NASA Images

For me, few things are as breath taking as the photos from the Hubble Space Telescope, or some of the other images NASA has been able to capture over the years. To assist educators and to just make make armchair astronmers giddy, NASA has teamed up with Internet Archive to create the stie NASA Images. From their About page:

"NASA Images was created through a partnership between NASA and the Internet Archive, a non-profit digital library based in San Francisco, to bring public access to NASA's image, video, and audio collections in a single, searchable resource. The site contains everything from classic photos to educational programming and HD video, and is growing all the time as we continue to gain both new and archived media from all of NASA's centers. Through the development of nasaimages.org we hope to promote education and facilitate scholarship in the math and sciences at all levels, and to build general interest and excitement around space exploration, aeronautics, and astronomy."

The site allows you to browse through the videos and images by category (like the universe, aeronautics, or Earth). Or you can use the keyword search. The site also gives you the option to see materials based on a timeline. They date back to the 1950s, and NASA is adding new materials all the time.

Once you find your image or video, you can can share a link or embed it into your blog or web page. You also can also log into the site and create your own media groups or presentations. You can also browse through other people's media groups and presentations that they have made public.

Most of the images and materials on NASA Images are free from copyright, though the site asks you to attribute/cite the images correctly (which is just good manners).

EBSCO Adds Business Videos

EBSCO has added videos from the Harvard Business Faculty Seminar Series to its Business Source Complete database. Fifty-five videos have been added so far covering various topics related to business and economics. You can search through the video collection seperately, or video results may also appear in your normal search results. When you find a video relating to your topic, you can either watch the video with the link from the record, or you can read a PDF transcript of the lecture. The video also contains a table of contents which allows you to skip ahead to the specific spot of interest.

You can access Business Source Complete and the other online databases on our Library Databases A-Z page. If you have questions about the new videos or any of the other databases, you can always contact your friendly neighborhood librarian!

A Vision of Students Today

I don't think that I've blogged about this video yet, which is surprising. I stumbled across it a few months ago on the web. While not strictly library related, it does give some intriguing insight into just what college students are doing on a daily basis. It's a bit surreal how much things have changed for students in just the past five years or so! The world is not slowing down, so its anyone's best guess as to what students' lives might be like in another five years.

While these stats may not be true for all students, it is a beneficial insights for faculty, parents, other students, or anyone else that has contact with college students.

Language Help from the BBC

In my travels around the Internet, like many of us, I come across a lot of information. Usually, if they are pages that could be useful resources for patrons I add them to the library's Delicious page of web links, and from time to time I'll feature them here. Finding reliable information on the web is no easy task. Hopefully these services will make your lives a little less stressful.

The website I wanted to feature today is one that I found a few weeks back. On the BBC website, there is a languages feature. These resources are designed to help you learn a new language, or to brush up on language skills you may not have used in a while. Included are audio and video files, along with seperate 12 week course. The major languages like Spanish, Italian, French, and Chinese are all covered. But the site also includes are Polish, Irish, or Urdu, and "quick fixes" in 36 total languages.

While these will not be able to replace a language course or actually traveling abroad, but they should help you with a basic understanding of the language. You can find more foreign language resources on the library's Delicious site under the tag foreign_language.

Friday the 13th

Like black cats, walking under ladders, and stepping on cracks, Friday the 13th is among the ranks of some of the most unlucky events in American culture. But, ever wonder why this paticular date is so feared by some? Theories link the beginning of the tradition back to religious events like the crucifixion, or the betrayal of the Knight's Templer. Others suggest that it is the unlucky combination of an traditionally unlucky number (13) and the most unluckiest day of the week (friday). Though theories abound, no one can say for certain how the traditional was started. That fact is lost in the murkiness of folk traditions and old wive's tales.

While the strength of this superstition has diminished, some people still suffer from triskaidekaphobia (fear of the number 13) or  paraskevidekatriaphobia (fear of friday the 13th). How important is Friday the 13th to you? How many of you even realized that it was today's date?

For more information on Friday the 13th on the web check out

http://www.snopes.com/luck/friday13.asp
http://urbanlegends.about.com/cs/historical/a/friday_the_13th.htm




photo from:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/revilla/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Journal Finder

You may notice something new on the library's webpage today. We have upgraded our old Periodical Locator tool, and have replaced it with the Journal Finder. This new tool still has the same function of helping you find the full text of journal articles, it's just that now the set up is a little easier to use.  Journal Finder allows you to search by journal title, along with the journal's ISSN number and to browse by subject. You can also view all the journals that are full text in a specific database. Once you find the journal you're looking for, Journal Finder gives you the option to see which online databases contain the title, whether we have the journal in print form, or which neighboring libraries subscribe the the library. Plus, there is a link to the ILL form in case you need to fill out a request.

If you have any questions about using the new tool, don't be afraid to ask!

Extra, Extra

Sometimes you might have trouble finding resources dealing with current events topics. It might be too close to the event to find books, or even journal articles. If you are struggling, you might want to try one of our online databases that deal exclusively with newspaper articles.

Newsbank's American Newspapers covers regional and national newspapers. It's a good source if your topic is of local interest, or if you're studying a specific populations reaction to a topic. You can do a general search by topic, or narrow your search by specific region/state.

Newspaper Source Plus widens its scope to national and international news sources.

Newspapers can also be a good source for information on historical events, esepcially if you are concerned with how a topic or event was viewed during its original time period. The above sources only go back twenty years or so. But, we do have two newspaper databases that are more historical: New York Times (1851-2003) and HarpWeek (1857-1912). You may also want to try out our microform collection of local and national newspapers, some dating back to the Civil War.

Never used microform? Don't worry, your friendly neighborhood librarian will be happy to give you a demonstration.