DID YOU KNOW?????

The Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners' budget for the next fiscal year has been cut by 16 percent. Library advocates fear there will be more cuts down the road. The STCC Library is a member of the Western Massachusetts Regional Library System, an agency of the MBLC.

The STCC Library gets a number of valuable services at no or little charge from or through the Western Massachusetts Regional Library System. These include, but are not limited to: access to periodical databases, delivery of materials to and from the STCC Library, and classes and programs that help STCC library employees improve their job and professional skills.

Susan McAlister, president of the Massachusetts Library Association, provided the following figures on PUBLIC library use in Massachusetts at a rally supporting libraries in Massachusetts on November 4, 2009.

On a typical day Massachusetts libraries:

• provide 278 programs for children and adults,
  
• circulate 148,000 items
• answer 13,900 reference questions
  
• and host l83,484 visitors - 23,666 of whom use public Internet computers

Representative Mark Falzone, a Democrat from Saugus spoke at the rally, where he said:

"When they learn how to think, then they can go out and make millions of dollars in those private companies that we are funding up here."

He said that 118 (out of 160) House members signed letters to the House speaker and to Gov. Deval Patrick asking to restore library funding that was cut on July 16. He said the push to preserve libraries has received great bipartisan support. "That's a great first step but we aren't going to stop there. We are going to keep fighting," said Falzone. "This is crucial funding."

Library posters have said for years: "Libraries will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no libraries."

How to Say It: Grantwriting...Write Proposals that Grantmakers WANT to Fund.

Thanks to Deborah Koch, STCC's Director of Grants, the library has its very own copy! Why? It seems our Ms. Koch is the author of this 2009 publication from Prentice Hall!

"How To Say It: Grantwriting promises to be an essential resource to grant seekers." says
Sally S. Tremaine, Director, Academic and Government Grants, Quinnipiac University

Koch "is aware of the importance of using language well," says Benjamin R. Shute, Jr., the Program Director of Democratic Practice and Corporate Secretary Emeritus of Rockefeller Brothers' Fund.

"This is the most helpful and logical guide on grantwriting that I have seen in my long career of doing biomedical research." Says Ronald Newbower, PhD, co-founder and CTO of the Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology (CIMIT) and former Senior Vice President for Research at Massachusetts General Hospital.

THANK YOU, DEBORAH! We will be cataloging this shortly.

HALLOWEEN!


Credo Reference includes Holidays, Festivals, and Celebrations of the World Dictionary,
which says (in part)

That Halloween was originally celebrated as a harvest festival. The Celts (pronounced KELTS) thought that this festival (SAMHAIN) was a time when the spirits of the dead roamed the earth.
Witches, goblins, black cats, and ghosts were said to roam abroad.

Irish settlers brought many of their traditional Halloween customs, such as bobbing for apples and lighting jack-o’-lanterns—to America in the 1840s.

Treats are exchanged for "safety," and the cry of "Trick or treat"warns us that, with no treat forthcoming, costumed children might play a prank!

Some people enjoy being scared. Here is a list of some of the scary links and places people go during the Halloween season.

Visit:

West Springfield:

Western Massachusetts: Halloween Activities in Western Mass

Spookyworld

Online try:

HauntedHouse.com

Haunted America Tours

Scary New England

Recession Proofing Your Career

The STCC Extended Orientation Program, in coordination with the Student Mentor Program, is hosting a fair entitled "Recession Proofing Your Career" on Wednesday, November 4. The fair will be held in Building 2 on the 7th Floor during the College Hour (12:15 PM to 1:20 PM), and is designed to encourage students to learn more about career opportunities. A number of departments will be staffing informational tables. The library will have a table, and will display books and other materials on specific careers and on the job search process. The library will also promote its online Career Exploration Guide, which has information on library resources about careers and occupations, as well as resources providing advice about searching for a job. It contains a page of links to career Web sites, including sites related to diversity in employment. Stop by the fair next Wednesday and take a look!

An A to Z of Web 2.0 Classroom Tools

From Jose Picardo's Technology and Education Box of Tricks, here's a comprehensive list of Web 2.0 tools for teaching and learning. It includes the biggies, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google, but there are dozens of more obscure tools that might be useful in the classroom. Try the iPhone audio blogging site Audioboo, or Blabberize, an animation tool that makes people and animals in your photos appear as if they're talking.

(h/t Mark Milliron)

Got a bright idea for your own business?

That's an important part of starting a small business, but it helps to learn a little bit about developing a business plan, marketing, finding start-up funding, etc. How can you learn about these things? Why, at the STCC library, of course, and from Web sites that the library has located for you in our business, entrepreneurship and marketing research guide. We have listed some of the books and other resources about business in general, business plans and entrepreneurship, that you can use to increase your familiarity with these topics. We have also compiled a list of electronic databases that can be used to find articles about business, as well as financial information about particular companies or industries. In addition, much valuable information is available on the open Web, but you have to know where to find it. This research guide can help with that, as well, with links and descriptions to Web sites on small business, advertising and retailing, as well as sites where you can find local or national statistics that might be useful in your business planning.

Have you heard of Nina Sankovich?

Visit her 'blog to see her project. She is reading and reviewing a book a day for an entire year! She started on her birthday, October 28th, 2008. By rights, I should have waited till next week to 'blog this, but I thought it was fascinating!

She's read The African Queen by C. S. Forester, The Last Essays of Elia, by Charles Lamb, Eurdora Welty's A Curtain of Green, The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery, and Jame's Lee Burke's Crusader's Cross. But why am I telling you this? Go to her website to see what else she's reading and to read her comments. Her site offers her rationale, her lists of authors, her genre lists, and, of course, her reviews! She has four boys at home, along with her husband, and still is able to get the books read and the reviews written. On October 28th (a week from this Wednesday), she'll be finished with her project.

Read what the New York Times said about Ms. Sankovich. She believes that ANYONE can read a book a week. Why not start now?

Errors of Style

APA (American Psychological Association) recently published corrections to the much examined 6th edition to the APA Style Manual. Mary Lynn Skutley from the APA Style blog addresses the changes in a recent posting. Skutley also includes a number of links useful for students and other users of the APA Style. In short, most of the errors in the APA Style Manual occurred in the sample papers, along with typos and clarifications. You can access the pdf of the corrections at http://supp.apa.org/style/pubman-reprint-corrections-for-2e.pdf. If you have any doubt about the APA formatting of your paper, feel free to contact the Reference Desk at 413-755-4549 or stop by during regular hours.

October is Cyber Safety Awareness Month

President Obama declared October Cyber Safety Awareness Month.

According to a report on National Public Radio, home users are most endangered. As cyber criminals get more sophisticated, they perpetrate more and more convincing scams.
Cyber criminals typically go after home computers, which are usually not as well protected as corporate computers are. The most recent study by AOL and the nonprofit National Cyber Safety Alliance found that four out of five home PCs lacked at least one of three critical protections: updated anti-virus software, spyware protection, or a working firewall which blocks certain communications.

Check out the information at Every Click Matters to learn about how one in four computer users may have their information at risk! Symantec's Internet Security Threat Report indicates an online crime (such as a virus, keystroke logger, bot, or phishing attack) occurs 4 times a second!


Do your homework! Be aware of scams, and celebrate National Cyber Awareness Month by keeping your computer safe.

Save The Library (or #savethelibrary)

A heartfelt plea from McSweeneys.

Contrary to popular belief, the job of a librarian has absolutely nothing to do with books; the job of a librarian is to help people find information, and information comes in several different forms. It could be a student writing a term paper needing to know how to find information on the term Volkerwanderung, or who simply wants to find the name of the latest Grisham—but more than likely, at least in recent years, it's the unemployed worker needing information on how to write a résumé or find a job.

...

It's not uncommon to see every computer (over sixty) taken at my branch, and only one person to help everyone—on top of this there's usually a line several people deep of people who need non-computer help; obviously you cannot give people the help they deserve with this ratio. If you've been to a library lately, then you probably recognize this as a common tale.

If you don't believe me, then visit your local library and ask staff how the branch has been affected; I imagine they'll have a lot to tell you.

And the Nobel Peace Prize Goes to.....

This year's Nobel Peace Prize went to Barack Obama. Can you name any past prize winners? The STCC Library offers a variety of resources about the Nobel prize as well as the recipients. For instance, Champions of Peace by Tony Gray examines Alfred Nobel and the making of the Peace Prize (Call # JX1962.A2G7). In addition to books, you can uncover biographical information on particular Peace Prize recipients by accessing our databases, such as Biography Resource Center (On Campus Off Campus). Simply type in the name of the person who you are looking for in the search box. Biography Resource Center provides a wealth of information on notable figures from around the world as well as Nobel Laureates.

The Nobel Prize website also offers information on the Nobel Foundations various awards including the Peace Prize. The website lists the profiles of each recipient which includes press releases, acceptance speeches, and other speeches from the Foundation. For a chronological list of all the Peace Prize recipients go to Peace Prize Laureates page.

Library creates guide to resources on John Brown

On Saturday, October 17, 2009 Springfield Technical Community College will host a symposium called "The Sword of the Lord and of Gideon: John Brown and the Coming of the Civil War", in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of John Brown's Raid on Harpers Ferry. The library has created a guide to highlight resources available from the STCC library and from the Web that can help if you want to learn more about John Brown and his times. The guide gives information about books, articles (from reference books and databases), and Web sites that provide information about John Brown, as well as about other abolitionists. For example the library has the book John Brown, Abolitionist: The man who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights, by David S. Reynolds. This is the same David Reynolds who will be the keynote speaker at the October 17 symposium!