SCC Library NEW BOOKS Available

The Spring SCC Library New Book List is now available on the Library web page. Browse your call number areas or search the list by author or title. You can also click directly from the New Book List into the library catalog.

Here’s a bit of what’s new (there are many more):

Owens Valley revisited: a reassessment of the West’s first great water transfer. Gary D. Libecap.
F868.O9 L53 2007

Somebody scream!: rap music’s rise to prominence in the aftershock of Black power. Marcus Reeves.
ML3531 .R44 2008

The bitter sea: coming of age in a China before Mao. Charles N. Li.
P85 .L54 L54 2008

Getting the most out of the research experience: what every researcher needs to know. Brian Roberts.
Q180.A3 .R63 2007

Probabilities: the little numbers that rule our lives. Peter Olofsson.
QA273 .O46 2007

In defense of food: an eater’s manifesto. Michael Pollan.
RA784 .P643 2008

Sustainable construction: green building design and delivery. Charles J. Kibert.
TH880 .K53 2008

Find the newest of the new books in the library second floor New Books area. Get your employee ID card while you’re in the library and borrow a few.

Thank you to everyone who contributed suggestions or donated books. We are committed to building the collection your students need.

Electronic Librarian Launches

Ask a Librarian!

Have a question while working on your coursework from home?

Shoot us an email! The new Ask a Librarian e-reference service is available at anytime, from anywhere. Simply go to the SCC Library homepage and click on the Ask a Librarian link. You will normally receive a response within 24 hours, Monday-Saturday.

We can help students and faculty with questions about library databases and LOIS, the library catalog. Students, we’ll help you choose research topics and find authoritative articles to support your essay. We can point you in the right direction for reliable web sites. Instructors, we’ll help you plan library assignments that really work. Ask us. We look forward to hearing from you!

Computers on Campus – Your Suggestions Wanted

Do you have suggestions, concerns, ideas, or anything else to say about computers on campus?  SCC will be holding a forum on the topic next week.  Come to LR105 in person from 12:00 to 1:00 on Monday or Tuesday, or leave a comment at the open forum blog.

Earth Day on the Web

You really should get outside.  The weather is going to be beautiful and Tuesday is Earth Day, for pete’s sake.  But you’re stuck indoors, hard at work, so how about just an Earth Ten Minutes?  That’s all it takes to pop into these winning websites:

Redefining Progress has a new Ecological Footprint Quiz with results that will surprise you.

Or try Low Impact Living for “the low down on living green” and your home’s environmental impact.

The National Resources Defense Council informs on global warming, environmental pollutants, ocean revitalization, and guidance for activists.

Skin Deep, from the Environmental Working Group, rates hazards to your health and the environment of 30,000 products, from deodorant to bubble bath.

Sierra Club videos will show you how to install a low-flow showerhead or wrap up your water heater.

Share your ideas with others on the World Wildlife Fund blog – or here!

Earth Day is Next Tuesday, April 22nd!

The library delivers Earth Day information every day.  Send your students in for one of these:

• Apollo’s fire: igniting America’s clean energy economy, by Jay Inslee & Bracken Hendricks
• The biodiversity crisis: losing what counts, edited by Michael J. Novacek.
• Conserving the environment, edited by Douglas Dupler
• EcoPoetry: a critical introduction, edited by J. Scott Bryson
• Global warming: the signs and the science (DVD)
• Spirit of the environment: religion, value & environmental concern (ebook)

     

Ask a librarian for help finding more books, videos, and articles on environmental issues.

It’s National Library Workers Day!

It’s 3:00 in the afternoon and we nearly forgot to tell you that today is National Library Workers Day!

On January 25, 2003, a resolution was proposed:
That in order to recognize the hard work, dedication, and expertise of library support staff and librarians that the Tuesday of National Library Week be designated National Library Workers Day; and, that on that day, interested library workers, library groups, and libraries should advocate for better compensation for all library workers and, if the day coincides with National Pay Equity Day, these individuals, groups, and libraries should recognize both days together.

Excuse us while we blow our horn for a sec..

See you at the Library!

Celebrate National Library Week

National Library Week, sponsored by the American Library Association, celebrates the contributions of all types of libraries and promotes library use. This year marks the 50th celebration of National Library Week.

SCC Library Facts

• Since August 2007, the library has added 3004 books to the collection.
• Since the beginning of the school year, librarians have answered 13,267 reference questions, provided directions 3,240 times, and resolved 2,516 copier, printer and computer issues.
• During Fall 2007 the librarians taught 103 instruction sessions attended by 2,252 students.
• From July, 2007 through March, 2008, reserve books were used 40,550 times and circulating books logged 22,879 checkouts (and the semester isn’t over!)

Celebrate!

• Borrow a book (we have over 72,000 of them!)
• Search one of 40 databases to find a magazine article (on National Library Week?)
• Thank your circulation staff
• Read a magazine
• Use the Internet
• “Borrow” a group study room
• Ask a librarian!

Uncork your curriculum with MERLOT

Have you discovered MERLOT (Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching)? Find hundreds of online teaching materials in your subject areas – lesson plans, lectures, tutorials, quizzes, case studies, animations, simulations, and reference material. (Browse in your subject area if Search doesn’t turn up any hits.) You can contribute your material, too, and registration is free.

Just for example, if you browse Math, you will find Larry Green’s Applet Page, which contains “dozens of interactive tutorials and discovery exercises for beginning, intermediate, and college algebra.” Or browse to Humanities and sample “Ojala que llueva cafe,” a Spanish-language reading selection based on a song by Dominican artist Juan Luis Guerra.

There’s a biology assessment tool for amphibians, too:

Write a comment and post your favorite curriculum websites.