DCCC Library Books and Bytes

College library collections normally contain books that support the courses. But as a courtesy to our patrons , DCCC Library subscribes to  a small rotating collection of best-selling fiction (and a few best-selling non-fiction titles as well.) If you have time for some recreational reading on that burnt out Friday night, or that last weekend of beach time, come see the McNaughton collection: here you will find Evanovich, McCall-Smith, Clancy, Leonard, Parker, Higgins Clark, etc. The books are actually rented (not purchased) from a subscription service so that we can continually trade them in for the latest hot titles!

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Good news from MLA. Beginning April, 2009, the MLA does not require the URL (that is the actual web address) for database citations. Also eliminated from the new standards for database citations are the Library Name, City , State. The inclusion of URL for “free” web sites appears to be optional and up to each instructor. The Library has multiple copies of the 2009 MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers and has posted the new citation help sheets at <http://www.dccc.edu/library/research/mla.html>.

A nice overview of the changes appears at <http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/>. Flexibility will be required as the transition takes place in the Fall semester.Be sure your instructor is aware of the 2009 chnages before turning in your updated works cited pages this semester. (mg)

Three reliable sites to consider when looking for information on swine flu, also known as the H1N1 flu, are:

http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/ from the Center for Disease Control

http://science.thomsonreuters.com/pharma/h1n1/ Daily briefings from publishing company Thomson Reuters

http://www.wiley.com/go/influenza Free articles from journals and books from Wiley Blackwell Publishing Company

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Currently a new roof is being installed on Founder’s Hall.  In the middle of the installation, there was a big rainstorm on Saturday, July 11th which caused the roof to leak and a flood in the library.  Luckily, no equipment or major parts of the collection was damaged, only some miscellaneous unsorted items from the Archives and a good section of the carpet got wet.  Plant Operations was extremely helpful in drying out and treating the wet carpet and we thank them for their effort.  The roof is being sealed on Tuesday, July 14th, so we should have no further flooding.

If you aren’t in a position to travel the globe this summer, you may want to visit the current DCCC Library Display window, located in the hallway near the library exit doors. Literary scholars Victoria Marre and Michele Santamaria, from the DCCC Library’s circulation and reference departments, have created a refreshing display of nine works from international authors such as Jhumpa Lahiri and Czeslaw Milosz. If you would like to expand your summer reading to include works from around the world, you may find the synopsis of each featured novel in the display to be useful in expanding your horizons. Featured works are: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz; One Hundred years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez; The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri; The Stranger by Albert Camus; Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe; Collected Poems and Plays of Rabindranath Tagore;  Collected Poems by Czelslaw Milosz; The Short Stories of Katherine Mansfield; and The Isle Full of Noises by Domenic Cheung. All books are items from the DCCC Library’s circulating collection. (mg)

Welcome to DCCC’s newest librarian Michele Santamaria! Michele was hired this semester to coordinate the Information Literacy effort at DCCC. She has been immersed in teaching Information Literacy (aka research skills) classes on main campus and via videoconferencing to the satellite campuses since her arrival and has already helped hundreds of students individually at the library reference desk. Michele has taught English and Information Literacy at several colleges including Temple, Drexel, and Clemson University in South Carolina. Her poetry has been published in nationally recognized journals such as the Cimarron Review, the Lullwater Review and the South Carolina Review. Michele also has a Masters of Arts degree in cultural anthropology. Her interests include travel, languages, and customs, including dance. Please welcome Michele to the DCCC community when you see her in the library! (mg)