Social Networking Platform for Academia

Andrew’s article from Wired magazine, “Don’t Tell Your Parents: Schools Embrace MySpace,” provides an overview on Elgg, an open source social networking platform specifically designed for the academic community.  Elgg allows personal learning environments — “mashup spaces comprising del.icio.us feeds, blog posts, podcast widgets — whatever resources students need to document, consume or communicate their learning across disciplines.”

Social Networking and Net Generation Students

Social networking technologies such as Facebook, YouTube, Wikis, LiveJournal, Flickr, and MySpace.com provide a new avenue for improving connections and communication among the campus community but they can also present a challenge. The Educause Review article, Social Networking Technologies: A Poke for Campus Services, offers advice on investigating possible opportunities for incorporating Web 2.0 technologies into campus services.

Information Literacy Update

Andrea L. Foster’s article, Information Navigation 101, from the Chronicle of Higher Education, discusses various views on information literacy and how colleges and universities are incorporating information literacy into their curriculum.

National Library Week, April 15-21

Celebrate National Library Week, April 15-21, by visiting us or your local public library!  Sponsored by the American Library Association, National Library Week is celebrated each April at libraries across the country, in honor of the contributions made by libraries and library staff in schools, campuses, and communities.  Many libraries host special events in connection with this week, which was first celebrated in 1958.  See what your library has to offer — it’s much more than just books, these days.

Find Statistics Fast

Don’t know where to find statistical information on a specific topic?  Use the library’s online Statistics guide to locate statistics quickly and easily.   Find international, national and regional statistics on a wide variety of topics including crime, economics, education, health, labor, public opinion, and transportation.  To access the guide from the library’s home page, click on Subject Guides, then click on Statistics.  Here is just a sampling of resources available from the guide:

• American FactFinder
• Bureau of Labor Statistics
• Consumer Price Indexes
• National Center for Education Statistics
• National Center for Health Statistics
• State & County QuickFacts
• Statistical Abstract of the United States
• Uniform Crime Reports
• World Almanac
• World Factbook

For more information on this guide or assistance in locating statistical resources, please contact the Reference Desk.

Are print books a thing of the past?

Check out an interesting article on digitization and the future of books from a recent issue of Economist magazine – Not Bound by Anything.

April: National Poetry Month

The Academy of American Poets sponsors National Poetry Month each April. Sign up here to get a poem-a-day emailed to you for the rest of the month. Stop by the Parham Campus library circulation desk for a free poetry-related bookmark. Spout off a little random poetry!

Can you identify the poet in the picture to the right?

Research Art, Music, Medicine, & Everything!

The librarians are excited to announce four new databases to make life easier for researchers, including the coveted LexisNexis. Parham Campus Library Coordinator Hong Wu provides descriptions for each new online tool:

Medline with Full Text – Provides full text for nearly 1,200 journals on a broad range of medical topics relating to research, clinical practice, administration, policy issues, and health care services. Some of the full text coverage dates back to 1965.

LexisNexis Academic – Provides full-text documents from over 6,000 news, business, legal, medical and reference sources, including regional, national and international newspapers, broadcast transcripts, U.S. and international company financial information, market research, industry reports, SEC filings, U.S. Federal and state case law, codes, regulations, law reviews, patents, Shepard’s Citations for all U.S. Supreme Court cases back to 1789, plus polls and surveys from the Roper Center, biographies and country and state profiles.

 Grove Art  – Comprises the full text of The Dictionary of Art, edited by Jane Turner (1996, 34 vols) and The Oxford Companion to Western Art, edited by Hugh Brigstocke (2001). Includes over 3,000 thumbnail art images and line drawings in the text of articles. Links to searchable image databases and editorially selected links to over 40,000 art images on museum and gallery web sites around the world.

Grove Music  – Comprises the full text of The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (London, 2001), The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, edited by Stanley Sadie (London, 1992), and The New Grove Dictionary of Jazz, second edition, edited by Barry Kernfeld (London, 2002).  Through a partnership with Sibelius notation software, over 500 of Grove’s musical examples are now available in sound as well as notated examples.

From off-campus you can access these databases with your MyJSRCC login information. Remember to log out of databases when you finish if there is a “Log out” or “Exit” option.