Jun
11
Pop singer Lady Gaga probably wouldn’t draw as much attention even with her outlandish skits if she went by her real name: Stefani Germanotta. (Did you know she got her stage name from the song “Radio Ga-Ga” by Queen)? There are lots of interesting facts about this celebrity. For instance, she attended NYU but dropped out. And her dad was an Internet entrepreneur. Among the shadier sides of her life included her cocaine habit. You can Google gaga (how about that alliteration)? and probably piece together these details from various Web sources. But how authoritative are these Web sites? A better option is to click on the library’s Biography Resource Center, key in Lady Gaga and you’ll instantly find biographies and recent articles from major publications including the New York Times, Entertainment Weekly, People Weekly, Variety and other reputable sources. Go ahead and see for yourself. The next time you need to find reliable information on people, turn to the Biography Resource Center. Now back to Lady Gaga. It seems like everyone wants to emulate this rising star—even librarians. Check out this spoof on one of Lady Gaga’s hit songs performed by academic librarians and faculty at the University of Washington: Librarians Do Gaga.
Jun
8
Pride and Prejudice, Princess Bride, Lord of the Rings, and West Side Story… what do these have in common? They all have been made into movies. Many people think that the movie can never be as good as the book. What do you think? Read the book, watch the movie, and then weigh in (on these books/movies and more):
–what version (book or film) do you like better?
–what makes the book or the film better?
Other books made into movies available at the library:
-Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
-All of William Shakespeare’s plays
-Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer
-Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
-West Side Story by Arthur Laurents
-Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
-Marley and Me by John Grogan
-Beloved by Toni Morrison
-Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling
-The King and I by Rogers and Hammerstein
-Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
-Into the Woods by Hudson Talbott
-Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
-The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks
-The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
-Antigone by Jean Anouilh
-Gone with the Wing by Margaret Mitchell
May
28
Summer solstice is not upon us yet (June 21st this year), but the campus has switched into full summer mode (including the library). Be sure to make note of our summer hours:
Regular Schedule
Monday – Thursday 08:15 am – 9:45 pm
Friday 08:15 am – 04:45 pm
Saturday Closed
Sunday 1:15pm – 9:45 pm
Interlude Schedule
Monday – Thursday 08:15 am – 09:45 pm
Friday 08:15 am – 04:45 pm
Saturday and Sunday Closed
See the Printable Version for the complete summer schedule, including holiday hours and information.
May
18
Congratulations to the class of 2010!
You are off on a fantastical journey! Along the way, if you need to do a bit of research, CLU offers two databases to alumni. Access the two databases using your CLU username and password. Links to the databases can be found on the CLU Alumni Benefits webpage.
Academic Search Alumni Edition: Multidisciplinary where you will find something on any topic. Lots of full-text articles from a variety of sources, including scholarly or peer reviewed journals.
Business Source Alumni Edition: The place to find business-related information. Includes full-text articles, and scholarly or peer-reviewed articles.
Have questions? Contact Alumni Relations or the Pearson Library.
May
7
Are you planning to spend some long hours at the Pearson Library during finals week? Look for the break station near the library entrance and grab a cup of coffee, tea or hot chocolate for a quick refresher. You are also free to consume your beverage at your favorite study station. For your convenience, the refreshments station will be available Saturday – Thursday until 9 pm. During Final Exams Week (May 10 – 12), the library will be open from 08:15 am – 12:45 am.
Credit: Microsoft Clip Art
May
4
Photo by Henri Mondschein
“Help!” “I need to find articles about Apple’s corporate initiatives and how these are impacting their organizational structure. I searched ‘Apple’ AND ‘initiatives’ AND ‘organizational structure’ but can’t get anything relevant!”
This is a common question (and moan!) from business students taking their first stab at analyzing a company. The short answer is that you probably won’t find much using broad keywords because “organizational structure” and “initiatives” are just too general. And it’s quite rare that you’ll find that perfect Harvard Business Review paper with a title like: “A Theoretical Synthesis of Apple Inc.’s Corporate Initiatives and their Impact on Organizational Structure.”
Company research requires a lot of “reading between the lines.” This means using your analytical skills to unearth specific examples of a company’s initiatives or actions that you would conclude might impact the company’s bottom line or corporate structure. For example, seek articles discussing new executive appointments. Is there a new VP of Marketing with big plans for revamping the company’s image? Did they create any new divisions? Are there company changes—in the case of Apple–new production plants, marketing initiatives with release of the wildly popular iPad now surpassing 1 million sales? Here is an example of such an article in Business Source Premier using “apple” (CO Company Entity field) AND keyword “appointment”:
Apple recruits key talent to lead drive into mobile ad sales.
Besides articles, the SWOT analyses in the Datamonitor company reports (found in Business Source Premier) are another good source for insight on a company’s organizational structure and direction.
–Henri Mondschein
mondsche@callutheran.edu
Apr
30
Texting tip:
Want to send yourself a little electronic reminder but don’t have a data plan? Send a text message to your email! Instead of typing in the number you want to send the text to, type in the email address, and the next time you check your email, you’ll be reminded of what you need to do, buy, or remember.
Apr
23
Are you looking for thorough sources for background research? Do you need to include current books in your upcoming term paper? Try the ebrary Academic Complete database, a growing collection of more than 47,000 e-book titles in all academic subject areas from major academic publishers.
You can find ebrary on our Information Sources page under Electronic Books.
Once you are at the ebrary Web site, click Sign In link (upper right corner). This will prompt you for your CLU user name and password. Once signed in, you can use the Bookshelf to save e-book titles for future reference.
Be sure to download the ebrary Reader, a plug-in that enables viewing and printing.
Any questions? Contact the Pearson Library Information Commons: 805-493-3255 or the Help Desk: 805-493-3698.
Apr
20
How often has this happened to you? You found the perfect article in one of the library’s databases and you try to share it with a classmate or add the link in your paper so your professor can quickly view the article. But what typically happens? The link goes dead after a day or so and a Page Not Found error appears.
The database vendors probably got lots of complaints about this so they came up with a solution called the “durable link” or “permalink.” It’s simply a link that will lead you back to the page where you can access the full-text of an article. (Of course, you will be prompted to sign in the CLU portal first). Try this link which should lead you to a ProQuest article about the Iceland volcano:
http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=2013330421&sid=1&Fmt=3&clientId=20964&RQT=309&VName=PQD
Now, try this durable link to an article in Academic Search Premier about volcanic eruptions and European climate changes:
https://ezproxy.callutheran.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=45427495&site=ehost-live&scope=site
If you click on these links in a week, they should still work! And don’t forget if the URLs are too long, just use your favorite URL shortener and the link still remains durable:
Apr
19
“As the number of your Facebook friends and apps you (and them) are using increases, your Facebook news feed and wall can turn into one big mess. It’s nice to communicate with your friends, but if you can’t find useful posts amidst all those silly apps or your real friends amongst all the unknown people you’ve befriended, it’s time to clean up your Facebook profile.”
Stan Schroeder at Mashable offers advice on how to clean up your Facebook profiles, including hiding items on your news feed, making friends lists, and changing app settings.