Open Library Book Project

A recent Wired Campus article from the Chronicle of Higher Education provides an update on Open Library, a massive project to create and maintain a public access information clearinghouse on ALL the world’s books.  The project is being developed by the Internet Archive’s  Open Content Alliance.  The alliance “aims to build a universally accessible and publicly editable directory of all books” – a wiki site that will integrate: publisher and library catalogs, reader reviews, and links to retailers. As far as the page layout design of full-view books, members of the Open Content Alliance feel they have Google Book Search beat – their custom-built book viewer tool simulates flipping through book pages. 

The official site won’t be available till October but you can view their demo site.   Let us know what you think.  Is it a project that is worthy of investing time and money in or is it too ambitious a  project?

Faculty Information Needs in an Online Environment

An interested article from the July/August issue of Educause Review, The Changing Information Services Needs of Faculty, highlights results from a survey conducted in 2006 to assess the attitudes and perceptions of academic collection development librarians and faculty towards information services in the electronic environment.  Let us know what you think about this transition away from print and your needs in finding materials online.

New Quick Reference Resource – Try it!

The library has a trial subscription to the Credo Reference database which includes access to 275 online reference titles.  Get quick answers and facts from a variety of dictionaries and encyclopedias on:

art	biography	business
food	geography	history
language	law	literature
medicine	music	philosophy
psychology	religion	science
social sciences	technology

Many articles also include images as well as audio & video files.  Try it out and let us know what you think!  From the Credo Reference login screen type the following:

• username: user@reynolds.edu
• password: trial

Recommended Readings for July

Check out our Recommended Readings list of new books for July.  You can also check out our complete list of New Titles for July as well as our Recommended Readings and New Titles lists from previous months. 

Privileges Offered

Sometimes we take for granted what services our libraries provide.  Everyone knows that libraries provide a place where books, periodicals, videos and other materials can be accessed without any cost.  However, your library may not have all the items that you need.

Even though your library may not own an item they can usually obtain that item for you by using Interlibrary Loan.  Interlibrary Loan is a cooperative agreement among libraries to lend to one another.  It allows people to access materials that would otherwise be unattainable.  At JSRCC this is a service provided to you for free.  The only time we charge for borrowing is when the lending library charges.  We try to borrow from institutions that lend for free.  As stated in the article written for the Chronicle of Higher Education, What Goes Around, this is not a service offered at all institutions of higher learning.

So take advantage of this wonderful service that is provided to you by JSRCC libraries.  You can request materials using this form.