New Books, Mini-Reviews

Wright, John Dr. A History of War Surgery. Gloucestershire, Great Britain: Amberley, 2011. (617.99 W951h)

This book is a quick look at the history of surgery and medical teams during wartime, especially those wars of the late 19th century and the 20th-21st centuries. It does provide an interesting point of view from the Australian side of the various conflicts (the author is an Australian physician) but it is not a book for the squeamish because of the horrific war injuries that are detailed in both prose and pictures. Overall the book lacks coherency; there is so much that the author is trying to do here that the book’s goal of elucidating the evolution of its subject ultimately suffers. While there is a lot of good information hidden a reader would be well-advised to go elsewhere for a better treatment of the history and evolution of war surgery. –-By Laura Hiatt-Smith, Public Services Librarian

Ronson, Jon. The Psychopath Test: A Journey through the Madness Industry. New York: Riverhead Books, 2011. (616.8582 R774p)

A potential hoax leads the author on an unexpected journey into the world of psychopathology and of madness in general. This interesting investigation pulls Ronson from an asylum for the criminally insane to the boardroom of a CEO, from the psychiatrist’s couch to a police profiler’s handbook; replete with his own self-deprecating barbs and humorous tone. Although he is serious about what he is doing, he keeps what would otherwise be a heavy subject light and surprisingly enjoyable, creating awareness but not delving too deeply into analysis. This is a fun little book that leaves any conclusions gained or lessons learned to be done so by the reader. --By Laura Hiatt-Smith, Public Services Librarian

Writing Center Sponsors Library Workshops

Anita Slack, Information Services Librarian, has recently entered into collaboration with The Writing Center to provide research-related workshops. The first of these workshops, “The Research Process,” took place on February 24, 2012. Information presented included: Choosing and Refining a Topic, Starting your Research and Synthesizing your Research with your own Original Thought. PowerPoint slides from the workshop can be viewed by visiting the library homepage and clicking “Library Guides.” Workshops of the use of APA Style will follow after the midterm break. Look for flyers in the library and for notices on the library’s Facebook page for dates and times.

LEARNING UNLIMITED UPDATE!

LIBRARIANS CONDUCT VIRTUAL LIBRARY WORKSHOP
FOR JOHNSON COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY,
NEWEST LEARNING UNLIMITED PARTNER

Two VU Librarians visited the Johnson County Public Library, Franklin, Ind., in February to provide a training workshop for over 13 participants in the newest Learning Unlimited education center.

VU’s Information Services Librarian Anita Slack and Reference Librarian Richard King made a presentation to Johnson County Public Library librarians and staff about VU’s Virtual Library, explaining how electronic resources such as periodical databases and e-books can be used to assist students.

The Participants completed hands-on exercises focusing on library resources such as LexisNexis, Proquest, and other research tools.

Learning Unlimited is a program administered by VU’s Distance Education department that provides partnerships among VU and several Indiana public libraries in geographic areas considered underserved by higher education opportunities. It is a unique, grant-funded opportunity that combines traditional distance education courses with the use and resources of Indiana public libraries. Grant partners are the Indiana State Library and the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Participating public libraries become mini-VU campuses with mentor-coaches meeting regularly with students.

In addition to Johnson County, participating libraries include Brownsburg Public Library, Hancock County Public Library, Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library (College Avenue), Morgan County Public Library, Plainfield-Guilford Township Public Library, and Shelbyville-Shelby County Public Library.

Thanks to Indianapolis-based Librarian Daria Stafford, the Learning Unlimited Coordinator, for establishing these training sessions between VU librarians and staff of participating libraries. For more information, search for “Learning Unlimited” on the VU web pages or visit http://www.vinu.edu/cms/opencms/future_students/distance_education/lu/contact.html .

ARE YOUR STUDENTS FINDING IT?

ASK A LIBRARIAN TO BE A GUEST SPEAKER
IN YOUR CLASSROOM OR OURS

As Midterm approaches, student writing/research projects start entering the frenzy phase at times. If your students are having trouble understanding the difference between valid library information sources and wacko Googled websites, if they "can't find anything" in the way of sources for their argumentation essay about national health care or their speech about the career of Taylor Swift, if they just don't Get It when trying to find their way around the library (whether physical or virtual/electronic), help is here!

Librarians are available to meet with your classes to conduct mini-workshops (or other presentations faculty desire) that are often very useful for upcoming student writing assignments. The format of these sessions can vary according to your needs, often combining demonstrations of how to use print and electronic resources for specific assignments with hands-on exercises students can complete during the learning session (often a good extra-credit opportunity).

Contact your Librarian Liaison (see left column of The Text Messenger) for more information (advance notice is always a good idea when scheduling a librarian-conducted training workshop).

FOCUS ON LIBRARY ELECTRONIC RESOURCES:

RESEARCHING A LITERARY TOPIC (POEMS, NOVELS, SHORT STORIES...MORE)

By Richard L. King, Reference Librarian

A. LITERATURE RESOURCE CENTER

Available on the library’s Find Articles page, this database is probably the first place to check when seeking information on authors and literary criticism from all time periods writing in such genres as fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama, journalism, etc. Available in the Literature Resource Center are many ways of searching for both biographical and critical information about the author and his or her works. Here you will find electronic versions of many traditional library reference sources published by Gale, such as Contemporary Authors, Contemporary Literary Criticism Select, the Dictionary of Literary Biography and numerous full-text literary periodicals. Search screen example below about Beat Generation novelist Jack Kerouac:

Also, you will find many selections from Gale publications such as Children's Literature Review, Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism, Drama Criticism, Drama for Students, Literature from 1400 to 1800, Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism, Literature of Developing Nations for Students, Literature and Its Times, Novels for Students, Poetry Criticism, Poetry for Students, Shakespearean Criticism, Shakespeare for Students, Short Story Criticism, Short Stories for Students, and Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism.

In addition, you will find Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature, the Literary-Historical Timeline, and the Gale Literary Index to many Gale print publications also found in Shake Library's Reference Collection.

B. LITFINDER

Available on the library’s Find Articles page, LitFinder is an Inspire database that contains the full text of many primary literary works: poems, short stories, plays, essays and speeches. LitFinder contains both biographical and critical works. Note: A search engine that searches simultaneously both the Literature Resource Center and Litfinder is available by clicking on the Gale link under the Find Articles page and scrolling down to Literature Resources from Gale.

C. CONTEMPORARY AUTHORS

Available on the library’s Find Articles page, Contemporary Authors is the online version of the traditional print reference series by Gale publishing. It provides authoritative biographical information about authors.

D. SALEM LITERATURE

Available on the library’s Find Books page. Click on the link titled VU Libraries Electronic Book Collections, then access Salem Literature, which lets you search the contents of major literary research sources Magill’s Literary Annual and Masterplots (4th ed.).

Masterplots (4th ed.): This has been a classic literture reference work for more than sixty years. Masterplots analyzes the most important works in all genres—long fiction, short fiction, poetry, drama, and nonfiction—throughout history and internationally, helping to define and critique the literary canon. Masterplots contains over 2,000 essays.

Magill’s Literary Annual, now in its 57th year, covers 1977-2010 covers recent works of fiction and nonfiction across subjects, genres, and countries. Each year, Magill's Literary Annual critically evaluates 200 major examples of serious literature, both fiction and nonfiction, published during the previous calendar year.

iPAD EXPLORATIONS

Mobilizing Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint on iPad

By Anita Slack, Information Services Librarian

Almost like an answer to our technological prayers, the iPad CloudOn app appeared. This free app, available through the App Store, allows users to take their Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents wherever they go. When used in combination with the free Dropbox app, CloudOn offers users a convenient mobile solution. With CloudOn, users can create new presentations, spreadsheets and text documents as well as edit existing documents. Dropbox, similar to Google Docs, is an application that saves documents and allows them to be accessed anywhere with only an internet connection. Users can upload any of their Microsoft documents from any computer into Dropbox to be accessed and edited with CloudOn. Once finished creating and editing documents using CloudOn, users simply save them in Dropbox. Gone are the days of accessing work only from your office computer and carrying around removable media in order to work from home—or anywhere else. Having used these apps together for the past few months, I have not experienced any technical difficulties with them—just seamless mobile work solutions.

We Asked, You Responded to Our Survey: Watch for Upcoming Library Faculty Workshops!

Thanks to those who responded to our faculty survey concerning interest about a planned series of librarian-conducted workshop about various aspects of VU Libraries and related technologies. We asked what you thought, and sixty-seven of you gave us some ideas about what you might be interested in learning about. Here is a summary:

Librarians believe that one good way to keep students informed about their academic library is to keep their instructors informed, and our survey results reinforce this concept. Over 95% of the faculty said that they are interested in attending an occasional short workshop conducted by the librarians.

Survey respondents overall appear very receptive to attending an occasional library workshop, and seem mainly interested in emerging technologies (such as tablet PCs) and new programs (such as the iBooks Author). Ebooks and our research databases did not receive quite as much enthusiasm, possibly because many faculty are more familiar with these and librarians have provided significant training opportunities and publicity about these over the past years. Other topics receiving faculty interest ranged from a library research refresher course for what the library offers to students, faculty, and staff to citation styles to anything having to do with new technology. Preferred times to present workshops seem to be primarily VU’s “Holy Hour” (Tuesday and Thursday from 11 a.m. to Noon) with the second choice being afternoons (Noon to 5 p.m.).

We appreciate your responses, and always seek feedback from faculty, staff, and students about making your library more relevant and responsive to your needs.