Black History Month

The month of February is when black history is celebrated, and the library has many resources to help you research black history. But what about the history of Black History Month, who started it and when?

It was started much longer ago than you might think, by Carter G. Woodson, in 1926. As Woodson said, "Those who have no record of what their forebears have accomplished lose the inspiration which comes from the teaching of biography and history." Woodson himself had a fascinating career, which you can learn about here, and the library staff could help you find books and articles by and about him. (Hint - look him up in our catalog!)

Academic Search Premier tip #1

Many of you may have used Academic Search to look for articles in journals, magazines and newspapers. It is an excellent database, or site, to start almost any research, but did you know that once there you can add in other sites to your research?

Just click on the "Choose Databases" tab at the top of the page and you'll get a long list of other databases you can check off and after clicking on "Continue," search 2, 3 or more databases at once.

For example, doing health research? Add in CINAHL Full Text Plus. Education research? Add in Education Research Complete. For PE, add in SportsDiscus. A psych assignment? Check PsychArticles. There's lots more, have a look sometime.

(Academic Search is found by clicking on "Find Articles" on the main library web page.)

MetroCenter & Claude Bragdon

"Mathematics is the handwriting on the human conciousness of the very Spirit of Life itself." Or so said Claude Bragdon, Rochester area architect who built a building for the Chamber of Commerce that today is the college's MetroCenter building.

Not only an architect, Bragdon was a stage designer and philosopher, interested in the occult and New Age philosophies of the early 20th century, in particular in the existence of the fourth dimension, and reincarnation. If you're in MetroCenter sometime look up at the ceiling on the ground floor and notice the elaborate plaster reliefs high up, symbols of infinity.

You can learn more about Bragdon at this Rochester Public Library site. His autobiography, "More Lives Than One" is readily available at area libraries and through our inter-library loan service (Drake Library does not have a copy.)

File City and File Saving News

FileCity, the college temporary file storage spot, crashed this month. The server has been rebuilt, but unfortunately all files on the server were lost. We are sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.

When you are working in the library, or anywhere, do save your files regularly. FileCity is only intended as a temporary storage site. More secure, long term filesaving options are to email the file to yourself as an attachment, save to a portable device like a jump drive, and save to the hard drive on your own PC or laptop.

Warm this winter, isn't it?

They say it has to do with El Nino, but you may well wonder what an El Nino is! Well, try the Weather Almanac article in our Gale Virtual Reference collection, located on our Reference page.


Take a look too at the government weather service's El Nino Theme page, which has both articles as well as graphics like the one at left.

Happy New Year!

Ever wonder where that whole thing with the ball dropping in Times Square comes from? It's an interesting story actually, and this site describes it.

Welcome for winter session, those of you enrolled for that, and we look forward to seeing the rest of you at the beginning of spring semester, January 22!