Odum Library Blog

Welcome to the current tropical storm season! Find out the names of this year’s Atlantic tropical storms and hurricanes courtesy of the National Hurricane Center.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration provides answers to many questions about hurricanes, including:

• What does the National Weather Service predict for the 2011 tropical storm season?
• During which months do hurricanes most often occur?
• Where can I learn about the history of past hurricanes?
• Where can I track the progress of current storms?

Aerial view of hurricanes Igor, Julia, and Karl on Sept. 16, 2010

Most important: how should I prepare for tropical storms and other weather emergencies?  Here are links to expert advice:

• Hurricane Preparation Tips from VSU’s Department of Environmental and Occupational Safety (EOS), including the Campus Alert System
• Hurricane Preparedness, including what to do with your pets and how to prepare a disaster safety kit
• How to prepare your business and home for a disaster, from the Small Business Administration

Contents for an Emergency Kit, courtesy CDC.gov

Finally,

• What to do in case of a zombie apocalypse or other emergency, from the Centers for Disease Control

View the final space shuttle landing as we welcome home Atlantis and her crew.

Final landing of the space shuttle Atlantis and the U.S. space shuttle program.

More information about the final landing is available at this news release from NASA and the home page for NASA.

The Government Documents Collection at Odum Library has many publications from NASA about the history of the U.S. space program, including NASA’s First 50 Years: Historical Perspectives, which you’ll find in the second floor government documents area at call number (Sudoc number) NAS 1.21:4704.

Need help? Just contact VSU’s Government Information Librarian at 229.245.3748, or click on Live Chat on the library’s home page.

If you thought Odum Library was just a big building full of dusty, boring books, you’d be wrong. If you thought it was just a computer lab where you can update your Facebook status, you’d be wrong again. It’s a building full of curious objects and helpful (and yes, curious) people.

Did you know that we have…

• DVDs like the Big Lebowski?
• Puppets galore?! If you feel like hiding in your shell, you’re not alone. Check out our snail puppet today!
• A book on beginning banjo? You know you’ve always wanted to try your hand(s) at that twangy chordophone.
• Graphic novels? Read one and you’ll be hooked!
• Young adult literature like the wildly-popular Hunger Games? Why should teens get these great reads to themselves?
• A Lego farm set?

You get the picture. Yes, we have great resources that help you in your studies. You may be surprised to learn that all the strange items listed above support VSU’s curriculum, too! Come explore what we have to offer, and if you need help finding our puppets, just ask!

It’s a little late, but… welcome, GHP! Just when Odum Library was starting to look a little empty, we are happy to welcome the Governor’s Honors Program students to campus. Please make yourselves at home.

We don’t get out of the library much…

Image courtesy of http://scienceblogs.com/confessions/2010/07/thursday_zombie_fun_braaaiiiin.php

…  and we’re curious: how is Odum Library different from your school library? Which do you prefer, and why?

If you need help, feel free to stop by the reference desk with your questions. You keep us on our toes, and we enjoy working with you!

Monday, July 4^th, is Independence Day, the 235^th birthday of the Declaration of Independence by the 13 North American colonies that eventually formed the United States of America. Odum Library celebrates the holiday by closing at midnight Sunday, July 3^rd, to reopen at 7:45 am Tuesday, July 5^th. These hours include the Internet Café.

Declaration of Independence Mural, National Archives

In honor of the holiday, we feature sites (including the online exhibit linked above from the National Archives and Records Administration) for federal government resources for the holiday:

Learn about the history and proper caretaking of the U.S. flag, popularly known as the “Stars and Stripes.”

If fireworks are part of your holiday, follow these safety precautions from the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission to ensure a happy celebration.

Attending a potluck or barbeque this weekend?  Get recipe ideas from The Great American Potluck cookbook, celebrating the diverse heritage of the U.S., courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Where did your holiday food originate?  Hamburgers and beef hot dogs probably came from Texas, but if it’s chicken or corn on the cob, there’s a good chance it grew up in Georgia! Enjoy these and other fun facts about July 4^th provided by the U.S. Census Bureau to our nation’s estimated population of 311.7 million people.

Lady Diana Spencer‘s life ended tragically in a 1997 car crash; had she survived, she would have been 50 years old on Friday, July 1st.

We have several books about Diana available to check out from the Library, including Peter Donnelly’s heavily illustrated Diana: a Tribute to the People’s Princess (1997) and Andrew Morton’s Diana: Her True Story (1992), which Morton said the Princess secretly authorized and edited herself.

In 1995 Diana received the International Leonardo Prize (photo by Nick Parfjonov)

Mourning Diana: Nation, Culture, and the Performance of Grief (available as a ebook) examines how the media, and the public at large, commemorated Diana as an iconic figure following her death.

Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fountain, London (photo by Uli Harder)

The network issues at the University of Georgia have been resolved, and both the GIL-Find@VSU Odum Library Catalog and the Digital Library of Georgia are accessible again.

We apologize for any inconveniences caused by the down time.

UPDATE: GIL-Find@VSU Odum Library is down again. Until the issue is resolved, please remember that the “Classic” GIL Catalog is still available.

We have received word that the University of Georgia is currently experiencing an internet outage. Though Athens may be far away from Valdosta, it will still affect a few online services here at VSU.

Our GIL-Find@VSU Odum Library catalog interface will not be available because of the outage. Until the issue is resolved, patrons can still access our catalog through the “Classic” interface.

In addition, the Digital Library of Georgia will also be unavailable. Unfortunately, we have no alternate method of accessing these materials while UGA is offline.

We apologize for any inconvenience that this outage may cause. The network administrators at UGA are working to repair the outage. We will continue to keep you informed of any further developments.

We’ve added DVDs for you to check out, including classic films like 42nd Street and Tod Browning’s Freaks, animated films like Finding Nemo and Up, and contemporary dramas including The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Avatar.

“Mr. Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls. He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liver slices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencod’s roes. Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine.”

All the action in James Joyce’s novel Ulysses takes place on June 16th, 1904.

Ergo we celebrate June 16th as Bloomsday— named for Ulysses‘ protagonist, Mr. Leopold Bloom.

Hear James Joyce read from Ulysses here.

June 16th from 7:00 PM – 2:00 AM, New York’s WBAI becomes Radio Bloomsday with readings from Ulysses by Alec Baldwin, John Lithgow, Jerry Stiller, Marc Maron and many others.You can listen to it online.

Of course, you can check out a copy of the novel from Odum Library, or read it for free online.