Milligan Library Life

by the staff of P.H. Welshimer Memorial Library & Seminary Library

Nourishment, Body and Soul

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On Friday, April 1 we held the P. H. Welshimer Memorial Library’s First Annual Edible Books Festival. This event was first conceived by Judith A. Hoffberg and Beatrice Coron in 2000, and has gone on to become an international celebration. I first participated while a library science student at the University of Pittsburgh in 2009. This year, when the library blogs started buzzing, I asked Mary Jackson if she’d be interested (as baking + books are right up both of our alleys.)

Hoffberg and Coron had planned the International Edible Book Festival to take place around April 1, the birthday of French gastronome Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, so we set the date. It fell at the end of a busy week, and we weren’t sure what kind of turnout we would have. But the Milligan community exceeded our hopes!

We had twelve entries, from staff, faculty, and students. Some were punny, some witty, some painstaking, and all delicious. (And as librarians, our favorite part was that each of the books represented was already held in the Library’s collection.) After lunch, we cut the cakes, and by closing at 5 had only scraps left. We’ve since had tons of positive feedback, and some great ideas for making this an even better event next year! Many thanks to all of you who participated, and to all who stopped by to look and eat.

I’ve attached Gary Daught’s photos here, but do see also Tiffany Weinbender’s great post at The Kitchen Curtains, a report on StampedeTV, and the Johnson City Press’s photo gallery!

[slideshow]

Million Pennies Campaign update, April 2011

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Milligan College Library is proud to announce that you, our loyal library users, contributed $10.00 in cash and change to our Million Pennies Campaign in March 2011.  We have now raised $2,923.06 since the start of the campaign in April 2010, which means we’ve achieved nearly 30% of our goal!

The Library staff would like to extend a hearty thank you to our February contributors: Leah Anderson, Ian Burt, Gary Daught, Kelly Devault, Curtis Gibson,and Bine Opulenticity Villiams . Remember, if you’d like us to thank you by name, please write your name down on the slips of paper in the tray next to the donation box, and we’ll let everyone know about your generosity!

As promised in the last Million Pennies blog post, we’ve decided to hold a monthly drawing using the names of each month’s donors. Ian Burt is the winner of a like-new hardcover of the 2010 book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks!

Next month’s prize is the paperback Looking for Alaska by John Green.  Donate to the campaign, write your name on a slip of paper, and place it in the box.  On May 2nd, we’ll draw a winner from the names in the box!

We still need your help in raising funds to help us reach our goal of a totally renovated library.  Bring your loose change and help us get closer to $10,000. Remember, when we raise the money, we’ll allow you, the contributors, to name a study room whatever you like.  Every penny helps!

Unicode Fonts for BIblical Studies

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Whether you’re a Times New Roman, Baskerville, Garamond, or Comic Sans kind of person, the fonts, or typefaces, we use can positively or negatively affect the way people perceive our writing. While font selection may seem somewhat novel to the casual typist, authors who have to mix Roman and non-Roman (e.g. Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, Kanji et al.) characters into one document know that “simple” font selection isn’t always so simple. At Milligan, this is especially pertinent to Bible majors, for whom referencing non-Roman (esp. Greek and Hebrew) characters is often a necessity.

In the late Spring of 2006 I turned in my first major exegetical paper containing non-Roman characters—a tragically puerile reading of Romans 8:28–30, if you must know. After emailing the document to myself, printing the paper at the library and heading to class, I made the horrifying discovery that every Greek word in my paper printed as a series of garbled symbols not at all resembling the Greek script. Not wanting to encounter the same problem for my next paper, I set out to find the best way to type, save and print documents using non-Roman scripts. Now, half a decade (and a few biblical languages) later, I’ve decided to share my insights into using biblical language fonts to their fullest potential. The following is intended as a guide for students and faculty who use non-Roman scripts in their research and writing.

An Introduction To Unicode

The Problem:

Computers read numbers, not letters—and even at that, computers don’t read numbers so much as they read sets of ones and zeros that represent numbers. Traditionally, each letter in a text file was assigned a value between 0 and 128—corresponding to each possible numerical value in one byte of data. This system provided sufficient unique numbers for assignment of the entire Latin alphabet (in both cases), all Arabic numerals, and most common punctuation. If one wished to use a different character set (e.g. Greek), one would have to use a different font.

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One Million Pennies – Year One (also: Donate and Win!)

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First, the facts

The Million Pennies Campaign for Library Renovation was established by library staff on March 29, 2010. Its purpose is to raise one million pennies — that’s $10,000 — in cash donations to put toward the renovation of the P.H. Welshimer Memorial Library at Milligan College. The Million Pennies Campaign is a part of Milligan College’s Forward Ever campaign, which is seeking to raise $25 million for initiatives across campus, including improvements to the library building. Our plan was to harness the energy and enthusiasm of our users — students, faculty/staff, and community borrowers — toward a concrete, attainable goal in the service of needed improvements to the library facility. As a creative twist, we wanted to do it essentially by asking for no more than the change our users carry around in their pocket or purse, or find under the pillows of your couch. If we raised $10,000, we would allow our users to name a library study room anything they like (this is the privilege afforded to any donor who pledges the same amount). The library puchased a Lucite donation box and installed it on the circulation desk, so that users could watch our funds grow as the campaign progressed.

How have we done so far? As of March 2, 2011, the Million Pennies Campaign has raised $2,913.06 — nearly 30 percent of our goal! $578.50 of that total has been raised through donations to the box or direct donations to the Advancement office in the name of the campaign. The library has also applied additional funds to the campaign — $1,632.50 from our 2010 Homecoming Book Sale, and $702.06 from the sale of library discards and donations through Better World Books.

What do these facts mean?

The campaign has met with great success in its first year. But donations in the last few months have fallen off a bit compared to our rousing beginning. We’d like to inject some new energy into the campaign!

We’re challenging you, our loyal and enthusiastic library users, to give generously as we celebrate the campaign’s first anniversary. Think of the improvements you’d like to see. Think about how an elevator would improve accessibility and convenience. Think about how an upgraded heating and air system would reduce energy consumption and render those frustrating window cranks obsolete. Think about how an espresso bar would change the way you study and spend time with friends. Think about these things, then consider if you’re willing to put the change in your pocket to effect great change in Milligan life and culture.

Since the beginning, we’ve asked our donors to write their names on slips of paper to drop into the box along with their donations. We wanted to be able to thank our donors by name on a monthly basis, as we have done faithfully since the beginning, through public mentions on the library blog and on InfoToday. One hundred and nineteen donors have contributed over the last year (see below). To renew interest in the campaign, and to offer a concrete reward to those who donate, we’ve decided to hold a monthly drawing using the names of each month’s donors. Our first giveaway item is a like-new hardcover of the 2010 book The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. The winner will be drawn from names in our donation box when the March donations are counted on Monday, April 4, 2011. Future prizes will be similarly modest, but it’s a small way to give back to those who are willing to translate their appreciation of the library into meaningful action for a brighter future.

We encourage you, our friends and colleagues, to give freely to make a vastly improved library possible in the near future.

Thanks again to those who have given so far:

Jacob Albrecht, Kelly Alexander, Beth Anderson, Charlotte Anderson, Lauren Anderson, Abby Banks, Zaphod Beeblebrox, Belteshazzar, Helen Biard, Anne E. Bishop, James Bowlin, Barry Brown, Kellie Brown, Ken Broyles, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Sidney Burns, Bruce Cakebread, David Campbell, Mason Cantrell, Ben Carpenter, Dr. Ellen Stahl Carpenter, Carolyn Carter, Teresa Carter, Ruth McDowell Cook, David Corwin, Kristina Cumby, Ashley Cunigan, Bri Curtis, Jim Dahlman, Brittney Dale, Dan^2 Live!, Gary F. Daught, Joy Drinnon, Erin Dye, Erasmus, Lauren Eversole, Megan Foote, Rachiel Foulks, Theresa Garbe, Betty Goah, Bill & Edwina Greer, B. Elizabeth Griffith, Gumby, Katherine Haehl, Deb Harbin, Jefferson Harbin, Chris Haskins, Dennis Helsabeck Jr., Walter Hendrickson, Angela Highfield, Erica Hiteshew, Heather Holland, Samantha Holley, Clinton J. Holloway, L. Ron Hubbard, Grace Hughes, Ryan Hughes, [illegible], Grace Jackson, John Jackson, Mary Jackson, Jenny, Diane Junker, Dr. Jack Knowles, Hannah Kellogg, Adam Knust, Emily Krug, Rachel Landry, Timothy Laurio, June Leonard, Amanda Loughlin, Mike Luzadder, Pat Magness, Bob Mahan, Garrett March, Jeff McNabb, Phil McNear, Krysta McMahon, Jonathan Mehl, Marshall Menchaca, Jake Merrick, Ashley Monce, Ellen Moore, Norma Morrison, Mount, Chuck Norris, James Oaks, Dan Ott, Jessi Pansock, Tommy Parker, Random Security Guy, Jessie Rose Remegi, Emma Rees, Sarah Rhymer, Ben Richardson, Janey Robinson, Jessica Saltzman, Gail Scalf, Candice Schlaegel, Jennifer Sheldon, Robert B Shields, Shannon Slaughter, Joseph Smith, Katherine Smith, Meredith Sommers, Alicya Suit, Aniela Suit, Elizabeth Taflinger, Amber Thomas, Danielle Thomas, Jay Thomas, Theodore N. Thomas, Adam Tomlinson, Tim Wasem, Matt Watkins, Brian Williams, Halie Winfrey, and Zachary Zuehlke.

Database Searching 101

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Ever since Google introduced its single search box on an uncluttered screen, database vendors (and other search engines) have struggled to keep up. In the years since, databases have moved more and more to a Google-like interface. The problem is that these interfaces LOOK more like Google, but they don’t SEARCH like Google. Users are frequently frustrated by very poor results when they try a Google-like search in a database.

I will give some suggestions on how to improve database searches. But first, a little discussion about how people typically search in Google. One common Google technique is to just type in what you want as a natural language search: How has Facebook changed college students’ attitudes about privacy? This yields 254,000 results. Natural language searches will yield zero results in almost every database to which Milligan or any other library subscribes. Probably the most common search technique (and the one I use in Google) is the string of keywords technique: Facebook college students’ privacy. 40 million results. Yet this search in most databases will, again, yield zero or very low results.

Some of you may be thinking: Why should I even bother with databases, since Google already has so much information on this topic? The long answer warrants a separate blog post. The short answer is that many Google results would not be considered academic sources, and would not meet the criteria of most college research papers. Academic databases contain academic resources that are needed to write academic papers. While there are academic sources in Google, it is often difficult to identify them among all the other results in a typical Google search.

While database searching can be very sophisticated and complex, it doesn’t have to be. A few simple techniques can vastly improve almost all searches.

Search Tip #1 Add the word AND in between all your search concepts. AND is a Boolean operator, a special command to the computer. It tells the computer to find results with all of your search terms. Facebook AND college students AND privacy in a database will give you much better results than a natural language or phrase search. Note that I put the AND between concepts, not between each word. Since I want the concept of “college students”, I did not put the AND between college and students. You really don’t need to understand the why of it to use it, but if you are interested in knowing more, check out:
http://lib.colostate.edu/tutorials/boolean.html
http://www.umsl.edu/services/libteach/keyword.html

Search Tip #2 If your search results are low and you think you have good search terms and you would like to get more results, try truncation. Truncation is shortening a word to its stem, so that the computer will find all possible endings for the word. The standard symbol for truncation is an *, which works in almost all Milligan databases. If I change my search to Facebook AND college students AND priva*, the computer will now find results with both private and privacy. The second link above has an excellent tutorial on truncation.

If you would like to learn more about searching in databases or need help finding what you want in a database, talk to me, Mary Jackson, as I’m the most excited about this topic. But any member of the library staff would be happy to help you.