Celebrating the Civil Rights Movement

The library has been celebrating the 50th anniversary of TCTC every month with books, brochures, and a special webpage that is dedicated to the celebration.  On this webpage which is located at http://library.tctc.edu/50th we have a tab dedicated to Book Displays.  This tab has listings of books and streaming videos.  It also has a listing of the previous brochures.

Pieces of information that you will find on these pages include for November: In 1962 James Meredith was the first African American accepted into the University of Mississippi meaning that the all-white school would be integrated. Mr. Meredith and other protestors; such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), fought against the state for his right to be educated at the university of his Choice. Eventually the president at the time, John F. Kennedy, had to step in and send the U.S. Army troops to control rioting on the campus. The following year in 1963 James Meredith was able to attend the university.

Discover all kinds of resources

The Library has implemented a Mega Search program.  This addition to our services will allow you to search across many databases.  In the next few weeks the print catalog will also be loaded onto the services.  If you have any question on how to work the Mega Search, please contact us.  Please see our home page to do a search.  http://library.tctc.edu

Try Our Great New

Discovery Service!

Find . . .
Almost everything . . .
All in one place . . .
All at once . . . 

• Books  • eBooks  • Journal Articles  • Databases
•  And Much More • 

TCTC MegaSearch Discovery Service

Keyword Title Author

Limit Your Results

Full Text

Peer Reviewed Journals

Advanced search

 

Note: our catalog records are not yet included in MegaSearch.
Use link below for the Library Catalog.

Elections

We are in the midst of the election season.  One of those that has already happened is the leader of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez who has won another six year term.  You can search for more information on him various places in the database including Credo (see below for a brief article).

 © Copyright Getty Images and others

1954–, Venezuelan political leader, president of Venezuela (1999–). Educated at the Military Academy of Venezuela (grad. 1975), for two decades he was a career army officer, rising to the rank of lieutenant colonel. In 1992, Chávez took part in an unsuccessful coup attempt against President Carlos Andrés Pérez and was imprisoned until 1994. A charismatic populist, he became the leader of the leftist Patriotic Pole alliance. Promising a peaceful social revolution, Chávez was elected president in a 1998 landslide. In office he ended the privatization of Venezuela's state holdings, put himself in control of economic matters, and cut oil production to raise oil prices. A constituent assembly mainly made up of his supporters wrote a new constitution that granted the president increased powers and a longer possible term of office and weakened the legislature and judiciary. Chávez's popularity with the country's poor increased as he took measures against rampant corruption, criticized the traditional oligarchy, and made more funds available for social programs. He also attacked his critics in business and the media and expanded the role of the military; closer ties were established with Middle Eastern oil-producing nations and Cuba.

Accessing Library Resources

There are a number of ways to find the TCTC library.  You can go to our internal webpage at http://library.tctc.edu.  You can go to the TCTC public site for us at http://www.tctc.edu/Content/Student_Life_and_Services/Library.xml. You can follow this blog.  You can follow us on Twitter @tctclibrary.  Another way is if you are a student at TCTC, you can follow us on eTC via your Learn tab.  If you are a faculty member, you can add the Access Library Resources channel to your individual page.  Simply follow the directions at http://etcdata.tctc.edu/Luminis/removed%20from%20eTC-lpstorage/VPBA/Add_Channel_eTC.doc .  Choose Access Library Resources. Also a link to the library subject portal pages has been added to the Faculty tab Class Management-Resources-Library

Mango Languages

Thanks to the TCTC community input, the Library has subscribed to the Mango language database for this fiscal year.  Based on your input we have the following languages available: Spanish, Russian, Portuguese, Latin, Korean, Japanese, Italian, Irish, German, French, Chinese, and ESL for Arabic speakers.  This database speaks to you and lets you listen to yourself speak the language.  To get started with Mango, click on http://library.tctc.edu/Languages

Learning a new language with Mango Languages is free for all library patrons, and offers a fast and convenient solution for our community’s increasing language-learning needs. Each lesson combines real life situations and audio from native speakers with simple, clear instructions. The courses are presented with an appreciation for cultural nuance and real-world application that integrates components of vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar and culture. Users learn actual conversation, breaking down complex linguistic elements within an audio-visual framework that draws important connections and builds on information they have already learned.

Mango continues to expand its language learning offerings, adding more languages and more platforms (including iPhone and Android apps) so that more library patrons can benefit.

 

 

 

 

Library Book Reading Group

The Library continues to celebrate TCTC's 50th anniversary by reading books published in 1962.  The Fall selections are "We Have Always Lived in the Castle" by Shirley Jackson and "A Wrinkle in Time" by Madeline L'Engle.  Books are supplied to the participating students by the Student Government Association.  Each community campus has a reading group.

We have Always Lived in the Castle will be discussed:

Pendleton: Library Conference Room, 1:30 to 2:15, September 12, September 26, October 10

Anderson: Library, 1:30 to 2:15, September 13, September 27 and October 11. 
Easley: Library, 1:30 to 2:15, September 12, September 26, October 10

A Wrinkle in Time will be discussed:
Pendleton: Library Conference Room, 1:30 to 2:15, November 7, November 28
Anderson: Library, 1:30 to 2:15, November 8 and November 29. 
Easley Library, 1:30 to 2:15, November 7, November 28

Please let Marla Roberson, Library Director, know if you are interested in being on the book club e-mail list.  Her e-mail is mrobers1@tctc.edu.  For additional information see the web page at http://library.tctc.edu/content.php?pid=116082&sid=1008696

Library Winners!

The Library would like to announce the winners of the library prizes that were given away during Get Connected and the first week of school.

 

 Carrie Willingham

 

 

Casey Metz

 

 

Kassie Bell

 

 Zimri Vicario

Updated subject guides

We have added additional webpages:

Performing Arts: http://library.tctc.edu/PerformingArts
English Contemporary Literature: http://library.tctc.edu/English220
Literature Notebooks (new edition): http://library.tctc.edu/LNO

Enjoy!

Cafe

The Library welcomes the Cafe!  Available from 9AM to 2 PM are various snacks, breakfast and lunch items, cold drinks and coffee. Stop on by the library for one of your favs before or after class or while you are doing research in the Library.

New Databases and Services

Over the summer the Library has added some new databases and services.

Westlaw Campus Research

Provides access to a comprehensive collection of news and business information and law-related sources. Law Content includes more than 800 law reviews, the US Code, the CFR, all federal and state court cases, statutes from all 50 states, and much more. Our principal resource for doing legal research.  The Law page lists this database and other related databases.

AtoZWorld Business

This fantastic database is a one-stop resource for doing business in 175 countries. For each country it provides a business & trade overview, along with thorough analyses of business culture, business communication, business travel, etc.  This resource is highlighted on the Countries page.

Skype Personal Interviews

This is intended primarily for reference assistance.  This form will let you select when you would like to schedule assistance via a face-to-face session utilizing Skype.

Scheduling Information Literacy Workshop

Instructors normally e-mail Sue Andrus to schedule information literacy workshop.  But we realize that e-mailing or calling is not always the best solution.  We have created an on-line form for instructors to use if e-mailing or calling does not work for their schedule.

50th Anniversary page

We update the 50th anniversary library page every month.  We also update the book display.  We hope you enjoy the page.

Mango language program

The Library is reviewing the Mango language program as a possible purchase.  Please see http://library.tctc.edu/mango and give us your opinion on if we should subscribe to it and what languages would be most helpful to you.

What’s an Infographic and How Do I Get One?

Thanks to Credo Reference for the below information.  I found it fascinating.  Hopefully, you will also.

 By: Deirdre Costello, Content Associate
“Infographic” is short for information graphic, a visual representation of information that’s both easier to absorb and generally more appealing than a list or a spreadsheet. For obvious reasons, infographics have become a popular way to share information about everything from brightly colored pop culture timelines to interactive models of government data.
Last week I shared one of my favorite infographics, Hack College’s Get More Out of Google, which I think is a great example of how to make information easy on the eyes. Credo has put together a Pinterest board of infographics that might be of interest to librarians, academics and readers, and there are a ton of other collections out there; GE has a really neat collection of interactive data visualizations, the Game of Thrones list is a personal favorite reference (I can’t keep the houses straight, even after reading the books), and then of course there are the familiar and everyday infographics like subway maps and da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man.
Infographics are great tools for presentations (those text-heavy Power Points can get pretty stale), flyers, posters, or really any situation where you want a lot of information to have a specific and powerful impact – here’s a list of tools I’ve played around with and found pretty easy to use so you can start making them for yourself! Everything on this list is free, or at least has a free version.

• GOOD Labs has a great tool for creating simple, bright pie charts or Venn diagrams; great for presentations, and the examples are good for a chuckle.
• Piktochart, which has both a free and a paid version, provides easily customizable templates that make your information pop. If you’ve checked out infographics before, many of these will look VERY familar!
• Infogr.am offers more familiar templates, with options to create either an infographic or a chart as well as the ability to create an archive of them. Very, very easy to use, share and embed. Check out an infographic I made on comic book movies!
• Google charts offer a wealth of options, but may require a little more know-how to manipulate into something that looks as polished as many infographics out there.
• Wordle is a tool for creating “word clouds,” where the words repeated most often ( minus articles, of course) appear the largest. You often see these on blogs, and they can be a neat tool for textual analysis. Can be a little hard to use on your own website.
• Prezi is not exactly a tool for creating infographics, but while we’re on the topic of stale, texty presentations, Prezi is a great alternative tool for creating dynamic, aesthetically pleasing presentations.

Hopefully you found something interesting in the collections above or a tool that will help you get your points across! If you create any infographics you think we’d find interesting, funny, or just plain stellar, please share them with us!

Friday the 13th

Sorry, the blog has been a bit silent this summer.  So let's start it back with a bang!  Do you suffer from paraskevidekatriaphobia?  And in case you don't know what that means, it is fear of Friday the 13th.  Remember that, it could be on a crossword puzzle coming your way soon.

Other Friday the 13th facts (thanks Credo database!)

A number of theories have been proposed to explain the Friday the 13 superstition including:

• In the Christian tradition, Fridays and the number 13 are both considered unlucky. (What happened to TGIF – Thank Goodness It’s Friday?!)
• Friday is the day on which Jesus was crucified, and some theologians have suggested that Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit on a Friday.
• There were thirteen people at the Last Supper (Jesus and his twelve disciples), and Judas Iscariot is said to have either been the thirteenth to arrive at the feast, or the first leave it, on his way to betray Jesus. (Too bad Jason wasn’t there…)
• Thomas W Lawson’s self-published novel Friday, the Thirteenth is said to be the primary origin of the modern fear of the date.
• Friday the 13th is also bad for business generally: the Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute in Asheville, North Carolina, estimates that in the USA between 800 and 900 million dollars’ worth of business are lost on Friday the 13th because people refuse to travel or go to work.
• In Greece and the Spanish-speaking world, Tuesday the 13th is the day that brings bad luck.

Regardless, enjoy today. After all it is Friday.

Georgia State and Copyright

I am pasting the Chronicle article of May 13, 2012 below.  There is also a link to the actual court document in the article.  Link back to the article is at http://chronicle.com/article/Long-Awaited-Ruling-in/131859/


May 13, 2012

Long-Awaited Ruling in Copyright Case Mostly Favors Georgia State U.
By Jennifer Howard


A federal judge in Atlanta has handed down a long-awaited ruling in a lawsuit brought by three scholarly publishers against Georgia State University over its use of copyrighted material in electronic reserves. The ruling, delivered on Friday, looks mostly like a victory for the university, finding that only five of 99 alleged copyright infringements did in fact violate the plaintiffs' copyrights.

"My initial reaction is, honestly, what a crushing defeat for the publishers," said Brandon C. Butler, the director of public-policy initiatives for the Association of Research Libraries. Given how few claims the publishers won, "there's a 95 percent success rate for the GSU fair-use policy." The ruling suggests that Georgia State is "getting it almost entirely right" with its current copyright policy, he said.

The three publishers brought their suit in April 2008. The Association of American Publishers and the Copyright Clearance Center, which licenses content to universities on behalf of publishers, helped foot the bill.

In their complaint, the plaintiffs alleged that Georgia State went well beyond fair use in how much copyrighted material it allowed faculty members to post online for students. The university denied the claim and overhauled its e-reserves policy in late 2008, after the lawsuit was brought. As a state institution, it also invoked sovereign immunity, which meant that the publishers would have a harder time seeking damages.

Publishers, librarians, and fair-use advocates have been anticipating a ruling from Judge Orinda Evans of the U.S. District Court in Atlanta for months. The length of the ruling—350 pages, with a detailed examination of individual use cases—helps explain the long delay.

"This is somebody trying very hard to do a very good job with a very complicated case," said Nancy Sims, copyright program librarian at the University of Minnesota, who's been watching the case closely. "Once you see the detail, you understand the delay." Ms. Sims described the ruling as "really even-handed," with "some good and some bad" news for the cause of educational fair use.

Judge Evans rejected many of the individual claims brought by the three plaintiffs—Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, and SAGE Publications—concluding that the publishers had not adequately proved their copyright stake in the material. She dismissed the plaintiffs' argument that Georgia State had exceeded the guidelines for classroom copying set out by Congress in 1976, long before e-reserves. And she examined publishers' balance sheets and concluded that they had not lost significant amounts of revenue because of the alleged infringements.

In weighing whether Georgia State went too far in its use of unlicensed e-reserves, the judge considered four factors laid out in Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act. Those factors are: 1. whether the use is for commercial or nonprofit educational purposes; 2. the nature of the copyrighted work; 3. how much of the whole work is used and how substantive that portion is; and 4. what effect the use in question has on the "potential market for or value of the copyrighted work."

In the judge's analysis, factors Nos. 1 and 2 "favor the defendant every time," Mr. Butler said. He noted that factor No. 4 played somewhat better for the publishers. "She basically said, If there's a licensing market, that favors the rights holder," he said. If the amount of copyrighted material used is small enough, though—a question covered by factor No. 3— "then the judge says, essentially, this is not affecting the market for licensing," he said.

Ms. Sims said that the judge took the educational purpose of each use seriously and did not focus just on market considerations. "That was one of the contentions here—that if you can pay for it, you should be," she said. "And that's clearly not what the court is saying."

One part of the ruling could be problematic for librarians and others trying to work out fair-use policies in academe. Judge Evans proposed a 10-percent rule to guide decisions about what constitutes fair use in an educational setting. For books without chapters or with fewer than 10 chapters, "unpaid copying of no more than 10 percent of the pages in the book is permissible under factor three," she wrote in her ruling. For books with 10 or more chapters, "permissible fair use" would be copying up to one chapter or its equivalent.

Mr. Butler, Ms. Sims, and other observers said those standards could be a problem for libraries. "This is a less flexible standard than many libraries would like, I think, and it seems too rigid to be a good fit with the overall structure of fair use," wrote Kevin Smith, scholarly communications officer at Duke University, on the blog http://blogs.library.duke.edu/scholcomm/2012/05/12/the-gsu-decision-not-an-easy-road-for-anyone/. From a library perspective, Mr. Smith saw more good than bad in the decision. "In general I expect librarians to be happy about the outcome of this case. It suggests that suing libraries is an unprofitable adventure, when 95 percent of the challenged uses were upheld," he wrote. "But there will also be a good deal of hand-wringing about the uncertainties that the judge has left us with, the places where we need information we cannot reasonably obtain, and the mechanical application of a strict percentage."

It will take time to sort out the uncertainties. The plaintiffs must now declare what relief they'll seek for the five infringements the judge found. After that, they may well mount an appeal. First they have to figure out the broader implications of Friday's decision.

"The Association of American Publishers, speaking on behalf of the publisher plaintiffs, said they are studying the ruling and will provide comment once they've completed their analysis of it," Andi Sporkin, the association's vice president of communications, said in a statement e-mailed to The Chronicle.

Representatives of Georgia State University did not respond over the weekend to requests for comment.

Legal experts and library advocates will be studying the ruling closely to get a better sense of what precedent or example it might set for other universities and their fair-use policies. On Sunday, James Grimmelmann, a professor of law at New York Law School, posted a detailed analysis on his blog, The Laboratorium. "The operational bottom line for universities is that it's likely to be fair use to assign less than 10 percent of a book, to assign larger portions of a book that is not available for digital licensing, or to assign larger portions of a book that is available for digital licensing but doesn't make significant revenues through licensing," Mr. Grimmelmann wrote.

Graduation

From the Credo database (and the Collins Encyclopedia): graduation (noun)

1. the act of graduating or the state of being graduated.
2. the ceremony at which school or college degrees and diplomas are conferred.
3. a mark or division or all the marks or divisions that indicate measure on an instrument or vessel.

Last night marked the graduation of 624 students from TCTC.  It is also the 49th annual graduation (the first one was August, 1965 with 45 graduates).  Librarians attend graduation because we are faculty.  But besides that, I attend because it inspires me when I hear the speeches and the stories.  I don't know anyone that higher education is always easy for; there is always some point that makes you question why you are going above and beyond a high school education. Celebrate a graduate today and let them tell you the high point and low point of their education.  And encourage them to continue being a life-long learner - even if they don't seek another higher education degree.  They will always be graduating in some capacity as a learner.

Autism

Last night was the 8th annual Upstate Diversity Leadership Awards Dinner.  The key note speaker was Lorri Shealy Unumb who spoke about autism and the passing of SC's Ryan's Law named after her son.  What does this have to do with this blog?  Well a few things.  Even though I took notes, I knew that once I got to the library, I would have a plethora of resources to look up the information she presented.  Ms. Unumb spoke about the Autistic spectrum disorders, treatment and the cost of treatment. The Gale Health and Wellness Resource Center has a number of articles and videos that will help you understand this disorder.  See the video Recognizing the Signs of Autism.  For more information on disorders, see our Health and Medicine subject page.  We have specific professional resources and consumer resources.

Accreditation

TCTC is accredited through the Southern Association of College and School's area (aka SACS). Do you ever wonder about what all goes into this process of being "affirmed"?  The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges has very detailed documentation on the process.  This isn't a brief process.  There is an application process that can take up to two years.  Initial accreditation is awarded for five years. Then the institution goes into a reaffirmation process which is detailed on the Accrediting Standards page.  All in all, when you attend TCTC you can be assured that not only have we reviewed how our college performs but that other's in higher education have also looked at how we operate.  Our Mission, Facts, and Stats page gives a multitude of information on how we review ourselves.

Food

Yes, it is getting on up there in the day which means that most of us are thinking about dinner.  And what does this prompt your friendly librarian to do? Well look for something to cook! Since we are in a library, we have access to a number of bits and pieces regarding cooking. Did you know that we have an entire subject guide devoted to World Food Cultures?  Wonder if I should have something from Fiji?  Or maybe that Cuban Red Beans?

Red Beans (Frijoles)


Beans and rice is the most popular meal combination and most Cubans eat it at least once a day, together with a meat or chicken dish. This is eaten for lunch or dinner.

3 TBS olive oil

3 strips bacon, diced

4 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 large onion, finely chopped

1 medium–sized green bell pepper, finely chopped

1 cup tomato sauce

1 TBS red wine vinegar

< tsp dried oregano

salt, freshly ground black pepper

1 14–ounce can kidney beans, drained

1 large green bell pepper, diced

1 bay leaf

Prepare the sofrito: in a stewing pot, heat oil over low heat. Stir in bacon, garlic, onion, and bell pepper. Cook for 8–10 minutes, stirring from time to time, until vegetables are soft. Stir in tomato sauce, vinegar, oregano, salt, and pepper, and cook until thickened, about 8–10 minutes.

Add the beans, green pepper, and bay leaf, and cook over medium heat for 30 minutes more until thick. Discard bay leaf and serve with white rice.

17 years ago in Oklahoma City

From the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum website:


On the morning of April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh parked a rental truck with explosives in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building and at 9:02am, a massive explosion occurred which sheared the entire north side of the building, killing 168 people.

The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building was a United States Government office building located in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The federal building was constructed in 1977 at a cost of $14.5 million, and was named for federal judge Alfred P. Murrah, an Oklahoma native. By the 1990s the building contained regional offices for the Secret Service, the Drug Enforcement Agency (D.E.A.), and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), and other agencies.

Following the investigation which resulted in the execution of Timothy McVeigh and the sentence of life without parole for Terry Nichols, the surviving structure was demolished with explosives on May 23, 1995. The entire 3.3 acre site subsequently became home to the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum, a place to honor the victims, survivors and rescue workers, and to learn the impact of violence.

For more information see the website which includes a 360 view of the Memorial.

Titanic

Are you interested in the Titanic? Then see this wonderful subject page developed by Southeastern Oklahoma State University library. Click here.

Credo has a great page up also. Click here.

E-Reading

Pew Internet reported on the rise of e-reading this week. See the entire report here. Below are some of the highlights from the report. FYI, the library has over 70,000 ebooks and you can download them. You must install the Adobe Digital Edition app to read them on your mobile device. See the book page here.

• 21% of Americans have read an e-book. The increasing availability of e-content is prompting some to read more than in the past and to prefer buying books to borrowing them.


• A fifth of American adults have read an e-book in the past year and the number of e-book readers grew after a major increase in ownership of e-book reading devices and tablet computers during the holiday gift-giving season.


• The average reader of e-books says she has read 24 books (the mean number) in the past 12 months, compared with an average of 15 books by a non-e-book consumer


• 30% of those who read e-content say they now spend more time reading, and owners of tablets and e-book readers particularly stand out as reading more now.


• The prevalence of e-book reading is markedly growing, but printed books still dominate the world of book readers.


• E-book reading happens across an array of devices, including smartphones.


• In a head-to-head competition, people prefer e-books to printed books when they want speedy access and portability, but print wins out when people are reading to children and sharing books with others.


• The availability of e-content is an issue to some.


• The majority of book readers prefer to buy rather than borrow.

50th Anniversary info - Library information

The Library maintains a page devoted to the 50th anniversary of TCTC. Our theme for April is what happened in the TCTC area.

Pickens
Clemson University makes its first appearance in the ACC Championship game a triumph that won’t be seen again until 2008.
Clemson alumnus and Greenville native Maj. Rudolph Anderson passed away on Oct. 27, 1962 when the air craft he was piloting was struck by a surface-to-air missile during his mission to survey the Cuban Missile Crisis. Sadly he became a part of history as the only combat fatality.

Anderson
Anderson, South Carolina opens up its first McDonald’s on North Main Street with a menu of fast foods under fifty cent.

Public Schools were still segregated and the majority of college bound African American students from the county did not continue their education locally, but went to all black colleges in other parts of the state and country or northern colleges.

Oconee
Duke Power started their design Engineering Department that used the Keowee/Toxaway as a power development center.





For more information, see our page at http://library.tctc.edu/content.php?pid=278805&sid=2308511

Gambling

There is a lot of news lately about winning the BIG ONE. The mega-million lottery prize. I hope you enjoy this picture of Gambling Patoli and the god, Xochipilli, from Codex Magliabechiano

Library Staff Statewide Help Celebrate National Library Week in South Carolina

COLUMBIA, S.C. – During National Library Week, April 8-14, 2012 staff members from all types of libraries across the state will take a wide range of photographs of library staff members working, helping patrons, teaching, and doing all that librarians do in a given day.

Library staff members from all types of libraries are encouraged to be creative in taking photos that capture the essence of South Carolina librarianship. Winners will be recognized on the SC State Library’s web site and during the 2012 SCLA Annual Conference held October 24-26, 2012 in Columbia.

To participate in the contest, simply join the Flickr group (http://www.flickr.com/groups/nlw2012) and post photos. For detailed contest rules, visit http://www.flickr.com/groups/nlw2012/rules.

For more information, contact Dr. Curtis R. Rogers, Communications Director, 803-734-8928, crogers@statelibrary.sc.gov.

1962 recap

Some births and deaths from 1962. If you would like to know more about these people, the library suggests you try Biography in Context.

Born in 1962
Paula Abdul (singer, Am. Idol)
Trace Adkins (singer)
Tracy Austin (tennis player)
Clint Black (singer)
Jon Bon Jovi (singer)
Matthew Broderick (actor)
Jim Carrey (actor)
Sheryl Crow (singer)
Jodie Foster (actor)
MC Hammer (singer)
Evander Holyfield(boxer)
Star Jones (The View)
Demi Moore (actor)
Axl Rose (singer)
Wesley Snipes (actor)
Al Unser, Jr. (auto racing)

Died in 1962
Eleanor Roosevelt (former 1st lady)
Patrick Ewing (basketball)
Marilyn Monroe (actor)
Lucky Luciano (criminal)
Charles Laughton (actor)
Hermann Hesse (author)
William Faulkner (author)
Adolf Eichmann (Nazi war criminal)
e.e.cummings (poet)

History in Pictures (WW2)

The library subscribes to a number of databases that has information on the various wars. For example, Gale World History in Context has special topic pages for
Balkan Wars, Boer War, Cold War, Crusades, English Civil War and the Commonwealth, French Revolution, Haitian Revolution ,Hundred Years' War, Iraq War, Israeli-Arab Conflict, Korean War, Napoleonic Wars, Peloponnesian War, Punic Wars, Russian Revolution, Rwandan Genocide, Spanish Armada, Spanish Civil War, Spanish Inquisition , Thirty Years' War, Vietnam War, World Trade Center and Pentagon Attacks, World War I, World War II. These topic pages can be found here.

There are also many, many other pictures and articles about war. One good example of pictures was published in The Atlantic.

Pi

Most of us know that it is the length of the circumference divided by the length of the diameter and equal to 3.141592. Do you want to see it actually calculated? Watch this video from the Films on Demand database.

Or if you don't like that kind of pi, see our World Food Cultures page.

The Universe

Do you know the definition of "universe"? According to Access Science, which the library subscribes to, "The universe comprises everything in existence, including all matter and energy, and the enormous volume which contains them. The observable universe currently spans about 2.6 × 1023 km (1.6 × 1023 mi), and contains approximately 2.4 × 1052 kg (5.2 × 1052 lb) of matter, yielding an average density equivalent to a few atoms per cubic meter. Most of the universe, then, is empty space; the matter is distributed thinly throughout, forming objects and structures at a variety of different sizes. The study of this matter and energy, and its distribution, composition, and origin, is what constitutes the sciences of astronomy and cosmology."

Do you want more information on the universe? Like when the Big Bang happened? And what planets are in our universe? Then see Access Science. You can get to that database by starting at the eReference tab of the Science and Technolgy subject page.


(X-ray image: Crab Nebula Courtesy of J. Hester (Arizona State University), NASA/CXC/SAO posted in Access Science.)

Quotes

Are you just feeling the urge to quote someone today? Maybe you just need to know who said a quote and what was the context. Why did Patrick Henry say "Give me liberty or give me death!"? What quote is Mary Kay Ash famous for? Credo offers links to the following books of quotations:

Bloomsbury Biographical Dictionary of Quotations
Bloomsbury Thematic Dictionary of Quotations
Book of Bible Quotations
Collins Dictionary of Quotations
The Elgar Dictionary of Economic Quotations
Rawson's Dictionary of American Quotations
Respectfully Quoted
Simpson's Contemporary Quotations


*Mary Kay Ash -
"If you think you can, you can. And if you think you can't, you're right."
NY Times 20 Oct 85

Michelangelo (1475-1564)

From the Credo blog: He was born on 6 March 1475 in the village of Caprese, near Arezzo and was the second of five sons. Michelangelo drew extensively as a child, and his father placed him under the tutelage of Ghirlandaio, a respected artist of the day. Michelangelo’s precocious talent attracted the notice of Lorenzo de’ Medici, the unofficial ruler and leading art patron of Florence, and the boy was invited to join the Medici household. His figures for the tombs in Florence’s Medici Chapel (1519-33), which he designed, are among his most accomplished creations. He devoted his last 30 years largely to the Last Judgment fresco in the Sistine Chapel, to writing poetry (he left more than 300 sonnets and madrigals), and to architecture.

More information can be found about Michelangelo via the libraries on-line resources. One of these is the Gale Virtual Reference Library, Arts and Humanities Through the Eras.

Many other resources are available at the Library's Art webpage.

COST OF LIVING IN 1962

Yearly Inflation Rate . . . 1.20%
Average Cost of New Home . . . $12,500 $232,880.00 (2009)
Average Income Per Year . . . $5,556 $ 39,423.00 (2009)
Average Monthly rent . . . $110 per month $ 675.00 (2009)
Tuition to Harvard University . . . $1,520 $ 52,650.00 (2011)
Average Cost of New Car . . . $3,125 $ 29,217.00 (2010)
Eggs per dozen . . . 32 cents
Gasoline per gallon . . . 28 cents
Factory Worker Average Take Home Pay (3 Dependents) . . . $94.87

Women's History Month

The Library's display this month highlights Women's History Month. You can explore women's contributions to history in various databases. Gale's Biography in Context is a good example. New entries highlight Anna Paquin, Whitney Houston, and Ayn Rand.

I can't use the Internet for my paper

One comment that we get weekly is "I can't use the Internet for my paper" when we show students databases. "I can only use a book." Well, today's blog concerns that topic. While there is plenty of good, reliable information available on the Internet, there is also much biased, outdated, and untrustworthy information on the web. Finding reliable sources can be difficult, because anyone can publish anything on the Internet.

However, databases are not considered "Internet" resources. The reason for this is that databases are reviewed sources. Also, articles that are in databases, while they might be written for specific databases, could also have been copied from journals or magazines.

We have a variety of databases in a variety of subject fields. See the link here.

Music subject page

The library maintains a number of specialized subject pages. One that I would like to highlight today is Music. This page has just been updated and published. It has a number of exciting features including links to actual music, videos, and scores. Please see it if that interests you.





Music Online
Recordings Database


 

This fantastic database allows you to listen to tens of thousands of audio recordings (and hundreds of thousands of searchable tracks) in all areas of music.

Click on the link above to access all recordings, or select one of the specific libraries of recordings listed below:

• Classical Music
  
  
  Recordings representing all eras and catefories of classical music. More than 6000 albums, with about 90,000 searchable tracks.
  
  


• American Song
  
  
  Hear and feel the music from America's past. Includes songs by and about American Indians, miners, immigrants, slaves, children, pioneers, and cowboys. Also included are the songs of Civil Rights, political campaigns, Prohibition, the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, anti-war protests, and more. A special feature is a group of more than 30,000 tracks of African American songs.
   


• Contemporary World Music
  
  
  This collection delivers the sounds of all regions from every continent. Contains important genres such as reggae, worldbeat, neo-traditional, world fusion, Balkanic jazz, African film, Bollywood, Arab swing and jazz, and other genres such as traditional music - Indian classical, fado, flamenco, klezmer, zydeco, gospel, gagaku, and more.
  
  


• Jazz
  
  
  The largest and most comprehensive collection of streaming jazz available online — with thousands of jazz artists, ensembles, albums, and genres. More than 30,000 searchable tracks.
  
  


• Smithsonian Global Sound
  
  
  Listen to the music of cultural and ethnic groups from around the world. More than 40,000 searchable tracks.

Happy Leap Year Day!

From the Britannica Online Encyclopedia: The astronomical year, the time taken for the Earth to complete its orbit around the Sun, is about 365.242 days, or, to a first approximation, 365.25 days. To account for the odd quarter day, an extra calendar day is added every four years, as was first done in 46 bc, with the establishment of the Julian calendar. Over many centuries, the difference between the approximate value 0.25 day and the more accurate 0.242 day accumulates significantly. In the Gregorian calendar now in general use, the discrepancy is adjusted by adding the extra day to only those century years exactly divisible by 40(e.g., 1600, 2000). For still more precise reckoning, every year evenly divisible by 4,000 (i.e., 16,000, 24,000, etc.) may be a common (not leap) year.

Mythology that surrounds Leap Year (from Credo):The year in which this occurs is called Leap Year, probably because the English courts did not always recognize February 29, and the date was often “leaped over” in the records. There’s an old tradition that women could propose marriage to men during Leap Year. The men had to pay a forfeit if they refused. It is for this reason that February 29 is sometimes referred to as Ladies’ Day or Bachelors’ Day. Leap Year Day is also St. Oswald’s Day, named after the 10th-century archbishop of York, who died on February 29, 992.

Credo database

One of the reasons that I use Credo daily is because it gives me short bursts of information.

Use Credo Reference to find info from:
Encyclopedias
Dictionaries
Biographies
Quotations
Bilingual Dictionaries
Crossword Solver
Measurement Conversions

As of today, it's stats are: Searching 3,410,565 full text entries in 587 reference books.

Needing some measurements, then this is the place to stop. It covers area, distance, energy, fuelconsumption, power, speed, temperature, volume, and weight.

Not only does it search "words", but it searches "images" and can create a concept map.

The Year was 1962

1962 the cars continued to evolve as more compacts appeared and sold well in the US. The Cold War continued to worsen when the Russians placed Ballistic Missiles on Cuban land just 90 miles away from the coast of Florida in and JFK called the bluff by threatening war unless they were removed which they were but for a short time the world was on the brink of nuclear war and self-destruction. The president then set a goal of landing a man on the moon before the end of the decade and became more involved in politics in Southeast Asia by training South Vietnamese pilots. Folk music was evolving into protest music thanks to young artists like Bob Dylan and the birth of Surfing music by the Beach Boys grew in popularity meanwhile in England the Beatles record the single "Love Me Do". The new hit on TV for that year was "The Beverly Hillbillies" and the first of the James Bond movies "Dr No" was an instant success, some of the other movies released included "Spartacus" and "El Cid".

For other events, see the on-line ABC-Clio book.


And.....TCTC was founded. Happy 50 to us!

Today's Friday

What does today being Friday mean to you?

The Oxford Reference on-line set has a number of meanings for Friday.
"The belief that Friday is an unlucky day goes back to the Middle Ages, and is widely attested. As early as 1390 Chaucer wrote ‘And on a Friday fell all this mischance’, and throughout the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries there are ample references to people thinking this a bad day on which to do business, travel, move house, start a new piece of work, be born, or get married (Opie and Tatem, 1989: 167–9). This is probably an indirect consequence of the old Catholic rule that Fridays are a day for penance. It is still very strong, and has some specifically modern developments, for instance that Friday is now thought to be a day on which many road accidents occur. Similarly, if a car or machine frequently breaks down, it may be said that ‘It must have been made on a Friday’, though here the implication is not always superstitious; sometimes what is meant is that the workmen, eager for the weekend, were too slapdash."

"In Islamic belief, Friday is regarded as the day of the week on which Adam was created (as in Genesis 1:26–7)."

Monday's child is fair of face.
Tuesday's child is full of grace.
Wednesday's child is full of woe.
Thursday's child has far to go.
Friday's child is loving and giving.
Saturday's child works hard for a living.
And the child born on the Sabbath day Is bonny and blithe, and good and gay.

Regardless of your thoughts on Friday, I hope you enjoy it. Oxford Reference Online is here.

How do I find a book in the Library?

This question is asked of us at least once a day so I thought it would be a good blog topic.

The really short answer is look up the book in the on-line catalog and write down the call number. But that leads to the next question. What is the call number? That really seems to be the main question that needs to be answered.

TCTC uses the Library of Congress (click link to see actual categories) system. This system of shelving is made up of the alphabet and numbers usually in 3 sections.


1. Call numbers can begin with one, two, or three letters.
2. Numbers come after the letters.
3. Cutter Number which is is a coded representation of the author or organization's name or the title of the work (also known as the "Main Entry" in library-lingo). This number system is named after Charles Ammi Cutter who developed the two-number table.

If you know that A comes before B, C, D, etc. then you should be able to find the book on the shelf. Once you get to the specific area, read the number like you would any number (1 is before 111 and before 231).

We have a video that gives more detail at http://tctc.libanswers.com/a.php?qid=66978.

Caretakers of Books

In my worldview the Library is a place for knowledge and to search for knowledge. The physical location and the people that work here then caretake the knowledge and the various forms that knowledge takes. We become caretakers also of books. There are many other caretakers of knowledge and of books. Today's highlight comes from the World Digital Library Home.

Per the website:
The World Digital Library (WDL) makes available on the Internet, free of charge and in multilingual format, significant primary materials from countries and cultures around the world.

The principal objectives of the WDL are to:

•Promote international and intercultural understanding;
•Expand the volume and variety of cultural content on the Internet;
•Provide resources for educators, scholars, and general audiences;
•Build capacity in partner institutions to narrow the digital divide within and between countries.


It is still a small digital collection but amazing. Are you interested in "The Essentials of Arithmetic" by ʻĀmilī, Bahāʾ al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Ḥusayn, 1547-1621? This is the place you can see the full text from Bibliotheca Alexandrina

(FYI, the link is http://www.wdl.org/en/item/7434/#q=essentials&view_type=gallery&search_page=1&qla=en)

Clothing makes the Person

Today's tweet was from the Wall Street Journal "Wall Street Journal @WSJ
Skinny jeans blamed for nerve compression, digestion issues, back pain, yeast infections. Clothes create health issues: http://on.wsj.com/yFGILl"

The Daily Life Through History database is a perfect place to start if you are interested in other clothing facts. We have links to not only North America but also to the Middle East, Africa, the Pacific Rim, and all time periods.

President's Day

President's Day celebrates two US Presidents: George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. The Gale US History in Context is an excellent resource if you need to brush up on your knowledge of the Presidents.

From that database comes this tidbit: "HAD YOU KNOWN George Washington in 1774, you might have admired his skill as an Indian fighter, but you would not have predicted he would one day become his country's paragon of virtue." See more at this link.

Do you wonder how Nathaniel Hawthorne felt about Abraham Lincoln? See this link.

Professional Reading

Do you keep up with your professional reading? If you are an academic, one of the best sources of general information is the Chronicle of Higher Education. The library subscribes to this in both print and electronic form. For the electronic edition, log into eTC and click on the employee tab. The link is under the "Research and Reports" section. For print, visit the library at the Pendleton campus.

Do you need some music in your life? Today's tweet is brought to you by NPR: Midtown Dickens: Sound Of A Shapeshifter http://n.pr/A2Qk8W
The Library also subscribes to Alexander Street Press which has a number of musical databases including Contemporary World Music. To listen while on campus, click this link: http://womu.alexanderstreet.com/

LibAnswers FAQ

The Library has an online FAQ that is continually growing. You can access the FAQ webpage at http://tctc.libanswers.com/. One recent question is "Is Web MD a scholarly source?". The answer, posted on LibAnswers at http://tctc.libanswers.com/a.php?qid=139901, starts with "While Web MD is a website that provides a lot of useful information, it is not a peer reviewed/scholarly source." For the rest of the answer see the link.

Happy Valentine's Day

From the Credo database "Today is Valentine’s Day. St. Valentine is believed to have been a Roman priest who was martyred on this day around 270. How he became the patron saint of lovers remains a mystery, but one theory is that the Church used the day of St. Valentine’s martyrdom in an attempt to Christianize the old Roman Lupercalia, a pagan festival held around the middle of February." For more Valentine's Day info from Credo, click the link.

Black History Month

Anderson campus library celebrates Black History month:

New Easley paintings

Thanks to Mr. Youngblood for the new paintings he donated to the Easley campus library.