www.reynolds.edu/jsr_acs/printing.htm

Listen to audiobooks on your iPhone or other mobile device

Visit the library’s OverDrive Digital Media Collection web site to download and listen to audiobooks on your iPhone, Windows Phone, iPad, Android, Blackberry or other portable device.  This media collection includes over 1000 titles.  Fiction titles include:  drama, historical fiction, literature, mystery suspense, poetry, and science fiction & fantasy.  Nonfiction titles include: biographies, current events & politics, and history.

To download the OverDrive app for your mobile device visit the OverDrive Media Console web site.

If you need assistance on checking out audiobooks from the OverDrive collection or downloading audiobooks on your mobile device, contact the Reference Desk.