Earthquakes & Volcanoes

Have you been following the news of the Italian earthquake?  A 6.3 magnitude earthquake hit central Italy and people are still searching for survivors.  The quake destroyed over 10,000 homes and left over 28,000 people homeless.

With the digital technology that we have today, we can learn more about these events as they happen.  The most recent newspaper articles are available through our NewsBank database as they are published.  One of the most recent articles noted that the Vatican has sent in its fire brigade to help out the other Italian emergency services.  People pull together in times like this.

There's also a scientific side to this story as well.  The United States Geological Survey (USGS) has been monitoring the quake as well as the aftershocks.  Of course the USGS has also been paying very close attention to another geological event here in the U.S.: the earthquakes and ash eruptions from Alaska's Mount Redoubt.  You might think that Alaska is mainly wilderness, but Mt. Redoubt is very close to Anchorage, one of the largest cities in Alaska.

Remember that the next time an event like this happens, you have many resources to draw upon.  They will give you up to the minute information when you need it.

Finding Articles

It's the beginning of April.  Our last month of the term is here.  You know what that means.

Everything will be due soon!

Finals will be approaching, papers will be assigned, and projects will look like gargantuan tasks.  Where to begin?

Remember: the library's website is one of the best places to start your research.  One of the best places to start looking is in one of our electronic databases.  So get started right now and use some journals!

Happy Groundhog Day!

Happy Groundhog Day! Why do we rely on a little mammal like this to tell us what our weather is going to be like? Well, that's a story that's about 110-years old.

There is an old tradition from Europe, called Candlemas, which some historians believe is the root of Groundhog Day. Candlemas falls roughly halfway between the Winter Solstice and the Vernal Equinox. In other words, it's the mid-point of winter. According to ancient German stories, this was the day that animals like badgers, bears, and, oh yes, groundhogs, came out of their little dens to see if it was warm enough to come out permanently.

In the United States, the tradition has been going on for about 110 years. Punxsutawney Phil, the modern groundhog who we celebrate, saw his shadow today, which means another 6 weeks of winter. In the past 110 years, the ancestors of Phil have seen their shadows 96 times and not seen it 14 times.

If you're interested in an article from one of our databases on the history of it, check out this link.

Need More News?

There are more sources for news now than ever before in human history. We receive information from radio, television, newspapers, and the web, just to name a few. How do you organize all of that stuff? Do you feel overwhelmed?

Use our database Access World News to follow news without feeling overwhelmed. It's free for you to use and allows you access to over 2,000 newspapers worldwide. What else makes it special?

*Full-text for almost all the articles
*Ability to create a personal account to save articles for later
*Interactive world map to choose the location of your news
*Access to archives of newspapers
*Easy ability to limit your search to a particular date, newspaper, or location

So if you've been looking for a new perspective or you just want to start reading the news again, start with Access World News. It's easy to use and can be quite fun once you get the hang of it.

Plus, where else can you find articles for that paper you're writing on the volatility of gas prices? We've got them from the United States, England, India, Japan, and many more places around the globe.

New Databases!

Happy New Year.  It's 2009 and the Grand View Library has some exciting news to share.

We have three new databases to offer you!

These databases will give you access to more journals and more full-text so you can complete whatever project, assignment, or paper you are working on.  Here's what we have:

CINAHL Full-Text gives you the same friendly interface you are used to seeing, but now with more journals, more articles, and more full-text.  There are over 600 journals in this database with full-text going back to 1981 for some of them.

PsycARTICLES provides you with access to over 137,000 articles from 66 journals, most of which are published by the American Psychological Association.

SocINDEX features over 700 journals going back as far as 1908.  Plus, this database has almost 2 million records, which means you will never run out of things to read or search for.

Try out our new databases and let us know what you think.  We'll feature them again at a future date and talk about some of their more intricate details.