Tradition!

Thanksgiving is all about tradition: lots of friends and family gathered around the festive table, American football games on television, the Macy's parade, school plays involving hats made of construction paper.

Reading through blog posts of years past, it turns out that without really meaning to, I've started my own little Thanksgiving tradition right here in the library. After the first few days of cool weather (whatever that means here in Florida!), my mind starts to turn to seasonal delights. Although I am known for being a total harridan about eating in the library, eating OUTSIDE the library is something I absolutely embrace. To that end, I always pull and display our collection of cookbooks and food-related titles. If you've never cooked, I've got books for you, and if you're an accomplished cook, you're covered also. Stop by and see what we've got!

As well, I also like to think about Thanksgivings long ago, so at this time of year I select books about the colonial period and early America as well as books about Native American life and culture. I inherited a very strong collection of titles for researching Native American subjects, but we also have a fine selection of fiction set among America's native peoples, whether in the past or present.

Finally, a much-loved Thanksgiving tradition is having a little time off to spend as one likes, such as . . . reading next to a cozy fire with a hot mug of something yummy on a lazy, chilly day! For those of you yearning for just such a moment, I have a great selection of current best-sellers and favorite titles to keep you happy over the long holiday weekend.

Stop by and check out the book display and take something home. Keep it till the next break, and then find something else or renew what you've got. (Letting overdue dates skate is also a favorite tradition - shhh, don't tell.)

It's not Band Book Week

It's Banned Book Week. Get it? Forbidden, not allowed, outlawed, prohibited.

Except not here, and you probably know that already. Instead, we're celebrated the freedom to read by placing a selection of books that have been banned on display so you can choose one for yourself and take it home and read it. This year the focus at our library is on works of recent fiction - in past years we have highlighted banned children's books, banned works now considered literary classics, or works that regularly appear on course lists.

Officially, the headquarters of Banned Book Week are highlighting graphic novels (what used to be called comic books.) Did you know we have a big collection of those too? Please come in and sample some forbidden fruit.

Privacy guaranteed. Celebrate your freedom to read this week!

Welcome!

If you're new to ODA, welcome. If you're returning to ODA, welcome back. Look over just to the right side of the portal screen and see all the glorious offerings the library has for you this year: a huge database of electronic articles, electronic books from a variety of sources, the good old library catalog full of books and DVDs, and a growing list of LibGuides to get you pointed in the right research direction. Need more? Remember the very most important rule in the library: Miss Mandel is never too busy to help you. Knock on my door, gaze pleadingly through my window glass, or send me a grammatically correct and well-punctuated email request to amandel@odathunder dot org.

The wild things are here

It's ten o'clock on a Thursday morning here in the Savidge-Bowers Library and we're being wished a happy spring by a pair of majestic cranes striding around on the quad. They got so close to the front door I thought they would invite themselves in, ask for a book or two and then use the copier to print off some homework. Florida is hot, humid and full of crazy drivers sometimes, but we do have experiences here you just can't find anywhere else!

Blinded by science?

Research is research. Science, art, music, English, history - you can research any and all of these, mostly with the same methods. The tools might change from subject to subject, but the approach is still the same. Sing along if you know the words:
1) Make a list of search terms
2) Use the terms to search high-quality databases such as EBSCO and Questia
3) Save books and articles into a folder
4) Read, take notes, and write
5) Create a bibliography of sources or Works Cited page

So, if you're struggling with that science essay, take heart! You don't have to paddle your canoe all over the vast ocean of the Internet - try a library database instead. You're a trained researcher now - apply those skills and win that prize!

A Tribe Called Questia

Congratulations! You've gotten past my blog post title (and apparently lived through the 90s if you got the joke.)

Further congrats on visiting the left side of the library's portal page if that's where you're reading this. Here on the left, we're the blog. Regular, if infrequent, posts from the library about books and library news; candid photos of the students and faculty - always with permission! - and links to stuff I think is good enough to merit taking the time to build one.

For the past two weeks I've been doing workshops on using the research tools at your disposal here at ODA. You already know Out-of-Door has a nice library, but did you know what kind of amazing electronic resources we have, right at your fingertips? We've got EBSCO Discovery Service, which bundles together all the databases to which we subscribe all in one neat package, rather like shopping at a single grocery store for all your needs instead of going to a bunch of little shops.

But it won't search Questia. Questia is a digital library of almost 80,000 books and millions of articles on every subject under the sun, perfect for the seeker of research in any discipline - history, literature, science, mathematics, and beyond. And no Questia book is ever "checked out," either - fifty of you could read the same one all at once. Furthermore, it allows you to save all those materials into a folder so you can keep them handy until you graduate. Finally . . . this is my big rock-star moment every year . . . Questia has a feature that will BUILD A WORKS CITED PAGE FOR YOU.

Dazzled? Of course. If it's just too much to take in all at once, you can visit me in my office for a demo or take a look at one of several short, helpful tutorial videos I've got posted on the library portal page as well. I'm making a new batch of Questia converts every day - you can research anything you want in there, from 20th century tennis champions to how to build a kayak to how the Great Wall of China was built. Go wild!