Dollar's dive?

Lots of news lately about the value of the dollar, the U.S. economy and so on. Want stats on the value of a dollar? The Federal Reserve has a web page with many links for detailed lists of the value of a dollar.

And of course there would be many excellent resources off the library web page in our Article/Databases section to find articles on the US economy. One excellent place would be Business Source Premier, or the Wall St. Journal, both available online in our Articles/Databases page.

Wireless laptops in the library

If you didn't know, you can use your wireless laptop in the library. The reception is pretty good throughout the building, with the exception of one or two spots. To access the wireless service you'll just need to sign in with your Net ID and password, the same as you use on lab PCs.

You can also print from your laptop. You'll just need to download a bit of software from the campus ITSS page. Wireless print jobs get printed out at printer #4, the printer at the back of the main floor, back where the movies and TVs are.

Getting help

The semester is moving along, and many of you, students and faculty, are getting busier and busier. If you're busy with research, and have questions like:

• Where do I find articles on __________?
• How do I find the full text of the article I want?
• I can only find a couple books on _____ in the catalog, are there more somewhere?
• I need statistics on ______, where can I find them?

Don't be shy about asking a librarian for help! That's part of our job, you are most definitely not "bothering" us. We wouldn't work here if we didn't enjoy helping people, indeed, for many of us that is the highlight of our jobs.

Talk to us in person at the reference desk (One of us is there until 1:45am Sunday-Thursday!) Call us at 395-2760. IM us at drakeref. Email us at adrake@brockport.edu. Set up a one on one appointment for more extensive help. All this information can be found by clicking on the Ask A Librarian or Chat link on our web page.

School safety and discipline

In light of the recent tragic shootings on school campuses, this weeks issue of CQ Researcher seems very timely. The issue is titled Discipline in Schools: are zero tolerance policies fair?

Oh, what is CQ Researcher? It is one of our online reference databases or sites, similiar to our online encyclopedias. Every week there is a new issue, covering some current topic of the day. Each issue is a 20 page report, written in a factual, objective way.

CQ Researcher can be a great way to get started doing research. Each report gives an overview of the topic, background history, names of key players, dates, statistics (it often has very helpful charts) and much more.

Google Scholar

Once in awhile a student or professor asks about Google Scholar, wondering how useful it is and so forth. Maybe the best answer is that it is still early days yet for Google Scholar and that time will tell. (If you don't know what it is, Google Scholar is a Google search site that focuses on articles, books...)

One basic factor here is the availability of the actual articles, the full text, that many of you want to be able to find. There isn't nearly as much of that in Google Scholar as there is in, say, Academic Search. Why not? Because publishers don't care to post their literature in free sites; they much prefer to sell it to libraries!

Another problem with Google Scholar is that it doesn't do some simple and helpful things, like present results with the most recent first. Academic Search and similar databases libraries offer do this sort of thing as a matter of course.

On the other hand, librarians do understand that when people are presented with a long list of resources, without a lot of information as to which to use, people obviously can find navigating their way around frustrating. It isn't helpful either that each site is different from the one before!

So where will it all lead? There are different opinions, but certainly libraries, and Google, are working to make things as simple and user friendly as they can be!

Black History Month

It's Black History Month, and library staff have set up a nice display of books related to the month. Stop by and have a look, they're on your left as you come in, by the circulation desk. Another option to celebrate Black History would be to go to the Library of Congress' online display.

Pictured here, from the Library of Congress' display, is Congressman Major Owens, who among other accomplishments started his career as a librarian!

Climate changes

Interested in the ongoing debate about climate changes and global warming? In addition to the article literature in library resources like Academic Search, ScienceDirect and so forth, there is a useful web site with many good links.

Have a look at http://climatedebatedaily.com/ sometime!

Finding articles, getting that full text...

When you're using Academic Search or one of our other sites, if the entire article or document is not right there to print out, a button appears that you can click on to see if the item is full text in some other resource we have etc. That button is getting a new, brighter, hopefully more eyecatching look, as shown here.

As always, if you have any questions about how to track down an item, is it online somewhere, or in the building, or does it have to be gotten through inter-library loan, don't be shy about asking us for help, either in person or via chat or email.

RocDocs!

Looking for information about the Rochester region? Try RocDocs, the set of databases at the Democrat & Chronicle web site. (You can also just go to the D&C web site and click on databases in the left hand column.)

All sorts of useful sites to look through there, for example a database of local hazardous waste sites, new businesses, teacher rankings and much more.

The "card catalog"

Remember the old card catalogs? They're a thing of the past now, we eliminated ours about 20 years ago. But we do still have a catalog, it justs resides online now, not in hundreds of drawers filled with paper cards.

Click on Books & Media on our home page, and you can find out what books, magazines, journals, movies etc. we have here. If we have it physically here in the main building, or at one of our branch locations, it's in the catalog!

Academic Search Premier tips

Many of you already use Academic Search Premier. It's the largest, general purpose site we have for journal, magazine and newspaper articles. You can of course search it for articles, and print off the ones you like as you see them (or e-mail them to yourself, or save them to your PC.)

But, did you know that there is also a "folder" option? When you're in Academic Search, (or it's related sites, like Business Search etc.), look at the upper right of the page for the word "folder." Click on it and if you haven't used it before sign up for this free option. You can save articles there, and they will be there the next time you sign back in, even if you logged off or are on a different PC.

It's a preference thing, maybe you do like to print them as you see them, but this way if you like you can store them up and then go through them later!