December 18, 2006
Thorncat Visual Search Feature Now Available on the Web

Our Visual Search feature (we told you about it in Library Tidbit Sept. 13, 2006) is now available from Thorncat on the Web. You'll be able to see a monthly list of new books or all the Senior Projects ever done at COA. You can also look up Ecological Entrepreneurship titles, the Mabel Cabot Collection, Outspoken Videos, Title 6 books and BRIN grant purchases.

To use Visual Search on the web:
Go to www.coa.edu/thorndikelibrary and click on the Thorncat link
On the right of the Thorncat screen choose Visual Search
Select your area of interest from the icons
To sort:
If you want to sort your results, click on the 'Sort' button on the upper right of the screen
Choose a sorting option in the resulting window and click 'Sort'
Use the browser Print function to print your results. 

Oct. 13, 2006
Borrowing Books at the University of Maine at Orono
University of Maine at Orono's Fogler Library (http://www.library.umaine.edu/)  has a great collection of books and journals which are available for your use as a member of the COA community. While you do not need a 'card' to peruse the print and electronic journals and databases available, if you want to take books out of Fogler Library, you will need a borrowers card from Thorndike Library.

So, if you are planning a trip to Orono (for the Cultural Festival for example!) stop by the library and ask a library staff member about a borrowing card for Fogler Library. We do ask you to read and sign a borrower's agreement, but other than that it's quick and painless!

Sept. 27, 2006
Book Lists for Faculty and Students 
Ingrid Hill, the library archivist and assistant, can be a great resource for both students and faculty.

Faculty - in addition to reserve readings, if you know of books in the library that would be helpful for your students, she can create customized lists and a visual search button for your classes so that they could easily find extra readings that you suggest.
 
Students - she can also search for a list of all the books in your area of interest. Once this is done a bibliography list can be created and then, if it seems of interest, a visual search button can be added. For example, she was able to print a list of the education books in the library for a faculty member, and she could do this for you too.

If you ever have any special requests or lists you want generated, stop in or email Ingrid Hill (ihill@coa.edu) - she'd be happy to research the possibilities for you. Feel free to contact her with any questions you might have.   

Sept. 13, 2006
Visual Search Procedures
(Available only from any on-campus public or office computer)

Would you like to see a list of the new books we have received each month, or would you like a listing of all the Senior Projects ever done at COA? 
If so, check out our Visual Search page in Thorncat. There are other topics you can look up in Visual Search, including Ecological Entrepreneurship, Mabel Cabot Collection, Outspoken Videos, Title 6 books, Brin Grant books and New Arrivals.

The New Arrivals button will be updated at the end of each month; you can just click on the button and find all the books Thorndike has received for the previous month.  The wonderful thing is that you can sort the list using different categories, for example, author, title, and call number to name a few. You also have the option of printing the list. So from now on you can be informed of all the new books we have received, and their call numbers.

Here's how:
Double-click on the Thorncat icon on any on-campus public or office computer
At the bottom of your screen choose 'Searching'  
Click on  the words 'Visual Search'
Click on the' New Arrivals Box'
A list of all the new books will appear
If you want to sort them, click on the 'Sort' button
Choose a sorting option and click 'Sort'
The list can be printed by using the tab at the bottom. 

July 21, 2006
Great Duck articles via the Library's Electronic Journal Portal
The Bangor Daily News recently featured two articles on College of the Atlantic research on Great Duck Island.  These front page articles were titled Birds in Hand (July 7, 2006) and Solitary Assignment (July 13, 2006).  The library keeps back issues of this newspaper for two months.  Electronic copies of the articles can be found by going to the library's Electronic Journal portal at http://rp7ze9gg7f.search.serialssolutions.com/. Search on Bangor Daily News.  Then search by article title.

3/1/06
Northeast Historic Film
Another place the library staff visited yesterday is called Northeast Historic Film located in Bucksport (west of Ellsworth).  Take a look at their web site at http://www.oldfilm.org/

In addition to being located in the old Alamo Theater, they have an attached Conservation Center to house the film and video archives. 

Some resources we can access are these:

1.  As a member, the Thorndike Library can borrow moving images for the COA community to view.  A catalog of what is available is at http://www.oldfilm.org/files/file/VLNE.pdf  Let us know if there is something you'd like.

2.  It is possible to see a catalog of the moving images available for research at http://www.oldfilm.org/nhfWeb/collections/ourCollections.htm  Most of these images need to be viewed onsite at Northeast Historic Film.

If you like film or New England history, I bet you'll find something of interest!

2/28/06
Bagaduce Music Lending Library (see http://www.bagaducemusic.org)

The Thorndike Library has a membership to the Bagaduce Music Lending Library and is eligible to borrow up to 10 titles at a time. The Bagaduce Library is one of the largest lending libraries of sheet music and scores in the world. And, they are located less than an hour away in Blue Hill.  The library has 200,000+ titles to lend and divide their music into the following categories:

1) Choral Scores and Sheet Music
2) Keyboard Scores and Sheet Music
3) Instrumental Scores and Sheet Music
4) Vocal Scores and Sheet Music
5) Maine Music Collection of Scores and Sheet Music
6) Reference Section(books and prose material)
 
The music includes classical, jazz, popular, and more.  They even have silent film music scores!!  You can search what is at the library from their online catalog.  The Bagaduce staff recommends using the Advanced Search at http://www.bagaducemusic.org/CM/searchadv.htm.  If you see something you like, let us know.

1/30/06
Human Ecology at COA
Interested in  what the first President of College of the Atlantic, Ed Kaelber, had to say about human ecology?

The following is an excerpt from Such a Frail Bark, a 1983 COA publication that records comments from a number of founding faculty, staff, trustees, students, and administrators.  A copy is in the library's Main Collection, the Reference Collection, and in the Archives. 

ED KAELBER:  Well, what they proposed to start was a four year, coeducational, nonsectarian, liberal arts college focusing on human ecology. . . .I took the word [ecology] and looked it up in the dictionary, what ecology meant, and saw that it was the interrelationship of various forms of life, one to another.  And then I said we were interested in that, but we were particularly emphasizing the human involvement in this relationship.  That this college was going to stress the interrelation and interdependence of things, living things one to another, people to people, people to other things.

Of course, my definition of human ecology changed somewhat.  I had different definitions at different times, but there are some that have stuck with me.

I felt that one of the important words, if someone was to understand human ecology, was the word generosity. . . .I guess I mean intellectual generosity as much as anything.  In other words, a real sympathy and an effort to try to understand other ideas, a willingness to give of yourself and try to take from others.

It seems to me that we all ask the question, and should ask the question whether or not we receive relative to what we contribute.  But, it seems to me, an equally important question is, am I contributing relative to what I am receiving?  And I don't think that I or the college or anybody can dictate to anyone, or ones, the answer to that question.  All I hope is that people will raise the question, and then they'll have to decide what the balance is going to be.  And I think that's a part of human ecology.”  (from Such a Frail Bark, pgs. 16-17).

1/16/06
Happy Martin Luther King Day! 

In  honor of the day, we thought you might be interested in knowing about a few items in our collection dealing with the American Civil Rights movement:

Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years  (VIDEO E 185.61 .E94 1993)
Reporting Civil Rights  (E 185.61 .R47 2003)
Carry me home : Birmingham, Alabama : the climactic battle of the civil rights revolution (F  334 .B69 N 449 2001)
On the bus with Rosa Parks : poems (PS 3554 .O884 O52 2000)
The Civil Rights Movement (EBOOK - go to http://www.netLibrary.com/urlapi.asp?action=summary&v=1&bookid=51642

1/13/06
Book Swap
We've started a Book Swap just outside the library doors in the library lounge area. The books are in a blue box.  Another way to think of the Book Swap is as a Book Exchange.  It is a take one/leave one kind of deal.  These are just light reading books (and generally paperbacks).

1/11/06
New Books
Our New Books Shelf in the Reading Room is overflowing with new books purchased over winter break!

Interested in the cultural dynamics of food and gender? Check out "The Anthropology of Food and Body: Gender, Meaning, and Power" by Carole M. Counihan. Concerned about the future consequences of our current consumption of fossil fuels? Give a read to "Energy at the Crossroads: Global Perspectives and Uncertainties" by Vaclav Smile. And literature nuts, don't miss Jane Smily's "13 Ways of Looking at the Novel."

Stop by and take a look! All of these books and more are available for check out at the Circulation Desk.

(The New Book shelf is in the Library's Reading Room on the green shelving to the left of the doors as you enter the room.)