Netlibrary book for February: Black History Month

A Companion to African-American Studies
Edited by Lewis R. Gordon (Temple University) and Jane Anna Gordon (Temple University)
Blackwell Publishing, 2006

In celebration of African-American History Month, NetLibrary has partnered with Blackwell Publishing to offer A Companion to African-American Studies as the February eBook of the Month. A groundbreaking re-appraisal of the history and future of African-American studies, the Companion includes original essays by expert scholars in the field and covers each topic with authority and clarity.

Edited by Lewis R. Gordon and Jane Anna Gordon, A Companion to African-American Studies is a definitive intervention at a critical time in the history of race relations and in the academic field of race and ethnic studies. Bringing together a dazzling array of established and emergent voices, the Companion opens with a series of reflections from those who waged pitched battles to establish African-American Studies as a bona fide academic discipline and captures the dynamic interaction of African-American Studies with other fields of inquiry.

Free Netlibrary book for January

January eBook of the Month:
Lower Taxes in 7 Easy Steps
by Attorney Stephen Fishman
Nolo, 2006

Many personal finance books are full of hype, promising a radical reduction in taxes (or no taxes at all). Unfortunately, they often tout obscure tax strategies that apply to only a handful of people -- or doubtful schemes that could bring on the IRS.

Lower Taxes in 7 Easy Steps is a different kind of book, providing insights and tactics that can reduce taxes. Clearly and concisely, it explains the seven most valuable rules of tax planning:

1. Boost tax-free income
2. Get a lower tax rate
3. Defer paying taxes
4. Make the most of deductions
5. Take advantage of exemptions
6. Identify and use tax credits
7. Shift income to other taxpayers

Each rule is fleshed out with plenty of ideas, strategies and real-life examples that can help minimize the pain of April 15.

Tina Lau, North County Librarian

[posted to Netlibrary and Money]

Netlibrary ebook for December

Every month, Netlibrary gives us free access to one of their ebooks for that month. This month it's Wagnerian opera--useful for interpreting the movie Apocalypse Now, I suppose. (That's my favorite part of the movie--rent it if you don't know what I'm talking about!)

December eBook of the Month:
The New Grove Guide to Wagner and His Operas
By Barry Millington
Oxford University Press, 2006

The December eBook of the Month profiles the life and the work of one of the most controversial figures in the history of ideas as well as music. Drawing upon the scholarship of The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, the most comprehensive dictionary of opera in the world, The New Grove Guide to Wagner and His Operas offers a concise survey and guide, providing both seasoned Wagner-lovers and neophytes with all they require for an in-depth appreciation of Wagner.

Author Barry Millington has completely updated the original pieces and contributed four new chapters on Wagner, including a summary of Wagner productions from 1876 to the present day, a suggested listening and viewing guide, complete chronology of Wagner's operas, and a glossary of terms that will delight any opera-goer. In addition, there are detailed entries on each of Wagner's operas, a main biographical section, and a group of separate articles on such topics as Leitmotif and Gesamtkunstwerk, as well as a newly revised updated article on Bayreuth.

Tina Lau, North County Librarian
(in Netlibrary)

Culinary Arts changes for Spring semester

If you are planning on taking any culinary arts classes this Spring, be aware that the Spring printed schedule is incorrect. Here are the correct fees:

Materials fee changes for Culinary Arts Spring 2007

"R" CULART 10 (4324) $150.00

"R" CULART 20 (4325) $90.00

"R" CULART 25 (5142) $45.00

"R" CULART 30 (4326) $135.00
(5143)

"R" CULART 35 (4327) $50.00
(5144)

"R" CULART 40 (5145) $60.00
(5146)

"R" CULART 43 (5147) $45.00
(5148)

"R" CULART 45 (4328) $55.00
(5149)

"R" CULART 49 (4329) $60.00

Tina Lau, North County Librarian
(in Cuesta news)

MLA formatting help for library databases

Format Citations in EBSCO Databases

Cuesta College Library's Ebsco databases now have the ability to format article citations in MLA, APA and other significant formats. How does it work? First, just add any citation to the "folder" (click on icon to right of article information). When you are ready to compile and produce the citations click on the main folder icon at the top of the records list. Then choose to email, print or download the records (see screenshot below). On the next screen click the radio button for "industry citation format" and choose a format style from the dropbox (see screenshot below). That's it. You can perform a similar function in all ProQuest databases.

1.

2. Choose "Industry Citation Format" and specify the format desired.

One BIG CAUTION: Your citation will look much more like MLA or APA style, but still will need some work. Here's an example:

Ebsco-generated MLA citation
"VAW A BLOW TO AIDS." Herizons 20.3 (2007): 10-10. MasterFILE Premier. 14 November 2006. http://search.ebscohost.com.

Should be
"VAW a Blow To AIDS." Herizons 20.3 (2007): 10. MasterFILE Premier. EBSCO. Cuesta Coll. Lib., San Luis Obispo, CA. 14 Nov. 2006 .

[Thanks to the Gutman Library blog, Philadelphia University, for alerting me to this new service.]

Tina Lau, North County Librarian
(in Research Help)

Don't forget to vote!

If you're having last-minute trouble deciding on how to vote, you can check newspapers online to see what they're recommending.

Atascadero News (local races) http://www.atascaderonews.com/main.php?story_id=5515&page=38

Tribune (local races)
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanluisobispo/news/editorial/15934946.htm
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanluisobispo/news/editorial/15934941.htm

Los Angeles Times (statewide)
http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1157531991&sid=1&Fmt=3&clientId=28651&RQT=309&VName=PQD

Sacramento Bee
http://www.sacbee.com/674/index.html

San Francisco Chronicle
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/11/03/EDG87M3AJB1.DTL

Tina Lau, North County Librarian

Spring schedule available online

The Spring schedule is now available online. Go to Find Classes on the Cuesta homepage. The print schedule should be out in a few days.

Tina Lau, North County Librarian
(Cuesta news)

New Netlibrary ebook for November

Every month, Netlibrary provides a free book for that month. Here is November's:

November eBook of the Month:
From Vietnam to 9/11: On the Front Lines of National Security

Avoiding dry, detached analysis, the November eBook of the Month presents the revealing story of an insider's involvement with international affairs and the lessons he learned from those experiences.

Written by Congressman Jack Murtha, From Vietnam to 9/11 offers refreshingly candid observations of the most important international crises in recent history. From Vietnam and Lebanon to Bosnia, Afghanistan and Iraq, this eBook details America's failures as well as its successes, pointing out where policymaking was misguided or ill-informed and offering perceptive analyses of resource allocation and policy direction for the coming century.

Tina Lau, North County Librarian

in Netlibrary

Netlibrary e-books; Stem cell research book

Cuesta library owns over 7,000 Netlibrary e-books, which can be viewed by either going to the library catalog and typing in "Netlibrary", or by going to www.netlibrary.com and logging in as a Cuesta student. (Go to http://library.cuesta.edu/ebooks.htm to create a Netlibrary account if you don't already have one.)

Every month, Netlibrary features a new book. This month it's The Stem Cell Divide: The Facts, the Fiction, and the Fear Driving the Greatest Scientific, Political, and Religious Debate of Our Time by Michael Bellomo. Amacom Books, 2006. If you're doing a speech or paper on the stem cell debate, this is your chance to try out this book.

Tina Lau, North County Librarian
(Netlibrary)

CAL POLY IS CLOSED TODAY!

Cal Poly is closed today due to a burst pipe. All water had to be shut off all around campus to fix the break. Campus should be open again tomorrow.

Tina Lau, North County Librarian
(in Research help)

Phil Angelides in San Luis Obispo tomorrow

Interested in the next election for California governor? Here's your chance to hear the Democratic challenger to Schwarzeneggar--

JOIN

GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE

Phil Angelides

Front Porch Town Hall –

tax cuts to help

middle-class families

The Hogan’s Home

1325 Cazadero Street

San Luis Obispo, California

(cross street – San Luis Drive)

Tuesday, August 29th

3:15 – 4:30pm

LIGHT REFRESHMENTS WILL BE SERVED

Please RSVP with Mónica Henestroza at 916-448-1998 or rsvp@angelides.com

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down

I read a great book over summer break--The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, by Anne Fadiman. It's a nonfiction book about cross-cultural (American vs. Hmong) misunderstanding in a Merced, California hospital setting. It has a lot to say about our worldview (including the healthcare professional worldview) and how it's conditioned by our culture.

Tina Lau, North County Librarian
(in Good Reading)

Save Money on Your Textbooks

How to Save Money on Your Textbooks:

1. Cuesta bookstore puts out its list of textbooks, available in the bookstore or the library checkout desk on both San Luis and North County campuses. Order textbooks as soon as possible. Make sure you have the correct edition/ISBN. (Most classes use the same text as last year, but if the text is more than a couple of years old, there could be a new edition.) A few teachers will accept the previous edition, such as the nutrition and human biology teachers at North County. If you are taking Math 7, the instructors are asking you to purchase the eighth edition of Fundamentals of Mathematics instead of the ninth, which means students are scrounging at Aida's or online to get it.
2. Check http://www.addall.com/ or http://www.bookfinder4u.com/ for the textbook. Often you will find instructor’s editions for really cheap, which usually is fine. The ISBN won’t be the same as the student’s edition, but that is OK.
3. Shipping times vary, but normally the book will arrive in 1-2 weeks. If that isn’t soon enough for the class, both the San Luis and North County libraries have copies of the most-used textbooks on reserve for two hour use in the library. You can check to see if the library has a copy at webcat.cuesta.edu/uhtbin/webcat. If that won’t work for you, you can also purchase texts at Aida’s in San Luis Obispo, which will normally be a little bit cheaper (not much, though) than the prices at the Cuesta bookstore.
4. This will not work if you need to purchase a bundled textbook with CD, login code for textbook website, etc. You have to pay retail price for that. The Cuesta bookstore textbook list will indicate if you must purchase a bundled textbook.

[This is a rerun of a posting I made back in December, when it was book-buying time]

Tina Lau, North County Librarian
(in Money, WWW Resources)

American Ground: good reading

I just finished reading American Ground by William Langewiesche. It's about the recovery effort by construction workers at the World Trade Center after 9/11. Very well-written and thought-provoking. I recommend it!

Tina Lau, North County Librarian
(in Good reading)

Income Tax blues

It's that wonderful time again: time to do your income taxes. Even if you don't feel like doing them, you need to fill the forms out so you can use them for financial aid purposes. All the forms are available at the IRS website at http://www.irs.gov/.

If you have questions on your income tax, a great resource is J.K. Lasser's Your Income Tax. It's available at the San Luis campus library in the reference collection at KF 6369 J18 2006. I've used it for years to decipher my income taxes.

And yes, I finished my taxes two weeks ago, so I'm feeling smug.

Tina Lau, North County Librarian
(in Money)

Snowclones

I was just reading a post from the Free Range Librarian blog (my favorite) where she mentions snowclones. I thought, "What is a snowclone?" I tried getting a definition from Google (define:snowclone), and got nothing. Then I checked Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowclone), and found just what I needed: "Snowclone is a neologism used to describe a type of formula-based cliché which uses an old idiom in a new context....The term is an allusion to one particular instance of the phenomenon:
If Eskimos have N words for snow, X surely have Y words for Z."

Wikipedia has its place!
Tina Lau, North County Librarian
(in Fun)

Summer Schedule Now in Print

The Summer class schedules are available in print now--Fall schedules should arrive some time next week.

Tina Lau
North County Librarian
(in Cuesta news)

Cascading Style Sheets

I learned webpage publishing (using HTML) several years ago, before Cascading Style Sheets were invented. I never had the time/inclination to update my HTML knowledge, and finally I have been confronted with the fact that my own personal webpage won't display correctly in the Mozilla Firefox browser. I have tried to find a quick-and-dirty introduction to Cascading Style Sheets in the past, but have been unsuccessful. I finally found a really good basic tutorial at the W3 Consortium, http://www.w3.org/Style/Examples/011/firstcss. If you're like me and are basically clueless on the creation of CSS and don't have the time to wade through a manual, try out this tutorial.

Tina Lau
North County Librarian
(in WWW resources, Technology)

Requesting Books from the Other Campus Library

When you use the library online catalog and find a book you want, often the book is housed at the other campus library. To have it delivered to the library you are at, you click on the blue "Request" button and it gets delivered by 12 noon the next day. That is, until the library building on the San Luis campus decided to get remodeled. As of this Friday, it will take an extra day for delivery of books back and forth between campuses. This will last for several months until the remodeling is further along.

Tina Lau, North County Librarian
(in Library insider, Research help)

Show Me the Money

The Cuesta College Financial Aid Department, in collaboration with the Associated Students of Cuesta College, will be hosting "Show Me the Money" a Financial Aid Literacy Fair. The event will take place on the North County campus on Tuesday, March 28th from 5:00 to 8:00pm in the Courtyard [N.B. Due to rain, it has been moved from the courtyard to the cafeteria and the
lobby of the 1000 building], and on the San Luis Obispo campus on Wednesday, March 29th from 11:00am to 2:30pm in room 5401.
"Show Me the Money" will feature interesting and informative workshops on such topics as "Financing Your Education," "All About Credit Cards," "Is Your Financial Future At Risk," "Identity Theft," and "Achieving Your Financial Goals." Local and national lending institution representatives will be present to answer questions. Free pizza, soda, and Cowboy Cookies will be available. There will be drawings for gifts, gift certificates, and scholarships ranging from $20 to $200 dollars. The band KARMA will provide live music. [taken from the campus headlines section of the Cuesta website]

Tina Lau, North County Librarian