Penn State Great Valley Library Blog

February 1, 2010

New Optical Lab Brings LOC into 21st Century

Filed under: Blogs, Technology

Interested in what the Library of Congress is doing to preserve our history and how they are using technology including hyperspectral imaging to assist with their work. Check out the latest entry in their blog that discusses the new Optical Properties Laboratory. Got to http://blogs.loc.gov/loc/2010/02/new-optical-lab-brings-loc-into-21st-century/ to find out more and while you are at it check out the rest of this great blog site.

January 21, 2010

Latest Horizon report discusses new trends in technology

Filed under: Technology

The 2010 version of the Horizon report, a collaboration between the New Media Consortium and the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative discusses the latest trends in techolnology. It can be found at http://www.nmc.org/publications/2010-horizon-report .

December 8, 2009

Easy Way to Search News Events

Google News Timeline
Google Labs has another easy to use tool for searching news. This one is called Google News Timeline; it allows users to quickly search news topics and then organize the results chronologically. Simply enter your subject matter, such as H1N1 for example, and all news items from various newspapers, magazines, blogs, and internets information sites will populate the screen in sequential order. Users can customize results by selecting preferred sources, and timeframe for each topic. This is an easy way to search a current day topic by reporting date. Results can be display various formats, by: day, week, month, or even decade. To try this tool click here: http://newstimeline.googlelabs.com/ .

December 3, 2009

Supplemental Material to the APA Manual, 6th Edition

For those in need of eye-candy when working on academic papers, a heartily recommended website is the “Supplemental Materials” page on the APA Style site. The site provides “full-color figures, tables, and other material referenced in the Publication Manual” but not included due to space and printing limitations.

Included in the Supplemental Materials are guidelines for

  • how to properly refer to transgender persons
  • considerations when writing about sexual orientation
  • proper styling for metric units
  • color in figures (referenced in sections 5.27 and 5.28 of the manual)
  • citing the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)
  • converting a thesis or dissertation into a journal article for publication

The link to the Supplemental Materials is http://apastyle.apa.org/manual/supplement/index.aspx

November 24, 2009

Free Speech & Social Networking Sites

Filed under: Technology

Can the law keep up with the rights of free speech when it comes to Social Networking sites?
According to CNN, Courtney Love is being sued for libel for her negative comments about a fashion designer on Twitter. Is this Love’s way of expressing her opinion on Twitter or is this a libelous remark? Do we all need to be more guarded in our commentary on social networking sites? Just something to think about before your next posting. For more details about this case click on the link:
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/11/17/law.technology/index.html

November 11, 2009

2010 Census

Filed under: Web resources

Every 10 years the United States conducts a required census of its population. They are currently preparing for the 2010 census that will account for everyone living at your address as of April 1, 2010. For more details about the process or to understand why it is important for you to take part in the census you can go to http://2010.census.gov/2010census/how/how-we-count.php

By they way, for those geneaology buffs out there this will mean the the data from the 1940 census will become available as the year progresses as data is released after 70 years.

November 3, 2009

Vanish - Self-Destructing Digital Data

Filed under: Technology


Those who remember the television show, Mission Impossible, with its self-destructing messages may appreciate Vanish - a new software tool still in development at University of Washington. In essence, it creates a shelf-life for e-mail and other forms of digital data, by assigning it a deletion time frame. Thus, it helps with the problem of internet data living indefinitely. Vanish can be downloaded while it is still in its development phase. To download and/or review licensing terms of use, go to http://vanish.cs.washington.edu/index.html

October 29, 2009

Ten Reasons to like the Phillies

Filed under: Events

Phillies 1 Tired of hearing the Phillies referred to as the underdog in the World Series against the Yankees? Sports Columnist, Tim Cowlishaw, has listed his top ten reasons why the Phillies deserve to be there. To read his top ten list click here http://timcowlishawblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2009/10/ten-reasons-to-like-the-philli.html.

October 21, 2009

Flu Information

Flu Thermometer www.Flu.Gov
A great website for information regarding the flu is: http://www.flu.gov. This is a government resource.

October 13, 2009

Penn State Internet Searching Competition

Filed under: Events

Tuesday, Oct 13th from 5:30-7pm students can compete for cash prizes in a Penn State internet searching contest. Students will be given 20 questions and 30 minutes to find answers. For more information see
http://live.psu.edu/story/41572

October 6, 2009

Frre online lectures from NPR and PBS

Filed under: Web resources

You can now have access to free lecture videos and audio downloads from PBS and NPR at http://forum-network.org/. You can search by series, speaker or lectures. Speakers range from the coordinator of public health for the World Bank, authors, speakers from Harvard Business School, the director of the Center of Astrophysics and more.

September 29, 2009

Keeping up with the News

Filed under: Web resources

Introduced in 2006 as a simplified gateway to the most popular news on the internet, popurls (
http://popurls.com/) recently ranked among Time Magazine’s 50 Best Websites for 2009.

After examining the site, it is easy to see why popurls rates so highly. Organized with simple-to-read headlines, interspersed with video and photo links, popurls provides readers with a single source for the most up-to-date internet activity on all the major websites. Users can start on the basic site, or customize their own popurls homepage with their favorite news feeds and sources. Users can also visit the popurls network (http://popurls.net/) to access the many mobile versions and add-ons.

September 22, 2009

Where is all the science news?

With many newspaper’s elimination of science sections, where can readers turn for reliable Science News? Futurity (http://Futurity.org) is one option. This site collects and posts science news releases from universities. Universities such as Penn State, Johns Hopkins, Stanford, University of Penn, etc. needed a way to easily post their scientific findings and Futurity fits the bill. “It’s ironic that we have fewer writers in our major media focusing on science, while we have ever more issues that have a science base — from climate change to the health care debate, stem cells, evolution and swine flu — many of which are very controversial,” said Cristine Russell, a former Washington Post science reporter. Although a reliable source, Futurity lacks the impartiality of an independent science reporter. For that, readers can still turn to Knight Science Journalism Tracker, an MIT website of published science articles (http://ksjtracker.mit.edu).

For more details about locating science news, click on the link to the article on the Baltimore Sun:
Universities establish own way to tell public about findings
http://www.baltimoresun.com/technology/bal-university-wire-0916,0,6633143.story
.

September 15, 2009

Education Statistics to 2018

Filed under: Web resources

Want to know what to expect on the education front over the coming years? Who will be our students? How many degrees will be conferred? The National Center for Educational Statistics has released its report Projections of Education Statitics to 2018. The full report can be found at http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2009/2009062.pdf .

September 10, 2009

Looking for socially & environmentally responsible companies?

Filed under: Uncategorized

Looking for socially & environmentally responsible companies? Check out Business Week’s listing of B Corporations. A Certified B Corporation is one which is socially and environmentally responsible. As defined on the site, the B Corporation Net, (http://bcorporation.net), a B Corp “uses the power of business to solve social and environmental problems”. It is part of “a new sector of the economy which harnesses the power of private enterprise for public benefit”. Examples of certified B Corporations are: King Arthur Flour (an employee-owned, open-book, team-managed company), Seventh Generation (a company committed to “becoming the world’s most trusted brand of authentic, safe, and environmentally-responsible products for a healthy home”), and Sustainable Harvest (one of the highest volume importers of organic & fair trade coffee in North America). For more information click on the link http://bcorporation.net

Get free blog up and running in minutes with Blogsome
Theme designed by Jay of onefinejay.com