Blogs

The Miami University Libraries are proud to host the 21st African American Read-In on Monday, February 22nd from 1pm to 3pm in room 320 of King Library. More information -- and a host of books to read and share -- are available online at the Libraries Diversity page.

Register and get more reading ideas here!

This month the world will turn to Vancouver, British Columbia, when the 2010 Winter Olympic Games take place. From February 12 through 28, skaters, skiers, sledders, snowboarders, and curlers will compete in and around this West Coast city.

• Olympic.org
  
  Provides useful information about Olympics activities, links to related sites.


• Vancouver2010.com
  
  The official site for the events. Find out about events, about venues, schedules, results, and more. Maps and images of the region are online, and in the maps collection, show the communities and the event locations. The Venues page tells what events are to be held there, and at the Transportation tab, gives directions to the venue with a street map of the arena location.

I created a Google Map to show the venues in Vancouver and vicinity, at Cypress Mountain, and in Whistler. Natural Resources Canada provides this satellite view with a guide to using imagery. Successive views focus on specific areas, and reveal that BC Place, site of the opening and closing ceremonies, and awards ceremonies each night, is visible from space.

New maps in the our collection cover this area, as well. Four of them are by International Travel Maps, based in the Vancouver area:

• Vancouver covers the greater Vancouver area.
• Vancouver's Northshore includes the Cypress Mountain area.
• Whistler & Sea to Sky Highway shows the Whistler Village area, and includes a map showing Canada Highway 99 (the Sea to Sky).
• Whistler & Vancouver incorporates the Whistler maps, and the greater Vancouver map on a single sheet.
• Vancouver Destination Map from National Geographic Maps, focuses on the central area of Vancouver.

Finally, a blog, Beyond Binary, by Ina Friend at Cnet, has begun a series of articles on the science and technology of the Winter Games, beginning with one on the issue of preserving snow at Cypress Mountain, site of the freestyle skiing and snowboarding events.

It may be cliche for librarians to talk about their favorite books, but I don't remember having a favorite until I read J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye as a junior in high school. Like a lot of teenagers, I related to Holden's frustration of being caught between childhood and adulthood - wishing for innocent eyes like those of his sister Phoebe but having experienced too much of the corrupt adult world to ignore. It's this state of inbetween - of adolescence - that attracts so many teens to this book.

J.D. Salinger died last week at the age of 91, nearly 60 years after The Catcher in the Rye was first published. If you haven't read it, I encourage you to pick up a copy. If you have read it, try picking up one of his other books or checking out some of the copies we have in Special Collections on the 3rd floor of King.

The Women’s Read-in is in its 4th year at the Libraries. It is co-sponsored by the Women's Center and is held in honor of Women's History Month. All members of the University and Oxford communities are encouraged to participate and attend. We invite everyone to celebrate the literary works of women by selecting a short minute passage to share -- poetry, prose, letters, or portions of a novel. Original work is also welcome! The event this year will be held on Thursday March 25 from 11am-3pm in the IMC area of King Library (ground floor).

Sign up to read here!

We will be having themed “hours” at the read in. Our themed hours for this year will be one on women in science and another on LGBT literature.

We generally have an attendance of well over a hundred people for the Read-in.

It really is a great event - a great chance to gather together and read and listen to writings by and about women.

Women of Protest: Photographs from the Records of the National Woman's Party, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

View our GoodReads bookshelf to get inspired.

Don’t know the difference between an impact factor and an Eigenfactor? Not sure how to find out which journals in your field are the best? Then you might want to come to an upcoming workshop called "Journal Citation Reports and Other Tools for Preparing Your Dossier". This workshop is designed for faculty and graduate students who want to learn more about the citation tools available to help them. We'll cover how to use Journal Citation Reports more effectively. Realizing that not every journal in the Journal Citation Reports, other tools will also be covered. These tools include Publish or Perish, Google Scholar, and WorldCat Identities. At the end of this session we hope you'll have:

• Awareness of the different tools available
• Understanding of the value of these different citation analysis tools
• Ability to select the best tool for any given task
• Understanding of vocabulary like impact factors
• Skills to gather citation information and include them in their promotion documents

This workshop will be helpful for all disciplines. In fact it's going to be led by a Humanities Librarian and a Science Librarian!

Where: King 110
When: February 10th from noon-1:00pm

Register here.

Here at Miami, we're connected to dozens of academic and public libraries throughout the state of Ohio which means if you're looking for a book that's not on the shelf and another library in the state has an available copy, you can request to borrow theirs and pick it up at any of Miami's libraries.

Watch the video to learn how:

How to Request an Item from OhioLINK from Miami U. Libraries on Vimeo.

Note that it takes 2-4 business days for your item to arrive and checkout is generally for 3 weeks.

As official depositories for the United Nations and the European Union, the Miami University Libraries have access to a wealth of information -- in print and online -- pertaining to the people living outside the borders of the United States, and the realities of our own thirst for global resources.

Whether discussing environmental sustainability, the effects of globalization, trends in “greener” mass-transportation and transit, or the overlap between economic development, migration, and climate change, documents from these organizations provide stunning evidence to support programs across the academic curriculum. The Libraries, in just the past month, have received a number of United Nations publications worth highlighting.

The UN’s Vital Graphics Series is an excellent compilation of statistics presented in understandable, colorful charts. These graphics often speak for themselves in explaining their findings:

From Vital Forest Graphics (Call No.: Govt & Law UN | SD131 .V58 2009):
Loss of Human Lives due to Conflicts over Land 1997-2007 Brazil

From 2004’s Vital Waste Graphics (Call No. Govt & Law UN | HD4482 .B354 2004):
Ability of Countries to Support Their Citizens from Their own Environment

Among publications produced from the UN’s Environment Programme are the short (50-100 page) but thoroughly researched Rapid Response Assessments. Much like issues of CQ Researcher put to a grander scale, these topical publications provide summaries and definitions of ecological events and human processes, backed up by excellent bibliographies.

The Environmental Food Crisis: The Environment's Role in Averting Future Food Crises
The Natural Fix? The role of ecosystems in climate mitigation
In Dead Water- Merging of Climate Change with Pollution, Over-harvest, and Infestations in the World's Fishing Grounds

The United Nations Population Fund’s State of World Population is an annual publication that presents statistics on health, development, and global patterns of change specifically as these issues affect and influence women. Previous reports have centered on urban growth, gender equity, and adolescents' health and rights. The State of World Population 2009 confronts population and climate change.

Finally, Vulnerability in Developing Countries is the title of Wim Naude, Amelia SantosPaulino, and Mark McGillivray’s book from the United Nations University Press. Using economic case studies on India, Zimbabwe, and China, among other countries, the book discusses micro-lending, poverty, hunger, and growing exposure to HIV and TB. The earthquake in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, may have students reading Marin Heger’s chapter : “Vulnerability of small-island economies: the impact of ‘natural’ disasters in the Caribbean.”

The Miami University Libraries receive a few hundred publications from the United Nations every year. These materials are rich, but often overlooked, sources of data and social research. If you have any questions about what items are available in your area of interest, contact the Government Documents Librarian.

The following is a good collection of information and resources regarding the devastating Haitian earthquakes. If you know of any good resources, let us know.

News & Emergency Information

• Crisis Map of Haiti
  This real-time map is updated with emergency information coming from SMS messages, the web, email, radio, telephone and other sources. It's the most comprehensive map for humanitarian and relief efforts.
• Google Crisis Response
  A comprehensive resources with information about donations and charity, videos, Google Earth imagery. Also includes a person finder!
• United States State Department
  Information on the earthquakes and the relief response from the State Department.

Relief Efforts/Donations

• American Red Cross
• Clinton Bush Haiti Fund
• Doctors Without Borders
• Charity Navigator

Social Media

• Twitter
  The primary hashtags for the Haitian earthquake are #haiti #earthquake. ReadWriteWeb is reporting on a new twitter hashtag syntax system to more efficiently coordinate relief efforts. Learn about it.
• Earthquake Timeline on Dipity
  A very cool timeline featuring YouTube videos, Flickr images, news stories and more.
• Collecta Real-time Search
  Real-time search engine results for Haiti. See updates as they occur from Twitter, Facebook, blog posts, Flickr and more.
• Help the People in Haiti! Facebook Event Page

Comment

• Photos:Haiti's History of Misery from Time Magazine
• Why Haiti Matters by President Barack Obama
• Haiti Six Days Later from Boston.com

The Government and Law Reference collection has a number of new releases of interest to Pre-Law, Computer Science, Business, Sociology, and Kinesiology students.

New to the collection is the second edition of The American Bar Association's Guide to Credit and Bankruptcy. This indexed, readable reference item is written for non-lawyers and individuals with questions about their rights and responsibilities for issues of credit repair, personal bankruptcy, and debt management. (Call no.: Govt & Law Reference | KF1524.85 .A46 2009)

Also new to the collection is Managing Risk In Sport and Recreation by Katharine Nohr. Written specifically for sport and recreation professionals, Managing Risk discusses risk assessment and control, steps to creating a sport-related risk management plan, and summaries of relevant, recent court cases involving college and professional-level sports from all fields. (Call no.: Govt & Law Reference | KF1290.S66 N64 2009

Susan Gluck Mezey's Gay Families and the Courts follows a similar path, summarizing case law and definitions from state and federal courts, in this case for a range of family issues, including parenting, the right to marry, school settings, and the Boy Scouts. (Call no.: Govt & Law Reference | KF4754.5 .M48 2009)

Finally, the Libraries now hold Computer and Video Game Law: Cases, Statutes, Form, Problems and Materials. This well-organized volume highlights cases and definitions for many key concepts relevant to the development of games and game-related intellectual properties: Trademark and copyright protection, regulation, asset acquisition, and ownership. This is a rapidly growing area of interest for those in computer science and the legal profession. (Call no.: Govt & Law - Law | KF3987 .L57 2009)

All three of these items are currently available on the shelves in the Law and Legal Reference area of King Library.

January's Question of the Month is up and ready to be answered at the Brill Science Library. Check out the display in person at the Brill Science Library, or online at our blog.

One correct submission will be drawn to win a $10 gift certificate to one of several local Oxford venues.