Library News

Talk To You Later!, for all of you non-text-messengers. This will be the last Library News item until after we come back from the holiday closure on January 5th, unless someone turns something in.

We will start intersession hours on Saturday Dec. 20; we will be closed on weekends. Intersession hours are Monday- Friday, 7:30 a.m.-6:00 p.m., with one exception: the library will close at 5 pm on Christmas Eve, Wednesday Dec. 24.

As a reminder, with the university’s holiday closure, the library will be closed from Dec. 25 2008 until January 5 2009. Then we will be back to regular Intersession Hours until Spring semester begins on Jan. 12.

Photo provided by Regina Koury, Electronic Resource Librarian

While the library is closed, you can still do considerable research; the library web page contains over 212 electronic databases, and access to 76,425 electronic journals. The one exception to this ability to research from home will be as noted in this message from the Systems Dept.:

“All the Library’s electronic services (Catalog, ILL, Remote Access Databases, Blogs, Wikis, etc.) will be unavailable from 3:00 p.m. December 30th through 3:00 p.m. December 31st, due to a planned power outage, sorry for the inconvenience!”

Have a happy holiday!

The Oboler Library recently held a contest to name their new in-house newsletter, which is posted on the doors of the library’s restrooms. Competition was fierce, with over 75 entries! Many of them were definitely worthy to be the bulletin’s new title. Library Reference staff donated funds to purchase the award, a $25 gift certificate for University Bookstore.

The contest winner is Chyla Grant , who submitted “The Writing on the Stall” as the library bulletin’s new title. Ms. Grant is a Senior in the Sociology department (with minors in Studio Art and Women’s Studies). She’s been an ISU student off and on since 2002; she comes to the Oboler Library for classes and when seeking a quiet place to study. “However,” she says, “from now on, I will be sure to make special trips to read The Writing on the Stall.” We hope you will, too! Look for the new issue to be posted before Spring Semester begins.

Oboler Library’s Reference staff had a great time selecting the winner, though choosing just one was difficult. There was surprisingly little duplication, which shows just how clever and creative our library patrons are! Here are some of the runners-up, or “dishonorable mentions,” as one staff member quipped:

· The Straight Flush
· Bengal News Flush
· Flushing Times
· The Flush Factor
· Library Leak
· News from the Throne
· Morning Constitution
· LavaStories
· Tissue Issues
· The Toilet Paper
· View from the Loo

Thanks to everyone who participated in the contest. Please direct your comments and suggestions regarding this new publication to refdesk@isu.edu or 282-3152. Thank you for your interest!

–Kristi Austin, Reference Librarian

If you need some easy reading for your airplane flight home, layovers at the airport, train station, or bus station, or just want something easy and fun to mellow out with after finals, you can grab some holiday reading at the library! We have two book racks of items available without any check out or overdue restrictions: the Book Sale Rack and the Book Swap Rack.

BOOK SALE RACK: Buy some great books for 50 cents or $1.00! Oboler Library has been having an ongoing book sale for several months. If you’ve ever been to the Biennial Used Book Sale, you’ll remember what good books we had!

The sale started on Oct. 1st and runs through the remainder of the academic year. Items offered for sale are available near the New Books area of the First floor. This “stock” will be replenished as needed, and more books are being added today! More fiction will be added for holiday reading.

Books cost $1.00 for hardback and $ .50 for paperback. You can pay for them at the Circulation desk. So, come by, have a look, and stop by regularly to see the new items that have been added. This will be a great way to stock up on reading for school breaks, and to add to your home book collection.

BOOK SWAP RACK: This rack was installed as part of National Library Week, and moved into the student lounge area after the Book Sale Rack was installed. Many individuals have taken advantage of this service in swapping out desirable titles. Library staff have donated paperback books from their personal collections, and one notable manager has bought a variety of titles from the local Deseret Industries to add to the offerings on the rack.

A variety of genres are available on the rack, including westerns, thrillers, mysteries, classics, adventures, and romances. Come to the library to see what is available. Bring a paperback of your own to swap for a title that interests you. If you have multiple paperbacks you are willing to share, please feel free to add them to our Book-Swap Rack so others in our campus community can enjoy a wider array of options for their holiday reading pleasure.

The library will be open longer hours finals week, and has a variety of study areas.

Final week hours will be:

Sunday, Dec. 14 12:00 p.m.-1:00 a.m.,

Monday-Thursday, Dec. 15-18, 7:15 a.m. to 1:00a.m.,

Friday, Dec. 19, 7:15 a.m.- 6:00 p.m.,

and then Intersession Hours:

Saturday & Sunday, Dec. 20-21, CLOSED

Depending on whether you are studying alone or with a group, there are many different study areas available on all floors of the library. Here is some additional information on Library study spaces.

Study Space

The Library offers four study rooms, three on the second floor and one on the first floor, for use by two or more University-affiliated patrons. Rooms may be reserved for two one-hour blocks per person, up to one week in advance. Reservations can be made in person at the Circulation Desk or by telephone at (208) 282-3248.

Carrels for individual study and tables for group study are available throughout the library.Specific areas of the Oboler Library have been designated as quiet study spaces. The Law Library, the Periodicals stacks, and the Government Document stacks are intended for quiet study only.

We hope you are enjoying the holiday decorations in the library. If you’ve ever wondered what is behind the doors marked Technical Services/Library Staff only in the northeast corner of the first floor, this article will explain a little.

Technical Services gets the material you need ready for circulation or usage. It consists of Acquisitions (ordering and buying), Cataloging (getting it in the catalog and ready for checkout), Serials (similar to cataloging but with serials–journals, annuals, microfilm, etc.), and Bindery (preparing items for commercial binding and book repairs.) For complete details about library departments, see this page.

We have a few decorations behind the scenes. One staff member has collected many of the Christmas cards that the University President has sent out throughout the years. Another has a nicely decorated desk area. Enjoy these pictures, and Happy Holidays!

Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol, Shakespeare, Skiing, University-Wide Reading Programs, Cooking for the Holidays, “A Soldier’s Christmas”, and Your Children and Your Toys: Are They Compatible? are the new displays up in the library now.

First Floor:
Display case 1: Charles Dickens: A Christmas Carol is a delightfully creative and colorful rendition of scenes from the literary work, particularly Ghost of Christmas Past and Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. It is filled with lighted village scenes, including figurines, trees, tombstones, a frozen lake, downtown buildings, homes, etc. It should appeal to all age groups. It also includes a handwritten page from the original manuscript.

Shakespeare is the topic of display case 2. The library has a lot of information on Shakespeare, and the case contains DVDs, books, pictures of Shakespeare’s London, quotes, pictures from plays, swords, a costume, Shakespeare on film, etc.

Second Floor:
Display case 3-Winter means Skiing! A sampling of some of the library resources are included in this case: Outdoor Sports, Winter Tales and Trails, Skiing for the Disabled, Alpine Skiing, Cross Country Skiing, and The Rock: A History of the Pebble Creek Ski Area. If you live in Idaho, you probably do some kind of winter sports–watch for another winter sport highlighted next month.

University-wide Reading Projects are the topic of display case 4. Recently ISU concluded events related to Enrique’s Journey. Did you know that over 230 university reading projects were found in a study on Reading Programs? Other books read included Coyotes by Ted Conover, Into the Wild by John Krakauer, Small Wonder by Barbara Kingsolver, The Devil’s Highway by Luis Urrea, The Kiterunner by Khaled Hosseini, and many more. Universities with reading projects include Western Washington University, University of Montana- Missoula, University of Washington, Montana State University, New Mexico State University, Spokane Falls Community College, and many more. Find out what your friends at other universities were reading, and get some reading ideas for school breaks. University of Idaho read 1 Dead in Attic: After Katrina by Chris Rose.

Cooking for the Holidays is the subject of display case 5. It covers holiday treats, foreign cuisines (French, Chinese, Mexican, Indian, and more) and basic cooking, with books like Straight A’s College Cookbook and Fast and Healthy Recipes. One of the books is open to a yummy recipe for Fried Tortillas with Cheese (Nachos).

Third Floor:
“A Soldier’s Christmas” is the topic of display case 6. You can find the moving poem widely circulated on the internet, and it is attributed to different authors. Snopes.com is often used as a source for referencing the truth or fiction of urban legends and internet postings, and it takes the poem back to it’s first publication by Lance Corporal James Schmidt in Leatherneck magazine several years before another author claimed to have written it. Both versions of the poem are in the display, and it is interesting to note what was copied word for word, and what was changed. If this kind of plagiarism study interests you, you may want to check out Words for the Taking by Neil Bowers (PS 3552 O8732 Z462 1997.)

Health Science display case—Your Children and Your Toys–Are They Compatible? This display covers what to look for when buying toys, including cords & string, small parts, sharp edges, electric toys, and more.

William Shakespeare is the subject of the show in the current display art area. Find posters from the Stratford Festival, Utah Shakespeare Festival, full text miniature print posters

of Hamlet, Much Ado About Nothing, and the Sonnets, a painting of a scene from Hamlet, and much more. While you’re in the current display art area, you can also see the current display magazines, and nearby new books.

Philip Homan has a second article about Kittie Wilkins entitled Queen of Horses, Part II: How Kittie Wilkins Became a Media Darling of the West published in the December 2008 issue of Idaho Magazine. Homan is a catalog librarian at the Eli M. Oboler Library. He is writing the first biography of Kittie Wilkins (1857-1936), who ran 10,000 horses in Owyhee County at the turn of the twentieth century—the largest herd owned by one family in the American West—and once sold 8,000 horses in a single sale to a buyer in Kansas City, Missouri—the biggest sale of horses in the West. The photos below are used courtesy of the Mountain Home Historical Museum and the Glenns Ferry Historical Museum.

The article recounts Wilkins’s career as a late-nineteenth-century media celebrity—beginning with an interview with the San Francisco Examiner just before Christmas of 1887 and coming to a conclusion with an interview in the Denver Post in 1902. With the help of Oboler Library’s databases, Homan has so far found over 500 news reports, feature stories, and interviews of Wilkins published in 36 states and the District of Columbia, as well as in Canada, Great Britain, and New Zealand. Homan believes Wilkins to have been the most famous Western American woman of her generation.

Oboler Library has a complete collection of Idaho Magazine in Periodicals on the third floor of the library at F741.I17. The latest issue is shelved at Current Display on the first floor.

This was taken from the recent Pocatello Readings listing of literary readings:

“Graduate Student Reading
Saturday, December 13th, 6pm
College Market (8th and Halliday)

Come listen to graduate students from ISU’s English department share their creative works.”

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“Poetry and Prose Reading
Sunday,December 14th, 3pm
College Market (8th and Halliday)

Join Jordon Hofman and Veronica Hapgood as they share their poetry and fiction.

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If this puts you in the mood to read more poetry and literature over the holidays, check out the recent article, “Poetry Heaven @ Oboler Library” in Library News. You can find thousands of poetry books in the second floor stacks of the library. Just check our online catalog.

English and American Studies Department faculty and students will be especially interested in hearing about these news items that were sent out on LibIdaho from Boise State University:

“A partnership between Albertsons Library Special Collections and the Boise State English Department - Western Writers Series is making 23 out-of-print titles available digitally for the first time. The Western Writers Series provides brief, authoritative introductions to writers and classic texts of the American west. The purpose of the 50-60 page booklets is to deepen the understanding and appreciation for the literature of the American west. The Western Writers Series are written by scholars and intended for lay readers and fellow scholars alike.”

Each of the digital editions is available now in pdf format and is fully searchable online at: The WESTERN WRITERS SERIES DIGITAL EDITIONS

Also they announced a poetry reading coming up Dec. 4:

“The Boise State University Western Writers Series and Albertsons Library are pleased to announce the Western Writers Series Digital Editions. In celebration of this valuable addition to the vibrant literary culture at Boise State, Albertsons Library and the Western Writers Series will present a reading by Clay Morgan and Boise State MFA professors, including Brady Udall, Janet Holmes and Mitch Wieland.

The reading will take place at 6 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 4, at The Cabin, located at 801 S. Capitol Blvd. in Boise. Admission is free.”

Citations driving you crazy with all the term papers coming due? Check out the link on the library web page for citation help with APA Style, Chicago Style, MLA Style and other styles. The Idaho Health Science Library has some good links to citations for APA and AMA also. When consulting online guides you will need to be careful noting when they were updated to reflect the latest citation style manual.

You can also check with the ISU Writing Center for an appointment for additional help either in person or online with a writing tutor. They also have some great online handouts.