Featured Online Resource: Best Books 0f 2011

This week's Featured Online Resource is just what we love around here--a list list. Largeheartedboy.com has posted a list of a couple hundred online lists of "best" books of 2011. Included are EarlyWord's "books for kids you don't know very well", Film Vs. Books "best books", FutureBooks' "best book apps", and Library Journal's "best acknowledgments." This, to me, is the best list of Best Book Lists for four years running.

Check Out The New Library Website!

The Ort Library launched its brand new library website today at http://www.frostburg.edu/lewis-ort-library/! Check it out! It has some new features like a tutorials page where you can view short instructional videos for many online library tools for in-depth research and distance education.

This is the library's first major website redesign since 2004 and all the links have changed, so please update your bookmarks! A handful of old site links will be automatically redirected to their new pages, including:

• The Catalog USMAI page
• The Research Port page
• The Online Library Materials Request Form
• The Library Instruction Request Form

All other old site links will be redirected to the new library home page.

As Library Webmaster, I'd like to thank my student assistant Brian Neumyer for helping me getting this new website going. Of course, Brian and I couldn't have achieved this without the wonderful help and support of the FSU Web Services Team: Stephanie Cesnick, Jon Yoder, and Josh Ray!

"Pragmatic" Year's Most-sought word

Merriam-Webster online has released its list of 10 most-searched words for 2011. It's a fanciful thing to do, something to be appreciated by people with full bellies and plenty of free time, quite the opposite of the definition of the word topping the list: pragmatic.

Finding Jobs Through Social Networking?

Mashable.com posted an enlightening and surprising story and series of infographics on the modest but growing number of people who have landed jobs via social networking sites. See if you can pry yourself away from facebook long enough to read it.

Featured Online Resource, November 21

This week’s Featured Online Resource is New York Public Library’s (NYPL) Digital Gallery. The Digital Gallery provides open access to over 700,000 images that have been digitized from the collections of the NYPL. These include but are not limited to manuscripts, historical maps, vintage poster, and photographs. You can browse by subjects including Arts & Literature, Culture & Society, History & Geography, and Nature & Science.

For example, under History & Geography is a collection of Early Landscape Photography of the American West with prints from the 1860s and 1870s. Under Arts & Literature, you can find a collection of over 1800 Vintage Holiday Postcards, covering holidays like Christmas, Thanksgiving and Valentine’s Day.

The People's Library

Take a look at the web page of the Occupy Wall Street Library.

Inside Google's Laboratory

Here's a New York Times piece on Google X, a lab at which Google attempts to make its long-range plans involving robots, space elevators, and much more.

Featured Online Resource--Avalon Project

The Featured Online Resource for the week of Nov. 14 is The Avalon Project, documents in law, history, and diplomacy.

The project comes to us from the Lillian Goldman Law Library at Yale. HTML-format digitized documents include post 9/11 laws and speeches, as well as the 9/11 commission report. But the scope of the project takes it back through the centuries, and it is arranged by headings accordingly.

17th century documents include the charter of the Dutch West India Company and The Mayflower Compact; from the 15th, Privileges and Prerogatives Granted By Their Catholic Majesties to Christoper Columbus; from the "Medieval" age, Laws of the Kings 753-510 B.C.; and from "Ancient" times, The Code of the Hammurabi. This is just a small sampling, and many of the documents are peppered with links to related information.

Featured Online Resource, Nov. 7

This week's Featured Online Resource is SpicyNodes (http://www.spicynodes.org/index.html)

SpicyNodes allows you to create tree-like structures of information they want people to be able to view. It allows users to see how each piece of information is related the information around it.

If you are looking for an interesting way to present information, this may be the way to go. As an example here is one I created with some information about the library.

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.

FOR, Oct 31 2011

Featured Online Resource for the week of Oct. 31 is culturalpolitics.net.

A multi-disciplinary metasite with links to sites and articles on theory in the Humanities and Social Sciences. The site is run by TV Reed, Professor of American Studies and English at Washington St. University.

CP.net is divied up into main headings: Popular Culture, Digital Cultures, Social Movements & Culture, Environmental Justice, and Cultural Theory.

Each of these headings is then organized into "Forms" (film, fashion, etc.) "Issues" (Sexuality, Race/Ethnicity, etc.) "Analysis" (Textual, Historical, etc.) and "Resources" (Courses, Journals, etc.).

Each of these contains the links: to large web sites, individual articles, and also text (not linked) bibliographies.

The sections on the digital cultures, cultural theory, and various types of analysis is particularly useful, and the annotations throughout the site are thoughtful.

The Social Justice section includes a feature on the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Featured Online Resource, Oct. 24

This week's Featured Online Resource is the Digital Library of Appalachia (http://www.aca-dla.org)

This project is a collaboration of the Appalachian College Association Central Library. The digital library provides electronic access to the collections of the members of the Appalachian College Association. They include topics such as Daily Life and Customs, Music, and Visual Arts & Handcrafts.

As an example, under Music you can search by title and some of the listings provide the option to listen to the selection of music in mp3 format.

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.

Featured Online Resource, Oct. 17

This week's Featured Online Resource is Toondoo.com, a great tool for educators and more. Take your announcements, instructions, explanations and more and represent them visually in the form of cartoons.

Toondoo provides you with cartoon panels, a selection of characters, settings, props, etc., and you do the rest. You can put your resulting work out there with facebook or twitter, and can of course save your cartoons as image files and go from there. You are also given an account to store or display your toons--you can either keep them private and distribute them only as you wish, or make them available openly--there is a small community on other cartoonists who may comment on your creations.

Here's one discussing the uses of subject headings in research databases

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.

Featured Online Resource, October 10

This week's Featured Online Resource is Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers from the Library of Congress (http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/)

This project has digitized historic newspapers from 1836 – 1922. You can search for a specific newspaper by name or search for newspapers by state. The project currently has 581 newspapers they have digitized. You can click on the image of the newspaper and move around on the page as if you were reading it in print. You can also zoom in and get a better view of a particular article. The site also allows you to download the newspaper in PDF as well.

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.

Thriller writer chooses Amazon over St. Martin's

Barry Eisler decided not to sign the half-million dollar contract offer from St. Martin's Press for his novel Detachment, but instead to publish it first as an e-book via Amazon. Here's the story from npr.org--it aired on Morning Edition today.

Tomas Transtromer, Nobel Prize Winner

The 2011 Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded this morning to Swedish poet Tomas Transtromer. The Guardian UK wins the prize for best lead paragraph on the topic:

"The Swedish Academy has responded to accusations of insularity over recent years by awarding the 2011 Nobel prize for literature to one of their own: the Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer."

Here's an analysis of Transtromer's work by poet Tom Sleigh, on poets.org

Steve Jobs, 1955-2011

Steve Jobs, Apple co-founder, died today at age 56, after waging a battle with cancer.

New York Times

Steve Jobs' Commencement Address, Stanford: How to Live Before You Die (video)

Wired.com

Featured Online Resource, Oct. 3

This week's Featured Online Resource is Northwestern University Library's

List of Foreign Governments. It's hard to think of a country not included, and this menu of non U.S. government websites is a wrapped-up, ribboned gift for anyone in need of economic, political, or demographic information on an international scale. Click on the alphabetical ranges along the top of the page to get started.

Don't worry if the page is not in English--Google will translate.

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.

Course-Specific Electronic Guides

Sometimes you're not here to ask us for help. Our webpage features many tools to help you wherever you are. In addition to our guides to various topics and FSU programs, we are now

in the process of rolling out several course-specific research guides.

International Business 330

English 101--Maehre

MCOM 105

MCOM 346

Surf's up!

Group Computing Stations! Fifth Floor!

Compute high up overlooking the Lane Center in our three new group computing rooms on the fifth floor. These rooms are equipped with new PCs with big, widescreen monitors for your group PowerPoint or other presentation. Grab a key from the Circulation Desk (3rd floor), and with a total of three or more people, take advantage.

We also have three fifth floor cubicles for group computing, overlooking the baseball diamond. The view is spectacular, but you cannot use these for watching the game! Computer use only, please.

LIBRARY CODE OF CONDUCT

Welcome to the new semester! We have a lot of people in the building already--great!

Be sure to familiarize yourself with our updated

Code of Conduct. See the signs in the building--grab a bookmark at the circ desk or reference desk!

Fall 2011, Begin!

Welcome back!

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

As you can see things are about to get very bustling here at the library.
New this semester:
1. 3 new group computer rooms on 5th Floor.
2. 3 group computer carrels on 5th Floor, overlooking the baseball diamond.
3. A great new database, S&P Net Advantage, for business research.

Be sure to check out
The new titles display in the 3rd floor lobby
The Code of Conduct posters on all floors--these may clear up questions you may have.
LibGuides, our guides to resources in your subject!
Have a great semester.