Congrats, Coach Strong!

Congratulations to Mike Strong, coach of the University of Scranton’s women’s basketball team, on his 700th win!  Coach Strong joined the “700 club” of the NCAA’s winningest coaches this Sunday when the Lady Royals beat Drew, 73-54.

In celebration of this milestone, I searched the University of Scranton Digital Yearbook Collection and found this photo of Coach Strong (on the left in the third row) and the Lady Royals, on p. 62 of the 1980 Windhover yearbook:

If you want to read more about Coach Strong’s 700th win, check out the University press release, or “The 700 Club,” an article by Scott Walsh that was in Monday’s Scranton Times-Tribune.

Inauguration Day

The inauguration of President Obama prompted me to do a little research on the customs surrounding this day. So I used a new research tool that can be found on the Library’s A-Z List of Databases. This new tool, called Credo Reference, is a great alternative to using Wikipedia because it allows you to find authoritative answers that it gets from hundreds of reference books in a broad range of subjects.

Here’s a snippet of what I found in the book, Holidays, Festivals, and Celebrations of the World Dictionary:

Inauguration Day

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From 1789 until 1933, the day on which the newly elected president of the United States began his term of office was March 4—now known as Old Inauguration Day. The day was changed to January 20 when the 20th Amendment to the Constitution was passed in 1933. When Inauguration Day falls on a Sunday, the oath of office is administered privately, but the public ceremonies are usually postponed until the following day.

The swearing-in of the president had been held on the East Portico of the Capitol building since Andrew Jackson’s 1829 inauguration. Former president Ronald Reagan changed the site for his inauguration in 1981. Since then, the swearing-in has been held on the West Terrace of the Capitol. This site, which faces out onto the Mall where thousands gather for the event, affords greater visibility for spectators. Reagan reportedly also liked the symbolism of the president facing west, out toward the rest of the country.

Inauguration Day. (2005). In Holidays, Festivals, and Celebrations of the World Dictionary. Detroit, MI: Omnigraphics, Inc.. Retrieved January 23, 2009, from http://www.credoreference.com/entry/5870131.

In addition to providing me with the basic information for which I was looking, Credo also provided me with links to related resources. By clicking on the Our Catalog link, I get a list of books that are in the Weinberg Memorial Library. By clicking on the Academic Search Elite link, I get a list of results from this database. Wikipedia can’t do that!

Credo automatically created a citation for me in APA format, but I could also get my citation in MLA format. And, I can e-mail the citation to myself, or save it in RefWorks. Wikipedia definitely doesn’t do that for you!

Give Credo a try, and when you do, post a comment to let me know how you like it.

President Obama’s Inauguration Marks a Paradigm Shift for America

Today is without question a historic event for America; beginning at 12 p.m. Barack Obama will be sworn in as the 44th President of the United States of America.

The 44th President of the United States of America, Barack Obama

Today is without question a historic event for America; beginning at 12 p.m. Barack Obama will be sworn in as the 44th President of the United States of America.

If you are trapped at work and don’t have a TV you can turn on, but you are fortunate enough to have a computer in front of you, then why not watch it Live over the internet from either Hulu.com, Joost.com, or CNN.com.

Here are the direct links:

http://www.hulu.com/live/inauguration.

http://www.joost.com/Obama_Inauguration_Live

http://www.cnn.com/video/fb/facebook.html?stream=stream1

Of course, being able to watch a Presidential Inauguration over the internet isn’t exactly the paradigm shift in which I speak. I am of course talking about the election and overwhelming acceptance of America’s first African American President.

Regardless of your personal politics, I think we can all agree that today would be a good day to put aside our petty differences and join together not as a nation of individuals, but as a family of diverse and interconnected peoples from all ethnicities and religious backgrounds.

Today is clearly a great day for all African Americans and I do not wish to take anything away from this victory that all peoples with darker complexions around the world finally have, but today is really a great day for all people, regardless of one’s ethnicity.

I believe America is a great nation because of our diversity (among other things), and America has made strides to accept all men and women equally. With roots all the way back to the Magna Carta, continuing on to Early Modern and Enlightenment Philosopher’s of the 17^th and 18^th centuries; whose ideologies culminated in the famous revolution we so closely align with 1776. Continuing on with various historical marking points along the way, such as President Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, the passing of the 14^th, 15^th, 19^th, and 24^th amendments which grants equal protection under the law to all persons, bans racial discrimination in voting, grants women the right to vote, and abolishes the poll tax, respectively. The dedicated and important work of Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whose national holiday we have so recently and coincidentally celebrated.

For other civil rights milestones you may want to read CNN’s civil rights timeline, found here:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/EDUCATION/01/31/extra.civil.rights.timeline/index.html

The long-winded point I am trying to make here is that this is a victory for African Americans (for certain), but it is also another milestone on a path of true acceptance of all Men and Women. Eventually one day we will see past all of this and realize something so true that then Senator, now President Obama spoke so recently:

“Now even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us — the spin masters, the negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of “anything goes.” Well, I say to them tonight, there is not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America. There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America — there’s the United States of America.”

I say America is a good starting point, but we need to look with a wider scope.

 

U of Scranton yearbooks online, from Aquinas to Windhover

January, named after the Roman god of gates and doorways, is not only a great month to celebrate the new year, but also to remember the past. The Weinberg Memorial Library has just made it even easier to reminisce by digitizing all of the University of Scranton’s yearbooks, from the 1916 Aquinas to the 2007 Windhover.

The Weinberg Memorial Library’s Digital Services department is proud to present the University of Scranton Digital Yearbook Collection, a 74 volume set of almost 20,000 digitized pages – all available to the public. You can browse the books to get a feel for each year’s unique student culture, or search the books to find photographs of your favorite University faculty, staff, and alumni!

Questions or comments? Contact the WML Digital Services department at (570) 941-7003.

The Schemel Forum – Spring 2009

This Spring, the Weinberg Memorial Library’s Schemel Forum is offering a wealth of cultural enrichment opportunities, including three evening courses, a national issues forum, two luncheon seminars, and a piano recital.  Check out the Forum schedule (and the incredible range of the topics to be discussed) here.

At the April 29th Schemel Forum Luncheon Seminar, Parag Khanna, author of The Second World, will speak on “A 21st Century Look at Global Politics and Economics.”

What is the Schemel Forum?  According to the Forum’s director, University Senior Fellow and author Sondra Myers, “It is a noncredit, continuing education program for cultural enrichment at the University of Scranton, named for the late Rev. George Schemel, S.J., who was respected within the U.S. and abroad for his spiritual and educational talents… Schemel Forum courses are intergenerational and participatory.”* The class sizes are small, so discussion is encouraged (and lively!).

Why is the Forum important? Here’s Sondra again: “The Schemel Forum enriches the environment by stimulating people to think beyond their own fields of knowledge and create new ground for interaction, for envisioning the future, making new friends, and enjoying new experiences with old friends.”*

The Forum is open to the whole Scranton community – and University students, staff, and faculty are encouraged to get involved.   If you’re interested, check out the course offerings, and then contact Kym Fetsko at 570-941-7816 to register.

*Both quotations are from “Talk of the Times with Sondra Myers,” an article by Patrice Wilding in the September 3, 2008 Scranton Times-Tribune.

Chesterton Free Audio via LibriVox

“Love means loving the unlovable – or it is no virtue at all.” –G.K. Chesterton in Heretics

After the hectic ending to Fall semester, followed by a nice, long break this year for Christmas and New Year’s, Intersession acts as a month-long “pause” of sorts in the Library’s regular, super-packed routine of the regular semesters. It’s a time when we get started on new projects, spend extra time finding out what’s going on out on the web and in the world, and using our findings to do our jobs better. Plus, with a manageable number of classes in session, we still get to see and interact with students who are looking to get ahead in their studies, which keeps us in touch w/ what you guys need and want out of your Library.

Along these lines, yesterday I came across a neat website and an awesome resource on the web, particularly for fans of G.K. Chesterton*. Chesterton was a prolific writer, a Roman Catholic, a fine storyteller and a very wise man. He is often read alongside C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, although he was not part of the Inklings*, who were sharing ideas and stories just after Chesterton’s time. I own a few of his books (the Library’s collection of works by Chesterton far exceeds mine!), however I have yet to really delve into his writings as I hope to.

So you can imagine my excitement to stumble upon an entire online audio library of many of Chesterton’s works. This collection is part of LibriVox, whose goal it is to record audio versions of all of the books in the public domain. The site as a whole is an awesome resource unto itself — especially if you are an aural learner, and has as its pithy tagline: “acoustical liberation of books in the public domain” (header of the LibriVox website).

If you’re a fan of Chesterton, or enjoy Lewis and Tolkien and are interested in another writer of stories and ideas who is a kindred spirit to those two great thinkers, take a look at/listen to the extensive audio collection of Chesterton’s works. If Chesterton doesn’t do it for you, have at the LibriVox Search Catalog to see if your favorite public domain writer’s works have been recorded and added yet. (Shakespeare, anyone?) And if you don’t see your favorite author from before 1922 (though there are exceptions to the public domain rule of “Published before such and such a date,” which are expounded upon here), volunteer to record his or her works yourself!

*These 2 links to information about Chesterton and the Inklings, I fully admit, are websites for organizations who are devoted to the work of both Chesterton and the Inklings, respectively. As such, their descriptions of their subjects are necessarily colored by their enthusiasm — however, I have found they are also quite factual, out of great respect for the people they are writing about.

…aaaaand we’re back!

So, the new year has started, and the Library is back to business as usual. Here are our hours of operation during Intersession:

Monday, January 5th — Saturday, January 31st

Monday-Thursday, 8:00AM-10:00PM

Friday, 8:00AM-4:30PM

Saturday, 12 Noon-6:00PM

Sunday, 12 Noon-10:00PM

Saturday, January 31st: Closed

Our Virtual Reference / Ask a Librarian services (Email, IM and 24/7 Chat) are all back as well. See the Ask a Librarian page for details, or just use one of the nifty widgets or links located on the left sidebar to access these services.

The Streets of Scranton, now on Google

It’s even easier to find your way around Scranton, now that street-level photographic images of the city are available on Google Maps’ Street View feature.  Using Street View, visitors to our area or even newly minted Scrantonians can get a feel for what it’s like to drive or walk down our streets.

The Radisson, as seen on Google Street View

In an article titled “NEPA Goes Global on Google” in Saturday’s Scranton Times-Tribune, staff writer Laura Legere described the benefits of Street View:  “Google touts the program’s practical uses: it can help travelers preview landmarks on the way to a destination, shoppers discover if there are parking meters in front of a store, and homebuyers can peek at the neighborhood around a promising house.”

To use Google Street View, just go to Google Maps at www.maps.google.com.  Search for an address you’re interested in, and then click on the orange stick figure right above the zoom bar on the left hand side of the map.  You can drag the stick figure to “fly” over the streets, or just click on it to get into a full Street View image.  Once you’re in Street View, use your mouse or arrow keys to navigate through the entire 360-degree view.  As usual, if you need help using Street View, just ask one of the friendly librarians at the Weinberg Memorial Library for help!

You might notice that not all addresses or streets that you view in Google Maps have Street View images available – that’s because Google hasn’t yet photographed *all* of the streets in the Scranton area.  While West Scranton is well represented, and major roads throughout the area are visible, downtown Scranton, the Hill section, and the University campus aren’t in Street View at this time.  Google is constantly updating their maps, though, so keep your eyes open for Google cars on campus – you can spot them by the large cameras mounted on their roofs.

Google car, captured by Woodvines on Flickr