What:     The Friends of the University of New Haven (UNH) Library will host a public lecture, “The Impact of Dysfunctional Mirror Neurons on Autistic Children,” with Louise Soares, Ph.D., UNH professor of education, and Robert Law, practitioner-in-residence in the UNH Education Department. They will discuss the link between mirror neurons and autism and outline typical behaviors displayed by autistic children.  This event is free and open to the public.

When:    Tues.,  April 27, 2010, 2:00 p.m.

Where:     Marvin K. Peterson Library, Upper Level, UNH campus

Details:     Soares received her Ph.D. in educational psychology from the University of Illinois. Prior to her appointment at UNH, she was a professor in psychology, education, and business at the University of Bridgeport. Her achievements at UNH include establishing the Math/Science Council and Liberal Arts Council with faculty from other arts and sciences departments and designing a charter high school as an academy for future teachers with West Haven public schools. She has published over 200 articles and delivered over 450 presentations at national and international conferences.

Law received his M.S. in school psychology from Southern Connecticut State University and his sixth-year professional diploma from the Connecticut Center for Gestalt Therapy.  Prior to his appointment at UNH, Law was a special education teacher and school psychologist. From 1997 through 2005, Law was a member of the Regional Crisis Intervention Team at the Yale Child Study Center where he assisted in developing a training manual and video to be used for educating school personnel in responding to crisis and emergency situations. His courses include Contemporary Issues and Children with Special Needs. In addition to his work at UNH, he is a consultant in the Ansonia public school system where he works with children diagnosed with autism and emotional disturbances.

For more information contact Hanko Dobi at 203-932-7191 or hdobi@newhaven.edu.

Looking to write your next term paper on the health care reform? To find reliable published sources of information for your course assignments, the library has many electronic options. From the Library web page, with your UNH network username and password you can get full text articles and books related to your topic. It doesn’t even matter if you are not on campus! The menu listings on the Library Home page for these sources are Catalog – UNH, Databases, and Journals. Following is an example of what can be found in each of these, using the current hot topic of the pros and cons of the Health Care bill.

Catalog – UNH is the library’s online catalog (also a database, but that’s another story), which lists not only the printed books on the shelves in the library, but also many full text online books. We especially cater to those published by the U.S. government on topics important to the UNH academic programs. Typing in “health care” as subject keywords and selecting Quick Limit can minimize 2000 results into a list of over 400. The articles are sorted by date, with the most recent being ones: White House Forum on Health Reform (2009), a 54 page book published by the Office of the President, covering all the issues (pro and con) about the current health care legislation. Other full text books from this search include government hearings, which are filled with expert testimony on related topics such as ways to reduce the cost of health insurance, strengthening the Medicare payment system, and strengthening employer-provided health care – as well as exploring the truth about veterans’ suicides, not the intended topic, but one of grave concern and interest all the same.

Databases are electronic collections of books and articles (from journals, magazines, and newspapers) on all imaginable topics. For this health care topic, which is interdisciplinary, you can start with the subject listing and the group of databases called general. Typing “health care” in the CQ Researcher database and sorting by date to get the most recent, leads to a report on the Tea Party Movement, which certainly covers controversy about the health care bill. In the Academic OneFile database, the subject search for Health Care Reform (full text sources only) from Jan. 2009 to the present gives about 14,000 sources in journals, magazines and newspapers, and multimedia. Below the general databases is a group called Health. Searching the subject Health Care Reform in the Health & Wellness Resource Center gives over 15,000 results. Searching the phrase “health care reform” from Jan. 2009 to today in the Highwire database of scientific journals gives over 1300 articles. By now you probably have more than enough excellent sources for your paper or presentation.

The Journals option in the library menu lists all journals, magazines, and newspapers available to our community. If you have a citation from a particular journal and need the article, type the journal title in here. But if you want to see what journals are available on a particular topic, pick the subject search drop-down, select your subject area, click search and then click on the specific topic of interest – for example Public Health, which gives a list of online journals related to this topic.

Best wishes for a pleasant research experience, and be sure to ask for help!

Looking to write your next term paper on the health care reform? To find reliable published sources of information for your course assignments, the library has many electronic options. From the Library web page, with your UNH network username and password you can get full text articles and books related to your topic. It doesn’t even matter if you are not on campus! The menu listings on the Library Home page for these sources are Catalog – UNH, Databases, and Journals. Following is an example of what can be found in each of these, using the current hot topic of the pros and cons of the Health Care bill.

Catalog – UNH is the library’s online catalog (also a database, but that’s another story), which lists not only the printed books on the shelves in the library, but also many full text online books. We especially cater to those published by the U.S. government on topics important to the UNH academic programs. Typing in “health care” as subject keywords and selecting Quick Limit can minimize 2000 results into a list of over 400. The articles are sorted by date, with the most recent being ones: White House Forum on Health Reform (2009), a 54 page book published by the Office of the President, covering all the issues (pro and con) about the current health care legislation. Other full text books from this search include government hearings, which are filled with expert testimony on related topics such as ways to reduce the cost of health insurance, strengthening the Medicare payment system, and strengthening employer-provided health care – as well as exploring the truth about veterans’ suicides, not the intended topic, but one of grave concern and interest all the same.

Databases are electronic collections of books and articles (from journals, magazines, and newspapers) on all imaginable topics. For this health care topic, which is interdisciplinary, you can start with the subject listing and the group of databases called general. Typing “health care” in the CQ Researcher database and sorting by date to get the most recent, leads to a report on the Tea Party Movement, which certainly covers controversy about the health care bill. In the Academic OneFile database, the subject search for Health Care Reform (full text sources only) from Jan. 2009 to the present gives about 14,000 sources in journals, magazines and newspapers, and multimedia. Below the general databases is a group called Health. Searching the subject Health Care Reform in the Health & Wellness Resource Center gives over 15,000 results. Searching the phrase “health care reform” from Jan. 2009 to today in the Highwire database of scientific journals gives over 1300 articles. By now you probably have more than enough excellent sources for your paper or presentation.

The Journals option in the library menu lists all journals, magazines, and newspapers available to our community. If you have a citation from a particular journal and need the article, type the journal title in here. But if you want to see what journals are available on a particular topic, pick the subject search drop-down, select your subject area, click search and then click on the specific topic of interest – for example Public Health, which gives a list of online journals related to this topic.

Best wishes for a pleasant research experience, and be sure to ask for help!

We all know what’s happening today. You can hardly avoid newspapers, radio and television, Internet streaming media, tweets, feeds, email alerts, and the like. But where do you go to find out what happened yesterday, a decade or a century ago, or earlier? Of course, there are many Internet sites that offer their services, usually with no guarantee of authenticity and sometimes for a price, but the Peterson Library gives you the real thing at no charge! Of course, it goes without saying that the Library’s book collection offers plenty to be found by searching the catalog, but there is much more.

Primary source material, historical indexes, and peer-reviewed articles from yesterday to as far back as you want to go are located inside. Consider these items:
Historical newspapers. We have access to the Hartford Courant going back to 1764, The New York Times from 1851, and the Los Angeles Times starting in 1881. Read about George Washington besting the British at Yorktown in 1787, the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869, and the Moon landing in 1969. These are in PDF format and have access features that allow you to read the newspaper cover to cover!

Historical periodicals and indexes. Need older articles from Time, Business Week, Engineering News-Record? We have long back runs of many periodicals and the accompanying print indexes that enable you to quickly find articles by subject in them. By using the Journals link on our home page to check our holdings and having us obtain from other libraries what we don’t have here, you can get nearly anything you ask for. Forms are available at the Information Desk and online from the Interlibrary Loan link on our homepage.

History Resource Center: U.S. and History Resource Center: World. These two databases are especially geared to help you get historical background information for your papers and research projects. They both have chronologies of events, subject indexes, and keyword access, as well as advanced search features that allow you to limit to a certain historical period, publication timeframe, or type of document.

Content includes primary sources, periodical articles, news items, maps and multi-media materials.

Biography Resource Center. This is a close cousin to the two above and offers personal history information about notable as well as lesser known personages. You can search by categories like artists, musicians, Nobel Prize winners, Obama administration officials, Olympians, social reformers, and combinations of criteria like occupation, gender, nationality, or ethnic identity. And you can always just look directly for a specific person you need to find.

Gale Virtual Reference Library. There are a number of treasures hidden here including the American Decades and the American Decades Primary Sources series. Other works deal with the Great Depression, the Holocaust, Supreme Court cases, the Vietnam War and more. And most of these are multi-volume compilations with broad coverage and no shortage of material.

Credo Reference. This database is a powerhouse, currently with 463 dictionaries, encyclopedias, handbooks and other treatises. They deal with the ancient, medieval, and modern worlds, as well as topical subjects like the history of alcohol and temperance, immigration, propaganda, and conspiracy theories. There are hyperlinked cross-references and the tool at the bottom of each article will flip the citation from MLA to APA and other formats with the click of the mouse.

AP Images. The old saying about a picture being worth a thousand words goes a long way here. This is AP as in Associated Press, the news service that dates back to 1848. AP has one of the world’s largest collections of historical and contemporary imagery with millions of photos of the famous people, places, objects, and the events of the past. Nothing dresses up a PowerPoint presentation like some visual images and there are lots to choose from here.

The best news of all is that most of our electronic resources are available 24/7 from the Peterson Library website at www.newhaven.edu/library. Click on the Databases link on our homepage and log in with your UNH email ID and password. Use the Subject Listing for best access by topical grouping. For assistance, visit us at the Information Desk, phone us at 203-932-7189, or email us at LibraryHelp@newhaven.edu. We are always ready to help with your reference and research needs!

2010 is an exciting year in international sports: The Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, Canada in February, and the Soccer World Cup in Johannesburg, South Africa, in June are two of the most-watched events in the world. Both share the spirit that athletic competitions have: the ability to unite people in mutual excitement and enthusiasm for sportsmanship, athletic grace and speed, and peaceful yet fervent rivalry among countries.

If you are researching a paper on doping, sports economics, or just indulging your interests in the final standings of your favorite team, a visit to the Marvin K. Peterson Library is the perfect pretext to explore our print and electronic resources, particularly for a subject as multi-faceted as sports.

Sports and international events offer a myriad of aspects that are exciting to scholars and lay people. From medicine to law, from the social sciences to international relations, business, psychology, and education, you don’t have to be an athlete to take an interest in this fascinating topic.

Our reference collection on the first floor has standard works such as Sports Market Place or the Encyclopedia of Recreation and Leisure among many other print resources. Search the Library’s online catalog for books on a particular subject (for example, the history of the Olympic Games, or the economic and cross-cultural aspects of professional sports). Check our databases for recent or historical newspaper articles, scholarly articles, biographical information or online reference articles. Last but not least, surf the web sites that we have select for their reliable and interesting content.

You may know, for example, that the first modern Olympic Games were held in Athens in 1896.  But did you know that only 12 nations responded to the invitation of the International Olympic Committee?  The American team was one of the largest with 13 members (only the Greek team was larger). The British team counted only 6 athletes. (Guttmann, Allan. The Games Must Go On. New York: Columbia University Press, 1984. 15). Or consider that “when British soldiers in Afghanistan and southern Iraq wanted to befriend the locals, they played a soccer match.  On Christmas Day 1914, British and German soldiers in the First World War trenches did the same thing.” (Szymanski & Zimbalist.  National Pastime: How Americans Play Baseball and the Rest of the World Plays Soccer. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2005. 1).

If you like to find out more interesting facts and facets on whatever topic you are researching, or if you need help using any of the print or electronic resources at the Library, sports-related or otherwise, come to the Information Desk.  For a complete listing of the Library’s Subject Guides, please visit:

http://www.newhaven.edu/library/Guides/Subject/

Do any of these scenarios sound familiar to you? You need to write a research paper and you just can’t think of a topic. Or, you have a topic but don’t know how to start finding information in books or articles. Perhaps you have seen the list of databases available through the library website but don’t know which have the best information on your chosen subject. Not to worry – you have help at the UNH Marvin K. Peterson Library. The reference librarians at the library are here to assist you with those issues and more.

We can show you how to use the UNH Library catalog to find books and documents on your topic.  Once you have found the titles that you need, we can show you how to use the call number on the spine of the books to find them in the library so that you can borrow them. If you need a book that the library doesn’t own, you can request that we get it for you through interlibrary loan. This means that we locate the book you need from another library. We contact you when it arrives here at the UNH library and you simply stop by the library circulation desk to borrow it.

If you already have articles that you need to find, we can show you how to locate them using the Journals link on the UNH Library webpage. Articles are available in many different places and the journals link can tell you if we have the journal you need here in the library, in a database, or on microform. Again, if we don’t have access to it here, you can ask us to get your article using interlibrary loan.

Academic research requires students to use library databases rather than Google to get articles.  The reference librarians are experts at both searching these databases and teaching students how to search them. We have access to over 100 different databases containing articles on many different academic areas including Business, Criminal Justice, Engineering, Forensic Science, Psychology, and much more. If you want to try one out, Academic OneFile is often a very useful database to start with. It contains over 34 million articles! You can log in from any computer anywhere: even at home! You can access Academic OneFile by selecting “Library” at the top of the UNH homepage. Then choose “Databases” from the left hand menu on the library homepage.  Finally, select “Subject Listing of Databases” to link to Academic OneFile as well as many other databases.

Please ask us if you have questions! That is why we are here. Students will frequently come up to the reference desk and say “I am sorry to bother you but…” You are not bothering us! We are more bothered by the fact that there are students who need assistance but aren’t asking us for help. You can come into the library and get help on the spot. We are at the desk located under the “Information” sign as you enter the library and look slightly ahead and to the left.  If you prefer, feel free to make an appointment for a specific day and time to get a more indepth library orientation or research assistance session.
You can also call us at 932-7189 or email us at libraryhelp@newhaven.edu with your request.

We look forward to hearing from you!

This time of year students are busy with papers, exams, and projects. This point in the year, computers in the Marvin K. Peterson Library are in high demand. You might come into the Library, look around, and not find a single empty computer. Does that mean you cannot get your work done? Not at all!

Many students are still not aware of the Library’s 36 laptops available for use within the building. You can go to the Circulation Desk and, with your UNH ID card, borrow a laptop for three hours that you can use anywhere in the building. This program is extremely popular with students since it began last year. You can take your laptop to the Jazzman’s Café and enjoy a snack, to a Group Study Room to work on a project with your friends, or to the Upper Level where you can write a paper in peace and quiet. These computers have the same software as the Library’s desktop computers and print to the Pharos printing system in the Library. If you want to keep the laptop longer than three hours, you can come back to the Circulation Desk before your time is up and charge out a power cord to keep your laptop running. For those of you who prefer external mice to a laptop’s touch pad, you can charge out a mouse as well.

Keep in mind that using these laptops come with strict regulations. Before you charge out a laptop for the first time you will be asked to read and sign a Laptop Loan Agreement Form, which will list all the rules concerning laptop use. Library laptops cannot leave the building for any reason and also have an overdue fine of 20 cents per minute or $12 per hour. Don’t forget that these fines can be avoided by renewing your laptop before your time is up. You cannot put a hold on a laptop or reserve one, but availability of laptops has rarely been an issue. So the next time you come into the Library to study, consider using a laptop! For more information about laptop policies, please see the Circulation Desk Staff or call us at 932.7197.

The Library subscribes to thousands of books and journals online, available for UNH students to use for research. These are accessible on the Library web site Database list, using your UNH network log-on, from anywhere in the world.

The books cover many topics, for example: Science and Engineering (Knovel books and EngNetBase books), Business and society (Conference Board research reports, NBER Working Paper research reports), Forensic Science/Law Enforcement, and Reference books (dictionaries and encyclopedias) on every imaginable topic (CREDO Reference, Gale Virtual Reference Library E-books for Colleges). You can pull up a whole book, or search the databases by topic and get chapters in various books which contain your topic.

Journal articles, especially from “peer-reviewed” scholarly and research journals, are at the core of academic research and essential background for writing research paper as discussed in the previous Charger Bulletin’s Library article. The UNH library pays for subscriptions to thousands of e-journals for your use. We have many databases which include their published articles, both general ones with broad subject coverage such as the Academic Onefile, and subject specialty databases such as Criminal Justice Periodicals, PsychArticles, Literary Reference Center, and Science and History Resource Centers.  We also subscribe to collections from various publishers whose journals cover topics relevant to academics at UNH, such as Sage Publications and the IEEE Computer Society. There are the many highly-regarded “open source” scholarly journals, which make their contents available freely on the web, such as the Highwire Press journals for sciences. You will also find Newspaper articles: useful for writing case studies and researching local events and people. All of these are available via the Library web Database list.

If you have a question while searching the databases you can request help at the information desk in the library or if you are anywhere else, you can call the information desk at 932-7189, or email us at LibraryHelp@newhaven.edu

It seems as though summer just finally arrived, and yet now we’re looking towards turning our calendars to October this coming week. Along with the arrival of autumn comes a flurry of research papers that begin to be due from now until the end of the semester. Do you feel perplexed as to where to look to find articles for your research paper? The library can help, and most of the journal articles available are online through the UNH website.

There is a link to the library’s website directly from the UNH homepage. Follow that and you will see a blue navigation menu on the left. The best way to access journal articles is through the databases link. You will log into that the same way as you do your UNH email, with the same username and password. Once into the databases, it’s advisable to switch to the Subject Listing of Databases, because the library has so many databases that without a little guidance it can be difficult to know which databases to use to find the articles you need.

You’ll find an amazing amount of scholarly information suited for your research paper needs. You can search using your own keywords, or browse by topic in most of these databases. Increasingly, the full-text of these articles is available online. This means you don’t only find a citation, or simply the abstract or summary, but the entire journal article just as it appears in the print version of the journal. This is such a convenient way of conducting your research since most databases are available from anywhere that you have an Internet connection. Only a few are designated as in-library use only, and those are clearly listed on our website.

Many of the databases have some great features, from print and download options to RSS feeds. Setting up a feed is quick and easy. Imagine that you have a paper due at the end of the semester. Setting up a feed will ensure that you get new relevant articles delivered to your email inbox without your having to keep checking for new and timely articles.

Try it yourself and see what a great resource the library has through its databases link. And remember, if you ever need help you can stop at the library reference desk, or call us at 932-7189. Good luck to everyone with their papers!

The library has free access through the end of October to the SpringerImages database, which contains more than 1.5 million photos, graphs, histograms and tables.   SpringerImages spans science, technology and medicine in 18 subject collections, and is based on trusted sources such as SpringerLink and imagesMD.  Please go to http://www.springerimages.com from within the campus network, or to the “Trials” section at the top of the library web site Database list, to use this exciting resource.

Scientific research has become progressively more focused on raw data and visual forms of learning and communication. The visuals in this database come in many different forms, ranging from charts and graphs to high-quality photos.  These images are always up-to-date, as images are loaded as they are published.  The database provides captions and extracts from the source, plus the ability to link to the full text of the source.  It offers creation of image sets and a one-click export to PowerPoint or PDF.

(Information provided by the SpringerLink publicity flier.)