New Books at the Dick Smith Library

Do you know you can check a monthly list of new books added to the library collection? Go to http://www.tarleton.edu/~library/newbooks.html for lists through February 2008. Some of the latest titles include:

The complete idiot's guide to learning Spanish
Making the team: a guide for managers
A guide to writing sociology papers
A woman for president: the story of Victoria Woodhull
"Ace" any test
Picasso: painting against time

Don't see the book you want? Remember that you can suggest book titles for the library to purchase at http://www.tarleton.edu/~library/purchase.html We will even let you know when the book is ready to check out!!

Colleges deliver basic skills of all kinds. Should agriculture be part of the mix?

Last month the Svalbard Global Seed Vault was officially opened. The seed vault was created as a global effort to protect the world's food source in the event of future natural or man-made disasters. The vault contains 268,000 distinct samples of seeds from across the world.

“With climate change and other forces threatening the diversity of life that sustains our planet, Norway is proud to be playing a central role in creating a facility capable of protecting what are not just seeds, but the fundamental building blocks of human civilization,” said Norway’s Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg.

In an article this month from the Chronicle of Higher Education, some are wondering "even if seeds survive climate change and mass extinction in a bombproof vault, will anyone remember how to cultivate them?"

Women's History Month -- Learn More about American History

American Women through Time (created by Ken Middleton, a reference librarian at Middle Tennessee State University Library) provides "two approaches for the study of specific time periods in American women's history."

• Timelines in each section link to "specific events with relevant online sources, such as diaries and letters, photograph collections, and lectures by historians."
• The sections offer guides "to research sources that are appropriate for the specified time period." Categories included advertising, historical statistics, newspapers, and quilts.

This easy-to-use, informative site offers access to interesting, wide-ranging information about American Women.

Stayin' Alive on Spring Break! '08

Stayin' Alive on Spring Break - the #1 college spring break safety seminar - Great Site that includes Travel Tips, Safety Tips, and additional resources. Have a GREAT Spring Break...and stay safe.

Spring Break Reading

This is a little early, in order to give you time to collect some good reads for Spring Break.

George Eberhart is senior editor of American Libraries, and offers a list of books concerning libraries and murder mysteries. "Murder in the library, as a literary plot, holds a certain peculiar fascination for many readers.... Some of the plots revolve around specific rare books, but most are set in mythical academic and research libraries in the United States and United Kingdom...."
Read more from Mr. Eberhart here.

Reading is not known to be hazardous to your health, so get the hammock out of storage, and curl up with a pile of good books for Spring Break!

To help celebrate E-Book Week, March 2-8, Epublishers Weekly came up with 30 Benefits of Ebooks.
Here are the top 10:

1. Ebooks promote reading.
2. Ebooks are good for the environment.
3. Ebooks preserve books.
4. Ebooks, faster to produce than paper books, allow readers to read books about current issues and events.
5. Ebooks are easily updateable.
6. Ebooks are searchable.
7. Ebooks are portable.
8. Ebooks (in the form of digital audio books) free you to do other activities while you are listening.
9. Ebooks can be printable.
10. Ebooks defy time: they can be delivered almost instantly.