Welcome, new students! The staff of the Bentley Library are excited to help you have a great first year.
All new students are invited to the library’s First Week open house event, Passport to the Bentley Library, on Friday, September 4th. Check-in at the the arrivals desk any time between 11:30 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. After receiving your passport and map you will embark on a self-guided tour.
As you explore, library staff will show you how to book study rooms, print to the library from anywhere on campus, borrow free museum passes, download books to your mobile devices, get help with your papers and assignments, and more.
Along the way you’ll be given some fun (and useful) giveaways. If you collect six or more stamps on your library passport, you will be entered to win a Google Nexus 7 and other great prizes!
This is a special opportunity to meet the library staff and learn about all of the library’s services and resources. We look forward to seeing you at the library on Friday and throughout the year.
The Bentley Library is in the process of removing all VHS tapes from its Faculty Video Collection. This decision was made due to the fact that Bentley no longer has VHS players as part of its classroom technology infrastructure, and many of the VHS tapes have started to degrade and will eventually become unwatchable.
We will be replacing with DVDs or streaming video those films that have been checked out or placed on reserve recently or have lasting educational and artistic value. The remaining VHS titles will be discarded and the tapes recycled.
A significant number of the films formerly on VHS are now available through our Films on Demand collection.
This process will be completed by the end of this calendar year.
Have you tried to view a movie for class, and it’s been checked out? Wanted to easily embed full length, award-winning documentaries into Blackboard for use in your class? Don’t feel like making the trek to the library during a blizzard to find that classic film? The Bentley Library now has access to 2 new streaming films databases: Swank Digital Campus and Kanopy.
Swank Digital Campus specializes in popular feature films, both classic and contemporary. We have access to over 50 films through Swank Digital Campus, including Gangs of New York, Despicable Me, Vertigo, The Dark Knight, The Lego Movie, and Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Every film in Swank can be placed in its entirety in Blackboard. To place films in Blackboard, please contact Matt Van Sleet at mvansleet@bentley.edu or Stephen Tracey at stracey@bentley.edu. Many of the films accessible through Swank Digital Campus have been placed on reserve in the past, and, as such, this is a great curriculum resource for Bentley faculty.
You must download Microsoft Silverlight to stream the films in Swank Digital Campus. Microsoft Silverlight will not work in the Google Chrome browser. Microsoft Silverlight can be downloaded here.
Kanopy focuses on critically acclaimed feature films and award-winning documentaries on political,social, and cultural topics. Some of the well known producers whose films are available through Kanopy are Criterion Collection, Media Education Foundation, Kino Lorber, and New Day Films. Whole films or custom-created clips can be placed in Blackboard for use in Bentley courses.
Additionally, we have recently purchased a cloud-based video solution (MediaCore) that will allow faculty to upload videos to their course sites in Blackboard without worrying about storage space and permission issues. Videos uploaded in a specific course will only be available to students enrolled in that course. Please contact ga_atc@bentley.edu for more information.
Each of these databases can be accessed from the library’s new Streaming Films page.
One of our tasks this summer was to build a database of frequently asked questions and answers. The result is a new service that we are calling Ask Us.
Knowing that others have asked the same question is a comfort, but more than that, seeing questions you might not have intended to ask but wanted to know can help you to learn new things.
If you have a question that is not answered, you can submit your question and your email address to get an answer. If the question is asked a few times, we’ll add it to the knowledge base. Of course, you can still visit our reference librarians in person at the library and we encourage you to do so, but try this service out. Give it a spin and see what questions others are asking and what the answers are.
Now showing in the McGladrey Art Gallery is “Convoy”, a small series of large paintings by artist Cody Justus. For more information about the artist please visit his website.
A reception for the artist is being planned. Please check back here for updates.
Big Rig (Malibu) Acrylic, duct tape, and pigmented iron on canvas 68 x 46″
“Banning books gives us silence when we need speech. It closes our ears when we need to listen. It makes us blind when we need sight.” – Stephen Chbosky, author of The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Each year, libraries and bookstores around the country celebrate our freedom to read during Banned Books Week. Since the first Banned Books Week in 1982, the American Library Association reports that over 11,000 books have been challenged or banned in the United States.
A challenge is when a person or group tries to “remove or restrict” a book from a library or school. Banning is when that item is removed completely from a library or school.
J.K. Rowling, Judy Blume, and Stephen Chbosky are among the authors whose works have been banned or challenged in the United States. As recently as last year, there were over 300 challenges reported to the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom.
The individuals or groups challenging these books have wanted them banned for a myriad of reasons. Anti-family (Saga by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples), “depictions of bullying” (The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie), and “controversial issues” (The Bluest Eyeby Toni Morrison) are just the tip of the iceberg. All three of these works were among the top ten most challenged titles of 2014 and are part of our “Read at Your Own Risk!” display.
Celebrate your freedom to read by checking out one of these books, on display in the library through October 5. During Banned Books Week, being held September 27 – October 3, stop by the Library Services desk to get a free Banned Books Week bookmark (while supplies last). And don’t forget search our Overdrive collection for downloadable challenged eBooks like The Hunger Games, Freakonomics, and Looking for Alaska.
Display co-produced by Amy Galante and Kristen Richards from Library Services. Kristen’s favorite controversial book is F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Amy is partial to Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram for more scandalous literary picks from the Bentley community.
Plunkett Research has recently reorganized its web site to make analyst reports and historical data easier to find and compile.
Plunkett Research offers business intelligence information including industry/market trends and statistics, company profiles, professional organizations, and career research. It is ideal for industry trend tracking, identification of professional and trade associations, market research, business plan development, and investment research.
Plunkett analysts profile approximately 8,000 companies in 35 industries, with approximately 1,000 new companies added to the list yearly. All types of companies are included; for example, about 20% of the companies are privately held and about 30% are headquartered outside of the United States. Each industry receives a complete update once per year. An Archives button on the main page enables access to historical data almanacs by industry, presented in PDF format. Depending on the industry, 7-10 years of archived data is available.
Industry/Company/Market Research
The home page provides buttons to Research an Industry and/or Research a Company. A third Browse option allows users to select from a list of 35 industries on which Plunkett Research analysts focus their research activities.
Search and browse functions in Plunkett Research
Plunkett presents research on companies by geographic location, revenue size, and company type. The information is cross-searchable by keyword and can also be searched using advanced options. Selection criteria include type of company, annual sales, employee count, specific industry sector by NAICS code, city, state or country of headquarters location and more. Directory information includes corporate contact information, revenues, company rank within the industry by several indicators, number of employees, and names and titles of company executives.
The Browse list includes unique industry groupings, including E-Commerce and Internet, Green Technology, International Companies, Outsourcing & Offshoring, Transportation, Supply Chain & Logistics, and many more. “Industry Research Centers” display on the page after the user chooses an industry. The Centers offer detailed information about:
Industry market research and trends
Industry statistics
Company profiles
Definitions of terms used in particular industries and for business in general
Industry associations, trade organizations and professional societies
Reporting Tools
Plunkett enables users to export company contacts and/or lists of professional organizations and societies, in Excel or plain text format.
Using the Build-a-Report feature, the user can create industry reports in PDF format for printing, emailing and/or saving. Select a company or industry from the browse list on the main page, or click either “Research an Industry” or “Research a Company” on the main page to access this feature.
My Research Account
Sign up for a free research account and receive the following benefits:
Set up your own personal research profile and create a history of your searches
Save your searches and save comments about the search results
Set up alerts for new data posted to Plunkett Research
Database Assistance
Video introductions to popular searches and functions are prominently displayed on the main page below the search options.
Database of the Month provides a very brief introduction to a database available from the Library’s website, 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 Ask a Librarian. If you would like a demonstration of this database for a class, please contact Adam Williams, Research Instruction Coordinator at awilliams@bentley.edu.
The Bentley Library is proud to announce that Bentley University has been awarded a spot on The Princeton Review’s “Best College Library”list. Bentley is ranked #16Best College Library in the 2016 edition of The Best 380 Colleges (published August 2015).
This is the library’s third appearance on the Best College Library list, having previously been ranked in the Top 20 in the 2011 and 2015 editions of The Princeton Review’s publication.
The Best College Library ranking is a result of a survey of over 136,000 students attending the 380 colleges profiled in the book. Bentley also appears at #5 for Best Career Servicesand #10 for Top Internship Opportunities in the 2016 edition.
The Bentley Library is proud to announce that Bentley University has been awarded a spot on 