Writers’ Strike–doesn’t it make you want to turn off the TV?

(We are playing with the ability to use polls and surveys. This is our first attempt. See how you like it!)

Does the writers’ strike affect how much you have been reading lately?

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Recommended Readings & New Titles for January

Check out the library’s Recommended Readings for January as well as our current list of New Titles in the Library.  If you would like to suggest a purchase for the library, please click here to make your suggestions.

Brainstorm: The Value of Community Colleges

“With all the talk about the affordability of attending college, and the recent initiatives by some of America’s best-endowed universities to enhance their accessibility to people from all walks of life, including those who fall between the poles of rich and poor socio-economically, a random piece of data caught my eye the other day.”  Check out the data that has put Stephen Joel Trachtenberg into thought and join him and many others in the debate of the value of community colleges at http://chronicle.com/review/brainstorm/article/?id=146&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en.

What happened to InfoTrac?

If you can’t find the Infotrac database from our library’s Research Databases A-Z list, that is because it changed it’s name from InfoTrac OneFile to General OneFile.  Gale Cengage Learning, the company that owns General OneFile as well as other InfoTrac databases, has gone through quite a few name changes in the past year and this has confused students and faculty as well as our own library staff.  Our two most popular and comprehensive multidisciplinary databases from Gale include:

• Academic OneFile (contains more scholarly articles)
• General OneFile (contains more popular articles)

To see a complete list of all Gale (InfoTrac) databases the library offers access to, click here.  To access these databases from the library’s web site, following these steps:

1. From the library’s homepage at http://www.reynolds.edu/library, click on the Popular List option under Research Databases A-Z.
2. When the Popular List web page appears, click on Thompson Gale from the column on the right.
3. When the Gale Databases screen appears, scroll down to review all the Gale database descriptions. 
4. Click on any database name to search a particular database.  If you leave all the databases from the top half of the list check marked, you can search all these databases at the same time.

For more information or assistance in using any of the Gale databases, please contact the Reference Desk.

Search WorldCat from Facebook or Anywhere on the Web

Books, videos, downloadable audiobooks . . . if it’s in a library near you, these plug-ins let you find it in WorldCat no matter where you are on the Web. 

The Facebook Application gives you access to WorldCat searches and user-created lists from personalized pages within your Facebook account. The application includes a Home screen with WorldCat search box, as well as quick links to WorldCat searches based on topics listed in your Facebook profile as personal interests.

The application includes a:

• built-in, advanced WorldCat search.
• panel that allows users to invite other Facebook friends to install WorldCat.
• Something to Read panel that displays books recently added to WorldCat lists.
• Favorite WorldCat Lists panel where users track their own lists or those of other WorldCat users.

You can also search WorldCat from anywhere on the web using browser plug-ins for both Internet Explorer and Firefox.

Click here for details.

Google – White Bread for the Mind?

In a recent Times Online article, Tara Brabazon, a professor at the University of Brighton, calls Google “white bread for the mind.”  Brabazon “believes that easy access to information has dulled students’ sense of curiosity and is stifling debate. She claims that many undergraduates arrive at university unable to discriminate between anecdotal and unsubstantiated material posted on the internet.”  Brabazon also states, “We need to teach our students the interpretative skills first before we teach them the technological skills. Students must be trained to be dynamic and critical thinkers rather than drifting to the first site returned through Google.”  Brabazon’s students are banned from using Wikipedia or Google for research in their Freshman year. 

Magnus Linklater, a columnist for The Times, provides a counter argument in a Times Online article, accusing Brabazon of snobbery as he states “Curiosity, it seems, can only be stimulated by trawling library shelves or by shelling out substantial amounts of money.”

Who’s argument do you agree with?  Please post your comments and let us know what you think. 

Black History Month

 The Black History month is approaching quickly and will be celebrated in February. The Encyclopedia Britannica created a guide for the observance of Black History Month. The Guide to Black History is rich in biographical information on promiment African-Americans and traces the experiences and achievements in the United States and elsewhere. Check out this most amazing guide and research the lives of African-American who have made special contributions to American life and society

The Library of Congress Shares Over 3,000 Photos on Flickr

The Library of Congress has put more than 3,000 photos out of their 14 million prints, photographs and other visual materials on Flickr.  No copytright restrictions are known to exist with theses images.  Feel free to check out these stunning images at http://www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress/. 

Information Seeking Behavior of the “Google Generation”

A recent Chronicle of Higher Education article summarizes the findings of a British study conducted by the Joint Information Systems Committee that studied the information seeking habits of those born after 1993.  Some of the key highlights of this report:

• Young people don’t develop good search strategies to find quality information.
• They might find information on the Internet quickly, but they don’t know how to evaluate the quality of what they find.
• They don’t understand what the Internet really is: a vast network with many different content providers.

The report also addresses the implications and challenges for the future role of libraries and librarians.  To review the full report, click here.  Please post your comments and let us know what you think.

Google, Inc. revs up D.C. lobbyist staff

This article offers some thought-provoking forecasts for Google’s new ventures in telecom:

Auletta, Ken. The Search Party: Google squares off with its Capitol Hill critics. The New Yorker. January 14, 2008.