Drake Memorial Library

Holiday Shutdown

noreply@blogger.com (Drake Memorial Library) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 15:23:00 +0000

We close today at 4:30, and will be closed the next two weeks for the campus holiday shutdown. We certainly wish you all a pleasant and relaxing break, and look forward to seeing some of you when we reopen for the winter session on January 4th.

In the meantime do bear in mind that all our online databases will be available even during the shutdown When you come back, maybe we could arrange a tug of war, like in this 1963 picture :-)

Tour the library

noreply@blogger.com (Drake Memorial Library) — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 18:17:00 +0000

The college has a great new virtual tour, which includes a nice segment on the library. Have a look if you get a chance!

Library & Book lover themed gift ideas

noreply@blogger.com (Drake Memorial Library) — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 15:18:00 +0000

From "The Librarian in Black," a popular blog among librarians. Perhaps a pair of typewriter key earrings? :-)

Use the "Phronistery" to jazz up your vocabulary for those finals!

noreply@blogger.com (Drake Memorial Library) — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 14:45:00 +0000

In addition to the many dictionaries & thesauri that we have in print and online, here's a fun resource, the Phrontistery. What's a "phrontistery?" Look it up in the OED :-)

Library Hours - Finals Week

noreply@blogger.com (Drake Memorial Library) — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 14:33:00 +0000

Busy busy busy! Your blogger had to scurry around just to refill the printers and clear some jams at 9am this morning, lots of work going on now isn't there?! The library will be open regular hours for you through next Friday the 18th when we will close at 4:30pm. We are closed the following two weeks and will reopen Monday 1/4 @8am. Good luck with your term papers, finals etc., and feel free to ask us if you need any help.

Weird Books Room

noreply@blogger.com (Drake Memorial Library) — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 23:12:00 +0000

Well, no, we don't actually have such a room, but your blogger just read about one in the Times online. It's about a fun addition to the AbeBooks site, the big used book site online. The link above is to the UK page, but the US AbeBooks has a weird room too! Some fun reading ideas for over winter break perhaps :-)

(And no, sorry, we don't have the title pictured here, lol.)

Kindles at the library!

noreply@blogger.com (Drake Memorial Library) — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 18:33:00 +0000

If you've been curious about Amazon's Kindle e-book readers, you will be interested to know that the library now has some that are available for checkout (for faculty and staff only for now.) They have several books on them, various classics, and also some periodicals, for example the NY Times.

Ask about them at our circulation desk, or visit our E-reader guide.

Last 2 weeks - Keep our Research Guides in mind!

noreply@blogger.com (Drake Memorial Library) — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 15:16:00 +0000

We know it is busy this time of year for you, and we'd like to remind you of our extensive lineup of library research guides. There is a link to them on our web page, on the left hand side. They can save you a lot of time spent trying to figure things out on your own. Of course, you're always welcome to ask us for help too!

A new Sun-Maid Raisin Girl?!

noreply@blogger.com (Drake Memorial Library) — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 14:32:00 +0000

Yep, although she has remained the same for almost 100 years with only minor changes, the original Sun Maid Raisin Girl is now being replaced. Advertising history is quite an interesting topic, and we have many titles on the subject in our catalog. Business Source Premier is a good source for articles on the subject, as is Communication & Mass Media Complete.

If you're looking for ad images, there are a number of sites online with historic advertising images, like this Duke University page.

Drop in writing help

noreply@blogger.com (Drake Memorial Library) — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 17:06:00 +0000

The library is now offering drop-in writing help on Tuesdays 6-9, Wednesdays 7 – 9 PM and Saturday 12 – 5 PM. Our writing assistant is at a desk at the back of the main floor.

Best & Worst of...

noreply@blogger.com (Drake Memorial Library) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 15:51:00 +0000

Congressional committee web sites that is, at least according to this National Journal article. Lots of links to sites ranging from very informative to, well, maye not so informative sites ;-)

Welcome back!

noreply@blogger.com (Drake Memorial Library) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 14:52:00 +0000

Welcome back from the holiday break, we hope it was a pleasant and relaxing one for everyone. The library is back to our regular hours and we look forward to helping you these last few weeks of the semester.

Thanksgiving & the Wampanoag

noreply@blogger.com (Drake Memorial Library) — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:51:00 +0000

This week is the Thanksgiving break, and we wish everyone a pleasant and relaxing holiday. Once you come back there are only three more weeks to go of the semester! If you want to take a break from your usual reading and do something different, we have many books not only on the Mayflower and the "Pilgrims," but we also have books on the Native Americans who met them, for example the Wampanoag of Cape Cod and the Massachusetts coast. (The Wampanoag are still around by the way, here is the link to the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe's website.) Pictured here is Nanepashemet, a Wampanoag dressed in traditional garb.

O Canada?

noreply@blogger.com (Drake Memorial Library) — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 23:49:00 +0000

Looking to do some research involving our neighbors to the north? One of our databases in particular would be excellent, the Canadian Reference Centre. It includes articles from leading Canadian periodicals, as well as US and international titles, entries from reference books, photographs etc.

New homepage!

noreply@blogger.com (Drake Memorial Library) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 16:17:00 +0000

The library has a new homepage, to better integrate us and our IT colleagues. Your comments and suggestions are welcome! Comment here, or on the library Facebook page.

Faculty, please!

noreply@blogger.com (Drake Memorial Library) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 20:21:00 +0000

We sometimes see students in here who are required to print out a copy of something for everyone in the class - please, reconsider this, it uses up so much paper! We also see students printing out powerpoints from professors with black or dark backgrounds, and light color text - please, reconsider this too, it uses so much toner!

We do want to support your efforts to see students succeed here, but we also can't help but notice how many boxes of paper (each one = 5000 pages) and toner cartridges we go through each week. The expense is tremendous...

The Dollar, or the $

noreply@blogger.com (Drake Memorial Library) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 14:29:00 +0000

The U.S. dollar is currently rather weak, according to news stories lately. What does that mean really, where are the facts and statistics behind that? One place to look is on the Federal Reserve site, where they post their weekly foreign exchange rate table. For articles try Business Source Complete.

Curious about the symbol commonly used for the dollar, the "$" symbol? One story is that it comes from the numeral 8 with a line drawn through it, to denote the Spanish "pieces of eight," the common coin of early America. The Dept. of the Treasury has a fun page at "moneyfactory.gov" with lots of information about U.S. money, its history etc.

Recycling

noreply@blogger.com (Drake Memorial Library) — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 19:46:00 +0000

There have been some great displays up in the library lately about recycling. The U.S. government EPA has an informative web page about recycling, lots of statistics etc.

Sabi the army dog!

noreply@blogger.com (Drake Memorial Library) — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:32:00 +0000

If you like a good dog story, here's one for you that is all over the news. We actually have quite a few books about dogs in our collection, from children's books to titles on the natural history of dogs and so forth. If you were interested in the use of military or police dogs, Academic Search Complete and its companion Military and Government Collection would have lots of articles.

JSTOR tips

noreply@blogger.com (Drake Memorial Library) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 23:15:00 +0000

JSTOR can be a great resource, lots of full text articles from key scholarly journals in a wide range of fields. Like any database it has its particular points:

everything in JSTOR is at least 3 years old - but then it has every article in the journal before that, back to the beginning, sometimes 100+ years worth!

use the advanced search - the default basic search is way too broad - often going to advanced, changing the drop down from "full text" to article title, or abstract is a good plan.

every record is full text - but you can't just do file/print, that will only get you the first page - click on the .pdf link in the upper right, ok, then you get the whole thing.

Berlin Wall

noreply@blogger.com (Drake Memorial Library) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:10:00 +0000

Twenty years ago today, the unimaginable happened, and the Berlin Wall fell. Erected in 1961, it was a potent symbol of the Cold War. We have many books in our catalog on the Wall, and on the fall of the Soviet empire. Good databases for articles would include Academic Search, Historical Abstracts, and the NY Times Historical Archive. The photo here is a 1961 shot of the contstuction of the Berlin Wall from our AP Mulitmedia Archive.

ERIC

noreply@blogger.com (Drake Memorial Library) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 18:21:00 +0000

ERIC, or, "Education Resources Information Center," is an education resource of long standing. It has two sections, one is links to journal articles, the other is links to "ERIC documents." The "documents" are a mixed collection of reports from schools, papers submitted by educators etc. The best ERIC site to use is ours, because it hooks you up with the full text in the easiest way!

A $6,500 hobbit

noreply@blogger.com (Drake Memorial Library) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 18:26:00 +0000

The Hobbit that is, the book, as in a signed second edition recently sold on abebooks.com. You can see the list of the top 10 sales in AbeBooks for October here. Of course, there are copies of that book, and many others too in that site for far less; have a look sometime, it's an excellent umbrella site for used book dealers across the U.S. The library sometimes searches for out of print titles there.

Feral Detroit?

noreply@blogger.com (Drake Memorial Library) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 20:22:00 +0000

There was a set of articles in Newsweek, the Sept. 21st issue, about Detroit (you can read them in Academic Search.) There have been some articles online too, for example in CityJournal, and a blog has some quite startling pictures (one is shown here,) of how parts of Detroit are becoming "feral," or returning to wilderness.

AquaBrowser & Films on Demand

noreply@blogger.com (Drake Memorial Library) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:46:00 +0000

AquaBrowser is back up! Well, it was, lol, but now is back down again. It will be back, just use the classic catalog for now.

On another topic, let your blogger alert you to a fairly new resource of ours you may not be familiar with, FMG Films on Demand. This is the same group that we have bought many of our documentary videos from over the years, but now we have access to it online. For example, someone was just looking for video about Rosa Parks, the civil rights era heroine, to use in a class - we showed her how to access Films on Demand, which has a video about Parks, something the student could easily access in her classroom's PC.