A  month to celebrate

P oetry.

R ead,

I magine and

L isten to the ways to enjoy poetry!

April is National Poetry Month.  This tradition began in 1996 when the Academy of American Poetry declared this month a time to celebrate and ban together to enjoy readings, festivals, book clubs and much more.

There are many different forms of poetry.

HAIKU:

Poetry is great

When you make it short and sweet

Just like this poem.

This type of poetry consists of 3 lines.  The first with 5 syllables, then 7 syllables and then 5 again.  Try to write you own using this HELPFUL website.

The first poem is called an Acrostic where one main idea is written and the first letter of every line is something that supports the main idea.

Check out THIS LINK from the American Academy of Poetry for 30 ways (one for every day of the month!) to enjoy poetry!

Here are a few famous poets you may have heard of:

Edgar Allen Poe

Maya Angelou

Emily Dickinson

Can you name anymore?  Write them in the comments below!

Check out the shelf by the new arrivals for great poetry reads, not just for April, but for the rest of the year!

We asked our very own Professor Melissa Wehler to tell us what these celebrations of women mean to her. Here’s what she shared with us:

“The most wonderful aspects to International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month is that when we celebrate women, we celebrate ourselves: our shared intellectual heritage, our belief in community, our promise and progress, and our belief in diversity.  International Women’s Day and Women’s History Month gives us an opportunity to look back at the many women who have helped to shape not only our lives, but the world around us: grandmothers, mothers, daughters, sisters, aunts, cousins, and friends.  It also offers us an opportunity to share in those around us now including our mentors and confidantes, and thank them for their commitment to our future.  There are many ways to celebrate women’s history–read a book by a beloved female author or someone you have never read before, educate yourself on the progress of women’s rights both in your community and abroad, attend events celebrating women and diversity–but this year, I am celebrating women by writing thank you letters to those who have inspired me to be my best self, and I would encourage everyone, women and men, to think about that special woman in your life that challenges you everyday to seek new opportunities to succeed.”

Learn about Women’s History Month, and about the struggles and the triumphs of American women, at the Women’s History Month site.

You can also watch some of the wonderful video messages available on the International Women’s Day site.

Want to take Professor Wehler’s suggestion and read a book by a female author, or about women in our country and around the world? We’ve pinned a selection of books and DVDs that are available in the library to our Women’s History Month pin board on Pinterest. You can also stop in the library and browse our Women’s History Month display across from the Circulation Desk.

Here are just a few of the selections:

The Woman Reader by Belinda Jack 
On a college campus, it’s hard to imagine not having the freedom to read whatever we choose…or the freedom to read anything at all. Jack discusses women’s literacy and reading tastes through the ages.

Michelle Obama, a Biography by Alma Halbert Bond
The first African-American First Lady, Michelle Obama is a wife, a mother, a professional, beautiful, classy, and strong. A role model for us all!

My Beloved World by Sonia Sotomayor
First female Hispanic U.S. Supreme Court Justice (and the third female ever appointed) describes her amazing journey from a childhood in which all odds seemed to be stacked against her, through her years at Princeton and Yale Law School, and in the years of professional practice leading up to her appointment.

Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide (DVD)
Eva Mendez, America Ferrera, and other activists introduce viewers to individuals who dedicate their lives to empowering women in developing countries.

The official guide to APA style.

Have you heard that we’re transitioning away from MLA formatting and citation style to the use of APA style in the Spring ’13 term?  It’s true!

APA style, the preferred style for scholarship in business, criminal justice, information technology, and allied health, is more closely aligned with Central Penn’s program offerings, and will better prepare you for the challenges you may meet as you enter the workforce or pursue advanced studies.

In order to make the transition as smooth as possible, a number of resources will be available. These include the following:
• Subject guides addressing APA citation and formatting
• Instructions for creating an APA Template that you can use for every writing assignment (includes a sample paper so you can see what your paper should look like)
• A list of APA resources available online and in the library
• Librarians will be available to assist you Monday through Thursday 8am-11pm, and on Fridays from 8am-6pm. You can stop in, call, email, text, or IM the librarians for help.

This textbook, required for some Central Penn Courses, contains excellent guidance for using APA style.

You don’t need to be worried about the transition! While there are some differences between the two styles, it’s important to keep in mind that you are never expected to remember HOW to cite your sources. You only need to know WHERE to find help. Using a good guide to citation, like the ones listed at our APA resources link, will help you cite any source!

A Child Called “It” by Dave Pelzer

The books are Dave Pelzer’s A Child Called “It”, in which he recounts the horrendous abuse he sustained at the hands of his mother, and The Popularity Papers, a series intended for younger children that deals with social challenges, such as having two parents of the same sex.

Challenging books, calling for their removal from a library, tends to make them much more popular than they might have been without the negative hype. Most people want to find out just what’s so offensive that someone would call for the book’s removal. Would books like 50 Shades of Grey, for example, ever have been so wildly popular without all the controversy?

Our library carries A Child Called “It.” While some readers might find the book objectionable, our library staff strongly believes in the rights of readers to make their own decisions about what they wish to read. We are opposed to censorship, and we value intellectual freedom, the freedom to read, and to obtain information of all kinds.

What do YOU think? Have you read A Child Called “It” and would you recommend it? How about any of the books on our Banned Books board on Pinterest? Can you think of any reason a book should be made unavailable to ANYONE?

We’d love to hear what our students, alumni, staff, and faculty have to say about this!

Next time you’re on the library’s Online Resources page, you might notice a few changes. First, our instant messaging widget has changed. You can still access us there during library hours from 8AM-11PM Monday through Thursday, and from 8AM to 6PM on Friday, but now when you do, “Let us know” how we did by clicking the link and taking our survey. This is a great way to tell us how we can make our IM service better.

If you’ve ever tried our IM service when we’re offline, you probably know that clicking the widget only allowed you to send us an email. Now when you click our offline IM widget, you’ll be directed to our FAQ page. If you can’t find the answer to your question there, you can still send us an email by clicking the Email Us link on the FAQ page.

Last, but definitely not least, we’ve added a new online resource.
CREDO Reference can make research a lot easier!
CREDO’s a great place to start your research with encyclopedia articles, dictionary definitions, and other background and general information on thousands of topics. It also finds articles in the library’s online databases, Gale, EBSCO, and Opposing Viewpoints, books and ebooks in the library catalog, and streaming video in Films on Demand. But it doesn’t stop there; CREDO links you directly to other library resources!

You can learn more about how to use CREDO in our brief online video tutorials.

Give CREDO a try.
Just type a search term, like DNA, into the search box below, and click the Search button.

Search

]]> http://blogs.centralpenn.edu/library/new-term-new-tools-for-research-success/feed/ 0 http://blogs.centralpenn.edu/library/library-book-tree-puts-old-books-to-new-use-2/ http://blogs.centralpenn.edu/library/library-book-tree-puts-old-books-to-new-use-2/#comments Wed, 12 Dec 2012 21:22:23 +0000 Jill Hallam-Miller http://blogs.centralpenn.edu/library/?p=430 [More...]]]> It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas in the library!

The library’s traditional tree sits in front of the fireplace at the back of the library.

Every year, the library puts up a tree in front of the fireplace. This year you can still sit by the fireplace and enjoy the glow of twinkling holiday lights and the cheerfulness of a tree.[/p]

But this year, we’ve decked the halls just a little more than usual! When our law library received updated editions of the Purdon’s Pennsylvania Statutes Annotated series of books this year, we weren’t sure what we would do with the old editions.

Pinterest to the Rescue!

Around this time of year, you can find so many great decorating ideas on Pinterest. When we saw a book tree posted there, it just made sense for us to build our own library book tree!

The library’s Purdon’s book tree can be seen next to the conference table in the library.

We used the old edition books to build our own book tree. You can see our Purdon’s tree in the library near the conference table. After the holidays, the tree will be disassembled and the books will be used by a Central Penn graduate, who plans to get lots of use out of them!

What’s the Idea?

Everyone loves a little competition, right? We thought it would be fun to have our 4 Freshman Seminar classes vie for a tasty meal served up by the library in Week 11. So every week, we’re sending a library challenge out to all Freshman Seminar students. The challenges are based on the library instruction the classes receive, and they get progressively more difficult. The class with the highest score in Week 10 wins breakfast or lunch, depending on the time of day the winning class is held.

The winning team–and its professor–also gets bragging rights. And that’s really what it’s all about, isn’t it?

In addition to having a little fun, we hope that the competition will help students learn to use the library more effectively, and in ways that will benefit them at Central Penn, in their personal lives, and in the workplace, where the ability to find quality information gives employees a real edge.

If the competition goes well and we feel it’s been a success, we hope to expand it into other courses. We have an eye on IDS 105, College Success Seminar, in particular!

Giving Credit Where It’s Due.

We’re always telling students that they have to cite their sources, and we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention the sources behind the idea for this competition.

The credit for this idea goes to Sarah Beasley, Coordinator of e-Resources at Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh and Jamie Wilson, Electronic Resources Coordinator at the Free Library of Philadelphia, whose PA Library Association presentation title “Practice Makes Proficient: Learn About (and Steal) Our Electronic Resources Challenge” we took quite literally!

Check out the timeline to see these highlighted books by the ALA. Check out this link for a list of the most recent books banned/challenged in 2010 and 2011.

Follow us on Pinterest and you’ll find another list of Banned Books!

CHALLENGE TO YOU: Over the break, we challenge you to read one book that has been banned or challenged. When you complete the book, send us your comments via email and we’ll post it! OR, feel free to comment below on the book you read and what you thought!

Practice your right to intellectual FREADOM and read a banned book!

Did you know these books were challenged?

citation-induced stress

Here are a couple of tricks and tips for using EasyBib effectively.

1. Choose the right source type. EasyBib can’t tell what kind of source you’re citing from the URL. For example, if you’re citing a blog entry, pick Blog/Podcast from the “All 59 options” tab. If you’re citing a press release, pick that source type. The information required for a citation depends on the kind of source. It’s not the same for everything.
2. When citing a book, enter the ISBN from the back cover. If the ISBN isn’t on the back cover, look for it on the back of the title page that contains the copyright date. Using this standard number can help you make sure you cite the right edition of a book.
3. When citing sources from EBSCO and Gale, skip EasyBib. EBSCO and Gale have their own citation generators that allow you to copy and paste a citation into your Works Cited page. They are very reliable, and since you will have to manually enter the information for an online database article into EasyBib anyway (the URL won’t help you at all in this case), using the citation generator is the easiest way to get it right.
4. Fill in the blanks! EasyBib can’t always look in the correct fields to find the title, author name, or sponsor of a website. Since this information is required if it’s available, you are responsible for adding it to your citation. That bold red message at the top of your EasyBib page that says “Please confirm or modify the information below! We get our data from outside sources, so please double-check.” isn’t just there to make things pretty!
5. Check the information! When incomplete and wrong information are entered into fields, it is your responsibility to complete and correct it. See above regarding the bold red message.
6. Consult the Pocket Style Manual. This book, required for English classes and Freshman Seminar, is an invaluable resource that should be used when constructing your citations for ALL of your classes. Use it to make sure your citations are correct every time, and you’ll become more comfortable citing your sources.
7. Consult a librarian. There’s one in the library from 8am-11pm Monday through Thursday, and from 8-6 on Friday. You can also email us, text us at 260-227-5733 (260-2ASK REF), or IM us using the widget on the Online Resources page.
   

   Feeling better!

If you can answer “yes” to any of the above questions,
NOW is the time to act!

Here are a few important deadlines for the upcoming elections:
10/9/12 – deadline for registering to vote
10/30/12 – last day to apply for absentee ballot (but if you’ll be out of the country, don’t wait!)
11/2/12 – absentee ballot must be received by the County Board of Elections (Pennsylvania residents)
11/6/12 – Election Day!

Stop by the Voting Information table on the second floor of ATEC Tuesday through Friday this week for information on voting and to pick up a voter registration form.

If you have questions about the requirements for voter registration, you need to register, or you want to understand how voting will work, visit the College Student page of votesPA.

You can register to vote in person at a county registration office (in Carlisle for Cumberland County) or at PennDOT, or by filling out and mailing in the voter registration application. There is currently no option for registering online.

If you’ll be in Australia on Election Day and you plan to vote by absentee ballot, it’s crucial that you start the process NOW! Check out our Immersion Program subject guide for detailed information on the candidates and the voting process and on registering and applying for your absentee ballot using one form.

Know what forms of ID are acceptable, and have your ID with you when you go to the polls. If you don’t have a Pennsylvania driver’s license or state ID, you may be able to obtain a free photo ID from the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation if you can provide the required documentation.

Stay tuned…in the next few weeks you’ll learn how your Central Penn student ID will become an acceptable VOTER ID!

Know where to vote!
Shuttle service will be available to transport you to the polls on Election Day!
EAST PENN SENIOR CENTER
98 S. ENOLA DR
ENOLA, PA  17025
Get Directions

In the meantime, learn more about the issues and the candidates, try out “VoteEasy“ which may help you determine which candidates are most closely aligned with your values, and learn more about the election process at VoteSmart.org, a non-partisan, non-profit organization dedicated to educating the public through information.

Still need more information? Check out the library’s Election Day 2012 subject guide to find answers to all your questions!