UW-Parkside Library Blog

Pangea Day seeks to bring the world together through film

From the Pangea Day website:

In a world where people are often divided by borders, difference, and conflict, it's easy to lose sight of what we all have in common. Pangea Day seeks to overcome that – to help people see themselves in others – through the power of film.

Starting at 18:00 GMT [1:00pm CST] on May 10, 2008, locations in Cairo, Kigali, London, Los Angeles, Mumbai, and Rio de Janeiro will be linked for a live program of powerful films, live music, and visionary speakers. The entire program will be broadcast – in seven languages – to millions of people worldwide through the internet, television, and mobile phones.

The 24 short films to be featured have been selected from an international competition that generated more than 2,500 submissions from over one hundred countries. The films were chosen based on their ability to inspire, transform, and allow us see the world through another person's eyes.

April is National Poetry Month

"Inaugurated by the Academy [of American Poets] in April 1996, National Poetry Month brings together publishers, booksellers, literary organizations, libraries, schools, and poets around the country to celebrate poetry and its vital place in American culture." —poets.org

What exactly is poetry? It depends on whom you ask. You may find these quotations on poetry and poetics by notable practitioners of the art to be illuminating. A good way to discover poems that resonate with your particular aesthetic sensibility is to read poetry anthologies and criticism. Here are a few poems that resonate with me . . .

---

As praiseworthy

The power of breathing (Epictetus)
while we sleep. Add:
to move the parts of the body
without sound

and to float
on a smooth green stream
in a silent boat

—Lorine Niedecker

---

The Snow Man

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

—Wallace Stevens

---

Like

Always I have to resist
the language I have
to love. This is my work,

as the girl reflected
in the cowpond studies
frequencies of throb.

The meaning isn't deep.
I don't say yes to please.
Polite, the politicians

drop their hat of names
but I forget the first
and family of them, my life

will not stay memorized. Always
the days will be
longing for summer,

always the animals
falling in love--but always is always
like never before.

—Heather McHugh

Respondents to UW-Parkside's LibQUAL+ survey may choose to enter a drawing for incentive prizes

. . . but whether or not you decide to opt-in for a chance at an iPod nano, a $50 gift certificate from the University Bookstore. or 1 of 6 $25 gas cards, completing this survey will help us learn how we may better meet your needs and expectations at the UW-Parkside Library. It only takes about 10-15 minutes.

Take Parkside's LibQUAL+ Survey.

View Frequently Asked Questions about the LibQUAL+ Survey.

Freshmen and seniors completing NSSE will be entered in drawing for 32 GB iPod touch

As a Parkside Freshman or Senior, your responses to the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) regarding your college experiences will provide important information for improving student success at UW-Parkside.

Watch for an e-mail containing your login information, or have it sent to you by visiting NSSE Survey.

All freshmen and seniors at UW-Parkside who complete the NSSE will be entered into a drawing for a 32 GB iPod touch.

Sponsored by the UW-Parkside Office of Institutional Research and Assessment Services.

Searching for journals and journal articles

If you already have a citation, find the journal (volume and issue) in which the article appears

You can search for journals using the Parkside Library Catalog, but the catalog will only show you what the Parkside Library holds in print format. A better tactic is to search the UWP Periodicals List which, in addition to showing you our print holdings, will also reveal any online, full-text content that is available to UWP students, faculty, and staff.

Imagine, for example, that having read an article about Sokal's hoax, you want to find a book review that was mentioned in the article and listed in the article's References:

Nagel, T. (1998, October 12). The Sleep of Reason. The New Republic, 32-38.

Type "new republic" (without quotes) in the title field of the UWP Periodicals List and click "GO". You will discover that The New Republic is available from 1990 (to the present) through a number of EBSCOhost databases, from 1994 via LexisNexis Academic, from 1988-2000 via ProQuest ABI/Inform, and so on. Clicking on the link to EBSCOhost Academic Search Premier brings up a Find It! Services window. Since our citation doesn't include volume or issue numbers (because technically, it's a magazine, not a journal), we simply fill in the year "1998" and click "GO".  Another window opens showing EBSCOhost's online holdings for The New Republic. We select "+1998", then "10/12/98", and on the second page of the results list we find links to the full text of Nagel's article. Ah, instant gratification.

If you are looking for articles on a particular topic, search the databases in that subject area

Suppose you are looking for journal articles that explore the (potential, actual, or nonexistent) value of exercise in maintaining or increasing an adult's thinking abilities.

1. Think about your topic and the terms you are using to describe it. What are some synonymous terms for each of the main concepts and what are some possible terms for the relationships that might obtain between them? Brainstorm a little. If you get stuck, try using a thesaurus.

exercise
aerobics
cardiovascular
calisthenics
weight lifting
workout
(Note that we are presently interested in physical exercise, thereby excluding "mental exercise" (logic and math puzzles, brain-teasers, reading, etc.).

thinking abilities
thinking skills
cognitive skills
cognition
mental acuity
reasoning
ratiocination

relationship
impact
effect
result

2. Do some preliminary searches with some of the terms you've listed. Combine terms with AND, OR, and/or NOT. If two or more words are meant to function as a single term or concept, enclose them in double quotation marks.

In CINAHL, this search:

exercise and "cognitive skill"

produces exactly one result. What's more, this single result is not relevant to our inquiry. Searching is not an exact science. Experiment freely, but thoughtfully.

This search:

exercise and cognition

is more fruitful, producing 360 results. Now we can narrow these results, by adding "adult" to our search.

exercise and cognition and adult

leaves us with 98 results. When you notice a title that looks promising, click on it. The Citation view includes major and minor subject terms and an abstract. If, after reading the abstract and the subject terms, you decide that the article is relevant to your project, these fields will probably be rich with additional vocabulary that you can use to refine your search or to construct new searches. Mine those fields. Also mine the References that appear at the end of the scholarly articles that you consider the most relevant to your topic.

3. Try your searches in other appropriate databases. No single database covers everything.

Citation tools

There are a number of free tools available that can help you create citations and bibliographies for your research papers. As useful as these tools can be, you should not rely on them entirely. Always consult the appropriate style manual to ensure that your citations are formatted properly. The major style manuals (APA, MLA, Chicago/Turabian) and more specialized style manuals (ASA, ACS, CSE) are available at the Reference Desk. You can access abbreviated style guides for APA, ASA, MLA, and Turabian (Chicago)  here.

Two online citation tools (Use in any browser from any computer.)
BibMe allows you to create citations and complete bibliographies (APA, MLA, Chicago, Turabian), store them online, and download them as rich text files (RTF) which can be edited in your word processor.

The Citation Machine assists you in making individual citations (APA, MLA, Chicago, Turabian) which you can copy and paste into your word processor.

A Firefox add-on
Zotero can generate citations and bibliographies in a wide variety of styles, but this robust extension also allows you to collect, organize, and annotate your resources. If you are using Firefox (2.0 or higher) at home, in your office, or on your personal laptop, Zotero could prove to be a worthy research assistant. These screencasts and tutorials will give you a good idea of its capabilities. (Note that the data you create as you work with Zotero is only accessible from the computer you are working on, i.e., it is not portable, nor is it available online for access from other computers. A forthcoming version is supposed to include online storage and access.)

Get help with your research projects

Discover the best sites and resources to reference for your papers this semester. Librarian Kim Bartosz will be offering a workshop on Library Research, Monday, February 11, 2008, 12:00pm - 12:50pm, in Wyllie 150J within the Library. (The librarian at the Reference Desk will direct you.)

Library Research is one in a series of ten First Year Experience (FYE) Workshops being offered at noon on Mondays and Fridays from February 1 through March 28, 2008. Other workshops include, Maximizing Your Note Taking and Memory, Learning Styles, and Time Management/Getting Organized. Here is a complete list of FYE Workshops, presenters, dates, and locations:
Download FYE_Spring08.doc

Get to know your librarians

Reference Desk
There is a friendly and knowledgeable librarian at the Reference Desk who would be happy to answer your research questions:
Mon-Wed ...8:00am - 8:00pm
Thu ..........8:00am - 4:00pm
Fri ...........8:00am - 2:00pm
If you are working off campus and you need help, you can use one of these options.

Library Liaison Program
Students, what's your major? Faculty and staff members, what department are you in? Find out which librarian serves as a liaison to your department or discipline here.

How to read a scientific research paper

The title says it all. Ann McNeal, from the School of Natural Science at Hampshire College in Massachusetts, offers this advice.

Take research notes with an online tool

If you're doing research on the computers in the Parkside Library's Reference Room, you won't be able to access programs on your USB flash drive. But if you would like to take notes electronically and save clippings as you conduct your research, there is an alternative: use a free online note-taking application, accessible from any computer with internet access. A web search for "take notes online" will reveal many such tools, but at least one of our librarians (namely, the one writing this) is a fan of Google Notebook.

Google Notebook allows you to add your own notes as well as images, links, and clippings of text. You can create multiple notebooks, divide them into sections, and drag-and-drop your notes from one section or notebook to another. Consider creating a separate notebook for each of your classes, then add sections within each notebook for particular assignments, papers, and projects.