Langsdale Library

Find the materials you need!

2012-01-26T10:12:00.000-05:00

Welcome back to anothersemester! The hunt for materials tosupplement your learning is in full swing!

Do you need access to books andarticles that are not available in Langsdale Library’s collection?

The Book and DocumentDelivery Department here in Langsdale Library providesIntercampus and Interlibrary Loan services for the UB community. All you need is a valid Library ID to usethese services.

If Langsdale does not have abook that you need, search the USMAI catalog for your title. If it is available from another universitysystem library, just select the REQUEST button and choose UB for your log-inand inter-campus delivery.

If you need books not found inthe USMAI catalog or articles not available full text in our databases, aone-time registration allows access to your personal Interlibrary Loanaccount. The FIND IT button in ourcatalog and databases provides the opportunity to place an ILL request fromyour search results.

Both Inter-Campus and ILL booksare picked up at the Langsdale Circulation counter. Articles are received as PDFs and are desktopaccessible through your ILL account.

Access to both of these servicescan be found on our new web page at http://langsdale.ubalt.eduand further information can be found at http://ubalt.libguides.com/badd

Good luck and have a productivesemester!

e-reader ownership up substantially

2012-01-24T13:46:00.002-05:00

Did you know that almost 1/5 of Americans polled own tablets or e-readers? According to a new Pew Internet & American Life Project report, ownership of both type devices almost doubled during the holiday season. As of January 2012, 19% of those polled indicated that they have a tablet, and 19% indicated that they have an e-reader, both up from 10% in December 2011. Not surprisingly, the greatest level of ownership is seen in those with salaries over $75,000 and college educated responders.

Will Apple change the future of textbooks?

2012-01-23T09:39:00.004-05:00

News is flying around Apple's new tool to create multimedia textbooks for the iPad. Last week Apple announced its iBooks Author, which allows anyone to create an e-book on the ePub3 platform. Touted as the "Garage Band" app for authors, many think that this could cut e-textbook publishers out of the production loop and make ebooks more affordable for students.

For more on this story, read the arsTechnica article and campus responses to the news in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

What are your thoughts? How will this change the e-textbook landscape?

(Image from Apple iBooks Author)

Blackout Today - SOPA, PIPA

2012-01-18T09:02:00.005-05:00

Wikipedia and other websites are conducting a blackout today to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA). Find out more about these two anti-piracy bills being considered by Congress. More information about these bills is available from the Legislative Panel of the Maryland Library Association.

Participating in Historypin

2012-01-03T12:33:00.000-05:00

Launched in 2010, Historypin is a historic photo mapping website and mobile app that aims to "create a digital history of the world" through user-generated content. Special Collections at Langsdale recently added a small sampling of our digitized photographs to Historypin -- you can check out our contributions here. Don't forget to explore the map or view the photos in Google's street view!

So far, our images on Historypin include markets, schools, firehouses, landmarks, public housing, and residential areas from 20th century Baltimore. We selected some photos where the comparison to the present is nearly identical, and some where the urban landscape has been radically changed. For archivists at UB, one of the fun things about this project is repurposing existing digital content (in this case, photographs that were already scanned) for use in new ways. We'll continue to add digital content about Baltimore's history to applications, projects, and websites in the new year, and we hope you'll add your voice to collaborative sites like Historypin, too!

Games in the Library

2011-12-19T10:57:00.002-05:00

Professor Anastasia Salter discusses the value of games in the library in a recent post in the Chronicle of Higher Education's blog Wired. She states that campus libraries are a great location for games because of extended hours and the games' connection with academic pursuits.

Langsdale has recently received a grant to work with Dr. Salter on a games collection for UB students. We hope to begin collecting materials spring semester for use in the library. The collection will be open to all students, with a focus on the needs of students in game design courses.

For more information, read Salter's blog post and watch next semester for news of the growth of the collection at Langsdale.

Extended Due Dates + Ten-DVD Checkout Bonus = A Renewed Purpose in Life

2011-12-15T10:34:00.004-05:00

“It's so weird having no real obligations or deadlines. Yesterday I was almost completely unproductive. Not sure if I liked it.” - Rachel Wooley, Class of 2013, via Facebook

Have the dearth of lectures to listen to, term papers to write and final exams to study for left you with the mid-to-late December blues? Do you feel as uneasy and directionless as Ms. Wooley? Langsdale Circulation has the cure for what ails you: From today (December 15th) until 6 p.m. on December 21st, you can check out TEN DVDs* from our collection, and keep them until—wait for it—January 4th, 2012! Not only will watching 10 movies give you a raison d'être this holiday season, but the January 4th deadline will help keep your cat-like state of academic responsiveness in check. Also, becoming reacquainted with leisure-time activities will make you an interesting and sought-after conversationalist at your upcoming holiday gatherings. Why let hot new titles like Bridesmaids, Crazy Stupid Love, Insidious, and Horrible Bosses gather dust on the shelves over winter break? Stop by Langsdale Library and check out ten DVDs today!

*Ten DVDs= 10 discs, not 10 titles. If you check out, say, Season 4 of The Wire, the 5 discs that are in the set will count against your 10-DVD total.

Moving Cheese

2011-12-07T13:15:00.005-05:00

I cheated, I admit it, I cheated and read the second book first.

I had always been intrigued by the book with the title Who Moved My Cheese? This was at a time when a lot of changes were being made where I worked in the Circulation department here at Langsdale.

The book title intrigued me enough to the point of actually trying to read the book, but as I read a few pages into the simplified story of two mice trying to figure out why the cheese in the maze was located in different places, a.k.a. “change”, I was put off by the notion of it being a self-help book.

Then, not too long ago, a new book title caught my eye, and once again, it seemed to be timed to coincide with what I consider major changes in my work procedures. Now I am working in the Book and Document Delivery department, helping to deliver electronic reserves, mostly book chapters and journal articles, as part of courses across the spectrum of disciplines offered here at UB. After this semester the electronic reserves will be more easily accessed via your course SAKAI pages, instead of a separate delivery system.

The new book title that caught my eye was, I Moved Your Cheese.

The subtitle helps to better define it, For Those Who Refuse to Live as Mice in Someone Else’s Maze.

This time I shuffled off the pessimism I’d had experienced with the first “tale” of the mice in a maze. Honestly, I didn’t want to think about my job as a maze. I understand now that the maze is a given, yah maybe a little Zen –or “Zed” might be more appropriate, since one of the three mice in I Moved Your Cheese is named Zed and seems to take on a very Zen-like way of thinking. A great quote from the character Zed might be even more clarifying. After a young mouse asks the wise Yoda-like Zed if they should not pursue what makes them happy, Zed replies, “What I wish is not that you pursue happiness, but that you actually find happiness. Is it possible to pursue happiness if the pursuit itself does not make you happy?”

Later in the tale we learn of another mouse in the maze named Max. Max has actually gotten out of the maze with the help of a stronger, larger mouse named Big, more on Big later. Max tells Zed that there is more to life than the maze, but Zed already knows that, maybe not that there are these larger beings called people out there making the maze and moving the cheese, on purpose no less! But for Zed, the maze is not important so for him it only exists when he allows it too. He demonstrates this by moving within the maze by both walking the long passage-ways like everyone, or just by walking through walls.

Back to the mouse named Big, his complaint about the maze concerns the amount of other mice in his way within the walls, when it grows too much for him he uses his size and brawn to bust out through the walls of the maze.

And so all three featured mice find a way to break out of the maze, instead of just accepting change, they are making their own changes.

I’m not exactly sure how all this ties in with the changes in my work procedures, but it certainly helps to encourage ideas that are more creative than spending day in and day out creating Excel spreadsheets!

Are you an Expert Google User?

2011-12-05T17:12:00.001-05:00

Most people I know think they’re pretty savvy when it comes to searching Google. It’s a tool most of us use every day. We often rely on Google for research, directions, images, details about a person or event, shopping and so much more. Google has become our gateway to information.

Have you ever stopped to wonder how your Google skills measure up? Let Google put you to the test.
At http://agoogleaday.com/, Google puts your searching skills to the test with a daily question. What’s the point? As you work these questions day after day, your searching skills will improve. You’ll be forced to think creatively about your search and how to find the correct answer.

Before you get started, take a look at some of Google’s unique search tools (http://www.google.com/help/features.html) and some of Google’s search tips (http://www.google.com/insidesearch/) . If you’re successful, let us know! If not, ask us questions.
Happy Searching!

Representing Collections

2011-11-28T13:57:00.002-05:00

Here in the Special Collections department, we often hear the question, "What kind of stuff do you have?"

With 134 archival collections in over 6500 boxes on our shelves, that question can be a bit tricky! From our website, users can keyword search or browse an A-Z list to discover our collection holdings.

But what about other ways of taking a quick snapshot of our collections to reveal the types of research materials we collect and preserve?
As an experiment, subject terms assigned to our collections were loaded into Wordle, a free online word cloud generator. After a few tweaks to font, color, and word count, a snapshot of the archives took shape:

While in no way comprehensive or standardized, this word cloud is an example of alternate ways to represent collections and make them more accessible to users. The most commonly-assigned terms are displayed in a visual way to reveal themes that run through our collections.

Track your citations through Google Scholar

2011-11-21T20:26:00.003-05:00

A few months ago, I posted an entry here about a new service in Google Scholar called Scholar Citation that allows scholars to track citations on their own works, complete with timeline graphics of citation traffic.

Earlier, I wrote that Scholar Citations was only available to a small group of authors; now this service is available to authors with items in Google Scholar . It's a good way to track online articles and presentations that are not indexed in commercial citation indexes.

I encourage faculty to take a look at this service as another method to follow the use of your own work by others.

From Anne of Green Gables to Twilight, Langsdale Staff write about books they read when they were young.

2011-11-16T13:47:00.009-05:00

“I got my copy of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn when I was ten. It was given to me by an aunt who always treated me like an equal instead of child, so I took her selection with great gravitas. The first time I read it I fell in love with Francie as a child, when she spends hours reading books to escape the world around her. The book follows Francie and her family at many points in their lives, so each time I read the book I relate to different scenes –heartbreak, loss, change – depending on where I am in my own life.”

Natalie Burclaff
Reference and Instruction Librarian

The Green Knowe books by Lucy M. Boston

"When I was in school, I read books written by Lucy M. Boston and because of these books I now have a life-long interest in old houses and mysteries!
The series of six books deals with the fictional house, Green Knowe, which is based on the author’s real home in England, The Manor at Hemmingford Grey. The first two books, The Children of Green Knowe and The Treasure of Green Knowe, deal with a boy who stays with his Great-Grandmother, Mrs. Oldknow, at Green Knowe during school vacations. There he encounters the ghosts of children who lived in the house in previous centuries who help him solve mysteries.
In 2009 The Treasure of Green Knowe was made into a film starring Maggie Smith as Mrs. Oldknow. The film is entitled From Time To Time and here is the link to the movie trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19bYsqvlXp0
Though Lucy Boston has died, her son and his family still live in The Manor at Hemmingford Grey. The house is open for tours and there is a small gift shop. Here is the link: www.greenknowe.co.uk/
When Lucy Boston’s son was young, she often invited his cousins to visit. His cousins insist that once they encountered French speaking ghosts!
These Green Knowe books are available at the College Park, Towson, Salisbury, and Bowie Libraries of the University of Maryland System."
Ivy Patterson Owens (Cataloger, Langsdale Library’s Technical Services department)

"The one thing I can say about myself as a child was that I was completely ruled by my obsessions— “you’re on some new kick,” my mother would say—and that most of those obsessions were fueled by what I picked up from books.
My deepest and most prolonged childhood fixation occurred when I read On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder, one of the installments in her “Little House” series. My ‘70s-era exterior may have been wrapped in a red polyester dashiki and Toughskins bell bottoms, but in my imagination I was prancing around in gingham, petticoats, and a sunbonnet. In this book, part of the memoirs of Wilder’s pioneer-era childhood, Wilder and her family move to Minnesota and are forced to live in a “dugout.” If you aren’t aware of what a dugout is (which is not one of those insets that border baseball fields, by the way) it’s a weird one-room living space chiseled out from the side of an embankment—which the Ingalls family use as a stop-gap measure as they wait for their new frontier house to be built. Let me just say that I have never heard of any other person in America, at any other time in history, to take architectural cues from gophers and other subterranean wildlife in the construction of their dream home. While this seems like a questionable and no-frills living situation to a postmodern-era adult (The Ingalls family makes their windows for the dugout from greased paper, and they have to whitewash the dirt under their feet so it will resemble an actual floor), nothing could have captured my childish imagination more.
On the Banks of Plum Creek is also the Little House installment that most closely informs the storyline of the ‘70s-era television program Little House on the Prairie (and not, curiously, the book of the same title.) This, combined with the media’s and public’s obsession with “Bicentennial Fever”, acted as a perfect storm of information overload (as a 7-year-old, I was unaware that the events in the Revolutionary era and in On the Banks of Plum Creek were nearly a century apart.) I became so obsessed with historical America that my mother eventually hand-sewed me a pioneer-era girls’ outfit just to shut me up. I put on this lace-trimmed dress in a ditsy floral print, an apron, and a matching bonnet every day after school. I even went so far as to don this getup in public when we visited the US Capitol on a sightseeing trip one weekend. I climbed the steps to the Capitol, daintily lifting my skirt and petticoats so as to not trip on my way up. When I got to the top of the stairs, I turned around to get a good view of the Mall. Suddenly I was beset by the illumination of a dozen flashbulbs. Japanese tourists at the foot of the stairs couldn’t believe their luck: that a delusional little girl in a historical costume was twirling around on the Capitol steps. “Oh my God--it’s America on a stick!” they probably thought. Not prescient enough to realize that I should be embarrassed, instead I smiled, posed, and curtsied. The tourists may not have known it, but they had Laura Ingalls Wilder to thank for this Kodak moment.
Adele Marley, CirculationTechnician

I will never forget reading A Wrinkle in Time in the 4th grade, the description of the planet Camarotz, where the houses that were all alike, and children bouncing balls at the same time, it was fascinating, I can remember how it opened up the world of imagination to me, almost 40 years ago. That led me to embrace the radio theater style and create the outreach theater company Theater On The Air. An outreach theater company that did radio plays live for senior audiences in nursing homes, senior centers and retirement communities.
Brian Chetelat, Library Technician – Book and Document Delivery Department

As an elementary ed major in college I took a children’s literature class where I read all the Newbery Medal winners (well up to that point, now there are 30+ more!). . . From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler was my favorite among those. As a kid. . .Mr. Popper’s Penguins was definitely on the list!
Jeffrey Hutson, Associate Director for Public Services

Tis The Season

2011-11-09T19:03:00.000-05:00

Langsdale Library wants to know what will you be reading to bring in the Holiday Season??

I am pretty sure at Langsdale you could get some great ideas for books to purchase for gifts! Come see what we have.

Why can't Johnny Search?

2011-11-08T13:36:00.002-05:00

A recent article from Wired editor Clive Thompson asks why students who have grown up as "digital natives" are so bad at searching. Interestingly enough, while Thompson describes the problems as being with searching, the article actually focuses mostly on the inability of students to evaluate information. He cites several studies showing that students tend to use the top results of the search without bothering to check who wrote it, where it is from or what its purpose may be.

Magnifying Glass, by dsb Nola on flickr.

The points Thompson raises have certainly resonated with several educators. They all agree that the k-12 schools are missing an invaluable opportunity to improve students' critical thinking skills by teaching them to evaluate sources properly. With such an emphasis on basic skills such as writing and math, many people feel that critical thinking skills are falling behind. With more and more resources available online each day, it seems that the ability distinguish good websites from bad ones becomes more and more important.

A recent study sponsored by several academic libraries in Illinois, highlights the problems students have with search, while also noting several impediments to fixing the problem. The study notes that student often do not realize that there are ways to search better and to evaluate sources, so they never think to ask. And even though librarians are available to provide assistance with searching, many students (and even some professors) never ask for help. Sometimes this is because they don't realize that librarians can help with searching, so they never think to ask. Other times the greatest barrier is the perception that today's digital natives should already know how to search. One consequences of this perception could be that some students to feel embarrassed about asking for help with something perceived as a simple task. Another consequence is that librarians and professors may not always provide the students who ask for help with the assistance they need. If educators assume that students already know the basics of searching, they may start providing assistance at a higher level than the student is ready to understand. There is some indication that students are very intimidated by the thought of asking librarians for help, and getting a response that they do not fully understand merely exacerbates the problem.

So we are faced with a problem where almost everyone agrees that searching for and evaluating websites is a crucial skill, yet the teaching and learning of this skill often seems to slip through the cracks. At UB, many freshmen take an Introduction to information Literacy class, which is certainly a step toward addressing this issue. Unfortunately, many other universities do not offer a class with the explicit goal of teaching students these skills, under the assumption that most students come to college having already learned them. Judging from the studies referenced here, it seems like many colleges and high schools would do well to think about was to more effectively teach these important skills.

Did you hear? the library is going digital

2011-10-31T12:41:00.002-04:00

Happy Halloween!

What's Up Langsdale

2011-10-26T22:00:00.000-04:00

So there are quite a few things going on at Langsdale.

If you haven't already, check out our Zombie display! Get festive for Halloween!! Dress up and come show us your costume @ Langsdale.

Next month expect a new display in the Langsdale Library featuring the books you loved during your youth!

Always remember that @ Langsdale some of your professors put course textbooks on reserve for you to use for free! You can borrow reserve books at Langsdales for up to two hours or until another student requests the book.

Celebrating faculty and staff authors

2011-10-25T15:09:00.004-04:00

Join us in celebrating faculty and staff authors on Thursday, Oct. 27, 3:30 to 5:30 p.m., here at Langsdale. Light refreshments will be served.

New Collection of Essays on the Internet

2011-10-20T09:43:00.002-04:00

Mark Bauerlein, author of the The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future, has edited a new collection of essays from the likes of Nicholas Carr, Marc Prensky, Jakob Nielsen, Clay Shirky and others, entitled: The Digital Divide: Arguments for and Against Facebook, Google, Texting, and the Age of Social Networking. The book discusses both the opportunities and challenges of the digital society. It should be an interesting read.

Langsdale is ordering it, check to the catalog soon to check it out!

Langsdale Library's Annual Book Sale: Nov. 2-3

2011-10-19T15:26:00.000-04:00

Do you think $100 is too much to pay for a book? How about $2 at the Langsdale Book Sale?

You can help support Langsdale Library by purchasing used books from us during our annual book sale. With a few exceptions, all of the books you will find there are $2 or less.

These prices draw used book dealers from Virginia and DC to the sale, but all you have to do is cross Maryland Ave

Hours: Wed, Nov. 2: Noon to 8 pm and Thurs, Nov. 3: 9 to 1.
Location: The Langsdale Library Auditorium

Research Research

2011-10-13T17:37:00.003-04:00

Midterms are here and Finals are approaching! It's crunch time @ UB, plenty of test, and papers are being tossed at us students, so that means plenty of research is needed to be done. Langsdale online provides research help @ http://langsdale.ubalt.edu/research-help/. There you can learn how to navigate through the research databases for sources for your projects and studies. We also have research guides for specific areas, if you want to look at those pages a go to http://ubalt.libguides.com/ . As always at Langsdale you could chat with a Reference Librarian to help you find in depth articles and books to help you be that A student!

Reference Librarian Hours: 10am -8:30pm M-Th; 10 - 6 on Fri; 10-7 on Sa-Su

Best,
Abdu Eaton

Need a place to study for mid-terms?

2011-10-13T11:53:00.003-04:00

Midterms are right around the corner and the Library is a great place to study. We have study rooms on the second and third floor, and the lower level is a great place for study groups as well. Also, Langsdale has great reference Librarians who can help do research for papers. Langsdale is a great resource that many students overlook.

Furthermore, don’t forget to get to pick up the NEW Bee Card on October 17th which will become your new Library card. For more detail visit http://www.ubalt.edu/about-ub/offices-and-services/auxiliary/bee-card/index.cfm.

New student book club coming to Langsdale

2011-10-13T11:35:00.003-04:00

A group of students is starting at new Langsdale book club. We'll have our first meeting on Thursday, October 27th from 9-10am in the Lower level of the basement to discuss our choice of books, meeting times, etc. We hope you'll join us. For more information or if you're interested but can't make the first meeting, please email Vincent at: vincent.nowicki@ubalt.edu.

Thank you for reading and have a great day.

-Vincent Nowick, Langsdale Student Liaison

Spooky books and DVDs are brain food this October

2011-10-10T11:46:00.003-04:00

You may have heard rumors that Langsdale is haunted, and given the sinister offerings the library has in store this October, this may well be the case. Consider the display on the first floor in front of the Circulation desk, where a rotting zombie corpse decomposes beneath glass, his bony fingers clutching frightening and thematically appropriate gems from our DVD collection (available for checkout once you’ve pried Return of the Living Dead or Zombieland from his cold, dead hands.)

We also have some great new books that are in sync with the season: Shock Value: How a Few Eccentric Outsiders Gave Us Nightmares, Conquered Hollywood, and Invented Modern Horror by Jason Zinoman (PN 1995.9 .H6Z56 2011) chronicles the 1970s golden age of cinema and the significance of exploitation and horror films in shaping the era (the book dishes the dirt on such vaunted auteurs as John Carpenter, Brian DePalma, Wes Craven and Roman Polanski.)

Psychologist and Professor Jeffrey A Kottler’s book Lust for Blood (HM 1116 .K68 2011) explores the strange human fascination with violence, virtual and otherwise, in a variety of forms such as horror movies, news stories, chicken fights, video games, boxing, graphic novels, and the like. The Zombie Autopsies: Secret Notebooks from the Apocalypse (PS 3619.C435 Z66 2011) by Steven C. Schlozman, M.D. (really!) will make you queasy with its graphic illustrations of dissected reanimated corpses. Zombie Autopsies mimics the style of a clinical diary, but within its meticulous illustrations and faux-scientific observations beats the heart of a graphic novel that both science nerds and die-hard pulp enthusiasts can love.

UB Professor Anastasia Salter discusses games in the classroom

2011-10-07T10:10:00.003-04:00

UB's own Anastasia Salter has an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education's blog Wired Campus
on using games in the classroom. In this article she talks not only of using games to enrich classroom learning, but considering game-inspired collaborative approaches in restructuring curriculum. Read her full article.

Greetings from Langsdale's new student liaison Abdu Eaton

2011-10-05T12:37:00.002-04:00

Hello! I am not only a student at the University of Baltimore but I also will be working at Langsdale Library as a Student Liaison for the Fall. I am here to make sure that the UB student community knows everything and anything about Langsdale from events to the resources we provide. All questions can be directed to me via email. I will be sure to help you figure out how to work with Langsdale and to use Langsdale to better your college experience.

By the way come check out our new Zombie display! It’s spooky.
Best,
Abdu

Book review: The Statues That Walked: Unraveling the Mystery of Easter Island

2011-10-03T12:23:00.002-04:00

The Statues That Walked: Unraveling the Mystery of Easter Island by Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo [University of Baltimore and College Park Libraries, Call #: F3169 .H86 2011] Reviewed by Ivy Patterson Owens.

The archaeologist authors, Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo, went to Easter Island to excavate a sand dune in 2004. The layers within the dune seemed to disprove all previous scholarship about the island and its people. Previously, scholars had believed that Polynesians arrived in 700 AD but the radio carbon report indicated 1200 AD as the date. Because of this, the authors read all the accounts of ships visiting the island from the Dutch in 1722 to the Germans in 1882. They compiled what was said about the number of people and the vegetation on the island and there seemed to be fewer people and fewer palm trees as they read through the reports in chronological order. With further research the authors proposed explanations for these results.

Easter Island is noted for its Moai statues. In 1919 the archaeologist Katherine Rutledge and her husband lived on Easter Island and wrote a book about their experiences entitled Mystery of Easter Island: the Story of an Expedition [UMBC Library Special Collections, Call #: F3169 .H86] They noticed pathways from the volcano quarries to the coasts and believed the Easter Island statues were carved in the quarries and then moved by these roads to the coast where they were set up on stone platforms. In 1956 Thor Heyerdahl and the Norwegian Archaeological team mapped the whole island and published their results in a two volume work entitled Reports of the Norwegian Archaeological Expedition to Easter island and the East Pacific [St. Mary’s Library, Call #: F3269 .N67 1961]. Thor Heyerdahl proposed the theory that the huge statues were moved on their backs with a system of rollers. However, the Czech engineer, Pavel Pavel, believed the Moai were moved upright like moving a refrigerator. The native populations had always said that the statues had “walked.” In 1986 Thor Heyerdahl invited Pavel Pavel to Easter Island to try out his method. Using only 16 men, they were able to “walk” an upright Moai statue 600 feet per day. The results of this experiment were published in Easter Island—the Mystery Solved [UMBC, College Park, and Morgan Libraries, Call #: F3169 .H4513 1989]

Other experiments continue to this day for building the stone platforms and moving the statues. The native population often dismissively asks the archaeologists if they don’t have huge statues where they come from! This book is a fascinating read.

Single Sign On

2011-10-03T11:15:00.002-04:00

Shortly after 7 a.m. this morning, Single-Sign-On (SSO) went live for Langsdale Library (Law Library will go live at a later date). SSO enables students, staff and faculty to use their UB log in to sign on to databases and their library account rather than the library barcode. This current implementation does not include InterLibrary Loan, but we hope to enable that feature in the near future. Library staff will still scan your barcode when checking out materials to you.

Twitter in the classroom

2011-09-30T14:49:00.004-04:00

A recent article in The Chronicle of Higher Education discusses how Twitter can be effectively used in an online classroom to facilitate communication and increase feelings of connection between faculty and students in an online environment.

The article also notes that few students were using Twitter prior to the class; its classroom application taught students a new social media tool.

Anyone interested in a student book club?

2011-09-29T09:40:00.001-04:00

Hello as a student liaison for Langsdale Library I’m trying to develop a stronger relationship with the UB community and Langsdale Library. One way we can achieve this is by having a book club at Langsdale that meets once a month. If anyone is interested or has any ideas, please leave a comment below or send me an email @ vincent.nowicki@ubalt.edu. Thank you and have a great day!

-Vincent Nowicki

Speak Out (Or Should We Say Read Out) for Banned Books Week

2011-09-29T08:51:00.003-04:00

We had a successful MFA student reading earlier this week in honor of Banned Books Week (Sept 25 - October 1); now we challenge you to read your own favorite banned book on YouTube.
Readers across the country are sharing their favorite poem, passage, or chapter from previously banned books; here's your chance to speak (read) out against censorship!

Here's the list of most frequently challenged books in 2010 and well as a list of the most challenged "classics".

The Original ThinkPad

2011-09-27T17:39:00.000-04:00

Yes, Langsdale Library does have 10 new ThinkPads available for use within the library.

But this post is about the original Think Pads which first circulated in the 1920s. To find out more about the original Think Pad take a look at the Daily Heller and be sure to click on the archival riches link for additional treasures!

Creator of World Wide Web is now trying to measure its size

2011-09-19T10:12:00.005-04:00

Will we ever know how many pages are on the World Wide Web?

Google surpassed the trillion-page mark in its index three years ago (Google, 2008), and this doesn't count the deep web that its search engine doesn't index?

With millions of bloggers, amateur videographers, photographers and other web authors adding content by the minute, is it possible to measure the ever-growing Web?

Well, the man considered the creator of the Web, Tim Berners-Lee, is ready to try! His World Wide Web Foundation is launching a project called the World Wide Web Index with a $1 million grant from Google (World Wide Web Foundation, 2011). Its goal is to measure the size and impact of the Web in a series of annual reports. The first report is scheduled for early 2012.

It will be interesting to follow this project to see if society can track the growth and development of the Web. Tim Berners-Lee would like to do more to manage it - we'll see if this is the first step in that direction.

Greetings from Langsdale's new student liaison Vincent Nowicki

2011-09-16T09:36:00.000-04:00

Hello, my name is Vincent Nowicki. I’m a sophomore at The University of Baltimore.
My major is Jurisprudence and I’m the student liaison for Langsdale Library.
I feel my job as liaison is to be a bridge of communication between students, faculty,
and the library. As liaison you will see me all over campus promoting the library every
way I can. One of my personal goals as the liaison is to strengthen Langsdale’s social
media sites (facebook and twitter). Langsdale Library has a lot to offer and these sites are
good way of finding out new things that are going on in the library. I’m always around
campus if you see someone promoting the library it is most likely me. Don’t be afraid to
come up and say hi or ask me a question. This is going to be a great year for UB and
Langsdale. I hope to see you all soon. Remember, like us on
facebook https://www.facebook.com/langsdalelibrary Thank you.

-Vincent Nowicki

Remembering September 11, 2001

2011-09-15T09:58:00.000-04:00

The display case in the entry to Langsdale Library commemorates the tragic events of September 11, 2011. Created by library staff member Brian Chetelat, this display features a number of books dealing with the events of that tragic day ten years ago. One volume, purposefully not in the display, but held at the circulation desk, is worth a few minutes of everyone's time: Here is New York: A Democracy of Photographs [Reserves HV6432 . H47 2002].

New and Shiny

2011-09-01T15:59:00.000-04:00

Welcome back students. Langsdale Library has made some changes to our homepage. Visit http://langsdale.ubalt.edu/ to see our site and take some time to become familiar with all of the new ways to find information available to you. You can search for a book title quickly and have it held for you at the Circulation Desk. You can access your Library account easily and renew any items that you currently have checked out. You can chat with a librarian when needing research assistance and check to see if an instructor has placed any books needed for class on reserve. You can also find links to follow us on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook

Enjoy your Semester, and remember – the staff at Langsdale Library are always here to help, whether in person, online or over the phone.

quake rocks University of Maryland library

2011-08-24T12:19:00.002-04:00

While we were lucky here at Langsdale, with virtually no damage after the earthquake, some of our sister libraries were not so fortunate.

Here are photos of McKeldin Library that had large numbers of books fall off the shelves.

For Faculty: Google Scholar - Soon you can track your own citations

2011-08-15T09:31:00.008-04:00

What, a librarian promoting Google Scholar? Yes, I use it often - it's a great way to track down a source, check citations, etc.

In fact, Langsdale has teamed up with Google to show our own full text resources within Google Scholar. It's easy for you to set up to see Langsdale journal access when you're searching. If you haven't done so already, set up your preferences to show Langsdale holdings in your own search results.

Like many of our library databases, you can also create email alerts in Google Scholar to notify you when additional citations are gathered for your search topic. Simply run a search and then click the "create email alert" link at the top right of the search results. You'll be alerted when new citations appear.

And recently Google offered a new feature in GS; it's called Scholar Citations and it will allow scholars to track citations on their own works, complete with timeline graphic of citation traffic.

Currently Scholar Citations is being used by a small number of authors, but Google plans to open it for all scholars to use in coming weeks (we'll keep you updated).

Image: Creative Commons licensed Flickr photo by ajc1

Langsdale by the numbers

2011-08-01T09:21:00.002-04:00

Staff are working on Langsdale's annual report for FY2011, which we hope will be released in September. In the meantime, here are a few numbers:

1,387,916 items retrieved from online databases
91,265 guests visited the library
141,793 users visited the library's websites
420,114 web pages viewed
37,785 questions answered*
26,120 books & DVDs circulated
12,640 of our books & articles requested from other libraries
6,772 books & articles borrowed by UB users from other libraries
54,324 reserve books and electronic reserves items checked out or accessed online
2,878 students, staff and faculty attended at least one of 186 workshops or
instruction sessions

*includes circulation, reference and special collections

Finding good information online: A Biologist's perspective

2011-07-20T16:02:00.000-04:00

It is fairly easy to find information on the internet, but how can we find good information on the web? A blogger for Scientific American provides several tips for finding high quality content on the web. Among his recommendations are to use specialized search engines and databases as well as to fact check everything you find. His first piece of advice, "don't be scared of scientific papers" might be particularly interesting to many students at UB when they find themselves needing to find scholarly journal articles. First, the article explains what these are, and then provides some tips for how to find citations for scientific articles. Before you get discouraged by his list of options for actually getting a copy of the articles you find, know that you can get almost all of these items through Langsdale Library.

Many of these articles will be on of Langsdale's online databases. But which one should you check? You you can use the library's "journal finder" to look for a journal title and see which databases have it. If we don't have it available online, you can get the article in 2-3 business days by completing an Interlibrary Loan request.

And of course, you can search the library databases directly, which gives you many more options for good websites with which to start your search. So the article provides some good tips to anyone who wants to find good information online, but for folks at UB, it is a whole lot easier.

UB Faculty publish Baltimore '68

2011-07-13T14:39:00.004-04:00

UB Faculty members Jessica I. Elfenbein, Thomas L. Hollowak and Elizabeth M. Nix recently published Baltimore '68: Riots and Rebirth in an American City.

This book offers chapters on events leading up to the turmoil, the riots, and the aftermath as well as four rigorously edited and annotated oral histories of members of the Baltimore community. The combination of new scholarship and first-person accounts provides a comprehensive case study of this period of civil unrest four decades later.

This engaging, broad-based public history lays bare the diverse experiences of 1968 and their effects, emphasizing the role of specific human actions. By reflecting on the stories and analysis presented in this anthology, readers may feel empowered to pursue informed, responsible civic action of their own.

Baltimore '68 is the book component of a larger public history project, "Baltimore '68 Riots: Riots and Rebirth." The project's companion website (http://archives.ubalt.edu/bsr/index.html) offers many more oral histories plus photos, art, and links to archival sources. The book and the website together make up an invaluable teaching resource on cities, social unrest, and racial politics in the 1960s. The project was the co-recipient of the 2009 Outstanding Public History Project Award from the National Council on Public History.

Tina Fey's Bossypants at the Library

2011-07-05T14:55:00.016-04:00

Tina Fey's memoir, Bossypants, has arrived at Langsdale Library. Part of the leisure reading collection, this popular title can be requested from the library's catalog.

Fey's feminism informs her humor, according to Adele Marley, a library technician at Langsdale, who recently read Bossypants. People are often "humorless about what they think or believe," she continues.

Tina Fey apparently doesn't have this problem.

In the Bossypants chapter "Peeing in Jars with Boys," Fey talks about how, when she first started at Saturday Night Live, women were passed over for parts in skits, because there was some notion that men were funnier than women.

"There is an actual difference between male and female comedy writers," Fey says, "and I'm going to reveal it now. The men urinate in cups. And sometimes jars."

Fey talks about how times have changed. In the nine years she was at the show, the women in the cast took over.

Fey wants to see the day when comedians are always chosen for their funniness and not for their gender.

Adele wishes there had been more celebrity dirt in the memoir, though. One of the reasons she reads celebrity memoirs is to get some gossipy details. She has the feeling that Fey didn't want to offend anyone.

"Over the years I came to realise that the movie star hosts of the show [Saturday Night Live] were just people who wanted to do a good job and (with the exception of a very small handful of d-bags) were eager for any guidance," Fey writes. "Who were the d-bags, you ask? I couldn't possibly tell you. But if you want to figure it out, here's a clue: the letters from their names are sprinkled randomly through this article."

Funny and informative? Yes. But not particularly juicy.

Librarian Natalie Burclaff , however, loved Bossypants. Librarian Catherine Johnson is up to page 70 and enjoying it so far.

For your chance to form an opinion on Tina Fey's new memoir, Bossypants, visit the Langsdale Library catalog and request the book today.

Need study space? We've got it!

2011-06-28T12:03:00.004-04:00

Langsdale has been working hard this summer to make the library more study-friendly. Last semester we mixed things up by moving the Circulation and Reference desks to accommodate more study tables on the first floor, and we have since added four brand-new private study cubicles on the second floor. We are also in the process of upgrading the two “old” study rooms on the second floor to function as presentation practice rooms, so we’ll soon have spiffy new high-tech study space for your convenience.

In addition to the new tables on the first floor, the second floor study cubicles, and the presentation practice rooms, we have our usual two private study rooms on the third floor and roomy study space in the basement. The basement may sound scary, and it has looked scary in the past, but if you haven’t visited Langsdale in while, you’ll be surprised at how comfortable the basement has become. We’ve painted the walls, carpeted the floors, and added swanky new café-style tables near the vending machines. This area is perfect for grabbing a quick snack or cramming with that cost accounting book you’ve borrowed from our Reserves collection. And the basement is quiet. So if you can’t find peace on the first floor, the second floor, or the third floor, the basement is a great place to spread out and work.

Don’t wait for the end of August—come check us out now! It certainly can't hurt to scope out the prime study areas before the semester starts AND we have plenty of new DVDs and leisure books available to make the trip worthwhile :)

Book Recommendation

2011-06-13T14:50:00.006-04:00

Almost 120 years ago descendents of those who fought in wars before the American Revolution formed the Society of Colonial Wars “to perpetuate the memory of those events, and of the men who, in military, naval, and civil positions of high trust and responsibility, by their acts or counsel, assisted in the establishment, defense, and preservation of the American Colonies.”

Their efforts are documented in Honoring Our Colonial History edited by Andrew Ross Huston. Langsdale’s own John Mealy was a member of the Editorial Committee for this book. John is the General Society’s Executive Director and Archivist for both the General (GSCW) and Maryland (MSCW) Societies of Colonial Wars, part of the library’s Special Collections. The book draws upon the societies’ records but is also richly illustrated with photographs of the markers in their historic settings.

Commemorated are events throughout the colonial period from the “First Encounter” with Native Americans in 1620 Massachusetts, to the eve of the American Revolution. Some commemorate conflicts settled peaceably. New Netherland claimed New Sweden for the Dutch in 1654, and the combined colonies capitulated to the British a decade later, without warfare.

French and Spanish colonies would not capitulate so easily. The latter half of the colonial period would see a series of major wars, often allying Native Americans with one or another European power. The British came to dominate eastern North America, gaining Florida from the Spanish and Canada from the French, but the Revolution in the original 13 colonies quickly overshadowed their victory.

The first chapter of Honoring Our Colonial History includes memorials placed by the GSCW in Nova Scotia to commemorate the capture of Ft. Anne in 1710 and Ft. Louisbourg in 1745. The following 26 chapters chronicle the placement of markers by State Societies which extend beyond colonial British territory.

The book’s last chapter, for instance, tells of the Texas society’s participation in the Shipwreck Project, the exploration of a French vessel which ran aground on a mission to claim the mouth of the Mississippi for France in 1684.

In the Maryland chapter is Albert Weinert’s familiar Statue of Cecil Calvert, third Lord Baltimore, on the steps of Baltimore’s Mitchell Courthouse erected by the MSCW in 1908.

College students eager to learn but need help negotiating the information overload!

2011-06-08T16:19:00.004-04:00

Seattle Times guest columnists Alison J. Head and Michael B. Eisenberg push back on the prevailing idea that today's college students are slackers. Rather, these researchers argue that colleges must retool to help young people learn the skills to negotiate the vast amount of information at their disposal. Read their column here.

Baltimore Summer Events!

2011-06-01T13:12:00.004-04:00

If your own skin didn't already inform you that it's warm outside, there's that overhead hum-drip of window-mounted air conditioners, the shimmering of heatwaves on every concrete surface, and the street vendors hollering about ice-cold snowballs and $1 bottles of water. In short, this week has brought summer on with an absolute furnace of tropical heat.

Fortunately, Baltimore offers a simmering sample of distractions on these roasting hot, clingingly humid days of summer. Here are a few festivals and events happening in the near future that are definitely worth checking out:

The Strand Theater's 2011 Friends & Neighbors Festival from June 1-19
Federal Hill's Jazz&Blues Wine&Art Festival on June 5
The Greek Folk Festival from June 9-12
HonFest from June 11-12
Baltimore Pride 2011 from June 17-19
The Maryland Traditions Folklife Festival on June 18
ROOTS Fest 2011: Many Communities, One Voice from June 22-26
LatinoFest 2011 from June 25-26
The African American Festival from July 2-3
Artscape from July 15-17

To see the MANY, MANY more events happening in and around Baltimore, visit http://baltimore.org/events/ OR http://www.baltimoresun.com/events/.

End of semester coffee!

2011-05-04T12:25:00.006-04:00

Monday, May 2 through Thursday, May 5 we're offering free coffee and lemonade from 8am-6pm to help get UB students through the end of the semester. We've also added more tables one the first and second floor of the library for studying, and if you need to borrow a laptop while you're at the library, stop by the circulation desk on the first floor.

Not in the library? Librarians can help you with research questions using our Ask a Librarian chat service. We also have subject guides if you need help with any stage of the research process, from finding articles or statistics to creating citations.

Good luck with finals!
How has the library supported you this semester?

Inspired Discoveries TODAY

2011-04-29T07:49:00.002-04:00

Come join us for Inspired Discoveries today from 9am - 3pm in the Moot Courtroom in the Law Center. Twenty-four undergraduates will present their work on 11 original research or creative projects. It should be a great day!

Langsdale co-sponsors Inspired Discoveries Symposium

2011-04-25T11:15:00.002-04:00

Langsdale is proud to sponsor the second Inspired Discoveries symposium this Friday
School of Law's Moot Courtroom.

Inspired Discoveries is part of an ongoing effort to recognize and encourage undergraduate research and other academic achievements; the annual event features the creative and scholastic work of 25 UB undergraduates.

The day will begin at 9 a.m. with a welcome by President Robert L. Bogomolny and
opening remarks by Provost Joseph Wood. Students will present twelve projects throughout the day, and Ryna May, director of the Schoenbrodt Honors Program at Howard Community College, will deliver the keynote address at 12:45 p.m.

Winners of the student competition will receive a $500 award.

Here's more information on Inspired Discoveries, including a list of the student presentations.

Chronicle Editorial Dispels Myths of the Internet Age

2011-04-18T09:32:00.004-04:00

In an editorial in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Harvard librarian Robert Darnton discusses 5 Myths of the Information Age. Here he talks about the important role libraries provide in service to the community, be it assisting job seekers with job information, sifting through a mass of information to find relevant material or helping students with academic assignments. He also dispels the myth that everything is available online, citing the wealth of archival materials that have not yet been digitized.

For more on the myths and realities, read the full essay (if off campus, must sign in to Research Port)

Business Students Adrift

2011-04-14T16:22:00.004-04:00

There's a really interesting article in the New York Times today about the expectations of students in business schools as well as their achievement and learning. It references Academically Adrift by Richard Arum who our campus was fortunate to have a guest earlier this year. His findings are not pretty. Fortunately, the article also has some really great news in the form of examples from some of the nation's top rated schools in how we can counter these trends.

The Looming Budget Battle

2011-04-14T10:39:00.004-04:00

The budget for the federal government has been a major news story of late, and two competing plans for out nation's long term finances will be a huge part of our national conversation over the summer.

You might have heard about a plan proposed by Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin recently and also that the President gave a speech outlining his own ideas yesterday.

Since I'm sure, like me, you were probably at work or in class during this speech I've dug up the official transcript so you can read it.

Here's representative Ryan's detailed proposal as well as some analysis of it, courtesy of the CBO.

Note: This post previously stated in error that Representative Ryan was from Minnesota

UB BEETnik MFA Student Reading TONIGHT

2011-04-12T10:22:00.000-04:00

National Libraries Week is April 10-16, with the theme of "Create Your Own Story @ your library." Langsdale Library is celebrating stories by hosting events and activities throughout the week.

On Tuesday, April 12th, be a UB "BEEtnik", grab a spot on a sofa and listen to creative works written and read by the following selected students in the Master of Fine Arts program: Vinny Lyman, Emily Lee, Danielle Ariano, Oakley Julian, Heather Moss and Steven Leyva

Enjoy coffee and cookies from 7-8pm in the lower level lounge area of Langsdale. Inspired to share your own creative work? Stay after for open-mic from 8-9pm.

Test new online search tools and win a $10 gift certificate

2011-04-12T08:14:00.002-04:00

IDIA graduate students are conducting research on several online search tools. We are looking for faculty, undergraduate and graduate students who have used Langsdale Library’s online tools within the past year and are willing to be observed while trying new search tools.

The research will take place between April 13 - 30 at the University of Baltimore’s Usability Lab in the Academic Center. You will receive a $10 gift card for Starbucks as thanks for your participation.

If you are interested in participating, please contact on of the following:

Faculty: Contact Anne Fales at: afales.ub@gmail.com.
Grad Students: Contact Stacy at: stacy.poliseo@ubalt.edu
Undergrads: Contact Yoni at: jonathan.glaser@ubalt.edu

Portal has Enormous Potential, Little Population

2011-04-11T11:25:00.004-04:00

American Heritage (AH) Publishing Co. and the American Association for State & Local History (AASLH) are set to unveiling the National Portal to Historic Collections this month.

While it has enormous potential the National Portal is not quite “ready for prime time” as very few items are either entered in or available through it. Not every repository is yet listed, and many large repositories have only made a few entries from their extensive collections. This is entirely understandable since National Portal is in its infancy, but users should be forewarned not to rely on a portal search to find all that is available, even from institutions listed as part of the portal project.

That being said, as the National Portal database is populated, it has enormous potential to reveal “hidden collections” often held by historical societies and museums. The ultimate promise of the National Portal is that of a one-stop search for museum holdings that will parallel libraries’ use of http://www.worldcat.org/.

AH and AASLH began the project four years ago when Edwin Grosvenor bought AH from Forbes, ending its twenty year corporate ownership of American Heritage Publishing Co. AASLH actually began AH in 1947 and Grosvenor has a background in educational publishing. His father and grandfather presided over the National Geographic Society and edited its flagship magazine for over a century.

The Association and the publisher have assembled an advisory board headed by former U.S. National Archivist Allen Weinstein and a working group which includes representatives of the Library of Congress Network Development & Standards Office, the Open Archives Initiative, PastPerfect Museum Software, and from the J. Paul Getty Museum for the American Association of Museums.

The project has ambitious but necessary goals such as industry agreement on common metadata standards; development of automated tools for harvesting metadata; improvement of Standard Nomenclature for Museum Object Cataloging; and promulgation of a uniform system of Museum Accession Identification Numbers (MAIN – meant to be the equivalent of publisher’s ISBN numbers).

Though the task facing the project is daunting, it seems to have assembled the right people and tasked them with the necessary work to accomplish its goals. While the National Portal is not currently all one might hope for, one might ultimately hope for quite a bit from this project.

Learn to create webpages at one of Langsdale Library's free workshops

2011-04-05T16:19:00.000-04:00

Join us at Langsdale Library for a series of free workshops to learn the basics of creating webpages.

In Introduction to HTML, participants will learn the basics of HTML (hypertext markup language), the language used to create web sites. This is an excellent course to attend prior to learning Dreamweaver or other web editors.
* Friday April 8: 1-4 in Room 401. Register here
* Saturday April 16: 10:30 - 1:30 in Room 401. Register here

In HTML with Style: Cascading Style Sheets students will learn how to learn how to enhance the design of web pages using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). CSS makes it easier to manage the look and feel of your web pages while conforming to accepted standards. Want to find out what else CSS can do? Come and join us. Some knowledge of HTML is required.

* Saturday April 16: 2:30 - 5:30 in Room 401. Register here
* Friday April 22: 1-4 in Room 401. Register here

Note that the workshops on Saturday April 16 are back to back, so you can take both of them in a single day. All workshops are free and open to the public, but we do prefer that people register in advance using the links above.

Tuesday Book Recommendation

2011-04-05T13:43:00.001-04:00

Book: Race for the South Pole: The Expedition Diaries of Scott and Amundsen (G875.S35A3 2010 )

Author: Roland Huntford

Reviewer: Ivy Owens, Langsdale Library

Race for the South Pole: The Expedition Diaries of Scott and Amundsen recounts the competition between Robert F. Scott of Great Britain and Roald Amundsen of Norway to be the first man at the South Pole, 1910-1911.

The diaries plot the progress of the two teams day by day throughout the expedition. As Amundsen recorded less per day than Scott, the amusing diary entries of Olav Bjaalund, the Norwegian ski racing champion, are included to show more of the Norwegian experience.

Amundsen organized his race exclusively as 5 men on skis with dog sled teams carrying supplies. Scott, on the other hand, organized 3 motor sledges, 19 ponies, and 2 teams of dog sleds to carry supplies . Once the motorized sledges and ponies gave out, Scott sent back the dog teams and he and four men pulled the supply sled to and from the South Pole.

The Norwegians got to the South Pole on December 14, 1910. The British team arrived January 17, 1911. As this was long before instantaneous communication, once each team left the South Pole, they had to race back to their home base, get on their ship, and sail to Hobart, Tasmania. There they could cable their accomplishment to the World.

These diary entries with their accompanying photographs are a fascinating look at the beginning of the 20th Century when there were still unexplored spots on the Planet Earth!

Have you read any good books lately? We’re looking for book recommendations that we can share with the rest of the University. Submit yours all semester long at: http://goo.gl/lQqAv

Langsdale to move books from the 3rd floor in latest renovation plan

2011-04-01T09:27:00.003-04:00

If you have visited your library recently, you may have noticed some changes. When you first enter the building, you will now see the circulation desk straight ahead, and an open work space to your right.

Our government documents were moved to the basement in order to create space for study rooms on the second floor (coming soon!).

In the latest plans for renovation, Langsdale aims to create a large open space on the 3rd floor by removing all of the books. Library Director Lucy Holman explains the motivation behind the plans: "When we removed the shelves of government documents from the second floor, we uncovered rows of golden carpet that had been hidden underneath the stacks for decades. People really like them. Unfortunately, we already have plans to replace the carpet and put study rooms in that area. So this got me thinking about what might be under those shelves on the 3rd floor."

The former home of our government documents collection is only a few walls away from becoming 4 new study rooms

As of now, the library has not determined where to put all of the books that are on the third floor, but the leading proposal is to move the existing bookshelves into the stairwell and have the books line the stairs as you go up and down the building. The stairwells have a rather industrial look to them, and rows of books are sure to give a warmer feeling.

Be sure to stop by Langsdale Library to see our new look, and enjoy the rest of April.

"I can't wait to see what color stripes we get on the 3rd floor" added Holman.

Upcoming exhibit mixes art, archives, & politics

2011-03-28T14:56:00.000-04:00

Staff in Special Collections at Langsdale have been working with MICA students from Dan D'Oca's 2010-11 Exhibition Development Seminar as they prepare their exhibit, Baltimore: Open City, which opens this Friday at the former North Avenue Market and runs through May 15.

The students have been mining photographic materials and video footage from Special Collections, as well as using publications and archival documents from our collections to further their historical understanding of the city.

We're looking forward to checking out the exhibit and, as the project website suggests, "exploring what a more open city might look and feel like." Hope to see you there!

Please pardon our progress.

2011-03-22T16:28:00.000-04:00

While students are off for spring break, furniture is moving about within the library. Langsdale Library is open for its regular hours (except for being closed on Friday), however, things may get a bit noisy at times on the first and second floors. The 3rd floor will remain undisturbed and that is the best place to go if you are looking for a quiet study are in the library.

One of the big changes is that the circulation desk is now right in front of you when you enter the library, and our feedback on this so far has been very positive. If you want a sneak preview of what the library is going to look like when you return from Spring Break, check out the photos on Langsdale's Facebook page. We have a few more changes in the works, including adding several tables on the first floor and some new study rooms on the second.

Thank you for your patience.

Tuesday Book Recommendation!

2011-03-22T15:48:00.003-04:00

Book: Paper Towns

Author: John Green

Reviewer: Pete Ramsey, Langsdale Library

John Green is a fantastic author of young adult fiction, whose prose intelligently combines laugh-out-loud humor with insightful social commentary. Paper Towns may be the best of his books to date. The book opens with a crazy night of pranks and adventure, and features memorable characters whose emotions the reader feels intimately, not to mention a host of ready-for-class-analysis thoughts and symbolism.

More on this book: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5ppwMTErrc

More on John Green: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyQi79aYfxU

Have you read any good books lately? We’re looking for book recommendations that we can share with the rest of the University. Submit yours all semester long at: http://goo.gl/lQqAv

New faculty book recommendation

2011-03-16T09:55:00.003-04:00

Book: Room: A novel

Author: Emma Donoghue

Reviewer: Betsy Nix, College of Arts and Sciences

The premise of this book sounds terrible--a mother and son trapped for years in an 11x11 room by a kidnapper. But that's not really what it is about. It is about motherhood and the world children create and understandings of happiness. It would be a great companion to Jonathan Franzen's Freedom. The characters in Room have no freedom, but they find ways to cope.
I listened to this work as an audiobook because I was going on a long trip. The audio version is like a radio play, and I would highly recommend it.

Check out the book at Langsdale, call number: PR6054.O547R66 2010 (3^rd floor)

Have you read any good books lately? We're looking for book recommendations that we can share with the rest of the University. Submit yours all semester long at: http://goo.gl/lQqAv

Need a break?

2011-03-15T14:49:00.001-04:00

Langsdale Library has tons of new books and movies to relax with over Spring Break. Check out movies like:

The Town (PN1997.2 .T69 2010)

127 Hours (PN1997.2 .A52 2011)

Or books like:

Room by Emma Donoghue (PR6054.O547R66 2010)

Between a Heart and a Rock Place: A Memoir by Pat Benatar (ML420.B34337A3 2010)

Langsdale Library will be undergoing renovations during Spring Break, but we will be open our regular hours through Thursday, March 24. We will be closed Friday, March 25, but we resume normal hours on Saturday. Don’t be afraid to stop in and pick up a few good movies or books for your stress-free (I hope) break.

Tuesday Book Recommendation!

2011-03-08T12:52:00.003-05:00

Book: Unbroken: A World War II story of survival, resilience, and redemption

Author: Laura Hillenbrand

Reviewer: Fred Guy, College of Arts and Sciences

I've always had an interest in WWII, especially the war in the Pacific. This book is a story of survival, resilience and redemption. Great read. After reading this book you may never feel sorry for yourself again! ________________________________________________________________

Have you read any good books lately? We’re looking for book recommendations that we can share with the rest of the University. Submit yours all semester long at: http://goo.gl/lQqAv

Way-Finding in an Electronic World

2011-03-07T08:47:00.003-05:00

If you follow this blog, you've seen a number of posts concerning e-books. Langsdale is exploring what direction to take with e-books, and we've been soliciting feedback through the blog and informal surveys in the library. The library literature is full of articles on e-books in terms of circulation models, pricing formulas and the like, and we're determining what might be a plan for us.

I recently read a blog posting on MIT's Technology Review, however, that gave me pause in the rush to e-books. The author talks about the lack of visual/spatial reference in an e-book. One might remember a favorite passage was about 1/4 " into the book and immediately go there to reread it. How many of you have turned immediately to the photos in a biography because the pages are different for photos? Sure, you can search an e-book for a phrase or name, but sometimes it is just easier to return to the dog-eared page or quickly turn to p. 245.

That made me think of the organization of e-books in a library as well. Of course, many students don't understand our Library of Congress organization system and have difficulty finding a book on the shelf; perhaps an e-book is easier to find from the catalog. But there are those who literally know a book by its cover - the blue-green set of psychology encyclopedias, for example - and they know it by its location - on the first row of reference. It's surprising how many people recognize an edition by its color or size or another physical characteristic. This visual way-finding is lost on e-books.

There are also some users who still browse the stacks - they know the general area for a topic in criminal justice, for example, and they find it easier to browse through books on the shelf rather than search in the catalog. They struggle with limiting an online search with what they want; they can't seem to find the search terms to use, so they just browse the shelves instead.

These are certainly not strong reasons for slowing the advance of e-books; there are many who greatly value their convenience and easy access. However, it is incumbent on librarians to consider ways to increase way-finding with e-books through fully developed catalog records. We need to make online searching and browsing easier so that users find the e-books they want.

As always, we'd like to hear your thoughts.

Brainstorm with Mind Maps

2011-03-01T12:41:00.005-05:00

Hi! I'm Pete Ramsey, one of the Reference and Instruction Librarians at Langsdale Library.

This semester I'm teaching a section of IDIS 110 (Introduction to Information Literacy). Recently in class, I demonstrated how to create a "Mind Map" (sometimes called a "Concept Map"). A mind map is a way to brainstorm by visually organizing concepts around a central theme or idea. Here's an example of a mind map outlining the different parts of a research paper:

As someone who thinks better when I can include pictures and graphics alongside text, using mind maps has made me be a better planner and researcher. Besides planning, I also find myself taking meeting notes using mind maps. For me, it's a way to quickly see the different parts of a problem, and then isolate the parts and deal with them individually.

It's easy enough to create a mind map with pen and paper, but there are some great programs available if you—like so many of us—are permanently attached to your computer. The mind map above was created using a program called XMind, which can be downloaded free from http://www.xmind.net/. On the website, you can even browse mind maps created by other users. Next time you have a project or idea to brainstorm, give mind mapping a try!

Thoughts on Watson and Plagiarism

2011-02-22T15:06:00.000-05:00

Last week Jeopardy featured a match between two of their most successful champions and Watson, a computer system developed by IBM.

The final score from Jeopardy's IBM challenge.
No copyright infringement intended

From a librarian’s perspective, Watson's ability to seemingly understand natural language (well, most of the time) is very intriguing. One of the challenges facing humans who are searching for information is figuring out which search terms to use, and the ability to discern meaning could make searching much more effective. While entering a few terms into a search engine works for some queries, there are times where basic searches don’t do well that require some human ingenuity to find an answer.

Another interesting thing is that as of this writing, you can watch the Watson’s Jeopardy appearance on Rashad8821’s YouTube channel. Rashad8821 self-identifies as a 22 year old college student, and I am somewhat surprised that Jeopardy Productions or Sony has not asked YouTube to remove these videos (yet?). I find it hard to believe that the lawyers saw the “NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT IS INTENDED” message and decided that it was OK as long as the copyright violation wasn’t intentional. Maybe the copyright owner sees value in such exposure from fans.

However, surprising this is, I was even more surprised by this excerpt from Edward Glaeser’s new book, Triumph of the City.:

"Following common practices, Wikipedia is not listed in the bibliography or citations, because any Wikipedia fact was verified with a more standard source. But I still have a great debt to the anonymous toilers of Wikipedia who made my research much easier at many points in time. I apologize if any phrases from that, or any other source, crept into my prose - one research assistant was assigned the explicit task of purging such inadvertent borrowing - but mistakes do sometimes get through."

According Harvard University, Dr. Glaser’s employer, lack of intention to plagiarize is not a sufficient excuse, at least not for students:

“Even if you don't intend to copy the source, you may end up committing [mosaic] plagiarism as a result of careless note-taking and confusion over where your source's ideas end and your own ideas begin. You may think that you've paraphrased sufficiently, or quoted relevant passages, but if you haven't taken careful notes along the way, or if you've cut and pasted from your sources, you can lose track of the boundaries between your own ideas and those of your sources. It's not enough to have good intentions and to cite some of the material you use.”
See: http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k70847&pageid=icb.page342054

While one cannot draw conclusions from two examples, I wonder if this is somehow indicative of a trend towards less rigid intellectual property enforcement. Is it OK to post copyrighted material to YouTube as long as the copyright owner doesn’t protest? Is it OK to plagiarize a little bit, as long as it wasn't intentional. Does apologizing in advance make it OK?

Consider the Salmon, and also the CRO

2011-02-07T08:44:00.010-05:00

Among the items in President Obama’s State of the Union Address was a promise to reorganize the U.S. government.

The President citied his “favorite example” of odd organization to laughter from members of Congress. “The Interior Department is in charge of salmon while they’re in fresh water, but the Commerce Department handles them when they’re in saltwater.” and promised that “In the coming months, my administration will develop a proposal to merge, consolidate, and reorganize the federal government in a way that best serves the goal of a more competitive America.

U.S. National Archivist David Ferriero got a head start on the process last fall and reported on NARA’s effort in his blog “Collector in Chief” last Thursday. Among the recommendations is the new position of Chief Records Officer (CRO) to “lead records management throughout the Federal government with an emphasis on electronic records.” Ferriero, a career librarian, was the President’s first library related nomination. It seems likely that this President will have the opportunity to nominate a new Librarian of Congress as well. Could there be a broader reorganization ahead?

In Canada, a 2004 reorganization created a single institution, Library & Archives Canada. Some, including Ferriero’s predecessor, Allen Weinstein, have suggested consideration of the Canadian model but that would be more problematic here.

In Canada, libraries and archives, as well as museums and cultural institutions were part of the same government portfolio (the Heritage Ministry), while in the U.S., they are not even in the same branch of government. Folding the archives into the library would mean giving up considerable control by the executive branch over its records, something no previous President has considered. Yet with a presidential promise to “do big things,” perhaps anything is possible.

Google's new art project

2011-02-02T11:08:00.002-05:00

You might have heard recent news stories concerning Google's new Art Project. Using Google's Street View technology, designer Amit Sood teamed up with 17 of the world's most famous museums, including the MoMA, the Met, the Tate and the Hermitage, to create virtual tours of many of their treasured possessions.

In addition, each museum agreed to allow Google to shoot selected works with a high-resolution camera that enables viewers to study the works at magnifications that far exceed the naked eye.

It's a wonderful site to explore for art lovers of all types.

For more information on Google's Art Project, check out the story on NPR's Morning Edition.

When you're finished with books you've browsed...

2011-01-20T11:44:00.004-05:00

Have you ever been shopping, brought stuff with you to the dressing room, and were unsure of what to do with the merchandise after you’d finished trying it on? Some folks opt to put clothing back on the rack where they originally found it; others hang the contents of their reject pile on the return rack for salespeople to deal with later. Here at Langsdale, we don’t want you to have to play the guessing game. If you’ve pulled a book off the shelf, given it a once-over, and are finished with it, just drop it on one of the return carts located nearby. There is no need for you re-shelve it yourself—that’s what library staff is here for. Also, did you know that Langsdale keeps statistics on books that are perused in-house? We use the stats to determine patrons’ reading habits, which informs our future book purchases. Please help us keep our library tidy, and our statistics on your reading preferences current: just drop books, periodicals, and government documents in the return cart. Thanks!

Bibliobouts: a game about citations

2011-01-13T09:45:00.001-05:00

The Wired Campus blog of the Chronicle of Higher Education recently featured an article about a game designed to teach students how to find and cite sources for research papers. The game, called Bibliobouts, was developed at the University of Michigan. Langsdale Library's Catherine Johnson was one of a small group of professors who tested the first version of Bibliobouts in a class and you can read some of her comments in the article. With the information learned from the initial trial, Bibliobouts was improved and is now available in a beta version for other professors who might want to try it out in their classes.

Imagining a national digital library

2011-01-10T12:09:00.006-05:00

While many European countries continue to develop their online digital libraries, the United States is just beginning to think at the national level. Yesterday's New York Times article, "Playing Catch-Up in a Digital Library Race," gives an overview of this issue.

Also worth checking out: Robert Darnton's "A Library Without Walls" and the press release from Harvard University's Berkman Center for Internet and Society

An interesting point of view

2011-01-07T10:43:00.003-05:00

"If you're interesting enough to find your refuge in the library, you're usually pretty interesting to talk to." That's Glenn Slater's point of view as reported in the New York Post.

For Faculty: Teaching apps you might find useful

2011-01-04T10:09:00.003-05:00

A recent Chronicle of Higher Education blog post includes the top teaching apps for your mobile device. The post notes apps for taking attendance, finding and managing course readings, taking notes and preparing course lectures.

For those of you looking to consolidate tasks on your Droid or iPad, here are some great ideas!

Borrow 10 DVDs -- for Free

2010-12-14T15:57:00.003-05:00

You've worked hard this semester! Take some time for you and settle down with a DVD or two or ten. That's right, from now through December 19 you can borrow up to 10 DVDs which will be due back January 4, 2011. Just think--you can borrow Season 4 of The Wire, Get Him to the Greek, the entire Godfather trilogy, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer all at once. And if that's not enough, there's also great collection of Leisure Reading books. Happy Holidays!

It's the end of the semester, so.....

2010-12-09T11:55:00.002-05:00

It’s Dawn, your student liaison. If you are like me, you are probably frazzled and stressed out to finish your finals. Just keep in mind you have only one more week left. To close out this semester I wanted to cover a few things about Langsdale (quiet/group areas, library assistance and winter break hours.)

QUIET AREAS/BREAKOUT ROOMS
Langsdale, again, is here for you if you want a quiet study area or group space. The 3rd floor is known to be the quietest. The 2nd and 3rd floor also has rooms designed for groups.

ASSISTANCE AT LANGSDALE
Also, if you need assistance, please see a reference librarian with any question or participate on our live chat (similar to instant messaging.) Live chat is found on our website and you will get an instant response.

WINTER BREAK
And just because you will be on winter break doesn’t mean Langsdale is. We will be closed December 20- January 3, but we'll be but open during the week in January; our hours of operation will be 8:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. Mon-Fri. Our reference desk is open from 10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. as well.

LEISURELY READ AND WATCH
During your break, you should check out our wide selection of leisurely books and DVDs. I have used the DVDs quite regularly, especially when I need some down time from studying. And I can’t believe the selection and how some are new releases. I don’t have to spend money to rent a movie now!

Let me know if you are getting everything you need and good luck in closing this semester. Happy Holidays!

For Faculty - Do we know the extent of plagiarism??

2010-12-07T09:48:00.003-05:00

A recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education describes the work of a professional writer who has written hundreds of papers (many at the graduate level) for students through a paper mill. The author says he wants to encourage faculty to think and talk about the issue of plagiarism on our campuses. The comments that follow the article start that conversation.

Perhaps the article and this blog post can start a conversation here - what are all of our responsibilities (faculty, librarians, administrators) in confronting this issue here at UB? We'd like to hear your thoughts.

A note about theft prevention

2010-12-02T14:34:00.003-05:00

‘Tis the season for sticky fingers: just a reminder to keep an eagle eye on your personal belongings when visiting Langsdale-- or any place on campus, for that matter. Laptops and other pricey items are particularly vulnerable to theft during this time of year. If you need to take leave of your study spot, please bring your valuables with you.

Google enters e-book market

2010-12-02T08:52:00.002-05:00

We've had several postings about e-books this semester, trying to get a sense of user interest. In that vein of discussion, it seems that Google may be getting into the e-book market. Check out this Wall Street Journal article on Google's plans.

Stay awake! Study! Coffee at Langsdale Next Week

2010-11-29T08:05:00.003-05:00

Next week is the last week of classes for the fall semester which means it will soon be time for the Langsdale Library Free Coffee Break. This semester coffee will be available on the first floor:
Monday through Thursday,
December 6-9,
8:30 AM to 6:00 PM.

Need a place to study?
Langsdale has multiple PC workstations, quiet study carels and group study areas with large screens.

Want something to read or watch over your winter holiday?
Langsdale has DVDs and leisure reading material available for check-out over the break.

So stay awake and study for a another couple of weeks,
and then lay back and relax with a library book or DVD.

The Federal Government Online!

2010-11-23T15:20:00.002-05:00

If you wanted to read the recent health care bill for yourself how would you find it? How about if you wanted to read a specific speech by President George H. W. Bush during his time in office? As it turns out you can find both of these things with one website.

The Government Printing Office is in the process of rolling out a new permanent home for many government publications online. It's called FDsys and currently has a wealth of available information. In addition to bills and speeches you can view:

The federal budget
Congressional hearings
Supreme court decisions
And a lot more!

Be sure to take a look once in a while as the GPO is actively adding new resources to the site all the time during this transitional period.

Going Farther with Google Maps

2010-11-18T12:18:00.028-05:00

Hi! I’m Pete Ramsey, one of the Reference and Instruction Librarians at Langsdale Library. I joined UB in August this year, and have been enjoying my work here very much. You may have seen me at the reference desk, in your class offering library instruction, riding my bicycle to campus, or playing indoor soccer in the Recreation and Wellness Center. If you see me, say hi! I’d love to get to know you.

A few weeks ago, I taught a class how to use Google Maps (http://maps.google.com) to build a collaborative class map. Google Maps is a map service you can view on an internet browser, and is also one of my favorite websites. As it turns out, a lot of the information we use every day is place-specific. In other words, new information either comes from one geographic place, or information we already have is only useful in one place. Google Maps is one of the best resources I can think of for getting to (and using) place-related information.

Some of the things you can do with Google Maps include:

Get driving, walking, cycling, or public transit directions from one place to another. You can even choose between different recommended routes or click on "traffic" to see current travel conditions.
Use "search nearby" to find businesses near an address. I use this when looking for food by cuisine (pizza, Chinese food, etc) or for businesses I need (Kinkos, Post Office, etc).
Zoom to the street-level photograph of an address, to see what an unfamiliar place looks like from the ground.
Search for user-submitted photos and videos near an address by clicking on the "more" button and selecting those options.
Look up Wikipedia articles that relate to specific places the map using the "more" button.
Search for a new home or apartment using the "real estate" option under the "more" button.
Log in to create your own maps and share them with friends
And a whole lot more!

For video tutorials on how to use Google Maps to do these things (and more!) visit http://maps.google.com/intl/en/help/maps/tour/. You can also "Ask a Librarian" if you want one of the Langsdale librarians to assist you in your place-related information needs.

Don't forget to use Interlibrary Loan

2010-11-18T09:25:00.002-05:00

Hi - this is your student liaison, Dawn, again. While researching, are you finding everything you need? Don't forget to use Langsdale’s interlibrary loan service. Interlibrary loan can allow you to retrieve documents, articles, or books that are not available at Langsdale. These requests can arrive as early as two days to a week; it all depends on where the request is coming from. Articles come more quickly as we rely on the mail for books.

When your item is not available in Langsdale library or online, just press the find it button on the document. Fill in your account #, which is your barcode (found on the back of your student id.) Soon thereafter, you will receive an email providing a link back to the ILL system, where you can download, print or read the article you requested. Please note that books will need to be picked up.

When I use the Interlibrary loan service, I receive documents as early as two days. It is an excellent service that can bring quick turnarounds. Just remember to allow yourself enough time. Let me know what you think about the Interlibrary Loan. How has your experience been? AND how often do you use it?

New article on copyright

2010-11-18T09:10:00.002-05:00

Confused about what's fair in love, war and using multimedia?

A recent blog post in the Chronicle of Higher Education reports on a new article providing students with guidelines for educational uses of multimedia. The authors, professors of communication and English education, provide information for students on determining fair use, legal cases involving the use of multimedia and scenarios for students to use in judging fair use.

With the enormous rise of multimedia projects and use of video or audio clips in classroom presentation, this is important reading for students and faculty alike.

Go international, go Mango!

2010-11-17T15:15:00.009-05:00

It's International Education Week. . .so why not try a slice of Mango? Mango Languages is a FREE online language learning system available via Langsdale: Arabic, Mandarin Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portugese, Russian, Spanish, Thai, Turkish and Vietnamese. Treat yourself, it's International Education Week, so go international and go Mango!

Langsdale Hosts Styles of Governance TONIGHT

2010-11-15T16:38:00.001-05:00

Langsdale Library and the College of Public Affairs are sponsoring Maryland Styles of Governance: the Past as Prologue a panel discussion featuring experts on the state's recent governors and their leadership styles tonight, Monday, Nov. 15 at 7 p.m. in the University of Baltimore's Langsdale Library Auditorium, 1420 Maryland Ave. The event is free and open to the public.

Panelists include John W. Frece, associate director of the Center for Smart Growth at the University of Maryland, College Park and co-author of My Unexpected Journey: The Autobiography of Governor Harry Roe Hughes; C. Fraser Smith, senior news analyst at public radio station WYPR and author of William Donald Schaefer: a Political Biography; and William J. Thompson, a history professor at Stevenson University and author of a forthcoming biography of former Baltimore mayor and Maryland governor Theodore R. McKeldin.

John T. Willis, executive in residence in the University of Baltimore's College of Public Affairs, will moderate the discussion. A display of political material from the Langsdale Library's Special Collections will open following the discussion.

Survey reports students' difficulty with research

2010-11-10T10:35:00.004-05:00

A new study out of the University of Washington School of Information finds that 84% of students don't know where to go to start researching a topic. In a recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education notes that students report being overwhelmed with research and tend to search for a specific answer rather than exploring multiple points of view on a particular topic. They tend to bring high school techniques to college work. The survey, which asked 8,353 students at 25 campuses across the country about their research habits and skills found that students also had difficulty narrowing a topic or filtering information. Most did evaluate web content in some fashion, particularly reviewing it for currency.

Instructors and librarians played critical roles in helping students develop their search strategies and finding appropriate sources.

Here's the full report: Truth Be Told: How College Students Evaluate and Use Information in the Digital Age .

Need help with research?

2010-11-04T12:07:00.001-04:00

This is Dawn, your student liaison. Well, the countdown continues and we only have five and ½ weeks left…could that be right? It doesn’t seem possible. With finals approaching, does everyone have everything they need in terms of research?

If you are writing a paper, statistics and facts are a great way to solidify your work. Scholarly journals supply plenty of facts and statistics; Langsdale has databases full of scholarly journals. Recently, I did a paper on racism in the United States. I found Academic Research Premier and America History and Life databases to be extremely helpful. However, if you need to narrow down your research, you can check the scholarly journals box.

If you are still not having luck, let me know or stop in. We are always happy to help. Our contact number is (410) 837-4274 or email us at langref@ubalt.edu.
Thanks and Happy Researching!

Provost comments on new online courses from Baltimore-based company

2010-11-02T09:09:00.004-04:00

Recently in the Baltimore Sun Provost Joe Wood discussed transfer credits from new Baltimore startup, StraighterLine Inc, which offers individual courses online to students missing credits. The full article is available from the Baltimore Sun on campus or through Langsdale's ResearchPort.

Election politics: Fun and games

2010-11-01T09:47:00.003-04:00

With election day one day away, and local television stations filled with political ads, accurate and not-so-accurate, I'm lead to wonder how students K- college are learning about elections and politics. It's not surprising that many are turning to simulations and games.

An article in the latest Chronicle of Higher Education entitled "College students develop video game to spark interest in voting", describes a game created by students in the program at Becker College in Massachusetts. Players of the game, Race for the Ballot, act as one of Massachusett's four candidates for governor, racing to win the election amid pitfalls such as government red tap, attack ads and the like.

Don Jansiewicz, a former professor at Carroll Community College created the Game of Politics in the late 1990s with revisions each election cycle to simulate the political process. Schools across the country are using it in the classroom to inform and educate their students.

Several other organizations, including the National Student/Parent Mock Election (The Road to the Capital) and Cable in the classroom, CNN Student News, C-SPAN, History Channel (eLECTIONS ) have created simulations for younger students to better understand the political process.

And, of course, UB's own Simulation and Digital Entertainment program recently joined the political fray with its own Maryland Budget Game, designed to sort out the issues surrounding Maryland's state budget and alternatives fro balancing it.

With the inundation of political information coming from the candidates and political pundits, perhaps these simulations and games can help students make informed decisions when they enter the voting booth.

Happy Election Day tomorrow!

Looking for resources? Check out our databases

2010-10-28T17:20:00.002-04:00

This is Dawn again.I am checking in with you to see if your research needs are met.Research can be a little overwhelming due to information overload. But, Langsdale makes life a little easier with databases organized into subject matter.

Databases can be found on the library's home page by clicking “Databases by Subject” – found under the “Find it” column. Next you will find several categories that list the databases. You may want to check out several ones to find your major or subject area.For those of you majoring in Corporate Communication, like myself, please check out three of my favorite databases. These databases are found in two subject areas -- Arts & Humanities and Computers/Technology.

Arts and Humanities:

Communication & Mass Media Complete; and

Design & Applied Arts Index

Computers/Technology:

Design & Applied Arts Index

If you are majoring in another field, please click on other categories. Academic Search Premier and Lexis/Nexis Academic are two of the largest databases Langsdale offers. These two databases cover a variety of subjects. What is your major? Can I lead you to the right databases?

Bookmark the date: Annual Book Sale on November 3rd and 4th

2010-10-26T17:03:00.006-04:00

Bibliophiles rejoice! Halloween will soon be but a haunting memory, but Langsdale Library's annual book sale is imminent. Book lovers will have a huge selection to choose from, and ultra-savvy bargain-hunters can get a leg up on everybody else in the recession-era holiday shopping scramble (it's never too early, mind you.) Langsdale Library's extraordinary annual book sale will commence on November 3, noon to 8 pm and November 4th, 9 am to 1 pm at the gallery in the Langsdale Auditorium.

This sale is swimming in bargains-- most hardbacks are $2, soft covers are 50 cents and pocket books are a mere 25 cents. Generally VHS tapes, DVDS, and books on tape are $1. There are also collectible books and out-of-print treasures on hand that are reasonably priced. Knock those beloved book-lovers off your shopping list with the tome of their dreams, or stock up on your autumn reading wish list.

Book dealers from the Baltimore/Washington corridor start lining up for the sale as early as 10 a.m. on Wednesday, so you know the annual Langsdale Book Sale is a hot ticket; get there early for the best selection. Questions? Call Ted Kruse at 410.837.4204 or email him at tkruse@ubalt.edu. See you on November 3rd and 4th!

http://www.ubalt.edu/calendar/EventDetail.cfm?eventId=8291&path=0&caltitle=Langsdale%20Library

ongoing debate about e-textbooks

2010-10-25T09:20:00.003-04:00

Last week our student liaison posted a question on the blog about students' feelings about ebooks and ereaders. Langsdale is considering having a few ereaders available for check out. Interestingly, I just read an story in the New York Times regarding students' disinterest in ebooks. I encourage you to read the story and let us know what you think!

Do you want ebooks?

2010-10-21T08:52:00.001-04:00

This is your student liaison, Dawn. Congratulations students – we have almost reached the ½ way mark of our semester. Finally!

I wanted to check in with you about a device that Langsdale may provide. Langsdale Library is conducting a poll to see if you would be interested in using eBooks. Like the kindle, an eBook is a lightweight device that electronically downloads books, newspapers, or magazines.
The eBook has many advantages as it saves on paper and provides a less burden in carrying books. However, is it for you? We wanted to get your feedback on whether you would use this device?

For me, I am more of a visual person. I need pages to turn rather than reading it on a screen. But, don’t listen to me; many people enjoy reading from an eBook. If the e book is something you would or wouldn’t like to see, than let us know. Your feedback counts.

Using LibGuides for research help

2010-10-20T13:54:00.005-04:00

This time of year you’re working on the next big project for the semester. Maybe it’s in a field you’re unfamiliar with, or maybe you know your topic, but you still need to find resources.

At Langsdale, we have library guides, or LibGuides, to help you research a topic. Each LibGuide gives databases, books, keywords, websites, reports and reference material to help you find all different types of sources. They're located on the library website, under research help, by discipline. We also have some LibGuides created specifically for a course.

Our LibGuides allow you to give feedback, so if you’ve found an amazing website, or stumbled across a great journal or book that you’d like us to add, just let us know. We’re also developing more LibGuides to cover other topics. It helps to have information all in one place, and these are great starting points.

Chronicle column has teaching tips for faculty

2010-10-12T08:34:00.004-04:00

I don't know how many faculty read the ProfHacker columns in the Chronicle of Higher Education*. Many of them offer useful suggestions for incorporating technology into the classroom or offer ideas on new course assignments and projects. In the latest installment*, several members of the ProfHacker team share what they are doing this semester with links to a number of their syllabi, blogs and assignments. It's an interesting read; I certainly found it useful.

If you enjoyed this and would like to read more, I suggest that you subscribe to the "Wired Campus" newsletter from the Chronicle. This is one of eight or ten e-newsletters that focus on a particular issue in higher education, in this case, technology. The process of creating an account and choosing a newsletter takes all of 2-3 minutes, and then the information comes to you. In the midst of my busy day, week, semester, I sometimes appreciate the push of an article instead of finding and reading the Chronicle myself. When I'm on the go, it's easy just to check my email and read one of the articles sent to me. The "Wired Campus" pulls together most of the leading headlines from the technology section of the Chronicle and offers additional features as well.

*to access this article from off campus, you must first log in to UB's Research Port portal with your library barcode and last name.

student Liaison says "don't be shy"

2010-10-12T08:29:00.001-04:00

Are you struggling with researching your next project? Well, don’t be shy, Langsdale Libary is glad to help. There are several ways to contact us -- instant messaging, calling, emailing, social networking, and visiting.

You will find we are quick to respond, with a friendly attitude. I definitely recommend our website icon, called “Chat with a Librarian,” which is an instant messaging service. Recently, I used this service, when I had a question, and I received an answer in just under a minute! I couldn’t believe how fast they responded.

But still try our other points of contacts and you will find fast results. If you decide to call, call (443) 837- 4274 or if you wish to email, send to langref@ubalt.edu (reference) or langcirc@ubalt.edu (circulation) . We also have social networking accounts with Twitter and Facebook. If you want to visit, please stop by, as there are plenty of librarians and staff members ready to help.

So don’t be afraid to ask and try anyone of these ways. See which one works best for you. And let me know by responding to this blog or email at dawn.lamb@ubalt.edu.

Thanks,
Dawn Lamb
Student Liaison

Best disguise wins a prize

2010-10-06T16:42:00.003-04:00

Langsdale Library is celebrating Halloween by hosting a masquerade contest in October to coincide with our promotional READ posters. You and your disguise will grace a READ poster to be displayed in the library. It's a great way to celebrate the season, to wow the UB community with your creativity, and to show off your love of books. Also, prizes will be awarded for best costume! To enter:

1. Select a book from Langsdale's collection. Search our databases (http://langsdale.ubalt.edu/catalog/index.htm) or ask a reference librarian to help you locate the book you want.

2. Create a costume that relates to the book somehow. Creativity and humor are encouraged!

3. Either photograph yourself in full costume holding up or enjoying your chosen book, or come into the library in costume to have your photo taken by Langsdale Circulation Specialist Erin Toepfner. E-mail her (etoepfner@ubalt.edu) or call her (410.837.4208) to make an appointment.

4. Wait for the winner(s) to be announced at the end of October. Even if you don't win, you'll still be on a READ poster wearing your incredible disguise.

Reminder on Due Dates

2010-09-30T12:33:00.011-04:00

Quick refresher or for new students…

Langsdale Library allows an item to be checked out for long periods of time. Due dates can fluctuate as it depends on the item -- books, interlibrary loan requests (periodicals, journals, books, etc.), and DVDs. The following list reflects when items are due:

Books 4 weeks 2 renewals*

DVDs 1 week 2 renewals*

*Please note that renewals are only granted if the item doesn’t have a hold request.

Due dates should be labeled on each item. If you call us at (410) 837-4260, we can check your due date and renew items.