DiMenna-Nyselius Library
February 4, 2010 | Leave a Comment
Dr. Dee Lippman partnered with Library staff to create a very moving and educational exhibit that is on view through March 15.. The lobby case on the left features the VA Nursing Academy, which partners School of Nursing Faculty with VA Connecticut Healthcare in West Haven to provide “compassionate, highly educated nurses to look after the health-care needs of the nation’s veterans.” Sadiann Ozment, Director of Hospital Education at VA in West Haven, and Mary B. Doughterty, National Director, VA Nursing Academy, recently visited DiMenna-Nyselius Library to tour the facility and see the exhibit.
The other lobby case, designed and set up by Pam Wertz, a member of Female Soldier, Forgotten Hero, features materials about Female Soldiers Forgotten Heroes, which addresses inadequate housing for returning women soldiers in cooperation with Homes for the Brave. There are also materials about the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans. 11% of homeless Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans are women. Also features is the volunteer project Kick for Nick which send soccer balls to service people in Iraq to distribute to Iraqi children to honor Nicholas Madaras who was killed in Iraq.
The six freestanding cases contain information about nursing pioneer Florence Nightingale, SON Faculty publications, nurses in the Civil and Spanish American Wars, World War II, and Vietnam, featuring a model of the Vietnam Women’s Memorial which is on the National Mall in Washington. Dr. Lippman, who was a Captain in the Army Nurse Corps in Vietnam, played a key role in making this Memorial possible.
February 1, 2010 | Leave a Comment
We have added several new reference e-book titles to our collection, including the Dartmouth Medal award winner!
The Berkshire Encyclopedia of China
This extensive work contains over 800 articles on environmental, issues, global economics, online communications, and the latest political developments.
Encyclopedia of Contemporary LGBTQ Literature in the United States
Contains more than 600 alphabetically arranged entries on literature and the arts, associations and organizations, individuals, law and public policy concerns, health and relationships, sexual issues, and numerous other topics.
The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome
Provides a comprehensive overview of the major cultures of the classical Mediterranean world–Greek, Hellenistic, and Roman–from the Bronze Age to the fifth century CE. It also covers the legacy of the classical world and its interpretation and influence in subsequent centuries.
Scribner’s Encyclopedia of Modern China
This runner-up for the Dartmouth Medal contains over 2,000 pages devoted to the people, politics,
economics, religion, philosophy, traditions, art and literature of this ancient and enduring civilization
from the beginning of the 19th century to the present day.
The Encyclopedia of Human Rights
Designated an ALA/RUSA Outstanding Reference Source and winner of the 2010 Dartmouth Medal, The Encyclopedia of Human Rights offers comprehensive coverage of all aspects of human rights theory, practice, law, and history. It provides situation profiles and full coverage of the development of the movement, historical cases of abuse, the key figures, major organizations, and a range of other issues in economics, government, religion, and journalism that touch on human rights theory and practice.
January 29, 2010 | Leave a Comment
Listen to NPR’s “Author J.D. Salinger Remembered” http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=123081489
Reread Catcher in the Rye- call number PS3537.A426 C28
Also Franny and Zooey available at PS3537 .A426 F7 2001
January 26, 2010 | Leave a Comment


After polling some of our favorite outspoken undergrads, we’ve added several new popular magazines to our journals collection. Get ready to enjoy People, Outside, US weekly, Elle, Cosmopolitan, ESPN Magazine, Seventeen, Wine Spectator, and Entertainment Weekly. Find them housed alphabetically downstairs on the lower level of the Library with the academic print publications.
January 22, 2010 | 1 Comment
LatAm-Studies Full Text Online is a database service dedicated to the promotion and dissemination of research on Latin America and the Caribbean. It covers a variety of subjects, including finance, trade, environment, human resource development, history, languages, culture, bests practices in government, fisheries, tourism, education and research on women. Includes all countries in South America, Caribbean, Central America and Mexico.
This database will be on trial until February 22 and we’d love to hear what you think about it. Just fill out our short evaluation form and let us know if it would be helpful to your classes. If you have any questions, you can contact Curtis Ferree at ext 2185 or cferree@mail.fairfield.edu
January 21, 2010 | Leave a Comment
The Reference Department announces a new way to receive research assistance – SKYPE. Skype allows its user to make free video and voice calls, send instant messages and share files with other Skype users. To schedule an individual research appointment using Skype, go to http://www.fairfield.edu/library/lib_refappointment.html
To download Skype, go to http://www.skype.com/
January 20, 2010 | Leave a Comment
Due to popular demand – the Library is offering again the faculty/staff workshop entitled “Academic Integrity: Encouraging a Frank Discussion” on Wednesday, January 27 at 12:00 noon in Library.
Are you looking for ways to encourage academic integrity and discourage dishonesty? Are you worried that the group work you assign is not being done ethically by all in the group? Curious about how new technologies might be used dishonestly? Please join your colleagues for a library sponsored workshop entitled “Academic Integrity: Encouraging a Frank Discussion” on Wednesday, January 27 at 12:00 noon in Library.
Using a lesson plan developed to get students to talk honestly about academic integrity, faculty will work through ethical case scenarios in groups. We will be sharing data about academic (dis)honesty, especially as it relates to new technologies. We will end the session with the game “The Cite is Right” where everyone attending will be the game show participants. This workshop will be led by Christina McGowan and Jackie Kremer.
Space is limited. Please RSVP at http://tinyurl.com/yece9eu or contact Jackie at jkremer@fairfield.edu by Monday, January 25. Cookies and hot cider for all! Feel free to bring your own lunch
January 14, 2010 | Leave a Comment
During last semester our Media Librarian, Philip Bahr had the opportunity to preview many outstanding academic films during a 4-day National Media Market conference. Upon returning he decided to purchase the top 10 films from a list of 25 he found outstanding. They are already in our collection here at the Fairfield University Library. The links below each title allow you to access film trailers where available and reviews:
America the Beautiful
Filmmaker Darryl Roberts goes on a five year journey to examine America’s growing obsession with physical beauty and perfection, unearthing its origins and deadly risks… we see how increasingly unattainable images contribute to the rise in low self-esteem, body dismorphia, and eating disorders for young women and girls who also happen to be the beauty industry’s largest consumers.
http://www.videoproject.com/ambe.html
(Faculty: think about using these first two films along with Codes of Gender below to replace Killing Us Softly in your curriculum)
Beauty Mark
This deeply personal and funny film asks some tough questions … How do our families influence our relationships with our own bodies? How do popular culture “standards” get inside of our hearts and heads? In what ways can sports actually make us sicker instead of healthier? Former champion athletes, including David Scott, Ellen Hart Pena and Brenda Maller share their stories while notable luminaries such as playwright Eve Ensler, author Paul Campos and cultural critic Naomi Wolf provide their insights.
http://www.beautymarkmovie.com/trailer.shtml
The Botany of Desire
Featuring Michael Pollan and based on his best-selling book, this special takes viewers on an eye-opening exploration of the human relationship with the plant world — seen from the plants’ point of view. Narrated by Frances McDormand, the program shows how four familiar species — the apple, the tulip, marijuana and the potato — evolved to satisfy our yearnings for sweetness, beauty, intoxication and control.
http://www.shoppbs.org/product/index.jsp?productId=3804236&cp=2809871.3815236&parentPage=family
Capturing Reality: The Art of Documentary
investigates a unique cinematic genre through encounters with some of its most influential practitioners. Over 30 luminaries – including Albert Maysles, Errol Morris, Alanis Obomsawin, Michel Brault, Nick Broomfield, Kim Loginotto and that great iconoclast Werner Herzog – offer insight into their crafts while reflecting on the nature of representation and the perennially contested status of the “truth.” More than 100 clips from landmark films enliven the discussion, offering a panoramic overview of contemporary documentary cinema.
http://films.nfb.ca/capturing-reality/
(we have a list of filmmakers from this documentary and their film titles we have in our collection to compliment Capturing Reality… ask for it)
Codes of Gender: Identity and Performance in Pop Culture
applies the late sociologist Erving Goffman’s groundbreaking analysis of advertising to the contemporary commercial landscape, showing how one of American popular culture’s most influential forms communicates normative ideas about masculinity and femininity… In striking visual detail, The Codes of Gender explores Goffman’s central claim that gender ideals are the result of ritualized cultural performance, uncovering a remarkable pattern of masculine and feminine displays and poses. It looks beyond advertising as a medium that simply sells products, and beyond analyses of gender that focus on biological difference or issues of objectification and beauty, to provide a clear-eyed view of the two-tiered terrain of identity and power relations.
http://www.mediaed.org/cgi-bin/commerce.cgi?preadd=action&key=238
Fresh
profiles the farmers, thinkers, and business people across the nation who are at the forefront of re-inventing food production in America.
http://www.videoproject.com/fresh.html
RIP
is a documentary film about copyright and remix culture… web activist Brett Gaylor and musician Greg Gillis, better known as Girl Talk, serve as your digital tour guides on a probing investigation into how culture builds upon culture in the information age. Utilizing technical expertise and a ferocious creative streak, Girl Talk repositions popular music to create a wild and edgy dialogue between artists from all genres and eras. But are his practices legal? Do his methods of frenetic appropriation embrace collaboration in its purest sense? Or are they infractions of creative integrity and violations of copyright?
http://films.nfb.ca/rip-a-remix-manifesto/?cat=10
http://www.ripremix.com/
Ella es el Matador (She is the Matador)
For Spaniards—and for the world—nothing has expressed the country’s traditionally rigid gender roles more powerfully than the image of the male matador. So sacred was the bullfighter’s masculinity to Spanish identity that a 1908 law barred women from the sport… reveals the surprising history of the women who made such a law necessary, and offers fascinating profiles of two female matadors currently in the arena, the acclaimed Maripaz Vega and neophyte Eva Florencia. These women are gender pioneers by necessity, confronting both bull and social code. But what emerges in the film as their truest motivation is their sheer passion—for bullfighting, and in their pursuit of a dream.
http://www.wmm.com/filmCatalog/pages/c755.shtml
Theater of War
captures Meryl Streep groping for – and then seizing – the character in her unforgettable portrayal of Mother Courage in Tony Kushner’s adaptation of the Bertold Brecht masterpiece Mother Courage and Her Children, which was presented by The Public Theater/NY Shakespeare Festival in Central Park in the summer of 2006.
http://www.alivemindeducation.com/theater-of-war/
Your Life, Your Money
features compelling real-life stories of young people finding their way through a variety of economic challenges, “Your Life, Your Money” delivers basic financial advice in a simple and relatable manner. This one-hour special raises fiscal consciousness on everything from banking and credit to investments, budgeting, insurance and self employment.
http://www.pbs.org/your-life-your-money/index.php
January 5, 2010 | Leave a Comment
Happy New Year! Doesn’t 2010 sounds so futuristic? And yet here we are!
This year, we’ll be watching new trends in computing, most importantly how social networking continues to effect our students’ lives and how it is changing the way they learn. The paradigm of social networking is the EQUAL sharing of information with no central authority and in multiple media formats, allowing for the construction of knowledge in new ways never imagined. Doesn’t sound like higher education as we currently know it.
Consider reading TechCrunch’s Ten Technologies to Rock 2010 by Erick Schonfeld at http://www.techcrunch.com/2010/01/01/ten-technologies-2010/
December 21, 2009 | Leave a Comment
Keep fresh on pop culture with the groovin’ vibe’ of Pop Culture Universe. This database presents quality reference material on fashion, music, movies, fads, sports and much more. Explore American culture from the 1920’s to today, easily searching by decade or by subject.
Some remarkable trivia includes:
This database is the 2009 winner of the Dartmouth Medal for outstanding reference source.