Blogos

October 23 begins the first step in renovating The Brendlinger Library. The entire lower level of the library will be closed off and unavailable until about May 2010. Our most popular books will be moved to the upper level of the library, while the least used will be stored off site so renovation of the lower level can begin.

From Oct. 23 – 29, ALL of the books on our Upper and Lower Levels will temporarily be unavailable during the book relocation process.

If you need a book that was moved to remote storage, please go to the Reference Desk for help. In most cases, we should be able to borrow the book from another library.

The upper level of The Brendlinger Library will be the new “Quiet Zone”. While this area should be quieter than the main floor, there likely will be some noise. Please help us by being as quiet as possible. Feel free to take the disposable earplugs available at the circulation desks.

The Brendlinger Library plans to remain open throughout the entire renovation process. While we will do our best to minimize disruptions, your patience is very much appreciated. When the library’s renovation is complete, we hope you will see that it was worth it!

Please email libraries@mc3.edu if you have any questions or concerns about the renovations.

1. One who provides lodging; an entertainer, a host; 2. One sent on before to purvey lodgings for an army, a royal train, etc.; 3. One that goes before and announces the approach of some one;

We now have online access to the Oxford English Dictionary. Easily look-up words for their definitions, pronunciations, and origins. We hope that this resource is a harbinger of more e-reference sources to come!

Not only is the season changing, but The Brendlinger Library is preparing for changes coming with the renovations. Watch Blogos for updates and announcements as those changes begin to materialize!

One of the library’s subscription databases, WorldCat, now offers citations in MLA and APA formats, for books and audiovisual materials. Millions of books are in this database, including every book owned by the MCCC libraries.

As we recommend for other citation generators, check the citations you receive here against your style manual.

Find your title in WorldCat. [You will need your MCCC username and password.] Click the “Cite this item” link to see the bibliographic citation for your book or video.

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If you are a faculty member who always wanted a simple way to anonymously and instantly poll your students’ knowledge in the classroom, the CPS - also known as the “clickers” may be for you.

Once the instructor plugs USB receiver into his or her computer, the individual handsets - 24 in all - allow the students to plug in responses to multiple choice questions projected onto the Smartboard. The results are displayed as percentages for selections of A, B, C, or D.

Instant feedback.

West Library is administering the devices, which travel easily in a bag with a shoulder strap. IT’s Julie Lopez provides training. 

Reminder - Book discussion in the Reader’s Lounge of the Brendlinger Library tomorrow - Tuesday, February 20th at 2:30. Dr. Marc Schuster will lead a discussion of Freakonomics by Stephen Levitt and Steven Dubner. Refreshments will be served! All are welcome!

As of October 2006, the American Nurses Association has discontinued its affiliation with the American Journal of Nursing.

The ANA has started its own new monthly magazine, American Nurse Today, and designated it as its “official journal.” Copies of this title are available on reserve from the circulation desk, beginning with volume one, issue one (October 2006).

The new publication’s website is http://www.americannursetoday.com

The Brendlinger Library will also continue to carry American Journal of Nursing; however, please note that AJN is no longer the ANA’s “official” journal.

The library held a “Famous First Lines Contest” during Community Day on Saturday, October 7. One person got every question right and won a $25.00 gift certificate to Barnes and Noble.

Here are the answers:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, ………

Title: Tale of Two Cities
Author: Charles Dickens

“Call me Ishmael.”

Title: Moby Dick
Author: Herman Melville

“Happy families are all alike, but every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”

Title: Anna Karenina
Author: Leo Tolstoy

“It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

Title: Pride and Prejudice
Author: Jane Austen

“Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.”

Title: One Hundred Years of Solitude
Author: Gabriel Garcia Marquez

“When Gregor Samsa woke up one morning from unsettling dreams, he found himself changed into a monstrous vermin.”

Title: The Metamorphosis
Author: Franz Kafka

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.”

Title: Rebecca
Author: Daphne Du Maurier

It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.”

Title: 1984
Author: George Orwell

“Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.”

Title: David Copperfield
Author: Charles Dickens

“If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.”

Title: The Catcher in the Rye
Author: J.D. Salinger

The main building may be high and dry, but College Drive has little protection from the Schuylkill River and Manatawny Creek in times of heavy rain. Administrators decided to close the Pottstown campus today and tomorrow. Exams have been rescheduled for Monday, July 3.

“It is scarcely necessary for us to make an apology to our readers for failing to issue our paper during the past week. Part of the time the Rebels had possession of the town, and of course it was then impossible to do anything in the office. We hope, however, to be able to do better in the future, and we feel certain that our subscribers will see at once that our apparent neglect of them was unavoidable.” (Gettysburg Republican Compiler, July 13, 1863, p.2)

The Penn State library has scans of original Civil War era Pennsylvania newspapers (including the Reading Eagle and the Philadelphia Press) available on its library website.

http://www.libraries.psu.edu/digital/newspapers/civilwar/

The pages are farily easy to navigate, the image quality is remarkable, and prints are much clearer than those from microfilm. The content (as you can see from the above blurb) speaks for itself.