Friday, December 10, 2010
Extended Library Hours
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Our Next Brown Bag Lunch Asks: How is the NAACP Relevant to College Students Today?
You are invited to a Brown Bag Lunch at Blazer Library!
Topic: The Role and Relevancy of the NAACP in the Lives of College Students
Date and Time: Wednesday November 17th @ 11:00am
Refreshments: Enjoy free light refreshments in the form of cheese, crackers, fruit, and cookies
Founded in 1909, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is the nation's oldest and largest civil rights organization. From the ballot box to the classroom, the thousands of dedicated workers, organizers, leaders and members who make up the NAACP continue to fight for social justice for all Americans[1].
Moving beyond history, what role does the NAACP play in the lives of college students today? Is the organization still relevant to young people? And how? These and other thought-provoking questions will be addressed by Dantrea Hampton at the next Brown Bag Luncheon at Blazer Library.
Mrs. Hampton currently serves Kentucky State University as an Assistant Professor and Reference Librarian at Paul G. Blazer Library. She also serves as advisor to the KSU Chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. She received her B.A. degree from Kentucky State University (KSU) and her M.S.L.S. degree from the University of Kentucky.
Any questions?
Contact Amanda Peach @ 502-597-6824 or amanda.peach@kysu.edu
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Heroes Among Us
Monday, October 18, 2010
Citation Generators, QR Codes, Wordles, and Other Technology Trends You Don't Understand (But Should)
You Don't Understand (But Should)”
Who: Students, Faculty, and Staff are all invited!
When: Thursday, October 28, 2010 at 11:00 a.m.
Where: Paul G. Blazer Library, Extended Hours Study Room
What: Free drinks and dessert will be provided as Amanda Peach and Benjamin Rawlins present on the topic of evolving technology within the library and the role of this technology within the Kentucky State University community.
As Librarians at Kentucky State University’s Blazer Library, Amanda and Ben have embraced a variety of free and open-source products to help increase the usefulness and relevance of the library within the academic community. Join them as they discuss some of these applications, including:
- Blazer Library Blogger and Facebook sites
- Citation generating websites as well as the citation generator application in the Blazer online catalog
- Management of personal Blazer Library accounts online, including renewal of items
- QR codes: deceptively simple-looking barcodes used to store large amounts of information and which can be interpreted by smart devices such as iphones
- Texting of book call numbers directly from the Blazer catalog
- Virtual bookshelf in the Blazer catalog: the browsing of related materials made easier
- Wordles as a tool for summarization and self-reflection in the classroom and in personal studies
Amanda Peach is the current Education Curriculum Librarian at Blazer Library. Benjamin Rawlins is the current Systems Librarian at Blazer Library. Both are graduates of the Master’s of Library Science program at the University of Kentucky.
No RSVP required. Bring your own sandwich and an open mind!
*ONLY drinks and dessert will be provided for free*
Any questions? Call or email Amanda Peach at: ext. 6824 or amanda.peach@kysu.edu
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
QR Codes
If you have any questions about QR Codes email Benjamin Rawlins at benjamin.rawlins@kysu.edu.
Friday, September 10, 2010
Spotlight on Bekele Tegegne
Bekele Tegegne is the Reference Librarian/Government Documents Coordinator here at Blazer Library at the rank of Assistant Professor and has been in this position since 2004. Bek was also tenured this year. His education spans across a wide variety of areas. He has a Master of Library and Information Science from the Catholic University of America (2003); a Master of Arts in International Relations and International Communications from Boston University (1991); a Master of Arts in Journalism from Belarusian State University in Minsk, Belarus (1985); and an Associate of Arts in Language Teaching from College of Teacher Education, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia (1974). Prior to coming to Kentucky State, he was a Library Assistant at the Arlington County Central Library in Arlington, VA from 1997-2004.
In addition to his education, Bek worked with the Director of the Boston University Russian and East European Studies program, Dr.William C. Green, (1989 – 1991) on the translation of “The Soviet Military Encyclopedia.” It was published by Westview Publisher in 1993. He translated several articles from Russian into English. He is fluent in several languages that include in Amharic (Ethiopian National Language), Russian and English. He is also conversant in French and German.
On a more personal note, Bek enjoys traveling. His goal is to take vacation trips to all 50 States and pause for a photo with each State Capitol Building. So far he has visited 32 States. He also enjoys reading major world newspapers online in English, Amharic and Russian; watching TV; religion and spiritual activities; and creative writing. If you have any questions or just want to say hi stop by the reference desk and see Bek where he will be ready and eager to assist you.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Lunch and Learn at Blazer Library
Blazer Library
Brown Bag Lunch Series:
Join Us for Lunch
and Learn Something New!
Who: Students, Faculty, and Staff are all invited!
When: Tuesday, September 7, 2010 at 12:00 pm
Where: Paul G. Blazer Library, Extended Hours Study Room
What: A free lunch will be provided while John Schlipp, copyright expert, presents “Current Issues in Student Copyright Infringement”
Confused about the difference between plagiarism and copyright? Want to know more about Fair Use? Concerned about whether or not your music file sharing violates copyright law? Uncertain how you might get a copyright for your own original music or maybe a patent for your great idea? Librarian, John Schlipp, will discuss these topics associated with college students and educators. Based on his Creative Thinking website, John will present the real story in a proactive manner to help students know their intellectual property rights both as consumers and creators of intellectual works, e.g. research papers, music, art, published books and articles, films, inventions, small business ideas, etc. For example, many media producers display negative copyright warnings suggesting that you have no rights to copy Fair Use portions of their work in your own mash-ups or other new creative works. Learn the truth and consequences of this dilemma as some students have been ensnared in alleged file sharing copyright infringement as reported in the news.
John Schlipp is Assistant Professor of Extended Collection Services at Steely Library, Northern Kentucky University, and formerly, Patent & Trademark Librarian at the Public Library of Cincinnati. He is responsible for copyright awareness at NKU. Prior to receiving his MSLS from the University of Kentucky in 2000, he worked in the communications industry for 15 years. Schlipp’s contributions include: articles and book reviews; an intellectual property awareness program for teens and young adults entitled Creative Thinking (http://CreativeThinking.nku.edu); associate editor of the Encyclopedia of Northern Kentucky (University Press of Kentucky, 2009), and a chapter in the forthcoming textbook Distributed Learning Librarianship (Sharon Almquist, ed., Libraries Unlimited, 2010).
Attention Faculty and Professional Staff: Blazer Library is seeking additional speakers for future Brown Bag Lunch Dates. Do you have an interest or specialty that you would like to share with the KYSU community? Contact Amanda Peach at ext. 6824 or via email at: amanda.peach@kysu.edu
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Widget
To provide you the most up-to-date news on the oil spill, Gale is giving free access in GREENR to the newly created portal: Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill 2010. Updated daily, this portal offers:
- More than 70 annotated web links guiding you to reliable sources on the open web
- An in-depth expert overview
- Primary sources of congressional hearings
- More than 250 podcasts
- More than 1,500 news articles
- Case studies about disaster relief, offshore drilling and connections to other spills
- Direct links to BP's response
- More than 100 images
- More than 70 videos
This free widget from Gale has been added to the Library's homepage so that you all can stay up to date with the latest news regarding the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Online Renewal Option is Now Functional!
Special thanks to Blazer's Systems Librarian, Benjamin Rawlins, for enabling this convenient feature for our patrons!
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Spotlight on Ethnic NewsWatch
Paul Blazer Library subscribes to multiple academic databases - so many, in fact, that it may be difficult for you to choose which one to utilize when doing your research. To help simplify matters, this blog will periodically focus on specific databases to help explain why you would want to use them. Today, our focus is on Ethnic NewsWatch, a ProQuest product.
Ethnic NewsWatch provides access to full text of Spanish-, English-language and bilingual newspapers, magazines, and journals plus other multicultural publications from the ethnic, minority, and native press through Ethnic NewsWatch (ENW). Titles include La Opinion, El Nuevo Herald, El Diario/La Prensa, Mundo Hispanico, Hispanic, The Hispanic Outlook in Higher Education, and many more (none of which overlap PRISMA). Much of this content is available only in ENW. And of its one million-plus articles, nearly a quarter are in Spanish, making ENW an unmatched bilingual diversity database. To complement this wealth of untranslated titles, help options and screen assists are also available in Spanish.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Spotlight on Maurisha Jenkins
The spotlight is on Maurisha Jenkins. Maurisha is the Library Technician for the Periodicals Unit. She is the newest member of the Blazer Library Team having been hired in April 2010. She graduated from Kentucky State University in May 2008 with a degree in Biology. During her time as a student at KSU she was very involved with several Land Grant programs centered on youth. She has also worked previously at the Kentucky United Methodist Children’s Home in Versailles, and continues to serve as a mentor for the Children of Greatest Need program.
Maurisha is currently seeking ways to further her education. She is planning to pursue a Master’s in Public Health with a concentration in Maternal and Child Health. When she is not here at Kentucky State University she enjoys spending time with family in Cincinnati and her dog, Putter. She also enjoys traveling and shopping, and wants to revisit Miami in the future. She enjoys cooking, particularly chili and chicken alfredo, and listening to R&B music. We are glad to have Maurisha as part of the Library, and would like to invite you to welcome her as well.
Friday, June 11, 2010
What's Your Take on Neologism?
1. a new word, meaning, usage, or phrase.
2. the introduction or use of new words or new senses of existing words.
3. a new doctrine, esp. a new interpretation of sacred writings.
4. Psychiatry . a new word, often consisting of a combination of other words, that is understood only by the speaker: occurring most often in the speech of schizophrenics.
Do you believe that the current lexincon of words in the English language, as collected and defined in our dictionaries, is large enough to meet all of our written and spoken needs?
Or do you believe that our language is always evolving, keeping pace with our culture, and so as new cultural ideas present themselves, so must new words to describe them? Consider the following example, taken from the website WORD SPY:
Word: farmscraper
n. A high-rise building used for growing crops. [Blend of farm and skyscraper.]
Example Citation:
Other growth areas include vertical farming, in which lack of space means crops are cultivated in urban high-rises or 'farmscrapers'.
—Fiona MacCrae, 'Aim for the stars and train to be a space architect," Daily mail, January 14, 2010
Some might argue that the English language must continue to grow in breadth to accomodate changes that couldn't have been envisioned when dictionaries first took on the monumental task of collecting our every word. If you look to the above example, that seems like a reasonable argument. 300 years ago, no one needed the word farmscraper because there were no skyscrapers to farm on top of! That word could not have been created until a need for it was presented.
The flip side of this argument is that many of the new words that are being created are just jargon, created to accomodate passing trends - especially those which are technology-based. As techonologies come and go, they often take their words with them. Consider the Betamax: the now obsolete forerunner to the VHS (which is itself nearly obsolete) disappeared as new technology was ushered in to replace it. I haven't met a person under the age of 20 who knows what that word is, let alone the technology it represented. In cases like that, it becomes easier to understand why some folks believe that neologism is best left to, and should only be taken as seriously as, the schizophrenics whose speech are so often peppered with newly coined terms.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Hearts and Stars...
...are just some of the shapes that you can cut using the Ellison Die-cutting Machine, currently housed near the study tables in the Curriculum Lab in the basement of Paul G. Blazer Library.
What is a die-cutting machine? The manufacturer of the machine explains it like this:
"Die cutting is like using a cookie cutter. A hand-operated, die cutting machine uses steel rule die shapes to cut through a wide range of materials quickly and easily."(http://www.ellisoneducation.com/diecutting)
Why should you care about Blazer's Ellison machine? Because it is free for you to use, for one! You only need to supply the construction paper that you will use. Secondly, the die-cuts have real and practical applications in your life. Education students use the variety of shapes and letters to make cut-outs for the sample bulletin boards they must prepare for class. Sorority and Fraternity members use the letters to help in the construction of signs during Rush Week. The machine is indispensable during Homecoming season when it is time for the campus-wide decorating contest.
The usefulness of the Ellison is not just limited to making attractive signs, either. The Ellison website maintains a score of free lesson plans that utilize die-cut shapes from the Ellison machine. Check them out at http://www.ellisoneducation.com/lessons/1
The Ellison machine is available for you to use whenever the library is open.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
The World Bank Shares Their Data for Free!
This new site contains the full World Development Indicators (WDI), Global Development Finance (GDF), and Africa Development Indicators (ADI), along with other World Bank databases, including Global Economic Monitor (GEM) (up till now these databases were only availabale via subscription). The new site is designed for both novice and advanced users: you can access basic data by country, topic, and region, as well as download datasets in Excel, CSD, XML, and other formats. Users can also access and retrieve data through the DataBank (a platform similar to that of the previous WDI, GDF and ADI platforms). The site links to the World Bank Data API (encouraging developers to create new applications using the data), DataFinder, and World Bank's new iPhone application.
For a full list of available data sets available go to: http://data.worldbank.org/data-catalog. Most data is available in English, Arabic, French, and Spanish.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Spotlight on Sharon McGee
Even if you visit Paul G. Blazer Library everyday, you may have never met Sharon McGee, Blazer Library’s Records Manager and Head of Special Collections/Archives. Much of Ms. McGee's work is done away from the public eye, whether that work is diligently guiding KYSU employees in managing their records, or preserving KYSU’s permanent records for administrative/historical/fiscal/ legal purposes, or ultimately making those records accessible to KYSU faculty, staff, students, and the public.
Sharon is a KYSU alum, having completed her undergrad B.A. in elementary education with a computer endorsement here before going on to the University of Kentucky to complete dual master’s degrees, the first of which certified her as a Media Specialist and the second of which provided her a Master’s of Science in Library Science.
Before coming to KYSU as an undergrad, Ms. McGee spent several years working in business. After that, she taught elementary school in Anderson County and Franklin County prior to coming to work at Blazer Library. One year she worked as a Media Specialist.
Sharon is married with 2 daughters, who both attend the University of Kentucky, and feels lucky to have a beautiful granddaughter. She loves working as an academic librarian and is glad that she chose it as her career . When she is not busy working at the job she thoroughly enjoys, Sharon can be found singing karaoke, listening to music, and most importantly of all, spending time with her family.
Thank you for all you do, Sharon!
Monday, May 3, 2010
The Dreaded Bibliography Made Easier
Have you ever found that the hardest part of writing your research paper isn't writing the paper itself but rather crafting the reference or bibliography page at the end? Have you found yourself losing valuable points on your assignments because of tiny errors made on that crucial page of citations? Well, if you have, you are not alone.
Understanding the mechanics of writing the sort of reference page that will earn a 100% is difficult. For example, should you underline or use quotes when noting your source title in APA style, and how does that differ in MLA? Once you decide, where do you place that title - before or after the author's name? It is enough to give a person a headache, but you can stop anguishing over those decisions now because help is here!
The Paul G. Blazer Library has added a link to the KnightCite online citation generator service to its online catalog. Provided by the Hekman Library of Calvin College, this service allows you to create accurate bibliographies. By prompting you to first choose a style (MLA, APA, etc.), then enter the answers to specific questions about the material you are using (such as author's name or book title) within a form, and then requiring you to submit the completed form through an easy click of your mouse, a complete and stylistically accurate citation for the work is generated. The service is provided free of charge by the Calvin College, boasts no distracting advertising on its site, and even provides registered users with the option of saving all of their citations and even multiple bibliographies to their account.
Check it out here and see just how easy writing a bibliography can be!
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Ebooks
Monday, April 5, 2010
Virtual Bookshelf
You can browse to the left or right, and this feature will let you where the items are located and whether they are available to check out. To see this feature in our catalog click this link. We hope that you enjoy this feature and that it helps you in searching for items to assist you in your research.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Celebrate National Library Week
Monday, February 8, 2010
New Look of Library's Catalog
Check Out the new look of the Library's Online Catalog! For the past several months we have been making changes to the look and function of the library catalog. Some changes that we have made include:
-Color Changes
-Adding both the KSU and Blazer Library Logos
-Adding our Library Name
-Addition of the New Items tab
-Link to the Library's hompage in the Footer
-Social Bookmarking in Individual Item Records
So take a look at the new catalog, and tell us what you think. Do you like the new changes? What suggestions do you have? Let us know what you think. We are always excited to hear from students and faculty/staff and what your input is regarding library services.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Meet Our New Library Technician
Chances are if you've visited Paul Blazer Library this semester, you've already met our new Library Technician. In case you haven't, though, allow me to introduce Christie Ellis.
Christie is replacing Nyasha Nyemba, our previous Librarian Technician, in the Circulation Department. Like Nyasha, Christie always has a warm and friendly smile to share with everyone she meets.
Help us welcome Christie to KYSU and Paul Blazer Library! We are so glad she's here!
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Depository for Donations for the People of Haiti
Needs list includes food items with a long shelf life - at least 6 months out to the expiration date, some examples include items such as:
Peanut Butter
Rice
Over-the-counter medicines (examples below):
Children’s Tylenol
Children’s Motrin
Ibuprofen
Medical Supplies
Toiletries
The Red Cross website listed that food, water, medical services, temporary housing and grief counseling are needed among other things.
One of my co-workers has made the first donation of toothpaste, ibuprofen and food. She expressed that the toothpaste and ibuprofen are on sale now at Kroger for $1.
Please remember that all items that have an expiration date for use should be at least 6 months out for date of expiration if not longer.
We will be donating the collected items to:
The Northwest Haiti Christian Mission of Frankfort
Capital City Christian Church
The American Red Cross
These organizations already have service workers located in the immediate area of Port-au-Prince, Haiti and can properly assist those in need by making the donated supplies readily available. If you have any questions or concerns please contact Dantrea Hampton at 502.597.5946 or Dantrea.Hampton@kysu.edu
Thank You
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