New QUIET study room

Do you need silence to study? Is the second floor of the library too loud for you, even when everyone's being mostly quiet? Does the barely-audible music from everyone else's headphones distract you completely?

Then we have an new option for you when you study. We're proud to announce the creation of the Silent Study Room, on the second floor of Crumb Library. Room 204 (waaaay back in the corner by the art books) is now a room for Silent Study, with a couch, a few soft chairs, a few tables, and NO talking, NO headphones, and NO other ambient noise.

If silence is your thing, check it out. If not... have you tried the group study tables in the basement?

Let us know what you think of this idea (or anything else) in the Suggestion Box by the Circulation Desk!

Google and Microsoft "Book Search"

Add Microsoft to the list of those providing access to scanned books. As with the earlier release of "Google Book Search", the "Microsoft Live Book Search" allows complete viewing only for out-of-copyright titles. This beta release claims to contain "tens of thousands" of books. Links to both services, as well as many other online book collections, such as the venerable Project Gutenburg, and the fine directory of online book collections - the Online Books Page at the Univ. of Pennsylvania - are on the library's E-Books page.

Iraq Study Group Report

An online version of the Iraq Study Group report has been posted. Find it at: http://permanent.access.gpo.gov/lps76748/iraq_study_group_report.pdf
This is a report of a bi-partisan committee.

Children's Book Week

This week is Children's Book Week, which has been celebrated the week before Thanksgiving in schools in libraries for more than 80 years.

In honor of Children's Book Week, may I suggest a few of my favorites?

• The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster, in Crumb Library at Juv. PZ 8.J98 PH
• The Little House books, by Laura Ingalls Wilder, in Crumb Library at Juv. PZ7.W6461 Li2
• The His Dark Materials trilogy by Phillip Pullman, in Crumb Library at Juv. PZ7.P968 Go 1996
• Click Clack Moo, by Doreen Cronin, in Crumb Library at Juv. PZ7.C88135 Cl 2000

You can search for your favorite kids' books easily in BearCat by choosing "Juvenile" in the drop-down "Change Collection" box. (No boring grown-up book results in those searches!)

Click here for more information on the history of Children's Book Week, where they say,

"Book Week brings us together to talk about books and reading and, out of our knowledge and love of books, to put the cause of children's reading squarely before the whole community and, community by community, across the whole nation. For a great nation is a reading nation."

Enjoy!

Information for voters

There's more than enough talk about the upcoming election, but do you have enough good information on the candidates? One of the best non-partisan resources for easy-to-find facts is Project Vote Smart. Voting records for each incumbent are provided. Additionally, public statements have been gathered for incumbents and for many of their challengers. the amount of data that has been gathered by this dedicated organization is quite amazing.

Another good source for election information is the Election 2006 website at the University of Michigan.

BearCat Enhancement: Cover Art, Summaries and more!

Check out our new, improved BearCat! We recently enhanced our on-line catalog to include the cover art of books. When you display the Full Record in BearCat, you will find that the cover art is hyperlinked. Click on the cover image to display Table of Contents, Summaries, Excerpts and Reviews. You may need to change your browser settings to allow pop-up windows to use this new service.

Here are a few examples:

Multiracial America : a resource guide on the history and literature of interracial issues

Illicit : how smugglers, traffickers and copycats are hijacking the global economy / by Moisés Naím

Americans in Paris, 1860-1900 / by Kathleen Adler

Mozart : the early years, 1756-1781 / Stanley Sadie

If you need assistance with this new service, contact the Reference Desk.

10 million krona, and the world knows his name

Orhan Pamuk is a lucky man -- today it was announced that he won the Nobel Prize in Literature, receiving 10 million Swedish krona and the recognition of the literary world. Nobelprize.org's "two minute review" of Mr. Pamuk's work is a great summary of why he has been named a Nobel Laureate.

The Wikipedia entry on Mr. Pamuk has a good bibliography of which of his works have been translated into English, as well as an in-depth account of the major events and controversies of his life. The New Yorker has a copy of a letter Pamuk wrote in regards to the biggest of those controversies, his Turkish trial over freedom of speech issues. The Guardian has a nice site on Pamuk, and my favorite site found as I researched this is the site on how to pronounce his name.

The College Libraries have two of his books, translated into English -- Snow and Istanbul: Memories and the City. Today I ordered the English translations of the rest of Pamuk's works, so if you're interested in this Nobel Laureate, check Bearcat in a few weeks to find the call numbers.

Enjoy!