We hope everyone had a safe and enjoyable holiday season and have come back from break well rested and ready to tackle another semester.  Of course, it can be tough getting back into the swing of classes and homework, so don't forget that when you need assistance with your class research you can always Ask a Librarian for help through online chat, e-mail, phone, in person, or for those really tough research assignments, through a 30 minute reference appointment.

Introducing LibGuides

The BSU librarians worked hard last semester setting up our newest online service LibGuides.  LibGuides is an electronic research guide service where you can search for guides on your research topics that contain lists of library resources to help you get started with your research.  They're similar to the subject guides that the library has always had, but are available in a new dynamic format which includes hotlinks to the resources in CardCat and the databases as well as to relevant websites and online resources.

Electronic Tools for Grantsmanship: Workshops for Graduate Students

Join the staff from Bracken Library and the Research House as they combine forces to discuss electronic tools for grantsmanship.  Workshops will focus on Web of Science, GrantSelect, Community of Science and IRBNet-information sources for searching citation indices, databases for identifying grant opportunities, and how to electronically submit your compliance protocol.    Workshop sessions will be tailored for graduate students and will be held during the following dates / times:

Graduate students:        
January 15  &  January 16 (identical sessions)-4:00-6:00pm

*Both Sessions will be held in Bracken Library Room 104

If you are interested in attending either of these sessions, please register before January 11th by clicking here.

Here's hoping you have another successful semester at Ball State!

No, not World War III, Finals Week!  Are you all ready for next week?  Finish all of your research?  Completing the finishing touches on those term papers?  What's that you say?  You still need to find some resources to finish up researching your project?  Well, never fear.  If you need some last minute help with your research, just stop by the Reference Desk and have a chat with one of your friendly neighborhood librarians.  Or, check out the Ask a Librarian page to see all the ways you can get help with your last minute, end of the semester research including help through chat, e-mail, or even by appointment.

Extended Hours at the Bookmark Cafe @ Bracken Library during finals

Have a few late nights ahead of you next week finishing up those papers and projects?  The Bookmark Cafe will be open until midnight on Monday through Thursday next week, so stop by and get yourself a frappuccino before settling in to finish up that project that's due the next morning.

Above all, congratulations on nearly making it though another semester.  Good luck with your finals and final papers and projects, and have fun and be safe during the semester break.  Get plenty of rest as well because, unless you're graduating, you're going to need it for when you come back to start your spring semester classes.  If you are graduating, congratulations and best of luck to you with your future endeavors.  Take care and have a happy holiday season.

Two events happening around this time have made this post ironically timely.  The first is the announcement that Mr. Michael Jackson's famous "Neverland Ranch", due to non payment of mortgage, is being foreclosed on by the bank.  The other is the upcoming production of "Peter Pan" scheduled for November 15^th at 7:30pm in Emens Auditorium.

It is the latter we'll be focusing on.  Specifically, the history of the inspiration for the theatre production and the playwright who wrote the original play in 1904, J. M. Barrie.

James Matthew Barrie, according to the first volume of "The Columbia Encyclopedia of Modern Drama" (REF PN1861 .C65 2007) , was born in 1860 in Scotland and was the ninth of ten children.  He was, according to Columbia, a small and thin boy and so preferred spending his leisure time listening to stories instead of playing the rough games enjoyed by the bigger boys.  As he grew older and went off to school, his love of stories and literature grew.  As he grew older, Columbia speculates, his general disinterest in young ladies was less from misogyny and more from Barrie being "a perpetual young boy" which may have been the main inspiration for the concept of Peter Pan (pg. 123).

More inspiration would follow.  By the time of Peter Pan's first showing in London in 1904, Barrie had already achieved some success as an author and playwright.  It has been believed, as mentioned in the Columbia resource as well as entries in the "Biography Resource Center" database, among other sources as well, that the play evolved from stories that Barrie had created to delight the five young sons of his close friend Sylvia Llewelyn Davies (pg. 124).  Barrie actually became the guardian of the boys in 1910 after their mother died prematurely of cancer.  This story of the inspiration for Peter Pan has been most recently retold in the dramatized film "Finding Neverland".  Barrie died in 1937.

From 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Bracken Library will host the Ball State International Festival with more than 20 countries represented. There are tables set-up on the first floor and tomorrow, each will be decorated by one or more international students who are eager to share information about his/her country.  Exhibits include memorabilia, clothing, maps, music, and food samplings. At 11 a.m., there will be a presentation on cultures and body language in Rm. 215.  Students can visit the tables and have a "passport" stamped to enter drawings for prizes provided by The Bookmark Café@Bracken.  See the MySpace calendar for more details.

"The U-505's story begins in the Deutsche Werft Shipyard at Hamburg, Germany, where the sub's keel was laid on June 12, 1940…Two days after the keel laying, the conquering German armies entered Paris, Hitler danced his little jig in the Compiègne Forest, and there were many who thought that this U-boat and her sister ships, then being rushed to completion, would never see action in this war.  How wrong they were…" from Twenty Million Tons Under the Sea  (Bracken Gen. Coll. D782.U18 G3 1956) by Rear Admiral Daniel V. Gallery, USN (pg. 24-25).  A little over a year after its keel had been laid, on August 26^th 1941, U-505 was commissioned at Hamburg under the command of Kapitän Leutnant zur See Axel Loewe (pg. 36). 

The ship soon joined its sisters in the German U-boat fleet and wasted little time making a name for itself.  "In her first six months at sea she sank eight Allied ships, totaling 46,200 tons." (pg. 8)  The targeting of cargo ships by the U-boats strangled supplies to England and contributed to the need for rationing food in the UK during the war.

Under the command of Admiral Daniel V. Gallery (the author), a force of U-boat hunters were sent to the Atlantic in early 1944.  On June 4^th, 1944 Gallery's group successfully cornered U-505 and through the use of depth charges, forced her to surface.  Lieutenant Albert David from the ship the "Pillsbury" led a boarding party.  When they entered the sub they found it deserted, its crew having jumped in the water believing the 505 would soon be heading to the bottom of the ocean.  It did not, and the boarding party discovered code books onboard that helped the Allies with decoding communications to U-boats for the remainder of the war, though in his book Admiral Gallery doubts the claims by some that this helped shorten the war (pg. 291-311)

So what happened to U-505?  It was captured and taken into the possession of the United States.  I have, in fact, had the opportunity to walk through it.  It's current home, since the mid-fifties, has been at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.  Within the last few years a special addition to the museum, a special hangar to house permanently U-505 was built.  Up until this time, the boat had been docked outside and the entrance had been accessible through a special attachment to the museum.  The new hanger has not only allowed for the preservation of this piece of Naval history, I can say from experience that it allows an observer the ability to better fathom the sheer massiveness and dormant power of this impressive craft.  It's certainly worth the trip just to see it.

According to the "Ditionary of Slang and Unconventional English, 8th edition" (REF PE3721 .P3 2002) it is:

'A heavy shell passing far overhead, therefore with but a faint noise': Army, WW1…Also, carpet slipper, a shell passing silently, esp. if of the navel high explosive type:  the two words, therefore, are virtually synonymous (pg. 184).

Many currently used and popular slang terms are listed as well, along with some interesting alternate meanings to the ones that people may be familiar with.  For instance, Cool is not only "a hippy expression for confidence or self-assuredness" or "very pleasing or attractive or satisfactory", in the late 16^th and early 17^th centuries it was a term for a "cut-purse", or better known now as a pickpocket (pg. 251).  A dude was also "a serious, usually rather older, bird-watcher"(pg. 349).  Off the hooks dates back to around the 1630's, and meant "Ill-tempered, peevish" or later in the 17^th century it meant "Crazed, slightly mad"(pg. 818).

This would also be a great resource to look up some of those crazy expressions your older family members use but don't seem to make much sense.  For example, catawampous means "avid; fierce, eager; violently destructive" (pg. 189).  To (drive one's) pigs to market means to snore (pg. 882).  To shoe the goose is to "undertake or do anything futile or absurd" (pg. 1056).

For an online resource that contains searchable contemporary slang, www.slangsite.com is an interesting resource that allows you to submit your own slang entries if your particular term is not represented.

The above line may seem familiar.  You may recognize it as the line cried out by student after student as they climbed atop their desks at the dramatic conclusion of the movie "Dead Poet's Society" as their beloved though recently dismissed literature teacher John Keating (Robin Williams) prepares to exit the class for the last time.  Some of you may not recognize it at all.  Still others of you, either through your memory of the film or your own knowledge and experience of post Civil War American poetry may recognize it as the title and twice repeated refrain of the poem written by Walt Whitman.

O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
  But O heart! heart! heart!
     O the bleeding drops of red,
        Where on the deck my Captain lies,
          Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up -- for you the flag is flung -- for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths -- for you the shores a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
  Here Captain! dear father!
     This arm beneath your head!
        It is some dream that on the deck,
          You've fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won:
  Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
     But I with mournful tread,
        Walk the deck my Captain lies,
          Fallen cold and dead.

The text of the poem can be easily found using an internet search or in the library's LitFinder database.  According to "The Critical Companion to Walt Whitman" (REF PS3231 .O53 2006), the poem was first published in the Saturday Press (New York) on November 4^th, 1865 and though apparently one of his most recognized poems, one that he was least proud of due to the short amount of time he had to write it.  "I'm almost sorry I ever wrote the poem," Whitman once confided to his friend and biographer Horace Traubel (pg. 130-131).

The poem, of course, is not actually referring to Robin Williams, but to Abraham Lincoln who, after "The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won", referring to the bloody and divisive Civil War which had recently ended with the North's victory and the preservation of the Union, was assassinated that April.  Whitman's poem was therefore composed in the short time between the April assassination and its November publication.

Many of you may not know who Freddy Fender was, maybe that's because his fan club's address and contact information has been unknown since 1989 (he was a musician/guitarist/vocalist of Hispanic descent who started making music in the late 50's.  He passed away last October after a long battle with cancer).  Have you ever heard of the Albert Einstein Institution?  If not, you may be surprised to know that it has nothing to do with physics, or for that matter any of the sciences, and is instead an organization that studies, discusses, and advocates the use of non-violent action in the resolution of global conflicts.  While this is certainly a cause that Einstein believed strongly in, it seems to me that Gandhi might have been a more likely figure to pick when it came to naming such an association.  Ironically, the "Gandhi Peace Center" is now defunct, but the Albert Einstein Institution for non-violent conflict resolution is still going strong.  Any Monkees fans out there?  If so then you'll be delighted to know that "Davy Devotees - The Official Fan Club for Davy Jones"  is headquartered in Fishers, right here in  Indiana. 

"Okay", you may be asking yourselves, "what's your point?"  Well, these are all organizations that I learned about in "The Encyclopedia of Associations, 44^th edition" (REF DESK HS17 .G334 44^th ed.).

"That's great," you might be saying to yourself, "but I don't care about musicians from the 60's or peaceful conflict resolution.  Does 'The Encyclopedia of Associations' have anything in it for me?"  Why I'm glad you asked!  According to the "Encyclopedia of Associations", it contains information to…

"…more than 23,000 National and International Organizations, Including: Trade, Business, and Commercial; Environmental and Agricultural; Legal, Governmental, Public Administration and Military; Engineering, Technological, and Natural and Social Sciences; Educational; Cultural; Social Welfare; Health and Medical; Public Affairs; Fraternal, Nationality, and Ethnic; Religious; Veterans, Hereditary, and Patriotic; Hobby and Avocational; Athletic and Sports; Labor Unions, Associations, and Federations; Chambers of Commerce and Trade and Tourism; Greek Letter and Related Organizations; and Fan Clubs." (p. iii)

Wow, that's a lot of information about different kinds of associations.  You could look up associations related to your major (maybe even see if that association awards scholarships for students in their field) or find different groups and organizations related to a class research topic and, depending on the organization, you might be able to get some good resources from them about your topic.  You might even want to take a peek at a related companion resource, "Encyclopedia of Associations: International Organizations, 43^rd edition" (Ref Desk HS17 .G3342 2006), which contains 32,000 international organizations of all types.  So if you're just curious and feel like flipping through these resources and seeing what they're all about, or if you are interested in different organizations devoted to a specific topic or field, just stop by the Reference Desk at Bracken Library.  Both of the resources described above are located on the short shelving unit beside the Reference Desk.

Hello all.  We hope you had an enjoyable and safe summer, and we're please to welcome you back to Ball State University campus for the Fall 2007 semester.  We hope it will be a good one for you.  We'd also like to take a moment and say welcome to all of the new students who are starting at the university this semester.  We wish you all luck with your classes this semester and want to remind you that the staff at the Ball State University Libraries is here to help.  Bracken Library is usually open on Monday through Thursday from 7am-3am , Friday from 7am-9pm,  Saturday from 9am-6:30pm, and Sunday from 10am to 3am.  For the Architecture and the Science-Health Science Libraries schedules or to see a schedule for special holiday hours at Bracken for the semester, click here.

Espresso, Cappuccino, Frappuccino, oh my!

The Bookmark Café has recently made the welcome addition of an espresso machine.  Now in addition to the sandwiches, fruit, snacks, juice, and Seattle's Best coffee that you could always get at the Bookmark Café, you will also be able to choose a specialty coffee drink such as an espresso, a cappuccino, or a frappuccino or a number of other blended frozen drinks.  Now as you work on that research paper at Bracken, you don't have to run across the street to the Atrium in order to have a nice venti mocha.  The Bookmark Café is open Monday through Thursday from 7:30am-9:30pm and on Friday from 7:30am-5pm and is closed on the weekends.

Bracken Library adds another Color Printer/Copier as well as Office 2007

In July, Bracken library installed another color printer/copier on the first floor.  The printer/copier was placed in BL 1 west in the Reference area.  The original color printer/copier is still located in BL 1 east.

The computers at Bracken are also getting MS Office 2007 alongside Office 2003.  Users will now be able to choose whether they wish to work in the previous version of Office or the new version.

Library Information Technology Services Computer Clinic

From now until August 24^th, Library Technology staff will be available from 11am-3pm and 7pm-9pm on the first floor of Bracken Library east to assist you with configuring your laptop for wireless use of library and university resources as well as to provide more information about special technology and software available for free to students.  For more information about Library Information Technology Services, visit http://www/bsu.edu/library/lits.

Once again, welcome back to campus and here's hoping that you have a productive semester.

Do you know which president served the shortest term in the White House?  Here's a hint--he was the first governor of Indiana.

According to "The Governors of Indiana" (REF F525 .G69 2006), William Henry Harrison was just 27 years old when President John Adams appointed him as the first governor of the Indiana Territory.  He took office on January 10^th, 1801 and over his 11 year term, he successfully negotiated 11 treaties to acquire from the Native Americans the land that consists of the southern third of the state as well as the land that is now Illinois.  "These treaties probably had a greater impact on the development of the Midwest than anything else Harrison accomplished during his time in office.  Whether they are viewed today positively or negatively, the treaties do represent Harrison's most enduring legacy as governor." (p. 18)  When Harrison took office, the capital of the territory was Vincennes, which is located in the southwest corner of the state between Terre Haute and Evansville.

During Harrison's tenure as governor, tensions between Native Americans and European settlers continued to escalate.  Harrison led a force of 1000 men north of Vincennes toward Native American territory located near present-day Lafayette in an apparent attempt to either intimidate or incite the aggression of the Native Americans.  It worked.  According to "The American Presidents" (REF E176.1 .A6563 2000), on the morning of November 11^th, 1811 a group of Native Americans attacked Harrison's encampment near where the Tippecanoe and Wabash rivers run together.  Harrison's men defeated the attackers and then burned the Native American settlement.  The story of the "Battle of Tippecanoe" created the image of Harrison as a heroic figure.  After leaving his post as Governor of Indiana Territory in 1812 he went on to fight in the War of 1812, then to try his hand at a number of unsuccessful commercial ventures and relatively undistinguished terms in political offices  (p. 178-179).

During the 1840 presidential election, Harrison, or "Old Tippecanoe" as he was affectionately known, gained the Whig party nomination for president with John Tyler as his running mate.  Under the campaign slogan "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too", Harrison won the presidential election and became the 9^th president of the united states at the age of 68.  He would remain the oldest man to be elected as president until Ronald Reagan.  He remains the president to serve the shortest term in office.  He was inaugurated on March 4^th, 1841 and during his inauguration he caught a cold.  The cold developed into pneumonia and on April 4^th, 1841 he died having served just one month as president (American Presidents, p. 180-181, Governors of Indiana p.25).