Penn State Great Valley Library Blog

It seems like at least once a week, someone tells me about another new internet tool I should be using. Since there’s never really been an easy way to keep track of all these nifty tools, I always felt left behind, a victim of “technoshame” (and sometimes even “technophobia). I thought this would just be something I’d have to deal with throughout my career. But now, an answer has appeared in the guise of a nifty-looking website called Go 2 Web 2.0.

This website lets you browse the whole gamut of web 2.0 applications using a convenient search structure. For example, are you interested in online social communities for sharing news? Click on the “news” tag, then click on “social”, and then “communities”. Three sites are listed, and you can click on each for a description before visiting!

Thanks to Go2Web2.0, I’ve dodged past that old foe technoshame. Now I’ll have to watch out for technolust (trying to use more tools than I can realistically manage)!

All the best,
Pete | Reference and Instruction Librarian | tpeterr@psu.edu

Google Squared is a search tool which presents analogous results in a square or spreadsheet format. Users can update results by entering their own customized columns or rows. This is an easy way to review search results if a user were, for example, interested in comparing cell phones. Google Squared displays rows of various brand names with columns for image, description, price, etc. Users can customize the results by adding or deleting rows and/or columns. Results can be saved by signing in. However, registration is not necessary to use this search engine.
http://www.google.com/squared

Have you ever just wanted a quick overview of a topic of the day?
Addict-O-Matic is a website which provides a simultaneous search of the top results from the latest news, blog and information sites for your specific topic. This is the easiest, fastest and most convenient way to keep informed of the latest buzz. Users can run one search on any topic and instantly read the top results from Live.com News, GoogleBlog, Digg, Twitter, You Tube, Flicker, Friendfeed, Delicious, Ask.com, Bloglines, Truveo, and Technorati, to name a few. This page can be customized for news, politics, entertainment or a variety of other areas. Users do not need to register to use the preset options; simply enter a topic, for example, “Iranian Election” and view results. To try out Addict-O-Matic, click on the link http://addictomatic.com

Management students may be interested in the latest way to promote a company - virtually with cell phone applications. “Sell the Apps, then sell your company”, according to Jenna Wortham, technology writer for the New York Times. Wortham contends when a company offers a phone application in Apple’s iStore, it is tapping into a fan base of millions of users. This is a fast way for a company to break into the virtual market. This is so lucrative other mobile phone companies are expanding into Apps for their cell phones operating systems. To read more about cell phone applications and their marketing capabilities click on the link, Apps are Booming: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/08/technology/start-ups/08phone.html

What is Forward Citation Searching?
Forward Citation searching is a way users can quickly identify later works which cite a particular article. For instance, if a specific article or book were the cornerstone of a user’s research, any later work which refers to that original text would be significant to that research. These later writings could either collaborate or refute the original text, or even take the research in a whole new direction. Locating the later writings is referred to as Forward Citation Searching. The most important aspect to take from this posting is to simply be aware of this type of searching for your research. An example is outlined below. However, if you have questions with the actual procedure, please ask. Library contact information follows the example…

As an example, let’s perform a forward citation search for the 1989 book, Improving Higher Education Environments for Adults, by Nancy Schlossberg, Ann Lynch & Arthur Chickering.
We will be searching for any later works which refer to this text, i.e. articles or books written between 1989 – 2009. One way to perform Forward Citation Searching is by using the
Web of Science database.
From the Penn State Library homepage http://www.libraries.psu.edu ,
Select Databases by Title (A-Z)
Then select Web of Science.
From the ISI Web of Knowledge page, click on the Web of Science yellow tab.
Then click on Cited Reference Search.

Enter cited author’s name. For this example enter Schlossberg, N. Only enter the first author’s name. As the Web of Science page demonstrates, enter last name first, with no punctuation and only first initial.

The cited work entry is a little tricky. This database abbreviates everything, so you need to search for the work’s title (Improving Higher Education…) to see how this database has abbreviated it. To do this, click on the magnifying glass symbol at the end of this line. Enter the first three words of the title – Improving Higher Education. This search produced IMPROVING HIMPS EARL. Our example should come before this entry, so click the Previous button and then scroll to the bottom. There the user will see Improving Higher Ed click ADD and then click OK. This will bring you back to the Citing Reference Search page.

Next, for Cited Years, enter 1989-2009. (1989 was the year this book was published.)

Click Search button.
On the Search Results page click on Select box in front of Schlossberg N, then click on the Finish Search button.
This will produce seven results which refer to the Schlossberg text – six good references and one false hit or incorrect result.
That is how to perform a forward citation search.

Questions? Contact the Penn State Great Valley Library 610-648-3362.

There’s no limit to what students can do if challenged. In a quest to study the Earth’s stratosphere, four Spanish high school students and their science teacher captured this image of space (and others) with a $100 camera and a balloon. Making all their own weather equipment, they attached it and a camera to a helium balloon. The balloon traveled 20 miles above Earth before it began to descend. The equipment was recovered approximately 6 miles from the release site. The weather sensors and photo card were recovered. To read the full story click on the following link http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/5005022/Teens-capture-images-of-space-with-56-camera-and-balloon.html .
To see additional photos, click on the highlighted word photograph within the text of the story or click on the following link
http://www.flickr.com/photos/meteotek08/sets/ .

The Atlantic recently posted an article by Simon Johnson - MIT’s Sloan School of Management professor & former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund. Johnson stated the “finance industry has effectively captured our government—a state of affairs that more typically describes emerging markets, and is at the center of many emerging-market crises”. Simon continued by writing “if the IMF’s staff could speak freely about the U.S., it would tell us what it tells all countries in this situation: recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we’re running out of time”. To read this article click on the link
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200905/imf-advice

According the latest report from the Pew Internet and American Life project “some 39% of Americans have positive and improving attitudes about their mobile communication devices, which in turn draws them further into engagement with digital resources – on both wireless and wireline platforms.” More information about these trends can be found at http://www.pewinternet.org/Reports/2009/5-The-Mobile-Difference–Typology.aspx

Going Green: Big Ideas, Small Steps

The Delaware Valley Chapter of ACRL’s Spring Program will be held:

WHEN: Friday, April 24, 2009

WHERE: Penn State Great Valley campus, Malvern, PA

Featured speakers are:
Erika Linke, ACRL National President
Frederick Stoss, University at Buffalo

Afternoon session: The Green Library Experience: Building One, Living In One
with panel members Henry Pisciotta, Bruce Reid, and Ronald Servello, all from Penn State University Libraries.

Registration form available at: http://www.acrldvc.org/brochure/spring09b.pdf

Check out the Program blog at: http://acrldvcspringprogram09.wordpress.com/ for information on public transportation, carpooling, and other announcements.

Social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter provide consumers with a venue for voicing opinions, allowing management an almost immediate gauge of their services and products. This change is on the verge of affecting the employee side of management as well. According to Wall Street Journal Blogger, Gary Hamel, today’s youth having grown up with Facebook, will expect management to communicate via social networking. Hamel sees this change as having the potential to affect how management deals with employees in twelve ways ranging from: All ideas having equal footing, to Contributions counting more than credentials, and even Hierarchies being natural not prescribed. For a complete listing of all twelve expectations along with Hamel’s reasoning, click on the link to http://blogs.wsj.com/management/2009/03/24/the-facebook-generation-vs-the-fortune-500/

If you are interested in knowing the latest information about populations in Pennsylvania you might want to consult the July 1, 2008 Pennsylvania County Estimates and the 2008 Metro and Micro Area Population Estimates released earlier this month by the US Census Bureau. Read more about this recent release in the PaSDC’s Research Brief, available online at:
http://pasdc.hbg.psu.edu/pasdc/data_and_information/briefs/RB031909.pdf

Penn State Researcher & Electrical Engineering Professor, Craig Grimes, leads a team which is working on a device that converts carbon dioxide into methane using water vapor and sunlight. Methane or natural gas is a common fuel. By converting carbon dioxide into methane at unprecedented rates, this sun-powered machine has the potential of reducing our carbon footprint (a contributor to global warming) as well as creating fuel. A provisional patent on this work has been filed. For more details read Penn State Live – Sunlight turn carbon dioxide to Methane at http://live.psu.edu/story/38108 .

The Reading Education Assistance Dogs (READ) program brings kids together with dogs to improve reading and communication skills. By taking therapy dogs to libraries and schools, READ provides gentle, loving animals to be listeners for kids. Launched in 1999, this comprehensive reading program is currently in place through out the country and is seeing student improvements in reading and communication levels. Bill Moyers described this program as something which “pierces the mundane to arrive at the marvelous.”
For more information click on the link to READ http://www.therapyanimals.org/read/

The federal report “Enrollment in Postsecondary Institutions, Fall 2007; Graduation Rates, 2001 & 2004 Cohorts; and Financial Statistics, Fiscal Year 2007,” is available online at http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2009/2009155.pdf

If you are looking for the text and sometimes video of a famous speech you may want to check the American Rhetoric web site at http://www.americanrhetoric.com/.