Odum Library Blog

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Next week, on Tuesday, March 27th, Odum Library will be holding focus groups where students like you will be helping us design a new homepage! Free pizza will be provided, you will get a $5 off Papa John’s coupon, and you will also get the chance to win a new 8GB iPod Touch, courtesy of the VSU Tech Shop!

The groups will be meeting in 1480 at:

11am-12pm
1pm-2pm
5pm-6pm

Please contact Laura Wright at lbwright@valdosta.edu to sign up, or visit our Registration Page.

Thank you,
Odum Reference

In recognition of Women’s History Month, the governments of the United States and Georgia, along with libraries, archives, and other nonprofit organizations, can help us learn about women’s contributions to science, culture and the arts, exploration, education, and government. View the Library of Congress‘s feature on Women’s History Month, emphasizing the 2012 theme, “Women’s Education–Women’s Empowerment.”

View the history of the 19th Amendment, enacting the right of women to vote in the U.S., courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration. The Law Library of Congress also offers a timeline of the legislative history of Women’s History Month in the U.S.

Valdosta State University, which began as a college for women, offers local documentation of more than a century of the history of women in south Georgia, as evident in this photograph of the 1933 Euclidian (Math and Science) Club of what was then the Georgia State Woman’s College:

Many more images and documents of the history of women at Valdosta State University are available at the Valdosta State University Archives and Special Collections.

In addition, Odum Library’s collection of the U.S. Statutes at Large documents the U.S. government’s recognition of Women’s History Month. Finally, be sure to view Odum Library’s exhibit, Black Women in Georgia History and Culture, on display in the library’s first floor display cases, one floor down from the Circulation Desk on the north side of Odum Library.

March 4-10, 2012, marks National Consumer Protection Week (NCPW). NCPW highlights government and nonprofit resources to help consumers manage our money, debt, and privacy and avoid identity theft and other frauds.

Partners for NCPW include the Better Business Bureau, the Federal Trade Commission, the IRS, the Federal Reserve System, the FBI, the National Urban League, American Association of Retired Persons (AARP),  the Social Security Administration,  the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Consumer Protect Safety Commission, and the Food and Drug Administration, among others.

What were the top consumer complaints for 2011?  Identity theft, debt collection, and fake sweepstakes top the list of 30 categories released in the PDF of the FTC’s Consumer Sentinel Network Data Book, January-December 2011, just published in February 2012.   Find other topics of interest to consumers, including banking, health and safety, mortgages, and technology, through information provided for NCPW.

National Consumer Protection Week logo

Maybe you’d prefer your own copies of publications about arthritis, flu, saving and investing for students, saving for college, or the 2011 Consumer Action Handbook from the Federal Citizen Information Center.  If so, come help yourself to these free publications (while supplies last) at the Government Documents Display in the Reference area, Odum Library 2nd floor. We also have tax forms!  For more information, contact the Government Documents department at 229-245-3748.

Because February is American Heart Month, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)  have launched Million Hearts. This education and prevention program seeks to prevent one million heart attacks and strokes over the next five years in the United States.  By making better choices about our eating, exercise, and other health habits, we can battle the epidemic of heart disease in the U.S.

Love Your Heart, courtesy of the CDC

The CDC urges smokers to Love Your Heart by giving up smoking, a leading contributor to heart disease.  You can even email a “Love Your Heart” greeting to someone you care about who smokes.

The Government Documents Collection at Odum Library offers many resources about heart disease and health, including this report on the Heart Disease Education, Analysis Research, and Treatment for Women Act, available here as an online PDF, in print, and on microfiche.

If you’re looking for a unique present for someone this month, nothing says “you’re on my mind” like a President Abraham Lincoln bobblehead, available from the Library of Congress gift shop.

Bobblehead of President Abraham Lincoln, courtesy the Library of Congress

Jeannette and Charles Kessler have given the VSU Archives and Special Collections over fifty items from their extensive travels in East Asia. Items include Bainchiang pottery from 1,000 to 3,000 years old, woven antique textiles from Thailand, Indonesia, Laos, Cambodia, and other countries, and collection of Tibetan photographs.Jeannette was a teacher and Charles was an accountant who worked and traveled in East Asia from the 1980s-2000s. Their valuable and large gift represents an exciting gift for the VSU Archives and Special Collections.

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We have copies of federal and state of Georgia tax forms here at Odum Library, in the Reference area on the second floor.  This year the forms have a new location:  behind the Reference Desk all the way back to the southwest wall, in the Government Documents area. We can’t advise you on how to complete your tax return, but we can help you get to the forms,  instructions, and schedules.

Find links to commonly requested forms and publications, including fill-in PDF versions of federal forms 1040, 1040A, and 1040EZ.  There you’ll also find accessible tax publications available in large print and Braille formats and answers to frequently asked questions.  All this information–plus more–is available from IRS.gov.

Remember that you can also e-file through the IRS web site.  It’s free if your annual income is less than $57,000, and you’ll find information there about electronic form complete and paid electronic filing.

At Odum we also have plenty of Georgia 2011 Individual Income Tax booklets that include 500 and 500EZ forms and instructions. To find online Georgia state income tax forms and further guidance, go to the Georgia Department of Revenue site.  If you need tax publications from other states, check out this interactive map provided by the Federation of Tax Administrators.