Monday, June 17, 2013

Port Mortuary by Patricia Cornwell

Port Mortuary (Kay Scarpetta Series #18)Port Mortuary by Patricia Cornwell, is an interesting Kay Scarpetta story. Told from the perspective of the main character, Kay, the story line keeps you guessing and your senses whirling. The reader is enlightened by Kay's early career experiences and the impact on the current murder mystery. Kay and friends have left New York city and are working in a new facility. Discover more about these characters as you turn the pages!

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Pinterest in the library for students: E-Books and Beyond.




Pinterest is serendipity as well as a graphic bookmarking tool. As a librarian guiding students to course resources I believe Pinterest is a useful way to offer access to research materials. I have created several boards with academic subjects and include library resource accessible through the student login. The idea is, as students Pin for their own "fun" they will run across research resources to help them in their academic work. In the Nursing Board  I have included library resources and images nursing students may find useful, humorous and fun. For more information on Pinterest check-out my Pinterest LibGuide. If you are considering Pinterest below is a list of ideas to use for academic Pinning!


Pinning Checklist:
  • Pinterest account settings
    Select how and when you'll be notified about re-pins, likes, and follows.
  • Respond to Re-pinners, contacts
    Visit, re-pin from, and follow pinner's boards, pins, and develop social interaction.
  • Pin resources students will use
    Library resource pins mingled with other related pins.
  • Check the links
    Be sure to proxy or manage links to be accessible from off-campus.
    EDIT Pins to correct 500 word content, links, etc.
  • Identify Pins that require login
    Notate pins that require user login.
  • Create course boards
    Invite students to Pin to course board.

    Pin course relevant content.
  • Create subject boards
    A goal is to create a mix of Pins, library resources, visual images of relevant information.
  • Pin weekly, daily, use a schedule.
    PIN content to your academic boards weekly, daily, monthly or as your schedule allows. This keeps your interaction "fresh" and findable by other Pin when you need to Pin.
    Re-Pin important Pins like catalogs and specific database images. 

IU East Campus Library LibX Toolbar Updates for 2013!

The organization responsible for the development of the library toolbar is LibX.org and provides open-access software and development support for librarians and libraries everywhere!

The toolbar is developed by individual libraries and offers a variety of options for searching. The IU East Campus Library Toolbar includes access links to several important resources and web pages, it allows searching of several library resources from the browser's toolbar and provides options for the search field to be processed.  The Campus Library Toolbar searches Find-It, IUCAT, WorldCat.org, Google Scholar and Credo Reference. IUCAT has been updated, library links updated and other IU East links are included: Oncourse, OneStart, & KB.

The developers of this wonderful product provide an instant-access path for library users to some of the most used resources in libraries.  The toolbar finds library resources from typed search terms without individuals needing to remember resource or page addresses/URLS.  The toolbar also looks at several web-based book sellers and places the Find-It image,
on the book page.  In this way IUCAT can be searched for that specific book using the ISBN (International Standard Book Number); the tool uses only the Campus Library, Indiana University East's records to accomplish this search. Once installed the image will show on various websites including Google Scholar.

This product provides proxied access to the Campus Library resources from off-campus for all Indiana University East members with an IU username and passphrase.   Please, visit us to try out this useful and fun toolbar!  Once installed the Mozilla/Firefox product will download updates for you, so you may use the most recent version with ease!

The permanent URL of 'Indiana University East-Campus Library Edition' Edition for the Mozilla Firefox extension is:

The permanent URL of 'Indiana University East-Campus Library Edition' Edition for the Google Chrome extension is:
 

If you have questions regarding the Campus Library Toolbar for IU East, contact Sue at smcfadde@indiana.edu.

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

E-Books and Books-what they do for readers and users

The Campus Library has a large collection of E-Books, available from various publishers and provided through several gateways for the Indiana University East Community. E-Books offer information at a pace established by the online world. Chapters, passages and brief quotations can be found among the digital words of the E-Book--more efficiently and at the pace of time expected by the online world. At this time the IU East community has the opportunity to view these resources-online using various platforms. Also, the Campus Library e-books do not circulate and are not downloadable to an E-Book reader.

The E-Book collections include fiction and non-fiction and provide a cost conscious value to libraries. As a user of print books in my long academic career, I recognize the value of finding an elusive example for a research paper quickly without having to read through chapters and whole books. In my print research period I would delve into indexes of books, find the appropriate chapter or pages and review the printed information, determining importance and context. In the world of online research, E-book searches discover the elusive thoughts and facts not indexed or included in a table of contents.

The evaluation of the ideas and facts in the E-Book or print Book remains important to research. The reader or user of information must decide the quality, value, validity and timeliness of the information. The evaluation should also assess the relationship and relevance of the information to the research being conducted.

Friday, November 5, 2010

Book Review-Billie Girl by Vickie Weaver

Billie GirlBillie Girl by Vickie Weaver




Billie Girl is a wonderful story, a southern-gothic original. I could not put the book down and finished it before going to bed the day I bought it.  I wanted to know what happened to Billie Girl, and the end of each chapter urged me to read-on. The best book I have read in a while!
I liked:
* That I could relate to the characters and situations
* The realism & descriptions of settings and characters are excellent
* That the story made me like Billie Girl, because of her flaws and her situations.
* The depictions of times/events transported me to times in the past and helped me imagine life before I existed.
* That simple characters can be part of great stories.

A must read!




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