Now Showing in the Art Gallery: Maggie Connors

Lisa

Open until April 7, 2011, the current exhibit in the Caturano and Company Art Gallery features recent works by artist Maggie Connors.  All are invited to an opening reception for the artist on Wednesday, March 2, from 4:30pm to 6:30pm.   You can learn more about the artist, and view more of her work, by visiting her web site at http://maggieconnors.com/.

Spring 2011 | clay, ink, pencil on panel | 48"x55"

Maggie Connors
Recent Work
March 2 – April 7, 2011

Opening Reception for the Artist
Wednesday, March 2
4:30pm – 6:30pm
light refreshments will be served

Located on the main floor of the Bentley Library, the Caturano and Company Art Gallery is free and open to the public. Check the online hours calendar for information about the Library’s hours.

Leadership Books Now On Display

Kimberly

In one of the top 100 best business books of all time, The Leadership Challenge, James Kouzes wrote:

“Leadership is not a gene and it’s not an inheritance. Leadership is an identifiable set of skills and abilities that are available to all of us.”

For our new display we’ve hand-selected several books and audiobooks providing theories and examples of leadership. Included in our picks you’ll find words of wisdom from business gurus, coaches, mentors, politicians and soldiers. Swing by and take a look.

Interested in finding more?  The library has an extensive collection of leadership books, audiobooks and e-books. A librarian is happy to help you find what you need, or you can search the library catalog for the subject “Leadership“.

Holiday Hours for Presidents Day Weekend

Lisa

The library’s hours for the upcoming Presidents Day holiday weekend will be:

Saturday, February 19:
9:00am to 5:00pm

Sunday, February 20:
1:00pm to 9:00pm

Monday, February 21:
1:00pm to 2:00am

Regular hours will resume on Tuesday, February 22, 2011. For more information about the library or cafe hours please check our online calendar.

Database of the Month: Academic Search Premier

Nicholas

Academic Search Premier, published by EBSCOHost, is one of the essential databases used by colleges and universities of all types and sizes. It provides access to a broad variety of information, both scholarly and popular, in a wide range of academic fields and disciplines.  This is a great database to use for any number of classes, from English and Expository Writing  to History, Psychology, and Sociology courses.

Full text coverage is available for over 4,600 journals and periodicals, with over 100 of these titles providing full text access back to the year 1975.   In addition, this database provides indexing and abstracting for more than 8,500 journals. For a full list of journals available through Academic Search Premier, with coverage and full text information, take a look here.

Searching

  • Use the Advanced Search screen to limit your search results to articles in scholarly journals, articles from a particular publication, or full text articles only
  • Use the Subject: Thesaurus Term function on the results page to narrow your search results by subject
  • Narrow your search results to articles published within a certain date range

Other Functions

  • Print, email, and export the article to EndNote or RefWorks using the Tools functions
  • Use the Cite function to create the citation for an article in 7 different citation formats, including MLA and APA
  • The Folder function allows you to save relevant search results for later viewing
  • Use the Search for a Full Text Copy of the Article function to see if an article is available through another Bentley database

For further information on this resource, take a look at the Help page here.

Please visit the Academic Search Premier database here.  A complete listing of the Bentley Library’s databases is available here.

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Database of the Month provides a very brief introduction to an important research database, highlighting key features of the database that you should know about. If you would like more information about this database (or any of the library’s databases) please contact the Reference Desk.  If you would like a demonstration of this database for a class, please contact our Coordinator of User Education, Elizabeth Galoozis.

Valentine’s Day By the Numbers

Lisa

Love is in the Air…and in the Cash Registers

According to a few forecasters, Valentine’s Day spending is on the upswing.  Does that mean we are feeling more romantic in 2011, or just wealthier?

Both the National Retail Federation (NRF) and IBISWorld predict that spending for Valentine’s Day will increase this year.  The NRF forecasts that the average person will spend $116.21 on traditional Valentine’s Day merchandise in 2011, up 12.8 percent over last year’s $103.00, with total holiday spending expected to reach $15.7 billion.   IBISWorld  is even more optimistic, forecasting that holiday spending will top $18.6 billion, which amounts to about $125 per person. The NRF also points out that men will spend the most on Valentine’s Day gifts, with the average man planning to spend twice as much ($158.71) as the average woman ($75.79).

Sweets for Your Sweet?

In surprising news to anyone who has walked through a drugstore or supermarket the day after Christmas and spotted aisles full of Valentine’s Day treats, Mintel is forecasting that Valentine’s Day chocolate sales will be down for a third consecutive year in 2011.  In fact, Mintel estimates a continued decline through 2015,  anticipating that the $285 million market will decrease to $233 million by 2015.  But, both the NRF and IBISWorld are seeing a rise in jewelry sales for the holiday.   Good news for those who prefer sparkly to sweet!

In Keeping With Tradition

According to the Worcester Historical Museum, for nearly 100 years Worcester was the center of the commercial valentine industry in the United States. In 1879, Worcester resident Esther Rowland (widely credited with being the first American to manufacture valentines) joined forces with Edward Taft to form the New England Valentine Company.  What had started as a home-based enterprise grew into a business that grossed $100,000 in annual sales.  Today, the Valentine’s Day card industry is thriving.  The Greeting Card Association estimates that 160 million greeting cards will be purchased for Valentine’s Day this year. We wonder what Esther would think about that?

The staff of the Bentley Library wishes you all a Happy Valentine’s Day!

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Sources consulted:
American Antiquarian Society. (2001, January 25). Making Valentines: A Tradition in America – Esther Howland. Retrieved from http://www.americanantiquarian.org/Exhibitions/Valentines/howland.htm
Greeting Card Association. (2011, February 2). Greeting Card Sales Expected to Rise for Valentine’s Day 2011. Retrieved from http://www.greetingcard.org/AbouttheIndustry/IndustryNews/tabid/100/CBModuleId/446/ArticleID/48/Default.aspx
IBISWorld Media Center http://www.ibisworld.com/mediacenter/
Mintel Group. (2010, August). Seasonal Chocolate – US. Retrieved from Mintel Oxygen database.
National Retail Federation (2011, January 27). Love is in the Air This Valentine’s Day, According to NRF. Retrieved from http://www.nrf.com/modules.php?name=News&op=viewlive&sp_id=1075
Worcester Historical Museum (n.d.). Worcester’s Own – Valentines.  Retrieved from: http://www.worcesterhistory.org/wo-valentines.html

Discover the Bentley Women’s Center Library

Lisa

We recently received an email from Kathryn Burgner, VP of Resource, Referral, and Recruitment for Bentley Women’s Center, asking if we could help spread the word about the availability of books at the Women’s Center library. Of course we wholeheartedly agreed to broadcast her message about this special collection! After all, we think of ourselves as being in a partnership with the Women’s Center.  The Bentley Library’s Technical Services Department catalogs each of the books held at the Center so that members of the Bentley community can find them when they conduct searches in the library’s catalog. Currently, the Women’s Center library contains over 500 books on women’s and gender issues.

With the recent relocation of the Women’s Center to LaCava 120, now is the perfect time to acquaint yourself with all that they have to offer.  Here’s what you should know about visiting and borrowing from the Women’s Center library:

  • Book topics include women’s issues, LGTBQ issues, mental health, gender issues, sex and love, self-help, race and diversity issues, and entertainment/leisure.  Some of their more popular titles include He’s Just Not that Into You, Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul, and The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous, & Broke [Click here to see a complete list of titles]
  • A current Bentley ID is required to borrow books.  The Women’s Center staff will also request the email address and phone number at which you can be reached.
  • Books are loaned for a period of 2 weeks, and may be renewed in-person or via email.
  • Book purchase suggestions are encouraged!  Send your suggestions to GA_Womens_Center@bentley.edu

You can learn more about all the good things that the Women’s Center does by visiting their web site, liking them on Facebook,  and following them on Twitter.  Better yet, stop by LaCava 120 to visit, browse and borrow!

While You Were Out

Katy

In January, when most Bentley students are enjoying some hard-earned time off away from campus, the library is a busy place. For many members of our staff, January is a time to catch up on projects that end up on the back burner during the fall. It’s also a period of intense, focused activity as we prepare for the start of the spring semester.

I asked the library staff to share how they spent their time in January to give you an idea of what we do to keep the library humming along day in and day out all year round. Here are some of the things they did.

  • Various members of the staff interviewed candidates for three open positions in the library, including two full-time circulation jobs.
  • The Technical Services department purchased, received, and processed 654 new titles for the collection.
  • Technical Services also added 610 new titles to the Books 24×7 electronic books collection and 926 new titles to the electronic collection of government documents.
  • The circulation department (aka Library Services) changed the overdue fines for popular DVDs from $4 per day to $1 per day. Circulation staff put new labels on the DVD cases to reflect the change (that’s a lot of scraping and sticking, folks).
  • Reference librarians assigned to sections of GB301 for the spring semester got research guides together for their classes.
  • Those new titles mentioned above? Many of them were ordered by Reference staff doing collection development work to expand and update the library’s holdings in specific areas.
  • Another aspect of collection development is looking at items in the library’s collection that haven’t been used in a long time and deciding whether to keep them. One librarian is focusing on the popular fiction collection, moving out older titles that haven’t circulated in many years—sometimes since before most members of the current freshman class were born—to make room for new fiction.
  • The research and instruction coordinator worked with professors to schedule library instruction sessions for spring semester classes and planned a study about current student research habits so that the library can serve you better in your research.
  • Interlibrary Loan lent and received books from libraries in the United States, Canada, China, and Italy (and that’s in a quiet month for ILL).

That’s not everything, of course—just what our busy staff could remember and chose to share. Librarians don’t have a catchy slogan or anything to explain to you what our work is about, but if you visit the library regularly, you see it in action around you. If you’re curious about anything we do here, drop us a line.

Earn a $50 Gift Card: Participate in our Research Study!

Liz

[UPDATE: Thanks for the overwhelming response to the library’s research study! We now have more than enough potential participants.]

The Bentley Library invites students to participate in a study on research habits. Read the description of the study below and respond to Liz at egaloozis@bentley.edu with your name, email address, and status (undergraduate or graduate) if interested. All participants who complete the study will receive a $50 bookstore gift card.

If you participate, you will be asked to keep a log, for the week of February 24 through March 2, of every time you conduct research for academic purposes: the sources, processes, and procedures that you use. You will also need to be available for a 30-minute orientation session (on either Monday, Feb. 21 at 2:30 or on Tuesday, Feb. 22 at 5:15), and a post-log interview (30-45 minutes) to be individually scheduled during the week of March 3-11.

The research logs will be kept confidential, and no personally-identifying information will be linked to the logs after the interviews.

We are looking for undergraduate and graduate students of all majors, who have not been employed by the library. Please help us learn more about how you do research, so the library can better serve you.