Is This Journal Peer-Reviewed?

You may get an assignment from your professor that requires you to use peer-reviewed journals. Peer-review is a process of evaluation that an article in a scholarly journal goes through before it is published. Experts, working in the same field as the author, review the article and either accept it, decline it, or return it to the author with suggested revisions before it is published. This process helps to maintain a high level of quality within scholarly journals.

How can you find out if a journal is peer-reviewed? Use Ulrich's Periodicals Directory, which you can find in the A-Z database list from the library's home page. Use the Quick Search box in the upper right-hand corner to search by keyword, subject, or title; or you can browse by various subjects or indexes.

When your search results screen appears, you'll see a legend in the upper right-hand corner:
For example, if you do an exact-title search for Journal of Food Science, you will get the following results:

Note that Journal of Food Science IS a peer-reviewed journal, because it has this image of a referee's shirt to the left of the title:

Tarleton Thursdays: Les Lunettes

Les Lunettes

In December 1920, several girls gathered on the steps of the Home Economics building after classes, which left them reckless and frivolous, were over. They decided to form a club for good times, and called their club Les Lunettes, giving themselves an air of the mysterious. They met somewhere once a week for an afternoon or evening of gaiety. The oldest social club in Tarleton, Les Lunettes, was comprised of just Tarleton girls from Stephenville, and flourished from 1920 to about 1938.

Seventy-five years ago, in January 1935, Les Lunettes had a progressive dinner, beginning with cocktails, at the home of Hazle Nutt. The main course of ham, asparagus, sweet potatoes, stuffed celery, and tomato aspic, was served at the Mothershead Cottage on Tarleton Street, shown above, followed by ambrosia, cake and ice cream at the home of Mary Mulloy.

Les Lunettes from 1935 shown above are: top row, left to right, Mary Mulloy, Titia Belle Blanks - sponsor, Margaret Hamilton, LaVerne Whitaker, Vivian Hammack, Mary Elizabeth Chandler; bottom row, left to right, Margaret Logan, Mary Katherine Funk, Frances Tate, Mazelle Cowan, Ella Frances Chandler, and Hazle Nutt.

As the 1937 and 1921 Grassburrs stated, "Les Lunettes are town girls all, who hold high the standards of the social ball." "They loved old 'On Ye Tarleton' and that school flag, especially the pole, with all their hearts and souls."

Dick Smith Library Cross Timbers Historic Images Project.

Grassburr, 1921.

Grassburr, 1935.

J-TAC, January 19, 1935.

January 27

Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day. According to Wikipedia, it was proclaimed a national day of commemoration on January 3, 1996 by Federal President Roman Herzog, but it wasn’t designated as a universal day of commemoration until November 1, 2005 under the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 60/7. The resolution officially established International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27. It was on January 27, 1945 when Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi death camp, was liberated by Soviet troops. Every member nation of the U.N. is urged to honor the memory of the Holocaust victims. The resolution also supports any educational programs that are developed to teach people about Holocaust history in the hopes that they will help prevent future acts of genocide. It supports the preservation of Holocaust sites and the establishment of a 'U.N. outreach programme and civil society mobilization for Holocaust remembrance and education.' It also rejects the 'denial of the Holocaust as a historical event' and rebukes all signs or demonstrations of 'religious intolerance, incitement, harassment or violence' against any society or person based on their religion or ethnicity. Please take a moment of your time today to remember the victims of the Holocaust and their families.

For more information about the Holocaust and its memorials, search the library catalog, one of our many databases, or search multiple databases by category using MetaLib-Quick Search.

10 things you need to know about the Dick Smith Library

1. Help is available. Don’t know where to start and already feeling stressed? Librarians are here and ready to help you. Come to the information desk (main floor), email your questions to our Ask a Librarian service, call us at 254-968-9249, or check out our FAQs and Research Tips page for more help.
2. Library hours: Monday –Thursday 7am-midnight, Friday 7am-8pm, Saturday 10am -6pm, Sunday noon-midnight.
3. Need a place to work on a group project or have a meeting? The library has 9 first-come, first serve study rooms available (upper level). Need to reserve one of our 4 meeting rooms? Call 254-968-1895 or stop by the circulation desk.
4. Need to print or make copies? The library offers free printing to students. Copy machines are available on the main and lower levels of the library that accept cash or Texan Bucks, and color copies/transparencies can be purchased at the circulation desk.
5. Need to send a fax? We offer fax services to all users. $1.00/up to 5 pages, $.25 each additional page. Ask about it at the circulation desk.
6. We offer services to students taking courses off-campus. Register with the library as a distance learner to have materials sent directly to your campus location or delivered to your home/office.
7. The library is here for you 24/7. You have access to the library catalog and our extensive list of online databases, many with access to full-text articles spanning all disciplines.
8. If we don't have it, we'll get it! Our Interlibrary loan (ILLiad) service is free to all students, faculty, and staff. If we don’t own an item you need, login to your ILLiad account using your NTNET login and place a request to borrow it from another library.
9. Think we need to purchase a specific title for our collection? We want to hear your suggestions. Complete our Suggest a Purchase online form and you might just see that title show up on our shelves.
10. Your ID is your library card. Present your Tarleton ID card at the circulation desk to check out books, dvds, laptops, audiobooks, cds, etc. Students/staff = 20 items, faculty 50 items.

Classical Music Library

Believe or not, there is actually some fun to be found in our databases - they don't have to be just for coursework! One of my favorite "fun" databases is Classical Music Library. In addition to the other information it provides, you can also listen to over 60,000 music tracks using this database.

I don't know much about classical music, so it's tough for me to just go straight to a song or composer that I like. What's great about Classical Music Library is that you can browse its collection in various ways as well as search it. Plus (my absolute favorite way to use this database), you can try out playlists. I'm a big fan of "Bach: Cello Suite," "Awesome Piano Music," "Music to Write By," and "Baroque Violin Selection." There are currently over 1000 playlists, and you can create playlists of your own if you'd like.

So, try it out if you haven't already, and feel free to comment and share your favorite tracks or playlists.

Professors will *NoT* be assigning reading in these books

Oh, WOW! For real? Books such as A Cow is too much Trouble in Los Angeles? The Manga Guide to Calculus? Atlas of the Fleas of Britain and Ireland?

I will let AbeBooks speak for itself.

Welcome to AbeBooks Weird Book Room - heralded by The Times, The Guardian, New York Times, and Canada's Globe and Mail as the finest source of everything that's bizarre, odd and downright weird in books. We now have 101 crazy and strange titles about every oddball aspect of life you could possibly imagine and a few things you couldn't possibly imagine.

Clearly, I need to expand my reading horizons! Doga: Yoga for Dogs? Even Ben Franklin is listed.!

Tarleton Thursdays: Did You Know?

The Wainwright Rifles

A former part of Tarleton's ROTC program, the Wainwright Rifles drill team, was established in 1949, and named for World War II General Mayhew Wainwright who commanded the American troops in the Philippines. Students were required to audition and were voted on by the rest of the members. During their heyday they marched in numerous parades and competitions, including the Mardi Gras parade in New Orleans.

On January 20, 1961, the Wainwright Rifles had the honor of marching in the John F. Kennedy inaugural parade in Washington, D.C. They were one of six units out of three hundred chosen from Texas to participate, and the only representative from the A & M system. A & M was asked but declined because the Department of Defense would not supply air transportation for the trip, even though they had made plans to raise $6000 to $8000 for other trip expenses. Funds totaling $2000 for the Wainwright Rifles were raised by Tarleton, and by businessmen and residents of the city of Stephenville. Each cadet only had to contribute $10 for the trip.

Shown in the photo above are the Wainwright Rifles assembled in front of their chartered bus in Washington, D.C. ready to march in the parade.

Grassburr, 1961.

J-TAC, January 10, 1961, "Wainwright Rifles to March in D.C. Inaugural Parade".

J-TAC, January 17, 1961, "Pep Rally Slated for Rifles Today".

Tarleton State University, Dick Smith Library, Cross Timbers Historic Images Project, "The Tarleton Military Marching Band", by Frank Chamberlain.

Archiving Tweets

In today's digitally connected world of Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, You Tube, and blogs two questions come to mind. Is any of this historically significant enough to archive for future generations and how do you archive what resides in the electronic cloud? There is historically significant material in all of these social networking sites. It demonstrates how we communicate with each other in the age of connectedness and what we think is important. Looking at Twitter as an example, you may wonder how something that is only 140 charters long may be important. The length of the message is no indication of the importance of the message. Some short messages that became historical quotes include John Paul Jones "I have not yet begun to fight"; Patrick Henry's "Give me Liberty, or give me Death!"; "Remember the Alamo"; or Neil Armstrong's "That's one small step for man; one giant leap for mankind". Participants at events document the event by sending tweets to each other.

While your tweets never disappear from your stream, they do disappear from Twitter. Currently Twitter only holds tweets for 1.5 weeks. This means that if a tweet is more than a week and a half old a search of Twitter will not retrieve it. The solution is to archive tweets yourself. There are several ways to do this and the Read Write Web site has an article on archiving your tweets at: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/10_ways_to_archive_your_tweets.php . Therefore, if you feel the need to archive tweets check out this excellent article.

Top 10 college foods

According to Sodexo (food provider to 600 U.S. college campuses, including Tarleton State University), the top 10 college foods are:

1. Apricot-glazed turkey
2. Meatloaf with frizzle-fried onions
3. Vietnamese pho
4. Vegetarian lentil shepherd's pie
5. Chicken adobo
6. Stuffed pork chops
7. Vegetarian jambalaya
8. Lemon herbed baked tilapia
9. Rotisserie chicken
10. Home-style pot roast

References:
"Top 10 College Foods." The Chicago Tribune. December 22, 2009.

What Is Wrong With Copyright?

With the beginning of a new year, we often think of new things. Whether they are gifts received or new opportunities. One thing we will not be getting this year is all the works that would have become public domain if the copyright law had not changed in 1978. Instead, we get to wait until 2049 for them to go into the public domain. Some of the works include Walt Disney's Peter Pan, Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, Ian Fleming's Casino Royale (the first James Bond novel), and many others. For more information, see this link http://www.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/pre1976 from the Center For The Study Of The Public Domain.