Yay, book review! I have to admit that, in this new age of vlogging, I miss being able to write my reviews. You'll have to indulge my (hopefully) charmingly quaint sensibilities today.
I read -- and brace yourselves -- Under the Dome by Stephen King.
What can I say? Although I will admit that I've since moved on from the stage of my life where I thought Stephen King was the Great American Novelist (mostly based on his earlier work and the Dark Tower books), I still can't resist looking through his newest stuff. I read Duma Key last year and actually quite liked it; all his usual motifs were firmly in place, but with the addition of some refreshingly creepy elements that made it a terrific read. I still flash back to his description of seashells grinding under the main character's stilt house on the beach and shudder.
So, of course, with that expectation in mind, I went under the dome.
The basic premise is that a tiny, tiny little town way up in the middle of nowhere, in one of those little states up in the corner of the country, Maine or New Hampshire or somewhere, suddenly finds itself surrounded by an invisible, impenetrable barrier. This is discovered in a spectacularly grisly day, in true King fashion, as people on the road and unaware slam into the barrier at a few dozen miles per hour. The barrier extends up nearly forty thousand feet and closes over the town completely; planes start crashing into it on their descents into Logan Airport in Boston or to the airport in Bangor.
Since the town is so small, everyone knows each other. Also because of the tininess of the community, people's peccadilloes -- and, eventually, dangerous instabilities -- are multiplied enormously, and this is only exacerbated by the sudden erection of this barrier. The military becomes aware of the situation and undertakes several means of punching through it, but fail. The world watches, stunned, as the town discovers itself completely and utterly trapped.
As the days go by, we follow an unusually -- for Stephen King, anyway -- large ensemble of characters as they cope with the difficulties associated with being cut off from the outside world in every way except visibility: They can see what's over there just fine, but there's no way to get there. The ancillary consequences of being parked under a barrier continue to mount as people burn wood to keep warm when they run out of propane and continue to drive cars and trucks around town.
There are two main groups being pitted against one another here: a loose confederation of people -- including a former soldier who finds himself back in service -- who just want to get that barrier down and get out, versus a town selectman with a decidedly fascistic bent and his creepy cadre of local criminal teens, who are deputized and put to work subduing the populace. As the novel goes on, it becomes something far stranger, as the local meth-lab chef gets involved in a surprising way, and people begin to die.
There's plenty of homicide involved -- mostly committed by people you wouldn't expect -- but also suicides as people slowly begin to despair of ever leaving, as well as plain old medical emergencies from the steadily-worsening air and greenhouse-effect heat under the dome. It's all done in King's style, though -- there's plenty of funny stuff stemming from the absurdities brought about by the situation, people fall in love, and young kids have their hands in saving the town ... sort of.
Truth be told, the ending isn't very happy. It's also incredibly violent, sparked by a nuclear blast set off by the military just outside the dome to no avail.
In general, it's a pretty interesting study of one man's consideration of what happens to people when they find themselves backed into a corner by something they can't come close to comprehending; some people turn to help others, while others turn to help themselves. When the latter also hold positions of power, things can get very ugly indeed, and they do so in this novel in scarily believable ways. The slope is slippery, King seems to be saying, so watch your footing. It's surprisingly free of most of his usual tropes (except things like psychic kids, one flat-out loony, and endearingly rural surnames), so it's a pretty refreshing thing to get from him.
It's not an intellectual book in any way. It's Stephen King. However, this same fact also means it's a tremendously entertaining book.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Constitution Day, new resources, staplers
A few quick announcements ...
Constitution Day resources are now available
If you haven't seen the news in the Announcements section of our home page, we've posted a Web page with information about this year's Constitution Day, on Friday, Sept. 17. This year, we're celebrating the Second Amendment, otherwise known as the "You'll have to pry my sawed-off shotgun from my cold, dead hands" Amendment. There's actually a lot more to the Amendment than what you hear from the NRA and from the left; the Founding Fathers had very real concerns that underpinned the choice to include this amendment in the Bill of Rights. You can learn more about that by going here.
A bunch of other new resources are now available
We've added a few new things to our ever-expanding list of offerings! A new page will appear on our Web site by the end of the week with more comprehensive explanations, but in a nutshell, here's what's new:
Staplers
They're on our minds. More details later.
I'm still working on the Deaf Copy 1 tour. Also, book review this Friday! And it's not gonna be a vlog neither ...
Constitution Day resources are now available
If you haven't seen the news in the Announcements section of our home page, we've posted a Web page with information about this year's Constitution Day, on Friday, Sept. 17. This year, we're celebrating the Second Amendment, otherwise known as the "You'll have to pry my sawed-off shotgun from my cold, dead hands" Amendment. There's actually a lot more to the Amendment than what you hear from the NRA and from the left; the Founding Fathers had very real concerns that underpinned the choice to include this amendment in the Bill of Rights. You can learn more about that by going here.
A bunch of other new resources are now available
We've added a few new things to our ever-expanding list of offerings! A new page will appear on our Web site by the end of the week with more comprehensive explanations, but in a nutshell, here's what's new:
- Art Full Text
- JSTOR Arts & Sciences I (basically, we expanded our JSTOR subscriptions; you won't see it as a discrete collection because it's simply been added to the pool of articles already available)
- Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, an electronic encyclopedia available through ALADIN Discovery
- Several books donated by the Nippon Foundation about Japanese art, history, and culture. If you're interested in Japan in general, keep an eye out!
Staplers
They're on our minds. More details later.
I'm still working on the Deaf Copy 1 tour. Also, book review this Friday! And it's not gonna be a vlog neither ...
Friday, September 10, 2010
Friday, September 3, 2010
Library status report
Because it's been such a hectic week, I'm going to use this post to take stock. Call it a status report; you're welcome to come along for the ride!
We had a few bumps in the road while getting the new printing system to work. Apparently, on Monday -- the very first day of school -- demand on AT's printing system was so heavy that nearly all the printers using it, both here in the Library and all of AT's other labs throughout campus, got pretty badly backed up. To relieve the load, they bypassed the usual controls so people could print directly, with the predictable effect of multiple jobs clogging the queue on every printer in use. Fortunately, it's all been worked out and life has resumed what here on campus passes for normalcy.
Elizabeth Henry, our newest librarian, shouldered the start of her first semester quite ably. We're glad to have her here, and are still getting positive feedback on the vlog interview I did with her a couple of weeks ago. I'm glad people are connecting with her so well; she's fitting right in!
She's also beginning work on managing our electronic resources. We The Librarians met yesterday, and have begun to discuss how we want access to those resources to change. Most of us aren't wild about the current system, with most of our electronic journals in a separate search from the catalog, because that makes it harder for you to find them, so we've started looking at ways to bring the catalog and our electronic resources closer together. It's similar in a way to what WRLC in general is looking at right now, but because we subscribe to upwards of several million journals either directly or through databases and electronic lending libraries like EBSCO and Ingenta, it's tricky. Fortunately, she's on the job!
Our e-Reserves are also very healthy this year! A fairly good-sized backlog has materialized out of thin air just this week, which, though annoying in some ways, is a great sign. All four librarians and David Bills, the technician working on e-Reserves, are working hard to get things posted! It's sort of like the Three Stooges: When all three try to go through the same door at the same time, nobody gets through. So to our faculty I waft a gentle note on the breeze: If you get your readings to us at least two weeks before the semester starts, we'll have them ready by the first day of classes.
We've also been planning different ways to get out there on campus, sort of bringing the mountain to Mohammed. For instance, we're planning on a sort of bookmobile this semester, where a librarian will haul some popular books and movies, a laptop, and a barcode scanner to different locations on campus. That way, if you're in, say, the Marketplace at the right time on the right day (don't worry, we'll announce it!) and have been thinking about checking out a book or a few movies for the weekend, but don't have time to get to the Library, you'll be able to find and check out something suitable right there!
We also did a laundry list of events for GSO (Graduate Student Orientation) and NSO (New Student Orientation) last week, and just yesterday hosted a lunch to welcome new Honors students. The event went so well, we'll be hosting it again, opening it up to more students next time.
I also started teaching a First Year Seminar course this week. Yeah, a librarian teaching a class. It's sort of like watching a dog playing poker, I know. But it's a good class, and if any of my students are reading this, enjoy the metaphysical extra credit I'm sending you right now.
Another bright spot this week is that it seems we are experiencing fewer issues with new students coming to the Desk to check out materials and finding out they're not in the system yet. Our director's been working hard on getting information from the Registrar's Office and feeding it into our circulation system every day, and the numbers keep getting smaller, so the road's getting smoother!
A not-so-bright spot was the effect of the Higher Education Copyright Act of 2008, which became law this summer. It requires us to inform ALL students about the penalties of copyright infringement, so we sent out an e-mail to the student population and included faculty and staff for good measure. Because this is a new requirement, a lot of folks who got the e-mail thought it was because of something they did, freaked out, and ran over to the Library, presumably to catch us before we called the Intellectual Property Gestapo on them. But that wasn't going to happen; it was only a notice, mandated by law. For some of the work that gets done on campus, reproduction of copyrighted material usually falls under fair use for educational purposes. But that's not true for everything, so check out Sarah Hamrick's Copyright Basics LibGuide for much more information. It's also always a good idea to check in with the Library to make sure; just don't let your blood pressure get too high until you know one way or another.
Other than that, we're getting back into the routine. Summer was one long period of crazy projects and interrupted habits, and it just snapped right past, so we're more than ready to return to the usual swing of things. Which now, apparently, includes brawls at Nationals games, thanks to Nyjer Morgan. Look up to him, kids; that's probably the opposite of what you want to be if you become a ballplayer.
Next week will see an inversion of the new order: a written book review and a vlog post about the Library. I'm going to take you down into the Deaf Copy 1 room and the Archives' vaults, so you can see how much Deaf history lives underneath our feet. Most of it is going to look boring, but trust me -- there's plenty of interesting things to unearth!
We had a few bumps in the road while getting the new printing system to work. Apparently, on Monday -- the very first day of school -- demand on AT's printing system was so heavy that nearly all the printers using it, both here in the Library and all of AT's other labs throughout campus, got pretty badly backed up. To relieve the load, they bypassed the usual controls so people could print directly, with the predictable effect of multiple jobs clogging the queue on every printer in use. Fortunately, it's all been worked out and life has resumed what here on campus passes for normalcy.
Elizabeth Henry, our newest librarian, shouldered the start of her first semester quite ably. We're glad to have her here, and are still getting positive feedback on the vlog interview I did with her a couple of weeks ago. I'm glad people are connecting with her so well; she's fitting right in!
She's also beginning work on managing our electronic resources. We The Librarians met yesterday, and have begun to discuss how we want access to those resources to change. Most of us aren't wild about the current system, with most of our electronic journals in a separate search from the catalog, because that makes it harder for you to find them, so we've started looking at ways to bring the catalog and our electronic resources closer together. It's similar in a way to what WRLC in general is looking at right now, but because we subscribe to upwards of several million journals either directly or through databases and electronic lending libraries like EBSCO and Ingenta, it's tricky. Fortunately, she's on the job!
Our e-Reserves are also very healthy this year! A fairly good-sized backlog has materialized out of thin air just this week, which, though annoying in some ways, is a great sign. All four librarians and David Bills, the technician working on e-Reserves, are working hard to get things posted! It's sort of like the Three Stooges: When all three try to go through the same door at the same time, nobody gets through. So to our faculty I waft a gentle note on the breeze: If you get your readings to us at least two weeks before the semester starts, we'll have them ready by the first day of classes.
We've also been planning different ways to get out there on campus, sort of bringing the mountain to Mohammed. For instance, we're planning on a sort of bookmobile this semester, where a librarian will haul some popular books and movies, a laptop, and a barcode scanner to different locations on campus. That way, if you're in, say, the Marketplace at the right time on the right day (don't worry, we'll announce it!) and have been thinking about checking out a book or a few movies for the weekend, but don't have time to get to the Library, you'll be able to find and check out something suitable right there!
We also did a laundry list of events for GSO (Graduate Student Orientation) and NSO (New Student Orientation) last week, and just yesterday hosted a lunch to welcome new Honors students. The event went so well, we'll be hosting it again, opening it up to more students next time.
I also started teaching a First Year Seminar course this week. Yeah, a librarian teaching a class. It's sort of like watching a dog playing poker, I know. But it's a good class, and if any of my students are reading this, enjoy the metaphysical extra credit I'm sending you right now.
Another bright spot this week is that it seems we are experiencing fewer issues with new students coming to the Desk to check out materials and finding out they're not in the system yet. Our director's been working hard on getting information from the Registrar's Office and feeding it into our circulation system every day, and the numbers keep getting smaller, so the road's getting smoother!
A not-so-bright spot was the effect of the Higher Education Copyright Act of 2008, which became law this summer. It requires us to inform ALL students about the penalties of copyright infringement, so we sent out an e-mail to the student population and included faculty and staff for good measure. Because this is a new requirement, a lot of folks who got the e-mail thought it was because of something they did, freaked out, and ran over to the Library, presumably to catch us before we called the Intellectual Property Gestapo on them. But that wasn't going to happen; it was only a notice, mandated by law. For some of the work that gets done on campus, reproduction of copyrighted material usually falls under fair use for educational purposes. But that's not true for everything, so check out Sarah Hamrick's Copyright Basics LibGuide for much more information. It's also always a good idea to check in with the Library to make sure; just don't let your blood pressure get too high until you know one way or another.
Other than that, we're getting back into the routine. Summer was one long period of crazy projects and interrupted habits, and it just snapped right past, so we're more than ready to return to the usual swing of things. Which now, apparently, includes brawls at Nationals games, thanks to Nyjer Morgan. Look up to him, kids; that's probably the opposite of what you want to be if you become a ballplayer.
Next week will see an inversion of the new order: a written book review and a vlog post about the Library. I'm going to take you down into the Deaf Copy 1 room and the Archives' vaults, so you can see how much Deaf history lives underneath our feet. Most of it is going to look boring, but trust me -- there's plenty of interesting things to unearth!
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Friday, August 27, 2010
Vlog review of Little Red ...
Sorry -- the ceiling's still visible. But hopefully more of me is, too!
Little Red Riding Hood in the Red Light District by Manlio Argueta.
Little Red Riding Hood in the Red Light District by Manlio Argueta.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
What you need to know: Part 3
Great googly moogly, school starts next week! How'd that happen?
Upping the googly and amplifying the moogly, of course, is this week's coterie of workshops, activities, and meetings, on top of the usual workload. Fair warning: By Friday's vlog, I may somewhat resemble Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos.
What can I say? It runs in the family.
Drop by tomorrow for free lemonade and stuff! We'll be handing it out for Arrival Day, and the forecast is that it'll be hot. We're here to help you cool off!
Today, we get to the fun stuff! What changed between May and August?
A lot.
New computer stuff
Really, only one thing is new, and the other thing is new ... ish. I told you about the printing system change last week -- that's the new thing, along with our brand-spanking printers, the Brothers. That's what I call them, mostly because that's what brand they are. I am, probably, more excited about the fact that we've gotten new printers than anything else. We've been using a different brand for a while, and they seem to have a tendency to jam up, especially when a given printer receives a large (2 or more, that is) number of jobs. This leads to frustration for the people who just want their paper printed out so they can go to class and tore-up hands for the librarians who have to figure out how to liberate a stubborn piece of standard letter-size. The Brothers come with a long list of positive reviews, especially handling large volumes of printing, and that, coupled with the more orderly job-release system we've implemented, should lead to a lot of easier lives and lower blood pressure all around. This is a Good Thing.
The second new thing -- ish -- is Windows 7. At long last, our public computers have been updated to Microsoft's newest operating system, just in time for the Fall semester! Granted, this probably sounds pretty cosmetic, but you'll appreciate it more if you've ever used one of our computers and had to wait five minutes or more for it to be ready to use. Windows XP appears to have been the wrench in the works in that case; when a student logs on with their username and password, the system automatically creates a profile on that computer. This profile doesn't actually hold any information, but it still exists in its own block of memory, and when profiles accumulate, the computer's memory becomes occupied, and things slow right down. We've had to have ITS technicians come in every few months and delete the accumulated profiles off of each computer, which is a significant inconvenience for the Library, ITS, and our users. Windows 7 should fix that and speed things up a little, so we're looking forward to it!
New Web site design
We redesigned our Web site -- library.gallaudet.edu -- this summer. Finding important information on the old site wasn't too easy because the layout was fairly spread out, leading to lots of scrolling and hunting. This time, everything that belongs together is now together, and it's all been compressed, so there should be less effort to find what you need. Also, we placed greater emphasis on searching our catalog so people who are just looking for a book or film can get right to it. We also gave news greater priority -- it now occupies the entire middle column, starting with short announcements at the top, recent blog posts in the middle, and longer news at the bottom, which will be updated less frequently. In general, we're just trying to make it easier for folks to find out what's changed or been added since the last time they were here.
More space
We've given our DVDs more breathing room, for a start. The Deaf DVDs are growing very quickly, partly because our terrific Deaf Collection Librarian, Diana Gates, is doing a good job sniffing out hard-to-find films that incorporate deaf characters, deaf themes, or education about deaf-related topics. The other part is, of course, the conversion of our VHS collection to DVD -- many older deaf films that have either passed out of copyright or were produced at Gallaudet are being transferred to DVD for purposes of preservation and clarity. In addition to that, VHS tape degrades shockingly quickly, especially considering how much use they get here, so where possible, damaged copies are being replaced with DVD versions. DVDs also take up less space than VHS, so that's one major consideration.
Our General DVD collection is also growing, albeit more slowly (we are an academic library, after all, so the main growth is occurring in documentaries closely tied to the curriculum), so that, coupled with the Deaf DVD collection, means we decided to split them up. They used to share a single shelf unit, Deaf on one side and General on the other. Now they each occupy their own, which gives us room to grow!
Also, Jane Rutherford's been slaving over our periodical collection all summer. She took on a herculean task, sorting through a few hundred subscriptions, figuring out which records needed to be updated, which had ancient issues that needed to be discarded, which subscriptions needed to be canceled, and coming to each of the other librarians in turn to get our decisions on titles in our fields. Poor Jane -- I think most of us started dreading the sight of her coming our way! In general, she chose to devote her time to accelerating a project that's always going on, but which she decided she'd like to see finished before her retirement. This leads us to ...
Jane Rutherford's retirement
We did a whole blog post about that one. I'm still sad. We've got Elizabeth Henry now, so we're doing fine, but as wonderful as Elizabeth is, Jane isn't replaceable. Her last day at work will be this Friday; time's running out to drop by, shake her hand, and wish her well!
LibGuides tutorial
We also made a video tutorial on the basics of using and navigating a LibGuide; it's available on libguides.gallaudet.edu. Granted, the quality isn't great -- that's partly because the only way we could get it onto the page was through YouTube, which compresses it considerably. Still, you will be able to see the basic information (especially if you view it in fullscreen mode), and the captions are pretty clear! We're working on a better solution, though, so hang in there.
The blog
Well ... you've seen it. It's all part of our drive toward better communication with the community we serve, which involves making blog posts more focused and readable, adding vlogs so you get to see the people here (but mostly me, because it turns out I secretly dig being in front of a camera -- who knew?), and making announcements easier to get to.
New catalog ... which is actually pending
Sort of. The Consortium has been looking for new solutions for our patrons, which have thus far tended to involve combining books and articles into a single search. This means you'll be able to find both in our catalog, so if you're looking for something that would appear in Ebsco or ProQuest or other databases, but are not sure where to look, you might be able to use our catalog to get there. It'll make everyone's lives much easier. In the meantime, we're still looking and figuring out how to put the pieces together. You'll get more information on that in a couple months.
That wraps up our What You Need to Know series for this year. We'll end the week on Friday with another book review vlog, and next week will see a few announcements. In the meantime, orientation week is happening all around us, and classes begin next week! If you're starting out at Gallaudet, welcome! If you're returning after last year, welcome back!
Upping the googly and amplifying the moogly, of course, is this week's coterie of workshops, activities, and meetings, on top of the usual workload. Fair warning: By Friday's vlog, I may somewhat resemble Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos.
What can I say? It runs in the family.
Drop by tomorrow for free lemonade and stuff! We'll be handing it out for Arrival Day, and the forecast is that it'll be hot. We're here to help you cool off!
Today, we get to the fun stuff! What changed between May and August?
A lot.
New computer stuff
Really, only one thing is new, and the other thing is new ... ish. I told you about the printing system change last week -- that's the new thing, along with our brand-spanking printers, the Brothers. That's what I call them, mostly because that's what brand they are. I am, probably, more excited about the fact that we've gotten new printers than anything else. We've been using a different brand for a while, and they seem to have a tendency to jam up, especially when a given printer receives a large (2 or more, that is) number of jobs. This leads to frustration for the people who just want their paper printed out so they can go to class and tore-up hands for the librarians who have to figure out how to liberate a stubborn piece of standard letter-size. The Brothers come with a long list of positive reviews, especially handling large volumes of printing, and that, coupled with the more orderly job-release system we've implemented, should lead to a lot of easier lives and lower blood pressure all around. This is a Good Thing.
The second new thing -- ish -- is Windows 7. At long last, our public computers have been updated to Microsoft's newest operating system, just in time for the Fall semester! Granted, this probably sounds pretty cosmetic, but you'll appreciate it more if you've ever used one of our computers and had to wait five minutes or more for it to be ready to use. Windows XP appears to have been the wrench in the works in that case; when a student logs on with their username and password, the system automatically creates a profile on that computer. This profile doesn't actually hold any information, but it still exists in its own block of memory, and when profiles accumulate, the computer's memory becomes occupied, and things slow right down. We've had to have ITS technicians come in every few months and delete the accumulated profiles off of each computer, which is a significant inconvenience for the Library, ITS, and our users. Windows 7 should fix that and speed things up a little, so we're looking forward to it!
New Web site design
We redesigned our Web site -- library.gallaudet.edu -- this summer. Finding important information on the old site wasn't too easy because the layout was fairly spread out, leading to lots of scrolling and hunting. This time, everything that belongs together is now together, and it's all been compressed, so there should be less effort to find what you need. Also, we placed greater emphasis on searching our catalog so people who are just looking for a book or film can get right to it. We also gave news greater priority -- it now occupies the entire middle column, starting with short announcements at the top, recent blog posts in the middle, and longer news at the bottom, which will be updated less frequently. In general, we're just trying to make it easier for folks to find out what's changed or been added since the last time they were here.
More space
We've given our DVDs more breathing room, for a start. The Deaf DVDs are growing very quickly, partly because our terrific Deaf Collection Librarian, Diana Gates, is doing a good job sniffing out hard-to-find films that incorporate deaf characters, deaf themes, or education about deaf-related topics. The other part is, of course, the conversion of our VHS collection to DVD -- many older deaf films that have either passed out of copyright or were produced at Gallaudet are being transferred to DVD for purposes of preservation and clarity. In addition to that, VHS tape degrades shockingly quickly, especially considering how much use they get here, so where possible, damaged copies are being replaced with DVD versions. DVDs also take up less space than VHS, so that's one major consideration.
Our General DVD collection is also growing, albeit more slowly (we are an academic library, after all, so the main growth is occurring in documentaries closely tied to the curriculum), so that, coupled with the Deaf DVD collection, means we decided to split them up. They used to share a single shelf unit, Deaf on one side and General on the other. Now they each occupy their own, which gives us room to grow!
Also, Jane Rutherford's been slaving over our periodical collection all summer. She took on a herculean task, sorting through a few hundred subscriptions, figuring out which records needed to be updated, which had ancient issues that needed to be discarded, which subscriptions needed to be canceled, and coming to each of the other librarians in turn to get our decisions on titles in our fields. Poor Jane -- I think most of us started dreading the sight of her coming our way! In general, she chose to devote her time to accelerating a project that's always going on, but which she decided she'd like to see finished before her retirement. This leads us to ...
Jane Rutherford's retirement
We did a whole blog post about that one. I'm still sad. We've got Elizabeth Henry now, so we're doing fine, but as wonderful as Elizabeth is, Jane isn't replaceable. Her last day at work will be this Friday; time's running out to drop by, shake her hand, and wish her well!
LibGuides tutorial
We also made a video tutorial on the basics of using and navigating a LibGuide; it's available on libguides.gallaudet.edu. Granted, the quality isn't great -- that's partly because the only way we could get it onto the page was through YouTube, which compresses it considerably. Still, you will be able to see the basic information (especially if you view it in fullscreen mode), and the captions are pretty clear! We're working on a better solution, though, so hang in there.
The blog
Well ... you've seen it. It's all part of our drive toward better communication with the community we serve, which involves making blog posts more focused and readable, adding vlogs so you get to see the people here (but mostly me, because it turns out I secretly dig being in front of a camera -- who knew?), and making announcements easier to get to.
New catalog ... which is actually pending
Sort of. The Consortium has been looking for new solutions for our patrons, which have thus far tended to involve combining books and articles into a single search. This means you'll be able to find both in our catalog, so if you're looking for something that would appear in Ebsco or ProQuest or other databases, but are not sure where to look, you might be able to use our catalog to get there. It'll make everyone's lives much easier. In the meantime, we're still looking and figuring out how to put the pieces together. You'll get more information on that in a couple months.
That wraps up our What You Need to Know series for this year. We'll end the week on Friday with another book review vlog, and next week will see a few announcements. In the meantime, orientation week is happening all around us, and classes begin next week! If you're starting out at Gallaudet, welcome! If you're returning after last year, welcome back!
Friday, August 20, 2010
What you need to know: Part 2
Before we start, an announcement (I know this breaks the rule of only one big thing per post, but hey, I'm flexible): The Library has changed its printing system.
For various reasons, we decided to adopt the printing policy in effect at other computer labs on campus both to save paper and reduce printing jams that can occur when a large number of people try to use the same printer at once, saving everyone time and money! This means that if you use our public computers to print something, you'll have to abide by the same rules that you do elsewhere: 5,000 pages for printing per semester. Anything you print out at another lab using this policy -- like the Harkin Digital Lab in the Student Academic Center -- will count toward this total. Here's what you do if you want to print something out:
The default is still duplex -- two-sided -- printing, both to save you money and to Save The Trees. You can change this if you need to; if you find yourself struggling to find that setting, ask at the Service Desk and the person working there will gladly help you!
Now, on with the main thing: This past year's Questions of the Week. Without further ado, here are all the questions that have been asked since last September, organized by category.
Collection
What do we do with donations?
How to use an e-book
What's the Deaf Copy 1 room for?
What happens to damaged films?
When do we get new books?
Equipment
What happened to the stapler?
What's up with the printers?
Does the library have videophones?
What do I do if the printer jams?
Catalog
In the catalog, what does 'electronic resource' mean?
What is ALADIN Mobile?
Policy and Services
Why would I be asked for my ID if I were just using a computer?
Faculty member wants to know about testing in the Library
Can I use the Gallaudet University Library if I'm not affiliated?
Why is there a time limit on reserves?
What do I do if I lose a DVD case but not the disc?
Can the library help me show films in public without violating copyright?
Why would my loan period only be 1 week?
What are my summer program borrowing privileges?
Building
Thanksgiving holiday hours
Is the Library open during the holiday break and why did my account expire?
How do I get a job at the Library?
Can you install better lighting?
Why are you open over Spring Break?
Are you open during the summer?
Because I'm weird
Why do you capitalize book titles the way you do?
How long does it take to change a book display?
As a great American luminary once said, Th-th-th-that's all, folks!
For various reasons, we decided to adopt the printing policy in effect at other computer labs on campus both to save paper and reduce printing jams that can occur when a large number of people try to use the same printer at once, saving everyone time and money! This means that if you use our public computers to print something, you'll have to abide by the same rules that you do elsewhere: 5,000 pages for printing per semester. Anything you print out at another lab using this policy -- like the Harkin Digital Lab in the Student Academic Center -- will count toward this total. Here's what you do if you want to print something out:
- Do everything as you would normally:
- Click "Print."
- Select Printer 1 or Printer 2.
- Click "OK."
- Then go to our printer workstation. It's on the counter by the copiers.
- Log in.
- Find your job on the list.
- Click "Print." This will release the job to whichever printer you picked.
- Then click "Done."
- Pick up the product.
The default is still duplex -- two-sided -- printing, both to save you money and to Save The Trees. You can change this if you need to; if you find yourself struggling to find that setting, ask at the Service Desk and the person working there will gladly help you!
Now, on with the main thing: This past year's Questions of the Week. Without further ado, here are all the questions that have been asked since last September, organized by category.
Collection
What do we do with donations?
How to use an e-book
What's the Deaf Copy 1 room for?
What happens to damaged films?
When do we get new books?
Equipment
What happened to the stapler?
What's up with the printers?
Does the library have videophones?
What do I do if the printer jams?
Catalog
In the catalog, what does 'electronic resource' mean?
What is ALADIN Mobile?
Policy and Services
Why would I be asked for my ID if I were just using a computer?
Faculty member wants to know about testing in the Library
Can I use the Gallaudet University Library if I'm not affiliated?
Why is there a time limit on reserves?
What do I do if I lose a DVD case but not the disc?
Can the library help me show films in public without violating copyright?
Why would my loan period only be 1 week?
What are my summer program borrowing privileges?
Building
Thanksgiving holiday hours
Is the Library open during the holiday break and why did my account expire?
How do I get a job at the Library?
Can you install better lighting?
Why are you open over Spring Break?
Are you open during the summer?
Because I'm weird
Why do you capitalize book titles the way you do?
How long does it take to change a book display?
As a great American luminary once said, Th-th-th-that's all, folks!
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Review: The Genius of America
Book review time!
No, I don't plan to do every book review as a vlog. A little vlog goes a long way in my opinion, exactly as gasoline doesn't.
Anyway, I read The Genius of America: How the Constitution Saved America -- and Why it Can Again by Eric Lane and Michael Oreskes.
The uber-long title kind of explains it all. The first half of the book goes into the first 11 years of the United States, the period between 1776 and 1787 when we were governed by the Articles of Confederation, the struggles of the Constitution drafters, and how the Constitution has worked, been amended, and undermined over the last couple of centuries.
The U.S. had declared independence from Britain in 1776 and was humming its way through the war until it ended in 1783 with the Treaty of Paris. Everyone thought things were peachy. Unfortunately, they weren't. It didn't take long until the Articles of Confederation -- based on the idea of each state as a sovereign power, loosely federated with the others under an incredibly weak national government -- began to show some serious problems. The problem, as the framers saw it, was that the Articles were written based on an assumption of "public virtue." This was the idea that people would, on their own, look out for the good of society as a whole over their own self-interest.
The states, being human constructs made up of human beings -- which are self-interested creatures on general principle -- immediately fell to squabbling and jockeying for power, wealth and territory among themselves. The federal government, limited as it was by the Articles of Confederation, couldn't do much, and so it began to look as though the new United States was about to fall apart only a decade after its founding. A Constitutional Convention was called, and the writers of the Declaration of Independence and delegates from the states attended, one hot summer in Philadelphia.
Long story short, it took the entire summer for the Convention attendees to agree on the basic points of federal governance in relation to the states. James Madison, commonly considered the father of the Constitution, proposed what became known as the Virginia Plan (he was a Virginia delegate) -- a three-part government, with a very powerful executive who would have actually been a monarch. It sounds funny today, but some of those delegates were seriously considering the possibility that the best thing to do would be to return to governance by royalty. With some obvious adjustments to weaken the executive and turn the legislative branch into a two-house Congress defined by differing metrics, that plan became the Constitution and is the government we know today.
The interesting thing is that the system those attendees set up and enshrined in our founding document is completely different from the Articles of Confederation. The Articles assumed that people would do what was good for society; the Constitution assumed the exact opposite and created a whole new governmental system based on people's self-interest. In this system, nobody would get their way; they'd be forced to go through a strenuous legislation process in order to buy time to deliberate, argue, and compromise. In fact, compromise -- what often seems to be the "C" word these days in our polarized politics -- is the foundation of the system. Even if both houses of Congress pass a piece of legislation, it still has to avoid a presidential veto. If it manages to squeak through that, it could still be challenged -- and struck down -- by the Supreme Court.
In other words, the system created ample opportunity to tweak. And that's why the system's survived so well for so long. It survived the Civil War, which is the closest our country has ever come to fracturing completely and permanently; it survived the Great Depression, which could have killed the country altogether, regardless of any unifying sensibility, if it hadn't been for an executive who was willing to do what it took to get the country back on its feet; it survived Richard Nixon, who claimed the Supreme Court couldn't subpoena his documents because it had no authority over the President, but eventually capitulated and resigned.
It's flexible because of that exact thing everyone hates: Congress. Passing things through Congress and forcing consensus through compromise is what makes the government work.
Unfortunately, our Congresscritters refuse to compromise these days, so things are locked up, the deficit and debt are ballooning, important programs are being cut, and people are beginning to say that maybe it's time to throw the Constitution out with the bathwater.
One manifestation of this inclination in recent years is the initiative-and-referendum process, which was discussed in a part of the book I reached the day Proposition 8 was declared unconstitutional -- a miracle of good timing, as it turned out. The process was introduced into the California Constitution in the 1920s, then forgotten until the 1970s when, angered by the fact that they had to pay taxes, the Californian people revived it. Essentially, what this process does is allow initiatives to be introduced on the state ballot if those initiatives gather enough signatures in support. Then, on Election Day, the initiative is subjected to a referendum, and if the majority of people who vote that day vote "Yes" on it, it becomes law. The state constitution can be amended this way -- by the direct voice of the people. It's called direct democracy, and it's something the founding fathers wanted to avoid.
This is how Proposition 8, a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, was passed in 2008. This is a classic illustration of why the founding fathers built the system the way they did: they wanted to avoid tyranny, whether by the majority or a vocal minority. The system is designed to prevent a group's rights from being taken away by another group. If same-sex marriage must be banned, it should be done through the usual legislative process so that a consensus can be achieved through compromise. At this point, as far as Proposition 8 is concerned, it's now up to the courts.
In general, the authors are saying that people are growing frustrated with the government pretty much because they've started expecting way too much from it. Every time something bad happens, they expect the government to intervene, regardless of whether or not it actually has a Constitutional mandate to do so. Part of this stems from the social programs that were established in the New Deal, like Social Security; people just sort of got used to the idea that the government should take care of them. The rest stems from the fact that the part of the system that can meet specific needs is nearly unable to do so because of the lack of compromise in Congress.
In general, according to the authors, the government has never been, and never will be, able to meet every single demand. As I've said elsewhere, it was in fact designed to do the opposite: to frustrate those demands and force people to give up some of them in exchange for the rest. The authors state a few times that the two branches of government elected by the people -- the executive and legislative branches -- tend to reflect society as a whole. When a refusal to compromise occurs on all sides, things stop working, and it takes some willingness to sacrifice to get things going again.
I think it's a fantastic book and should be required reading for everyone, especially if you didn't pay attention in your Civics or American Government classes in high school. It lends a new perspective on our political system regardless of your actual party affiliation, and you start to see the hallmarks of the Constitution everywhere, in a gridlocked Congress and in court decisions, in federal silence and presidential statements on controversial mosques. You learn to be amazed by our system, and that's as it should be. Highly, highly recommended.
No, I don't plan to do every book review as a vlog. A little vlog goes a long way in my opinion, exactly as gasoline doesn't.
Anyway, I read The Genius of America: How the Constitution Saved America -- and Why it Can Again by Eric Lane and Michael Oreskes.
The uber-long title kind of explains it all. The first half of the book goes into the first 11 years of the United States, the period between 1776 and 1787 when we were governed by the Articles of Confederation, the struggles of the Constitution drafters, and how the Constitution has worked, been amended, and undermined over the last couple of centuries.
The U.S. had declared independence from Britain in 1776 and was humming its way through the war until it ended in 1783 with the Treaty of Paris. Everyone thought things were peachy. Unfortunately, they weren't. It didn't take long until the Articles of Confederation -- based on the idea of each state as a sovereign power, loosely federated with the others under an incredibly weak national government -- began to show some serious problems. The problem, as the framers saw it, was that the Articles were written based on an assumption of "public virtue." This was the idea that people would, on their own, look out for the good of society as a whole over their own self-interest.
The states, being human constructs made up of human beings -- which are self-interested creatures on general principle -- immediately fell to squabbling and jockeying for power, wealth and territory among themselves. The federal government, limited as it was by the Articles of Confederation, couldn't do much, and so it began to look as though the new United States was about to fall apart only a decade after its founding. A Constitutional Convention was called, and the writers of the Declaration of Independence and delegates from the states attended, one hot summer in Philadelphia.
Long story short, it took the entire summer for the Convention attendees to agree on the basic points of federal governance in relation to the states. James Madison, commonly considered the father of the Constitution, proposed what became known as the Virginia Plan (he was a Virginia delegate) -- a three-part government, with a very powerful executive who would have actually been a monarch. It sounds funny today, but some of those delegates were seriously considering the possibility that the best thing to do would be to return to governance by royalty. With some obvious adjustments to weaken the executive and turn the legislative branch into a two-house Congress defined by differing metrics, that plan became the Constitution and is the government we know today.
The interesting thing is that the system those attendees set up and enshrined in our founding document is completely different from the Articles of Confederation. The Articles assumed that people would do what was good for society; the Constitution assumed the exact opposite and created a whole new governmental system based on people's self-interest. In this system, nobody would get their way; they'd be forced to go through a strenuous legislation process in order to buy time to deliberate, argue, and compromise. In fact, compromise -- what often seems to be the "C" word these days in our polarized politics -- is the foundation of the system. Even if both houses of Congress pass a piece of legislation, it still has to avoid a presidential veto. If it manages to squeak through that, it could still be challenged -- and struck down -- by the Supreme Court.
In other words, the system created ample opportunity to tweak. And that's why the system's survived so well for so long. It survived the Civil War, which is the closest our country has ever come to fracturing completely and permanently; it survived the Great Depression, which could have killed the country altogether, regardless of any unifying sensibility, if it hadn't been for an executive who was willing to do what it took to get the country back on its feet; it survived Richard Nixon, who claimed the Supreme Court couldn't subpoena his documents because it had no authority over the President, but eventually capitulated and resigned.
It's flexible because of that exact thing everyone hates: Congress. Passing things through Congress and forcing consensus through compromise is what makes the government work.
Unfortunately, our Congresscritters refuse to compromise these days, so things are locked up, the deficit and debt are ballooning, important programs are being cut, and people are beginning to say that maybe it's time to throw the Constitution out with the bathwater.
One manifestation of this inclination in recent years is the initiative-and-referendum process, which was discussed in a part of the book I reached the day Proposition 8 was declared unconstitutional -- a miracle of good timing, as it turned out. The process was introduced into the California Constitution in the 1920s, then forgotten until the 1970s when, angered by the fact that they had to pay taxes, the Californian people revived it. Essentially, what this process does is allow initiatives to be introduced on the state ballot if those initiatives gather enough signatures in support. Then, on Election Day, the initiative is subjected to a referendum, and if the majority of people who vote that day vote "Yes" on it, it becomes law. The state constitution can be amended this way -- by the direct voice of the people. It's called direct democracy, and it's something the founding fathers wanted to avoid.
This is how Proposition 8, a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, was passed in 2008. This is a classic illustration of why the founding fathers built the system the way they did: they wanted to avoid tyranny, whether by the majority or a vocal minority. The system is designed to prevent a group's rights from being taken away by another group. If same-sex marriage must be banned, it should be done through the usual legislative process so that a consensus can be achieved through compromise. At this point, as far as Proposition 8 is concerned, it's now up to the courts.
In general, the authors are saying that people are growing frustrated with the government pretty much because they've started expecting way too much from it. Every time something bad happens, they expect the government to intervene, regardless of whether or not it actually has a Constitutional mandate to do so. Part of this stems from the social programs that were established in the New Deal, like Social Security; people just sort of got used to the idea that the government should take care of them. The rest stems from the fact that the part of the system that can meet specific needs is nearly unable to do so because of the lack of compromise in Congress.
In general, according to the authors, the government has never been, and never will be, able to meet every single demand. As I've said elsewhere, it was in fact designed to do the opposite: to frustrate those demands and force people to give up some of them in exchange for the rest. The authors state a few times that the two branches of government elected by the people -- the executive and legislative branches -- tend to reflect society as a whole. When a refusal to compromise occurs on all sides, things stop working, and it takes some willingness to sacrifice to get things going again.
I think it's a fantastic book and should be required reading for everyone, especially if you didn't pay attention in your Civics or American Government classes in high school. It lends a new perspective on our political system regardless of your actual party affiliation, and you start to see the hallmarks of the Constitution everywhere, in a gridlocked Congress and in court decisions, in federal silence and presidential statements on controversial mosques. You learn to be amazed by our system, and that's as it should be. Highly, highly recommended.
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