Online Newsletter of Roxbury Community College Library

October 2007

WIN AN iPOD & HELP IMPROVE THE LIBRARY!!

From October 29 to November 21, RCC students, faculty and staff will get a chance to take the LibQUAL+® online survey. To especially encourage students to take it, many prizes including an Apple iPod Nano (8GB, 2000 songs) will be awarded.

LibQUAL+® stands for Library Quality. It is a national survey that hundreds of libraries across the country have used to survey the opinions of their users. This year all community college libraries in the state will use LibQUAL+®. The survey consists of 22 questions and a box for comments. The results will be used to improve library service as well as to see how RCC library is doing compared to other community colleges.

The survey is open from October 29 to November 21. To take it, go to the library home page at www.rcc.mass.edu/lib and click on LibQUAL+®. The survey takes about 12 minutes to complete. The Association of Research Libraries in Washington will tabulate the survey and your anonymity is assured. However, and this is very important, to qualify for prizes, be sure to enter your email address at the end of the survey.

Prizes for students:

• 1 Apple iPod Nano (8GB, 2000 songs)
• 1 RCC sweatshirt donated by the RCC Bookstore
• 100 beverages donated by the new RCC Cafe.

Winners will be notified by email after Thanksgiving.

Many flyers will be posted throughout the college as reminders. Be sure to participate and help improve RCC.

WIKISPACE FOR RESEARCH GUIDES

The RCC library is now creating and posting to the library web site course research guides in wiki format. This has been possible with the assistance of library staff at the University of Massachusetts Boston, particularly George Hart, Interim Associate University Librarian. Research guides are multi-page tips for students on how to find quality information for research assignments in their specific courses. Librarian-instructors create them to supplement library instruction sessions. Although both RCC library reference librarians have web page creation skills, posting research guides to the web has not been done until now because of staff time restraints. Creating research guides in wiki space can be done much faster. UMass Boston just initiated using this technique for its own research guides in the spring. UMass library director Daniel Ortiz was extremely gracious in volunteering to have RCC librarians Bill Hoag and Ted Intarabumrung come to Dorchester in July for training. Eight research guides have been created so far, seven for conventional courses, one for posting to Moodle, the new distance learning environment recently adopted at RCC at the suggestion of Jenene Cook, Dean of Instructional Technology. Many online research guides are planned for this academic year. To look at those already done, go to the library web page www.rcc.mass.edu/lib and select Research Guides.

SIMMONS VOLUNTEERS

For the last few years, students from the Simmons College Graduate School of Library and Information Science have volunteered their time and expertise at the RCC library. This has been mutually advantageous. The library gets some projects done that otherwise would have to wait. The students obtain real world experience before getting their masters degrees and looking for a professional librarian position. This year we have two students. Peter Dean continues his volunteering here from last year. Pete helps students at the reference desk and has worked on a collection development project. Joining Pete is Cindy Fisher. Cindy also helps with reference duties and assists in creating new wiki research guides.

Pete Dean	Cindy Fisher

FOUR PAINTINGS ON LOAN

Professor Veronica McCormack has delivered to the library four paintings which are on long-term loan from former professor Bette Steinmuller. All are by Cuban artists. Three are by Roberto Fernandez Paneque, Bette’s stepson. The other is by a man called Enrique, Pintor de la Tierra (earth painter) who uses natural soil from different areas of Cuba in different colors to make his designs. The library currently has 27 pieces of original art on display.

Unnamed painting by Roberto Fernandez Paneque

NOBEL PRIZE TIE-IN

Former Vice President Al Gore and the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize recently. The RCC library has Gore’s book An Inconvenient Truth (New Book Section QC981.8.G56 G67 2006) and also the Academy Award winning film version in DVD format (available for classroom use). Check the Climate Change Panel’s website at http://www.ipcc.ch/. The library also has been collecting many other titles on global warming to support student interest for research papers. Here are the newest ones:

• Beerling, D.J. (2007). The emerald planet: how plants changed Earth’s history. QE905 .B55.

• Svensmark, Henrik. (2007). The chilling stars: a new theory of climate change. EC981.8 .C5 S94.

• Pearce, Fred. (2007). With speed and violence: why scientists fear tipping points in climate change. QC981.8 .C5 P415.

• Hillman, Mayer. (2007). The suicidal Planet: how to prevent global climate catastrophe. QC981.8 .G56 H55.

• Romm, Joseph J. (2007). Hell and high water: global warming – the solution and the politics - and what we should do. QC981.8 .G56 R66.

• Ward, Peter Douglas. (2007). Under a green sky: global warming, the mass extinctions of the past, and what they can tell us about our future. QE721.2 .E97 W394.

• Singer, S. Fred. (2007). Unstoppable global warming: every 1,500 years. QC981.8 .G56 S553.

• Sweet, William. (2006). Kicking the carbon habit: global warming and the case for renewable and nuclear energy. TJ808 .S87.

• Henshaw, John M. (2006). Does measurement measure up? How numbers reveal and conceal the truth. QA465 .H46.

• Caldicott, Helen. (2006). Nuclear power is not the answer. HD9698 .U52 C33.

• Lovelock, J.E. (2006). The revenge of Gala: earth’s climate in crisis and the fate of humanity. QH343.4 .L694.

• Kolbert, Elizabeth. (2006). Field notes from a catastrophe: man, nature, and climate change. QC981.8 .G56 K655.

• David, Laurie. (2006). Stop global warming: the solution is you! : an activist’s guide. QC981.8 .G56 D38.

CHANGE, THE MAGAZINE OF HIGHER LEARNING

Do you read Change, the Magazine of Higher Learning? The library has recently started subscribing. For example, take a look at the September issue for the article, “Second Chance, Not Second Class, A Blueprint for Community-College Transfer” by Stephen J. Handel. Here’s one quote: [“…Data from highly selective institutions suggest that after transfer, community-college students have achievement equal to, and often exceeding, those of traditional students…”] For the whole article, click here . (This link is on-campus access only.)

To browse Change online (or to browse THOUSANDS of other periodicals online) do this:

· Go to library web page www.rcc.mass.edu/lib

· Select Databases

· Select Alphabetical list

· Next to Academic Search Premier, select either On Campus or Off Campus (if Off Campus, you need your library bar code number)

· In the green area, select Publications

· In the Browse Publications field, type Change or the publication you want. (Some titles have an embargo on the most recent issues or are not full text. Most, however, are full text up to the present)

· Select title of publication and then year and issue. Links to articles are displayed in the order they are published in paper.

Give it a try!

Those who attended last April’s 10^th Annual Massachusetts Community College Conference on Teaching, Learning, and Student Development held at RCC will remember Thomas R. Bailey’s excellent keynote speech “Promoting Student Success in the 21^st Century.” To follow up on Dr. Bailey, take a look at his recent book, now available in the library: Defending the Community College Equity Agenda. Call number: LB2341 .D39 2006. Click here for an abstract of the book from the Community College Research Center:

RECENT RCC FACULTY/STAFF PUBLICATIONS

Thomas, T. (2007). Singing With the Dead. Mood Pie Press. Library location: PS3620.H642 S56 2007x. Ted Thomas, Jr. is an adjunct professor of English at RCC.

Ted Thomas Jr., a poet and playwright, is the author of two previous collections of poetry. His work has appeared in numerous literary journals. His poem "Rain" was recited at Symphony Hall in Boston to a score composed by a member of the Paul Winter Consort. His poem “Baptism” was read by Garrison Keillor on an NPR broadcast. He has edited several anthologies of poetry. Over the last 30 years, he has conducted poetry workshops and held residencies in a wide range of settings, from schools and seminaries to homeless shelters and prisons, in and around Boston. In addition to teaching at RCC, Ted is a former faculty member at the Massachusetts College of Art and has taught at the Harvard Divinity School.

To build a better college library and provide superior customer service, we need your comments. Send both praises and gripes to mlawrence@rcc.mass.edu.

If you missed earlier issues of Welcome to the Library, click on “Read the Library’s newsletter” on the library website http://www.rcc.mass.edu/lib.

Welcome to the Library, published by Roxbury Community College Library, Roxbury Crossing, MA

Mark Lawrence, Library Director