Opposing Viewpoints, Updated and Redesigned

Renamed and Improved Database for "Hot Topics"

• Carbon offsets
• Genetically modified food
• Texting while driving

Students come to the library seeking the latest and best information on topical issues like these, and they often rely on sources such as the online Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center from Gale/Cengage. This database delivers a wide variety of content (journal articles, statistics, primary sources, web links, and reference book excerpts) and provided extra tools to help users organize and document their research papers and presentations.

Recently, Opposing Viewpoints Resource Center became Opposing Viewpoints in Context and with this title change came some welcome new features. In addition to a cleaner more image-rich interface, the database now provides:

• More than 14,000 pro/con viewpoint essays
• 5,000+ topic overviews
• More than 300 primary source documents
• 300 biographies of social activists and reformers
• More than 775 court-case overviews
• 5 million periodical articles
• Nearly 6,000 statistical tables, charts and graphs
• Nearly 70,000 images and a link to Google Image Search
• Thousands of podcasts, including weekly presidential addresses and premier NPR programs
• A national and state curriculum standards search, correlated to the content that allows educators to quickly identify material by grade and discipline
  

Sample some provocative Opposing Viewpoints in Context through your library’s web site (use is restricted to the LBCC campus community). Point your browser to http://lib.lbcc.edu/.” (If you’re off campus remember to authenticate yourself by clicking this button

Click next on “Articles and Databases” on the left side of the screen, then select “Opposing
Viewpoints” from the menu.

For more information contact: Nenita Buenaventura, Access Services Librarian
goodventure04@gmail.com

Library Update #79

Foster Information Literate Students

Intervention Can Help Boost Student Performance

Disappointed by the Quality of Student Papers/Projects/Presentations?

Information literacy can boost class performance.

Concerned about students that are getting behind, appearing more confused and overwhelmed with each class assignment? It’s not too late to avert a regrettable outcome.

Information literacy fosters student success

• That’s why the California Community Colleges have incorporated information literacy standards into every CCC curriculum
  

LBCC Librarians promote information literacy by:

• Orientations that provide step by step demonstrations of how to find, retrieve, organize, evaluate and synthesize the facts, opinions, statistics, and other information they need for their assignments
  

• Collaborating with instructional faculty to develop assignments that will motivate (perhaps even inspire) students by helping them appreciate the valueof research that goes beyond a web browser
  

It’s easy to schedule an orientation for your class, electronically via the Library web
site at http://lib.lbcc.edu/forms/orientation.cfm ; or print the form, complete it, and send to Kim Barclay (LAC) or Dr. Sethuraman (PCC). One can also complete the form at the
reference desks at LAC or PCC Library.

For more information contact: Kim Barclay kbarclay@lbcc.edu

Library Update #78

LibGuides, Library Research on Steroids!

A New Look and Great New Functionality for Library Research Guides

What’s the key to successful library research? Sure, you can use Google, Bing, Safari, or Wikipedia to find information. But for successful research, nobody knows better than a librarian where to find the facts, statistics, arguments, and evidence that you didn’t even know existed.



Librarians are information gurus, and the LBCC Library’s latest innovation, LibGuides, promises to provide not just a medium for alerting the library’s customers to important information resources, but also a way to continue the dialogue, and to deliver much of the information directly to the student and faculty desktop.

The LibGuides approach to enabling library research:

• Has been embraced by over 1500 libraries in 25 countries
• Uses the latest web 2.0 technologies
• Enables content to be reused and shared within and across institutions
• Can be used to create multimedia guides that share knowledge and information and promote library resources to the campus community
• Is available on Facebook and can be integrated with Twitter to connect with customers wherever they are
• Can distribute content into other websites, blogs and courseware systems
• Allows embedding of videos, RSS, and podcasts

LBCC librarians have compiled and published “subject guides” for as long as the library existed, first as paper handouts, and more recently on the web are the basis for LibGuides content, but now the librarians have access to publishing tools that will take them to the next level, benefiting the entire LBCC campus community.

See examples of the library’s first LibGuides publications, including guides for Statistics, Anthropology at http://lbcc.libguides.com/ and look for others, as the transition to LibGuides continues throughout the coming months.

For more information about LibGuides, contact Dena Laney.

Library Update #76

Serials Solutions - The Library Makes Exploring E-Journals Easy!

The Library Makes Exploring E-Journals Easy!

The library has thousands of full-text journals and newspapers that are available to the LBCC community from any web-enabled computer. Want to see what we have and link to them seamlessly? Just go to the library home page http://lib.lbcc.edu/ and click on “E-journal Title Search.”

This link will take you to a portal that provides:

• An alphabetical list of the full-text digitized periodicals, newspapers, magazines and journals that the library can provide to LBCC students, staff and faculty through its many online databases

• An alphabetical list of, and links to, all these online, full-text databases (such as ProQuest) available from the library that contain these journal and newspaper articles

• A display of these e-journals grouped according to the subject area that they fall within (note: these are broad subjects --health, education, the arts, etc.—that are the focus of the particular journal; to get articles about a specific subject (like “mitral valve prolapse” or “carbon footprint”) choose one of the databases above and enter your subject

Typical questions that these links can answer:

• I found a reference to an article I need in an April, 1997 issue of Business Week—can I get that issue online through the library?

• I’d like to browse some psychology journals to get ideas for a paper. I need to do that at home, so what psych journals does the library have online?
  

• I am researching an event that happened in Boston in 2001? Does LBCC Library have the Boston Globe online for that year? In what database?
  

For more tips, ask a librarian at the Library’s reference desk.

For more information contact: Nenita Buenaventura goodventure04@gmail.com

Library Update #77

Serials Solutions

The Library Makes Exploring E-Journals Easy!

The library has thousands of full-text journals and newspapers that are available to the LBCC community from any web-enabled computer. Want to see what we have and link to them seamlessly? Just go to the library home page and click on “E-journal Title Search”

This link will take you to a portal that provides:

• An alphabetical list of the full-text digitized periodicals, newspapers, magazines and journals that the library can provide to LBCC students, staff and faculty through its many online databases

• An alphabetical list of, and links to, all these online, full-text databases (such as ProQuest) available from the library that contain these journal and newspaper articles

• A display of these e-journals grouped according to the subject area that they fall within (note: these are broad subjects --health, education, the arts, etc.—that are the focus of the particular journal; to get articles about a specific subject (like “mitral valve prolapse” or “carbon footprint”) choose one of the databases above and enter your subject

Typical questions that these links can answer:

• I found a reference to an article I need in an April, 1997 issue of Business Week—can I get that issue online through the library?
• I’d like to browse some psychology journals to get ideas for a paper. I need to do that at
  home, so what psych journals does the library have online?
• I am researching an event that happened in Boston in 2001? Does LBCC Library have the
  Boston Globe online for that year? In what database?

For more tips, ask a librarian at the Library’s reference desk.

For more information contact: Nenita Buenaventura

Library Update #77

Focus on Environment @ LBCC Library

New Books and a New Database Reflect a New Focus on the Environment by the Library

The news is out: the Library has been buying books again. A “museum quality” collection has been refreshed with hundreds of new titles at both LBCC libraries.

One of the areas of the collection in which current events have had the biggest impact is the environment, and library customers will find titles such as
• Fueling the Future, a series on alternative fuels with volumes on biomass, coal, water, wind, nuclear power, natural gas, and geothermal power
• The Wild Marsh: Four Seasons at Home in Montana by Rick Bass who channels Walt Whitman in exploring the wilderness with his family
• What is Biodiversity? By James Maclaurin and Kim Sterelny, a theoretical and conceptual exploration of the biological world and how diversity is valued

These and many other new titles are on the “Recent Additions” shelves at both
LBCC libraries. Come in and browse!

Prefer to get your environmental information online? No problem. Thanks to the library’s subscription to Environment: A Current Issues Database members of the LBCC campus community can get 100% full text articles from key publications that cover a variety of environmental issues. And of course they’re available through the library’s web site 24/7. Begin with a key topic that you choose from an easy point and click display, such as deforestation, carbon trading, endangered species, biofuels, oil spills, green jobs and many others. You can expect to see 25-35 relevant articles for each topic, selected for their quality and comprehensiveness, plus the option to extend the search to view additional articles.

Give it a try by going to the library home page http://lib.lbcc.edu/ , clicking on “Articles and Databases,” then selecting Environment: A Current Issues Database.

Remember, though, if you’re off campus click first on this button to verify your LBCC affiliation:




For more information contact: Dena Laney dlaney@lbcc.edu

Global Business Information @ Your Desktop: Business and Company Resource Center Debuts

LBCC Library introduces a comprehensive database that provides accurate, up-to-date company and industry intelligence for thousands of firms.

Business & Company Resource Center delivers access to a wide variety of global business information including competitive intelligence, career and investment opportunities, business rankings, company histories and much more.

Choose from a variety of search options:

• Company search: by company name, ticker symbol or industry code
• Industry search: by SIC or NAICS code or by industry description
• Articles Search: by keyword, subject guide, or limit by peer-reviewed journals, etc.
• Publication Search: look for specific publications and view the editions and articles included
• Advanced Search: for a variety of additional limiting and searching options

Take a test drive: http://lib.lbcc.edu/ click on “Articles and Databases”

For more information contact: Nenita Buenaventura

Library Update #74