Got Poetry?

In celebration of National Poetry Month, SCC poetry will be displayed throughout April on the 2nd floor of the library. Students, faculty and staff are encouraged to submit poetry for display.

Email your poems to Judy Howe or drop them off at the library’s 2nd floor reference desk. Include your name and e-mail address.

Sunshine & Freedom of Information

Spring Break was Sunshine Week (March 16^th – 22^nd), and it wasn’t about the weather. It’s not a bit too late for you and your students to join the ongoing national discussion about freedom of information, open government, and the public’s right to know about government activities. Try these election year activities in your classroom:

• Discuss the Sunshine issues – open government, freedom of information, right to know.
• Visit the Sunshine Week website.
• Get voter registration cards at the library reference desk and encourage students to register.
• Discover the candidates’ positions on open government.
• Start classroom discussions using library books. Just a few of many:
  • Censorship by Julia Bauder
  • Secrecy Wars: National Security, Privacy, and the Public’s Right to Know by Philip Melanson
  • Faith of my Fathers by John McCain
  • It Takes a Village: and Other Lessons Children Teach Us by Hilary Rodham Clinton
  • Barack Obama: the New Face of American Politics by Martin Dupuis & Keith Boeckelman

Women’s History Display

To celebrate Women’s History Month, the SCC library is currently presenting a display of books showcasing the achievements of women.

Test your knowledge of women’s history with our Women’s History Quiz and read about a variety of women inventors. Come to the second floor of the LRC and discover!

Trial Databases: LexisNexis and more

As most of you know, the library offers a number of databases that provide all sorts of useful research materials, from scholarly articles to encyclopedias to collections of art images. Right now we have a few extra databases on a trial basis. Librarians are evaluating these resources to decide which will be offered next year, but feel free to take them for a spin; if you find them particularly useful, please let us know! The trial databases are:

• Credo Reference (subject-specific encyclopedias and other reference sources)
• Ebsco California Premier Package (scholarly journals from several disciplines, newspapers, reference sources)
• Ebsco Vocational Studies (journals and full-text books on vocational topics: cosmetology, forensics, robotics and more)
• Gale Opposing Viewpoints (pro and con arguments on various topical issues)
• Gale Virtual Reference Library (e-books and reference works on a variety of topics, including health, humanities, and business)
• LexisNexis Academic (legal scholarship and court cases, business info, newspapers and web sources–including blogs!)

These databases will be available until the end of March. As with all our databases, off-campus access is limited to currently registered students, staff and faculty. To access them from off campus you will need to enter the barcode from your student access card and your library PIN.

Battery Recycling at the Library!?!

Did you know Americans purchase nearly 3 billion batteries (dry-cell) every year? On average, each person in the U.S. disposes of 8 batteries every year.

In California, all batteries intended for disposal must be recycled—taken to a hazardous waste disposal facility or an authorized recycling facility. Do you know where your local hazardous waste disposal facility is? You don’t need to know. Bring your batteries to the library!

The library collects dry-cell batteries for recycling. Dry-cell batteries include batteries for flashlights, watches, remote controls, and laptop computers.

The battery recycling box is located on the shelf behind the reference desk on the second floor of the library. Bring the 8 batteries you’ll recycle this year!

For more information about recycling batteries, visit:

• U. S. Environmental Protection Agency
• California Integrated Waste Management Board

The Encyclopedia of Life and The Visible Body debut

When it’s finished in about 10 years, the online Encyclopedia of Life will catalog all of the known species on earth, eventually even microscopic life. The first part of this ambitious project was published on the web on Feb. 27. Anticipation and excitement were so high that the site was overwhelmed by users, but by the time you read this, it should be back online. (If the site is down, you can read about it while you wait.)

The Encyclopedia of Life will provide unparalleled access to constantly updated information on biodiversity, aiding research into the impacts on species of global climate change, as well as studies in related fields. And, science folks, you can contribute!

You might like The Visible Body, too. It’s brand new—launched just today. Billed as “the most comprehensive human body visualization tool,” The Visible Body lets users locate bones and organs by typing their names, or learn their names by clicking on a model, as well as rotate the model and zoom in on every tooth and vertebrae. Registration is free. (We’ll be showing these sites to your students, so watch for them in a research paper.)