What You Need to Know: Part 2 (Fall 2009)

I just realized that I haven't said anything about what books I've read in the past couple weeks. So much for that habit.

The main reason for that is The Dumbest Generation, which I started and put down when I got within 100 pages of finishing. In case you're curious, this book discusses what feels like a couple thousand studies, all of which outline a pretty basic, simple fact: the people of my generation, the so-called Millennials, don't read. At all. And this will destroy our civilization. Cheerful.

I put it down before finishing because another book kept distracting me: the Selected Poems of Alfred Tennyson, Baron Tennyson. I usually call him Lord Alfred -- he's one of my favorite poets, along with a few others from that era, but I hadn't read his stuff in a long time, so I finally caved in and brought The Dumbest Generation back here so I could focus more fully on that. Absurd, really: I put down a book that was telling me that I don't read -- in order to pay more attention to a book of Victorian poetry.

Since then, I've gone through The Age of American Unreason, which is sort of similar to The Dumbest Generation, but instead of focusing only on my age group, Unreason examines some of the more disturbing trends in American society over the past few decades toward anti-intellectualism for a number of reasons, culminating -- and this isn't a political opinion, it's just what the book says -- in the last presidential administration. Really a fascinating book. Also Never Let Me Go, which reminds me a lot of Margaret Atwood's work -- which is a good thing if you liked The Handmaid's Tale, not so much if you didn't like Oryx & Crake. It's the gently-dystopian story of a trio of clones in Britain who were bred for organ donations and the ways in which their lives intertwine as they, both together and separately, slowly figure out what it means to be a human being in the face of a society seeking to deny them that knowledge. It's a beautifully-written story -- especially if you like the English countryside, which, in this book, appears to be less damp and more scenic. It also happens to be one of those books with a very ambiguous ending; it's up to you whether or not to feel a sense of closure. Terrific book.

Out of the above, only The Dumbest Generation and Never Let Me Go are on display. Selected Poems and American Unreason don't have very eye-catching covers, which happens to be one of my major criteria for deciding whether to put a book up on display. You can still find them easily, though -- just click on the linked titles above and that'll take you right to their records and call numbers.

Now that that's over with, back to more utilitarian considerations.

Last week, I took you through this blog's previous posts which could be classified as focusing mostly on the librarians, the collection, and our equipment and important resources, as well as a kinda-sorta FAQ. This week, we'll be looking at directly research-related posts -- if you're wondering about how to get started on your research here at the Library, this is where you should start -- and the Questions of the Week by category.

First up: Finding Journal Articles
Part 1 | Part 2
This pair of posts details the process of finding journal articles in our databases. Part 1 gives a general overview of how to find journals in ALADIN and what most of the terms mean, as well as good general advice for starting your research from a broader standpoint (when you know the topic but not the specific articles you want to find). Part 2 gets even more specific, starting with a sample citation and explaining exactly how to find the article it belongs to.

Databases
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

This series of posts is considerably more comprehensive. Part 1 discusses how to access databases from off-campus, which can be a sticking point for people who are not used to having to log in to see an article. After this point, the general idea is to familiarize you with the hows and whys of databases -- Part 2 covers how our access works (and explaining why it may seem to be funky from time to time), Part 3 is about why our access works the way it does and how much databases cost in general, and Part 4 includes a preview of new stuff we may be getting in the coming months.

Questions of the Week
Bear in mind: all Questions of the Week (or as we refer to them around here in our e-mail missives, QotWs) appear at the bottom of the linked posts. I've split up all the QotWs into four rough categories, as follows:

Library building
What's up with the recent construction around the Library? (July 31, 2009)
Why is the big skylight in the middle of the first floor blocked by sails? (June 12, 2009)
Where can I plug in my laptop or charge my phone? (June 5, 2009)
Does the Library own the entire building? (May 22, 2009)

Library system and policies
How does a new student get into the system? (July 24, 2009)
Why do the Library hours change? (May 15, 2009)
How do the shelves behind the Service Desk work? (March 27, 2009)
What is the Consortium? (March 13, 2009)

Library collection
How does the Library make room for all the new books? (June 19, 2009)
How do I get the Library to buy a book I'd really like to read? (April 17, 2009)
What are "microforms" and how do I use them? (April 3, 2009)

Searching
How do I search for a movie in ALADIN without having to wade through a long list of books? (May 1, 2009)
How do call numbers work? (April 24, 2009)
Why can't I find what I'm looking for? (April 9, 2009)
What does 'peer-reviewed' mean? (March 6, 2009)

Alternatively, you can click on the 'qotw' label in the sidebar to the right to see all 15 of them in one go.

Since there are 15 Questions of the Week in this post alone, I'll give you a break and forgo it this week. I also mentioned last week the possibility of comparing our plans for the summer from back in May with what's actually happened, but we'll put it off until next week -- this post is quite long enough already, thanks to my bookish babbling up top.

I'm off to watch the Nationals play Arizona (I would have said "lose to," but my boss is a Nats fan, so ... ). Enjoy your weekend ... if it doesn't rain too much!

What You Need to Know: Part 1 (Fall 2009)

I looked at my travel coffee mug this morning and noticed the surface rippling slightly, like in the movies when something big is coming towards the main character. The first thing they notice is a conveniently-placed container of liquid that suddenly begins to quiver, and by then it's too late.

I think it's a few thousand feet marching toward Gallaudet. It's Fall, and it's coming.

In that spirit, here's the first post of What You Need to Know. For the first couple of weeks, I'll be collecting all the previous posts and categorizing them according to what's in them -- librarian profiles, research tips, available resources. You'll see some of the same posts under different headings; that's partly because I do try to pack a lot of information into a single week. The Questions of the Week are also to blame, because they usually cover different topics from the main posts; these will be organized separately next week.

Once that's done, I'll move on to more focused posts for the new Gallaudet students, as well as clarifying what exactly has changed over the summer in preparation for the Fall semester.

First things first: The first post, which clarifies exactly what this blog's purpose is and why you should be reading it. This also serves as a good introduction to me in particular. Another good way to get an idea of what goes on in my life as a Gallaudet librarian is to read this sort-of-FAQ post.

The Librarians
Jane Rutherford
Management of Information Systems, Computer Science, Education, Educational Foundations and Research, Administration and Supervision, Family and Child Studies

Diana Gates
The entire Deaf collection

Patrick Oberholtzer
Government & History, PE & Recreation, Business, Economics and Finance, Accounting, Biology, Foreign Languages, Literatures & Cultures, Chemistry & Physics

Laura Jacobi
Reference, Social Work, Psychology, Sociology, Communication Studies, Counseling

Our Collection
March Movies
Albeit a tad outdated -- we've gotten many more movies since March -- this should give you some idea of what kind of films we have to offer. We also welcome donations, by the way!

Book Recommendations
Stuff our librarians like. We're an exceptionally well-read bunch, so when we recommend something, you know it's good!

Graphic Novels
A discussion of graphic novels in general; some of ours are highlighted. We've also gotten quite a few more, which I will be updating you on soon. I promise. Just as soon as the Library quits having so much stuff to write about.

Summer Reading
MORE librarian recommendations. I told you we read a lot. These books were pushed as good for summer reading, but honestly, they're also good in the fall. Also the winter. And, I believe, the spring. In fact, let's just call them all-around good reading all year long.

New Book Cart Day
This will probably become a regular feature -- we get cartloads of new books in, you get to find out what's on them and assume your positions so you can snap them up once they're on the shelf. This represents the last cartload of popular fiction that arrived for this year, but we do have a healthy stream of donations coming in, so keep your eyes peeled until we start the new year and begin buying books again.

Deaf Memories
This post details how the most popular parts of the Deaf Collection work, including Deaf School Yearbooks and Periodicals. It's all located on the first floor of the Library.

Equipment/Important Resources
A Comprehensive Overview
I'm not kidding when I say "comprehensive." This post covers all the equipment we have, from TVs to microform readers to magnifiers for people with visual impairments. If you need some kind of doohickey and you think the Library might have it for you to use, check this post.

Behind the Scenes
Go inside the belly of the beast. What are we hiding behind that big old desk? Read this post and find out!

Our New Web Site
A quick overview of our Web site, which was redesigned in May.

That should be enough for this week. Next week will be a collection of posts discussing research at the Gallaudet Library and the Questions of the Week, organized by category. If there's room (which I doubt), we'll also compare this coming-previews post from May to how things are looking here, at the other side of the summer.

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Question of the Week
What's going on with all the construction around the Library? My friends and I noticed it the other week and were trying to figure it out.
It's actually less construction and more maintenance. You may have noticed that the Library has a few skylights at ground level. While they definitely add a nice aesthetic touch to campus and add a lot of natural light to the Library, there are also some practical considerations involved. As with any other architectural element made of glass, the panes need to be cleaned and re-sealed every few years. Also, the skylights have brick abutments to protect the glass from the elements, which means the bricks themselves are vulnerable to cracking or chipping. Because of this, we also replace any damaged bricks while working on the skylights, killing two birds with one stone and incidentally keeping things nice and fresh-looking in the process!

Meet Laura Jacobi

Without much preamble, we're going to meet Laura Jacobi today. Laura is actually kind of a bigwig. Her official title is Manager of Instruction & Reference Services, which means she's my supervisor. Bureaucratic considerations aside, though, she's also a hard-working librarian like Jane, Diana, and Patrick, someone who has to be quick on her feet and with her wits. She's also spent some time in prison and may, in fact, be an extraterrestrial. Read on to find out more!

1) Where are you from, anyway?
My heart is in the Klaatu Nebula, but I'm also a proud daughter of the Garden State (Exit 135 on the Parkway). I now live in Takoma Park, aka Berkeley East. I occasionally see other Gallaudet faculty and staff members as we get our exercise in Sligo Creek Park.

2) How did you get here?
Usually by car (ask me anything about the Jersey Turnpike) or Amtrak. I came to attend what was then called Trinity College, hung around to work here, went to graduate school at Catholic U, and married a local guy. I thought I'd work for a business, but instead started out as a children's librarian. I worked for many years in a variety of jobs in a variety of branches of the Prince George's County public library. I also worked for Prince George's Community College. My other jobs have included: clerk, dictation typist (ask your grandparents what a typewriter is), and -- very briefly -- maximum security prison librarian. Anyhow, eventually it was time for a new challenge, and I certainly found it here!

3) How long have you worked here, and can you give me an idea of some of the more interesting things you've seen in your tenure at Gallaudet?
I've been here since 1993. The biggest change is that the Internet has become so absolutely an essential part of our lives. As a librarian, I think it's fun to find (not search for) information, and the web has expanded our ability to find stuff easily, far beyond anything I ever imagined. Technology for deaf people has changed too -- I used to think ttys were high tech. It’s always neat to see students start out as freshman, advance to senior year, march in their caps and gowns, and come back as grad students or with their spouses and children. And of course it's been very interesting to watch Gallaudet politics over the years.

4) I don't think a lot of people know that the librarians here at Gallaudet tend to specialize in specific subjects. What are your specialties?
A cool part of my job is deciding which books, journals, and online sources to buy for my specialties -- Reference and “Human Relations.” Reference books are designed to be used to find specific information very quickly. Now people usually prefer web resources to books for quick information, so we buy lots of online reference sources. They’re available in the ALADIN computer system. “Human Relations” refers to the disciplines of Communication Studies, Counseling, Psychology, Social Work, and Sociology. I pick books, journals, and databases for them too. And until you came along, I used to have the fun of selecting pleasure reading and viewing books and videos – I miss that! I regularly ask the faculty in my disciplines to tell me what I should buy, and I like to get suggestions from students too.

5) What can you do for students or faculty in these fields?
First, I try to make sure we have what students and faculty need before they even know they need it. Also, we have cool new software called “LibGuides,” and I’m writing some guides on different subjects and, I hope, for specific courses – faculty and student suggestions are welcome! I can go to classes or do workshops in the Library to help students research particular topics, and anyone can make an appointment to work with me in private without interruptions.

6) Can you list some of the resources that you use the most in working with students and faculty? Why are they good resources to use?
This is a hard question, because ALADIN has 60+ databases. I particularly like ERIC and PsycINFO, which are two education and psychology databases, because you can use their built-in thesauri to do very specific searches for very complex topics. One example might be: How can I find quantitative research reports on psychological services for disadvantaged minority deaf-blind people? Another nifty database, mostly created by former Gallaudet librarian Tom Harrington, is the Gallaudet University Library Guide to Deaf Biographies. Have there ever been any deaf totem pole carvers? That’s the place to find out.

7) What do you like the most about working here?
Wow, I have a long list! I work with some really smart librarians who know a lot more than I do and like to share information too. I love it when my help transforms a student from confused or frustrated to satisfied and confident. I never know what people are going to ask next. And they’re going to ask it in sign language! (I learned to sign pretty late in life, and it’s still a thrill to understand and be understood.) Because we’re a fairly small library, I do a lot of different things -- checking out books, making schedules, learning new databases, trying to figure out how to explain complex things simply –- so there’s always something fun or challenging to do. And I get to learn for a living.

8) There's been some talk about a new library building in the works over the next few years. What's the one thing you'd most like to see included in the new one?
Long before I decided to become a librarian, I always loved the feeling of walking into a library – a spacious, serene place full of things to be discovered, and they were there for me. Whatever the physical space is like, as long as the space and staff inspire that feeling in students, it will be all right.

9) Last question, I promise: What's your favorite color?
Blue, but then there’s green, and they’re best in contrast to red and yellow …

Good grief. That finishes off all the librarians in the public eye (including me). There are actually a few others on staff, but they're kind of more behind the scenes, and although they will be profiled later, I ... I feel like I've been collecting trading cards or collectibles and just finished the set. What am I going to do now?

This has plunged me into a funk. Just ... read the Question of the Week and I'll see you next week, when we start on a series of What Arriving Students Need to Know ...

Sigh.

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Question of the Week
I'm a new freshman and I just arrived for Jump Start. I went to the Library and asked the person behind the Desk how I could start checking out books and movies, but they said I wasn't in the system yet. Why not? How does the Library get me into the system?
Through the Registrar's Office. Our system only allows students at all levels (undergraduate, graduate, doctoral) to check out items from the Library if they're registered for the current semester, and this is accomplished by an injection of student data from the Registrar every few days. It takes a little bit of time (especially during the crunch that happens before the Fall semester begins), but both the Library and the Registrar do everything we can to get everyone who should be in the system into the system as soon as possible. If you are registered for the current term, but that information isn't showing on your record, let us know about the problem and we'll do our best to find out where the hangup is and fix it.

In the meantime, you are more than welcome to pull books or magazines (Vogue,The Amazing Spider-Man, Hot Rod, whatever) from the shelves and hang out in the Library to read and relax. You can also check out DVDs and videotapes for up to 2 hours in exchange for a photo ID and watch them in the Library -- we have tons of TVs, VCRs, and DVD players. My personal recommendation is room 1220, the Deaf Library Study Center; you can either use the 55-inch flat-panel through the computer that's hooked up to it, or one of the wall-mounted TV/DVD/VCR booths. There are comfortable chairs in there that you can pull up to one of the booths and lounge in with snacks and a refreshing beverage. The only stipulation is that the stuff you're looking at isn't allowed to leave the building. Otherwise, feel free to make yourself at home (so to speak).

Databases, part 4: What's next

I may as well go ahead and make a habit of it. Here goes:

What did Jim the Librarian read this week?
I read The Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England by Brock Clarke. I've been hoping for a chance to really read through it since it arrived but it wasn't available for checkout until recently. Even librarians can get beaten to the punch by enthusiastic readers. Anyway, it's about this guy who accidentally burns Emily Dickinson's house to the ground -- with two people in it. He gets sent to prison for ten years, where he befriends a very strange group of bond analysts, and when he gets out, he goes off to college, where he meets a woman and marries her and has a couple of children with her ... all without telling her about his sordid past. It's when the truth comes out at last that everything goes all fruity and our bumbling, possibly slightly-sociopathic protagonist stumbles across secret after secret and ends up back in a place he thought he'd never see again. All along the way is this hilarious trip through literature: he meets a man whose brother has a flaming hatred for a writer who wrote only one book, a professor who thinks Mark Twain is a -- ahem -- feminine apparatus, a hideously masculine New England Writer and the real New England Men who hate him, and the general absurdity of the memoir craze of recent years. It's literary satire, and extremely well-done at that.

Once again, it's on the display table by the entrance facing the JSAC if anyone would like to check it out. I highly, highly recommend it.

Okay. Enough of my gushing. On with the show.

For the past few weeks, we've been discussing various aspects of life with databases: how to get in from off-campus, why you'll see such a wide variation in database access through our Library, and the reasons for limiting access and the costs thereof. Today, we're going to get away from all that and take a look at the wishlist we librarians have in mind for our next few electronic acquisitions.

We'll cover databases first, and then move on to individual journals -- many of which have ended up on the list by faculty or staff request. We always welcome feedback and more requests, incidentally; feel free to comment on this post or get in touch with one of us if you want to suggest possible new acquisitions.

Databases
Gale Literature Resource Center (LRC)
This is our number-one priority at the moment -- as soon as funds are available, we'll be snapping this up. It's also the one I'm most excited about at the moment. It's basically a huge repository of literary analysis and criticism on nearly everything from Stephen King to Ernest Hemingway. Super-useful for those required English classes and full of good reading if you're a literature nerd like me. This will also enable us to get rid of some print subscriptions, freeing up shelf space and budgetary room for other things.

Counseling and Therapy in Video
Currently containing close to 300 videos about social work, psychotherapy, and psychiatric counseling, this is a pretty unusual resource for us. And yes, before you ask: each video is accompanied with a synchronized transcript that will follow along with the video, highlighting what's being spoken and allowing you to skip to various points in the video by clicking on the section of the transcript you want to watch.

CountryWatch
A database of country-specific data and other types of information that strives to remain as up to date on the country of your choice as possible. Good for courses in the following programs: Business, Communication Studies, Foreign Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, Government, History, and Sociology.

Philosopher's Index
Indexes philosophical books, articles, contributions to anthologies, and anthologies themselves. Good for courses in the following programs: Business, Foreign Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, Government, and History.

Global Issues in Context
Essentially, a database of issues and linked resources that help explain the background of those issues, such as child slavery -- in which countries is this practice prevalent? What's the history behind it? What global organizations are working to stop it? Good for courses in pretty much every program.

JSTOR Africa Collection
An expansion of our JSTOR access, this will let us into their extensive coverage of the African countries and historical academic coverage. Good for courses in: Business, History, Foreign Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, Government, Sociology.

E-Journals
Career development for exceptional individuals
Communication disorders quarterly
Focus on autism and other developmental disorders
Human factors
International social work
Intervention in school and clinic
Journal of disability policy studies
Journal of early intervention
Journal of emotional and behavioral disorders
Journal of English linguistics
Journal of learning disabilities
Journal of positive behavior interventions
Journal of social work (JSW)
Journal of social work in disability and rehabilitation
Journal of special education
Language and speech
Neurology
Qualitative social work
Rehabilitation counseling bulletin
Remedial and special education
Topics in early childhood special education
Translation and Interpreting Studies

Other than the LRC, none of the items listed here have been prioritized in any way; although we do have some preferences for which items to get first, this is just our basic shopping list for the next few months after we've sacrificed a few virgins to appease our budget.

Okay. This completely and totally wraps up our database series. Next week will be our last librarian profile for a while, and then we'll move on to the back-to-school collections of super-important posts for new and returning students.

Enjoy your weekend!

Databases, part 3: The bottom line

I'm learning to really like three-day weekends.

That's mostly because I had time to finish up Cormac McCarthy's The Road and think about it afterwards. It's the story of a man and his son in a postapocalyptic America; an unexplained disaster has wiped out pretty much every living thing on the continent, except for the people who were lucky enough to be sheltered. The weather has devolved into endless winter and the land to an ashy grey. The man and boy embark on a long journey south along a highway (the eponymous road) in search of warmer, friendlier climes, and encounter some truly disturbing things along the way. It's less science fiction and more fable, a look at human nature in a state of constant privation. This is the guy who wrote No Country for Old Men, and if you've seen the movie, this book probably won't surprise you much. If you're into mindless books with happy endings, I'd avoid this one; otherwise, it's utterly absorbing. I put it on the display table by the East entrance (facing JSAC) if anyone else wants to pick it up.

I seem to be making a habit of mentioning Library books that I've read over the past week. Truly, the Library's a great place to spend time if you're a book addict. Fortunately, I'm not greedy; I'll put any books I've read up on display if any of them catches anyone's interest.

Back to what I'm really supposed to be writing about: databases.

Among all the questions we've gotten about database access over the past few years, there's an ongoing undercurrent of curiosity about why we limit access to Gallaudet students, staff, and faculty. I've already explained most of it by boiling down all the various kinds of subscriptions available to two basic types, but so far I haven't explained why we have to pay for access to knowledge. It wants to be free, right? Not exactly ...

Time to boil the issue down some more: we usually have to pay for access chiefly because of copyright. It's like paying for a DVD: when you buy a movie, you aren't actually paying for the movie itself. You're paying for the right to watch it. The same concept applies to all of our subscriptions. The issue of copyright ensures that the people who did all the work get paid for their efforts, and also means that we have to negotiate licenses with all of the indexes and publishers we use to gain access. Those licenses outline what rights we have to look at their material and use it for academic purposes, as well as the cost of doing so.

And here we arrive at the bottom line: how much do databases cost, anyway? The answer is that it all depends on the pricing structure negotiated upon in the license that allows us access to a particular database. Here are a few different ways we can pay for access:

• Pay per view: This is pretty elastic -- it can change from year to year based on how much use the database gets. Usually, we pay based on how many articles were downloaded in the database over the course of a year. It's also the kind of plan we use with ScienceDirect, which I explained last week. This can be pretty cost-effective, especially for databases that aren't used quite as much as the two biggies, ProQuest Research Library and Ebscohost Academic Search Premier.
  
• Pay per user: This is generally based on how many full-time students are enrolled in a given year, among other statistics -- this way, we pay for everyone who could use the database. This also changes from year to year as the student population varies, but is less elastic than pay-per-view plans. Pay-per-user is a good kind of plan for the most heavily-used databases because it lets us pay for everyone's rights to the material without actually paying for the sheer amount of material itself, which can be intimidatingly mountainous.
  
• Flat rate: More or less self-explanatory. The price can only vary in one of two ways: if we decide we want to change how much access we have to the database, or if the vendor decides to raise the price, which can happen when they add more material to the database. One usually sees this sort of pricing with more specialized databases; either it will not see enough traffic to charge per view, or it will appeal to such a small percentage of the student population that charging based on total full-time enrollment will be unrealistically expensive.

Generally speaking, though, regardless of whatever payment plan is set up, a good database will run into the thousands of dollars per year. The biggest and best, like ProQuest, can get up into the tens of thousands.

This is the point at which I usually have to scrape people's jaws off the pavement. Yes, databases are very expensive. No, it doesn't bother us. It's what we're here for. And yes, we do, in fact, freely provide them to Gallaudet students, staff and faculty -- it's all funded at least in part by student tuition. It's also one very important way in which Gallaudet continues to be as academically competitive as possible. Trying to do research without this kind of access would be like watching a single fifth-season episode of Lost and trying to understand the entire show based on that one hour and a few old TV Guides.

Besides, when the math is done, databases are terrific bargains on general principle, because they allow us to get you access to just over 36,000 electronic publications, and that number grows a little bit every year. I've used this word before, but that's an astronomical number! We always do our best to budget for annual subscriptions and even manage to find room in our funds to hunt for new ones to try.

So what new electronic subscriptions might we get over the next few months? Hold on to your seats -- that's next week. After that, we'll have another librarian profile, and then we'll start a back-to-school series that'll collect some older posts and add in a little more of "What You Need To Know ... " for students both new and returning.

Databases, part 2: How subscriptions work

There's nothing like the feeling one gets after digesting a six-hundred-page monster book. I just finished up Brothers by Yu Hua (which I originally recommended here), and it really is a fantastic book -- plenty of dirty humor mixed up with trenchant commentary about Chinese culture and a sort of unflinching confrontation of some of the nastier aspects of revolution. It's a big book, but doesn't read like one at all; you don't find yourself counting how many pages you have left before it's over. That's the sign of a good read.

Just thought I'd sneak that in before continuing with our topic for the week, to show that I do read the stuff I recommend and enjoy it! It's on the display table by the entrance facing the SAC for anyone who might want to pick it up.

Anyway, last week, we talked about accessing databases off-campus. Some have asked me about finding journal articles, which I've already covered here, and others became curious about databases in general after reading last week's post, so today we'll talk a little bit about how our electronic subscriptions work. These days, most of the newer non-deaf-related subscriptions coming into the Gallaudet University Library are online-only, and we're working on cutting down on our print issues, so electronic subscriptions are becoming more and more important.

The word "database" is, to use an example I've used before, a lot like the word "fruit" -- apples and oranges are two different kinds of fruit, and very roughly speaking, we have access to two different kinds of databases:

• A publisher: We can subscribe directly to individual journals or to a group of them from a single publisher. The Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education is a good example of this; it's published by the Oxford University Press, an academic publisher. They have dozens of journals, but we only actually subscribe to that one. Haworth Press is an example of the opposite -- we subscribe to 27 journals from them, including the Journal of Social Service Research and Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly, a useful resource for college students if I ever heard of one!
  
• An index: ProQuest Research Library and Ebscohost Academic Search Premier are two examples of an index. They don't actually publish any journals -- they just basically collect information about them. However, a lot of times, they can strike up deals with the publishers of those journals for full-text access, which they can then turn around and provide to their subscribers. We get the vast majority of our electronic journals through indexes like ProQuest (6,761 listed journals), Ebscohost (5,924), and LexisNexis (11,029!).
  

One thing that's important to understand, though, is that although we do have a huge number of journal subscriptions, we don't necessarily have full-text access to all of them. Sometimes, access may be determined by the index's deal with a particular publisher. Other times, access may be determined through various kinds of subscription plans, which can boil down to:

• Partial access: The terms for this kind of subscription varies, but our current partial-access subscriptions involve abstract-only for students and faculty, with full-text available on request. Under this plan, we get to pay for each individual full-text article downloaded, which is more cost-effective than paying for the whole shebang. We use this plan for the ScienceDirect index, for example.
  
• Full-text access: ... when it's available, that is. Sometimes publishers will allow one index to provide access only to abstracts, while making the full text available to another one in order to reach as many scholars as possible. Other times, full-text access can vary even within a single journal for many different reasons, ranging from simply not having had time yet to fully digitize older issues to the publisher's deal with the index in question.
  

Most databases offer a range of options that fit what I've outlined here, with endless variations that I won't go into here. Our decisions about what kind of subscription to get for a particular online journal or database depend on a number of factors: Are students and faculty requesting journals from this database? Are there enough people using it? Does this database have enough potentially useful journals to justify getting a subscription at all?

With a brand-new database, we'll usually give it a shot for one year. If enough people use it, we'll try to keep it or expand access, depending on our budget constraints. If the cost can't be justified, then we won't keep it.

So what kind of costs are involved? Well ... that's another post. Next week's, in fact. We will also not be doing Questions of the Week until our little series on databases comes to a conclusion, which will occur the week of July 17th with a blockbuster post detailing the new databases we're getting for the Fall semester! There'll be explosions and stuff. I promise.

Okay. See you next week. Enjoy your July 4th weekend! Just remember: allow yourself enough time to get away before the fuse runs out.

Databases, part 1: How to get in from off-campus

I recently got a question about access to our databases, especially off-campus, so let's talk about that a little bit today.

See, every once in a while (but especially during summer and semester breaks), a student or faculty/staff member will be off campus and decide that they need an article from, let's say, the Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education. They go to our Web site, library.gallaudet.edu, and click on the "ALADIN" link in the heading of the "Shortcuts to ALADIN" box.

Suddenly, they see something unexpected:

They're taken by surprise because they haven't seen this screen before, so they hit the Meebo Library chat widget on our home page, asking if they've done something wrong or if we've changed anything. The answer to both questions is "No." Generally speaking, the reason for this reaction is just that they've only ever used the Library's online resources while on campus. Off campus, though, is a different story.

There are a lot of reasons for this, which I'll explain in later posts (sorry, I'm feeling too Fridayish to get technical), but the main one is just that our contracts with the people who own our research databases require that we limit those databases to Gallaudet people only. When you're on campus, the system automatically knows you're okay because you're using a Gallaudet connection, so it lets you in seamlessly. When you're off-campus, though, the system has no idea who you are, so you have to tell it.

And that's why we have the login screen. Just enter your last name, your ID number or your Library barcode, and pick "Gallaudet" from the Institution: drop-down menu. If you don't know your ID number and don't have a Library barcode (shame on you -- get over here and ask for one), you can log on to Bison, go into "Self Service" in the sidebar on the left-hand side, click on "Personal Information," then "Personal Information Summary." You'll see your ID number on the very first line under the big blue "Personal Information" header.

Anyway, once you've logged in, you're basically as good as gold. It all proceeds just like it would if you were on campus.

Short post today, and it's basically one big Question of the Week, so we'll skip that. Also, since we're closed next Friday for Independence Day weekend, next week's post will be up on Thursday. Have a good weekend!

Meet Patrick Oberholtzer

This week, you're going to get to meet Patrick Oberholtzer. Patrick handles one of the largest -- and most varied -- groups of subject areas here in the Library, and he pulls it off extremely well. He doesn't mention it here, but he's also a big fan of American history and is definitely an outdoorsy type. He's also fairly laconic, so consider this a rare opportunity to get to know Patrick!

1) Where are you from, anyway?
I was born in Tucson, Arizona, but grew up in Whittier, California (that’s a suburb of L.A.) and Richmond, Indiana.

2) How did you get here?
Believe it or not, the first place I heard about Gallaudet was in a film I saw at Disneyland! I was working up in Ithaca, New York when I saw the advertisement in American Libraries for my job, and thought that Gallaudet would be an interesting place to work. I had already learned a little sign from a deaf person when I worked in Georgia.

3) How long have you worked here, and can you give me an idea of some of the more interesting things you've seen in your tenure at Gallaudet?
I’ve worked here for almost exactly 19 years. I think the single most interesting thing has been having the ability to make information instantaneously available! It has changed libraries and really our society—how we live. For example, we have the world’s largest collection of materials on deafness, but to see much of that material you once had to travel to the Gallaudet Library in person. Some of that information is now online and more is being added every day!

4) I don't think a lot of people know that the librarians here at Gallaudet tend to specialize in specific subjects. What are your specialties?
In a way, that is a hard question to answer because everything in the library world is constantly changing. I select books and DVDs in a variety of subjects such as Government & History, PE and Recreation, Business and Economics, Biology, and Foreign Languages. Last year I selected over 500 individual titles for the Gallaudet Library.

I guess one of my specialties is knowing what materials our library has in as many areas as possible. Why? Because the better I know the collection, the better I can help students with their research! Knowing what we have physically in the building is only part of the story. A lot of the library world is electronic – it’s online, and I have a lot of knowledge about which ALADIN databases are good for a particular subject and how to search them. I also am constantly keeping up to date with our databases and the kinds of information found in them.

In addition, I (actually all of our staff) know a lot about the history of deaf people, deaf culture and the history of Gallaudet University. I, well, again, really, we, keep educating ourselves about these topics, as students ask about them a lot.

5) What can you do for students or faculty in these fields?
Students can make an appointment with me if they need help with research. When I meet with a student, we sometimes discuss the topic, or if the instructor has provided a choice of topics, I can assist the student in choosing one—particularly if there is a deadline coming up fast and the student needs to get going.

Librarians can save students a lot of time. Sometimes a student will be really frustrated with a topic and come to see me. I’ll see the topic is a good one, but the student just needs to refine the search strategy a bit -- find the appropriate words, terms or phrases. Some databases use special vocabulary, and sometimes you have to know the right words.

An example: say you want to find cook books. You search in the ALADIN Catalog for "cook books" and you get a whole bunch of hits and a lot of them are not what you want. The word you should use is "cookery." Each of the databases are a little bit different, and knowing a bit about how they are put together and can be searched can be a big help.

At present, our Library has over 50 databases and subscribes to over 10,000 electronic journals, and that can be overwhelming and intimidating for students. I can help students navigate this and make it seem much less like a minefield.

I can help faculty by making sure the Library has materials that will support the curriculum. Sometimes faculty will send me potential research topics for a class they are going to be teaching and I’ll try to purchase books that will enhance what they are trying to accomplish. Also, I’ll consult our databases and figure out which ones are best suited for the topics covered in the class. For example, this past year I worked with a faculty member involved with the Costa Rica program. She requested some books and DVDs, and I also recommended some items, and we added all of that to the collection. We have been building the collection in African studies in a similar manner. Collaborating with faculty is a great way to help our students succeed!

6) Can you list some of the resources that you use the most in working with students and faculty? Why are they good resources to use?
I like to work with the database America: History and Life because it is really the source for finding journal articles on U.S. history topics.

I tend to use ProQuest Biology Journals for biology, JSTOR and America: History and Life for history, and LexisNexis for business stuff. They index full text, high quality journals that are great sources of information. Google, and specifically Google Scholar, are useful tools that I consult if I am having trouble identifying something or am trying to track something down.

For topics related to deafness, the Gallaudet University Library has produced two must-have databases that are found nowhere else on Earth: Index to Deaf Periodicals and Guide to Deaf Biographies. They are invaluable! I can’t imagine a student leaving Gallaudet without knowing about them. A lot of information about deaf people and the deaf community, written by deaf people, was not indexed anywhere. The Gallaudet Library stepped in years ago.

Finally, the ALADIN Catalog is such an invaluable tool! It not only tells what we have in our collection, but also the collections of the Washington Research Library Consortium (WRLC) libraries. That’s millions of books on just about every topic. You can research and find information on just about anything.

7) What do you like the most about working here?
Every day is different!

8) There's been some talk about a new library building in the works over the next few years. What's the one thing you'd most like to see included in the new facility?
Better lighting!

9) Last question, I promise: What's your favorite color?
Grey, no, blue!

... and that's Mr. Patrick Oberholtzer. One thing I found interesting about Patrick's response to the last question -- and this is why I ask -- is that blue and grey were the colors of the uniforms on both sides of the American Civil War. It's just one of those interesting connections I find between unrelated things, and is certainly fitting for such a history buff!

Okay, that about wraps it up for this week. Enjoy your (hopefully dry) weekend!

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Question of the Week
My friend and I were talking about the Library's new books the other day and we realized that we didn't know what happens to old books when new ones arrive. Is there really space in the Library for all these new books?
At the moment, yes. That will change as time goes on, however. This is true for all libraries -- sometimes you just run out of space. There are a number of ways to address this, but a good temporary measure is to do what we call "weeding." This is Librarianese for "getting rid of old and/or useless books."

Every once in a while, a librarian will look at his or her part of the collection and decide it's time to do a little cleaning up. Books that are falling apart and don't contribute anything to the collection -- either because they're outdated or because there are other books on the same subject -- tend to go first, and then after that point, it can turn into a complex decision for each book, depending on its utility, general condition, and whether or not students have been using it often or recently.

We also weed according to the curriculum. For example, we don't have any graduate programs in hard sciences like chemistry, biology, or physics, which can often require that we maintain a large body of historical knowledge about the field. As such, many older books espousing outdated scientific theories or principles end up being weeded. Or whole programs disappear as the winds of change blow through Gallaudet, as in the case of the Library Science program (believe it or not!), which closed at least 20 years ago. Most of the materials related to library science have left the collection; they serve no appreciable purpose for students anymore and simply aren't checked out.

The same is true for other programs that are still around, though. For instance, I came across a book full of "duplicator masters" for teaching reading in specific subject areas. What in the world was a "duplicator"? I had no idea, but wondered why I didn't get to have one ... until I opened the book and saw what was in it: white sheets printed with thick purple stuff on the back of each sheet, alternating with brown paper. Each sheet of brown paper bore the dark-purple imprint of the white sheet in front of it, and I realized that this was for making ditto papers! I haven't seen a ditto paper in almost exactly 15 years. There were a lot of other workbooks on the shelf covering the same topic, and nobody had checked this one out since 1998. You can guess what I decided to do with that book.

On the other hand, I also found a little educational primer from 1897, full of neat lessons on American literature up until that time. 112 years out of date, yes, but now its value has become historical -- it could be useful for education, history, or English majors, and I saw it had been checked out a couple of years ago. It was also very small and thin, so it had very little impact on shelf space, so there was no reason I could find to throw it out. One of the biggest rewards of a library like Gallaudet's: the unique and occasionally very surprising things you come across deep in the stacks.

So once the decision has been made to remove a book from the collection, what happens next? The book passes out of my hands and goes to Technical Services, who have their own decisions to make about what to do with it. Once it's out of my collection, I can go back to finding new things for Gallaudet students and faculty to use, and the cycle continues.

searching for residential-school memories

My office sits right next to the shelves that hold our circulating collection of deaf school yearbooks. It always amazes me how regularly -- every day, at least -- I walk past, look at the round table between my office and the shelves, and see a pile or two of yearbooks.

This, I think, is one of the most popular parts of our collection (aside from the movies), so we'll talk about them a little bit today, as well as our deaf-related microforms.

First: Yes, we do collect yearbooks from residential schools all over the country. As part of the Deaf Collection, these yearbooks play an important role in preserving the continuity of deaf culture, so we try to get our hands on as many of them as possible.

Second: Yes, if you go to the shelves, you will likely find the year you're looking for at the school you're looking for. However, the collection isn't 100% complete for various reasons; still, if you check ALADIN for "deaf school yearbooks," you'll get lucky more often than not. If you can't find what you're looking for, there may be a copy available in our Deaf Copy 1 room -- just ask a librarian for help.

Third: Yes, this is where we keep Gallaudet's Tower Clock. The linked ALADIN Catalog page shows all the copies of all the years we own.

Fourth: No, the yearbooks are not arranged alphabetically by state. The call numbers all look like 370.97xx -- 370 for deaf schools, then .97 means "in the United States." The last two digits get even more specific, down to the region of the country and then the state. For a rough idea of how to find the state you're looking for, here's how it goes:

• 370.974x: Northeast United States, south to New Jersey and west to Pennsylvania
• 370.975x: Southeast United States, Delaware on down to Florida, and west to Alabama
• 370.976x: South Central United States, Kentucky south to Alabama and west to Texas and Oklahoma
• 370.977x: North Central United States, otherwise known as the "Great Lake States" -- Ohio west to Missouri and north through Michigan and Wisconsin
• 370.978x: Western United States, from Kansas to New Mexico and north to Montana
• 370.979x: The Pacific States, from Arizona in the south to Alaska in the north, and off to Hawaii in the west
  

The deaf school yearbooks aren't the only residential-school memorabilia in the Library, though. A significant percentage of our deaf-related microforms in the Deaf Periodicals is made up of residential school newsletters, most of which you can find by searching for "little paper family" (why this phrase? Check out our FAQ page about it). You can find these in the bright orange cabinets behind the maps, next to the Deaf Periodicals (where we also keep more recent print copies of some residential school newsletters). These microforms are excellent for research into deaf residential life and history, especially the older newsletters from before ASL and bilingualism became as accepted in deaf education as they are today.

They are all arranged alphabetically by name in the microfilm cabinets. It's easy to pull a drawer out and scan the labels of the boxes containing each reel.

We also keep copies of deaf-related dissertations published all over the country. Many are available in print and spread out among the books in the Deaf Stacks, but nearly all are also available in microfilm near the deaf school newsletters. All of this can be found in the ALADIN Catalog -- just look for a note saying "microfilm cabinet" or something similar. Many of these dissertations are also available electronically through the ALADIN database Dissertations and Theses.

As I've mentioned before, all microforms require a special reading machine to operate, three of which live on the first floor of the Library. If you're not sure how to set up a reel of microfilm, feel free to ask a librarian for help -- we're old hands!

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Question of the Week
I was sitting at one of the computers on the first floor and looking up at the glass roof. It's really nice, but I was wondering why you have those cloths over them like a tent.
We're big fans of Arabian Nights. No, just kidding. Actually, there's a great reason for the sails (that's what I call them, everyone has different names for them) under the glass: shade. One of the biggest advantages of having such a nice glass roof is all the sunlight. One of the biggest disadvantages of having such a nice glass roof ... is all the sunlight. On a gorgeous day (like today! finally), it's hard to see much in all that light. I also personally suspect a bit of a greenhouse effect in operation -- all that solar radiation gets trapped in here and makes the air conditioning work harder to keep the building cool. The sails serve a very useful function and they let us enjoy some natural light here in the middle of the first floor.

New Book Cart Day!

We got some new books this week!

I'm thrilled -- it's been a couple months. Like pretty much everywhere else, Gallaudet's been affected by the economy, so we librarians had to hold off on our usual spending sprees for a month or two. It's not easy. Have you ever tried to quit smoking? I have. Take my word for it -- same feeling.

By chance or design, the first cartload this week contained mostly books that I'd ordered, with a few sprinkled in for the Deaf Collection and a few for one or two other librarians. In case you didn't know, I buy stuff for English and Popular Materials -- which usually translates to "literature" and "fun stuff," two categories that can be hard for me to differentiate for a couple of reasons: 1) I think all of it's fun, and 2) sometimes the term "literature" gets slung around pretty loosely, depending on who the author is, whether the book in question won any awards, or where the book's good reviews came from (the New York Times' Sunday Book Review, for instance, versus Cosmo, which I don't read, I swear). I also buy stuff for Fine Arts, although that was relatively thinly represented in this week's New Book Cart.

So what's in your future?

Brothers by Yu Hua
A young Chinese man, who was born on the same day his father died from a fall sustained while ogling women in the public bathroom, and his mother meet a new man and his son, and their lives, marked by their neighbors' taunting, begin to change. I was only able to skim part of the book, but I really, really liked what I saw. The book was apparently very popular in China when it was first published, in spite of its attitudes toward the Cultural Revolution and the country's slide towards capitalism.

Fledgling/Bloodchild by Octavia E. Butler
Two books by the first African-American woman to write science fiction, Fledgling and Bloodchild and Other Stories both evince the themes that Octavia Butler has become known for: race, gender, identity, and love. Fledgling tells the story of a 50-year-old vampire who looks like a 12-year-old child and her struggle to find love in a narrative that completely changes the common vampire mythos. Bloodchild is a collection of short stories that include the tales of a man who falls in love with an alien -- and is impregnated (of course); a virus that renders people unable to communicate; and the strange byproducts of hopelessness.

World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks
The title is pretty self-explanatory -- in this book, the dead begin to walk and subsequently start a decade-long war with the living. This is the account of the entire war, as told by its survivors in interviews, tape recordings, and telephone conversations. The book doesn't play around with the concept of reanimated corpses; the walking dead are just that, shambling zombies with a taste for human flesh. It's a fascinating read, and you will never forget the Battle of Yonkers.

Confrontational Ceramics by Judith Schwartz
This beautifully-illustrated book examines the role of the artist as a social critic and the use of the medium to express subversive ideas that seek to change the passive viewer's relationship with the constructs of larger society. This is industry jargon for: "This is a book full of really interesting statues that will both entertain you and make you slightly uncomfortable, which is what the artists really wanted to do."

Curse of the Spellmans by Lisa Lutz
A family of private eyes have wacky misadventures. The parents go on vacations, the lawyer son tries to stay out of other people's business, the older daughter suspects her landscaping next-door neighbor of dastardly deeds (complete with digital recorders and restraining orders), and the 15-year-old daughter tries to set her older sister up with a cop. This is pretty fluffy fare, good for a sunny afternoon.

The Alexander Cipher by Will Adams
An archeologist, whom everyone hates, sets out on a journey to uncover the stolen body of Alexander the Great with his plucky Australian friend. It's actually a fairly good mystery and well-written, even though this is Will Adams's first novel.

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
Only serious readers need apply -- this book is BIG. David Foster Wallace is one of those authors who like to play around with the conventions of novel-writing, and it shows in Infinite Jest, which tells the story of a man's family in near-future North America, which has turned into a massive corporate state subsidized by advertising. The man in question is a popular leader who dies after watching a mysterious movie, which is apparently so entertaining it causes people's brains to melt.

An Accidental Light by Elizabeth Diamond
After a twelve-year-old girl is killed in a traffic accident, things begin to change in unexpected ways for both her mother and her killer.

Angels of Destruction by Keith Donohue
Kind of a strange story about an old woman. Her daughter ran away in the 1960s to join a revolutionary group, and she spends the rest of her life alone -- until a mysterious young girl shows up on her doorstep. They both agree that the young girl will pose as the old woman's granddaughter and go to school, and everything works out ... until the old woman's sister shows up and must be persuaded that the girl is really the missing woman's daughter.

Figures in Silk by Vanora Bennett
A historical fiction novel about two daughters of a fifteenth-century silk merchant. One takes over the family business and becomes a successful silk merchant in her own right; the other becomes the mistress of the King. When the King's brother makes a grab for the throne, both sisters must make some hard choices to ensure their survival.

Why We Suck by Denis Leary
A satirical collection of cultural observations in the vein of I am America (And So Can You!) by Stephen Colbert and Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea by Chelsea Handler, this book takes the prototypically Learyish direct approach to examining why American society takes itself so seriously when there's so much to laugh at.

So Many Ways to Sleep Badly by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore
Consisting of a sexually ambiguous narrator's adventures in San Francisco, including his/her roach/rodent problem, yen for bikram yoga, and tendency to turn tricks through classified ads in the paper, this novel explores the modern life of American subcultures and examines the tendency toward body consciousness in the gay community.

The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem
This novel covers three decades of life in a gentrifying Brooklyn neighborhood, starting with the first white family to move in and their trials after the mother abandons the family. The only child, Dylan, becomes friends with another motherless boy, Mingus, but their paths diverge as they grow older; Dylan becomes a music journalist, while Mingus ends up in jail, in spite of -- or perhaps because of -- everything.

So. It is a good crop this week. Next week, you'll be hearing from another librarian!

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Question of the Week
I have a laptop, and I like to bring it to the Library and use the wi-fi to get my homework done with my friends. The only problem is that the big round tables on the first floor aren't anywhere near a power outlet! We have to drag the table over to a wall or a pillar so we can plug in our computers, which is hard (the tables are heavy). But we have to move it every time because the librarians keep moving them back. Can you do something about that?
Yes, indeed. Most of those tables are right next to my office, and I've walked right into a table more than once because I wasn't paying attention and assumed the table was where it's supposed to be.

The problem with moving the tables is that sometimes they end up blocking escape routes, which is not good. It also makes the building less accessible to people with mobility impairments, because there's less room for wheelchairs and crutches to navigate. Those are reasons why we keep moving the tables back to their original positions after you're done with them. We're also not crazy about plugging stuff into the walls or pillars, because it's just not safe; the power cords snake every which way, making them easy to trip over or -- if the cord is strong enough -- pulling your computer right off the table and onto the floor. Also, I've seen a student or two almost lose their pager to the bottom of someone else's foot because they tried to charge it from a wall outlet.

But fear not! Next time you're at one of those round tables on the first floor or in the basement, look under it. In most cases, you should see a power strip sticking out of the floor. That's for you. Almost all of our tables are equipped with power strips, each of which is connected to a (secure) floor outlet by a cord that's long enough to make sure that everyone at a given table is able to plug in their equipment.