May is Hepatitis Awareness Month, but whether you have a research interest in Hepatitis or in any infectious disease, the library is the place to go for information.  We all do some of our research on the Internet – even when we know there are better choices.  But with medical topics, that’s a particularly bad idea.  While there are a handful of trustworthy sites on the free web – things like PubMed, the Mayo Clinic, and the Center for Disease Control – there is an inordinate amount of garbage out there.  And when it comes to health, believing it can be dangerous.

Of course, our databases are rich with reliable scholarly articles, and choices like Health Source, MedLine, Biomedical Reference Collection, Health & Medical Complete, and Nursing & Allied Health Source are all great places to look for vetted information.  But there’s more than that – databases like Health Reference Center Academic offers case studies and clinical reports, in addition to articles.  And Health & Wellness Resource Center offers encyclopedic information on disorders and diseases, as well as reliable information on treatment options like alternative and herbal remedies.  Its extensive multimedia section includes videos and pamphlets.  And try Medical Library Association-MedSpeak for an easy guide to unclear words in the technical journals.  All of our medical databases are listed on this LibGuide. 

But we have books, as well.  Titles like Infectious Diseases: A Geographic Guide by Eskild Petersen, Emerging Infectious Diseases: A Guide to Diseases, Causative Agents, and Surveillance by Lisa Beltz, and Infectious Disease Movement in a Borderless World by David Relman are all great general sources, and we have books on specific diseases, as well (such as Viral Hepatitis : A Handbook for Clinicians and Scientists by Tim Harrison, for anyone interested in reading something for Hepatitis Awareness Month).

 Regardless of your topic, if you need help don’t hesitate to email us at iueref@iue.edu!

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month!  Heritage months are always a great opportunity to immerse yourself in culture, so this month offers the perfect opportunity to explore the rich contributions of those of Asian descent.  Fortunately, the library has resources for any question. 

The Asian Studies eBook Collection is a great place to start, with material on everything from art to religion to history.  It covers perspectives from China, Japan, Korea, Tibet, and Central, South, and Southeast Asia.  If it’s literature you want, Asian American Drama and South and Southeast Asian Literature are great for both original writing and critical research.  Interested in business?  Try Asian Business and Reference.  Or listen to Asian voices unfiltered with Oral History Online.  The Library of Congress also has an Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month website, loaded with special exhibits, pictures, video, and special materials for teachers. 

 For questions on culture and identity, we have loads of ebooks worth reading, including Unfastened : Globality and Asian North American Narratives or Asian North American Identities : Beyond the Hyphen by Eleanor Ty, Begin Here : Reading Asian North American Autobiographies of Childhood by Rocío Davis, and Asian American X : An Intersection of Twenty-First Century Asian American Voices by Arar Han. 

 Whether you’re interested in cultural awareness or an in depth research project, we’re here to help!  You can email me at iueref@iue.edu.

Long gone are the days of card-based catalogs, but still, the library’s online catalog continues to improve.  You may have tried the new version of IUCAT – the search box on our home page uses it – but now the bugs are worked out and it is our official index for books, ebooks, videos, reserves, and more.

 It’s still the same catalog, though, and you can do all the same things – it’s just a new, cleaner interface.  You can still look for books and videos, renew your checkouts, request items from other IU campuses, and will receive email warnings before your checkouts come due.  But using it is easier than ever.

You can use it to search IU East’s library, or all IU libraries.  At the search screen, up in the top left, you see ‘IUCAT EAST’.  Click ‘change location’ if it says anything else and pick ‘east’.  Then, put your topic in the search blank.  You can search by title, author, keyword, or subject heading.  Results are ranked by relevancy rather than date of publication – a relief after the old catalog forced you to wade through results from newest to oldest.

But one thing you don’t have to put as much thought into limiters anymore, as it’s easier to limit from the results screen.  Over on the left, you can limit by type of item, year of publication, and more.  Need a video?  Click the icon.  You can also limit to only online sources.  All of your limits appear beneath your search bar.  These are ‘breadcrumbs’ that tell you how you got here.  If you decide you don’t want one, click the X to get rid of it.  And if you want to search all of IU instead of just IU East, check that box, too.  It’s that easy.

Once you choose a book, you’ll notice that this screen is improved, too.  First, near the top of the screen, you’ll see a ‘cite this’ link.  If you need MLA, APA, or Chicago style citations, this is a quick way to get them.  In the main part of the screen, you see the same description of the book and call numbers or URLs (for ebooks) that has always been there.  On the right (if you logged in) there is a ‘request delivery’ button, and a preview (if available).  But also on the right side of the screen is section that says ‘browse by call number’.  Because books are shelved by topic, it’s common to find one book in the catalog and then discover other good books on the shelves beside it.  The new IUCAT lets you see these books right here in the catalog.  Click on a title to see more about it.

The new IUCAT is a significant improvement over the old interface.  Try it and see how quickly you’ll have the resource you need!  More information about the new IUCAT is online here.  And if you need any help, email me at iueref@iue.edu!

This week marks the anniversary of the tragic Kent State demonstrations, a protest against the Vietnam War (specifically, the Cambodia invasion) that cost the lives of four students and injured nine others.  Given the importance of Vietnam to modern American history, it is a common topic in our history classrooms and assignments.  The Kent State shooting showed us that even students here in America could find themselves in the line of fire.

Whether you’re researching the Kent State tragedy or the Vietnam War as a whole, there are plenty of resources for you.  Databases like America: History and Life or JSTOR have a wealth of information – even a simple search turns up hundreds of articles, new and old.  Or, for contemporary accounts, try a newspaper source like the Historical New York Times.  In addition to quotes from the people involved, many include haunting photographs, such as the famous Pulitzer Prize winning image by John Filo (a Kent State student at the time).  For primary sources, try Oral History Online or American Memory from the Library of Congress.  And Public Documents Masterfile is useful for government investigations and reports.

 Or perhaps you’d prefer books.  Our ebook collection includes titles like Where Have All the Flower Children Gone? by Sandra Gurvis and Radicals, Rhetoric, and the War by Brad Lucas, both of which deal with Kent State – and many more on the Vietnam War.  Or try American History in Video for news reports and documentaries.

 Many more resources on the Vietnam War can be found here.  And all of our other history databases can be found on this libguide.  And if you need any help with your research, ask me at iueref@iue.edu – I’m eager to help you.

Kent State: The Day the War Came Home

https://proxy.library.iue.edu/login?url=http://vast.alexanderstreet.com/view/1792439

You might have heard that VHS tape players are being removed from all classrooms starting next semester.  If you’ve ever used a video in your projects or presentations, you’ll need a more modern format from now on.  Of course, you’re probably already used to using modern media like DVDs.  But even those sources can be cumbersome. Because, really, any hard format is becoming rarer.  Chances are, you stream films with Netflix or Hulu as often as you buy a DVD or BluRay disc.  But are they good sources for your class assignments?

 There are lots of places to find streaming video.  Of course, there are resources like Vimeo, YouTube, and Viddler, and those are great free resources online.  But they are focused on the user more than the content, and will frequently not be academic enough for an important presentation.  Fortunately, there are plenty of academic streaming videos, as well.  Most prominent is VAST, a collection of tens of thousands of academic videos in subjects across the spectrum, from history to anthropology to LGBT studies, business, or science.  These videos include interactive transcriptions, making it easier to hone in on a part you want, or quote from them easily in your papers without having to transcribe them yourself.

 You can also make custom clips, create playlists and embed them in your presentations, wikis, projects, or websites.  They can be embedded in OnCourse, as well.  And there are more collections dedicated to specific subjects, such as Ethnographic Video Online, World History In Video, American History in Video, and Counseling and Therapy in Video. 

 And if that isn’t enough, you can also try Moving Images, the Internet Archive’s library of free movies, films, and videos which includes over 500,000 classic full-length films, daily alternative news broadcasts, cartoons, concerts, and more. Many of these videos are available for free download.

 If you need video clips for your presentation, project, or wiki, you have lots of great choices.  Contact us at iueref@iue.edu for help using them!

https://proxy.library.iue.edu/login?url=http://WHIV.alexanderstreet.com/View/908288

April is National Poetry Month.  Launched in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets, it pays tribute to the ways poetry enriches American culture, both past and present.  Their website has a number of poetry-related readings and activities, including a Poem-A-Day program you can receive through email.  You can also follow Natasha Trethewey, our current Poet Laureate, at the Library of Congress.

 But our library is well stocked with resources for poetry and poetry criticism, as well.  Among are databases are Litfinder, which includes over 150,000 full-text poems and 800,000+ poetry citations, among numerous other short stories, speeches, and plays; 20th Century American Poetry, which includes over 50,000 poems from authors like Adrienne Rich, Langston Hughes, Ezra Pound, Denise Levertov, and William Carlos Williams; and American Poetry (1600-1900), which features more than 40,000 poems from the Colonial era to the dawn of the twentieth century.  We also have databases dedicated to specific types of authors, including African-American Poetry (1750-1900), Latin American Women Writers, and Black Women Writers.

 And, if you were interested in exploring poetry beyond America’s shores, English Poetry (600-1900), Scottish Women Poets of the Romantic Period, and Latino Literature: Poetry, Drama, and Fiction add hundreds of thousands more.

 More, we have ebook poetry anthologies exploring themes and authors across the spectrum ranging from Feminist Avant-Garde in American Poetry by Elizabeth Frost to Beautiful Enemies: Friendship and Postwar American Poetry by Andrew Epstein to Inclined to Speak: An Anthology of Contemporary Arab American Poetry by Hayan Charara.  We have poetry to suit any mood!

 And if you need help getting started, we have a LibGuide dedicated to 20^th century American poetry here.  Or contact us at iueref@iue.edu – we would love to help you! 

World Health Day, celebrated every April, is the World Health Organization’s holiday designed to raise global health awareness.  Each year, the WHO chooses an aspect of healthy living that they want to use the holiday to promote, and have used the opportunity to showcase topics ranging from road safety to safe motherhood to mental health.  In 2013, the topic is ‘Control Your Blood Pressure’. 

 High blood pressure can be the cause behind many problems, especially heart disease and strokes.  The WHO views preventive education as the best tool to use against hypertension.  And a library is a terrific place to go for education!

 IU East subscribes to many medical databases, such as MedLine, Nursing and Allied Health Source, and OVID.  Try a search like “high blood pressure AND prevention” in any of these.  Many of these include both professional articles (try MedSpeak for translating the doctor jargon) and more popular articles targeted to non-medical students.  Or perhaps books are more for you.  Try a book like High Blood Pressure: The At Your Fingertips Guide by Tom Fahey or Stress and Hypertension: Examining the Relation Between Psychological Stress and High Blood Pressure by Kevin Larkin.  There’s something for everyone, from the nursing student to the curious layman!

 And remember, if you need any help, don’t hesitate to contact us at iueref@iue.edu!

You’ve heard it before – you can’t use Wikipedia for this assignment.  This actually isn’t new – long before Wikipedia was invented, students in past generations were often banned from citing any encyclopedia for some assignments, because professors want students to use more in-depth sources.  But let’s say you really need a comprehensive encyclopedia for your work.  Where do you go?

 One great source is the Encyclopedia Britannica Online Academic Edition.  Like the print version, the Britannica is written by a large staff of trained professionals and editors, assuring high-quality coverage of any topic of human thought.  This large staff also means that current events articles are updated within two weeks of the event, so it’s a good source for scholarly information on time-sensitive topics, too – not just historical data.  All told, there are tens of thousands of articles and biographies.  Articles are loaded with illustrations and in-text hyperlinks, just like you’re familiar with in Wikipedia.  Plus, ImageQuest is Britannica’s library of more than two million pictures copyright-cleared for use in educational projects.

But Wikipedia isn’t just encyclopedia entries.  What if you’re using one of its sister sites, like WikiQuote or Wiktionary?  Don’t worry.  The Britannica has an internal dictionary as well, in the form of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary & Thesaurus that matches the functionality of Wiktionary.  Accustomed to using WikiVoyage?  Try Britannica’s World Data Analyst.  WikiQuote is matched by Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of Quotations.  Wikibooks?  Try Britannica’s Ebooks and Primary Sources.  And WikiNews is mirrored by links into BBC News and the New York Times.

 But Britannica has been designed with a college researcher in mind, as well.  Partnering with EBSCO academic databases, it contains more than 700 full text journal titles – try clicking on ‘Magazines’ to link into them.  And Britannica’s ‘Workspace’ option allows you to track and save your research – even share it with colleagues!

 If you need an encyclopedia for an assignment, the Britannica is a great place to start.  And if you need any help, don’t hesitate to contact us at iueref@iue.edu!

Service-Learning is an active method of learning in which students engage in structured community service and reflect on the meaning of that service. There are numerous service-learning opportunities and events at IU East, often associated with an academic course but always dedicated to helping you develop your spirit of service. (more info: http://www.iue.edu/servicelearning)

 Almost 1,000 IU East students participated in service in 2012.  In addition to benefiting the community and the students involved, it garnered IU East a place on the 2013 President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll by the Corporation for National and Community Service. (http://www.iue.edu/mediarelations/?p=4032) This recognition honors students, faculty and staff for their commitment to bettering their communities through service.

 Here’s what some students shared as they reflected on their service-learning experience:

• “It’s very satisfying to know how much the students look forward to working with us” ~ elementary tutor
• “The boys look up to the athletes and seem more interested in getting their homework done.” ~ community partner leader
• “Of course it feels good to help, but I know this is a good resume-builder also.” ~ transitioned from service to a paid job with community partner
• “I really enjoy every minute I spend with the kids at the school. It’s amazing how much difference it makes in their lives…and mine.” ~ elementary mentor

  3 easy steps to service-learning!

 STEP 1: Decide that you want to be a positive change agent in your community. You can do it independently or ask one of your instructors to offer a service-learning option as part of a course.

 STEP 2: Complete a service-learning interest form. Staff at the Center for Service-Learning (located in the Campus Library) can assist you through each stage of the process.

http://iue.libguides.com/servicelearning

 STEP 3: Serve, reflect, grow, enrich, repeat.

March is Women’s History Month, and a good time to reflect, not just on pioneering women who have changed the world, from Boudica or Hatshepsut to Hillary Clinton or Condoleezza Rice, but those who have changed our own lives, in big and small ways.  Of course, the library stands ready to help you with your research needs.  But we’d like to highlight several resources of particular interest to the study of women’s history.

American Women’s History Online highlights significant people, events, legislation, and issues relevant to the study of women’s history in the United States.  It includes biographies, hot topics, primary sources, and multimedia like videos, pictures, maps, and charts.

Women and Social Movements in the United States, 1600-2000 offers insight on how women shaped the American political landscape.  It includes almost 4,200 primary-source documents, as well as book, film, and website reviews, news from the archives, and teaching tools.

Contemporary Women’s Issues specializes in alternative press and other hard-to-find sources, focusing on how current issues impact women in the world today, in America and internationally.

GenderWatch focuses on how a person’s gender impacts every facet of their lives. It includes academic and scholarly journals, magazines, newspapers, newsletters, regional publications, books, booklets and pamphlets, conference proceedings, and special reports.

Daily Life Through History specializes in inclusive history that shows what life was like for the average people of any era.  It makes historical accounts more meaningful by highlighting the spheres women moved in, rather than just the accomplishments of the elite.

Or, you could try the free web with sources like Gale’s Women’s History Month Web site.  It includes biographies, quizzes, activities, time lines, and more that can be useful for adding to classroom lesson plans.

And for more information, we have a libguide highlighting all the resources we have that support the study of women’s history.