Meet Your Librarian ~ Discover Resources Your Students Can Use

Your SCC librarians would like to share updates about library services at your next department meeting.  We have news about instructional sessions, books and media, article databases, library flex credit, and more.  Your students can put library resources right to work; you’ll see the results in their next assignments.  Our visits will fit your schedule, and we’ll keep it short – 5 to 10 minutes max.  Contact Mary Ann Robinson to schedule a visit.  And thanks!

Check Out the Popular Reading Section

In the year since the library began leasing 200 popular fiction and nonfiction books, popular items have circulated a total of 136 times. We’re counting on you to make our Popular Reading Section even more “popular.” Need a break from textbooks? Looking for a book to read in the springtime sun? Come by and take a look!

What are your peers reading? The two most circulated books from the Popular Reading Section are The Interruption of Everything by Terry McMillan and The Last Juror by John Grisham. Find these other bestsellers in the Popular Reading section, too:

• An Inconvenient Book by Glenn Beck & Kevin Balfe
• Tom Cruise by Andrew Morton
• Cinnamon Kiss by Walter Mosley

New books arrive every 1-2 months and older titles are returned, so be sure to browse regularly.

The Popular Reading Section is located on the 2^nd floor of the LRC at the end of the reference bookshelves. Be sure to wave to the reference librarians as you pass the desk…

Have you read a book from the Popular Reading Section? Please share your thoughts and recommendations here. We’d love to hear from you!

Library of Congress on Flickr: Great images for your classes and projects

Are you looking for images of life in World War II-era America? Need to show what Puerto Rico looked like 60 years ago? Last month the Library of Congress mounted over 3,000 images from the first half of the 20th century onto Flickr, the popular photo-sharing site.

Browsing the collection is as easy as going to LC’s main Flickr page and clicking away. Use the box at the top of the screen to search the photos by keyword. Each photo’s page also includes a link to the Library of Congress’ catalog, where you can download an uncompressed, high-resolution version.

LC may add more of their collections to Flickr, including Civil War photos. You don’t actually have to wait for that to happen, though. LC already hosts a much larger number of photos on their own site; search their catalog or browse their American Memory collection to get an idea of what’s available.

Other great sources for archival images include the Online Archive of California and its alternative interface, Calisphere.

If you have another site that you’ve found useful in teaching or your work as a student, please let us know in the comments!

How to get your students into the library

Did you know you have several choices for getting your students oriented to the library and library research?

• Send your students to the library on their own time for a 50-minute workshop. “Proof of Attendance” provided.
• Bring your class in for an orientation customized to a particular assignment.
• Assign the online tutorial to your students that teaches how to evaluate internet sources, use academic Subject Directories and more: http://scc.losrios.edu/~library/c-orientation/

Click on this link to learn more and to schedule an orientation. Timeslots are filling up!

Welcome SCC Community!

Spring Semester 2008 may only be three weeks old, but several thousand students have already passed through the LRC gates in search of student ID cards, textbooks, computers, and assistance with a wide range of inquiries, from supplementary reading lists to eservices. Admissions and records staff pitched in at the reference desk to help with eservices questions the first week of school. Financial Aid staff are also assisting; students will find them in B153 on Wednesdays from 12:00 to 2:00. Students come to the LRC for just about everything, it seems.

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Library Display Celebrates Asian Heritage and Chinese New Year

To celebrate the Chinese New Year, the SCC library is currently presenting a display of books on Asian heritage on the second floor of the Learning Resource Center.

What is your Zodiac? Are you a Haiku poet? Come to the library and find out!