From Clement C. Maxwell Library...

Research Fellowships. Applications now available for Summer 2010 Research Fellowships at The Mary Baker Eddy Library in Boston. Open to academic scholars, independent researchers, and graduate students. The Library’s newly public collections, centered on the papers of Mary Baker Eddy and records documenting the history of Christian Science, offer scholars countless opportunities for original research. A select list of such resources includes: Mary Baker Eddy’s scrapbooks and copybooks; household account ledgers and receipts; a fully-indexed file of newspapers clippings that date to the late nineteenth century; Eddy’s sermons and lectures; an extensive historic photograph collection; architectural records; early histories of branch Churches of Christ, Scientist; and Eddy’s voluminous correspondence and manuscript material, which offer opportunities for new analyses of her life and ideas. Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910) authored a ground-breaking book on science, theology, and healing titled Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures and founded the Church of Christ, Scientist, a publishing society, and The Christian Science Monitor. Stipend provided. Application and supporting materials must be postmarked by February 8, 2010. For further information about the Library’s holdings and the fellowship program, including the application and instructions, please go to http://www.marybakereddylibrary.org/collections/fellowshipsor contact 617-450-7316, fellowships@mbelibrary.org.

November 16th, 2009
From ResourceShelf

Here’s a new mashup for a new week that can be filed in the U.S. Congress category.

BillMaps is very easy to use but potentially very useful for those who like to “see” how something looks. Sometimes you can see something on a map (e.g. a trend) that would be difficult to detect just by looking at the text.

Simply enter a bill number (the database goes back to 101st Congress) and then select what you would one of the two mapping options. You can either map where the sponsors of a bill are from or what a vote looks like on a map. In other words, Google Map “pins” are placed inside the state where the congressperson is from and colored either green for “aye” or red for “nay.”

Each pin can be clicked and you’ll find the name of the voter and direct links to info about that person from the OpenCongress database and the Govtrack.us database (a ResourceShelf fave).

On the home page you can find links to:

+ Most Tracked Bills this Week
+ Most Supported Bills this Week
+ Most Opposed Bills this Week
+ Hot Bills
+ Most Blogged Bills this Week

Btw, on any list page you can access a brief bill summary by moving your cursor over the title of the bill.

So here’s an example. First, we selected Most Tracked Bills this Week. We’re finding on where the “most tracked” number is coming from. Our guess, GovTrack.us.

Next, we selected #H.197: National Right-to-Carry Reciprocity Act of 2009, click and we see where the 162 sponsors are from. In additon to the map you’ll find a brief summary and related bills.

Here’s another example, we went to the top of the home page and entered H.1 from the 110th Congress and then vote. The bill was titled, Implementing the 9/11 Commission Recommendations Act of 2007. Here’s the maps

Below the map you’ll see 435 votes. Next to that you’ll spot an “S.” Click and you’ll go to the sponsor map. On a sponsor map, look for a “V.” When clicked you’ll go to a vote map for that piece of legislation.

A nice use of several databases and API’s (Application Programming Interfaces) to create something that can provide a view not visible without the use of a map.

Access BillMaps

Mr. Nino Ricci, a renowned Canadian author and the Killam Professor of Canadian Studies, will read from his recent novel, The Origin of Species, which won the Governor General's Award. This program is sponsored by Maxwell Library and the Canadian Studies program. The event is open to the public. Refreshments will be served.

Sponsored by the US Department of Labor, this excellent resource provides comprehensive, up-to-date, and reliable information on careers and job opportunities. The site is organized into six major areas: Explore Careers, Salary + Benefits, Education + Training, Job Search, Resumes + Interviews, and People + Places to Help. The home page also contains a link to a section titled ReEmployment Tools, which will be beneficial for those who have recently lost a job; this section also offers specific information on military transition and unemployment assistance following a major disaster.

CareerOneStop is useful not only for students and job seekers but for employers as well. Employers can post positions using a very sophisticated Job Description Writer. Two particular features of this site stand out: the comprehensive Explore Careers section, which encourages viewers to take a step back and really think about their career options; and the links to the One-Stop Career Centers, located in all 50 states, which provide job training referrals, career counseling, job listings, and similar employment-related services. One can download or print just about anything on the site, and navigation is quick and easy.

Other major job sites offer some sort of credible career guidance, but they tend to focus more on immediately pairing an inquirer with a job listing or college/university and do not provide crucial information and advice about the front end of the process as found on this site, e.g., spending time thinking about your career, your interests, and perhaps most important, whether your career interests are a real match with your skills. See related, Quintessential Careers http://www.quintcareers.com/ (CH, May'09, 46-4761). CareerOneStop would be very useful for undergraduate students as well as those who work with and advise them.

The link to this site is also available on the library's Web Resources: Employment and Career Sources page.

By Kenneth Chang
The New York Times

Creationism is growing in the Muslim world, from Turkey to Pakistan to Indonesia, international academics said last month as they gathered here to discuss the topic.

But, they said, young-Earth creationists, who believe God created the universe, Earth and life just a few thousand years ago, are rare, if not nonexistent.

One reason is that although the Koran, the holy text of Islam, says the universe was created in six days, the next line adds that a day, in this instance, is metaphorical: ''a thousand years of your reckoning.''

By contrast, some Christian creationists find in the Bible a strict chronology that requires a 6,000-year-old Earth and thus object not only to evolution but also to much of modern geology and cosmology, which say the Earth and the universe are billions of years old.

''Views of scientific evolution are clearly influenced by underlying religious beliefs,'' said Salman Hameed, who convened the two-day conference here at Hampshire College, where he is a professor of integrated science and humanities. ''There is no young-Earth creationism.''

But that does not mean that all of evolution fits Islam or that all Muslims happily accept the findings of modern biology. More and more seem to be joining the ranks of the so-called old-Earth creationists. They do not quarrel with astronomers and geologists, just biologists, insisting that life is the creation of God, not the happenstance consequence of random occurrences.

The full article is available in the library's LexisNexis database.

By Pete Blackshaw
from nielsonwire

When is a phone not a phone? In the hands of children and tweens, today’s cell phones are primarily used as text messaging devices, cameras, gaming consoles, video viewers, MP3 players, and incidentally, as mobile phones via the speaker capability so their friends can chime in on the call. Parents are getting dialed in to the social media phenomenon and beginning to understand—and limit—how children use new media.

Full Article

Every year, PW selects its top 100 books, and for the first time ever PW has upped the ante by choosing the 10 books that stood out from the rest. The titles, whittled down from the more than 50,000 volumes considered this year, were picked by the PW reviews editors to reflect the very best of 2009. Here, PW reviews the 10 books.

The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science by Richard Holmes

Await Your Reply by Dan Chaon

Big Machine by Victor Lavalle

Cheever: A Life by Blake Bailey

A Fiery Peace in a Cold War: Bernard Schriever and the Ultimate Weapon by Neil Sheehan

In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin

Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi by Geoff Dyer

The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon by David Grann

Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work by Matthew B. Crawford

Stitches by David Small

Reviews are available at http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6704263.html.

The library has switched its print subscriptions for Biography Index 1984 to Present, Book Review Digest Plus, and Current Biography 1940-Present to online access from H.W. Wilson. Online access provides flexible searching features, 24 hour access, and links to full text available in other library databases.

Biography Index: 1984 to Present, updated daily, cites biographical articles from more than 3,000 periodicals as well as books, interviews, obituaries, letters, diaries, and memoirs. People covered range from antiquity to the present. Book Review Digest Plus, updated daily, includes more than 1,300,000 entries with book summaries, bibliographic data, review indexing, review excerpts, full-text book reviews, and links to full-text reviews in other library databases. Current Biography 1940-Present, updated monthly, includes 2500 word biographical articles on contemporary figures and historical figures back to World War II.

Links to these databases are available from the library’s home page under Research Tools.

by Colin Legerton and Jacob Rawson
Chicago Review Press, 2009

Hailed as a “spectacular achievement” by Publishers Weekly

In this eloquent and eye-opening adventure narrative, authors Colin Legerton and Jacob Rawson, two Americans fluent in Mandarin Chinese, Korean, and Uyghur, throw away the guidebook and bring a hitherto unexplored side of China to light.

They journey over 14,000 miles by bus and train to the farthest reaches of China to meet the minority peoples who dwell there, talking to farmers in their fields, monks in their monasteries, fishermen on their skiffs, and herders on the steppe. As they uncover surprising facts about China’s hidden minorities and their complex position in Chinese society, they discover the social ramifications of inconsistent government policies--and some deep human truths as well.

The November eBook of the Month is provided through Chicago Review Press. Don’t miss the opportunity to share this engaging and provocative exploration of China’s remote border and interior regions. This ebook will be available with free, unlimited access November 1-31, 2009.

You can go the Library's NetLibrary eBooks web site to read this book online. (If the link doesn't work, please use the refresh button to reload the page.)