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
Image from www.apple.com
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.
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“A book I read last year that stays with me is the novel Secrets of Eden, by Chris Bohjalian — a New England murder plot with psychological and spiritual themes.” – Emily Rogers (Reference) |
| Ginger Williams (Reference) “wants to recommend The Psychopath Test! If you’ve ever thought of telling a judge that you’re a psychopath to try to get out of a hefty jail sentence (and… who hasn’t?), think again. The cautionary tale of “Tony†illustrates how hard it is to convince people that you’re not a psychopath once you’ve tricked them into thinking that you are. You see, that’s just the sort of tricky, manipulative behavior they’d expect from a psychopath! There’s much more to The Psychopath Test than Tony’s story. From the war between psychology and Scientology to the actual psychopath test itself (yes, it does exist!), Ronson’s tale draws you in and doesn’t let you go until the story ends. It doesn’t make light of the psychopath’s plight, but gives outsiders insight to what makes a psychopath tick.” |  |
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In The Demi-Monde: Winter, two young women are trapped in a terrifying virtual world, designed to train soldiers for anti-terrorist missions and governed by some of the worst dictators in history. Recommended by Maureen Puffer-Rothenberg (Cataloging) |
Holly Peagler (the HUB) recommends thrillers by Vince Flynn, Stuart Woods and Clive Cussler.
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Denise Montgomery recommends The Retribution by Val McDermid (a great thriller for lovers of British police procedurals in which the cops are chasing serial killers), |
| and Joan Didion’s memoir Blue Nights, about the death of her adult daughter, which ideally should be read following The Year of Magical Thinking, her earlier memoir about the year following the death of her husband, novelist John Gregory Dunne, a book which won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. |  |
| Slightly older but also good is the novel The Paris Wife, which is the story about Hemingway and his first wife Hadley, |  |
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and the third entry in the Flavia de Luce series, A Red Herring Without Mustard, by Alan Bradley, in which the precocious young amateur chemist in 50s Britain solves another mystery close to home. |
| Josh Wallace (Circulation) says 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami is “a good one.” It’s a dystopian crime drama/love story set in Tokyo. |  |
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Linda Most (MLIS) recommends Ken Auletta’s Googled: the End of the World as We Know It, “a comprehensive history of Google’s meteoric rise, profiling its creators, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the initial team members, previous commentators on the organization, and Google’s various competitors over the years.” (Publishers Weekly) |
| Ramona Ice (Circulation) recommends Unpacking My Library: Writers and Their Books, featuring photos of the personal libraries of Alison Bechdel, Stephen Carter, Junot DÃaz, Rebecca Goldstein and Steven Pinker, Lev Grossman and Sophie Gee, Jonathan Lethem, Claire Messud and James Wood, Philip Pullman, Gary Shteyngart, and Edmund White, along with comments and a “top ten” list from each author. |  |
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
