The Odum Library recently took delivery of something, which marks the end of 244 years of publishing history: a final print edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica.

According to a recent news story from The Guardian, we are lucky to have obtained this encyclopedic set. The newspaper reports that, “Sales staff at the 244-year-old publisher have been inundated with orders…with almost 175 copies selling a day since it was announced last month that print editions of the encyclopedia would be discontinued.”

Why are so many individuals (and libraries) keen to get their hands on a last print edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica? Obviously there are book collectors, by whom such a set will be valued – additionally, there may be a certain nostalgic appeal to the print version of this resource. However, I think the actual reason goes a little deeper. One of Britannica’s enduring qualities is the authoritative nature of the articles it contains, authored by experts in the various areas of scholarship found within the encyclopedia’s pages. Presumably this will not change as the print edition is wholly supplanted by the (continuing) online edition.

However, I’d argue that the print edition provides something which a periodically updated online version cannot: a “snapshot” (for want of a better term), of the state of knowledge that existed at the time the books, themselves, were printed. As time passes, it seems that an older edition of Britannica quietly assumes the role of an archive of intellectual understanding of the world, in addition to retaining its primary function of being a reference resource, (notwithstanding the reality that care must be taken when using it for this latter purpose – the oft-quoted observation that a print reference book is out of date the moment it rolls off the presses is, technically, true).

As an example, one precursor to our new set of Encyclopaedia Britannica is the famous 1911 edition. Owing to the fact that this was published prior to 1923, and is now within the public domain, you may find full-text versions of the 1911 Britannica hosted via open access resources such as Project Gutenberg. The 1911 version is particularly noteworthy for the quality of its prose, and the fact that some of the most learned people of that time served as contributors (a famous example being the physicist, Ernest Rutherford).

As our new set of Encyclopaedia Britannica finds its way onto the shelves of the Odum Library’s reference collection, it is curious to think that it will not only serve Valdosta State University students and faculty of today as an invaluable reference resource, but will continue to be used by Odum Library patrons decades hence.

You will find Encyclopaedia Britannica on the 2nd floor of the library, shelved within the reference collection at: REF AE5 .E363 2010 The library’s catalogue record for this resource can be located using GIL-Find@VSU: http://gilfind.valdosta.edu/vufind/Record/722064

Should you need help in locating or using Encyclopaedia Britannica, then please ask the Reference Librarian on duty at the reference desk for assistance.

Finals are almost here! We know what that means. We see you sitting at the computer for 10 hours straight. You drink lots of caffeine, get up only to sign for your pizza delivery, and check your Facebook every few minutes. It’s hard work finishing your papers and studying for all of your finals. In your stress-induced delirium, we want to remind you not to let common sense go out the window.

Advice from your librarians:

• DON’T LEAVE YOUR STUFF UNATTENDED. Not a laptop, a textbook, or a purse. Not even a phone charger. This holds true all year long, but right now you’re so distracted that you forget to keep an eye on your things. It doesn’t matter if you’re just going to the bathroom or if you’re going next door to grab a Philly cheesesteak from Nathan’s. If you leave your things behind, they might not be there when you get back!
• You can alleviate this problem just by studying with a buddy. Then you can look out for each other! We have lots of study rooms available on the first and third floor. They’re first come, first served, so don’t bother trying to reserve one. Get together and finish up your group projects, proofread each other’s papers, or help each other study for your finals!
• Backup your documents! You spend a lot of time working on papers. Don’t let it go to waste just because you lost your flash drive! Save your documents in a couple of different places. Your Live@Valdosta email account has a SkyDrive where you can safely stash your papers.
• If you need quiet to write, try the 3rd floor computer lab (the “quiet lab”) by the south staircase. It’s a designated quiet zone!
• Finally, remember that we’re all a little stressed out right now, so be nice to one another. 🙂

We had another great year for ReadFest, held last Friday on VSU’s beautiful front lawn! Odum Library welcomed 170 pre-kindergarten students to VSU to celebrate reading.

The Chic-Fil-A cow was on hand to keep the kids entertained.

Volunteers from the College of Education read big books to the children.

Dr. Ondrusek from the Master of Library and Information Science Program used puppets to tell a story.

Things aren’t all serious at Read Fest! The kids loved getting temporary tattoos. We hope their parents didn’t mind too much!

The kids loved showing off their new temporary tattoos.

Isn’t that one of our librarians showing off her temporary tattoo? I think so!

The kids enjoyed some time at the jumprope and hula hoop station where they were able to wiggle out some energy.

Hula hooping is harder than it looks!

The kids went through about a dozen stations overall, where they enjoyed hearing stories, watching puppet shows, meeting the Chic-Fil-A cow, getting temporary tattoos, making visors, hula hooping, and more! They all went home with goodie bags, including books donated by the Student Council of the International Reading Association (a student group within the College of Education). They seemed to have a great time, and so did our librarians and our volunteers!

Thanks to everyone involved for making Read Fest 2012 a great experience!

April is National Poetry Month, and you can find many books of and about poetry at Odum Library as well as web sites about poetry month through GALILEO, organizations such as the Poetry Foundation, and even the U.S. government!

Poetry collections at Odum Library include books by current U.S. Poet Laureate Philip Levine, Mary Oliver, and Donald Hall, among many others. You can also borrow and listen to recordings of poets such as Langston Hughes and Paul Laurence Dunbar reading their poetry.

Read about Georgia’s Poet Laureate, David Bottoms, and more poets from Georgia in this feature from the New Georgia Encyclopedia.

The U.S. government might seem like a surprising source for poetry, but there are great poetry sites available from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress. The American Memory Project from the Library of Congress has made available for online viewing the notebooks of the U.S. poet Walt Whitman.

There’s even a mobile app for poetry available from Poets.org (the Academy of American Poets), so now you can have poetry instantly available for Poem in Your Pocket Day on April 26^th, or any time you need a poem in your life.

Today (Tuesday, April 10, 2012) is National Library Workers Day!

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This is a day to recognize the valuable contributions made by all library workers. Do you have a favorite library worker? Nominate them online to be in the Galexy of Stars! Take a break from your term papers and come say hello to your favorite library worker today. We always love to see you. After all, libraries may work because we do, but we work because of you!

The American Library Association (ALA) has released its annual list of top 10 books libraries and schools have been asked to remove from their shelves, or from school curricula, during the previous year– usually because of swear words, sexual content, religious viewpoint, or because the material was deemed generally too mature for its intended audience.

Links below will take you to our holdings in GIL-Find.

1. Lauren Myracle’s ttyl, ttfn, and l8r, g8r
2. Kim Dong Hwa’s The Color of Earth.
3. The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins.
4. My Mom’s Having a Baby! A Kid’s Month-by-Month Guide to Pregnancy by Dori Hillestad Butler
5. Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
6. Phyllis Reynolds Naylor’s Alice series
7. Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World
8. What My Mother Doesn’t Know by Sonja Sones
9. Cecily Von Ziegesar’s Gossip Girl series
10. Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird

The 1940 Census is now available, and it’s online, courtesy of the U.S. Census Bureau and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)!  Detailed census records–the actual census forms U.S. residents completed in 1940–are available for public view 72 years after the Census takes place. April 2 marked the 72nd “birthday” of the 1940 Census!

View how the United States is different today than in 1940–or not so different? With such detailed records now at hand, we can even see state-by-state comparisons between the years.

For getting started with your own 1940 census search, visit the official NARA site–but it’s so popular right now that you might have to wait a bit! In the meantime, you can read this NPR story about the 1940 census release, and preview how Georgia’s GALILEO system, through the ProQuest company, will enhance its Ancestry Library Edition database, available for use in genealogical research within Odum Library.

If you’d like to “Uncle Sam Yourself,”  go try this app from the U.S. Census Bureau!

Thanks to everyone who participated in the library’s recent focus group on our homepage redesign. You all gave us great feedback and we’ll be using your input to help guide us as we try to redesign the library’s homepage.

We’d like to send a special congratulations to the winner of our drawing for an 8GB iPod touch, Ja’Marrius Thomas.
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“In a dusty corner of a basement in a rambling Victorian house in northern New Hampshire, a door has long been sealed shut with 39 six-inch-long carriage bolts . . . ” The Night Strangers, written by Chris Bohjalian, is sort of a ghost story, but sort of not.

China Mieville’s Embassytown takes you to “a distant planet, home to the enigmatic Ariekei, sentient beings famed for a language unique in the universe, one that only a few altered human ambassadors can speak. . . . When distant political machinations deliver a new ambassador to Arieka, the fragile equilibrium between humans and aliens is violently upset.”

We invite you to be creeped out by “a mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. A strange collection of very curious photographs . . .” in Ransom Rigg’s Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children.

A writer uncovers “ancient feuds and modern-day rivalries” in a small Tennessee town in Cathy Holton’s A Summer in the South.

Emmy-nominated comedy writer and actress Mindy Kaling (from The Office) (which we also have on DVD!) confides in you like you were personal friends in Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? about “her weight, how she got to where she is, and what every man needs to appear attractive.”

Many other new (to us) titles available to check out! See them online at Popular Books page! Hold them in your hands in the Popular section, 2nd Floor lounge area near the HUB. Ask us if you want help finding anything in the library, or in someone else’s library– text us at 229-234-1947, or Chat Live at this link.

Hi everyone,

Great news – EBSCO has fixed their problem, and all EBSCO databases are back online, including Academic Search Complete, MEDLINE, CINAHL, and LISTA.

This was a company-wide problem, but if you ever have any trouble with our databases, please visit GALILEO Scholar (use the blue GALILEO button on the homepage), and click on “Contact Us” on the top-right corner. This will let GALILEO know that there’s a problem, and they’ll check it out first!

Thank you for enduring this very inconvenient situation, and good luck with your research!
-Odum Reference