So This Is What Research Looks Like...

Hard at Work in the Library!

Emily Nason, Jackleen Nesheiwat, and Jade-Ashley Thomas making use of the quiet space down in the lower level of the Library to work on their diorama of Plato's Cave for Steven Lee's FSEM:  Education, Justice & Happiness.  

Government Shutdown and Research

The campus community should be aware that information from certain federal government websites may be unavailable as a result of the shutdown.   Census.gov, American FactFinder and online surveys are offline as well as the Federal Trade Commission's site, the Agriculture Department's USDA.gov and the Library of Congress' site.  Each government agency is deciding independently whether to keep their public websites available.  Click this NPRposting for more information.  

-Michael Hunter, Research and Instruction Librarian

Superman: The Unauthorized Biography / Glen Weldon

Glen Weldon, National Public Radio’s go-to comics guy, dives into 1938 precedents and origin of the nation’s favorite alien son and most popularly long lasting superhero, detailing his career up to the start of (British!?) Henry Cavill’s 2013 movie incarnation.  Born from the cheerfully geek and extended adolescent minds of Jerry Siegal and Joe Schuster, he was actually first conceived in 1933 as a villain and refined during a long gestation.

Originally representing “Truth, Justice, and the American Way” when we regarded those elements  without much irony, his powers, psychology, approach to doing good, and political orientation have shifted around a bit during our 75 year acquaintance.  Recently, and probably most awkwardly, a storyline had him stand in solidarity with Iranian protesters and renounce U.S. citizenship, although that seems likely to be a momentary bobble.  Weldon’s exhaustive, and sometimes mind-numbing, detailed handling of Superman’s graphic and cinematic evolution across years, parallel Earths, and story lines should be sufficient to solve most fanboy-or-girl controversies without bloodshed.  It would also be an good research starting point for examination of just what the big guy’s life may, or not, say about “the American Way.”

-Joseph Chmura

Assistant Director and Access Services Librarian

 

Past & Future

Detail from: Voyages dans la Grande-Bretagne, Dupin, 1821

“Remember the past, imagine the future.” 

These are the words that adorn the entrance to the Warren Hunting Smith Library, and this summer we took them to heart as we pursued two key improvements.

Looking forward: we have redesigned our webpage, making many of the most used and

requested services more visible and easier to access.  We have also added a new functionality that will allow you to search across not only the Library's physical collections, but also many of our most comprehensive full-text and citation databases.

Looking back: we continue to make improvements in our special collections storage facility, and have been rediscovering some of the great books hidden in our collections’ midst - the first edition of Hobbes’ Leviathan, an atlas from 1676, and an notebook of British military works - to name just a few.  Be on the lookout as we work with faculty to bring these works into the classroom or sneak in a visit to Special Collections the next time you are in the Library.

Wishes for a great semester.

~ Vince Boisselle, College Librarian

Try Summon & Search Almost Everything

From a single search box you can now search through almost all of the Library's collections including articles, books, e-books, and more. Summon is a new service that the Library subscribed to this summer. Our hope is that Summon will make it easier to search and access information through the Library's website. Currently Summon is in beta or test mode. Some of the features may not be functioning perfectly at this time. The plan is to have Summon running smoothly for the start of the fall semester. Although there are some kinks to work out, you should be able to successfully access most of what you need through Summon. Comments or feedback about Summon can be submitted here: https://library.hws.edu/forms/contact.cfm?.

What do Michele Bachmann, the Long Tailed Duck, & Free Will have in common?

They were all topics being researched at the HWS Library during the 2013 spring semester. The Research Librarians have pulled together a few of their favorite topics for you to enjoy!

Goodreads and Amazon Combine Forces!

Are you looking for a new book to read? Check out Goodreads.  According to their website: “Goodreads is the most visited social media site built around sharing books. Our mission is to help people find and share books they love. It is a place where you can see what your friends are reading and vice versa. You can create ‘bookshelves’ to organize what you've read (or want to read). You can comment on each other's reviews. You can find your next favorite book”. 

Last week Amazon bought Goodreads and will be incorporating the social book-recommendation site into Amazon sometime in 2013. The Goodreads family will retain their independence and will be managed and operated by the existing staff.  Hugh Howey, a self-published best-selling author described the merger best, "I just found out my two favorite people are getting married. The best place to discuss books is joining up with the best place to buy books.”  To read more about the plans to combine Amazon and Goodreads, read the following New York Times article.

-Emily Hart, Research and Instruction Librarian

New Arrival: Dave Eggers' A Hologram For The King

A couple of years after The Great Recession’s initial wallop, a “post-modern Willy Loman” careens from day to day in Saudi Arabia, leading a corporate IT team hoping to sell a holographic conferencing system to the country’s king.  Spare prose communicates the protagonist’s and other expatriate’s distracted and defensive disconnection, both from the Very Foreign Culture surrounding them and their own lives.  For the American, emblematic problems wait back home as he waits for the king.

Fans of author Dave Eggers’ A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and Zeitoun will find this “Hemingwayesque” prose a departure from those well received works.  A Hologram For The King was a finalist for the 2012 National Book Award.

~Joseph Chmura, Assistant Director and Access Services Librarian

interˌdiscipliˈnarity

The Librarians have created a list of databases that are highly interdisciplinary (not general) in nature.  Please explore these databases, found here and let us know what you find!

Alt-Press Watch showcases voices from grassroots newspapers, magazines and journals. The database features over 670,000 articles from more than 230 publications from 1970 to the present.

American Periodicals Series Online™ (APS Online) includes digitized images of the pages of American magazines and journals published from colonial days to the dawn of the 20th century. Titles range from Benjamin Franklin's General Magazine to popular magazines such as Vanity Fair and Ladies' Home Journal to regional and niche publications and journals like The Dial, Puck, and McClure's.

AP Images is a source for original photographs and graphics from the Associated Press, from the present day dating back more than 100 years.

Credo Reference includes the full text of over 350 different reference works (encyclopedias, dictionaries, bilingual dictionaries, biographies, collections of quotations, etc.) containing over 3 million entries. Subject coverage is very broad and includes art, business, geography, history, language, law, literature, medicine, music, philosophy, psychology, religion, science, social sciences, and technology.

LGBT Life with Full Text is a comprehensive index to literature regarding Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender issues and contains full text for more than 130 LGBT journals, magazines and regional newspapers, as well as more than 170 full-text monographs/books. 

Music Online: Listening Package is a streaming audio collection of 140,000 music tracks from Alexander Street Press and includes: American Song, Classical Music Library, Contemporary World Music, Jazz Music Library, and Smithsonian Global Sounds.

VAST has high-quality video content in a broad range of subject areas, such as art, architecture, business, counseling and therapy, dance, economics, education, ethnic studies, ethnography, gay and lesbian studies, health, history, humanities, law and public safety, literature, opera, philosophy, political science, psychology, religion, science, theatre, and women’s studies and includes searchable transcripts and the ability to make custom clips and playlists.

Women’s Studies International covers the core disciplines in Women’s Studies up to the latest scholarship in feminist research and includes more than 586,600 records spanning from 1972 to present. This database supports curriculum development in the areas of sociology, history, political science and economy, public policy, international relations, arts and humanities, business, and education. Over 2,000 periodical sources are represented.

"What? Me Worry?"

Each year, the Edge Foundation poses a question to a panel of original thinkers. This year’s question asked: "What should we be worried about?"  There are some wonderful responses here - Bruce Sterling ponders ‘the singularity', while Robert Sapolsky contemplates free will and Kevin Kelly speaks of the 'underpopulation bomb'.
These types of 'big' questions and the creative ways that people have answered them always serves to re-ground me in one of the basic things that we - here in the Library and here at HWS - are all about: asking relevant questions.
But don't worry - the Library is here to help in your quest for answers.  Welcome back.

~Vince Boisselle, Director of the Library

Winter Break!

Winter in the Finger Lakes is an especially beautiful place and time.  As we bid farewell to the fall semester for 2012, the librarians have compiled some fine winter traditions to share with you.  

Fox & Geese on the first snow!

This game needs at least 2 people and is better with more. Someone walks in a giant circle in the snow and then walks a line through the middle and then another line in the opposite direction, so that there are 4 pieces in the circle. Walk 2 more diagonal lines so that there are 8 pieces in the circle, which makes it look like a pie. Next walk a small circle in the center of the pie. 
 

One person is the fox, and the rest of the people are the geese. The fox chases the geese around the circle. If you go out of the lines, you automatically become the fox. The little circle in the center of the pie is a “Safe” zone. Essentially it’s tag, with one person “it”, the fox. The only rule is to stay in the lines of the circle/pie. 

Rum Log Cookies:

1 c. butter
2 tsp. rum extract
2 tsp. vanilla
3/4 c. sugar
1 egg
3 c. flour
1 tsp. nutmeg

Cream butter, sugar and extracts, add eggs. Add sifted flour and nutmeg. Shape dough on lightly floured board into logs 1/2 inch in diameter. Cut in 3 inch logs. Bake at 350 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes. Frost with rum-flavored butter cream frosting and add colored sugar to the top.

Full Moon Ski:

Gather friends for a cross-country ski at night during the full moon, heading to a bonfire afterwards. Someone always brings their guitar for a group sing-along. 

Maple Syrup Snow:

Pack as much fresh snow as you can into a baking tray. Pour pure maple syrup over it. Eat with spoon.

Hot Buttered Rum Toddy: 

In a cup or mug holding a liquid cup or a little less, fill 2/3ds with water.  Add small spoonful brown sugar to taste, a pat of real butter (preferably unsalted), and as much rum as your system wants to tolerate.  Microwave to a reassuring temperature, stir to dissolve and distribute, imbibe.

Happy and safe travels over the winter break!

Credits: Thanks to Juliet Boisselle for the backyard photo.   

Thanks to Katie Lamontagne, Emily Hart, Joseph Chmura and Jennifer Nace for their winter traditions.

New Arrival: Gaga Feminism by J. Jack Halberstam

The author of Female Masculinity, J. Jack Halberstam, comes out with a brief but infinitely quotable treatise on the politics of suppression and the liberation strategy of going gaga. 

From the text:
What if we gendered people according to their behavior?  What if gender shifted over the course of a lifetime-what if someone began life as a boy but became a boygirl and then a boy/man?  What if some males are ladies, some ladies are butch, some butches are women, some women are gay, some gays are feminine, some femmes are straight, and some straight people don't know what the hell is going on? ---p.8
And:
If we can figure out how to stop policing children's sexuality, we might also be closer to understanding how to disrupt the transmission of moralistic and inadequate narratives of sex, love, and marriage from one generation to the next. ---p.15

This is one of those books that makes you understand your own prison; it is like a quivering bird that follows you to the exercise yard and compels you to climb the walls.

~Jennifer Nace, Research and Instruction Librarian

Have you ever wondered?

What exactly have your colleagues been working on in the library this Fall?

Wordle created by Emily Hart, Research and Instruction Librarian

Enjoy the Thanksgiving Break!

Original Caption:
Bog Cranberries (High Bush Variety) Turn Bright Red in Autumn in This Clearing near the Prospect Creek Camp. Trees Are Black Spruce Typical of the Inferior Alaskan Taiga 08/1973 
Retrieved from Flickr via Commons License on November 20th, 2012

As a reminder:
The Library and other campus administrative offices will close at 1pm on Wednesday, November 20th for Thanksgiving Break, and will reopen at 9am on Sunday, November 25th.

Murder State: California's Native American Genocide, 1846-1873

Brendan C. Lindsay investigates the use of democratic government's petitions, referenda, town meetings and votes to carry out mass genocide against Californian Native Americans.  Inspired by his experience of campus resistance to the very idea that genocide had been committed, he set out to document it.  "The present is a product of the past," he contends.  Democratic actions, "perpetrated by democratic, freedom-loving U.S. citizens in the name of democracy, but really to secure great wealth in the form of land," built the state on a foundation of blood and theft.  The author hopes a work of history will illuminate California’s political questions of today, and make clear that democracy is no guarantee against the worst human behavior.

Brendan C. Lindsay is a lecturer of history at the University of Central Florida.  He holds a PhD in history from the University of California, Riverside.

Joseph Chmura
Assistant Director and Access Services Librarian

Need Citation Help?

Check out the guide!

http://library.hws.edu/instruction/citationhelp.cfm

October Break!

If you are staying in the area, you might want to check out these local delights--

Glass Farmers Market at The Corning Museum of Glass:
http://www.cmog.org/event/glass-farmers-market

The Finger Lakes Cheese Trail Columbus Day Weekend Open House:
http://flcheesetrail.com/

Enjoy!

New Arrival: Golden Holocaust

From the inside cover:

"In Golden Holocaust, Robert N. Proctor [Professor of the History of Science at Stanford University] draws on reams of formerly secret industry documents to explore how the cigarette came to be the most widely used drug on the planet, selling six trillion sticks per year."

Just by picking up this rather heavy and heavily documented book, you feel at once as if you are both wiser and more tarnished for the effort.  With over 100 pages of notes, a timeline of global tobacco mergers and acquisitions and a lexicon of industry jargon, you realize that Proctor's aim isn't so much to convince as it is to logically impress.  As if to say, what could be more obvious than the devious nature of big tobacco?  And now, for the solution!  As a culture that (sometimes) resists anything so Orwellian as bans and prohibitions and totalitarian belt-cinching, his argument may be difficult to embrace.  He has certainly succeeded in coaxing you to try.  

For a more detailed review by Peter Monaghan in The Chronicle of Higher Education:

http://chronicle.com/blogs/pageview/smoking-out-tobacco/30192

Jennifer Nace, Research and Instruction Librarian

New Library Chat!

You will notice that our library chat service looks a little different.

Do you need research help? Try chatting with a Reference Librarian. You can chat with us from any computer that is connected to the Internet, no matter where you are!

We’re available during these hours:
Monday – Thursday: 10 am – 10 pm
Friday: 10 am – 5 pm
Saturday: Offline
Sunday: 1:00 pm - 5:00pm, 7:00 pm - 10:00 pm

You can also add our Jabber username to your Buddy List/Chat List:
Jabber username: hws-library@chat.libraryh3lp.com

See our Library Chat page for more information: http://library.hws.edu/chat/

We hope to chat with you soon!!