New Books in the Grand View Library

Come visit the library and check out a fresh book. We have many new arrivals, including these:

Scholarly Journals, Vaccines, and & Andrew Wakefield

The year 2011 has already gotten off to an interesting start, especially in the area of scholarly journal publications.

Andrew Wakefield, a medical researcher, published a famous study in 1997 in which he claimed he had found a connection between the administration of the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine (MMR) and the development of autism in children. This study was published in the famous British medical journal, the Lancet. It caused a huge stir worldwide and led to countless numbers of unvaccinated children.

The Lancet has retracted the study. Andrew Wakefield has been investigated by journalists and medical boards and found to have committed fraudulent actions when performing the study. No other scientists have been able to replicate any of his data, thus suggesting that his study was incorrect and there is no connection between MMR vaccine and autism.

You can read more about this here and here.

Science News

If you visit the Grand View Library, you will find that we have a great collection of science books. You can learn quite a bit about biology, chemistry, and physics from our collection. Pulling one of the biology books off the shelf, you would be able to learn that all living things on the Earth are composed of six base elements (carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, sulfur, and phosphorus). It has been this way for a long time and is considered one of the backbones of biological history.

Today, that all changed.

Scientists with NASA's Astrobiology Institute announced that through intensive research, they have discovered a new form of life, a microbe, living in a lake in California. The Mono Lake microbe contains five of the six elements, but is missing phosphorus. In its place, scientists discovered that the cells were using arsenic instead.

This is a major announcement and rewrites some of the basic ideas that we have about biology on our planet.

Take a look at some of the information that's been posted about this historic announcement:

"Bacterium Grows with Arsenic"
"Bacteria Use Arsenic As Basic Building Block In A Pinch"

Thanksgiving Read-In

Every month we try to hold a read-in with a theme that corresponds to that time of year. Our read-in tomorrow will be focused on the concept of giving thanks to those things around us that we feel are the most important things in our lives. You can bring a poem, a play, a novel, an essay, or whatever story you might have in your memories. The main idea here is to share it with others and discover what is important to them. This is the season to remember those things we hold dear.

We'll be in the coffee shop in the library from 11:30-12:30 tomorrow November 23rd.

Halloween Read-In

Have you ever been to one of the library's read-ins? Well, if you haven't, then you might want to consider coming to the Halloween Read-In tomorrow at 10:00-11:30. Every read-in has a theme and this year we are asking people to bring scary, spooky, or haunting stories that they have enjoyed over the years. It's always best to bring a book, an article, or a poem, but if you have a personal story to tell, that is a great way to share as well.

So if you enjoy spooky stories come on by and see what we're discussing. We'll be in the @ the Library coffee shop from 10-11:30 on Friday October 29th.

New Library Website

Have you visited our website lately? If you have then you will notice some major changes to the layout.

We now have drop-down menus! The resources are all still available, but instead of having their own pages they now exist in drop-down menus. It's easier to find things because you can simply click on a menu and see what's underneath. You can't get lost in a flurry of pages because the menus will help you find what you need.

You will also notice easy quick links on the right-hand side of the page. These quick links will help you find other resources on campus such as the campus directory, bookstore, admissions, and the career center.

So if you haven't been to http://library.grandview.edu lately, check it out. It's a whole new experience.

Library Book Sale!

Come one, come all to the Fall Library Book Sale!

We have tons of books for sale and each one will only cost you $1.00. We have books of all shapes, sizes, and subjects.

Also, we will be adding books every morning, so if you come only once, you'll want to come again and browse the new materials as well.

Our sale will continue until October 15th.

Banned Books Week 2010

Welcome to Banned Books Week 2010!

The purpose of Banned Books Week is to remind people everywhere of the dangers of censorship, our history of censorship, and the promise of reading a variety of books for educational and recreational purposes.

Libraries across the country will often display books that have been challenged or banned in the past so that the public can see for themselves and think about why that book was challenged or banned. Banned Books Week gives everyone time to think about what they choose to read and why they choose to read the books they do. It's an important time to reflect on the choices we make and provides us with an opportunity to consider reading something new in the future that we may not have considered before.

At the Grand View Library we have put together a small display as well. Please come by and take a look. The books are available for checkout, so pick one up today. There are some really good ones in this batch as well.

Portfolio Drive & Laptop Printing

When you think of the library, you probably have an image of lots of books in your mind. And yes, we do have over 90,000 volumes. However, the library is not just about books anymore. We are also a place that you can go to ask questions about technology and computer help.

For example, have you recently had a professor tell you that you needed to start saving your documents to your portfolio drive? You might have been thinking to yourself, "Where is my portfolio drive? How do I access it? Who can see my files?" One of the questions we get most often at the library has to do with the portfolio drive, so we decided to make a video showing you, the user, how to save documents to your portfolio drive. Once you learn how, it's a tool you will find yourself using again and again.

Another issue you might encounter is trying to print from your personal laptop to a Grand View printer. How do you set that up? How do you know which printer it's going to go to? Well, we've made a helpful video about that too. It's called the "Web Print Feature" and anyone can do it from their own laptop on campus. So the next time you need help printing from your laptop, check out our new video showing you how to do it.

We have plenty of other videos where those came from as well. They are an easy way to remind yourself how to do certain tasks associated with the library and the research process.

Grand View Library Web Directory: High Quality Websites

We use the web every day and we do quite a bit of searching. We all know that there are some really bad websites out there and just as many mediocre ones as well. Where are all the high-quality websites? If you're working on a project for class and need a variety of good websites, how do you know which ones to choose?

One suggestion is to critically evaluate each website you visit. Find out who the author is, how accurate the information is (compare it to another site), and determine how much bias exists on the site.

Another suggestion is to try out our new Grand View Library Web Directory. This site has dozens of good websites that you can choose from when researching a topic. If you like one of the sites that you find there, let us know and we'll make sure to keep it in the future.

Good luck searching and browsing!