May 1-31 is the national observation of American Wetlands Month. Georgia’s six coastal counties have plenty of wetlands: 804,228 acres, encompassing 1,256 square miles, reports the National Wetlands Inventory conducted by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. The National Wetlands Inventory site also provides a wetlands mapper with a list of frequently asked questions for viewing and downloading wetlands data.
The Georgia Department of Natural Resources describes wetlands as “areas covered with a layer of water for some period of time that have waterlogged soils and plant species which grow only in those wet areas,” according to the spring 2012 issue of Georgia Sound, the DNR’s Coastal Resources Division newsletter. Georgia’s coast is made up of both salt and fresh water, with 368,484 acres of salt marsh and 432,660 acres of freshwater wetlands.
The Georgia Land Conservation Program describes ways that landowners and other citizens can help conserve Georgia’s coast, wetlands, and other green spaces. For even more definitions and information about wetlands maintenance and regulation, check out the Environmental Protection Agency’s site Where Water Meets Land. The closest wildlife refuge to VSU is the Banks Lake National Wildlife Refuge, located in nearby Lanier County, and a great place to view freshwater wetlands.
Closeup view of Georgia salt marsh, Coastal Resources Division, Georgia DNRMuch more about wetlands in Georgia and across the country appears in the 2011 Fish & Wildlife Service report Status and Trends of Wetlands in the Conterminous United States, 2004-2009. You can also check out this publication and plenty of other government documents about wetlands in print from Odum Library’s Federal and Georgia documents collections. Just contact the government information librarian at 229-245-3748 or ecrogers@valdosta.edu.
What’s an embedded librarian?
An embedded librarian is a librarian that is enrolled in a BlazeVIEW course to provide research assistance to students. An embedded librarian can:
An embedded librarian can have a presence in your BlazeVIEW class for up to two weeks. The experience is best for the students when you work with the embedded librarian to discuss what topics you’d like them to cover. We are happy to collaborate with you to customize this experience as much as possible for your course.
What do my students get out of it?
Students taking online classes often do not have the opportunity to visit the library, much less participate in a library instruction session. These students may not be aware of the resources available to them. With a librarian embedded in a course, students discover the wealth of resources they can use and receive help that is customized to their research needs. By the end of the semester, the students are more familiar with library resources and have made a lasting connection with one of our librarians. We often find that once students get to know one of the librarians they will return to them for help in the future.
What do students say about it?
Each semester we survey students who had an embedded librarian in their course. Here are what some of those students had to say:
“It was very nice to have a librarian like that in our classroom. Especially when we have to find journals.â€
“I found her services very helpful and as I read some of the posts, learned a few things to further my researching.â€
What do faculty members say about it?
“Thanks for the service, having an embedded librarian is a great form of outreach and support.â€
“One student located articles with the help of the EL in a very specialized journal and obtained them through ILL. Her proposal was much enriched by the articles and she never would have found these on her own.â€
“Thank you for your help. I believe it was important to add this element to the course.â€
“She covered exactly what my students needed.â€
Make a Request
If you would like to make a request, please complete the online form here. If you  would like more details, feel free to contact Ginger Williams, the Outreach Services Librarian.
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.
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 26th, 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.
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!