How Green Is Your Library?

We decided to peel back the LRC’s stylish green countertops, service desks, bookcases, and carpets and investigate the true color of everyday actions in your library building.  LRC staff accrued eco-credit for:

• using Google Documents to collaborate and conserve printouts
• using Google Sites to formulate unit plan and meeting agendas
• making tiny receipts for media fines, DE leases, and headphones instead of full page printouts, and forgoing fax cover sheets
• switching to online media equipment reservations
• using SurveyMonkey for online faculty, student, and staff surveys
• using recycled paper, printing on used paper, and printing 2 sided
• chopping up printouts for heaps of scrap paper used each day
• posting handouts online and collecting homework in D2L’s dropbox
• recycling over 1500 outdated books to Better World Books
• collecting and recycling spent batteries from patrons and staff
• turning off monitors on lunch breaks
• walking or biking to work
• taking advantage of structural efficiencies – natural light and motion detecting light fixtures
• helping students find information on the giant Pacific garbage patch and other environmental topics
• setting up displays on carbon footprint and recycling

But what about all that “paper” on the third floor?

Library Databases Go Mobile

If you use a mobile device–a Blackberry, iPhone, or other gadget–you may have found that mobile versions of websites can make a huge difference in getting the information you need. Google, Yahoo, Amazon, Facebook, Wikipedia, and other highly-trafficked sites redirect mobile users to sites optimized for small screens and lightweight browsers.

We’re just starting to see this trend in our subscription databases: Ebsco, which provides Academic Search Premier, CINAHL, and several other databases, now has its own mobile interface, and the Naxos Music Library has launched an iPhone app.

Help – Library Research Databases In Jeopardy!

Faculty, do your students use online research databases such as Ebsco’s Academic Search Premier or CQ Researcher to complete your assignments?  Are you aware that the state has eliminated funding for these databases?

In the Los Rios District, we are very fortunate that the District Office has supplied funding for this year to guarantee that Los Rios students will have access to databases through Spring 2011, but there are no assurances about the future.  Community college students throughout the state could lose access to many thousands of up-to-date, full-text, high quality periodical articles that instruct, inform, and help them fulfill course requirements.  Distance education students will be especially hard hit.

In response to this crisis, the CCC Council of Chief Librarians has presented to the Board of Governors a “Resolution Requesting Action by the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges to Support Continued Funding for Online Library Information Resources and Services Needed by Students and Faculty.” The resolution asks the BOG to direct the Chancellor’s Office to actively seek other sources of funding for online information resources and services.

If you value students’ access to the databases, you can help. Send an email voicing your concerns and your support for the resolution to:

Mr. Lance T. Izumi, President, Board of Governors CCC ngriffin@cccco.edu
Chancellor Jack Scott, California Community Colleges fjames@cccco.edu
Dr. Morgan Lynn, Executive Vice Chancellor, CCC mlynn@cccco.edu
Ms. Jane Patton, President, Academic Senate, CCC jane_patton@wvm.edu

Online library workshop coming up!

The library will be holding an online workshop on Wed., November 11 at 7:00 PM. We frequently offer drop-in orientations inside the library, but this one will be available to students at home or anywhere else they’ve got internet access. Students will learn how to find full-text articles in the library’s subscription databases; professors offering extra credit will be notified by e-mail that their student successfully completed the workshop. (For those of you familiar with the usual drop-in workshops, this one is equivalent to the “B” orientation.)

If you’re curious about the technology, we’ll be using the Elluminate web conferencing platform, which is provided to all California community colleges via CCC Confer.

We’ve got more information about this event on the library website. This is a late addition to our schedule, so please spread the word! http://scc.losrios.edu/~library/onlineworkshop

LRC to close at 3:00 on Saturdays!

The Learning Resource Center will close at 3:00
on Saturdays beginning Nov. 14, 2009.

This change may impact students who use Library, Instructional Media, and Academic Computers services on Saturdays to study, research, use computers, view media, and borrow reserve textbooks.   Please help get the word out so students can be prepared.  This change may also impact instructors who bring classes for a Saturday afternoon library instruction session.

As of Nov. 14, regular LRC hours during Fall and Spring semesters will be:

Monday – Thursday: 7:30 am – 8:00 pm
Friday: 7:30 am – 5:00 pm
Saturday: 9:00 am – 3:00 pm

Hours for Academic Computers in B-153 are unchanged:  Monday-Friday 8:00-4:00.  eServices hours in B-153 are Monday-Thursday 7:30 -5:00.

Use Your Sacramento Area Libraries!

Maybe we’re not paying enough attention to the American Library Association, but in the library we were surprised to learn that September was Library Card Sign-up Month.  And now it’s over… At SCC, you don’t have to worry about getting a library card–it’s bundled into your Employment Card or Student Access Card–but this might be a good time to think about the advantages of setting yourself up with outside libraries too.

2009 IT Forum is coming up!

While this isn’t specifically about the LRC, anyone doing research these days is immersed in technology. That’s why we are urging you to participate in the 2009 Information Technology Forum, either by attending in person or by contributing comments and questions (or, in the best case, both!). The event will be held next Thursday, October 29, from 12-1 in the Student Center. You can find a form for submitting comments and questions on the forum’s web page.

New MLA Works Cited Rules

New MLA Handbook

At the end of 2008, the Modern Language Association updated the rules for works cited lists, and in 2009 the new MLA handbook was published.

Major changes include:

• no URLs in Internet listings
• the inclusion of media type in all listings

Purdue’s OWL website lists additional noteworthy changes as well as sample entries.

If you would like your students to use the new, easier rules, have them drop by the library and pick up handouts giving examples of the new rules for print and Internet sources.  Students and faculty can access an overview of MLA citation style as well as examples of the new rules for in-text citation and media and other sources on the SCC library web site.  (The library has an array of handouts on many research topics.)

The library has a few general English writing handbooks which include the new rules and which can be checked out for two hours at the circulation desk.

Textbooks On Tap

Yes, we are a little obsessed with textbooks here in the library.  Maybe because students have checked them out 12,397 times since school started in August!

We love it when students find their textbooks in the library catalog – we have ‘em for nearly every class, as does the College Store.  But there are multiple sources for textbooks, and one of the following services may fit a student’s particular situation more exactly.  (Dutiful disclaimer: the following services may not save money and may require extra time.)

There are plenty of Internet bookstores.  Amazon, Alibris, Textbooks.com, Half.com, and Borders are just a few that carry used textbooks.  Students must make sure the book is the correct year and edition (use ISBN) and allow for shipping costs and time.

Chegg.com deals in rental textbooks, though prices may deter some.  The 5th edition of Martin-Gay’s Intermediate Algebra is currently going for $55.49 for the semester (125 days), plus tax and shipping.

A few services sell textbooks by the chapter or in electronic format.  We’ve noticed iChapters and CoursesMart, but would like to hear from faculty and students who have used them.

As an alternative to textbooks, you can save your students some cash by using open educational resources offered by the Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources, or by assigning public domain full-text books available through Project Gutenberg, Bartleby, Google Books, or the Internet Archive.

Banned Books Week

The American Library Association and the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression in tandem with nationwide booksellers, authors, and publishers groups dedicate one week each year to celebrate everyone’s freedom to read by alerting readers to some of the books that have been targeted for censorship in the past.

Because of “the efforts of librarians, teachers, booksellers, and and members of the community to retain the books in the library collections,” says the ALA Banned Books Week Web site,  most of the books were ultimately not banned or restricted.

Notable challenged books and the reasons they were challenged:

• The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier for using offensive language, being sexually explicit, and portraying violence
• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain for racism
• The Color Purple by Alice Walker for portraying homosexuality, using offensive language, and being sexually explicit
• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou for being sexually explicit
• In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak for portraying nudity, using offensive language, and being sexually explicit
• Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck for using offensive language, and portraying racism and violence
• Any Harry Potter book by J. K. Rowling for portraying the occult, Satanism, and violence

Banned Book Week highlights the importance of First Amendment rights.