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.

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.

Resources for a Teachable Moment

Many SCC faculty are making use of recent campus events as a teachable moment for critical thinking.  To support that momentum, the library would like to share a sample of significant information resources.

Books and Media in the SCC Library

Asking the right questions: a guide to critical thinking.  M. Neil Browne.  2010, 2007, 2004.

From critical thinking to argument: a portable guide.  Sylvan Barnet, Hugo Bedau.  2008, 2005.

Beyond feelings: a guide to critical thinking.  Vincent Ryan Ruggiero.  2008, 2004, 2001.

The thinker’s guide to fallacies: the art of mental trickery and manipulation.  Richard Paul and Linda Elder.  2006.

How to think about weird things: critical thinking for a New Age.  Theodore Schick, Jr., Lewis Vaughn.  2002, 1999.

Find many more titles in LOIS, the library catalog.  Suggested keyword searches:  critical thinking, persuasion, logic, reasoning, freedom of speech, reasoning, ethics.

Websites

There are many.  Turn up a good quality list of resources by searching for “critical thinking” at INFOMINE, Intute or Librarian’s Internet Index (research databases of handpicked websites).

The Library has also posted a few links to published articles from library databases about the abortion debate on its Twitter stream.

Librarians are deeply invested in helping students think critically about information.  Bring your students to the library for an orientation, or send them to do some digging on their own.

California’s “wide open” poet turns 90

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

On March 24, Lawrence Ferlinghetti turns 90.  He still claims he never wrote Beat but rather ”wide open” poetry, even though most would say he was a key to the 1950’s Beat movement.

As part of his birthday celebration, SCC readers will want to dip into the poet’s work on the third floor of the library at PS3511.E557.

A Book by any other name…

Readers can carry around hundreds of books in a hand-held eReader.

Students walk into class with iPhones, laptops, e-Readers, and backpacks.  They say they’re carrying books, and maybe they are.

To parody Gertrude Stein, a book is a book is a book.  Or is it?  Today books are available in forms never imagined by printer Johannes Gutenberg.
Handheld e-book readers are a burgeoning business these days.  Consumers now have the choice of hand-held readers such as Sony, K2 (Kindle 2), e-bookwise, be-book, with more heavy-duty readers like the iRex targeting business.

Unlike reading e-books on computer screens, many handhelds use e-Ink, a technology that makes reading much easier on the eyes.  Some readers, like Kindle, also make it sinfully easy to buy and download books by using Whisper-net, the technology used by cell phones.

In a revolutionary move, Amazon offers free Kindle technology to iPhone.  While the iPhone doesn’t have the e-Ink feature, the Amazon-iPhone partnership heralds a new era in reading.

Web sites like Project Gutenberg, Many Books, Free-ebooks, and many more offer a huge range of classics to recent fiction and non-fiction for handheld owners.  (Use keywords “free ebook” in any Web browser to get page after page of Websites.)

While textbooks aren’t readily available as eBooks, this should be the next big jump for textbook publishers given the number of students who own and use handheld devices.

Currently online e-books like those offered by the SCC library can’t be downloaded into handheld devices although they can be read on those with Internet access.  All one needs is an active SCC library card and a pin number to read a book from an off-campus computer.

Are paper books dead?  Of course not.  But reading them has branched into new avenues.

Now it’s not just your credit card you shouldn’t leave home without.  Take your entire personal library with you too.

March into Environment Month

The Library is spotlighting the environment throughout the month of March.  Send your students over to learn about recycling and find out how to reduce their carbon footprint. 

RAFFLE!

Students can win cool recycling stuff, displayed in the first floor lobby and donated by the California Department of Conservation.  Fill out entry forms at the Reference Desk on the second floor of the Library.  The drawing will be held on March 31.

 

Books now delivered to Davis and West Sac

Is your home campus in Yolo County? Starting this semester, you no longer have to come to the main campus to check out books; instead, you can have them delivered to the West Sacramento or Davis Center and pick them up there.

When you find a book in LOIS, simply click the “Request” button. On the next screen, fill out the form, and select the location where you want to pick it up.

In a few days, the materials will be available for you to check out! Note that while you can request materials from any Los Rios campus, you cannot request materials marked as “Reference” or ones on 2-hour or 1-day reserve.

Many thanks for making this happen to the SCC Circulation and Technical Services teams, SCC Operations, and the outreach center staff.

John Updike ~ American Man of Letters

John Updike, one of America’s most respected (and prolific) authors, died Jan. 27 after a battle with lung cancer. He was 76. We’d like to join the international celebration of his life and work, by highlighting some of the library’s resources that are available for you.

John Updike

Updike is currently the featured author in EBSCO’s Literary Reference Center, where you can find an excellent overview of his life and works as well as links to other articles (you can access the Literary Reference Center from the library’s database list). In addition, the library owns copies of several of his works. A partial list includes:

The Rabbit Tetrology	Two novels in this series won Pulitzer Prizes.
The Widows of Eastwick
Terrorist
Villages
Bech at Bay
In the Beauty of the Lilies
Several books of essays and short stories

Stop by the library and acquaint (or reacquaint) yourself with this beloved author.