Drake Memorial Library

It's a bird, it's a plane...

2012-01-30T10:41:00.001-05:00

It's the intrepid Kim Myers, (left) from Drake Library, ascending up in the cherry picker with a staff person at the University of Buffalo's remote storage facility! She and Charlie Cowling from Drake were there this past Friday to look at the book scanners they use. The facility itself is also quite interesting. It stores all the older bound journal volumes from the UB libraries, freeing up a tremendous amount of space for other purposes. The building was purpose built, with compact shelving, and many other features, such as the cherry pickers being guided via a wire embedded in the floor, helping to avoid crashes into the sides of the shelving!

The scanners they have are integrated with the library interlibrary loan software so when someone needs an article from one of these stored journals they simply put in a request, and the item is pulled, scanned and then emailed to them. A very practical and efficient answer to what to do with all those older bound journals, which do still have some interest, but also take up such room.

Get research help 24/7

2012-01-27T07:04:00.001-05:00

The library has extensive hours, and during those times you can ask one of us for help, either in person or online, by phone and so forth, but even as dedicated as we are, we still need to call it a day at some point :-) Our "Research Guides" however are always there to help you with your work. They range across most all the subjects and disciplines covered here at the College at Brockport. Each guide has sections on how to find articles, books and other resources appropriate to the field in question. You can rate resources too, and make comments, to help us better understand what works for you!

State of the Union Address(es)

2012-01-25T12:18:00.001-05:00

The State the Union Address that President Obama gave last night is the subject of many news articles and opinion pieces today, and whatever the writer's views, they all tend to take the giving of this address for granted, which is understandable, but one wonders, why do the presidents do this? Have they always? There's a great site online from the University of California, Santa Barbara, the American Presidency Project, that will help answer questions about the State of the Union Addresses, and it also has the full text of all of them, going back to the first one given by George Washington in 1790. It's such a great site that your blogger will add it to our Political Science research guide later today :-)

Getting help

2012-01-23T11:05:00.000-05:00

Welcome back for Spring Semester 2012! It was nice to have it quiet for a few weeks, but we are looking forward to this new semester and to working with you on your research, and helping in any other ways we can. Here's some tips for getting help:

Ask for help in person at the helpdesk on our main floor, to the right as you come in. We can help you there with both "library" questions, like do we have a certain book, or how to find articles, and with "IT" questions too, like getting a virus off a laptop, or receiving the campus email on your smartphone.
Chat with us live, email us, there's lots of ways to get help!

DIY RFID

2012-01-18T09:37:00.001-05:00

Clever DIY or do it yourself news piece from the Cornell Chronicle, about ornithology researchers using RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) tags to track the visits of birds to feeders. Apparently the RFID readers can cost up to $10,000, but a couple of handy ornithologists devised a way to build your own for less than $100! If you are interested in birds, we not only have many books in our catalog, and great article resources like BioOne and ScienceDirect, but we also have the Birds of North America database.

MLK documents online!

2012-01-16T11:34:00.000-05:00

Today seems most appropriate to post here that there is a wonderful collection of primary documents related to Martin Luther King online at the King Center. The documents range from telegrams to letters to hand written notes, all scanned in and accessible online.

Disney & WWII

2012-01-11T15:32:00.001-05:00

A mention of Disney and WWII came up recently of all places on the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) pages. Apparently during the war Disney designed a number of insignia for service unit patches, designs for aircraft art and so on. One of those insignia, which you can read about here, was for the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, a predecessor to today's NOAA and its NOAA Commissioned Officer Corps.

There are several interesting, and perhaps challenging to research, aspects of this blog post: art and WWII, the history of the National Weather Service etc. You might be pleasantly surprised though to see how much you can find on tricky things like this with the aid of a librarian!

WWII diary on Twitter!

2012-01-05T14:09:00.003-05:00

Your blogger ran across a curious example recently of a primary document in an article in the Telegraph. Private Ross Taylor was a British soldier captured in 1940 during the Battle for France, and after his capture he managed to retain a pocket diary he had with him. He kept his entries brief to make the diary last, and the diary, like Pvt. Taylor, survived the war and returned home to England. Taylor married his sweetheart and lived a long life, dying this past September at the age of 92. His grandson, who is now the keeper of the diary, realized one day in looking at it that each entry was no more, and often less, than a typical tweet on Twitter. He has now begun tweeting the diary from the @driverross account. Certainly the young soldier captured in France could never have imagined a world where his little diary would be "tweeted!"

Music in the library

2012-01-03T11:52:00.003-05:00

We do actually have music in the library, our Concerts at Noon program, but your blogger is thinking more of our information resources on music. While it has been many years since the college had a formal department of music, there are interdisciplinary programs and departments that offer music courses, and the library still acquires music related materials.

For example, recently in the news it was announced that folk singing legend Woody Guthrie's archives would be moved into a new center in his native state of Oklahoma. Well, if you're not sure who he was, or what he did, or if you just want to learn more about him, we have a lot for you to look at. There are a number of books, CDs and movies in our catalog relating to Woody Guthrie, and for articles sites like Academic Search and Project Muse would offer many excellent documents. See our research guide to music for more resources.

Happy Holidays from the Library!

2011-12-16T09:55:00.000-05:00

Best wishes to all for the holidays, we know it's been a busy fall for students and staff! Please note that we are closed the next two weeks, and then reopen for the winter session. You can see our schedule here. (Pictured here is the old "Normal School" library, ca1920.)

"Who invented electric Christmas lights?"

2011-12-14T11:45:00.000-05:00

A little fun history article on a common part of the holiday season from the Library of Congress; now next time a friend comments on a Christmas light display you can impress with your knowledge of their history :-) Pictured here is the National Christmas Tree in Washington D.C. in 1940. (This photo is from our Associated Press Multimedia Archive, a treasure trove of photos.)

Forgotten Bookmarks

2011-12-12T11:07:00.001-05:00

Many of us have had the experience of checking a book out from the library, or buying a used book, and finding something in it that some previous reader had used as a bookmark; an actual bookmark, a bus ticket, scrap of paper, photo... A recent article tells of a site where used bookdealer Michael Popek has posted some example of bookmarks found in books in his store (click here,) like this bookmark for an optometrist found in a 1938 title, Blood and Steel, by Bernhard Menne.

APA, MLA etc...

2011-12-09T09:39:00.000-05:00

This is paper writing time of course, and an important part of writing a paper is getting it into the proper style format. Depending on the class and the professor, you may need to use APA, MLA, University of Chicago or some other style. We have a Citations & Style Guides page that has online help for all major styles. Good luck and do feel free to ask for help if you need it!

Just before Pearl Harbor

2011-12-07T16:18:00.000-05:00

Something for Pearl Harbor Day, found while researching in the college archives. Marty Rogers, a long time professor of Recreation and Leisure, coach, and camping director at Brockport, started here in 1945. In a 1951 Stylus article about him, the following story was told. In the late 1930s, Rogers got a two year post at Roberts College in Istanbul Turkey. When his contract ended in the summer of 1941, he and his wife had a series of adventures trying to return to the U.S. due to wartime conditions. From Turkey they made their way into Russia, and from Russia to Japan, where they were followed closely by the police who apparently suspected them of being spies. They managed to get permission to travel to China, and from China obtained passage to the U.S., arriving home in November 1941, just a few weeks before Pearl Harbor!

Your tweets now saved for posterity...

2011-12-07T10:12:00.001-05:00

If you had been concerned about the long term preservation of your tweets from Twitter, fear not, the Library of Congress is on the job. According to this news item from the Federal News Radio the Library of Congress will be receiving Twitter's archives of public tweets, literally billions of of them. The news brings up something that is a huge issue for those concerned about history, namely how lasting are electronic records? We all have family letters or photographs from decades ago, but what about the emails you sent last year, or the digital pictures of your friends taken with your cell phone? Such things can easily be lost in the move from one digital site to the next, from existing formats to new...

The library: open early, close late!

2011-12-05T17:58:00.002-05:00

We know this week and next are busy for everyone what with the semester's time running out. So we want you to know that we are open long hours to provide a place to do that research, finish those papers and in general get the semester done. Our library hours are listed here. Please ask us if we can help you get things taken care of this last bit of the semester!

The Jungle Book and other "Juvenile" books

2011-12-01T14:02:00.000-05:00

One of us was asked last night if we have The Jungle Book, by Rudyard Kipling. We do, in several editions, and like all our books, it was easily found in our catalog. The only tricky part is that this book is in a group we call our "Juvenile" collection. This collection is quite large actually, totaling just over 18,000 items. It includes children's to young adult fiction and non-fiction, a handy collection of K-12 textbooks used in NY schools, and also some videos, CDs, models and more!

You can find the Juvenile Collection on the ground floor of the library, in the corner area where the copiers and quiet study room are located. There is a guide to the Juvenile Collection and its resources that you might like to make use of as well.

First business computer - in a tea shop?

2011-11-29T16:17:00.003-05:00

Yes, according to this article in the Telegraph, a British newspaper, the first computer developed for business purposes was built by the Lyons Company, which operated a chain of tea shops and manufactured a line of biscuits. An innovative company, in 1951 they built a computer to calculate the costs of their weekly bakery production run, a task that had been done by hand, by a large staff of clerks. Called "LEO," the enormous machine looks quite antique now, but it was a tremendous advancement in its time. There is a more technical article on it here.

You could find many articles on computing history in article databases the library offers, for example in Academic Search, Computers and Applied Sciences or ScienceDirect.

Finding more articles & books

2011-11-28T11:05:00.001-05:00

One interesting thing about research is that it's a case of the more you have, the more you can get. For example, if you can find even one good article on your topic, take a look at the list of references at the end of the article. After all, if the article itself is helpful, then probably some of the articles the author used will be of interest too! To find those articles you can use the Journals Listing from our Find Articles page. Just take the name of the journal, the date and so on from the reference list and check for it in that journals listing.

Another excellent resource can be the bibliography often found at the end of a book. Like the article you find helpful, a good book will likely have a bibliography at the end that will list the books the author used which you may well want to look for in our library catalog.

Of course, if you ever have problems tracking down any of these things, do feel free to ask us for help!

Planning for Thanksgiving

2011-11-22T15:37:00.001-05:00

If you're going to be home this week for the holiday keep in mind that you can access all your files if you put them in FileCity. When you log onto a campus lab PC FileCity is one of the "save" options. Otherwise just go to filecity.brockport.edu and log in. The library will be closed part of the time, but our article databases will be up 24/7! (Pictured here is a float from a 1950s Macy's Thanksgiving Parade.)

Downloading e-books from our catalog

2011-11-18T13:23:00.002-05:00

Quick help with downloading e-brary titles from our catalog:

Get to ebrary using the link from the Digital Collections page or by clicking to go to a title from the library catalog. Once there, you need to use an e-brary login to make the Download button appear.
Here is a link to the e-brary support site.
Selected pages or whole chapters can be saved to pdf for use on many devices including Kindles.
Or, Adobe Digital Editions can be used to download the entire title to many devices EXCLUDING Kindles.

Federal Government releases its first app

2011-11-16T15:12:00.000-05:00

Finally, the U.S. government is catching up with the app market, and has released its first one, a member directory to Congress. Click here to read about it, or download the app itself.

Old newspapers online

2011-11-15T15:34:00.003-05:00

Here's a site that provides access to more than 4.1 million searchable newspaper pages from 581 newspaper titles, published in 25 states and the District of Columbia between 1836 and 1922. The site is the National Digital Newspaper Program and it's a part of the American Memory site at the Library of Congress. Of course, the library has access to the NY Times Historical Database, which is the full text of the NY Times 1851-2007.

Library service desks 101

2011-11-14T18:17:00.002-05:00

As you come in the library the desk to your left, same side as the cafe, is the circulation desk where you check out books etc. The service desk to your right is the information desk. You can get help there with both "library" questions, like how to find articles etc., and "IT" questions, for example help with a laptop that has a virus.

Veterans Day

2011-11-11T13:11:00.002-05:00

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has a nice history of the observance of Veterans Day, and a video on their main page of today's instance of the annual ceremony of laying a wreath at the "Tomb of the Unknowns" in Arlington National Cemetery. The library has some books about this as well, including Nicholas Best's "The Greatest Day in History: How, on the Eleventh Hour of the Eleventh Day..."

Shown here are a couple at the Tomb of the Unknowns in 1943.

ebooks at Drake: now you can download!

2011-11-10T13:59:00.000-05:00

It just shows you how fast things can change nowadays. On 11/4 we posted that you cannot download the "ebrary" ebooks found in our catalog. Now however that has changed, and you can in fact download them. Great news!

Here's how it will work. If you see an ebook in our catalog, click on the title and in the record for the book there will be a link to the ebrary site (which is what most of our ebooks are.) Click on that link, and once in ebrary, sign in to your account at the upper right. If you haven't created an account, use the sign in to create one. Once you have signed in you will have the option of either reading the book online or downloading it. The books download in Adobe Digital format, which allows them to be downloaded in their entirety to a wide range of devices, including iPads, Nooks, Kobe readers etc. For Kindle users there are some limitations.

Our "Research Guides:" comments, suggestions...?

2011-11-09T11:33:00.000-05:00

Sometimes this blog will refer to one or another of our library research guides. (There is a link to them on both the library page and the LITS page, the one you see when logging on to PC's in the library.) We would like to think that they are useful, but it would be great to get feedback from you. For example, does the layout of them work for you? Are there guides you'd like to see that we don't have? Resources listed that we aren't showing enough of? You can post comments here, or there is a comment link at the bottom of the individual guides too. Let us know what you think!

Criminal Justice help

2011-11-07T12:51:00.001-05:00

Someone was here looking for information on corrections recently, prisoner's rights to be specific. One good resource for any Criminal Justice research would be our guide to the topic. In addition to article and book sources, it will point you to resources many are not that aware of, like "NCJRS," that is the National Criminal Justice Reference Center from the Department of Justice. They have many helpful reports, statistical tables, a very useful site. Currently for example their corrections page is running links to reports that answer questions like these two:

What is the national juvenile recidivism rate?
What percentage of arrestees test positive for drugs?

Pictured here are inmates marching in lockstep at New York's Auburn Prison. This prison is where the harsh correctional system that prevailed in much of the country in the 19th and into the 20th centuries originated. The striped uniform, marching in lockstep, physical punishments and so on were hallmarks of the system. In 1913 Thomas Osborne, chair of a new commission on prison reform, entered the prison as an inmate under an assumed name. His experience of the prison, and his book about it, "Within Prison Walls," (which we have,) were instrumental in reforming the system.

ebooks at Drake

2011-11-04T15:13:00.000-04:00

We do have some ebooks in our catalog nowadays. There will be a link in the record to the book itself, which loads on your PC's desktop. At this point we do not have books available for download to Nook, Kindle etc. The public library system does though, at this location.

Columbia, a new "Tiger?"

2011-11-01T10:44:00.000-04:00

An article in the Weekly Standard describes Columbia as a "Tiger" economy, one of a group of rapidly growing economies in the world. If you wanted to learn more about a country like this, our research guide to country information would be a great place to go. There are links there to good article databases like Academic Search Complete and Lexis, and country reports, like those from the Department of State, plus much more. Shown here is a map of Columbia from the Department of State's background notes reports.

Legal research

2011-10-31T10:48:00.001-04:00

Legal research can be tricky; finding court cases, code or statutes can seem confusing if you are not familiar with the sources. Fortunately however we do have a legal research guide as part of our extensive collection of guides.

Primary sources, where are they?

2011-10-26T18:23:00.002-04:00

Primary sources are all around really, in many locations; books people wrote about their experiences that you can find in our catalog, websites that have letters, diaries and so on. The trick of course is to finding these items. Our history and primary sources guides should be some help on this.

Interestingly enough, this topic came up today. Someone was looking for primary sources on nurses in the Vietnam War, and while they were bring helped with this, your blogger was at a meeting where he was given information about a young woman from Orleans County, a Brockport grad, who served as a nurse in the Spanish American War! Look for something on her soon in the archives blog :-)

"Darkness and Daylight"

2011-10-24T10:09:00.002-04:00

No, this post isn't about daylight savings time, which ends 11/6: set your clocks back an hour the evening before :-) This post is about the author of the book whose cover you see here, Mary Jane Holmes. Like many people you may not have heard of her, but in her time, the 1850s through the 1890s, this Brockport woman was an extremely popular author whose books sold in large numbers.Her writing to modern readers may seem dated, overly sentimental and so on, but at the time it resonated well with her readers. It wasn't all empty sentiment by any means either. Holmes was a feminist and an abolitionist for example, views which influenced her writing and her life.

The library has a large collection of her books, as well as some books about her. She could be an great study for a research project!

(If the name sounds vaguely familiar, her husband, Daniel, was a local lawyer, graduate of Brockport and long time member of the Board of Trustees - Holmes Hall is named after him.)

Brockport email & smart phone

2011-10-20T13:30:00.000-04:00

People ask sometimes how they can set up their college email on their smart phone. If you follow this link there is documentation on how to do just that. Or, if you're tired of the whole smart phone thing and want to go retro, look at sites like Phoneco for antique phones such as the 1930s phone shown here ;-)

Civil Defense & the library, 1962

2011-10-18T12:57:00.001-04:00

In going through some old files from the library director's office recently the archivist ran across some documents from 1962 having to do with civil defense and the library (this was when the library was in what now is Rakov; Drake wasn't built until the mid-1970s.) Here are some excerpts from a document concerning a meeting with Colonel Abbott, director of the county Office of Civil Defense on fall out shelters in the college.

A Civil Defense survey of college facilities recommends that 204 people be assigned to shelters in the library basement. When the shelter program is set up there will be a course offered in shelter living...

In case of a warning students should take time to think up essential items, such as bedding and clothing and take them into the shelter. We should also plan on not having electric power. The immediate plan will be to get students to the assigned shelter areas as soon as possible. We may have as much as 40 minutes before fall-out hits the area.

The first two days are considered the critical period. After that enough of the fall out has dissipated so that it would be safe to send out one person for emergency supplies...

If you're interested in the Cold War, we have many good books on the subject, see our catalog. Academic Search Complete and America: History and Life would be excellent article databases for such research. If you'd like to research the college in the Cold War, such as depicted here, contact the college archivist, Charlie Cowling, ccowling@brockport.edu. The Stylus in microfilm on the ground floor would be a good start, and there is an index to the Stylus online.

ebook readers: which one is best?

2011-10-14T13:40:00.004-04:00

The best answer to the above question is, "It depends!" :-) It does really, on what features are important to you, for example do you want color or is black & white OK and so on. An important caution is suggested in an article in CNET, the big IT device reviewing site, where the writer reviews the current ebook readers and then observes that the market is in a lot of flux, urging people to wait a few weeks and see how things settle out.
In other words, hold off on that impulse to buy!

APA, MLA, University of Chicago...

2011-10-13T16:19:00.000-04:00

This time of year people are often in need of help with putting their papers together properly in the style their teacher asked for, whether it was APA, MLA, or one of the others. We have a great page on our website with helpful guides to explain the ins and outs of these styles to you.

Men in Hats

2011-10-07T12:58:00.000-04:00

Just a fun thing for a Friday afternoon, from an article in the English language edition of Der Spiegel; apparently the figures on the East German era pedestrian crossing signs have achieved cult status! Plus lots of other images for pedestrian crossings, who knew there were so many?

"Reference Books?"

2011-10-05T18:50:00.000-04:00

With so many "reference" books online nowadays, (atlases, dictionaries, encyclopedias...) it may surprise people that we still have a print reference book collection, that we still buy books for it, and that they do get used! Yet they do get used: your blogger is typing this post with a book truck next to him with 10 or 15 print reference books that people have used and that are waiting to be put back on the shelves. Here's a few of the titles people found useful (all our reference books are in the catalog, are shelved on the main floor, and generally do not circulate.)

Davis' Drug Guide for Nurses
DVD Delirium: the International Guide to Weird and Wonderful Films
The Korean War, vol.2

Finding Articles - there's more than Academic Search

2011-10-04T13:54:00.001-04:00

Academic Search is great, no doubt about it. It has articles from thousands of journals, magazines and newspapers going back a number of years. It is definitely an excellent starting point for your article search. But, sometimes you need more, and one nice thing about Academic Search is that if you click on the "Choose Databases" link above the search box, you can add other databases to your search!

This isn't all databases we get, just those we get from Ebsco, the company that we get Academic Search from. Say for example that you were researching affirmative action. Academic Search would be a good start, but if you were especially interested in affirmative action in schools you might do the "Choose Databases" link and add Education Research to your search, picking up education journals not all of which would have come up in Academic Search.

So don't limit yourself to just the one database; if you need more, you can get it!

The Euro Crisis, how to research it...

2011-09-28T10:45:00.001-04:00

An excellent place to start researching the crisis in Europe with the default worries, how they affect the Euro currancy and so on would be in Business Source Complete. This business and economics article database is perfect for finding articles from business and economics journals, magazines, and newspapers. (Except for the Wall St. Journal, which we have in a separate database.) Lexis has a great newspaper collection, including many foreign newspapers in English language versions.

Our Research Guide to Business and Economics can suggest many more resources, for example it has links in the Statistical section to databases like EuroStat, a rich source of financial and other statistics on the European Union and its member countries.

Library Article Databases Back!

2011-09-27T14:30:00.000-04:00

Regular access to the library article databases is back up, thanks for your patience!

Library Article Databases Down

2011-09-27T12:27:00.003-04:00

The usual connection to the library article databases like Academic Search, JSTOR etc. is down. If you are on campus you can access them through this list here. We are working on the problem and apologize for any inconvenience.

"Journal" or "Article?"

2011-09-26T15:39:00.000-04:00

A common source of confusion at the beginning of doing research is simply mixing up the terms "journal" and "article." Journals are a kind of periodical like a magazine, that comes out periodically, say once a month, or every other month... The difference between journals and magazines is that journals are a scholarly thing, something your professor might publish an article in for example. Magazines are more popular, like something you might buy in the check out line at Wegmans. The "journal" is the bigger thing; you find articles in the journal.

The confusion is that sometimes we have people saying things like "I want journals on the death penalty." What they really mean is that they want articles from journals that are on the subject of the death penalty. The thing is that if you want articles, go to an article database, like Academic Search or JSTOR; if you do happen to want to know where a certain journal is, that's a different question, and the answer is to go to the journal listing on our home page. Hopefully this all makes senses, lol, but if not, just ask one of us for help :-)

Criminal Justice Reports & Stats Galore!

2011-09-22T10:10:00.001-04:00

There's a lot of great material for the researcher in criminal justice at the NCJRS (National Criminal Justice Reference System) website. Reports, statistics, and datasets on a wide range of criminal justice issues can be found there, courtesy of the U.S. Department of Justice. Here's just a couple examples of the sorts of material you can find there:

This Camden NJ policeman pictured at left may not have had the advantage of the Internet, but he did have a great motorcycle!

How to get help with library research

2011-09-20T09:47:00.000-04:00

You don't have to be a "rocket scientist" as they say to do research, but finding that journal article or book, those stats and so on, can be an interesting challenge at times. The library resources you have available are extensive, which is great, but because there is so much, and it is located in all sorts of different places and formats, it can be a little tricky to know what to do or where to go sometimes.

So don't be shy about asking for help, that's what they employ us for! You can get assistance from the information desk on the main floor (on your right as you come in the library,) and that desk is open most hours the library is. You can also chat with us, email us, phone us, make research appointments, so one way or another you should be able to get the help you need.

Career information

2011-09-16T14:16:00.002-04:00

At some point it does make sense for students to think about what their career plans are, what the prospects for jobs are in their intended field and so on. It can seem hard to find good information, but there are actually some helpful sites to use. One basic site every career planner should know about is the online edition of the Occupational Outlook Handbook from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Each entry on a career field tells about the training and education requirements, the job prospects, salary ranges and lots of other useful information. Librarian Jennifer Little maintains our research guide to career resources, an excellent place to continue your career research.

Keyboard shortcuts, or Ctrl-F is a handy thing

2011-09-14T11:13:00.001-04:00

One of your blogger's colleagues suggested this piece in The Atlantic as something for the blog, and I am glad she did. Keyboard shortcuts are something that can be real conveniences, but many people are not aware of them. Like the shortcut mentioned in the article, Ctrl-F. Let's say you have a long article or webpage up, and you want to find the part where someone's name is mentioned. If you do the two keys, Ctrl and F, a little box appears in which you type the word you want to find, and then it will go down through the page to find it for you. The Microsoft site has a page with more shortcuts too if you're interested. These shortcuts go back to the days of old PCs like the mid 1980s Corona shown here, and are still useful today!

Researching 9/11

2011-09-13T10:46:00.000-04:00

We have many resources available to research this topic, the tenth anniversary of which just came up. For articles, Academic Search would be a good starting point. Just putting in 9/11 gives many results, and you might want to narrow your results down depending on your research, for example 9/11 jihad, or 9/11 al qaeda. Lexis would give you access to newpapers from both 9/11/01, and more recent as well. Facts On File is a reference news service which has a great report on 9/11, both the events as they occured, and the aftermath of the following 10 years. Don't forget to try our catalog for books.

Research Guides, there to help 24/7

2011-09-09T10:33:00.000-04:00

While there is a librarian ready to help with research questions from students and faculty most hours of the day, we do need to go home and get some rest for the next day :-) However, there is an extensive set of "Research Guides" available online at our webpage. The guides cover subjects from Anthropology to Career Resources to History, Nursing and much more. Each guide covers the "how to" of finding articles, books, statistics etc. for the subject area at hand, and links to the available online resources.

These "guides" may not be quite as picturesque as the old Adirondack guides, like Mitchell Sabattis who is pictured here, but they do the job! (Mitchell Sabattis was an Abenaki Indian who lived and guided "sports" in the Long Lake area.)

Go ahead, be a "wordmonger!"

2011-09-07T09:54:00.000-04:00

Originally a "wordmonger" was a person who used "strange, pedantic or empty words...," so it wasn't exactly a term of approval, but today it has come to mean something more positive, a person skilled in the use of words. Your blogger himself is not really a wordmonger, but you can be, by using the Oxford English Dictionary and the companion smaller volume, the concise "OED." (We have them online and in print.) The concise OED is 100 years old this year, and you can learn more about it and its connection to the full edition at this page.

Does the library have copies of textbooks...

2011-08-31T19:12:00.000-04:00

This is a very common question early each semester, and one that is understandable given the cost of textbooks. However, the library book collection is not focused on textbooks, although we do have some; our focus, and that of the faculty, who do most of the book ordering, is much broader.

But to answer the question, anything that we own, whether a textbook, novel, movie etc. will be in our library catalog. Just put in a word or two from the title and the author last name, and that should be a pretty definitive search. (As an aside, we have no way of searching for books by course number or professor name...) If your title comes up, great! Click on it to see both if it is in the library, and to make sure it is the same year and edition that your class requires. (All that info is in the record.) If the book doesn't come up we simply do not own it.

If you aren't sure about any of this, please ask one of us.

Read someone else's diary!

2011-08-29T15:00:00.000-04:00

That is, read some primary source material as the historians call it ;-) Reading a diary or a memoir can provide a wealth of contemporary information and experience on a topic. It can seem tricky to find them though. The first thing to keep in mind is that time and place matter - you're going to find a lot more diaries or memoirs of Civil War experience say than for Crusaders in the Middle Ages. The literacy rates and related factors are just so much higher in modern times. Still, you never know until you start looking.

Start with the catalog. Simple searches can be good, for example diaries civil war or memoirs world war.

Welcome back, here's some quick library tips!

2011-08-26T09:33:00.001-04:00

If you don't know it already, this is a great library, with ample resources for most any research imaginable. We have the largest book collection of any of the SUNY four year colleges for example, and we have quite a lineup of article databases. If you aren't sure of what we have, where to find things, anything at all, don't hesitate to ask us!

Lost wedding ring mystery

2011-08-24T10:18:00.000-04:00

A wedding ring, plain gold, probably a man's ring by the size, with an inscription of "N.S. to W.M., 8/2/1958" was found a few years ago in the college fitness center. The director of the center has tried other avenues of tracking down the owner of the ring with no success, and has contacted your blogger, who doubles as the college archivist, to try to find the owner of the ring. If these initials or date remind of you of someone or you have information about the ownership of this ring please contact Charlie Cowling at ccowling@brockport.edu.

Library help 101

2011-08-22T11:33:00.000-04:00

The Fall 2011 semester hasn't started quite yet, but it's not far off! So for those getting a jump on things, here are some suggestions for getting help with library related needs.

Faculty - looking to schedule a library session for your class? Use our Instruction Request Form. Or, if you have questions about course reserves, try this link.
Students - whether you are looking for a particular book, or wondering what other resources we have for your course work, don't hesitate to ask us!

The library will back on regular semester hours starting Monday, 8/29.

"Die cut" books, who knew?

2011-08-17T12:53:00.000-04:00

Well, your blogger didn't know about them anyway, or at least was not familiar with the term. But the folks at abebooks.com, a used and rare book site, have a story on the phenomenon here. It is something that has been done at times with books for a number of years actually, and is an intriguing artistic wrinkle on book production. Now, how will they ever recreate the "die cut" look on e-readers?!

National Book Festival

2011-08-15T15:41:00.002-04:00

Here would be something fun to attend if one could make it to the Washington D.C. area the weekend of September 24-25, the National Book Festival! Follow the link to learn about this event :-)

Art Index, who needs it?

2011-08-11T11:35:00.000-04:00

Actually, you might, if you were researching an art related topic. It's one of our few remaining print indexes, and it does still see some use. Your blogger just placed a few volumes from the 1970s back on the shelves this morning. Our run of Art Index goes from 1929 to the present, in our reference collection on the main floor, REF N1 .A7. Even though a lot of art literature is covered in sites like Academic Search, JSTOR and others, Art Index is still a useful tool when doing a thorough art literature search. Some things just never go out of style!

Google Scholar & Finding Articles...

2011-08-01T13:35:00.002-04:00

Yes, you can find some articles using Google Scholar. It can be a useful site to explore. But in the end, it does not stack up all that well against our library databases, like Academic Search Complete etc. This isn't some ego thing, lol, where we want to be #1, it's just reality. Why? Because in the end information isn't free, despite all the (often good) information floating around on the Internet. Journals, magazines and newspapers all cost subscriptions to receive, and in the case of journals these subscriptions can easily be in the hundreds or ever thousands of dollars per year. They just don't give free access via Google.

So, what to do? Easy, go to our extensive lineup of article databases. Between them these resources offer access to tens of thousands of journals, magazines and newspapers, and their articles. Not sure which is best? Ask one of us for help!

National Band Organ Rally

2011-07-28T09:56:00.000-04:00

This coming weekend there will be an event that could be fun to attend, the Band Organ Rally at Old Olcott Beach. Olcott is out Route 18, in Niagara County. Sounds like fun, all sorts of historic antique organs, from larger steam organs to smaller hand cranked street organs.

Yes, your blogger supposes he should mention that you could pursue research about fairs and band organs in our article databases, for example in America: History and Life or Academic Search, and look for books in our catalog, but really, it's summer, why not just take a day off and drive out there, get an ice cream on the way at Browns Berry Patch, enjoy the corny fun of the old band organs, and forget about the research for once ;-)

Brockport road work

2011-07-26T11:03:00.000-04:00

While it is true that a lot of library resources are digital these days, like looking for articles, it is still useful at times to come into the library in person, and of course this year getting to the library, and the campus, have been a bit of a challenge with all the construction on Route 19 or Main Street in the village of Brockport. There's good news though, the project is making excellent progress, and so getting here will be easier than ever in not too long.

As mentioned in the Hamlin Clarkson Herald article linked to above, the village website has updates on the construction at their web page. Once at the site click on the tab for "NYDOT Main Street Rehab."

Feeling deprived, lonely?

2011-07-25T10:50:00.002-04:00

Is your Internet connection down? According to a news article on a recent study, being deprived of the Internet is hard for many, making them feel lonely and upset. This was a study of British people, but your blogger imagines it might be much the same if such a survey were done in the U.S. Or would it? It could be an intriguing research topic. There's even a subject heading for it in our catalog, "Internet - psychological aspects." PsychArticles and PsychInfo would be great resources for articles on the topic.

Dog days...

2011-07-20T10:19:00.000-04:00

The headline of the big weather article in today's Democrat & Chronicle is "Dog days of July return today with scorching heat." The article gives a good account not only of the heat we will be dealing with, but where the phrase "dog days" comes from and some historical weather information for Rochester. (Pictured on the left is the jackel or dog headed Egyptian god Anubis. He later became associated with Sirius, the brightest star in the heavens and part of the "dog" constellation, Canis Major.)
We have lots more of this sort of thing if you are interested. There's many books in our catalog on meteorology and weather folklore, as well as on mythology and astronomy. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration website has both current weather information and a vast wealth of historical records. For articles on meteorology try Academic Search and ScienceDirect, as well as our Earth Science research guide.

Fun with government documents...

2011-07-18T13:10:00.000-04:00

While articles and books are staples of research and information gathering, there is another source of information that can be very helpful. The source we mean is that of government documents. As one of our librarians says, you may agree or disagree with the government and its policies, but no one can deny that the government produces a vast array of statistics, reports and more.

We have two research guides to help you with government resources. One is for federal or U.S. documents, the other is for New York. (Pictured here is the U.S. Printing Office building.)

Online research help 24/7

2011-07-13T14:45:00.000-04:00

While we are always glad to help you with your research questions (just ask us!) even we aren't always available. Our library research guides are though, and they are excellent places to discover what is there for you in just about any field of research imaginable. For example, if you are doing anything with business, see Charlie Cowling's guide to business and economics. Or maybe it is NY state government documents you are interested in: see Lori Lampert's guide to NYS documents. Perhaps it's some aspect of physical education you are researching. In that case, try Jennifer Little's guide to physical education, sport... As the TV pitchmen say though, "Wait, there's more!" Just visit our research guides list to see how much there is available to you :-)

We are around, even if it is summer :-)

2011-07-11T14:09:00.001-04:00

Yes, even though it's summer and things are quieter, we are still here, and more than happy to help you with any questions you may have. Just ask if you need help! The library hours in the summer are different than in the fall and spring semesters, do check them when planning to come to the library.

A new country, coming this weekend!

2011-07-06T13:43:00.001-04:00

This Saturday a new country is coming into existence, the country of Southern Sudan. Your blogger read about it here in the English language edition of Der Spiegel. It hasn't made it into the atlases and encyclopedic sites like the CIA World Factbook yet, but in addition to the link to Der Spiegel above, library databases like Academic Search and Lexis would be good for magazine and newspaper articles. Facts on File has a great in depth report covering the Sudan and it's history in modern times, from the end of colonial rule in the 1950s to the upcoming debut of the new nation. We also have many books in our catalog on the Sudan. (Pictured here are members of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement.)

"What is the reason of this thusness?"

2011-06-30T10:29:00.003-04:00

Well, we're not sure what the reason is, although we're sure it was funny at the time, lol, but we did track down this quote that was featured in an old 1929 Saga yearbook photo (the college yearbook, 1929-1996.) The photo was featured in an archives blog post recently.

We found that the quote was from Artemus Ward, an American humorist in the early 20th century (Pictured here.) You can find a lot of quotes online, and to be honest, that's how we found this one, we googled it. But that doesn't always work so well, and we have lots of other resources to track quotations down, or to look for quotes by topic to use in papers and so forth. There are a few quotation books online, like the Oxford Dictionary of American Quotations, but some of the best are in print copy in the reference collection, for example the classic Familiar Quotations by Bartlett, (REF PN 6081 .B27 - there are many others in that same section on the main floor.) Ask one of us if you'd like to know more!

Smoke 'em if ya got 'em? Not anymore!

2011-06-28T09:26:00.002-04:00

Attitudes towards smoking have certainly changed. As recently as the 1990's you could smoke in the library, and back in the '50s cigarette company reps would cruise the student union, passing out free packs of their brands to get new customers! Now smoking is not allowed on campus, and today's Daily Eagle has a piece on quitting smoking.

We have some great books on smoking and tobacco use, e.g. Smoke: a global history of smoking. Article databases like Academic Search, America: History & Life, Education Research and Medline would be excellent for general articles on smoking, the history of tobacco, smoking and education, and the health effects of smoking respectively.

Getting to the library...

2011-06-23T09:56:00.000-04:00

Is easy once you are on campus, here's a link to a campus map if needed. Getting to the campus this summer is a bit tricky though as you may have noticed, given construction on Route 19 through the village. (Here is the most recent press release about the construction.) The detours and stops keep changing, so give yourself a little extra time to get through, or consider simply bypassing the village and coming into the campus from 31A or Redman Rd. Another option: the Smith Street "high bridge" has been refurbished and is now open to traffic. If you happen to be interested in bridges, the NY Dept. of Transportation did a nice study in 1999 of older bridges in NY, the history, the various types of construction etc.

"Bound Journals"

2011-06-21T10:51:00.002-04:00

It seems a little antique nowadays, with so much available online, but occasionally a person does need to go to the bound journal stacks on the ground floor of the library to get the article they want. It's how it was done in the old days, and still is actually for a few journals. We wait until we get the full year of issues, and then they get sent out to a bindery where they are made into books, which we shelve on the ground floor, alphabetical order by title of journal.

Here's how it might work: someone wants an article from Physical Educator, say from the 1960s; if they checked our Journal & Newspaper Listing, putting in the title of the journal, they'd see that while Physical Educator is online, it only goes back to 1990 online; but, there is a link for "print journals in Drake." If you click on that, you'll see a record for the journal; click on the right where it says "Is it here?" That takes you to a screen where you see that we have Physical Educator from 1940-2007 on the ground floor, in other words in the bound print journals. If you ever have questions about any of this, just ask one of us, please!

Current events: journals or newspapers & magazines?

2011-06-17T10:14:00.001-04:00

Someone was looking the other day for information in JSTOR on President Obama's policy on current affairs in the Middle East. The problem though is that JSTOR is a collection of scholarly journal articles, and journals by their nature are analytical, reflective, looking back at the issue or topic after the fact. This thoughtful sort of analysis is why professors often prefer students to use journal articles.

However, if you want information about things happening now, for example Obama and events in Libya, the place to look is in newspapers and magazines. They come out more often, daily or weekly as opposed to monthly or even bimonthly for journals. Their focus is on contemporary events and news. Good sources for this sort of thing would include: Lexis, our biggest collection of online newspapers; Academic Search Complete (but do not check the box for scholarly lit., leave it unchecked to get the newspapers and magazines!), and reference sources like FactsOnFile, an excellent reporting service.

"Campus school?"

2011-06-15T09:41:00.002-04:00

Yes Virginia, there was once a "campus school" at Brockport. Campus schools (or "Training," or "Demonstration" schools, the name varied over the years,) were once common on many college campuses. The campus school was just that, a school, attended by local children, and not only served to instruct the children but to provide a teaching opportunity for those learning to be teachers, and teacher training was the primary goal at Brockport during the Normal School era. The student teachers taught the children under the watchful eyes of the "teacher critics," who were the primary teachers of the children and supervised the student teachers.

Our campus school here started in 1867, the same year as Brockport moved from its previous status as a private "academy" and became a state Normal school. The campus school lasted up to about 1980, so it had a very long run! As a matter of fact, Cooper Hall was built originally in the 1960s to house the campus school - ever wonder why there were all those little lockers etc. in there?

This summer, Friday July 22, there will be a campus school reunion for alumni and former staff of the school. If you were part of the campus school, know someone who was (as a boy our president, Dr. Halstead, attended the campus school at Cortland!), or are just interested in this part of our history, do consider attending the reunion! Pictured here is the earliest class picture of campus school kids, ca1890.

What do librarians do all summer anyway?

2011-06-13T14:20:00.006-04:00

Librarians here at Brockport, like most college librarians, work a full calendar year, so we are here in the summers. While we don't have all the classes to teach and questions to answer at the reference desk we do in the fall and spring semesters, summer school is on, and there are some people to help.

There's a lot of other things to do too. While summers are quiet in some areas, for some it's a busy time. For example right now the folks here who oversee all our book ordering are actively placing orders and using up the last of this fiscal year's budget. Summer is also a good time for us to catch up on projects that we couldn't get to during the year, and to plan for the coming year. It's a big time for conferences as well; this week is the SUNY Librarian's Association conference.

But of course we do take some time off for vacations and we hope you have the opportunity to get in some vacation time before another busy fall semester is here!

Summer reading suggestions

2011-06-05T16:07:00.001-04:00

Well, you could try something from their Books about shattered childhoods, or Depressing Russian literature lists, but their Feel good reads might be a happier hit for summer reading! Abebooks is a great resource for book lovers, and we have a lot of the books they mention, just check in our catalog.

What is "WorldCat" anyway?

2011-06-02T10:04:00.002-04:00

Many of our patrons have used WorldCat to look for books and other items that may be out there in other libraries. It is a wonderful resource to browse and explore, and offers accurate, clear citations to books and other items that allow one to identify them for interlibrary loan and other purposes.

WorldCat is an interesting part of library history. It is the modern day version of a shared catalog database started way back in the late 1960s by a group of Ohio colleges. Over the years the cooperative venture grew and radically changed cataloging in libraries. What it does is that if one library gets a new book, they can look in the library side of WorldCat, download a record for the book some other library has already done, edit to suit local needs, and they have their record for their own catalog. So the need for "original" cataloging is vastly reduced; no need for multiple libraries to reinvent the wheel over and over as it were.

Today WorldCat has come to include the records of the former Research Libraries Group, and is the largest collection of bibliographic records around. It draws on the catalogs of over 70,000 institutions and provides access to almost 200 million records.

In addition to the standard library version of WorldCat, there is WorldCat.org, a free public site which includes most of the records of the library version, and has some useful and fun features, e.g. reviews of books, search by genre etc.

Reefer Madness

2011-05-31T09:47:00.002-04:00

Actually, not just "reefer," but many other things are covered in the Economic Impact of Illicit Drug Use on American Society. This 2011 online publication is from the folks at the Justice Department, and provides a wealth of detail on the societal impact of drug use. This is an expanded edition of their annual National Drug Threat Assessment report.

We do have a VHS copy of Reefer Madness by the way, and it is also viewable online. Our catalog will reveal many other items on drug use and abuse, and Academic Search Complete would be a great starting point for finding articles on these issues. Don't forget CQ Researcher for informative reports on drug use, legalization of drugs and so forth.

Lost & found: one Scots dictionary

2011-05-25T10:15:00.002-04:00

No, it wasn't actually one of our library collection dictionaries; it is a rare archival sort of discovery. A leading scholar of the Scots language has discovered, in a cache of other papers, an attempt at a Scots dictionary by the 18th century literary figure James Boswell, best known for his biography of Samuel Johnson, who in turn was a famous pioneer of the English language dictionary. Click here for a story on the discovery.

And yes, Scots is a language of its own, or was historically. It and English descended from Anglo-Saxon and other roots, and Scots was not only the language of the common people, but of the government and literature up into the 18th century. Today there are still many speakers of Scots; the upcoming 2011 census in Scotland will for the first time include questions about Scots language use. You can learn more about Scots at the Scots Language Centre or the Scots Wikipedia. We do have books in and about Scots in the library collection, see our catalog. Project Muse and JSTOR would be good places to look for articles on the subject.

Good news from Africa

2011-05-23T08:26:00.001-04:00

The African Development Bank recently came out with a report showing the growth of a middle class in Africa, a positive report from a region not often a source of happy news. This spells out good things for the economies of a number of African countries and their people. This report, The Middle of the Pyramid: Dynamics of the Middle Class in Africa, can be accessed here. Among our article databases Business Source Complete and Lexis would be two good sources on economics and business in Africa, and our catalog will reveal many books about this part of the world. Librarian Charlie Cowling maintains our online research guides to both Business and Economics, and to African and African American Studies as well, good places to find out more about what is available for your research needs.

Summer reading

2011-05-18T10:16:00.003-04:00

We get asked sometimes where the fiction is, and the answer in part is that everything we own is listed in the catalog. We have literally thousands and thousands of novels on the top floor, from a wide range of eras, genres etc. (Click here to see our floor plans - the fiction is in the "P's" on the top floor.) If you're looking to just browse through some fun paperbacks though, something to read on the beach, (if it ever stops raining that is!) we have a collection of fiction and popular non fiction paperbacks just to the right as you come in the library. Feel free to stop by and look through them. Until the rains do let up there's nothing better on a rainy day than to curl up inside with a good book!

Mississippi Valley Flooding

2011-05-16T13:23:00.002-04:00

If you're looking for more information on this current weather tragedy than you might find on CNN or Fox, try some U.S. Government sites, like the Army Corps of Engineers Mississippi Valley Division. Here for example you can not only see news bulletins about when levee spillways will be opened, but also see maps, like this one of "Lower River Crest Locations/Dates," showing when and by how much the river crested at key points along the Mississippi. The USGS (US Geological Survey) is also a great source of water and flood information, for example the USGS Water Alert page.

You could find a lot of regional newspaper articles in Lexis, and good journal articles on river management and conservation in article databases like Environment Complete and ScienceDirect.

National Jukebox debuts!

2011-05-11T18:11:00.000-04:00

Following up on our recent post about the Library of Congress and it's sound recording collection we are happy to report that the United States now has a "national jukebox."

According to the site, "...the Jukebox includes more than 10,000 recordings made by the Victor Talking Machine Company between 1901 and 1925. Jukebox content will be increased regularly, with additional Victor recordings and acoustically recorded titles made by other Sony-owned U.S. labels, including Columbia, OKeh, and others." The collection is more than just music though, it also includes speeches, comedy skits and more!

78s to 33s to 8 tracks to...

2011-05-10T09:50:00.001-04:00

The pace of change in information technology is intense, and not only in things like the shift from print journals to article databases, but in all sorts of information, for example music. Raise your hand if you remember putting an 8 track player in your car, like the one pictured here ;-)

It's a huge challenge when you think about it, how to maintain and preserve all that information that perhaps now only exists in formats, like 8 track tapes, that are long out of date. The Library of Congress has a huge collection of such material, and is planning on expanding access to it, as well as maintaining it. This recent article from the LA Times will tell you more.

End of the semester & the library

2011-05-09T15:11:00.001-04:00

Yep, it's finals week! This is when we get questions on things like how to cite that article in APA, MLA, or University of Chicago, or how to see if the library has a certain book asap, or all sorts of other things, all of which we are glad to help with, just ask us! Oh, one other thing, library hours: those are always posted on our web page.

New educational report on US

2011-05-06T10:27:00.001-04:00

A new report is out from the U.S. Census, Educational Attainment in the U.S. 2010. This is a highly detailed set of tables containing a wealth of stats on educational achievement in the U.S. today. For more education related research try article databases like Education Research Complete, and don't forget the Research Guide to Education that librarian Logan Rath does.

Patience & Fortitude

2011-05-05T13:24:00.002-04:00

This is the 100th anniverary of the famous New York City Public Library building at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Steet; the two iconic lion statues there bear the names Patience & Fortitude, as in the title of today's post. (Pictured here is Patience, on the south side of the steps.) People tend to take public libraries for granted, but they weren't always there, and they do play a vital role in today's world, where information is so in demand. We like to think that Drake Memorial Library is a fine example of a college library, but do keep your public library in mind, for when you're home on vacation or break, or when you graduate. Your need to grow and learn will continue after college, and your public library is there to help you with that need.

We have some books on library history, for example Libraries: an unquiet history, from 2004. There are some good blogs out there too on library history, including this one which has a nice humorous approach!

"Does the library have the Journal of...?"

2011-05-03T13:36:00.002-04:00

We may well have it, and the way to find out if we have a particular journal, magazine or newspaper is to go to the Find Articles page, and then the Journals & Newspapers Listing. Type in the title of the journal, magazine or newspaper (not the title of the article, the title of the journal it is in,) and then see what you get. It just depends, we may have it online, or in print etc., or we may not. We do have access to 30,000 plus titles, between what we have online and in the building, so your odds are good!

If your title shows in the list, and the date you're looking for seems to be there, that's great, just click on the link to the article database it's in and follow through from there. If it isn't, there may be a link to the catalog, and you can check that. If we just don't have what you need, we can generally get things from other libraries for you. Last but not least, if you aren't sure about all this, just ask us :-)

Tornadoes, floods, weather crises: where to learn more about them?

2011-05-02T18:14:00.002-04:00

There are lots of weather sites online that are excellent resources, like the federal government's NOAA site. This library related blog recently posted a very helpful list of online weather resources. Have a look too at our Earth Science research guide, which has an extensive meteorology section. The photo here is of the great Mississippi River flood of 1927, a flood many are worried might come again this year due to high water levels and incessant rain in that region. We have many books on meteorology in the collection too, including one on that flood of 1927.

Brockport in the Civil War

2011-04-29T11:13:00.003-04:00

Not long ago your blogger posted in here about resources the library has available on the Civil War. Not only does the college support a wonderful library collection that has many sources on the Civil War, the college itself has historical connections to that conflict. A number of students, alumni and faculty from our predecessor, the Brockport Collegiate Institute, served in the war. Charlie Cowling, a librarian who helps Mary Jo Gigliotti maintain the college archives is, among other projects, working to establish as complete a list as possible of people from the college who served in the war.

We do know of some who served, including six alumni who served in one of the more well known Union regiments, the 140th NY Volunteer Infantry. This regiment was drawn from Monroe County, and Co. A was recruited from the Brockport area. The alumni who served in the 140th were: Issac Barnes, Charles Bellinger, James Hoy, Robert Lowery, George Moore and Theodore Whipple. Corporal Whipple was killed in action at the battle of Gettysburg, where the regiment played an important role in defending Little Round Top, a key point in the Union defenses, from Confederate assaults. The painting shown here is by area artist John Wagner and depicts the regiment in action at Gettysburg. There is a local reenactor group which commemorates the unit at various events.

Color printing in the library?

2011-04-28T16:05:00.000-04:00

If you weren't aware of it, yes, there is color printing available in the library! It's easy to access - from a PC in the library, go to print, then click on the printer name drop down, and select printersad/drake lab/color 1. This color printer is on the main floor, on a table near that central staircase. Do bear in mind that we need to charge more for the color printing, 50 cents a page. Please ask us if you have any questions!

Books: where are they, how many can I check out...?

2011-04-27T09:56:00.001-04:00

We often get people asking these sorts of questions about our book collection. While we do have an increasing selection of digital or e-books, the bulk of our book collection is still a print collection, housed physically in the library. Which raises the first question, namely where in the library are the books I want? That's a good question, as it is a rather large building! The book catalog does give collection names, and call numbers, to help you find books in the building, and we also have floor plans online. As for the others sorts of questions, like how many books a person can have out, for how long and so forth, this borrowing policies page will answer all those questions.

Time is short, use our "Research Guides" to speed things up!

2011-04-26T09:15:00.005-04:00

Not to put pressure on, but time is short now isn't it? :-) The semester ends in a few weeks, you're busy researching, teaching too if you are a faculty member, and it can be tricky trying to ferret out what resources we have for your area. There's an easy answer to this search however: we have a series of Research Guides that are a handy response to this need. Each one covers the most relevant, up to date information resources for the area in question, covering article databases, book sources, reference materials like encyclopedias, statistical resources and much more. Whether it is Anthropology, Earth Science, History, Theatre, or any one of a number of other disciplines these guides are a wonderful resource to get you where you need to be for your work.

The guides are done by experienced librarians here at Drake, and these guide authors welcome your suggestions to improve their guides. Pictured here is Charlie Cowling, one of our guide authors and a librarian with 21 years experience at Drake.

Get the popcorn, and watch some FedFlix

2011-04-21T15:23:00.000-04:00

FedFlix is a site that houses 6,000+ films produced over the years by different parts of the U.S. government. Everything from WWII newsreel footage to the reality of robots and much more. Let your Uncle Sam be your movie host!

150th Anniversary of the Civil War

2011-04-20T10:36:00.000-04:00

This spring marks the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War, a milestone period in American history in so many ways. We have a large number of books about the war, both secondary sources, histories of the war and so on, and many primary sources, for example memoirs of participants in the war. There are some major resources online too, like Cornell's digital edition of the Official Records of the War of the Rebellion. This site is the digital version of the print set, which records thousands of memos, orders and reports from soldiers in the field and so forth, both Union and Confederate.

Two other great resources for primary documents would be the New York Times Historical Archive site, which includes all articles, letters etc. from the Civil War era of the newspaper, and we also have online access to a popular news magazine of that time, Harpers, for the period of 1857-1865. The Library of Congress has a number of online collections related to the Civil War too, like the tintype of a young Confederate soldier shown here from the Liljenquist Collection.

Cracking the FBI's Vault!

2011-04-18T13:12:00.003-04:00

"The Vault" is the FBI's online reading room, where over 2,000 documents that cover FBI files on people from Al Capone to Marilyn Monroe, topics as varied as WWII and the Columbine Shootings, and much more. These are documents that became available at one time or another under the Freedom of Information laws. You're always welcome by the way to contact our government documents librarian Lori Lampert for assistance with government records, whether in print, microfiche or online.

Canadian Reference Centre

2011-04-15T13:34:00.002-04:00

Your blogger spent time with two sections of a business class recently, showing them library resources to use for international business research, and there were several people doing research on US-Canada trade. Not surprising really, Canada is one of our biggest trading partners. One resource many in the groups weren't aware of is Canadian Reference Centre, a part of the package we get from Ebsco, like Academic Search Complete and so forth. The Canadian Reference Centre has articles and more from Canadian magazines, newspapers and journals.

For example when researching US-Canada trade articles came up from titles like the British Journal of Canadian Studies, Canadian Geographer, Canadian Economic Observer etc. Or, if you look up Wiarton Willie, a rodent weather forecaster akin to Punxsutawney Phil, you get articles from the Toronto Star, Guelph Mercury and the Kitchener Record :-) Pictured here is the statue of Willie in Wiarton, at the entrance to the Bruce Penninsula in Ontario.

River discharges, from "Stats R US"

2011-04-13T14:58:00.002-04:00

The "US" here stands for U.S., as in the federal government and its many department and agency websites. For example, someone was in recently looking for water discharge rates from the Chenango River here in NY. One might well wonder, where the heck am I going to find that?! But the data is actually readily available at the USGS (US Geological Survey) site. At their site they have the handy "USGS Water Surface Data for the Nation" page.

If you're wondering how you would be able to get a handle on where all the statistics and reports are the government puts out, our library research guides are a great place to look. The different guides have links to relevent government sites, and there are two guides focused just on government sites, one for NY and one for the federal government.

Who orders the books for the library?

2011-04-11T11:47:00.001-04:00

A variety of people have input into the ordering process. It works something like this: each department gets allocated a certain amount of money each year to buy books with, and then faculty, librarians, and yes, student suggestions too are run by the department and library liaisons for order approval. It isn't a lot of money really, considering how much academic books often cost, and then our budget has been increasingly strained over the years with no increases for inflation, and the need to pay for subscriptions to the databases like Academic Search. A typical book budget for the year is on the order of $1500, more or less depending on the department, how many majors they have etc.

The ordering is done online nowadays, through the Web Banner system. Once you log in, you will see a link for the "Library Ordering Module" at the bottom of the list. Click on that and then on "Suggest items the library should purchase." Any of our students, faculty and staff are welcome to make suggestions for ordering, just please bear in mind that budgets are limited and we can't order required textbooks for students. Given that though do make suggestions; your blogger recently approved an order suggestion for a business title from a student :-)