Rest up before finals!

With the Thanksgiving Holiday approaching and the college being closed, take some time over the long weekend to get some rest before finals kick in.  Your mind and body will thank you!

With that in mind, if you do choose to spend part of your holiday working on research, remember that while the library itself will be closed (from 5pm on Wednesday until we reopen at 7:30am on Monday) the library’s online resources are available 24/7.

Only a few more weeks to go!

Organizing Your “Stuff” resources

Here are the types of organization and their websites that we’ll be covering in the Organizing Your “Stuff” workshop:

Bookmarks
Del.icio.us

Books
LibraryThing

Documents
GoogleDocs

Tasks
Remember the Milk

Your Life
Evernote

These are only a sampling of the Web 2.0 sites available for organizing.  Do you have any favorites?

For those who are interested, here’s the powerpoint presentation.

Final workshops for the semester

The semester is in its final weeks and so are the library’s workshops.  If you’ve been planning to attend one, now’s your chance to do so!

Tuesday, 11/18, 11am
Research Strategies 101
Instructor: McKay
Location: Signal Peak Campus Library
In this workshop we’ll explore how to break a student’s thesis statement into search concepts that they can then string together into an advanced research strategy.  Students will learn how and when to use “AND” and “OR” to narrow and broaden their searches, how to effectively use wildcard functions, and critically evaluate the information that they find to determine if it effectively addresses their research question.

Wednesday, 11/19, 3pm
How to Use: Online Articles and eBooks
Instructor: Rhonda
Location: Signal Peak Campus Library
Students will learn how to effectively use the various online information resources that are available through the library.  Students will learn about the types of information that can be found within library resources, how to perform different types of searches for information, and save and print articles.

Thursday, 11/20, 3pm
Evaluating Online Resources
Instructor: McKay
Location: Signal Peak Campus Library
Students will gain an understanding of the differences between the information they find using library subscription databases and websites found through an internet search engine.  Then, using five standard evaluative criteria, students will learn how to determine if the websites they find are credible and accurate.

Tuesday, 11/25, 11am
Citing Sources
Instructor: McKay and Rhonda
Location: Signal Peak Campus Library 
Students often have difficulty understanding why and when they need to cite their resources.  This workshop will help them understand the importance of citations and how to follow the MLA and APA citation styles.

Friday, 11/21, 10am
Web 2.0 and Social Networking: Organizing Your “Stuff”
Instructor: Nancy
Location:
Signal Peak Campus Room O208A
Superstition Mountain Campus Room C322
Explore the world of social networking that goes beyond blogs and wikis.  Discover how you can use the web to organize and share your documents, links to your favorite websites, the books you own, and even your entire life.  Some of the sites we’ll look at are del.icio.us, LibraryThing, GoogleDocs, and Evernote.

Veteran’s Day – Campus Closed Tuesday

Just a reminder that Veteran’s Day is Tuesday, November 11th and all of the CAC campus locations will be closed.  Not sure what to do with your time off?  We have a few suggestions for you!  You can:

Learn about the history of Veteran’s Day

Find and watch a Veteran’s Day Parade

Know a veteran or someone in the service?  Send them a military e-card

Stay home and study.  Remember, if you have Internet access from home, you can always use the library’s online resources!

One workshop this week

It’s a quiet week ahead as far as workshops go.  We do have one coming up on Wednesday, though!  Here are the details:

Wednesday, 11/12, 11am
Thinking Critically
Instructor: Nancy
Location: Signal Peak Campus Library
It’s becoming more and more important to think critically about the world around us.  We’ll explain to students why information providers of all types try to persuade us, the techniques they use and how to identify them, and which sources you can reliably use.  The use of language, statistics, and logic are just a few of the areas we will examine.

Cast your ballot

If you haven’t voted, today’s your last chance!  If you have an early ballot, you can turn it in at any polling precinct.  However, if you plan to cast your ballot in person, you need to vote at your assigned precinct or your vote won’t count.  Not sure where your precinct is?  The Secretary of State has links to county polling location finders.

No more excuses - go vote!

Daylight Savings Time

Did you know that the time change is this weekend?  While we don’t actually move our clocks here in Arizona, most people are from or know people in states that do “fall back” and “spring forward” ever year.  There are lots of myths about why we have Daylight Savings Time, but we decided to do some research (because that’s our thing here in the library) and find out exactly what is up with this tradition.

First,  ABC News dispels the myth that the time change was adopted to help farmers.  Instead, they explain that the idea came from Benjamin Franklin. 

In reality, there’s a long history behind the concept, and Franklin’s idea is just the beginning.  A non-profit organization, Institute for Dynamic Education Advancement, has a Daylight Savings Time web exhibit that walks you through this history. 

Interestingly, the ABC News story mentions that the essay Benjamin Franklin wrote proposing the idea was done jokingly, but the IDEA web exhibit doesn’t mention this fact.  Take a look at Franklin’s essay and decide for yourself.

Of course, we can’t forget about the history of Daylight Savings Time in Arizona.  The Arizona State Library has a timeline of DST in our state.  You might be surprised to discover that we have tried the time change here – many, many times!