Research 101 LibGuide: Rice Library’s “User Manual”

Rice Library’s Reference Librarians would like to spread the word about one of the most helpful and informative of our 220-plus LibGuides – Research 101.  This comprehensive guide covers the “what” and the “how” of the resources available to USI students and faculty, both in and outside of the library.  Many of the tabs, which focus on a more general topic, will include a drop-down menu directing users to pages covering more specialized areas.  Many of the tabs include embedded tutorials, plus links to the resource pages themselves.

Here are just some of the questions users may have for which Research 101 has the answer…

Question: Where can I go for a refresher on using the Rice Library Catalog?

 

Answer: Research 101 LibGuide,Library Catalog Tab – Choose a tutorial from Beginner, Intermediate, or Advanced Catalog, Library Call Numbers, Library Account, or Renewing Items.

Question: We learned about “Journal Finder" in library instruction, but is there a place I can review how to use it for my research?

Answer: Research 101LibGuide, Journal Finder tab – Watch the tutorial and link to the Journal Finder online resource.

Question: There is so much information out there on the web; is there a strategy I can use to quickly and effectively evaluate websites?

Answer: Research 101 LibGuide, Evaluating Resources tab, “Evaluating Websites” link from the drop-down menu.

Question: I don’t want to plagiarize!  Does the library have an online resource to help me avoid committing plagiarism?

Answer: Research 101 LibGuide, Information Ethics tab, “Plagiarism” link from the drop-down menu (note: a funny YouTube video is included on this page).

Question: What are those totally “old school” looking machines past the bathrooms on the first floor of the library and what do they do?

Answer: Research 101LibGuide, Microfilm/fiche tab – These machines read microfilm and microfiche - storage media on which a large portion of our journal holdings are stored.

Question: My history class visited a beautiful room on the third floor of the library called University Archives and Special Collections.  I would like to show some of my friends what it looks like.  Do you have a video that features this part of the library?

Answer: Research 101 LibGuide, Archives/Special Collections tab – Watch the video and use the links to access the University Archives and Special Collections web pages.

Question: I am just beginning my research and haven’t a clue how to get started; do you have any place where I can get some tips on choosing or narrowing my topic?

Answer: Research 101LibGuide, Beginning Your Research tab – Choose from the sub-pages: Choosing a Topic, Narrowing a Topic, Creating a Thesis Statement, and Starting Your Research

Question: Can you help me find a list of web sites where I can locate images for my presentation?

Answer: Research 101LibGuide, Finding Images tab

Question: I signed up for an ILLiad account, but I am still unclear how linking from article or book records to make an Interlibrary Loan request works.  Is there a place I can learn more about this?

Answer: Research 101LibGuide, Interlibrary Loan tab – Watch the tutorial which explains open URL linking from Rice Library databases.

Question: I am still not quite sure what is meant by a library “database.”  Is there somewhere I can go to get a better idea what that means?

Answer:  Research 101 LibGuide, Databases tab, “What is a Database?” link from the drop-down menu – Watch the tutorial titled “What is a database and how do I access it?”  The databases tab also has several tutorials provided directly from our database vendors - e.g. EBSCOHost databases.

Question: What does the library have in the way of popular materials?

Answer: Research 101 LibGuide, Knowing What’s Available tab, “Popular Materials” link from the drop-down menu.

Question: My professor placed an item on electronic reserve; how and where do I go to retrieve it?

Answer: Research 101 LibGuide, Course Reserves tab – Watch the tutorial and link to the Rice Library Course Reserves tab in the Online Catalog.

We hope that you will have an opportunity to visit Research 101 soon to see all that it has to offer.

 

BR

Supporting Survivors of Domestic Violence

In an e-mail dated 10/2, Dr. Amy Cavanaugh, a staff therapist in the university’s Counseling Center, invited the university community to join them in observing Domestic Violence Awareness Month and to show support for “those who have survived domestic violence” by participating in the Purple Ribbon Campaign.  Purple ribbons are available at the Counseling Center, Multicultural Center, International Programs and Services Office, Recreation Center, and Housing and Residence Life Office.

Amy’s e-mail prompted me to investigate Rice Library’s resources related to this important topic.  When I did, I discovered that we have several items on domestic violence, including books, reference books, videos, and journals.  When searching Rice Library’s catalog, users may want to try the keyword phrase domestic violence or one of the official Library of Congress subject headings:  Family violence, Child abuse, Intimate partner violence, Marital violence, or Victims of family violence.  Among the titles discovered from such searches are:
               A Troubled Marriage:  Domestic Violence and theLegal System by Leigh Goodmark

               PreventingFamily Violence:  A MultidisciplinaryApproach edited by Ko-Ling Chan

               Push:  A Novel by Sapphire

The library also has several reference books related to the topic, including the Domestic Violence Sourcebook (2009) and the Encyclopedia of Domestic Violence (2007).  Within its audiovisual collections, one can find both non-fictional treatments of the topic in videos like Family Violence:  Breaking the Chain (2003) and dramatic presentations as well, like The Color Purple (1997).

Lastly, those interested in researching domestic violence and related topics, will be pleased to know that Rice Library makes available at least a dozen periodical publications on the topic, including both professional trade publications and scholarly journals.  Among these are Domestic Violence Report, Family & Intimate Partner ViolenceQuarterly, and Journal of FamilyViolence.

If you need assistance locating these or other resources related to “domestic violence,” please contact Rice Library’s Reference Desk (812/464-1907, 800/246-6173, libref@usi.edu).

PO

Meet Marna- Rice Library's New Director!

We are excited to welcome Marna Hostetler as the new director of Rice Library. We wanted to give you an idea of how cool our new director is so we challenged her to answer these 10 questions.


1. If you could be any fictional literary character, who would you be? Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter series.

2. Soda or coffee? Definitely coffee.

3. What’s on your iPod? Prince and lots of r&b and funk. (Marna later revealed that she has seen Prince twice in concert!)

 

4.What's on your e-reader? Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin

5. What’s your favorite gadget? Kindle Fire

6. Do you have any pets? Yes, two cats named Graycy and Trip

7. What’s the worst job you’ve ever had? Working at McDonald’s or the cafeteria in college

8. If you could only eat one thing at the Fall Festival, what would it be? Elephant ears...wait! Pork tenderloin for sure. (Marna then told us about the strange but true origins of the sandwhich. Read about it here in Gourmet Magazine).  

9. Fill in the blank. When I’m not in the library working, I most likely am hanging out with my five year old son.

10. Time to test your Reader’s Advisory Skills. Name one book you would suggest that college students read. The book that had a huge impact on me as a college student was A Sand County Almanac: With Other Essays on Conservation from Round River by Aldo Leopold. (Check it out from Rice Library)


Thanks to Marna for answering!

-Nicole Tekulve
Instructional Services Librarian

Library of Congress List of "Books That Shaped America"

The Library of Congress recently released an inaugural list of 88 “Books That Shaped America.” The list accompanies an exhibit as part of a multi-year series called “Celebration of the Book.” The “Books That Shaped America” exhibit, the first in the series, opened June 25th and will remain on display until September 29th.

Do you see any of your favorite titles?  Are there any books not on this list that you think should be?  Readers are invited to take a survey to nominate their top three titles, share the titles that mean most to them, and to make suggestions for titles to be added to the list.

The list of title/authors is below; accompanied by the year they were first published.  The hyperlinked titles represent the books Rice Library owns (64 from the list of 88). Clicking on any of these titles will bring readers to the catalog record of that selected title.

Some other interesting facts about the titles in this list:

• Published in the 18th Century: 9
• Published in the 19th Century: 18
• Published in the 20th Century: 60
• Published in the 21st Century: 1
• Oldest title: Experiments and Observations on Electricity, Benjamin Franklin (1751)
• Newest title: The Words of Cesar Chavez, Cesar Chavez (2002)
• Most represented single decade: 1960’s (11 titles)

Here is the list:

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain (1884)
Alcoholics Anonymous, anonymous (1939)
American Cookery, Amelia Simmons (1796)
The American Woman’s Home, Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe (1869)
And the Band Played On, Randy Shilts (1987)
Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand (1957)
The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Malcolm X and Alex Haley (1965)
Beloved, Toni Morrison (1987)
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Dee Brown (1970)
The Call of the Wild, Jack London (1903)
Catch-22, Joseph Heller (1961)
The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger (1951)
The Cat in the Hat, Dr. Seuss (1957)
Charlotte’s Web, E.B. White (1952)
Common Sense, Thomas Paine (1776)
The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care, Benjamin Spock (1946)
Cosmos, Carl Sagan (1980)
A Curious Hieroglyphick Bible, anonymous (1788)
The Double Helix, James D. Watson (1968)
The Education of Henry Adams, Henry Adams (1907)
Experiments and Observations on Electricity, Benjamin Franklin (1751)
Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury (1953)
Family Limitation, Margaret Sanger (1914)
The Federalist, anonymous (1787)
The Feminine Mystique, Betty Friedan (1963)
The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin (1963)
For Whom the Bell Tolls, Ernest Hemingway (1940)
Gone With the Wind, Margaret Mitchell (1936)
Goodnight Moon, Margaret Wise Brown (1947)
A Grammatical Institute of the English Language, Noah Webster (1783)
The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck (1939)
The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald (1925)
Harriet, the Moses of Her People, Sarah H. Bradford (1901)
The History of Standard Oil, Ida Tarbell (1904)
History of the Expedition Under the Command of the Captains Lewis and Clark, Meriwether Lewis (1814)
Howl, Allen Ginsberg (1956)
How the Other Half Lives, Jacob Riis (1890)
How to Win Friends and Influence People, Dale Carnegie (1936)
The Iceman Cometh, Eugene O’Neill (1946)
Idaho: A Guide in Word and Pictures, Federal Writers’ Project (1937)
In Cold Blood, Truman Capote (1966)
Invisible Man, Ralph Ellison (1952)
The Jungle, Upton Sinclair (1906)
The Joy of Cooking, Irma Rombauer (1931)
Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman (1855)
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Washington Irving (1820)
Little Women, or, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy, Louisa May Alcott (1868)
Mark, the Match Boy, Horatio Alger Jr. (1869)
McGuffey’s Newly Revised Eclectic Primer, William Holmes McGuffey (1836)
Moby-Dick, or, the Whale, Herman Melville (1851)
Native Son, Richard Wright (1940)
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass (1845)
New England Primer , anonymous (1803)
New Hampshire, Robert Frost (1923)
On the Road, Jack Kerouac (1957)
Our Bodies, Ourselves, Boston Women’s Health Book Collective (1971)
Our Town: A Play, Thornton Wilder (1938)
Peter Parley’s Universal History, Samuel Goodrich (1837)
Poems, Emily Dickinson (1890)
Poor Richard Improved, Benjamin Franklin (1758)
Pragmatism, William James (1907)
The Private Life of the Late Benjamin Franklin, LL.D., Benjamin Franklin (1793)
The Red Badge of Courage, Stephen Crane (1895)
Red Harvest, Dashiell Hammett (1929)
Riders of the Purple Sage, Zane Grey (1912)
Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, Alfred C. Kinsey (1948)
The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne (1850)
Silent Spring, Rachel Carson (1962)
The Snowy Day, Ezra Jack Keats (1962)
The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. Du Bois (1903)
The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner (1929)
Spring and All, William Carlos Williams (1923)
Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein (1961)
A Streetcar Named Desire, Tennessee Williams (1947)
A Street in Bronzeville, Gwendolyn Brooks (1945)
A Survey of the Roads of the United States of America, Christopher Colles (1789)
Tarzan of the Apes, Edgar Rice Burroughs (1914)
Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston (1937)
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee (1960)
A Treasury of American Folklore, Benjamin A. Botkin (1944)
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Betty Smith (1943)
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe (1852)
Unsafe at Any Speed, Ralph Nader (1965)
Walden; or, Life in the Woods, Henry David Thoreau (1854)
The Weary Blues , Langston Hughes (1925)
Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak (1963)
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum (1900)
The Words of César Chávez, César Chávez (2002)

BR & KW

Thinking About Summer School?

Are you thinking about taking (or even teaching) classes during one or both of the university’s two summer sessions this year? Good for you! Just remember that Rice Library is here to serve you with the same range of services, same great resources, and same helpful staff as you’ve come to expect throughout the academic year. Although the library’s hours will be reduced somewhat during the summer months, so much of what it offers is available 24/7. Electronic books, electronic journal databases, online book renewal, LibGuides, electronic reserves, online tutorials, interlibrary loan requests, e-mail and chat reference, and so much more—they’re all available whether you are in the library or studying at the beach.


Here are some more good reasons to use and enjoy Rice Library this summer:

• Cool place to study; great place to get out of the summer heat!
• Growing media collection for leisure time, including classic films, music, and books on tape.
• Just steps from Starbucks.

We wish the best to all those participating in this year’s summer school and hope that we can be a part of your academic success. And if you’re attending USI for the first time this summer, stop by and introduce yourself. Have a great summer, everyone!

For more information about summer programs and classes, go to www.usi.edu/summer.

PO

 

 

 

 

 

A New Window Into America's Past

On April 2, the National Archives and Records Administration of the United States released for the first time the 1940 census.  This is the most recent of the decennial censuses to be made available to libraries, researchers, genealogists and the general public, and the first to be issued initially in a digital format.  For more than three years the National Archives has been digitizing over 3.9 million images of records which will give a clearer picture of Americans and American life during the decade of the Great Depression.  Access to these important records can be gained at:  http://1940census.archives.gov/.  A brief video introduction to the project is also available on the site's "Getting Started" page at:  http://1940census.archives.gov/getting-started/.  Finally, an excellent summary of information related to the release of these records is available in a post entitled "1940 Census Goes Digital" on the Government Printing Office's GovernmentBookTalk blog.

PO

The Community Read


The Community Read is a project to involve the community in reading, reflection, and awareness of issues facing our community. This is an annual event held in the spring. This year the group is promoting the book, The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien. This is a book that focuses on the effects of war on the people who fight these battles. It is a semiautobiographical story about a platoon leader’s experiences in Vietnam.

As part of the Community Read there will be lectures, group discussions, and exhibits around the area. There will be an opening reception and exhibit at the Evansville-Vanderburgh Public Library on April 1, 2012, from 2pm to 4pm. The public library will be hosting an exhibit of veterans art, war posters and images from recent conflict in Iraq that will be on display for the month if April. There is similar display on the first floor of the David L. Rice Library.

One of the premier collections that will be exhibited is Outsider Folk Art work from a Mt. Vernon resident, Rick McCarty. Rick served in the Vietnam War and found a way to express his struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) through drawings and poems. These pieces depict the continuing nightmares from his memories of the war. The images are centered on a particular mission where a village was destroyed in the province of Bien Hoa in 1971. During this mission Rick lost two close friends and a young villager, Mimi, who he became close to while in the area.

There are re-occurring motifs like the Boy of Peace, often shown preaching or holding a book. Another is the Demon Face representing the enemy or the god of war. McCarty’s work has been shown at many places. These include a traveling Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, Mt. Vernon High School, Alexandrian Public Library, and the Evansville Museum of Arts, History, and Science. These are moving images of the effects of war on the people who serve.

Also at the exhibit will be World War II bond posters from the Sonntag Collection that is part of the permanent collections at the University of Southern Indiana and some candid photographs of military personnel life during the Iraq War donated by a USI student, Jason Hayes.

For more information on the Community Read or to see a listing of events and organizations involved, see the Community Read website, http://www.usi.edu/communityread/index.shtml .

Award-Winning Database Arrives at Rice Library

Voted "Best in Media" by Library Journal's Best Databases of 2011, McGraw-Hill's AccessScience® is a fully re-designed database providing a powerful platform to search a vast array of science and technology-related topics.  Searches generate instant, well-organized results, categorized as encyclopedia articles, research updates, multimedia, news feeds, biographies, a Q&A session, and precise dictionary definitions. 

The content available to users is derived from the latest and most updated versions of the following resources:

• McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science & Technology, 10th Edition
• McGraw-Hill Yearbooks of Science & Technology
• McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms
• Hutchinson Dictionary of Scientific Biography®
• Headline news from ScienceNews® magazine and ScienCentral® videos
• Questions answered during regular Q&A sessions

In addition to the content above, AccessScience® multimedia offerings include more than 15,000 illustrations, graphics, images, animations, videos, and podcasts - all fully searchable and regularly updated.

Users can employ a variety of flexible search options, or can browse by specific area of interest to locate resources on the more than 7,000 scientific topics. Students will enjoy the links to data and tables directly from topic pages as well as the printing, emailing and citation-building help.  To enhance their class lectures, instructors may download high-quality images or use the Study Center, which provides useful tools and resources including study guides and essay topics. 

Readers may wish to watch the AccessScience® site demo; an interactive tutorial highlighting many of the database's search capabilities and useful features.  AccessScience® is accessible from Rice Library's Databases A TO Z list, several subject discipline lists, and numerous subject-specific LibGuides.  One limitation to its use is that Rice Library's licensing allows only two simultaneous users; please try again if not successful on the first try.

For questions about AccessScience® or any of the resources provided to you by Rice Library, please contact a Reference Librarian. 

BR

Insatiable APPetite

Apple celebrated a major milestone this week. 25 billion apps have been download to iPhones, iPads, and iPods from their App Store. Chinli Fu of China was the lucky 25 billionth downloader and received a $10,000 App Store gift card.


While we're on the subject of apps , we thought we'd suggest a few that might help you with your studies at USI.


Evernote is  a great tool for note taking and project management. The best part is that whether you use Evernote on your phone, the web, or on your computer- it's all synced. You can share notes with friends and even capture screenshots of entire webpages.

Forget flash drives, say hello to The Cloud. Dropbox allows users to save all types of files to their cloud-based servers. You can also share documents with friends and classmates. No more emailing different versions back and forth with groupmates-all documents saved on Dropbox sync automatically. 

EasyBib makes creating those pesky citations virtually painless. Whether you're using MLA, APA, or Turabian, EasyBib has you covered. Create book citations on the go by simply scanning the book's barcode. Save all your citations and export them to Google Docs or Word.

All of these apps are available for free! Check your platform's app store for details.

 

Nicole Tekulve
Instructional Services Librarian

EasyBib Trial Extended to April 13

For the past few weeks Rice Library has been providing trial access to EasyBib, a citation-generation program which allows users to easily create, annotate, and store bibliographies for nearly 60 different types of sources in the MLA, APA, and Chicago/Turabian styles.  The service includes a number of additional quality features, including a way to identify relevant, credible sources; note-taking and organizing capabilities; instruction in information literacy skills; and citation guides and user tutorials.  A few days ago it was announced that Rice Library’s trial period has been extended through April 13.  Additionally, here are links to support materials that may be useful to students and faculty:

Trial Feedback Form:  http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/HH7QHBZ.  Let us know what you think!

EasyBib Guide for Students:  http://media.easybib.com/guides/schooledition-flyer-2012.pdf

For assistance with this or other library resources and services, stop by or contact the Rice Library Reference Desk (812/464-1907, 800/246-6173; libref@usi.edu).

PO