A Picture is Worth a 1,000 Words?

Maybe not a thousand, but at least a dictionary entry. The Merriam-Webster Online Visual Dictionary lets you explore the 15 major themes to access more than 6,000 images and see words like never before.

So what is the thingy plate called between the door knob and the door?

Browse the House category and find out!

Just How Many English Versions?

How many versions of the Bible are there in English? Did you know that there is a Cotton Patch version of Paul's letters based on American ideas and Southern US culture located in the Vancouver Public Library in Canada?

Tyndale House in Cambridge, UK, gives us a list of over a hundred English versions, including brief description & sampling from Genesis 1: 1, 2; Wisdom (of Solomon) 1: 1; and/or John 1: 1-3.

WordNet -- A Lexical Database for the English Language

OK. This database has some high cool factors. If you like dictionaries, thesauri, and all things that play with the words of the English language, this free internet database is for you.

I'm not saying it has replaced the Oxford English Dictionary (one of our Research Databases) because no one else tracks the usage of our langauge as well, but imagine a dictionary crossed with a thesaurus and you've got some idea.

WordNet® is being developed under the direction of George A. Miller and the Cognitive Science Laboratory at Princeton.

Wikis just got Scholarly

Looking remarkably like the much scorned (just try to cite it in a paper) Wikipedia, is a new wiki called Scholarpedia. It is a free peer reviewed encyclopedia written by scholars from all around the world.

That's right. Scholarly. Written by experts in the field AND THEN anonymously peer reviewed!

Currently, Scholarpedia hosts Encyclopedia of Computational Neuroscience, Encyclopedia of Dynamical Systems, Encyclopedia of Computational Intelligence and Encyclopedia of Astrophysics. Eventually, these will be published in print form, but they will still be available free on the web & will be updated online.

Reformation Day -- October 31, 1517

490 years ago today, Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses (or complaints) of the Catholic Church on the door of the church at Wittenberg. In comemoration, we *nailed* a copy of that revolutionary document to the glass door of the library this morning.

To learn more about this event, the History Channel has a This Day in History article about it: Martin Luther posts 95 theses.

To read an English translation of the actual document, thanks to Project Wittenberg.

Tomorrow is All Saints Day. We have pulled two copies of Foxe's Book of Martyrs out for students to look at. One copy is updated to the present by the Voice of the Martyrs.

Could you pass the US Citizenship test?

Test your knowledge about US history & government. How many stripes are on the US flag? When was the Constitution written? 1776? 1876?

Take this quiz of sample questions from the US Citizenship test.

Election Season is Just Around the Corner!

It's only 391 days until the next presidential election...! Do you know who you will vote for?

MSN Politics has created this great matrix for evaluating the presidential hopefuls based upon 5 catergories: economy, energy, healthcare, immigration and the Iraq War.

Lectures on YouTube

UC Berkeley is now posting some of it's lectures on YouTube.

Physics 10: Physics for Future Presidents is a non-major's introduction to the subject.

SIMS 141 Search Engines: Technology, Society, and Business features a lecture by Google founder Sergey Brin.

From biology to chemistry, you can view lectures from the comfort of your computer.

New Books

If you haven't noticed the new book cart is back & filled our latest editions to the collection.

Here's just a sampling...

Following Jesus in a culture of fear by Scott Bader-Saye. 248.4 B134f

The blogging church : sharing the story of your church through blogs by Brian Bailey with Terry Storch. 254.3 B154b

Twelve days : the story of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution by Victor Sebestyen. 943.9052 S443t

50th Anniversary of Sputnik

On October 4, 1957, the USSR launched Sputnik into the sky and started the Space Race.

The New York Times has a series of articles related to the anniversary of this event.

The Encyclopedia Britannica has a good video of the event.

The library has several interesting books about the Space Race:

Russia's sputnik generation : Soviet baby boomers talk about their lives. Translated and edited by Donald J. Raleigh. [ebook]

Dark side of the moon : the magnificent madness of the American lunar quest. Gerard J. DeGroot. 629.45 D321d

Apollo : an eyewitness account by astronaut/explorer artist/moonwalker Alan Bean. With Andrew Chaikin ; introduction by John Glenn. 629.454 A644 B367a

Sky walking : an astronaut's memoir. Tom Jones. 629.450092 J79Ts

The complete book of spaceflight : from Apollo 1 to zero gravity. David Darling. [ebook]

Spotlight on Databases: PsycBOOKS

PsycBOOKS is part of our e-book collections under FIND ARTICLES Research Databases (EBSCOhost database).

Content: Full-text books including current, classic, and out-of-print titles in the field of psychology.
Coverage: APA provides more than 1,436 electronic books (and 22,263 chapters), 715 books published by APA, including 100 out-of-print books and more than 721 classic psychology titles dating back to the early 19th century. More than 1,500 authored entries from the APA/Oxford University Press Encyclopedia of Psychology are included as well as the Thesaurus of Psychological Index Terms as found in PsycINFO; updated monthly.

Sample title:
The Anatomy of Impact: What Makes the Great Works of Psychology Great. Edited by Robert J. Sternberg.

"The Anatomy of Impact brings together experts in the philosophy, theory, and history of psychology to analyze works of monumental impact and examine what separates some of the most influential psychological works from those that are less successful. Evaluating the careers of eminent scholars and practitioners like Freud, Lewin, James, and Binet, this volume identifies and describes particularly important works, pinpoints specific attributes that led to great impact, and offers practical advice to students and professionals striving to achieve substantial impact in their own work." -- from publisher website.

View Table of Contents.

RefWorks Class

Do you have trouble with citations? Do you need help with bibliographies? We would love to help!

Writing papers just got easier!

Where?
College Library’s Cayot Room

Two Dates!
Session #1
Tue Sep 25 3pm - 4pm

Session #2
Wed Sep 26 4pm – 5pm

[RefWorks is a web-based bibliography database manager.]

Archeaological Discovery in Jerusalem

Archeaologists in Jersusalem have found the drainage tunnel that was used by Jews as they escaped the Roman invasion of AD 70. Read More...

From the BBC... includes a map.

From our library's collection...

296.1 H486e Helyer, Larry R. Exploring Jewish literature of the Second Temple period. 2002.

933 B889i Bruce, F. F. Israel & the nations. 1997.

933 J83c Josephus, Flavius. Josephus, complete works. 1981.

933 M169r McNutt, Paula M. Reconstructing the society of ancient Israel. 1999.

933 M571k Merrill, Eugene H. Kingdom of priests. 1996.

Logging on to the Research Databases is Easier than Ever!

The log-in process for getting access to the Research Databases has changed.

Good change? Bad change? you ask, faintly...

Definitely good change. No longer do you have to memorize 9 different ID/password protocols for our 59 databases.

To access the Research Databases you now use your network account username and password. You can remember that? Easy! This is the same username and password you use to log-in to Blackboard and the computers in the Library or Computer Lab.

The two exceptions to this are the Books In Print and BioOne databases which will still require the institution username and password. Just ask us if you need to use those databases.

You can log in to the Research Databases TWO (2) ways: from the Library's webpage: FIND ARTICLES Research Databases or from the Library tab once you log into Blackboard. From the library website you will need to log in to each database; from Blackboard, once you've logged in, you have access to all the databases (once for all).

If you have any problems or questions please call the library at (619)441-2200 ext. 1227 during normal business hours.

This Just In -- My EBSCOhost has Improved Their Personalized Folders!

You have asked and they have heard you.

You can now create multiple folders in your MyEBSCOhost account! This should improve the management of your saved items.

But, wait! There's more....

1. There is a new check box in front of each saved item, which enables you to select which of the saved items you want to print, email, save or export (into RefWorks).


2. You can sort the results.


3. You can choose the name of each folder AND


4. Determine which folders nest within other folders!

ebrary is down! (not available remotely)

If you have been getting an unauthorized user error message, you are not alone. I, the librarian, could not get passed this message last night at home.

This is a temporary problem. We have been working on the user authentications for all databases & something just got tweaked wrong. I notified our techno-geek (Systems Librarian) about this problem & hopefully he will be able to read the code & figure out what happened.

Stay tuned for more updates about changes in user authentications for our databases.

Comics & Libraries, etc.

Comic-con San Diego is coming to town next week and I'll be there. While, I'm not an enthusiastic fan of comic books, I love comic strips. One of my favorites is about libraries & books: Unshelved.com They have the classic t-shirts "Read Responsibly" & "Will work for Books" which crack me up. They are going to be at Comic-con.

I also plan to attend a session about graphic novels in libraries. I grew up reading Rin Tin Tin and Astrix (Gauls fighting Romans).

I'm also going to the convention because of all the fantasy and scifi that seems to be attracted to it: including TV (Lost), movies (Prince Caspian), and books (last year I heard Christopher Paolini/Eragon).

There are also Christians at the convention. I got three Christian comic books last year and I look forward to increasing my collection.

Diary of Hope by Christine Kerrick
Eye Witness: a Fictional Tale of Absolute Truth by Robert James Luedke
Eye Witness: Acts of the Spirit by Robert James Luedke

The Christian Comic Arts society will be having a session on Sunday.

Library Catalog -- We're Moving!

Actually, the term is 'migrating'. We are saying goodbye to Athena & hello to InfoCentre. Why??? you ask, because I know we were all so attached to our first online library catalog.

We were bored? No, that can't be it. Oh, yes, I remember...Athena will no longer be improved & we didn't want a library catalog that was so last century.

So, if you can't get to the library catalog today, no worries, you will tomorrow & it will be new and improved.

If you have and questions or need to renew a book, please call us: 441-2200 x1227.

Internet Explorer's New Tabs Features & the Revolution in Homepages

Did you know that you can have more than one homepage using the new tab's in Internet Explorer?

From your Browser's menu, Click on Tools -- Internet Options -- in the Home Page box, copy the URLs (type each address on its own line) of the pages you want to open automatically in tabs each time you launch IE. Click on Apply & Save.

Library Application -- you knew this was coming...
1. Make the library's webpage an alternate homepage www.sdcc.edu/library
2. What about the Research Database page or Blackboard...
3. Or your favorite library comic strip? Oh, wait, that's just me.

Finding a Novel to Read Just got Easier!

Here's a another way to find the novel you want to read.

Earlier this summer I showed you Bowker's Fiction Connection (they do the Books in Print Database).

There's a new website created by OCLC (they bring us the WorldCat library database) called, Fiction Finder. You can browse for a book to [Photo]read using the Subject Clouds or search by genres, characters (real & fictional), settings (real & imaginary) or awards. AND it gets better.... Once you've found the book you want to read, since you are using a part of the WorldCat library catalog, all you have to do is click on

Find Any Edition or

Find This Edition

to locate the book in your local library. (OK, I'm trying not to say, "Neat" or "Cool").

BOOK Sale

The library is currently offering recently weeded books from our Theological collection for sale. 10 cents each. Choose from hundreds of books on non-Christian religions, Catholicism, church and demoninational history and even some Bible commentaries.

Summer Reading

We in the library are looking forward to all the books we want to read this summer. Here are some of our suggestions if you want to join us.

Kathleen Russell
The question of God : C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud debate God, love, sex, and the meaning of life by Armand M. Nicholi.
- The contrast between the two people was so stiking and how they dealt with everything in life.
Three for Lord Peter Wimsey : Whose body? Clouds of Witness ; Unnatural death by Dorothy L. Sayers.
- If you like old British murder mysteries, you'll love these.

Peggie Daley
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee.
- The writing is captivating.

Mona Hsu
Hudson Taylor's spiritual secret by Howard and Geraldine Taylor.
- It helps us to realize how a spiritual giant walked in his faith
Til we have faces: a myth retold by C.S. Lewis.
- A deep multi-level literary piece.

Jennifer Ewing
Flabbergasted : a novel by Ray Blackston.
- A lite, hilarious story about Jay who is told by his real estate agent that he can find girls to date at the local churches.
A delirious summer : a novel by Ray Blackston.
- A missionary, who hasn't had a date in over a year, goes on furlough to Greenville, NC, on the recommendation of his worst language student, Jay (A sequel to Flabbergasted).
What Jane Austen taught me about love & romance by Debra White Smith.
- Using Corinthians 13's Love chapter and the romantic couples of Jane Austen's novels, Smith discusses how Austen's characters demonstrated positive aspects of love or by showing us it's opposite.

Matt Owen
The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien.
- The collection of stories about Middle Earth, including my favorite "The Tale of Beren and Luthien". He just bought the Children of Hurin, illustrated by Alan Lee-breathtaking (my comment, not Matt's).

Jennifer Cuellar
The yada yada prayer group by Neta Jackson.
- A suburban mom moves into intercity Chicago and joins a diverse prayer group and she learns that deep down they are all alike. I love the character's inner conversations.
The yada yada prayer group gets down.
The yada yada prayer group gets real.
The yada yada prayer group gets caught.
The yada yada prayer group gets rolling.

Ruth Martin
The least of these my brothers by Harold Bell Wright, ed. by Michael R. Phillips.
- Well written, makes you think. It's a story about a homeless man who is given another chance.

Lynda Meyer
Fearfully and wonderfully made by Paul Brand and Philip Yancey.
- It opened my eyes about the relationship between our bodies, the church body and our spiritual life.
The thread that runs so true by Jesse Stuart.
- An espiring true story about a man entering the teaching profession and the things that he learned.

Another great way to find a good book to read is to use Fiction Connection (This requires the same username/password as Books in Print). You can find good book suggestions based on a book that you already enjoy. You can also use the broad category searches for topic, genre, setting, character, location, or timeframe. It has a really cool interface.

Summer Jobs & New Careers

Here's some places to go for ideas as you look for summer employment or your first post-college job.

America's top jobs for college graduates: detailed information on 112 major jobs requiring four-year and higher degrees. Indianapolic, IN : JIST, c1999. [R 331.1 F239a]

The enhanced occupational outlook handbook. Indianapolis, IN : JIST Works, c2007. [R 331.702 E56o 6]

Encyclopedia of careers and vocational guidance. Chicago, Ill. : Ferguson Pub. Co., c2003. [R 371.425 E56c 12 v.1-4]

America's top 300 jobs [electronic resource] : a complete career handbook. Indianapolis, IN. : JIST Works, c2004. e-book availble from: NetLibrary.

VGM opportunities series (52 ebooks in ebrary), such as, Opportunities in psychology careers.

Internet Resources: Career & Occupations
Suggested websites from the SDCC Library: Career Development, Career Statistics, Salary Guides & Career Finder (Job sites).

National Library Week April 15-21, 2007

National Library Week is a time to celebrate the contributions of our nation's libraries, librarians and library workers and to promote library use and support.

That means academic libraries too. So come to the College Library this week as we celebrate the coming end of the school year with contests and poetry and prizes and [gasp!] food. See April is... entry for more information.

April is…

National Library Week 15th-21st

• Drawing for Great Prizes! CHECK OUT books (etc) from the Library during April 3rd-20th & be automatically entered! Prizes include: Audio Books, Books, etc. The drawing will be held on Friday, April 20th.


• It’s never too late for JELLY BEANS! Test your math skills and guess how many jelly beans in the jar and win a prize! Winner announced on April 2oth.


• Find out who was CAUGHT READING on posters around the Library!

Jazz Appreciation Month

• See our new display featuring Louis Armstrong.

National Poetry Month

• Friday, April 27th: Come in and read a poem (yes, out loud) from the book, “Sing a Song of Popcorn: Every Child’s Book of Poems” and receive a cup of POPCORN!
• Sign up for the Poem-A-Day email @ Poets.org from the Academy of American Poets.
• Read a poem, hear poets read, browse poetry resources as the Library of Congress celebrates National Poetry Month.

Your library has a LOT to offer! Come and check us out!

…New Books…Audio Books…Fun Librarians…

The God Debate brought to you by Newsweek

Here are the latest poll numbers from Newsweek: 90% of Americans believe in God & 48% reject the 'scientific' theory of evolution. Read the results here.

Two other interesting items in their Beliefs section are:

Religion: Is God Real? which leads in to the main show where Rick Warren (who needs no introduction) has a conversion (ie civil debate) with Sam Harris whose recent books, The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason & Letter to a Christian Nation, warn against the harmful effects of orgainized religion. The God Debate is a long conversation but well worth the effort.

Google This!

Here's some ways to improve your searches using Google.

• Use " " for an exact phrase: "war of 1812"
• Use - to exclude words: bass -fishing
• Use ~ to search for synonyms: ~cell for cell phone, wireless, etc.
• Use OR to combine terms: jesus sign OR miracle

But wait, there's more...you can get Google to do more than search!

• Don't know the meaning of a word? Use define:hubris to learn that it means excessive pride
• Need a calculator? Type in 1+1 or 2 divided by 4

Have you found any other tricks for searching Google? Stop by and let me know. Meanwhile, enjoy!

New Display -- Local Authors Published!

Come and see our display of books written by students in Peggy Lord's Children's Literature class.

The Secret by Rhonda Byrne -- Prosperty Theology with a new Book Cover

There's a new book that has quickly leaped to the near top of the bestseller lists. On the Barnes & Noble and Amazon site, it's ranked #2, just behind the new Harry Potter book. Oprah devoted 2 shows to it.

Rhonda Byrne has written a book that she claims is the secret to sucess in life, but isn't it really just prosperity theology in a new package?

So, what's the secret? Simply, it's this: "You attract what you think about; your thoughts determine your destiny." (Whitney 2007) It's based upon the laws of attraction.

To learn more about the book, read Don Whitney's commentary about it on Baptist Press. Also look at the transcript of an interview on Larry King Live. Amazingly, even Newsweek is skeptical in their article, "De-coding the Secret."

Frog and Toad & Children's Literature

This week is the start of SDCC's Spring Musical "A Year with Frog & Toad."

We in the library have a small exhibit of Arnold Lobel's Frog and Toad series, including Frog and Toad are friends (1970) a Caledcott Honor book & Days with Frog and Toad (1979).

In support of the Children's Literature class, the library has a large collection of children's books, including the Caldecott (picture books) and Newbery (children's fiction) winners and also books about children's literature.

But I'm too old to read children's books, you think to yourself. Well, to quote C.S. Lewis from his preface in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to his godchild Lucy Barfield,

"...But some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again."

So come in and checkout our children's literature collection. You might be surprised to find an old friend or two there.

Cat in the Hat turns 50!

Can you believe
It's been as long as all that
That a man with a pen
Wrote about a cat with a hat?

We salute you, kind sir,
with your magical pen
which wrote such fun rhymes
we read again and again.

For more about the celebration, go to the official Seussville website.

Found! Jesus' Tomb -- according to new James Cameron documentary to air on Discovery Channel

A few years ago it was a 2000-year-old ossuary with the inscription "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus." Today it's a tomb some believe to be the tomb of Jesus. Discovery Channel will be airing a new documentary by James Cameron about the Lost Tomb of Jesus on Sunday, March 4 @ 9p.m.

The news services (I use Google News) have hundreds of articles about the 'discovery.'

For a good blog entry about the 'discovery' and coming documentary, I suggest The Recliner Commentaries 'The Family Tomb of Jesus' for a good essay about the 'evidence' of this discovery.

Biblical Archeaology Society also has a comment (or two) about the discovery in their Breaking News section.

Need articles quickly?

Did you find an article you need but the library doesn't have it in full-text? And you need it yesterday?

Will you panic? No need.

We are way ahead of you. The library has a new software program that sends scanned articles from other libraries without the traditional wait (5-10 days) of Interlibrary Loan. In very scientifically run trials, the library requested the different 3 articles from three separate libraries and they all arrived in 1 day. One day, that's like 24 hours! Now this was in a very controlled environment, so we suggest you allow for 2 or 3 days to be on the safe side.

But wait, there's more...since we get the articles as emails, we will send them to you via email. You don't have to make a trip into the library to pick your article up! Wow!

So, go ahead. Wait until the last minute to ask for your periodical ILLs (or really the last 2880 mintues--24 hours x 60 minutes x 2 days). Use the Periodical ILL form on the Library's webpage to have periodical articles sent to your e-mail account really, really fast!

What's New in the Library?

Practically every day the library is adding new books to the collection. Some of them are displayed on the book truck at the entrance, but many more go directly to the shelves.


So, how do you know what is being added? Easy. The library has a Visual Search button on the library's online catalog that includes all new materials added to the collection. Once you are in the list, you can sort it by author, title or any other of a dozen ways.


To go directly to the new books list, click on the New Arrivals icon below.

RefWorks Training Sessions

Got papers? Need to do a bibliography?

Come to one of our RefWorks training sessions!

Tuesday, February 20th - 4-4:45pm
Wednesday, February 21st - 3-3:45pm

Instructors: Matt Owen & Jennifer Ewing
In the Cayot Room in the College Library.

Fun for Friday -- Introducing the book

Here's a video from YouTube that relates to libraries and emerging technology: Introducing the Book.

Enjoy!

Linking References in RefWorks

Open URL Links
If your RefWorks administrator has added an Open URL link to the RefWorks program, there will be a link in the main viewing area of the program right next to the View and Edit links for each reference. (This is not available to Individual Subscribers.) Click on the link to launch the Open URL search

Linking to a Web Site
To link to a URL simply type the information into the Links or DOI (Digital Object Identifier) fields. Entries in the these fields need to be separated by a semi-colon. Click on the URL to launch the link.

Linking to a File on Your Computer
To link to a file located on your local computer, precede the file name with file:, e.g., file://C:\reflinks\sample.txt. The file name and the path name cannot contain spaces. To work around this you must enter a %20 to replace the space. For example, to link to your My Documents folder you would enter file://C:\My%20Documents\sample.txt. You may want to set up a specific folder on your computer for items you want to link to from RefWorks.

Users can also use a universal naming convention to make network shared files available to all users. For example, file://c:\windows\win.exe under UNC might carry the identifier
file:////machinename/sharename/windows/win.exe.

Note: Some firewall or security software or security settings in your browser may block links to documents stored on your hard-drive. If you find you are having trouble linking, check your security settings.

New Copying & Printing Process in the Library

Effective January 8, 2006: Cost per page is $0.05 for black and white printing/copying. Cost per page for color copies is $0.20.

An ID card with sufficient funds must be used in the library for all printing and copying needs. You will need to ‘swipe’ your ID to pay for either / both copies and print jobs. You select at the print station what you want to print. Library staff can add money to your card. More details are posted in the library.

Each student ID card was given a $1.00 credit. (THANK YOU, IT)