Odum Library Blog

Christopher McDougall‘s Born to Run: a Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World has Never Seen investigates the amazing athletic abilities of Mexico’s Tarahumara tribe, for whom running is a fine art; as McDougall says, “the art of combining our breath and mind and muscles into fluid self-propulsion over wild terrain.”

It’s available to check out at the moment, at BROWSE GV 1061.23 .M6 M33 2009 (BROWSE books, mostly New York Times bestsellers, are on the first floor near the temporary Circulation desk)

What? Treasure Hunt at Odum Library

When? Saturday, August 15 at 6pm

Where? Begin your treasure hunt at the Reference Desk.

Why? Treasure hunting is fun! Free food! Great prizes!

Treasure Hunt Prizes

How? Follow the map and find the clues. For each clue you find, a librarian will stamp your map. After you find all the clues and collect all the stamps you can turn in your completed map for a prize drawing entry. We will draw for prizes after eating pizza, to keep our strength up. Students must be present at the prize drawing to win.

In J. Michael Orenduff’s first Pot Thief mystery, The Pot Thief Who Studied Pythagoras {BROWSE PS 3615 .R466 P68 2009}, Albuquerque treasure hunter Hubie Schuze is offered $25,000 to steal a rare water jug from a museum– and soon becomes the prime suspect in a similar theft and a related murder.

“In addition to selling traditional Native American pottery, I’m also a pot thief. I don’t like the term, and I don’t think it’s a fair description, but that’s what I am. At least that’s what I’ve been since 1980 when Congress passed the Archaeological Resources Protection Act extending the definition of thievery to cover buried pots on public lands—and who knows more about thievery than Congress?”

Read more excerpts at the Pot Thief Murder Mysteries Web Site.

Check out Hubie’s recipe for pork tacos at the Pot Thief blog.

The failure of capitalism, or an attack by space aliens?

This week Slate.com offers “Choose Your Own Apocalypse,” a nifty little feature where you can speculate about how all America’s infrastructures might fail.

Learn about 144 possible worst-case scenarios!

Could the Southwestern U.S. run out of water?

Will we lose our competitive edge due to rampant obesity?

Get a quick take on your worldview based on your choices at Slate, and speculate along with the experts (and the not-so-expert) on Facebook and Twitter.

Today I reveal the Super Top Secret Entrance to Odum Library!

During the first phase of the renovation the usual north entrance is closed for safety. You may see construction workers walking in and out but we ask that visitors use the temporary entrance downstairs.

Closed for Renovation

The first floor entrance, directly below the main entrance, is now open. Just go down the stairs.

The second floor entrance is also closed from the inside of the building.

An atlas is a book of maps and geographic information.

Atlases are located on the second floor near the reference desk and beside the maps.

On the left side are Reference Atlases organized by Library of Congress call numbers (LC call number).

Atlases are often large books, although they can be small too. To accommodate their unusual sizes atlases are shelved in these cabinets with wide shelves. Many of the shelves will pull out like drawers.

On the right side are Gov Doc Atlases, or atlases published by the federal government. These atlases are organized by SuDoc number. To learn more about SuDocs visit our Guide to Shelving by SuDoc Numbers.

Atlases can be on a wide variety of topics.

Georgia atlases are located on the other end of the cabinets. Georgia atlases are published by the state of Georgia and organized by GA documents number, similar to SuDoc number but for GA government documents.

If you need help locating an atlas please ask at the reference desk.

Maps are located on the second floor near the reference desk in the big metal filing cabinets with long skinny drawers.

Odum Library collects 7.5″ topographic maps for Georgia and its contiguous states.

Maps are filed by name and they are named for their most prominent feature such as a city, river, etc.

The maps are stored flat in the long skinny drawers. Each drawer holds many maps.

Most maps are not in the catalog.

Odum Library is open for regular hours between the semesters.

Children books, also called the Juvenile Collection,  are gathered together on the third floor with call numbers that begin with LZ.

The LZ books, are located on the 3rd Floor, on the other side of the atrium, in the addition.

There are many children’s books to browse through.

A water fountain can be found on the back wall, behind the bookcases.

Frank McCourt, who died July 19th, won the Pulitzer Prize for Angela’s Ashes, his memoir of growing up poor in Ireland. We have Angela’s Ashes and its follow-up ‘Tis, as well as Teacher Man, McCourt’s account of his days as a New York City high school teacher.

You can hear McCourt talk about writing, teaching, poverty, alcoholism, meeting the Pope, and much more at FORA.tv.

Or, read “McCourt: A Storyteller Even as a Teacher” at the New York Times Web site.

If you need help finding books (or anything else) in Odum Library, you can ask us in person or via live chat.