Now Showing in the Art Gallery: Amy Williams

Kimberly

Amy Williams
New Venue
December 10, 2012 – January 18, 2013

Amy Williams is more commonly known to staff and students as Professor Amy Ray of the Information and Process Management Department.  After this semester, she will be leaving Bentley University to further pursue her love of painting. Her paintings are now showing in the Art Gallery.

Sunset over Manana by artist Amy Williams
Sunset over Manana
oil on canvas | 18″ x 24″

Opening Reception
December 12, 2012
5:00 – 7:00 pm
Artist Talk and Q&A @ 5:30

Light refreshments will be served.

Artist Statement:

Engaging in creativity has been essential to me for as long as I can remember.  As a young child I spent countless hours sewing clothes for my stuffed animals from scraps of cloth and then drawing pictures of them sporting their new apparel.  I also spent a lot of time drawing my sisters, our dogs and the flowers and trees in our yard as well as making construction paper collages of virtually everything, but especially the trees.  My mother’s brother and sister were both artists who were never happier than when they had paintbrushes in their hands and I seem to have inherited that feeling from them.  At the age of 8, however, I fell in love with music and that took me down a different creative road until I was a freshman in college and decided to use my music scholarship to pursue an education in Accounting.

Throughout my early adult life, I was always a volunteer for various creative arts organizations while focusing mainly on my career.  Then, in 2000, I attended a special Van Gogh exhibit at the Museum of Fine Arts on my very first weekend as a Boston-area resident. I was completely awe-struck by the exhibit and overwhelmed by the fact that the MFA was my ‘hometown museum’.  With this amazing resource available, I vowed to rededicate myself to the creative process and started with classes at the venerable School of the Museum of Fine Arts that summer and have been painting and drawing regularly ever since.

Thanks to Bentley’s agreement to let me phase out of my current academic position, I have recently had the opportunity to study intensively for months at a time in NY at the world famous Art Students League with some of the greatest living painters and teachers including Burt Silverman for whom I have had the honor of serving as class monitor and also with Nelson Shanks, Ray Kinstler and most recently Dan Thompson, who is without a doubt the most passionate teacher I have ever known.  Painting brings me great joy and I am so happy to have this amazing gift back in my life. I am never happier than when I’m in the sun dappled woods trying to capture the amazing beauty before me.  And even when I’m not painting, I’m looking at the world as an artist again and it feels really good.

Final Exam Study Hours Begin Monday, December 10

Lisa

We’re happy to announce that this semester we are starting 24-hour access one day earlier than normal!

open 24 hoursOur ’round the clock schedule starts at 7:30AM on Monday, December 10 (the day before Reading Day) and ends at 9:00PM on Thursday, December 20 (last day of exams).  *Please note the Saturday night/Sunday morning exception – because everyone should take a little break from studying!

Monday, December 10 – Saturday, December 15:
Open at 7:30AM on Mon. 12/10 & remain open until 9:00PM on Sat. 12/15

*Saturday, December 15:
Close at 9:00PM

Sunday, December 16 – Thursday, December 20:
Open at 10:00AM on Sun. 12/16 and remain open until 9:00PM on Thurs. 12/20

What to expect:

  • Reference services will not be available during the extended late-night hours.
  • All patrons in the building at 2:00am will be required to show a Bentley ID in order to remain in the building.
  • Patrons entering the Library after 2:00am must enter via the front entrance and will need to show their Bentley ID upon entry.

For more information about the library or cafe hours please view our full hours calendar online.  Best of luck with your finals, and have a wonderful winter break!

November Arrivals: New Books, DVDs & Audiobooks

Lisa

Check out our book, popular reading, DVD and audiobook acquisitions for the month of November. Go to our New Books & DVDs page to browse by subject or format.   If you find something you want, simply hit the “Request” button to place a hold on it.

newbooksNov

Citation Frustration? These Sources Will Help.

Lisa

Citing sources is important and necessary. It can also be confusing and frustrating. Every student is familiar with the nerve-wracking task of triple-checking their work to make sure the parentheses are in the proper place, the words are appropriately capitalized and italicized, and the punctuation is exactly right.

We (students, professor and librarians alike) are left to wonder why the people who create the rules don’t agree on a standard format.  Case in point, the three major citation styles even differ on what to call the list of citations at the end of a paper. In APA style it’s called a “Reference List”, MLA style refers to it as “Works Cited” and the Chicago Manual of Style uses the term “Bibliography”.  Fortunately, there are many excellent resources that provide citation examples and guidance:

Guide to Citing Sources libguides.bentley.edu/citingsources

While this guide points you to many sources, here are my personal Top 3 Picks:

  1. Research and Documentation Online – the companion web site to the popular handbook, A Writer’s Reference by Diana Hacker. This site provides examples of APA (Social Sciences), MLA (Humanities), Chicago (History) and CSE (Science)  in-text citations, endnotes/footnotes, informational notes, and Works Cited/Reference List pages. You may also view sample research papers.
  2. The Purdue OWL (Online Writing Lab) – provides numerous examples for the general format of APA and MLA research papers, in-text citations, endnotes/footnotes, and Works Cited/Reference List pages.
  3. And last but not least, our very own Bentley Library Guide to Citing Online Business Sources in APA Style. This guide provides a list of APA style citation examples for our business databases (e.g. Mintel, IBISWorld, ProQuest).

Ask a Librarian library.bentley.edu/research/askalibrarian.asp

Visit the reference desk or contact a reference librarian via email, phone or IM/chat.  Librarians can be especially helpful in cases where the style manual doesn’t have an exact example of how to cite an unusual source, like a Trading Room resource or a library database.

RefWorks ezp.bentley.edu/login?url=http://refworks.com/refworks

RefWorks is a citation management tool that the Bentley Library subscribes to. It’s a little like EasyBib, but different, and every Bentley student gets their own personal account. RefWorks helps you create bibliographies and format research papers in the citation style of your choice. RefWorks also allows you to easily organize and keep track of your references in folders in your RefWorks account.  Our citing sources guide has more information on RefWorks.  We advise you to create your account while you are on-campus.  If you need to create an account while off-campus, you will need to contact the Reference Desk for a registration code.

We hope you find these resources helpful. Please let us know if you have any questions!

Thanksgiving Holiday Hours Tuesday 11/20-Sunday 11/25

Lisa

Holiday hours will be in effect from Tuesday, November 20 through Sunday, November 25:

Tuesday, 11/20:
7:30am – 9:00pm

Wednesday, 11/21 –  Saturday, 11/24:
CLOSED

Sunday, 11/25:
1:00pm – 2:00am

Please note that the Deloitte Café closes at 8:00pm on Tuesday, November 20, and will not reopen until 8:00am on Monday, November 26.

For more information about the library or cafe hours please view our hours calendar.  Happy Thanksgiving!

On Display: Science Fiction & Fantasy

Lisa

On display at the Bentley Library is a selection of Science Fiction & Fantasy novels for your reading pleasure. Come escape into an adventure filled with magic, explore visions of the future or marvel at the vivid worlds created by these brilliant authors. We are highlighting a number of Hugo & Nebula Award winners, NPR Listeners Top 100 Science Fiction & Fantasy Book Choices, and new releases in these genres for you to experience.

Many of these titles are available as downloadable books & audiobooks through our Overdrive service which you can experience on a device of your choosing (laptop, NOOK, Kindle, iPad, etc.). Stop by and browse, view a list via the catalog (you can click “Request” to place an item on hold), or check out the display on Pinterest.

Science Fiction Display Word Cloud

Database of the Month: Business Insights Global

Liz

Business Insights: Global is Gale/Infotrac’s revamped collection of company and industry information. It replaces Business & Company Resource Center; you’ll find some of the same content, and some new, with several more tools and ways to search. The database contains thousands of articles, reports, case studies, reference articles, rankings, and profiles. Business Insights: Global, while technically a new database, continues Business & Company Resource Center’s role as one of the Bentley Library’s key resources on company, industry, and country information, with an emphasis on strong international coverage.

Tools

Company Finder

The company finder (in the top toolbar) allows you to make a list of companies from around the globe using a number of criteria, including NAICS, number of employees, and revenue. You can then download the list to a CSV file (up to 500 results).

Charts

One of the most useful features of Business Insights: Global is the user’s ability to create custom charts. Click on “Comparison Charts” in the top toolbar, and create a chart comparing companies, countries, or industries on a number of different metrics. You could, for example, compare revenue or sales per employee among Google, Microsoft, and Apple, or compare countries on several metrics, including literacy rates, wage equality, tariff rates, and many more. For example, see the chart below comparing exports of goods and services between China and the United States. (Click the image to see the fine print.)

Search

Business Insights: Global features a single search box, and displays results grouped by source type. For example, a search for “solar energy” turned up most of the source types the database contains, including:

  • company profiles
  • industry profiles
  • case studies
  • association profiles
  • market research reports
  • journal articles
  • news articles
  • videos (with transcripts)
  • rankings

Everything is linked – for example, the company profile for Solar Energy Host (a Canadian company) links to competitors, industry codes and profiles, and charts for both company and industry revenue (to which you can easily add other companies or industries to compare).

Browse

Using the top toolbar or the advanced search, you can search specifically for any of the sources in the bulleted list above. Especially interesting are the rankings, pulled from Gale’s established reference work Business Rankings Annual – they include everything from lists of the largest companies in each state to “World’s Most Ethical Construction Companies” to “World’s Top Airports.”

Connect to this Database:

You will find Business Insights: Global listed on the library’s Databases A-Z page, as well as under the Companies & Industries database subject page.

_____________________

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.

Now Showing in the Art Gallery: Thomas Willis

Lisa

Opening today in the McGladrey Art Gallery is an installation by artist Thomas Willis titled A Few More Paintings.  All are invited to attend the opening reception for the artist on Wednesday, November 7, from 5:00PM-7:00PM. There will be a Q&A session starting at 5:30PM. Light refreshments will be served.

Thomas Willis
A Few More Paintings
November 5 – December 7, 2012

Opening Reception:
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
5:00PM – 7:00PM
Artist Talk and Q&A at 5:30PM

A Few More Paintings / Thomas Willis