Archive for the 'Online resources' Category

Did you ever hear that there is something in turkey that makes you tired? Or maybe you felt for yourself that tired or drowsy feeling after the big Thanksgiving feast. Well it’s true that turkey does contain an amino acid called L-Tryptophan (el-trip-toh-fan) which is known to be a  natural sedative, as stated in an article called, “Effects of L-tryptophan on sleepiness and on sleep” by Ernest Hartmann in the Journal of Psychiatric Research. This amino acid travels through the blood stream up to the brain, then the brain converts the L-Tryptophan into a chemical called Serotonin (sare-uh-toh-nin) which calms us down and helps us sleep. However, L-Tryptophan would have to be taken by itself with no other protein or amino acid in order to make you drowsy, and since there is plenty of protein in turkey, the turkey is not the culprit! In fact, in an article from Physiology and Behaviortitled “Meal composition and its effect on postprandial sleepiness” nutrition experts, William C Orr, Gregory Shadid, Michael J Harnish, and Sigrid Elsenbruch believe the reason you are really tired after that Thanksgiving feast is because of all the consumption of carbohydrates found in bread, potatoes, yams, and pumpkin pie. So next time you hear someone say that turkey makes you tired, know that its all just a myth.

You can find these articles and much more using just one of our many  library databases. These articles were found using ScienceDirect, which provides full-text access to peer-reviewed journals on health and life sciences topics. This database and many others can be found on the Pearson Library Information Sources page.

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Halloween

Boo! Its October that means its time for Halloween, but how much do you really know about the holiday? Scary huh? Don’t worry California Lutheran has got you covered. Here at the Pearson Library we offer tons of print books, electronic book (eBooks), articles and even movies to expand your knowledge about Halloween. No matter if you want to find out where the holiday originated from and how it got to the United States, or if you simply wanted to know why we wear costumes, tell ghost stories and go trick-or-treating. You could find it all in our Library’s extensive collection!

If you just want to relax with your friends or family and watch a scary movie, we also offer a wide varity of  horror films. From the classic “Halloween” the Micheal Myers story to more recent thrillers like “The Fourth Kind.” Search for these movies and many more popular DVDs in our Online Catalog

 Halloween (DVD)

Falcon International Productions ; Moustapha Akkad presents ; produced by Debra Hill ; screenplay by John Carpenter and Debra Hill ; directed by John Carpenter. 

 In 1963, six-year-old Michael Myers brutally killed his older sister. The silent child was incarcerated in the Smith’s Grove Sanitarium under the care of psychiatrist Sam Loomis. Michael’s hometown of Haddonfield was slowly beginning to forget the tragic crime. That is until Loomis returns to the town to warn them of Myers’ escape from Smith’s Grove. With Michael set on killing a group of high school students, Loomis gets the hesitant town sheriff to help him stop Michael before it’s too late.  

The Fourth Kind(DVD)

Universal Pictures and Gold Circle Films present a Chambara Pictures & Dead Crow Pictures production, an Olatunde Osunsanmi film ; produced by Paul Brooks, Joe Carnahan, Terry Lee Robbins ; story by Olatunde Osunsanmi & Terry Lee Robbins ; screenplay by Olatunde Osunsanmi ; directed by Olatunde Osunsanmi.

Since the 1960s, Nome, Alaska, has seen a disproportionate number of its population being reported missing every year. Despite multiple FBI investigations of the region, the truth has never been discovered. Psychologist Dr. Abigail Tyler begins videotaping sessions with traumatized patients and unwittingly discovered some of the most disturbing evidence of alien abduction ever documented.
 
Halloween
Joyce K Kessel; Nancy L Carlson
 
Explains the origins of the holiday of Halloween and such traditions as black cats, jack-o-lanterns, witches, bonfires, and trick-or-treating.

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ebrary

   Tired of checking out tons of books and having to carry them home? Well  Pearson Library offers a great collection of eBooks in our ebrary! Thousands of books available at the click of a mouse or the touch of a finger with Ipads circulating amongst our student body.

   With our growing eBooks collection, ebrary covers all academic subject areas. For the month of September a wide variety of subjects were viewed from Psychology and Religion to Pop Culture. Some of the top viewed books include:  “Children in Family Context: Perspectives on Treatment” by Combrinck-Graham, Lee and “Action Chicks: New Images of Tough Women in Popular Culture” by Inness, Sherrie A.  

  Using the ebrary’s Infotools you can highlight text,  take notes,  link to online resources to expand your research and even share folders with your peers. If your tired of reading yourself , all you have to do is highlight some text and ebrary’s Unity Reader will read it for you. With ebrary’s Bookshelf feature you can save and organize your research for future reference. The best part of all is that you can access ebrary from ANYWHERE!

For more help and information about ebrary check out the Trainnig Video!

NOTE: THE FOLLOWING ACTIONS ARE REQUIRED TO USE THE ADDED FUNCTIONALITY OF THIS DATABASE: Once on the Ebrary website click Sign In link (upper right corner) to utilize the Bookshelf functionality. Also, Ebrary’s Plug-in has to be downloaded by clicking on Ebrary Reader button located by the title.

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Welcome to the new academic year! There’s a lot to look forward to. Along with your new classes are the usual challenges of tackling research papers and assignments. But this year the process should be a lot easier and you’ll become a more efficient researcher because you’ll be using the Pearson Library’s new cloud-based “discovery” tool called WorldCat Local.

It’s called a “discovery tool” because it enables you to do a simple keyword search and access a vast array of content including books, eBooks, full-text articles and video from the Pearson Library AND from libraries worldwide.

Learn more about WorldCat Local and watch some brief tutorials featuring the library staff explain and demonstrate its cool features.

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Apprehension Recent violent incidents on local high school campuses and the mass shooting in Tucson, Arizona are traumatic and unnerving to most of us. Although CLU and Thousand Oaks are considered very safe communities, being cautious is always wise. Here are some campus resources to help keep you safe at CLU: The Campus Public Safety department offers tips and contact information for reporting threats and incidents. The site also includes  current campus crime data. Add the Campus Public Safety emergency number to your cell phone or mobile device: (805) 493-3911. For non-emergencies call: (805) 493-3208. The Campus Conduct Hotline is designed to minimize any apprehension you may have and make it possible for you to report concerns about issues or behaviors that pose a risk to CLU or its students, staff, or faculty. Campus Public Safety. Other campus sources for confidential help include:  Campus Life, Campus Ministry, Student Counseling Services, and Health Services. For objective research on crime, the gun control debate, or perspectives on mental health, start with the Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center. The Criminal Justice research guide will also lead you to databases, Web sites, and sources for statistical data.

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Student Finals are here and you feel the stress building up. Don’t panic! The key to surviving is to be calm and rested, get organized, and get help if you feel you need it. There are many good resources on campus, in the Pearson Library and on the Web that can help you tackle finals week. Let’s take a look at some excellent resources. On campus counselors at the Center for Academic and Accessibility Resources (CAAR) can help you with study tips, handle stress and provide you with general academic guidance. Don’t forget to visit the Writing Center if you need help in polishing that term paper. If personal problems or health issues are impacting your ability to study–don’t delay–get an appointment with Student Counseling Services or Health Services.  Now, if you need some study tips, the library has plenty of resources to help you out. Search the ebrary database and use the key words “study skills” and you’ll find Test Taking Strategies & Study Skills for the Utterly Confused and other books on studying and test taking. On the Web, About .com has a number of practical articles including: A Student’s Guide to Surviving College Finals. Good luck and enjoy winter break!

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electionsIs your head whirling from the daily barrage of attack ads from the candidates and spin doctors? Do you want nonpartisan information on the gubernatorial candidates and the issues? Then log on to these library databases and recommended web sites for balanced perspectives on the personalities and issues at stake in the 2010 mid-term elections:

Gale Biography Resource Center: Read up on Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman and you’ll find some fascinating facts about our candidates for governor in this database. For instance, did you know that Margaret (no wonder she prefers Meg) was once a pre-med major at Princeton, and that she “traded Beanie Babies and Pokemon cards with her children on eBay”? Or did you know that Edmund—yup, that’s Jerry’s actual name—worked briefly with Mother Teresa in India?

CQ Researcher: An excellent source for in-depth articles on politics and current events written by seasoned journalists. Be sure to read this week’s featured report: Democrats’ Future: Will they lose their congressional majorities?

Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center:  The perfect database to research different perspectives on an issue. Review the pros and cons of legalizing marijuana, air pollution control or find balanced articles about Meg Whitman and Jerry Brown.

Now, if you want nonpartisan web sites on elections and politics, Prof. Herb Gooch of the Political Science Department steers his POLS 102 students to these sources:

Happy voting!

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You found the perfect citation for your paper in one of the library’s databases but it’s not full-text! Now what? No worries. There are a number of steps you can take to easily access the full-text of most citations you find in library databases. This is the first part of a series that will guide you through those steps. If you are searching the EBSCOhost, ProQuest, or WilsonWeb databases, you probably noticed a link at the end of each citation that looks like this:

360 link

This is the library’s open URL link resolver and it tries to link you to  another database that happens to carry the article.  Pretty cool. When it’s successful, it will lead you to  a citation or to the actual electronic journal with the full-text. Most of the time this works flawlessly.  If the full-text is unavailable, you will see a page that says: “Sorry, no holdings were found for this journal. Please see additional options below for finding this journal.” More on this in a future blog!

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Has this ever happened to you? It’s 10:58am, you’re in the library printing out a paper for your 11am class, the pages print out, you grab them, and run to your class. Hours later, you’re in your dorm room, looking for your thumb drive…only to realize that you had forgotten it at the library earlier in the day?  What about this scenario? You’re at a computer, your email is open to an email with an attachment that you sent to yourself so that you can print out an essay.  You look at the email and realize that you forgot to send the attachment.  What now?

Instead of saving your essay on your laptop, on a thumb drive, or as an  email attachment, you can save all of your documents in Dropbox, where you can sync, share, and access your documents from anywhere using any device (laptop, desktop, smart phone, etc.).  There are two ways to access Dropbox, either through a client that you have to download or through a web browser (firefox, chrome, internet explorer, safari, etc.).  Watch the video for more information.  Dropbox is available for free (2 GBs of storage) or as a paid service (unlimited storage).

Accessing and uploading files through a web browser is easy!  Click on the “Files” tab, click on the box that says “Upload”, select your file, and there it is!

Although Dropbox is great for storage, it is also a tool for group essays or other collaborative projects because you can share the document with others, everyone can edit and re-edit, and previous versions of the document are always available (much like a wiki).  Sharing is easy too!  Click on the “Sharing” tab, click on “Share a Folder”, select what folder and add in recipient’s email.

Midterms are coming up and no doubt will you be turning in an essay fora t least one of your classes.  Always have your document available by using Dropbox.  Sync, share, and store with ease.

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