During intersession Saturday, May 10 to Sunday, May 17 the Mullen Library business hours are as follows:

Please see campus library hours or Mullen Library hours for more information.

You may have noticed a small difference on individual posts lately. If you look at the bottom you will either see a comment link or a comment form. Please, let us know what you think about the stories we post, and the library in general. We love feedback and will respond to any questions you might have.

While the comment form requires an email address, we will not make it public. This is just one way to combat spam. We will also review comments before they appear on the site to make sure nothing inappropriate gets posted.

Please communicate with us! We want to know what you think. Other ways to converse include our Facebook page, group and the suggestion box in the Mullen lobby. There are also a number of ways to contact a librarian directly.

We look forward to hearing from you!

An interesting bibliographical essay on science and the humanities written by Gail Shivel of the University of Miami for Choice magazine. An overview:

“The literature on science and the humanities is vast and diffuse, and a treatment such as this can only touch on the high points and suggest further directions of study. This essay treats the literature on science and the humanities first chronologically and then topically. The cite list is divided into two parts: relatively recent work, primarily secondary, and then the classics. Some of the latter include specific recommended editions; others are given without bibliographic details.”

The Humanities and Social Sciences Division offers an overview Research Orientation to the Library of Congress.

Presented from 10:30-12:00 noon on the following Mondays:

May 5, 19
June 2, 9, 23, 30
July 7, 14, 21, 28

Evening Sessions:

6:30-8:00 pm

May 5, June 2, July 7

Jefferson Building, Room G-07

The Second Street entrance is open to those holding a Reader Identification Card; all others may enter using the First Street entrance. Reader ID cards can be obtained in the Madison Building, Room 140. (Attendees for evening sessions must use the Second Street entrance.)

Due to limited space, registration is required. Register by phone (202) 707-3370 or online at http://www.loc.gov/rr/main/inforeas/signup.php

Request ADA accommodations five business days in advance at (202) 707-6362 or ADA@loc.gov .

For more information call Kathy Woodrell (202) 707-0945 or Abby Yochelson (202) 707-2138.

Bob Hicok and Charles Wright, both poets at Virginia universities, have won the 2008 Bobbitt national Poetry Prize. They will read from their work on Monday, April 28th at the Library of Congress. [more]

Keeping track of citations and managing that ever expanding bibliography can be a pain. Before you buy an expensive program consider Zotero, a free, open-source citation manager that lives in your web browser.

With one click you can download citation information from the ALADIN catalog, Amazon, JSTOR, Google Books, and many other library catalogs and journal databases. You can also download and store PDFs from article databases, take a snap-shot of the web page, and apply tags to your “library” of citations to keep them organized. When you’re ready to print that bibliography for your well researched paper, select your sources, select the citation format (APA, MLA, and others), and voilà! You have a nicely formatted bibliography ready to be printed or placed at the end of you research paper. (Of course no machine is perfect, so be sure to proofread before you turn it in!)

To get started down the path of citation management bliss you will need the Mozilla Firefox web browser. Sorry, Zotero doesn’t work with Internet Explorer or Safari - although it is perfectly happy on Windows, Macintosh and Linux.

Next head over to http://www.zotero.org/ and click the big, red, download button. (If you get a message that says Firefox prevented this site from installing software, go ahead and allow it. It’s okay.) When the window pops up click “Install now”, then when it is finished “Restart Firefox” and you’re good to go.

Be sure to check out the video tutorials to help you get started.

Mullen Library and the campus libraries will be closed Wednesday, April 16 and Thursday, April 17 in honor of the visit of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI. Libraries will resume their regular hours on Friday.

Please see the Mullen Library hours or the campus libraries hours for more information.

The Pulitzer Prize winners for 2008 were announce Tuesday:

FICTION: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
DRAMA: August: Osage County by Tracy Letts
BIOGRAPHY OR AUTOBIOGRAPHY: Eden’s Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father by John Matteson
POETRY: Time and Materials by Robert Hass AND Failure by Philip Schultz

All titles are in the Mullen Library collection or have been ordered.

Some interesting quotes from the winners supplied by the Associated Press.

“Research libraries are “rapidly developing publishing services,” according to a report released in March by the Association of Research Libraries.” [more]

The Bodleian Library in Oxford and Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC “plan to reproduce online all 75 editions of William Shakespeare’s plays printed in the quarto format before the year 1641.” [MSNBC, Bodleian, Folger]