Department Homepage Gets a Facelift

The Reference homepage has changed. It has been redesigned and updated by Mary Kate Boyd Byrnes to model Robert Delaney's Library website. Both sites reflect the new Campus protocols.

To begin your research, try one of these links from the left side of the page:

Find a Book!
Choose a Database!
Search from Home!
What's on Trial?
Locate a Periodical!

Locate a Periodical in a Database! links to Serials Solutions to find a full-text article online.

Cite it! is the, place to go when you're ready to format your bibliography. It gives you examples from: APA, MLA, Turabian, AMA and Chicago styles.

When you need to verify a piece of information, Email Reference Services can be useful.

In the center of the page are several categories: there are links to hours and personnel. To see a list of services and a description of each, click on Department Services. Department Publications includes pathfinders and bibliographies prepared by the Reference librarians.

Resources adds a new feature to our website labeled, Subject Access to Collections. Here you can select databases for a particular subject, and get a list of relevant periodicals and reference materials along with their call numbers. It also includes related LC classification numbers so you can browse the shelves. You'll also find a link to Internet Resources in our Virtual Reference Collection, with prescreened websites available 24/7.

The web site is continually evolving with plans to add other teaching tools and research aids. We invite you to bookmark us at: http://www.cwpost.liu.edu/cwis/cwp/library/ref/refhome.htm. Don't forget to check the site regularly for new links and features.

Please feel free to email your comments to us. We'd like to know what you think!

Latest links for the Virtual Reference Collection

Here are some new links in our Virtual Reference Collection:

Word Spy at http://www.wordspy.com/ presents recently coined words and phrases, old words that are being used in new ways, and existing words that have enjoyed a recent renaissance.

The Center for the Advancement of Ethics and Character can be accessed at http://www.bu.edu/education/caec/files/aboutcaec.htm. This site serves as a resource for administrators, teachers and parents who are looking for ideas and information on teaching values in the classroom. One of its missions is to stimulate a national dialogue on issues of moral education.

BI Bits

This year we taught 78 classes in 13 disciplines, totaling 141 teaching hours. Many were intensive 2-hour graduate classes. These specialized research sessions covered topics in psychology, literary criticism, visual arts, speech pathology, information science, health administration, bilingual education, and many other academic areas. We've taught more than 1600 students since the Fall semester. All told, the BI Lab has been used for over 200 library classes, workshops, and orientations sessions since it was inaugurated in September of 2002.

ReferenceLink In Dialog@CARL Out

ReferenceLink has now replaced Dialog@CARL. It is updated daily and provides access to over 40 newspapers, newswires, and news databases from the Gale Newsroom Library Edition.

Included in ReferenceLink is the New York Times (most current 90 days) and Newsday. These titles were frequently requested in Dialog@CARL.

Also represented in this collection, along with the ERIC and Medline databases, are titles such as, Consumer Reports, New England Journal of Medicine, and the World Intellectual Property Organization/Patent Cooperation Treaty (WIPO/PCT). Gale's Twayne's Author Series will also be available. Happy searching!!!

Tech Tip:

Whenever you're printing draft copies of documents in Microsoft Word, there's a quick way to cut down on the unnecessary use of paper. It involves printing two pages on one sheet of paper. The text is still very readable, and you've helped save a tree.

To print two pages on one sheet of paper in Word, simply hit FILE>PRINT. Once the pop up print menu appears, find the ZOOM sub-menu located just above the OK and CANCEL Buttons (see red circle on image). Select 2 pages and print.

This tip will help minimize the amount of wasted paper and make your editing more convenient.

Welcome, Welcome

We are happy to welcome two new staff members to the Reference Department.

Our new interlibrary loan secretary, Claudette Allegrezza, brings eleven years of valuable experience in the Periodicals Department to her new position. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Post and is presently working toward her master's degree in the Palmer School.

Amrita Madray returns to Reference after having worked here as an adjunct faculty member and intern. Her recent experience in Periodicals and her prior Acquisitions work here and at Adelphi will enhance her role as a public service librarian. We welcome them both!

T-Time Workshop

Our T-Time on Tuesday April 29th addressed the topic, "Moola for Schoola: Grant Writing for the Academic Library." Development Officers and grant writers-in-residence, Daniel Leidl and Kitty Rocket, led a seminar in grant writing basics. They focused on identifying relevant grant-funding institutions, developing an appropriate timeline for projects, writing a compelling inquiry letter, components of an energetic proposal, and grant support guidelines and protocols.

Quirky Queries

You know the ones - those reference questions that give us pause, that keep us up at night, that add interesting tidbits to our little stores of knowledge...

Recently, a faculty member had seen a series of films from the 1940's, and wondered if the main character had ever been depicted in a comic book. Using the WorldCat database in FirstSearch, we found that the title character did indeed appear in a set of comic books published in the 1950's.

A question arose regarding reports that various state legislatures have tried to pass laws designating the calculation of Pi to be set at exactly 3 in order to correspond to biblical scripture. We found historical references to such an attempt in Indiana in 1897, and a recent urban legend naming Alabama. A reading of 1 Kings 7:23 is the apparent scriptural source. In describing the construction of Solomon's temple, it refers to a circular basin with a circumference of 30 cubits and a diameter of 10 cubits. The resultant ratio is 3. Exactly...