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.