The Mabee Library Reference Blog

Need to ask a question?

2009-03-02T19:39:00.004-06:00

One way to reach a librarian at the Mabee is to send it to us on meebo, our instant message system. A librarian should be logged on while the library is open (Monday-Thursday 7:45am-11:00pm, Friday 7:45am-6pm, Saturday 10:00am-5:00pm, Sunday 1:00pm-11:00pm). Or give us a call at 785-670-1483 or 1-800-736-9060.

Need a book or journal that isn't at the Mabee?

2009-02-18T20:23:00.004-06:00

Use our Interlibrary Loan (ILL) service to borrow books from other libraries. The form can be found on our homepage under "Services".

Videos from the Mabee Librarian Vaults...

2009-02-04T17:44:00.004-06:00

Look at these videos to learn about the research process and our databases:

http://www.youtube.com/UAinstructor

RAP Sessions for Spring

2009-02-02T19:34:00.002-06:00

Mabee Library is offering two introductory library skills instruction workshops called RAP sessions. Students may drop-in to a session that fits into their schedule. These are open workshops; no registration is required.

RAP session #1 is a very basic workshop designed to highlight services and resources the Libraries offer. It will include a basic orientation to Mabee Library and the Curriculum Resources Center, an overview of the Libraries’ Web sites, and a physical tour of the Mabee Library. This workshop is designed for students new to the University and for students just beginning to use the University Libraries. It will be offered eight times from February 2-6 in the Mabee Library electronic classroom:

Monday, February 2 4-5 pm and 8:30-9:30 pm
Tuesday, February 3 4-5 pm and 8:30-9:30 pm
Wednesday, February 4 4-5 pm and 8:30-9:30 pm
Thursday, February 5 8:30-9:30 pm
Friday, February 6 4-5 pm

RAP session #2 will be a basic introduction to the research process – how to find books and scholarly articles. Upon completion of this workshop, students will be able to (1) identify appropriate article databases and use them to find articles; (2) use Encore, the online catalog, to find specific books and journals; (3) identify locations in the Libraries for the books and journals they need; and (4) identify whether an article is considered scholarly or not. RAP session #2 will be offered nine times from February 9-13 in the Mabee Library electronic classroom:

Monday, February 9 4-5 pm and 8:30-9:30 pm
Tuesday, February 10 4-5 pm and 8:30-9:30 pm
Wednesday, February 11 4-5 pm and 8:30-9:30 pm
Thursday, February 12 4-5 pm and 8:30-9:30 pm
Friday, February 13 4-5 pm

These RAP sessions are designed to provide students with foundational library skills only. Librarians will continue to be available to provide higher level customized library instruction tailored to specific assignments and disciplines.

For more information please contact Judy Druse at 670-2507 or judy.druse@washburn.edu

Encore

2008-11-18T19:01:00.004-06:00

Encore is the new catalog interface at the Mabee Library that lets you tag and see photos! Add to the tags of your favorite books by logging in with your name and WIN number. Adding tags can help you and others find books otherwise buried in the library stacks.

LibGuides

2008-11-13T20:19:00.006-06:00

Need help figuring out how to find the databases and books you need?

LibGuides is a new tool that Washburn is using to link researchers to what they need. The guides provide links to videos, podcasts, databases, websites, and other tools. Use the guides by clicking through the tabs- tips on how to research and where to look are throughout these web 2.0 guides!

Search through the guides by subject here

Here is a guide to find information on green topics

Here is a guide to nursing research

Here is a link to a list of research guides that range from newspaper research to finding out how to determine if a journal is scholarly.

2008-10-27T16:45:00.003-06:00

Here is a site to learn about local candidates.

Look at what the Mabee Library has on voting and suffrage in the United States.

Measuring the Candidates

2008-10-20T16:23:00.007-06:00

Here are some websites to look at this election season:

-One highly regarded website is factcheck.org.
Statistics used in speeches are analyzed for accuracy and the facts are posted.

-newsmeat.com allows to you to see who has been giving money to the candidates and the details.

-More resources: more links and politifact.com

The candidate's websites:

McCain's website

Obama’s website

Third party candidate websites:

Constitution Party nominee: Chuck Baldwin

Green Party nominee: Cynthia McKinney

Libertarian Party nominee: Bob Barr

Independant:
-Jackson Kirk Grimes
-Alan Keyes
-Frank Moore
-Ralph Nader
-Kelcey Wilson

There are several other presidential nominees- above are just a few.

Register to vote

A few resources at the Mabee:

Search the catalog for politics.

-Attack politics : negativity in presidential campaigns since 1960 / Emmett H. Buell Jr. and Lee Sigelman
Buell, Emmett H
WU Mabee New Book Shelf - JK524 .B785 2008

See you on November 4th!

RAP Sessions at the Mabee

2008-08-27T18:04:00.004-06:00

The library is having RAP (Research Assistance Program) sessions to tell students about the library and resources. Sessions will be held in the electronic classroom in the Mabee Library. There are two groups of sessions:

Introduction to the Mabee Library

This session highlights the services and resources that the Mabee offers. A basic orientation to the Mabee Library and the Curriculum Resources Center, an overview of the Library's website, and a physical tour of the Mabee will be included in this session.
Sessions will be held at:

September 2, 9:30-10:30 AM
September 3, 7:00-8:00 PM
September 4, 1:00-2:00 PM

Introduction to Academic Research

This session will cover the research process, such as how to find relevant books and articles. By the end of the session students should be able to 1) identify appropriate article databases and use them to find articles; 2) use ATLAS, the online catalog, to find specific books and periodicals; 3) identify locations in the Libraries for books and periodicals; and 4) identify whether an article is considered scholarly or not.
Sessions will be held at:

September 8, 8:30-9:30 PM
September 9, 2:30-3:30 PM
September 10, 1:00-2:00 PM
September 11, 11:00-12:00 PM

The sessions are free and open to all faculty, staff, and students. No registration required.

Summer Reading

2008-07-02T16:29:00.004-06:00

There are many ways to find good summer reads.

Here are some picks:

UC Berkeley's Funny Summer Reads List
Books for Future Presidents
A Top 100 List

Check out some of the top prize winners!

Pulitzer Prize
Nobel Prize Winners

Also, LibraryThing and Goodreads are great sites to catalog books you've read and to find more that you will like.

Podcasts

2008-05-14T10:02:00.006-06:00

Get news, radio, and music shows that you can listen to on your iPod!
ITunes can be used to download podcasts. Then new episodes automatically
download when iTunes starts. And almost all podcasts are free!

Here is a link to mediafly that has directories of NPR, ABC, Wallstreet
Journal, and numerous other news podcasts:

http://www.mediafly.com/Areas/npr/

Caddy Stacks

2008-03-31T18:45:00.010-06:00

The Mabee Library held a successful fundraiser this past weekend. Photos from the event can be seen here.

See the flyer for the event here.

Women's History Month

2008-03-05T17:43:00.003-06:00

March is Women’s History Month! The library has a number of books that cover women’s history and issues, including:
Reference Books:
●The timetables of women's history : a chronology of the most important people and events in women's Greenspan, KarenNew York : Simon & Schuster, c1994
Call Number: HQ1121 .G75 1994
●Chronology of women's history / Kirstin Olsen Olsen, KirstinWestport, Conn. : Greenwood Press, 1994Call Number: HQ1121 .O47 1994
●Timelines of American women's history / Sue Heinemann Heinemann, Sue, 1948-New York : Berkley Pub. Group, c1996
Call Number: HQ1410 .H45 1996
Books you can check out:
●Feminism and suffrage : the emergence of an independent women's movement in America, 1848-1869 / Ell DuBois, Ellen Carol, 1947-Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 1978
Call Number: HQ1423 .D8
●Natural allies : women's associations in American history / Anne Firor Scott Scott, Anne Firor, 1921-Urbana : University of Illinois Press, c1991
Call Number: HQ1904 .S28 1991
●Milestones : the Women's Bureau celebrates 65 years of women's labor history [Washington, D.C.] : U.S. Dept. of Labor, Women's Bureau, [1985?]
Call Number: HD6095 .M52 1985

Resources on the Web:
Women’s History Month:
http://womenshistory.about.com/od/womenshistorymonth/a/whm_history.htm?nl=1

Ten best books about women and art history from about.com:
http://arthistory.about.com/od/womenartists/tp/womenahbooks.htm?nl=1

Mabee RAP Sessions

2008-02-11T18:39:00.000-06:00

The Library is having RAP (Research Assistance Program) sessions to tell students about the library and resources! There are three groups of sessions:

Introduction to the Mabee Library

This session highlights the services and resources that the Mabee offers. A basic orientation to the Mabee Library and the Curriculum Resources Center, an overview of the Library's website, and a physical tour of the Mabee will be included in this session.

Sessions will be held at:

February 4 4:15pm to 5:15pm

February 5 9:30am to 10:30pm

February 6 7:00pm to 8:00pm

February 7 1:00pm to 2:00pm

Introduction to Academic Research

This session will cover the research process, such as how to find relevant books and articles. By the end of the session students should be able to 1) identify appropriate article databases and use them to find articles; 2) use ATLAS, the online catalog, to find specific books and periodicals; 3) identify locations in the Libraries for books and periodicals; and 4) identify whether an article is considered scholarly or not.

Sessions will be held at:

February 11 8:30pm to 9:30pm

February 12 2:30pm to 3:30pm

February 13 1:00pm to 2:00pm

February 14 11:00am to 12:00pm

Finding Scholarly Internet Resources

This RAP session will introduce students to visual and clustering search engines, as well as strategies for finding scholarly Internet resources.

Sessions will be held at:

February 19 5:00pm to 6:00pm

February 20 7:00pm to 8:00pm

Hope that you are able to make it to one or more of the sessions!

Changes at The Mabee

2008-01-28T18:26:00.000-06:00

A number of things are changing at Mabee Library! The new Interim Dean, Alan Bearman, has been working to declutter and modernize the library. Student artwork is now being displayed in cases, and there are plans to add student artwork to the walls. Laptops for students to checkout and use in the library are being ordered. To declutter the library, some of the reference books have been moved to the basement or second floor. In place of some of these reference books are a number of chairs and tables. Additionally, the library now has a display of new books.

To see more pictures of changes at The Mabee click here

October is National Reading Group Month

2007-10-10T19:54:00.000-06:00

Get involved with Washburn's iRead program, which has selected Ishmael Beah's A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier as its common text. You can find more information here. In addition to the iRead program, there's the new Quoffee Twak Book Club. The club's next meeting will be November 7 at 8 pm outside the Corner Store in the union. The club will discuss Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer. You can find more information on the club's Facebook page.

Welcome Back!

2007-08-22T18:55:00.000-06:00

Welcome back to another semester at Washburn University! I'd like to take this opportunity to remind everyone of the many ways in which to contact a reference librarian here at Mabee Library. You can give us a call at (785) 670-1483 or toll free at (800) 736-9060.You can send us an email from the Ask a Question page. If instant messaging is your thing, click on the homepage's meebo icon and chat with us on the IM Reference page. We also have accounts with MSN, AIM, ICQ, and Google if you'd rather use one of those. Our screennames are listed in the IM Reference page's guidelines. If you're in the neighborhood, stop by and see us! Our hours are listed on the Reference and Instruction page. I hope everyone has a great semester!

Finals Week at the Library

2007-05-09T19:35:00.000-06:00

Greetings from The Mabee Library Fortress of Knowledge

Once again, the library is open continuously during finals week. Here are a few items to remember if you plan on using the library this week:

Students, faculty and staff using the Library during extended late-night hours will be required to show a current university ID to remain in or enter the building.

During the extended hours, access to photocopy machines, computers and printers will be available. However, no other services (checkout of library materials, reserves or video checkout, cash or change, technology support, and research assistance) will be guaranteed. Services during extended hours have been severely curtailed to control costs.

Library policies regarding use of computers, meals and/or delivery of food to the library, quiet study floors, etc. are still in force during extended hours. Library policies are posted online here.
The library will close at 6PM on Friday, May 11.

Wear layers! The fortress gives no quarter to the T-shirt and shorts crowd.

Thanks to all the staff and students who once again made this week a success!

(in case you missed the Superman reference from above)

Extended Hours at Mabee Library

2007-05-02T18:17:00.000-06:00

Mabee Library will be open extended hours the week before finals and remain open 24 hours a day during finals week to give students a safe, convenient place to study for finals. Students, faculty and staff using the Library during extended late-night hours will be required to show a current university ID to remain in or enter the building. During the extended hours, access to photocopy machines, computers and printers will be available. However, no other services (checkout of library materials, reserves or video checkout, cash or change, technology support, and research assistance) will be guaranteed. Library staff from all departments has volunteered to work late-night hours, but a volunteer from technical services may have no training to check out materials or provide research assistance. Services during extended hours have been severely curtailed to control costs. Library policies regarding use of computers, meals and/or delivery of food to the library, quiet study floors, etc. are still in force during extended hours. Library policies are posted online here.

Mabee Library hours from Monday, April 30 through Friday, May 11

Monday, April 30 through Thursday, May 3 - 7:45 am to 2 am
Friday, May 4 – 7:45 am to 12 midnight
Saturday, May 5 – 10 am to 12 midnight
Sunday, May 6, from 1 pm to Friday, May 11, 6 pm - open 24 hours

Poetry Resources at Mabee Library

2007-04-25T17:16:00.000-06:00

April is National Poetry Month. Here are some items available from Mabee Library's collection.

Kansas

The Kansas Experience in Poetry
WU Mabee Stacks PS595.K35 K3

Sunflowers: A Book of Kansas Poems
WU Mabee Stacks PS595.K35 S8

Classics

Collected Poems, 1909-1962 / T.S. Eliot
WU Mabee Stacks PS3509.L43 A17 1963

Leaves of Grass / Walt Whitman
WU Mabee Stacks PS3201

The Bell Jar / Sylvia Plath
WU Mabee Stacks PS3566.L27 B4

Collected poems, 1947-1997 / Allen Ginsberg
WU Mabee Stacks PS3513.I74 A17 2006

Reference

The Poet's Dictionary: A Handbook of Prosody and Poetic Devices / William Packard
WU Mabee Reference PN1021 .P23 1989

The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry
WU Mabee Reference PN1021 .G7 1990

World Poets / Ron Padgett, editor in chief
WU Mabee Reference PN1021 .W67 2000

Periodicals

Parnassus: Poetry in Review
Full text available from Humanities Full Text: 01/01/1995 to present
Full text available from ProQuest Research Library: 01/01/1998 to present
Full text available from Wilson OmniFile: 01/01/1995 to present

Poet's Market
WU Mabee Reference PN1059.M3 P59 2007

Browse more results HERE.

So it goes...

2007-04-11T22:21:00.000-06:00

Kurt Vonnegut passed away late in the evening on April 11th. He was 84. Check out the following links for more information about his life and work:

His Obituary in The New York Times

The Official Web Site of Kurt Vonnegut

Resources from Mabee Library's Collection

A Great Blog Entry from The Onion

National Poetry Month

2007-04-04T20:27:00.000-06:00

April is National Poetry Month

National Poetry Month FAQ's

History and Highlights

Kansas on poets.org

Poetry-A-Day
poets.org will send one new poem to your inbox each day to celebrate National Poetry Month.

Life Lines
We each carry lines of poetry with us. Words that others have written float back to us and stay with us, indelibly. We clutch these "Life Lines" like totems, repeat them as mantras, and summon them for comfort and laughter.

Against National Poetry Month As Such
by Charles Bernstein

Rejected Marketing Slogans for National Poetry Month
from McSweeney's

RAP Session: Web 2.0 for Students

2007-03-28T20:49:00.000-06:00

In today's academic environment, social software exists in a wide range of forms and flavors. The next Research Assistance Program (RAP) Session, which I will lead, will explore Web 2.0 technologies like wikis, blogs, social bookmarking, online photo sharing, RSS and how students can apply them in an academic setting. These sessions are free, and registration isn't required. Paper certificates will be distributed at the end of each session as proof of attendance. The dates and times of the sessions are as follows:

Tuesday April 3
2:30 - 3:30
Mabee Library Electronic Classroom - Room 206

Wednesday April 4
2:30 - 3:30
Mabee Library Electronic Classroom - Room 206

I hope to see you there!

Mabee Library's IM Reference Service

2007-03-14T19:16:00.000-06:00

At the beginning of the spring semester, Mabee Library launched an IM Reference Service. There are a couple ways for you to send us an instant message if you have a reference question:

Use your preferred instant messenger to send us a message. We have the following accounts:

AIM: mabeereference
Yahoo!: mabeereference
MSN: mabeereference@hotmail.com
ICQ: 308298625
Google Talk: mabeereference@gmail.com

Go to the library's new IM Reference page and use our meebo widget, which is an instant messenger embedded in the Web page. In fact, the widget is shown below. If you have a reference question, give it a try!

The hours for this service are the same as the reference desk hours. Go to the IM Reference page for a list of other FAQ's.

More RAP Sessions at Mabee Library

2007-03-07T19:20:00.000-06:00

Due to the high turnout for Mabee Library's first round of RAP sessions, the library has plans for more sessions in March and April. Here's the current schedule:

Using APA Style

Tuesday, March 13, 2007 9:30 – 10:30 am
Location: Mabee Library Electronic Classroom

Wednesday, March 14, 2007 2:30 – 3:30 pm
Location: Deay Lab - Carnegie 108

What and when to cite? It’s not always easy for students to figure out. The next Mabee Library RAP session will help students learn how to format research papers according to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. These are open workshops; no registration is required. Paper certificates will be distributed at the end of each session to serve as proof of attendance.

Finding Scholarly Internet Resources

Tuesday, March 27, 2007 1:00 – 2:00 pm
Location: Mabee Library Electronic Classroom

Thursday, March 29, 2007 12:00 – 1:00 pm
Location: Mabee Library Electronic Classroom

Web 2.0 Technology for Students

Tuesday, April 3, 2007 2:30 – 3:30 pm
Location: Mabee Library Electronic Classroom

Wednesday, April 4, 2007 2:30 – 3:30 pm
Location: Mabee Library Electronic Classroom

RAP #2 Repeat – Basic Research Process

Monday, April 16, 2007 4:15 – 5:15 pm
Location: Mabee Library Electronic Classroom

Tuesday, April 17, 2007 2:30 – 3:30 pm
Location: Mabee Library Electronic Classroom

Using APA Style

Tuesday, April 24, 2007 11:00 – 12:00 pm
Location: Mabee Library Electronic Classroom

Wednesday, April 25, 2007 2:00 – 3:00 pm
Location: Deay Lab – Carnegie 108