Biblio-Bits Bites the Dust: Deactivation Notice

The librarian who maintained the blog is no longer working in Peninsula College Library. Therefore, there will be no further blog entries. Thank you for reading.

Library Book Display Celebrates Women's History Month

Photo credit: Dennis Sanford

March 8 is International Women's Day and March is Women's History Month. The Library is celebrating with a book display of enticing titles. Here is the history of Women's History Month:

In 1981, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) and Rep. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.) co-sponsored a joint Congressional resolution proclaiming a national Women's History Week. In 1987, Congress expanded the celebration to a month, and March was declared Women's History Month.

Read more: History of Women's History Month http://www.infoplease.com/spot/womensintro1.html#ixzz1GJkA684h

Black History Month Library Book Display

Peninsula College Library now has a display of books related to Black History Month, featuring a poster of Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), with this quote:

There is no Negro problem. The problem is whether or not the American people have loyalty enough, honor enough, patriotism enough, to live up to their own constitution.

Native American Art at UBC Museum. Photo Credit: fboudville

In its second exhibit of the 2010-2011 academic year, Peninsula College Library has a book display (in the Library's new glass display shelves) related to Native American Heritage Month:

In 1990 President George H. W. Bush approved a joint resolution designating November 1990 "National American Indian Heritage Month." Similar proclamations, under variants on the name (including "Native American Heritage Month" and "National American Indian and Alaska Native Heritage Month") have been issued each year since 1994. http://nativeamericanheritagemonth.gov/about/

The Peninsula College Library Native American Heritage Month book display will remain until the end of fall quarter, December 9, 2010.

Library Has New Book Display to Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month

Photo credit: Herald Post

In its first exhibit of the 2010-2011 academic year, Peninsula College Library has a book display (in the Library's new glass display shelves) related to Hispanic history and literature.

Hispanic Heritage Month begins on September 15, the anniversary of independence for five Latin American countries—Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. In addition, Mexico declared its independence on September 16, and Chile on September 18.

The term Hispanic, as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau, refers to Spanish-speaking people in the United States of any race. On the 2000 Census form, people of Spanish/Hispanic/Latino origin could identify themselves as Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, or "other Spanish/Hispanic/Latino." More than 35 million people identified themselves as Hispanic or Latino on the 2000 Census. Read more: InfoPlease

Peninsula College Selected to Participate in National Institutes of Health Study

Logo credit: Lana Ivanitskaya

Peninsula College has been selected to be one of only five institutions nationwide to participate in a National Institutes of Health (NIH) 2010 grant dedicated to information literacy. The grant is part of President Obama's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 that gives summer research experiences to health and library science educators.

The two Peninsula College faculty who will participate in the grant are Jen Gouge, Program Director for the Medical Assistants program, and David Kent, Research & Instruction Librarian. They will collaborate to adapt and disseminate an eHealth literacy assessment, originally designed at Central Michigan University, to students enrolled in Peninsula College health-related programs. The other four participating institutions are Oakland Community College (MI), Morehead State University (KY), Oakton Community College (IL), and Daytona State College (FL).

Health faculty and librarians from the five selected universities and colleges will work together to develop their students' eHealth literacy. The code name for this effort is “Focus on Information Technology: Navigation that Emphasizes Scholarly Sources (FITNESS).”

The assessment, called READY:SET or Research Readiness Self-Assessment (RRSA), was created to answer these questions:

• Do future health professionals have the requisite skills to engage in evidence-based practice and lifelong professional education?

• Can they find credible health information for their patients?

READY:SET is an online interactive application that was designed to assist librarians and faculty from different disciplines in their efforts to equip students with the skills and knowledge necessary to become effective, independent users of secondary source information from digital (electronic) sources.

Digital information competencies are defined as the key attributes, such as knowledge, skills and beliefs, manifested by people who purposefully manage and critically evaluate electronic information (e.g., digital libraries and the internet) and use it to make informed choices.

Specifically, READY:SET aims to develop these eHealth competencies:

1. What to assume:
.......1a. Capability & limitations of media
2. Where to go:
.......2a. Knowledge of channels & sources: electronic, analog, and human
.......2b. Knowledge of entry points (gateways)
.......2c. Knowledge of access barriers
3. How to use:
.......3a. Needs assessment (define task, set goal, plan strategy)
.......3b. Navigation (seek, find, refine, narrow) and critical judgment (verify, check) of content, features, and sources of eHealth multimedia (text, video, audio, graphics)
.......3c. Manipulation of eHealth tools and database search applications to get useful outputs
.......3d. Assessment of relevance (check context)
.......3e. Application of outputs (ethically use, recommend)
4. How to get better:
.......4a. Checking assumptions (question) and skill gaps (learn)
.......4b. Getting help

A National Institutes of Health reviewer described RRSA (now known as READY:SET) as "a useful innovation" where "not only individuals’ actual competence, but also perceived competence, is measured, so that those with a mis-match between the two can be identified and mentored" (NIH Scientific Review Group summary statement, grant application 1R03LM009851-01A1, 2007). The reviewer also commented, "the instrument itself contains valuable feedback mechanisms to help those taking the assessment to improve their skills, an innovative feature."

RRSA was originally designed and continues to be developed by Lana V. Ivanitskaya, Ph.D. and Anne Marie Casey, A.M.L.S. in collaboration with many of their colleagues. To learn more about information literacy, see http://infolit.org/about-the-national-forum/

Peninsula College Library Nursing Resources 2010

This June 2010 nursing resources guide for Peninsula College nursing students includes:

NURSING RESOURCES INDEX
JOURNAL PRINT INDEXES AND DATABASES
OTHER FREELY AVAILABLE ONLINE NURSING JOURNALS
ONLINE BOOKS
PENINSULA COLLEGE LIBRARY CATALOG
CULTURAL COMPETENCE
EVIDENCE-BASED NURSING
EVALUATING RESOURCES
WHAT IS A SCHOLARLY JOURNAL?
READING: HOW TO READ A RESEARCH PAPER
CITING: SOURCE DOUCUMENTATION USING APA
CRITICAL THINKING
NURSING CARE PLANS
NURSING ETHICS
NURSING RESEARCH
NURSING EMPLOYMENT
NURSING SPECIALTIES
NURSING THEORY
PDA NURSING RESOURCES
PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
SPECIALITY GROUPS
WASHINGTON STATE PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS
HISTORY OF NURSING
INTERNET GUIDES
NURSING INFORMATION COMPETENCY ONLINE COURSE

First L.O.D.E. workshop held Feb. 22, 2010: "Secrets of the OPAC"

The first L.O.D.E. (Library Online Database Education) workshop, "Secrets of the OPAC" was held Feb. 22, 2010. The PowerPoint of the presentation can be accessed here: http://www.pencol.edu/biblio/LODEOPAC.pdf

The next L.O.D.E. workshop is: Academic Search Premier, our largest scholarly full-text multidisciplinary journal article database. March 15, 2010 in the Library Classroom

Library Display for National American Indian Heritage Month

Olympic National Park exhibit

“Freeing the Elwha: A Story of Dam Removal and Restoration.”

Image credit: Dennis Sanford

To celebrate National American Indian Heritage Month the library has a display of books related to Native American history, and an Olympic National Park exhibit, “Freeing the Elwha: A Story of Dam Removal and Restoration.”

The display and exhibit will be in the PC library until December 7.

Click on this link to see:

1) a list of the books with Native American themes on display in the PC Library
2) a list of titles in the Pacific NW Native American History, Culture & Arts collection, purchased through the generosity of Ruth Kirk and Jack & Jennie Zaccardo
3) a brief legislative history of presidential proclamations for National American Indian Heritage Month
4) a photo of the Olympic National Park exhibit

Come visit the “Freeing the Elwha” exhibit… and check out a book!

New Editions of APA and MLA This Year

Image Credit: Tessa Farrell


The American Psychological Association and the Modern Language Association have both revised their style guides. Highline Community College has created new four-page handouts for their students and has generously provided a link to them for Peninsula College Library students to use.

FIND IT! CITING SOURCES

http://library.highline.edu/findit/citing.php

There are both PDF and HTML versions available.

Thanks to Reference Librarian Deborah Moore and the Highline staff for their good work and for their collaboration.

The new bibliographic style publications (cited here in APA format, sans indentation) are:

American Psychological Association. (2010). Publication manual of the American Psychological Association. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Gibaldi, J. (2009). MLA handbook for writers of research papers. New York: Modern Language Association of America.

Human Rights and Banned Books Week Displays

During the month of October 2009 the Peninsula College Library has two book displays.

One is of new acquisitions related to human rights.

Image credit: Dennis Sanford

The other display is of books which have been challenged or banned during 2007-2008.

Banned Books Week is Sept 26 to Oct. 3, 2009.

From the website: Banned Books Week is the only national celebration of the freedom to read. It was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries. More than a thousand books have been challenged since 1982.

Image credit: Dennis Sanford

Tim McNulty to be spring 2010 Writer-in-Residence at Peninsula College

Image credit: Ricardo.Martins

Peninsula College has announced the spring quarter 2010 Writer-in-Residence will be poet and nature writer Tim McNulty.

The Peninsula College Library is developing an evolving bibliography related to Tim McNulty

Updated IL Resources & Tools Map

Photo credit: jonny goldstein


Lisa Metzer has published a really cool updated mind map of information literacy resources and tools.

Here is how Lisa describes her work:

"I now call this resource a "Visual Resource Guide for Information Literacy." The purpose of this guide is to visually aggregate resources for IL. I recently updated this visual guide very thoroughly. New topics and major revisions include screencasting software, online IL tutorials, and online citation management tools. "

Library "Bestsellers" in Electronic Books

Image Credit: #1 New York Times Bestseller by Timothy Valentine

Top Ten : E-books Most-Read at Peninsula College during Jan-Feb. 2009

(arranged by frequency of use)

1. New Biographical Dictionary of Film : Expanded and Updated by Thomson (Knopf Publishing Group)

2. Art of Travel by De Botton (Knopf Publishing Group)

3. In the Footsteps of the Masters : Desmond M. Tutu & Abel T. Muzorewa by Mungazi (Greenwood Publishing)

4. Mexican Immigration to the United States edited by Borjas (University of Chicago Press)

5. Vital Nephrology : Your Essential Reference for the Most Vital Points of Nephrology by Stein (Class Publishing)

6. Chemically Induced Birth Defects (3rd Edition) by Schardein (Marcel Dekker Incorporated)

7. Walter Wanger, Hollywood Independent by Bernstein (University of Minnesota Press)

8. Rheumatoid Arthritis FAQs by Newman (B.C. Decker Incorporated)

9. Social Influences by Wren (Routledge)

10. The Muse of History and the Science of Culture by Carneiro (Kluwer Academic Publishers)

ACRL 14th National Conference Report

Image credit: Seattle 2009 by rmoniz510
This year the 2009 ACRL conference was held in Seattle from March 12 to March 15 at venues in the Washington State Convention and Trade Center and the Sheraton Seattle Hotel. From March 12 to March 14 the weather changed from sun to rain. On March 15 it snowed! The theme of the conference was "Pushing the Edge: Explore, Engage, Extend." This report is of the experience of one unnamed Peninsula College librarian at the ACRL conference.

First, I was psyched to hear Naomi Klein, who was scheduled for the opening keynote, and unfortunately she was ill and unable to attend. I did hear two other keynotes which were excellent: poet Sherman Alexie and Ira Glass, the creator of This American Life. Other featured presentations I attended were: Marilee Bresciani on "Confronting the Business Lens for Accountability of General Education," a presentation which generated passionate audience response: "They are not products, they are not widgets, they are students!" and Robin Chase, an entrepreneur who is pioneering in ways of collaborative sharing. Robin is the former CEO of Zipcar, and current CEO of GoLoco. She was amazed, and gratified, to see a ballroom full of librarians at 8:00 a.m. on Sunday morning, to hear a talk on addressing global resource crises.

At a national conference there are often many things happening simultaneously, so one has to choose among many appetizing offerings. The other sessions and workshops this librarian attended focused on more library-related themes like these: "Brother Can You Spare a Dime? The 2009 ACRL Trends for Academic Libraries," "Reeling in the Faculty: Baiting the Information Literacy Hook," and, my favorite presentation: "Workplace Information Literacy: Cultivation Strategies for Working Smarter in 21st Century Libraries" where I was thrilled, absolutely thrilled, to learn of Christine Bruce's new book, Informed Learing. After the presentation I rushed straight to the ACRL Bookstore to buy it.

On Saturday I got an ACRL veggie box lunch that was delicious: a sandwich with roasted vegetables, including my favorite: eggplant. It was a working lunch. The ballroom had 50 tables, with 50 different yet concurrent themes! I chose table 17, "From Instruction Traditionalist to Learning Facilitator: Exploring New Heights of Student Engagement."

The only sour note was my hotel experience. But once I got out of the fancy $165 a night hotel (plus $38 parking, plus $10 if you want an internet connection!) and went to a place in the University district, I felt at home. I paid $35 a night (which included free parking and free internet!), thereby saving the state hundreds of dollars. I was near my alma mater, the University of Washington, and I visited old haunts like the University Bookstore on the "Ave."

All in all, it was a great ACRL 2009 conference.

Library Research Guide Updated for 2009-2010

Image credit: Guide to Research by miseldine

The 2009-2010 Library Research Guide for Peninsula College has been updated for the current and coming academic years. Although research is an iterative process (often accompanied by caffeine), the guide proceeds in a chronological fashion.

First, get an overview and background information on a topic, which will be useful in developing a thesis. Library reference books (e.g., specialized and subject encyclopedias) can often provide in-depth overviews written by scholars. For example, the Library has the International Encyclopedia of Social and Behavioral Sciences in the reference collection.

Wikipedia can also provide overviews. Anyone can edit a Wikipedia article at any time, and the articles are written by unidentified and unknown authors. Nonetheless, Wikipedia might provide references to scholarly and reliable sources.

Second, maintain a list of important names, search terms, and dates which might be used in database or Web search. Consult thesauri of subject headings to find additional search terms.

Third, armed with an overview and search vocabulary, search the library article databases for articles and the library catalog for books.

The 2009-2010 Library Research Guide also lists additional search resources: the local public library system (NOLS), interlibrary loan, WorldCat, LC classification, evaluation criteria, links to source documentation (APA, MLA, etc.), and links to various Web search engines. All that in just two pages!

New MLA Handout

Image credit: trypdwyre

Thanks to Sharon A. Moore for permission to share this new Spring 2009 MLA handout: Citing Your Sources – MLA Format
.

Computer-Generated Bibliographic Citations: Can Machines Get It Right?

For decades we have been trying to get computers to correctly format bibliographic citations. Can machines get it right? Some programming is now doing a good job, but any machine-generated citation should be checked for accuracy, as tweaking is sometimes required.

Computer-Generated Bibliographic Citations is a brief tutorial (PDF format, 130KB, 13 slides) which covers why citation is important, compares formatting in a few bibliographic styles (APA, MLA, CHICAGO, CSE, NLM, AFS), lists a few programs which generate citations, and compares machine-generated citation accuracy for APA citations generated by WorldCat and Zotero.

Zotero : akin to Bibliographic Heaven

Image credit:
60 in 3





Zotero (rivaling sliced bread in my world) provides free bibliographic reference management through the Firefox browser. A Zotero tutorial is available here .

Google Books vs. Peninsula College Library Catalog

Don Quijote
Image Credit: [noone]

"La libertad, Sancho, es uno de los más preciosos dones que a los hombres dieron los cielos; con ella no pueden igualarse los tesoros que encierran la tierra y el mar: por la libertad, así como por la honra, se puede y debe aventurar la vida."

-Don Quijote de la Mancha-

A Response to: “Google Books vs. BISON”
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6566451.html

An article by Mark J. Ludwig & Margaret R. Wells in Library Journal (6/15/2008) says: “…Google Books' deeper indexing and more advanced relevancy ranking usually works better than that of our local catalogs.”

I respectfully disagree.

Google Books often cannot even compete with our small, rural, community college library catalog (with 62,000 holdings) when the playing field is level, i.e., when the search parameters are identical.

In the last century (the 20th century) I remember studying at the University of Washington, consulting the catalog, climbing the stairs of Suzzallo Library, and pulling books out of the stacks. I did that daily for years. I had the full-text in my hands minutes after a catalog search. I was in heaven. Now, in 2008, Google Books cannot even come close to giving me the full-text I want.

Whereas for most search results with Google Books you do not get the full-text to read, in a library you do get full text of e-books (and more full text in print sources, along with some exercise, if you walk to the stacks).

Google Books default is “All Books,” which includes "full view" and "limited preview" books. To make the comparison of immediate full text accessibility more accurate, the “full view only” option should be selected in Google Advanced Book Search. The Peninsula College Library catalog often does better than Google Advanced Book Search "full view only."

Recently I was searching for books on leadership and did a Google Books search for books in English, published between 2000 and 2008, with the word “leadership” in the title. I wanted recent books, and access to full text, and I did a title keyword search to insure relevancy, since I wasn’t interested in items found by Google Books with the word “leadership” mentioned once on page 153. I repeated the identical search in the Peninsula College Library catalog.

A Peninsula College Library Catalog search retrieved more titles than a Google Books "full view only" search: 22 times more! For students in the PC Library all books are "full view." Some are e-books immediately available online (those reported below in the searches), and additional print sources require a few minutes walk to the stacks.

I then tried other topics using the same search parameters. PC Library contained more "full view" e-books than Google Books (full view only) on many of the topics searched.

Searches in both sources used identical parameters: title keyword search for books in English published between 2000 and 2008. Here is my search history:

LEADERSHIP
Peninsula College Library Catalog = 179 full-view e-books
Google Advanced Book Search = 8 full-view titles

Hmmm… Google Books "full view only" did not do well, when compared to Peninsula College Library Catalog, to get immediate access to full text.

Maybe that was a fluke. Let’s try another search for the word “globalization” in the title.

GLOBALIZATION
Peninsula College Library Catalog = 130 full-view e-books
Google Advanced Book Search = 5 full-view titles

Maybe they were both flukes. Let’s try another…

PHILOSOPHY
Peninsula College Library Catalog = 220 full-view e-books
Google Advanced Book Search = 3 full-view titles

Ouch!

Let's try a couple more...

COMPUTER
Peninsula College Library Catalog = 152 full-view e-books
Google Advanced Book Search = 4 full-view titles

PSYCHOANALYSIS
Peninsula College Library Catalog = 22 full-view e-books
Google Advanced Book Search = 0 full-view titles

Not only does our small Peninsula College Library frequently have more titles to offer students than Google Books, the quality of our copyrighted offerings are likely superior, coming from academic publisher content, content which Google Books cannot provide in full text due to copyright restrictions.

Topics like leadership, philosophy, psychoanalysis, computers, and globalization are not esoteric, yet Google Book Search delivers from zero to five percent of the number of titles available in the Peninsula College Library Catalog. I would say that is an accurate reflection of the real world, since Google has digitized less than 10% of the 86 million unique titles in WorldCat, titles that are available in libraries. Anyone limiting themselves to Google Book Search will miss more than 90% of the literature in existence.

Additionally, if a student does a default Google Books search (this frequently happens), instead of an advanced search with limiters, he or she would have to wade through the no-preview titles (no full-text), the “limited preview” titles (peek-a-boo full-text), the books published before 1920 and public domain books (not copyrighted), and the books in languages other than English, to find recent full-text titles in English (if Google Books has any).

Peninsula College Library does deliver the full-text. And, for the 30,000 e-books in our collection, students in the library don’t even have to go to the stacks... and even more full-text is available in print monographs after a short walk to the stacks.

Now, if a student wanted to find books to request on interlibrary loan, then a default Google Books search might be useful (although I would go with WorldCat, which has records for millions more documents: books, articles, theses, etc., and more search options, than Google Books).

For our students I think the Peninsula College Library is their best bet to retrieve full text, and WorldCat is best to identify titles for interlibrary loan that Google Books does not have.

Peninsula College Library is small but mighty… you might say it is a Google Books slayer.

EBSCO Literary Reference Center Available to PC Academic Community with NOLS Library Card

Shakespeare

Image credit: richardk


Members of the Peninsula College academic community have access to EBSCO's Literary Reference Center, but they will need to authenticate with a North Olympic Library System (NOLS) library card.

The EBSCO Literary Reference Center (LRC) describes itself this way: The primary goal of LRC is to assist high school and undergraduate English and Humanities students with homework and research assignments of a literary nature.

The LRC contains a Literary-Historical Timeline, Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature, an LRC Glossary, plot summaries, reviews, interviews, etc. LRC is a comprehensive source that combines information from over 1,000 books and monographs, major literary encyclopedias and reference works, hundreds of literary journals.

Get a NOLS library card and get access to a wealth of literary information!

Peninsula College Library also has several periodical databases with literary criticism listed on its Online Resources page: Academic Search Premier, Magill on Literature, Gale Literary Databases (which includes the Dictionary of Literary Biography, Contemporary Authors, and Contemporary Literary Criticism Select), Gale Literary Index, ProQuest and eLibrary. EBSCO's LRC nicely complements PC Library's literary resources and a link to LRC is available through the Peninsula College Library Cyberlinks page under LANGUAGE.

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

"crumbs"
Image credit: boadiceafairy





Here is an article from The Atlantic Monthly I enjoyed reading...... leisurely... in a comfortable stuffed chair... with a cup of hot mint tea... and a reading light... as the rain pitter-pattered on the roof:

Is Google Making Us Stupid?
by Nicholas Carr.
The Atlantic Monthly, July/August 2008:56-63

At the risk of giving away the answer, here are two sentences from the article:

“Most of the proprietors of the commercial Internet have a financial stake in collecting the crumbs of data we leave behind as we flit from link to link — the more crumbs, the better. The last thing these companies want is to encourage leisurely reading or slow, concentrated thought. It’s in their economic interest to drive us to distraction.”

I had the print edition in hand, but here is a link (wink) to the online edition: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200807/google

CQ Researcher Adds Index to Pro/Con Positions on Issues

You can now browse Congressional Quarterly Researcher pro/con statements by topics (pro/con statements present opposing viewpoints on issues). The link to the Congressional Quarterly Researcher is on the Library Online Resources page. Off campus access requires authentication with your PC 895 ID number. To give an idea of the breadth of coverage, here is a list of pro/con topics currently available:

Abortion
Adoption and Foster Care
Advertising
Affirmative Action
Afghanistan and Pakistan
Africa
AIDS/HIV and Sexually Transmitted Diseases
Air Pollution
Air Transportation
Alternative Energy
Alternative Medicine
Alzheimer's Disease
America's Image Abroad
Animal Rights
Antitrust
Aquaculture and Maritime Policy
Archeology
Arms Control and Disarmament
Arms Sales and Trafficking
Artificial Intelligence
Arts
Automobiles
Baby Boomers
Banking
Bilingual Education and ESL
Birth Control
Campaign Finance
Canada
Cancer
Caribbean
Censorship
Census
Chain Stores
Challenges of the Courts
Cheating and Ethics in Schools
Child Abuse
Child Care
Child Labor
China
Christianity
Civil Liberties in Wartime
Coal Industry
Coastlines
College Financing
College Sports
Colleges and Universities
Computers
Consumer Protection
Copyright and Patents
Corporate Salaries
Cosmetics and Fashion
Cost of Living and Wages
Credit and Consumer Debt
Crime
Criminal Sentencing
Cuba
Death Penalty
Defense Spending
Democracy
Disabled Persons
Disasters and Preparedness
Disease
Diversity
Doctors
Drug Abuse and Trafficking
Education and Funding
Education and Gender
Education Issues
Education Standards and Testing
Elections
Electoral College
Energy
Environmental Protection
Ethics in Government
Ethics in War
European Unification
Evolution, Science, and Creationism
Executive Powers and the Presidency
Farm Labor
Farm Loans and Subsidies
Farm Policy
Federal Budget and National Debt
Federal Judiciary
Federal/State Government Relations
Food Safety
Foreign Aid
Gambling and Lotteries
Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered Individuals
Genetics and Cloning
Gifted Education and Tracking
Government Secrecy
Gun Control and the Second Amendment
Health Insurance
Highways and Roads
Hispanics
Historic Preservation
Holocaust and Antisemitism
Hospitals
Housing
Human Rights
Illiteracy
Immigration and Naturalization
India
Insurance Industry
Intelligence Agencies
Iran
Iraq
Islam
Israel, Palestine, and Middle East Peace
Japan
Jobs and Skills
Journalism, Newspapers, and the Media
Jury System
Juveniles and the Justice System
Korea
Labor Unions
Latin America
Law Enforcement
Lawyers
Learning Disabilities
Libraries
Lobbying and Special Interests
Marijuana
Marriage, Divorce, and Single Parents
Mass Transit
Medicaid and Medicare
Medical Malpractice
Mental Health
Military Draft
Millenium
Missile Defense
Morality and Values
Music
National Parks
Native Americans
NATO
Nuclear Power
Nutrition and Health
Occult
Oil and Gasoline Prices
Older Americans and Senior Citizens
Olympics
Organ Transplants
Organized Crime
Panama
Peace Corps, National Service, and Volunteerism
Pensions and Retirement
Pesticides
Pharmaceuticals
Philanthropy and Charities
Political Parties
Polling
Population
Poverty and Homelessness
Presidential Candidates and Campaigns
Prisons
Privacy
Privatization
Professional Sports
Property Rights
Protest Movements and Counter Culture
Public Housing
Public Utilities and Electricity
Publishing Industry
Puerto Rico
Racism and Hate
Radio
Railroads
Reapportionment, Redistricting, and Representation
Refugees and Asylum
Religion and Politics
Religion and Schools
Right to Die
Rural America
Russia and the Soviet Union
Science Policy
Segregation and Desegregation
Sex Education
Sex Offenders
Sexual Behavior
Smoking and the Tobacco Industry
Social Security
Space Exploration
State and Local Governments
Stock Market
Stress
Supreme Court
Taxation
Teaching
Teens and Alcohol
Telecommunications
Television
Term Limits
Terrorism
Tourism and Vacation
Traffic Congestion
Trash and Recycling
U.S. Dollar and Inflation
U.S. Military
UFO's
Underground Economy
Unemployment
United Kingdom
United Nations
United States and Foreign Trade
Upward Mobility
Urban Planning
Vaccines
Vietnam War
Violence in America
Violence in Schools
Voting Rights
Washington, DC
Water Pollution
Weapons of Mass Destruction
Welfare
Wildlife and Endangered Species
Women and Sports
Women and Work
Women's Health
Women's Rights
Workforce Protections
World Trade
World War II Reparations
Youths and Work

Peninsula College Library "Bestsellers"

Image credit: El Ramon


Here is a list of the 15 titles with the highest circulation in the Peninsula College Library for the 2007-2008 academic year:

Telling true stories : a nonfiction writers' guide from the Nieman Foundation at Harvard University / edited by Mark Kramer and Wendy Call.

Buffalo for the Broken Heart : restoring life to a Black Hills ranch / Dan O'Brien.

Bedford introduction to literature : reading, thinking, writing / [edited by] Michael Meyer.

Human physiology / Stuart Ira Fox.

Where I'm calling from : new and selected stories / Raymond Carver.

Baseball saved us / written by Ken Mochizuki ; illustrated by Dom Lee.

Make way for ducklings, by Robert McCloskey.

Fundamentals of nursing / Patricia A. Potter, Anne Griffin Perry.

Latin for people = Latina pro populo / Alexandri Humez, Nicholas Humez.

Precalculus, annotated instructor's edition : functions and graphs / Earl W. Swokowski, Jeffery A. Cole.

Pre-code Hollywood : sex, immorality, and insurrection in American cinema, 1930-1934 / Thomas Doherty.

Spunk & bite : a writer's guide to punchier, more engaging language & style / Arthur Plotnik.

Surviving schizophrenia : a manual for families, consumers, and providers / E. Fuller Torrey.

Hiroshima no pika / words and pictures by Toshi Maruki.

Puss in boots / Charles Perrault ; illustrated by Fred Marcellino ; translated by Malcolm Arthur.

University Channel Provides Access to Academic Thought

Image credit:
israfel67

The UChannel (also known as the University Channel) makes videos of academic lectures and events from all over the world available to the public. It is a place where academics can air their ideas and present research in a full-length, uncut format. Contributors with greater video production capabilities can submit original productions.

The UChannel presents ideas in a way commercial news or public affairs programming cannot. Because it is neither constrained by time nor dependent upon commercial feedback, the UChannel's video content can be broad and flexible enough to cover the full gamut of academic investigation.

UChannel is a project of Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

Library Tutorial Presentations Available

Image credit:
Lukethelibrarian


The library is inaugurating a new page with library tutorials at http://faculty.pc.ctc.edu/davidk/Default.aspx. The tutorials are in PDF format.

Here is a list of the available tutorials:

ONLINE CATALOG (OPAC)

What Is An OPAC?
(and what does it do?)

OPAC-Search-Limiters
(using Quick Limiters and Set Limits Button)

OPAC-Advanced-Search
(truncation, Boolean, and field search)

ONLINE RESOURCES (Library databases)

A-to-Z e-Journal Index
(to 9,000 full-text e-journal subscriptions)

RESEARCH PROCESS

Forming a Research Question

SEARCH TACTICS

Finding Search Terms

Forming a Research Question

DOCUMENTATION

Zotero : Documenting Your Research

Biblio Snapshot of Sustainability Articles, 1986-2007

Articles with “sustainability” in the article title.
Data source: WorldCat.org
Date of search: April 16, 2008

2007 ... 1282
2006 ... 1226
2005 ... 1063
2004 ... 1022
2003 ... 1009
2002 ... 854
2001 ... 721
2000 ... 721
1999 ... 689
1998 ... 591
1997 ... 508
1996 ... 452
1995 ... 378
1994 ... 242
1993 ... 121
1992 ... 45
1991 ... 20
1990 ... 13
1989 ... 6
1988 ... 2
1987 ... 2
1986 ... 1

Databases with Environmental Sciences Information in Peninsula College Library

Image credit:
Beatriz Giraldo

The following databases are available through the "Online Resources" link on the Library home page:

Environment Complete
1,772,000 records from more than 1,500 domestic and international titles going back to the 1940s (including 1,094 active core titles). Full text for more than 600 journals, including many of the most used journals in the discipline, such as Environment (back to 1975), Ecologist, Conservation Biology, etc. Additionally, Environment Complete provides full text for more than 100 monographs. Some of the areas covered include:

Agriculture
Energy
Natural resources
Urban planning
Renewable energy sources
Geography
Marine & freshwater science
Social impacts
Environmental technology
Public policy
Environmental law
Ecosystem ecology
Pollution & waste management

Academic Search Premier
8,200 journals, magazines, newspapers, trade publications indexed. Of those 4,500 are journals, with full-text provided in HTML or PDF. Of those 3,700 are peer-reviewed. Of those 1,000 have PDF backfiles back to 1975. Some of the areas covered include:

Agriculture & Irrigation
Economics
Biological Sciences
Education
Environmental Studies
Electronics
Geography
Mathematics
Marine Sciences
Physics

ProQuest
3,000 journals, magazines, newspapers, trade publications indexed. Of those 850 are peer-reviewed. Backfiles vary, mostly from 1980s on.

Agriculture
Biology
Chemistry
Computers
Engineering
Physics

eLibrary
2,000 full-text publications, including magazines, newspapers, books, television/radio transcripts, maps, pictures, audio/visual clips, and educator-approved websites from Homework Central®

Experiments
Science Project Ideas
Featured Scientists
Mathematics
Life Sciences (Biology)
Health
Physical Sciences
Technology

Ebrary Academic Complete
30,000 E-Book titles from more than 220 of the worlds leading academic, STM (scientific, technical, medical), and professional publishers.

Earth Sciences
Physical Resources
Biosphere
Biological Resources
Environmental Management

GreenFILE
Scholarly and general interest titles, as well as government documents and reports. Abstracting and indexing for more than 600 titles, including comprehensive coverage for core titles. Total of 295,000 records with 4,600 full-text.

Global warming
Recycling
Alternate fuel sources
Biodiversity
Environmental Sciences
Ecosystems

CQ Researcher
Single-themed, 12,000-word reports, each providing an introductory overview; background and chronology on the topic; an assessment of the current situation; tables and maps; pro/con statements from representatives of opposing positions; and bibliographies of key sources.

Jobs Vs. Environment
Environmental Justice
Population & Environment
Climate Change
Regulating Pesticides
Air Pollution Conflict
Disappearing Species
Oil Spills
Energy & Environment
Electric Cars

McGraw-Hill’s Access Science Encyclopedia of Science & Technology Online
8,500 online articles, 110,000+ definitions, 15,000 illustrations and graphics, and bibliographies containing more than 28,000 literature citations, biographies of more than 2,000 well-known scientists from the Hutchinson Dictionary of Scientific Biography®, and continuously updated, fully-searchable, media-rich content, terms, images & videos.

Environmental Science
Conservation
Animal Ecology
Ecolology, General
Ecosystem
Plant Ecology
Agriculture, Forestry & Soils
Mathematics
General Science & Tecnology
Physics

Oxford Reference
Fully-indexed, cross-searchable dictionary, language reference, and subject reference works published by Oxford University Press, including detailed information from titles in the Oxford Companions Series.
175+ titles representing all subject areas. Here are a few titles of language and subject dictionaries:

The Oxford Companion to the Earth
A Dictionary of Ecology
A Dictionary of Environment and Conservation
Dictionary of Geography

PC Library Career Information Pathfinder Now Available

Image credit: andyburnfield

There are many ways to locate career information at the PC Library. Career information can be found in circulating books (which may be checked out of the library), e-books (which can be read online), reference books (available for in-library use only), Internet Web sites, and magazine or newspaper articles in ProQuest, an electronic periodical index offering the full-text of local and national newspapers. Link to the pathfinder here: Career Information Pathfinder 2008

Library Provides Access to Washington State Newspapers

Photo credit, with some rights reserved through a Creative Commons license, "Dead Sea newspaper" by inju



Through the ProQuest database, with generous help from the Washington State Library, the Peninsula College Library provides access to eighteen (18) Washington State newspapers:

Columbian
Daily News; Longview, Wash.
Eastside Journal
Herald, The; Everett, Wash.
Journal of Business; Spokane
Mercer Island Reporter
News Tribune, The
Peninsula Daily News
Puget Sound Business Journal
Seattle Post - Intelligencer
Seattle Times
South County Journal
Spokesman Review
Sun, The; Bremerton, Wash.
Tri - City Herald
Valley Daily News
Wenatchee World
Yakima Herald - Republic

PC Library Presents at OPAEYC Conference

Photo Credit: Some rights reserved through a Creative Commons license by Travelin' Librarian




The Olympic Peninsula Association for the Education of Young Children (OPAEYC) held its 15th Annual Early Childhood Conference (co-sponsored by the Peninsula College Early Childhood Education Program). The theme of the conference was "Building for the Future."

The Peninsula College Library provided a "Mountain Workshop" titled, "Tactics and Tips to Find Quality ECE Resources." The 90-minute session was well-attended and covered "tried and true time-saving strategies to find and evaluate quality ECE information resources; differences between Web and database searching and tactics used in each; how to distinguish popular and scholarly sources; and how to evaluate any information source for quality."

Attendees received a handout on ECE resource links and performed a hands-on search exercise to find one popular and one scholarly source in order to identify and compare their features. The session contributed towards Stars Competency: Professionalism & Administration.

One interesting point of the presentation showed how the development of the early childhood education field from invisible college to national organization parallels the development of the early childhood education literature, based upon a quick and dirty bibliometric analysis of WorldCat holdings:

< 10 ..... 1800 to 1927 ..... (NANE 1929)
< 20 ..... 1928 to 1959 ..... (*OMEP 1948)
< 100 ..... 1963 to 1967 ..... (NAEYC 1964)
< 1000 ..... 1968 to 1988 ..... (**UNESCO 1981-89)
< 2000 ..... 1989 to 2007

From 1800 to 1927 there were an average of fewer than ten publications per year. From 1928 to 1959 the average number of annual publications was fewer than 20 titles per year, etc. The peak year, in terms of ECE publications, was 2000 with 2,434 publications. Data comes from a search of WorldCat.org on March 14, 2008.

*OMEP = World Organization for Early Childhood Education 1948 (Organisation Mondiale pour l’Education Préscolaire)
**UNESCO coined the term "Early Childhood Care and Education" in 1981.

CLAMS Meeting a Huge Success!

Photo: noshowerfamily on Flickr

Peninsula College Library attended the CLAMS 2008 Spring Conference in Spokane, Washington. (CLAMS stands for College Librarians and Media Specialists of Washington State) The conference was well-attended and the presentations were excellent!

Here is a very brief summary (exceedingly brief):

The first presenter was Michael Porter, aka Libraryman, who discussed Gadgets in a most entertaining way. Gadgets discussed were both of a hardware and software nature. Here are a few:

Sling Media Box
Chumby
Bugbox
Vocera
Webjunction
Koha
Vudu
Apple TV
Creative Commons
Direct TV Sat-Go

Will Stuivenga from the Washington State Library gave a very informative presentation on the Washington State Catalog project. Launch of the new catalog is expected to be March 31, 2008 and Peninsula College Library is one of the 23 community and technical colleges involved in Phase One. One cool feature of the new catalog, which is not available on WorldCat.org, will be the ability to view local, regional and global resources through "regional scopes" or "type of library scopes" (including LVIS WA!)

There was a presentation of a ProQuest tutorial by Nancy Koffey of Spokane Community College and a presentation by Kitty Mackey of Clark College on Iris42 (the Iris42draft version can be seen at: http://libreeze.com/iris/index.shtml ) Iris is the Information & Research Instruction Suite. (42 is "for two-year colleges" and coincidentally Washington State was the 42nd state admitted to the union.)

All in all, every presentation was enjoyable, every presenter was delightful, and the CLAMS 2008 Spring Conference succeeded beyond all my expectations.