Tarleton Thursdays: Did You Know?

Celebrating Women!

Women have come a long way at Tarleton since the early 1900’s when this photograph was taken! These female students were standing in front of the Mary Corn Wilkerson dorm, the only one at that time. Fashions have certainly changed too.

In recognition of V-Day, Alpha Psi Omega is proudly producing The Vagina Monologues, featuring Eve Ensler’s play of monologues inspired by real women from all over the world. The production begins tonight at 7:30 in the Clyde Wells Fine Arts Center Workshop Theater, and runs through tomorrow night. It is a global movement to stop violence against women and girls and raise awareness and funds for anti-violence groups. Proceeds from the Tarleton performances will go to our own Cross Timbers Family Services. So come on out and support this worthy cause!

You will see that Tarleton women really have come a long way!

Top Ten Tuesday - Top 10 St. Patrick’s Day T-Shirts

Welcome back! I hope you enjoyed you Spring Break.

I stumbled upon this site searching for information about St. Patrick's Day. So I thought I would share. Take a look at ROTFLCOPTER's Top 10 St. Patrick’s Day T-Shirts! Some really fun t-shirts!.

Enjoy St. Patrick's Day - Just be careful of green beer!

Calling all book lovers!!

If you're a bibliophile, you might want to check out these websites. You've hopefully have heard of LibraryThing, the most popular social cataloging website online, and perhaps even of the Amazon-owned Shelfari, but here are a few websites for book lovers that you may not have heard about:

1. BookSprouts
BookSprouts is a website where you can join and create book clubs. Members can vote on which book to read next, have book discussions in forums, post book reviews, and hold meetings.

2. Blippr
Blippr is a website where you can add short reviews of 160 characters or less of books, movies, music, games, and applications. You can connect your account to many other social networks such as Twitter and Facebook where you can continue your conversations.

3. 22 Books
22books will allow you to quickly create book lists of any type. You can make comments on books in your list, and embed your lists in other websites.

4. Book Cover Archive
The Book Cover Archive is a collection of over 1,000 book covers categorized and browsable by designers, authors, titles, art directors, photographers, illustrators, and more. Readers can leave comments on covers and can suggest entries.

5. BookJetty
BookJetty is a social cataloging app that will let you set up a bookshelf of titles you own or want and then easily search for them in your local library with a click. Amazon and other booklists can be imported for quick startup.

6. Book Glutton
BookGlutton is a social community where you can read public domain books and discuss them with groups. Members can annotate books and make their comments public for discussions or keep them private. You can even upload your own books.

7. Gurulib
Gurulib is a social cataloging program which lets members organize their book, movie, music, game, and software collections. The site allows members to use their webcams as barcode readers to scan in items. Items be loaned out and members can track borrowed titles.

8. Listal
This social cataloging website enables members to catalog books, movies, TV shows, video games, DVDs, and music. Members can loan their items, import and export their catalogs, and create favorite lists that others can comment on.

9. GoodReads
GoodReads is a robust social cataloging site in which members can create lists, write reviews, form groups, create trivia questions about titles, and converse in forums.

10. Paperback Swap
PaperBack Swap is a community hub for trading your paperbacks, hardbacks, audiobooks, and textbooks with others. Members can easily mail books as the site provides exact postage labels which can be printed out. Once a book is mailed, you can request one for yourself from the cache of over 3 million titles available.

Top Ten Tuesday: Top 10 Obscure Google Search Tricks

Since it is the Tuesday of Spring Break...I thought I would cheat a little and give you a top 10 from another site. From Lifehacker: Top 10 Obscure Google Search Tricks

They show some REALLY neat tricks on how to better search Google. Be sure and read the comment also, they contain even more tricks!

Libraries' Surprising Special Collections

"Tucked away in libraries across the country are unexpected archives and world-class treasures" according to the Smithsonian.

Although the article is interesting, Jessamyn West made it much more useful by providing links to these collections (where available) at Unburied. The comments lead the reader to even more special collections across the country! I like stbalbach's observation that "Special collections are often the end result of one persons lifetime magnificent obsession."

And I learned that there is actually a name for all those pictures we draw on the page edges of our textbooks: fore-edge paintings! Wow! There is a name for everything! Tarleton, too, has special collections, which were noted in a previous blog. They are housed in a special section (of course) of the library. Visit us!

Tarleton Thursdays: Did You Know?

In the 1950's Tarleton's spring break wasn't until April to coincide with the Easter holiday. The spring semester didn't begin until February! The article above describing the Tarleton spring holidays is from the March 17, 1953 JTAC. Aren't you glad that we end our fall semester before Christmas, and begin our spring semester in January? That means that our spring break is already here!

Have a wonderful, fun, restfull, and safe break!

Two Bits, Four Bits, Six (more) Bits

The 50 State Quarters program has expanded to include the District of Columbia and five United States Territories: Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands. The DC quarter is already in circulation and five territories' quarters will be issued periodically through 2009. Pictured is the Guam coin to be issued later this year. Read more here.

The 50 State Quarters program was extremely successful in renewing interest in coin collecting (also known as numismatics). So much so, that the U.S. Mint estimates that the program generated about $4.6 billion in seigniorage from coins taken out of circulation by collectors from the program's beginning in 1999 through about 2004.

Seigniorage is the difference between the face value of a coin and the cost of producing, distributing and retiring it from circulation. Since it costs the Mint around 5 cents for each 25-cent coin it produces, the government had revenue whenever someone chose to collect the coin and not to spend it.

In 2010, the U.S. Mint will begin a new program with quarters featuring national parks and other national sites. One site will be selected for each of the 50 states, DC, and the five territories. After all sites are selected, the quarters will be issued at the rate of five per year in the order in which each site was first established as a national site.

George Washington's profile will still appear on the obverse side of all the quarters.

[Thanks to Tracy for the idea for this post!]

Top Ten Tuesday - 10 Must 'Do's for Spring Break

It is almost here - Spring Break! I hope you have something really fun planned. Here are 10 tips for making your Spring Break a success. You may read the entire list at Tips for Spring Break | College Jolt.

10) DO wear sunscreen
9) DO meet some locals
8) DO meet someone special
7) DO explore the town
6) DO something besides boozin‘
5) DO budget
4) DO spend some alone time
3) DO go to the gym
2) DO try something new
1) DO cherish your time there

College Jolt also has a list of Spring Break Don't - you might want to check those out as well!

The library will reopen at 5pm on Sunday March 15th - so enjoy the break and remember to come in and get your assignments done also.

Get Tips for Managing Email

With the campus switching to the Microsoft Live@Edu email service (more information), now's a great time to learn ways to better manage the ever-increasing number of email messages that hit your inbox.

Several online forums offer tips for managing email. For example, TechProse offers Managing Email, which gives suggestions for

• breaking the pattern of continuous interruption,
• organizing emails, and
• writing emails.

Merlin Mann of 43 Folders offers Five Fast Email Productivity Tips that will help you "take back your day" from the email barrage.

Finally, you can get lots more tips from the 13 brief articles listed and linked on Helium's Time Efficient Tips for Managing Your Email.

Library Instruction

ATTENTION INSTRUCTORS:

Did you know?

Many college students overestimate their ability to search databases, find credible information and evaluate resources. The Dick Smith library offers instruction on:

• Research and Time Management
  
• Search Techniques
  
• Resources and Services
• Avoiding Plagiarism
• Citing Sources in MLA (or APA)
• Evaluating Sources

Sessions can be

• Tailored to specific assignments when necessary
  
• Held on all campuses in various settings
• Scheduled at your convenience

You can schedule a session by calling Cathy Wilterding at x9456 or Yvonne Mulhern at x9934 or by submitting a request form.

Tarleton Thursdays: Did You Know?

John Tarleton Agricultural College Dairy Barn - 1919

Tarleton is getting a new dairy barn…well not exactly…it is getting a new state of the art Southwest Regional Dairy Center which will serve not only Tarleton but the rest of Texas and surrounding states as a learning and research dairy! Groundbreaking is set for tomorrow, Friday, February 27, 2009, at 10 a.m.

Tarleton has long been an agricultural school. John Tarleton wanted the local children with few resources to have a place to get a useful education. Through the years Tarleton agriculture students have excelled in many areas of agriculture and won in contests such as dairy judging, soil judging, horse judging, intercollegiate rodeo, and meat judging, to name a few. At one time the poultry division even held egg laying contests.

In 1917 Tarleton became a part of the A & M System and the name was changed to John Tarleton Agricultural College. Here you see Tarleton’s first dairy barn, built in 1919. The 1919 Grassburr states that “the college dairy barn will house the grade Guernsey herd which is being built up. The main room will accommodate forty-eight cows, and is provided with every convenience and sanitary device which a dairyman could wish. It is provided with shower baths, tool room, engine room, wash room, can airing room, laboratory and office. When the college herd outgrows the present structure a fifty-foot wing will be added to the west.”

Wow! We have certainly come a long way!

Audiovisual Collection

As you exit the stairs or elevator onto the lower level of the Dick Smith Library, just to the right is the Audiovisual (AV) Collection. For you commuters or anyone about to take a long road trip, there is a growing collection of audiobooks in CD format, with many audiobooks still available in cassette format. Suggestions for CD format audiobook purchases are always welcome; use the comments area below!

There are also small but growing collections of DVDs and music and other information on CD, primarily to support the university’s educational programs. There are also (for now) VHS videocassettes, audio cassette tapes, 35 mm slides, and even vinyl phonograph records. Faculty may check out items for a full semester; students, staff, and others may check out CDs and DVDs for 7 days and all other media (except records) for 28 days.

Listening and viewing equipment is provided for individual and group use, in a small AV room in the area, plus some individual study carrels. Media equipment available for use on-site includes televisions with VCR and DVD players, a slide projector, a stereo phonograph, and an audio cassette and CD player. Microphones and headphones are available for use with this equipment.

Some specialized equipment is also available for public use in this area, such as a VideoEye video magnification system and a TeleSensory Vantage CCD (both used to magnify print and objects), and an opaque projector (to enlarge drawings for tracing, as in the photograph to the left).

Special Services Librarian Amanda Pape and Special Services Assistant Vickie Sowell are available to assist patrons in locating all media materials and in using the media equipment from 8:00am to 5:00pm, Monday through Friday. For assistance beyond these hours contact the Information Desk or the Circulation Desk on the main floor.

[photo: opaque projector in use - Special Services Department]

Top Ten Tuesday – Freedom to Read

It is Tuesday again – How about a list? In the United State we observe Banned Books Week and in Canada they honor Freedom to Read. Both are such GREAT ideas. We should celebrate all our freedoms! This week (February 22-28, 2008) the Canadian Freedom of Expression Committee is celebrating the 25^th anniversary of the Freedom to Read campaign. Here are 10 ways you can celebrate your Freedom to Read!

• Stay informed. If you read or hear about a challenge, support both your librarian and free and open access to library materials.
  
• Exercise your rights! Check out or re-read a favorite banned book
  
• Get involved. Volunteer to help your library.
  
• Hold a discussion about the freedom to read and helps educate others about censorship.
  
• Speak out. Write letters to the editor, congressman, etc. supporting the freedom to read.
  
• Talk to your neighbors and friends about why everyone should be allowed to choose for themselves and their families what they read.
  
• Encourage your book group to read and discuss a book, any book – you are free to choose!
  
• Give one of your favorite books as a gift.
  
• Share Your Experience - let others us know your Freedom to Read and why you celebrate it!
  
• Join the Freedom to Read Foundation. The Foundation is dedicated to the legal and financial defense of intellectual freedom, especially in libraries.

How to Understand the Financial Crisis

The financial crisis is more than I can wrap my head around, but in the spirit of educating listeners, NPR linked to this video The Crisis of Credit Visualized by Jonathan Jarvis.

Also, in a similar vein, John Carney provides AIG implodes: The Two Cows Version.

Perhaps these may educate you, and if not, at least entertain you, albeit briefly. If anyone knows about an understandable Economics textbook, preferably the comic book version, please share!