Yahoo Claims It's Selling Delicious.com

A day after one of its employees leaked a slide from a meeting saying Yahoo! planned to "sunset" Delicious.com, the company now says it is instead trying to sell the social bookmarking site. Blogs and discussion boards erupted with criticism and dismay after the rumblings of Delicious's demise began. Yahoo! acknowledged customer anger in a blog post. Stay tuned.

Time Person of the Year: Mark Zuckerberg

They really re-touched his freckles: Here's the brand new online issue of Time, christening facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg the Person of the Year. As for the green lizard eyes, I was going to make a joke about the Geico Gecko, but I found out he has brown eyes. Pretty brown eyes.

FOR for Dec. 13, 2010

Featured Online Resource

December 13, 2010





OECD Stat Extracts

Sources for U.S. statistics are plentiful and well-known. But here's a great, frequently-updated selection of international statistics. The OECD is the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development; the StatExtracts, part of the organization's i-library, pertain to many economic and commerce-oriented issues, but extend well beyond that, and can be considered an excellent source for all international-relations or foreign government questions.

Topics include:
Aid Activities
African Economic Outlook
Foreign, International Students Enrolled (by country)
Inland Waters by lakes
Monthly Statistics of International Trade
Purchasing Power Parities Statistics
Patents Statistics
Social Expenditure
Child Well-being

and many more. And, if you scroll to the bottom of the menu on the left, you come to the country profiles menu, which gives you a collection of stats for a particular country--the topics therein are nearly all the individual ones above in the menu, but not exactly.
To the largest extent, the data is for the thirty-four OECD member countries, but the menu on the left of the StatsExtracts page includes a "non-member economies" option, which is available throughout the OECD site.

With the StatisticsExtracts, you can work with the data to create spreadsheets, charts, etc. Choose from line charts, bar charts, pie graphs, and more.

The rest of the OECD's site is very useful, crammed full of original articles on competition, agriculture, education, on and on. Highly recommended!


Every week, the Ort Library brings you a new and outstanding resource from the Web or from one of the library's databases. To get an archive of all FOR entries, click here. Also, you can suggest a website that provides well-organized access to useful info.

U.S. Students Not Doing So Well

Or...so good?
This is the kind of news story that seems to be in front of us perpetually. There's no surprise in it, or even a sense of newness, but its importance cannot be questioned. Here's msnbc's report on the U.S.'s poor performance on the 2009 PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment).

FOR for week of Dec. 06

Featured Online Resource
Dec. 06, 2010

Every week, the Ort Library brings you a new and outstanding resource from the Web or from one of the library's databases. To get an archive of all FOR entries, click here. Also, you can suggest a website that provides well-organized access to useful info.

THIS WEEK'S Featured Online Resource

BBC World Music Archive

The BBC has unveiled a new archive of world music, allowing you to sample the musical traditions of more than 40 countries. India, Corsica,China, Cuba, Iran, Brazil, Mozambique, Turkey – they’re all represented in this eclectic collection of indigenous music. BBC 3 traveled to each country (including several conflict zones) to record the music. Featuring 100s of hours of free recordings, this archive is now available to a global audience. You can start exploring by selecting a recording by country name or via a world map.

Rupert Murdoch to publish i-pad newspaper

i-pad owners will now have their own newspaper, The Daily, published by Rupert Murdoch and available nowhere and no-how but via the i-pad. Mashable.com, in a news story with an editorial below, says the newspaper has a fledgling staff of a hundred journalists. It will cost users $0.99 per issue to download.

FOR for Nov. 22

Featured Online Resource for Nov. 22
WOLFRAMALPHA.com

Wolframalpha.com computes, compares, crunches, enlightens and astounds. Use it to find out how pears and bacon compare in terms of fiber, the gross domestic product of Finland in 2009, how many cubic decimeters in a Danish pot, and when the next solar eclipse will occur.

You may wish to use the "Examples of Topics" menu from the home page.

Every week, the Ort Library brings you a new and outstanding resource from the Web or from one of the library's databases. To get an archive of all FOR entries, click here. Also, you can suggest a website that provides well-organized access to useful info.

Jaimy Gordon Heads Up National Book Award Winners

Jaimy Gordon's Lord of Misrule takes prize for fiction.

At Cipriani Wall Street in New York City, the National Book Awards were sprinkled upon the delighted recipients last night, including Jaimy Gordon, a professor at Western Michigan University, for her independently-published novel Lord of Misrule.

Other winners:

Poetry: Lighthead, Terrance Hayes, Penguin Books

Nonfiction: Patti Smith, Just Kids, Ecco

Young People's Literature: Kathryn Erskine, Mockingbrid, Philomel

Lord of Misrule is set at a West Virginia horse-racing track in the early 1970s. Newcomer Tommy Hansel attempts to win some quick cash with a few of his ponies and get out, but becomes entangled with local gangsters.

The book was hurried into publication by Bruce McPherson, owner and editor McPherson & Co., who wanted to nominate it for the NBA. Two days after making final corrections, Gordon learned that an earlier draft of the manuscript had won the nomination.

Please do not confuse the novel with Rachel Caine's vampire adventure of the same title: it did not win the national book award.

FOR for week of Nov. 15

Featured Online Resource
Nov 15, 2010

Every week, the Ort Library brings you a new and outstanding resource from the Web or from one of the library's databases. To get an archive of all FOR entries, click here. Also, you can suggest a website that provides well-organized access to useful info.

THIS WEEK'S Featured Online Resource

The Cassiopeia Project

The Cassiopeia Project is an effort to make intelligent but easily digestible videos on all manner of science topics. The project, operating under the slogan “No science teacher left behind,” is funded by an adamantly anonymous retired scientist. The project is named after the Cassiopeia Constellation at the edge of the Milky Way, known for its wayfinding capcaity; once you find Cassiopeia, you can easily locate all other constellations in the Northern hemisphere — a beautiful metaphor for the illuminating mission of the project

With more than 100 videos to date available on iTunesU, YouTube, and in the Video Library the project offers an invaluable resource on everything from quantum mechanics to evolution to the theory of relativity. Most videos also include a print transcript that is free to download as a .pdf file. All the content is open-source and educators and students are encouraged to edit, remix and otherwise customize the footage.

FOR for week of Nov. 8

Featured Online Resource
Nov 8, 2010

Every week, the Ort Library brings you a new and outstanding resource from the Web or from one of the library's databases. To get an archive of all FOR entries, click here. Also, you can suggest a website that provides well-organized access to useful info.

THIS WEEK'S Featured Online Resource

Tin Eye Reverse Image Search Engine

Got a picture? Want to see where else it’s used on the web? Maybe you want to find similar images? Maybe you’re just trying to identify it? Well, TinEye can help you with that.

TinEye is a reverse image search engine. You search for images using images, not words to find out where the image came from, how it’s being used, if modified versions exist, or to find higher resolution copies.

It works by "creat[ing] a unique and compact digital signature or ‘fingerprint’ for each image that is added to the index. When you submit a search image to TinEye, its fingerprint is analyzed on-the-fly and compared to the fingerprint of every single image in the TinEye search index. The result is a detailed list of websites using that image, or modifications of that image."

Jump right in from their homepage. From there you can upload an image or insert a URL that contains the image you are using to search. Get to know all the details by watching this video from their About page or visiting the FAQ page.

FOR for the week of Nov.1

Featured Online Resource
Nov 1, 2010

Every week, the Ort Library brings you a new and outstanding resource from the Web or from one of the library's databases. To get an archive of all FOR entries, click here. Also, you can suggest a website that provides well-organized access to useful info.

THIS WEEK'S Featured Online Resource
360 City World Panoramic Photography

360 city uses Google Earth technology and high-resolution photography to give panoramic, full-circle views from around the world. View the interior of the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, a Los Angeles mariachi party, Tokyo's Shin hutako bridge, and hundreds of other items.

A good place to start is the map page, which pinpoints 360-viewable locations. From the homepage, you can search or avail yourself of many browsing options.

Once you view a photo, click the mouse and drag the picture in any direction you want, including tilting up and down.

Constitution Day

Senator Robert Byrd was born in North Carolina as Cornelius Calvin Sale in 1917. His mother became a victim of the 1918 influenza epidemic and his father sent his son to live with relatives residing in the coal fields of West Virginia. Sen. Byrd's death in June of 2010 leaves a legacy that will be difficult to match. As the longest serving member of Congress, he will be remembered for his lengthy speeches on the Senate floor, the money and projects obtained for his home state of West Virginia, his books on the history of the Senate, and his love of the Constitution. Validating his love of the Constitution is Sen. Byrd's sponsorship of Public Law 108-447, Section 111, enacted December 2004. This law changed September 17th from the original Citizenship Day to Constitution Day.

Come to the Ort Library and view the materials in the display case on floor 3 to learn more about Sen. Byrd and Constitution Day. Please pick up your free pamphlet on the Constitution from the table by the display or as you exit the Library.

Photograph by P. Williams.

Book of the Month for September

BOM for Sept: Reality Hunger: a Manifesto, David Shields.


Knopf. 2010.

Probably the best way to review David Shields’ bizarre new screed Reality Hunger: A Manifesto is to present one passage:

I find nearly all the moves the traditional novel makes unbelievably predictable, tired, contrived, and essentially purposeless…
I like work that’s focused not only page by page but line by line on what
the writer really cares about rather than hoping that what the writer cares
about will somehow mysteriously creep through the cracks of narrative,
which is the way I experience most stories and novels.

If you’re the kind of writer, reader, or thinker who reads this fatuous passage as a neat indictment of its author’s shallowness and general stupidity, you’re not going to have a meaningfully different experience with the rest of the book and its glib pronouncements, which greatly outnumber and overwhelm the few interesting explorations it affords.
If you, however, read it with a fist pump and an “in your face, traditional novel!” read the rest of the book.

Welcome to Fall 2010

Welcome back to FSU for the new semester! We're sure we'll see many of you here in the library for studying, research, instruction sessions, and computer use.

If you're a new student or faculty member, be sure to familiarize yourself with our homepage to learn about our policies and services.

Here's a libguides page with an overview of library policies.

Have a great semester!

Michel Pastoureau's Black: The History of a Color

BOM for August: Black: The History of a Color. Michel Pastoureau. Princeton University Press: 2009.

Medieval historian Michel Pastoureau continues his work on the history of colors and patterns with his latest book Black: The History of a Color (he has previously written on the color blue and stripes). Pastoureau tackles this admittedly complex subject in the context of European art, beginning with prehistoric and ancient cultures and concluding with how the modern perception of black is shaped by social, political, cultural and artistic currents. Throughout visual history the color black has come to represent a gamut of concepts including austerity, evil, death, secrecy, elegance, power, luxury modernity and danger and has been exploited by artists and propagandists alike to communicate these sentiments.

Pastoureau’s most interesting narrative comes early in the book when he discusses black’s place in the color spectrum and lexicon. Black's status as a color in its own right has fluctuated for centuries, depending on scientific and technical advancements such as Sir Isaac Newton's discovery of the color spectrum and the invention of the printing press--black ink on white paper. Pastoureau asserts that contemporary thinking once again considers black a color but cautions us to not consider black in isolation, both from other colors and from historical and cultural context.

Pastoureau supports his ideas with historical documents, artifacts like coats of arms, and beautifully reproduced, full color paintings, etchings and photographs. The book is divided into short, digestible chapters, organized chronologically. Although the prose is sometimes abstract and overly conceptual, Black: The History of Color is an enjoyable and fascinating read for anyone interested in aesthetics, art and design.

Library Catalog Scheduled to Go Offline for an Upgrade

Catalog USMAI, the online catalog system for Frostburg State University and the entire University System of Maryland, will be unavailable from 3 pm Saturday, August 7 to 5 pm Sunday, August 8 for a scheduled upgrade.

Smithsonian Magazine Looks Into the Future

Smithsonian celebrates its 40th anniversary with a double issue, Jul-Aug.,

that looks into the next 40 years, with projections and promotions from

experts in agriculture, astronomy, nanotechnology and other fields.

Highlights:

• Just as cell phones are given away today, electric cars will be free


• To tap new sources of energy, people will do business in space


• By 2050, biologists will discover at least 2,000 new mammal species worldwide


• Joining forces, farmers and city dwellers will plant spinach in tall buildings


• Medical researchers could enable a person to regrow a servered limb


• If farmers don't start saving land and water, more people will go hungry


• A medical lab that fits on a postage stamp will save lives in the world's poorest countries

Library Staff Celebrates Director's Return

Library Staff greeted Dr. David Gillespie with donuts and coffee on Thursday, June 24 to celebrate his return to work after three months of medical leave for a total knee replacement.

An alternative to Wikipedia?

Times Topics is a feature of The New York Times that serves as a type of reference source for people, companies, and a myriad other newsworthy items. Examples of entities included are Jennifer Granholm, St. Jude Medical, Inc., Boy Scouts, and Marshall University.

Entries sometimes give brief synopses of the significance of the topic, and, when available, give an archive of NYT articles. Thus, Times Topics doesn't give you a cross-section of sources, but the various articles over the years tend to look at the topic from a good variety of angles, and satisfies a need to ascertain the significance of a particular topic.

Not all entries are as detailed as this one on Barack Obama.

Doug Glanville's The Game From Where I Stand

BOM for June-July: The Game From Where I Stand: a Ballplayer's Inside View

Doug Glanville. Times Books. 2010 GV867.64.G58 2010

Doug Glanville played centerfield for the Texas Rangers and the Philadelphia Phillies and isn't a half-bad writer. This memoir of his major-league career has a true behind-the-scenes feel, and serves as a good tour guide through the life of a big-leaguer for the truly curious.

Glanville tells us about the clubhouse crew and clubhouse cook, about selecting a mitt at the beginning of the year, and about the best party town in the National League, Montreal. Apparently, you can get an invite to Tyra Banks' birthday party merely by being quoted saying you'd kiss a plate (you'll have to read the book) if it had her face on it.

Glanville's style is punchy, direct, sometimes a bit corny, too keen on jokes, which come off as superfluous. But what makes this book go is something they teach in English 101--give concrete details to illustrate every point. Many sports memoirs are stunning in their ability to not impart any illumination. This one, light fare though it may be, will give you a better idea of what it is to be a professional ballplayer than you had before you picked it up.

Library Summer Hours 2010 Correction

2010 Summer Hours begin May 24.

Library Summer Hours 2010

May 14- August 13, 2010

Regular Summer Hours:
Monday- Thursday 7:30 AM- 6:00 PM
Friday 7:30 AM- 5:00 PM
Saturday Closed
Sunday 1:00 PM- 6:00 PM

Exceptions to Regular Summer Hours:
Sunday May 30 Closed
Monday, Memorial Day May 31 Closed
Sunday July 4 Closed
Monday July 5 Closed

Post Summer Session Hours
August 14- August 29
Monday- Friday 8:00 AM- 5:00 PM
Saturday Closed
Sunday Closed

Monday August 30 Resume regular fall hours

Regular Fall Hours
Monday- Thursday 7:30 AM- Midnight
Friday 7:30 AM- 6:00 PM
Saturday 11:00 AM- 6:00 PM
Sunday 1:00 PM- Midnight

NPR Commits Audio Plagiarism

Mary Elizabeth Williams' Salon.com story details a shocking and flagrant act of plagiarism committed by NPR's "Morning Edition."

This Wednesday, correspondent Beth Accomando delivered a segment entitled "The Cell Phone Always Dies First," spoofing cell-phone-oriented plot devices in horror films.

However, the sketch was composed almost entirely of material--used without acknowledgement--from a viral youtube video, No Signal, by Rich Juzwiak.

NPR is now attributing the material to Juzwiak.

Juzwiak, a blogger for VH1, told Salon.com, "(No Signal) took months and months of research...if there had been no video, there would have been no (NPR) piece."

More Rasslin Books!

Here's a Huffington Post column by writer and publishing-industry veteran Jason Pinter discussing how choices made by a female-dominated publishing industry affect the number of male readers. One of the incidents that alerted him to this problem was his difficulty pitching a memoir by pro wrestler Chris Jericho (pictured).

Laura Miller of Salon.com gives a digest of reactions to the piece.

Bibliography on Deepwater Horizon Spill

Paula Webb, Reference and Electronic Government Documents Librarian at the University of Southern Alabama, in Mobile, has created this great bibliography on the devastating oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico from British Petroleum's rig Deepwater Horizon.
The bib lists exclusively electronically-available documents, most produced by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Included are maps of the trajectory of the spilled oil and summaries of the damage, updated daily.

New China New Art

BOM (Book of the Month) for May: New China New Art

Ed. Richard Vine. Prestel, 2008.

A man wearing a rack of ribs; goats' heads popping out of a ball of blue fur; headless dolls on plates; a vat of soy sauce cooking a man and a boar; the images in New China New Art are striking and sometimes shocking. Many depict violence, exploitation, degradation, the crassness of capitalism and the oppression of Mao Zedong's regime.

The book, editied by Richard Vine, Senior Editor for Asia of Art in America magazine, features paintings, photos, sculptures, performance art and video art from dozens of contemporary Chinese artists. While the cultural changes in the nation's recent history are reflected in the work, Vine says in the opening chapter, "the focus of this book is more concrete, based on the conviction that artworks are generated by individuals, working with particular materials, under their own set of circumstances."

Pulitzer-prize winning NewsTunes now available via i-phone

When political cartoonist Mark Fiore originally approached Apple with a pitch to have his cartoon strip NewsTunes available as an app. for the i-phone, the company turned him down, saying their policy was not to use apps that made fun of public figures.

Months later, Fiore won the Pulitzer Prize, and now i-phone owners can download his work.

From PC World:

"'It feels a little weird, it feels almost dirty, like I got preferential treatment because of the Pulitzer and because of press hubbub because of the app' Fiore told the SF Gate."

PC World story

New York Times story

Coal Mine Disaster Titles

Researching Mine Disasters Over the Years

While there's still a lot to learn and to ascertain about this week's tragedy at Massey Energy's mine, Upper Big Branch, in WVA, you may be interested in researching past mining disasters. Use our online catalog to search for titles we own. These will include books, Senate hearings, and videos. Here's a brief sampling:

Schwartz-Barcott, T.P. After The Disaster: Re-creating Community and Well-being at Buffalo Creek Since the Notorious Mining Disaster in 1972. Cambria, 2008. HN79.B847 2008.

Dotson-Lewis, B.L. Sago Mine Disaster: Featured Story, Appalachian Coalfield Stories. Infinity, 2007.
TN 313.D68 2007. Available in Special Collections (best to make an appointment).

Sago Mine Disaster and an Overview of Mine Safety: Hearing Before A Subcommittee of the Committe on Appropriations, United States Senate...

Gov Docs Microfiche Y 4.AP 6/2:S.HRG.109-534

available via gpo.access

We own many government documents concerning mine safety. Using our catalog , conduct a search. One good search string is "mine" AND "safety" and "coal." Our government document collection is on the 2nd floor--you may ask a reference librarian for help in locating your citation.

National Library Week at the Ort Library

Celebrate National Library Week, April 11-17th with Bob E. Cat at the Ort Library. Students, drop by the Circulation desk and enter the "Guess the Number of Tootsie Rolls in the Jar" contest. This year's lucky winner will receive a $25.00 gift certificate to Appalachian Station presented by Bob E. Cat himself. The winning student will also receive the jar of candy and be photographed with Bob to appear on his Facebook page. Look for posters all over campus of Bob highlighting different Library services. Bobcats thrive @ the Lewis J. Ort Library!

Reading in the Brain: BOM for Apr.

BOM (Book of the Month) for April: Reading In the Brain: The Science and Evolution of a Human Invention. Stanislas Dehaene. Viking, 2009.

Author of The Number Sense, Dehaene explores how our neurons must be rewired when we, as children, begin to learn to read. Per the dust jacket, "Dehaene convincingly argues that the emergence of cultural inventions, including writing, is constrained by the prior architecture of our primate brain."

The book is an astonishingly thorough investigation of all facets of the intricate workings of the human mind as it reads. Essential for educators, fascinating for anyone who loves language.

Great news for art and art history researchers

As of April 1, 2010, the database Bibliography of the History of Art (BHA) will be available free of charge on the Getty Research Institute Web site. In January of 2010 The Getty Research Institute announced that it was no longer financially feasible to maintain BHA and solicited other interested institutions to step forward and take over maintenance of the database. With no suitable arrangement immediately available, the Getty decided to act on its commitment to the scholarly community by providing access to BHA directly from its own Web site.

BHA on the Getty Web site offers both basic and advanced search modules, and can be searched easily by subject, artist, author, article or journal title, and other elements. Note that the database search includes both BHA (covering 1990-2007) and the International Bibliography of Art (IBA), covering the years 2008 and part of 2009. The Répertoire de la litterature de l’art (RILA), one of the predecessors of BHA, with records that cover 1975-1989, will be online by May 1.

The Bibliography of the History of Art is the most comprehensive art bibliography available worldwide, covering European and American visual arts from late antiquity to the present. This database indexes and abstracts art-related books, conference proceedings and dissertations, exhibition and dealers' catalogs, and articles from over 4,300 periodicals. Broad in scope, the bibliography's citations encompass fine arts-painting, sculpture, drawing, prints, architecture-as well as decorative and applied arts-crafts, graphic arts, and folk and popular art among them.

Please take advantage of this fantastic resource that Frostburg students, faculty, and staff wouldn't ordinarily have access to. Since this database is offered over the open Web and not via Research Port, you will not see the FIND IT button on any of the records. If you locate an item within the database you would like to get a hold of, please email me at kadetterbeck@frostburg.edu or call me at 301-687-4425 and I would be happy to help you get access to the resource.

Gallup Poll shows Americans Support Healthcare Reform

A Gallup Poll published today shows that by a slim margin, American adults support the recently-passed bundle of reforms to the nation's healthcare industry. 46% of those identifying themselves as "Independents" call the legislation a "good thing" while 45% call it a "bad thing."

How Health Care Reform Affects Higher Education

The historic health care legislation passed by the House of Representatives this week not only means sweeping health care reform but also revamps the federal student loan program.

In short, the bill, attached to the health care legislation, "would end government payments to private, commercial student lenders, leaving the government to lend directly to students. It would also redirect billions of dollars to expand the Pell grant program for low-income students, and to pay for other education initiatives."

To fully understand the impacts of the bill on student lending, please explore these links.

From The Washington Post: "Obama's student loan plan moving forward with health bill"

From The New York Times: "Deal Gives New Life to Overhaul of Student Loans"

From National Public Radio: "Health Care Reform Could Revamp Student Lending"

From GoCollege.com (higher education blog): "With Health Care Vote, Congress Puts an End to FFEL Student Loan Program"

Census Workers Available at City Hall

Here's a story from AppIndie.org reporting that Census workers will be available at City Hall from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. this week, Wednesday and Friday for anyone with questions about or needing assistance with their census form. Mayor Bond urges all members of the community to submit their census form.

Health Care Reform Media Roundup

In the wake of the passage by Congress of the much-debated and historical health care reform bill, here's a quick rundown of the breadth of coverage in the last few hours:

CSPAN healthcare hub: includes links to streaming video from CSPAN-3: Speaker Pelosi's press briefing, the House vote on the bill and reconciliation, House floor debate, President Obama's remarks, and comments from Senator McCain; in text, the vote tally and text of the bill

NYTimes news analysis: David Sanger worries about the consequences of the passage of this major legislation without a single Republican vote

Fox News: reports on brewing legal challenges to the law

The Washington Post: discusses the logistics of what will happen next, including President Obama's signing ceremony tomorrow. This article was posted at 2:20 today.

Full text of the health care reform bill

The historic H.R. 3962, the bill to reform healthcare insurance was passed by The House of Representatives, having already passed the Senate. Click the link above for the entire text of the bill, made available by the Government Printing Office at www.gpoaccess.gov.

Deficit Reduction Financing Act of 2010

Going through the Maryland General Assembly is House Bill 1533, the Deficit Reduction Financing Act of 2010.
Features:

• would repeal the Maryland Stem Cell Research Fund and the Stem Cell Research Commission
• would repeal some requirements that contractors pay their employees minimum wage
• would provide that retirees eligible for a prescription drug plan under Medicare would not be eligible for the State precription plan
• would reduce General Fund appropriations for state-funded institutions of higher learning by at least 50 million dollars
• would eliminate 1,000 positions in the USM.

Digital Americana

Digital Americana bills itself as the first digital literary journal, which is not to be confused with online literary journals, of which there are thousands.
DA is designed for the Apple i-pad and includes, according to the magazine's web site, "insightful articles, interviews, and of course, the best fiction.
Featured extras include compelling short independent films, indie music, modern animation, comic illustration, and photography from talented artists around the world."
The site requires Quicktime for all its features to work.

Video: Special Collections Vol. 1

Below is a video highlighting materials that Mary-Jo Price has in Special Collections pertaining to coal mining in Western Maryland and its role in the origin and early history of this university.

Library re-opens Sunday at 1

Sunday, Feb. 14, we will re-open after the weather-related closure at 1 p.m. and will be open until midnight.

BOM for January

Book Of the Month, Jan.

Searching For Whitopia: An Improbable Journey to the Heart of White America. Rich Benjamin. Hyperion, 2009. E184.A1 B374 2009

This nugget of middle-brow pop-sociological exploration finds journalist Rich Benjamin staying for a time in various all-white exurbs and reporting his findings.

Whitopia is Benjamin's term for towns like St. George, Utah and Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, whose residents are attempting to return to a "simpler time."

Benjamin's prose is jaunty and brisk, his style narrative more than analytical.

Library Hours During Intersession 2010

January 4- January 24, 2010

Regular Intersession Hours:
Mondays-Fridays 7:30 a.m.- 6:00 p.m.
Saturdays 2:00 p.m.-6.00 p.m.
Sundays 1:00 p.m.- 6:00 p.m.

Exceptions to Regular Intersession Hours:
Martin Luther King Day
Monday January 18 Closed

Last Day of Intersession:
Friday January 22 8:00 a.m.-6:00 p.m.
Saturday January 23 Closed
Sunday January 24 Closed

Beginning of Spring Semester
Monday January 25 Resume Regular Hours

Regular Spring Semester Hours:
Monday- Thursday 7:30 a.m.- 12:00 Midnight
Friday 7:30 a.m.- 6:00 p.m.
Saturday 11:00 a.m.- 6:00 p.m.
Sunday 1:00 p.m.- 12:00 Midnight