What’s going on in the Blume Library?

You may have noticed some empty shelves as you walk into the Louis J. Blume Library. We will be starting construction on a new Learning Commons in May 2012 and we are making some preparations for that space.

The library is discarding both journals and reference books that are available to our faculty and students as on-line digital resources. We are NOT discarding non-reference books from the circulating collection on the third floor. This is something we would have done in a leisurely fashion anyway and no one would have noticed. Libraries do it every day, all over the world. If not, we would be buried under tons of useless information and misinformation and the university would have to build a new wing for the library every ten years or even more often. We have had to move quickly this semester because we are starting construction on the new Learning Commons in May and have to move substantial quantities of books and journals between the floors to make the space available.

NOTE: While we ARE recycling material that is useless to our students and faculty, we are not lightly throwing away material that might be useful to other libraries. We are working with Better World Books, a company that redistributes books to libraries serving developing countries and other nonprofits, and sells used books to individuals. We have shipped more than 9 tons of books to them for redistribution or discounted sales to Haiti, various African countries, and other places. We could do no more than that. You can read more about Better World Books in Wikipedia at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Better_World_Books

See the environmental metrics document to learn more about this activity, which has brought $8,744.82 back to the library and is being used to purchase ebooks.

based on information provided by Dr. H. Palmer Hall, Director, Louis J. Blume Library, St. Mary’s University

Native American Heritage Month 2011 in the Blume Library

The Blume Library, in partnership with the Native American Student Association at St. Mary’s University, has created a display to celebrate Native American Heritage Month this November. The display is installed in the entryway of the Blume Library and will run from Nov. 1st-30th.

The artifacts on display are clothing and other items presented to Geronimo, leader of the Chiricahua Apaches during the late 19th century. Geronimo was imprisoned by the U.S. Government for raiding and for defying the resettlement of his people to an arid reservation in Arizona.


The display also includes books on Native American Studies, historical studies of Geronimo, and fiction by Native American authors. Books on display are available for checkout.

You can find out more information about Native American and about display though the Native American Heritage Month LibGuide on the Library website.

I encourage you to take time to celebrate Native American Heritage Month by visiting the display, learning more from the LibGuide, and taking advantage of the events sponsored by the Native American Student Association. Check out the University calendar for more details about upcoming events.

100,000 E-books From Open Library's "In Library" Lending Program

The Blume Library's membership in Open Library's new e-book lending program brings instant access to over 100,000 online titles to the St. Mary's community. Participating libraries in the "In Library" lending program pledge to make a part of their collection available in e-book format and, in return, their users are eligible to borrow e-books made available by over 1,000 other member libraries.

To borrow an e-book, you must be either connected to the campus network or authenticated through our proxy server as a member of the University community, in exactly the same way as other library databases work.

Once authenticated, you create your own account at Open Library using the "Sign Up" link at the upper right corner of the "Borrow eBooks" page. Search or browse for an e-book and begin reading!

E-books may also be downloaded and read offline using Adobe Digital Editions and can be transferred to portable reading devices compatible with that software.

Open Library is a project of the Internet Archive, and in addition to the lending library of current titles, it makes freely available nearly 1,000,000 other e-books in all languages, though the vast majority are older, out of copyright, works.

If you want to read more about the "In Library" lending program, it has been publicized in the Wall Street Journal, Publisher's Weekly magazine, and its own "Borrow eBooks" webpage.

On June 2, 2011, the National Academies Press (NAP) announced that nearly all of their publications would become freely available on their web site. Over 4000 titles from NAP have been digitized and are available as HTML full-text or PDF full-text. (You must register with the site to download the PDF files, but registration is free and painless.)

The National Academies Press publishes reports issued by the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Research Council. More than 200 books are published by NAP each year on a wide variety of topics ranging from Space and Aeronautics to Math, Chemistry & Physics to Education to Computers and Information Technology to Conflict and Security Issues and many, many topics in-between!

A group of approximately 25 librarians from Kazakhstan, Canada, and the United States have joined together (virtually) to catalog the entire NAP digital collection. So far, just over a thousand titles have been cataloged. These cataloging records will be loaded into our catalog here at St. Mary's as they become available, so check the catalog frequently and if you can't find something, try searching the NAP web site. Of course, you're always welcome to contact a librarian for further assistance!

Some of the reports that have just been added to the catalog are Marine Protected Areas: Tools for Sustaining Ocean Ecosystems, Improving Mathematics Education: Resources for Decision Making, Immunization Safety Review: Thimerosal-Containing Vaccines and Neurodevelopmental Disorders, and A Modified Baseline Incineration Process for Mustard Projectiles at Pueblo Chemical Depot.

eBooks migrate to EBSCOhost platform

Many of our subscription electronic books or eBooks have now migrated from the netLibrary platform to the EBSCOhost platform. What does this mean for you as a researcher or faculty member? It means a platform that has many familiar features, that is easier to search, and that makes it easier to download, email, or print portions of our books.

Many of our popular databases, such as Academic Search Complete and Business Source Complete, use the EBSCOhost platform, so many of the icons and user features should look familiar. If you have set up a MyEBSCOhost account in one of these other databases, you can also use in with the eBook Collection. Just follow this MyEBSCOhost account link if you would like to learn how to set up an account.

Additional features include:

• Navigate to eBook chapters or sections directly from Result List and Detail Record


• Search within an eBook for specific terms, yielding a list of hyperlinked pages


• Create notes that are associated to eBook pages


• Optional download capabilities and user-selected checkout duration

Our eBooks will continue to be searchable in our library online catalog. Enjoy searching and using the eBook Collection via the EBSCOhost platform!

Find items in libraries near you

WorldCat is the world's largest network of library content and services. WorldCat libraries are dedicated to providing access to their resources on the Web, where most people start their search for information. You can quickly determine whether the Blume Library or another local library has a particular book, DVD, or other item that you are seeking.

• Search many libraries at once for an item and then locate it in a library nearby
• Find books, music, and videos to check out
• Post your review of an item, or contribute factual information about it

Also, if you have a mobile device (smartphone or tablet) and the Red Laser app, using the WorldCat Search API, you can scan a bar code of a book and quickly find out if your local library has that book in their collection. Watch the video on the WorldCat site to learn more about this nifty feature!

Reduce anxiety with the Encyclopedia of Measurement and Statistics

Don't let terms and phrases like measures of central tendency, MANOVA, or kurtosis send you into panic mode! Reduce your anxiety about statistical analysis with the Encyclopedida of Measurement and Statistics, edited by Niel J. Salkind (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Reference, 2007). This 3-volume, 1136-page publication presents state-of-the-art information and ready-to-use facts and explanations in a non-intimidating and accessible style. The encyclopedia is specifically written to appeal to beginning and intermediate-level students, practitioners, researchers, and consumers of information.

As with other Gale Virtual Reference Library titles, this resource includes downloadable mp3 audio files for each entry, allows users to easily email items to oneself and others, and includes a citation tool that will generate an MLA or APA format citation for each entry.

Whether conducting research, writing proposals, and analyzing data, or understanding what the median is in a news story, this subject encyclopedia can help alleviate confusion.

Psychological meaning of religious experience

The Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion, edited by David A. Leeming, Kathryn Madden, and Stanton Marlan (New York: Springer, 2010), offers a definitive and intellectually rigorous collection of psychological interpretations of the stories, rituals, motifs, symbols, doctrines, dogmas, and experiences of the world's religious and mythological traditions. In 997 pages, the Encyclopedia applies a range of psychological approaches to understanding the form and content of religious experience, at the same time offering insight into the meanings of various symbols and themes of numerous world religions.

As with other Gale Virtual Reference Library titles, this resource includes downloadable mp3 audio files for each entry and a citation tool that will generate an MLA or APA format citation for each entry. Other features:

• A comprehensive reference work that includes that broad spectrum of psychological approaches to understanding the form and content of religious experience


• Entries draw on forty different religious traditions, including modern world religions (e.g. Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism), as well as older religious movements (e.g. African Animism, Egyptian, Greek, Gnostic, and Native North American religions)


• Provides the technical and phenomenological vocabulary that will enable researchers in the fields of psychology and religion to pursue collaboration and dialogue

This is a crucial resource for the collaboration and mutual illumination of the fields of psychology and religion and their intersection.

CQ Press Political Reference Suite: Making National Government More Understandable

Through the Blume Library's and the Law Library's subscription to CQ Press Political Reference Suite (PRS) or CQ Electronic Library (CQEL), we have access to the following searchable publications:

• CQ Almanac - offers year-by-year analysis on politics and policy in the US Congress.
• Congress and the Nation - the definitive source for actions of the US Congress including legislative history, policy analysis, and key votes.
• Historic Documents Series - provides key primary sources, context, and global coverage updated yearly.
• Political Handbook of the World - the most authoritative resource for political information, including government histories, party profiles and election results on more than 200 countries.
• Supreme Court Yearbook - offers essential coverage of the US Supreme Court.
• Washington Information Directory - the essential guide to key contacts at government agencies and national organizations, including federal agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

While our library has older editions of these titles in print, some of the advantages of the online publications include:

• Advanced search options so that users can search by keyword across all CQ Press online editions or limit their search to certain topic areas or titles


• Multiple, customized browse options to help locate and explore all available content


• Easy-to-use interfaces with clean, inviting screen designs


• Handy personalization options that save user profiles and search results for use in future research


• Links to available external resources


• CiteNow!™—An exclusive CQ Press feature that helps users easily download full citations in MLA, APA, Chicago, or Bluebook style

Try searching the CQ Press Political Reference Suite (PRS) today!

The Encyclopedia of Consciousness Awaits Exploration

The Encyclopedia of Consciousness, edited by William P. Banks (London: Academic Press, 2009) is a 2-volume background source, providing a summary of major research and scientific thought regarding the nature of consciousness, the neural circuitry involved, how the brain, body, and world interact, and our understanding of subjective states, in 79 in-depth entries. Entries range from Aesthetics and the Experience of Beauty to Artificial Intelligence and Consciousness to Religious Experience: Psychology and Neurology to William James on the Mind and Its Fringes. Many of these in-depth entries are divided into sections, and many include a glossary, bibliography, and brief biographical sketch of the entry's author. 407 images are included with this publication.

This resource is available 24/7 to current students, faculty, and staff through the Credo Reference database.

LibGuides can help your students

As faculty and staff are busily preparing for both summer and fall semester courses and activities, we thought you might like to know a little bit about new resources we have been developing to assist your students in conducting research for their classes and programs. We began using new software called LibGuides last summer. The web-based program helps us build guides to library and online resources in virtually any subject and present this information in a student-friendly, well-organized manner. We have developed LibGuides for business, government information, some core curriculum courses, English, oral communications, counseling, psychology and more than 60 other topics, frequently in consultation with other faculty members.

You may want to add the URL for a specific LibGuide to your syllabus or in your Blackboard course. If you would like us to develop a LibGuide for your class, please contact your department’s library liaison or Diane Duesterhoeft.

based on information provided by Dr. H. Palmer Hall, Director, Louis J. Blume Library, St. Mary’s University

May 2011 Voter Guide

The Elections & Voting LibGuide has been updated with May 2011 Bexar County candidates & websites, where available. To see which candidates have web sites, see the Municipalities 1, 2, and 3 pages, under the Generic Ballot (Bexar County) tab.

Are you uncertain about whether you are currently registered to vote in Texas or at which address you're registered? Then check out the Voter Information Search database made available through the Texas Secretary of State's office. You can search by Driver's Licence number & date of birth, or First Name/Last Name & date of birth. Try it out!

Inspiration Online via TED.com

I've recently been intrigued by the TED video series and excited that these videos lead me to great resources available in our library. TED is a nonprofit organization devoted to being a platform for "Ideas Worth Spreading". Most of the content is short videos (20 minutes max) of people presenting their fascinating research, ideas, discoveries, music, etc. TED makes all of the talks available for free online. This post highlights some of my recent TED discoveries and links to related library materials.

Christopher McDougall's question Are We Born to Run?

McDougall wondered why modern Western runners seemed to suffer so many running-related injuries. Was that just a feature of running? His question led him to spending time with a tribe in Northern Mexico who are known for their injury-free distance running prowess (50, 100 miles races). McDougall describes how he came to believe that current running shoes are to blame for runners' injuries, advocating barefoot running as the way to solve this problem. Check out McDougal's book Born to Run:a Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen for more info. (find the book at the Blume Library or other libraries via WorldCat)

Jane McGonigal's concept that Gaming Can Make a Better World

McGonigal's talk explores her ideas of how to harness the enthusiasm and devoted interest of gamers to solve real-world issues. Her recent book Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World goes into more depth about her research and the games developed by the R&D organization Institute for the Future. Gamers aren't wasting their time after all! (find the book at the Blume Library or other libraries via WorldCat).

Bill Gates talk How State Budgets Are Breaking US Schools

Gates talks about recent, and low-term, economic threats to the US educational system. Most funding for schools comes from state budgets. He asserts that a large part of the problem is state legislators' unwillingness to make difficult decisions about long-term viability for the educational system, instead playing games with accounting and state budget deficits. Take a look at some articles in Academic Search Complete for other perspectives on US education and state budgets.

Take a look at TED.com and find talks that inspire you. And then, expand on your interest by searching to see what the library has to offer on the subject!

What's in the news?

Often, it's a government publication that's in the headlines!

Such as the recently released Financial Crisis Inquiry Report. You couldn't come within 10 feet of any media for a few days last week without hearing about this massive report of the National Commission on the Causes of the Financial and Economic Crisis in the United States.

Since we are a federal Depository Library, we will get a paper copy of this report sometime in the next few weeks. But you can take a look at it online if you can't wait. Here is a link to what you'll notice is the official government version, made available by the Government Printing Office.

This isn't the only high-profile government report to make the news lately. You might remember at the end of last year there was quite a buzz about this report to the President—Deep Water: The Gulf Oil Disaster and the Future of Offshore Drilling.

You can also see the official version of this one right now, courtesy of GPO. We'll soon be getting a paper copy of this commission's recommendations (the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, that is).

Keep informed! Follow up on what you hear on the news by checking with us at the Blume Library.

Welcome Back!

As the Spring 2011 semester begins, I want to give you an idea of how the library can help you with your research assignments.

Tips

1. Get Help: Do you have a research paper and you don’t know where to start? Ask one of the reference librarians for help. Our primary purpose is to help you figure out where to find information on topic. You will find librarians at the Reference Desk in the Blume Library. You can also give us a call (210-436-3508), or contact us by email. In addition, you will get some great resource tips from our online Research Guides, created by Blume librarians, which focus on popular research topics.
2. Find materials online: The library subscribes to over 100 online databases that include articles, e-books, e-reference books, reports, statistics, videos, images, and more. Our website includes a links to some of the most popular databases, a complete list of databases, and a links to databases by academic subject.
3. Find books, videos, and cds: Search the Library Catalog to discover the books, videos, cds, government documents, etc. that we have on your topic. You will use your Rattler ID card to check out from the library. By the way, we also buy popular books, movies, and music. Looking for something fun to do? Borrow free entertainment from the library!

Need more information? Take a look at the library website or contact us at the library. We can help you succeed!