RaiderSearch down November 29 due to server upgrades

RaiderSearch and database access will be down intermittently today, Nov 29, as we do server upgrades.

We apologize for the inconvenience. 

 

Edit 8:20 PM: We’re now back up and LIVE. 

A Book as a Friend?

By Janelle Yahne
Library Circulation Associate

When you think of a favorite book, what are its likable characteristics? The author probably writers well enough if he has been published, though a critic might argue otherwise. The book is about an intriguing topic and weaves a story that keeps you flipping pages when you should be sleeping. Personally, I like the narrator’s voice that pops in my head as I read. In the end, a favorite book is one that gets under your skin, and stakes a claim upon a piece of your life as a friend.

An article in The Guardian by Rick Gekoski called “Some of My Worst Friends Are Books,” has me thinking about my own personal experiences with books. I remember being shocked by the end of Brave New World¹ and the choice made by the main character. I felt encouragement and warmth after following a young woman’s passage through grief in P.S. I Love You. Devil in the White City had me dreaming of the 1893 World’s Fair and I devoured books about the architects for months. The empathy I felt with the woman in The Yellow Wallpaper as she descended into madness. For the reader Mr. Gekoski writes, “we suspend the everyday, ignore the telephone and doorbell, eat with our eyes fixed to the page, overcome, ravaged by the demands of the text.” I feel the same way about friends and family.

Though we are busy with living our lives we make time for friends and family whether living or in letters. Sometimes we may not see each other or have enough quality time, but the bookcase in my house reminds me that we will find a way to meet.

There are books about books in the library, to help one find new friends and others can be found through MeLCat.

Check out these titles:

• Bloomsbury good reading guide [electronic resource] by Nick Rennsion
• Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Reason by Nancy Pearl
• How to Read and Why by Harold Bloom
• How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines by Thomas C. Foster
• Read This Next: 500 of the Best Books You Will Ever Read by Sandra Newman and Howard Mittelmark

1. Yes, I often recommend this book.

Library Journal’s top rated databases

By Marcia Lee
Serials Specialist

In recent months, a group of choice librarians and Library Journal reviewers were selected to evaluate databases which exist today for library use. In the end, the finalists were placed in specific categories, highlighting numerous resources of which several can be found right here at your GRCC Library. Below are the databases that made the “Top Database List” in their respective categories and they are available for access right now (requires RaiderLogin off campus):

Best Overall
Credo Reference

Most Ambitious in Scope or Content
Gale Virtual Library
Runner-up: Ebscohost eBooks (Formally NetLibrary.)

Most Elegant Runner-up: Oxford Art Online
Best Original Content Runner-up: CQ Researcher
Patron’s Favorites Runners-up: JSTOR and Naxos Music Library

To view a full list of the databases we offer alphabetically, click here. (We also offer the option of searching for databases by subject area.) We do our best to provide you with the most up-to-date & quality resources we possibly can, so although many of our databases did not “make the cut,” don’t doubt for a second that they aren’t just as useful for your research. Check them out today!

To view the rest of the finalists & runner-ups, click here.

Diversity Lecture Series: Jeff Johnson

By Lisa M. Rabey
Systems & Web Librarian and
Nan Schichtel, Information Literacy & Outreach Librarian

The seminal author, journalist, and social activist Jeff Johnson will be at the Fountain Street Church, February 15, as the next speaker in the Diversity Lecture Series. Johnson, the author of Everything I’m Not Made Me Everything I Am, is

…renowned both for his conversations with world figures in the political, business and entertainment arenas and his grass-roots work seeking to inspire the next generation of leaders. Johnson is a trailblazing social entrepreneur and authentic voice for change. Sometimes called the “conscience voice” of BET Networks, Johnson looks for ways to merge the worlds of politics and popular culture, through broad-based communication, including as a contributor to the Tom Joyner Morning Show.

In additon to Everything I’m Not Made Me Everything I Am, the GRCC Library also has the following materials on or about Johnson, some which may require you to user your RaiderID for access.

• “Analysis: School segregation, Gulf Coast immigration.” News & Notes, 19 Oct. 2005.
• “Interview: George Curry, Callie Crossley and Jeffrey Johnson discuss
  the president’s approval rating and Ralph Nader using the N-word.“
  News & Notes, 20 June 2005.
• “Interview: Julianne Malveaux, Jeff Johnson and Pedro Noguera talk about Supreme Court quotas, military recruitment, the US space program and corporate crime.” News & Notes, 14 July 2005.
• “Social justice in Kurdistan.” Washington Times. 23 July 2009: A18.
• Stelter, Brian. “Black TV Is Wearing Its Politics On Its Sleeve.” New York Times, 6 Nov. 2008: 6(L).

If you are also interested in the topics of achievement motivation and self-actualization, in addition to Johnson’s Everything I’m Not Made Me Everything I Am, GRCC Library also has the following titles available on these subjects:

• Catch! : a fishmonger’s guide to greatness by Cyndi Crother and the crew of the World Famous Pike Place Fish
• The change cycle: how people can survive and thrive in organizational change by Ann Salerno & Lillie Brock [eBook]
• Come on, people : on the path from victims to victors by Bill Cosby & Alvin F. Poussaint
• Learned optimism : how to change your mind and your life by Martin E.P. Seligman
• Motivation and learning strategies for college success: a self-management approach by Myron H. Dembo [eBook]
• The power of purpose: find meaning, live longer, better by Richard J. Leider [eBook]
• Rewards and intrinsic motivation: resolving the controversy by Judy Cameron and W. David Pierce [eBook]
• The seven minute difference: small steps to big changes by Allyson Lewis [eBook]
• Success is a journey: make your life a grand adventure by Brian Tracy [eBook]
• The winning spirit : 16 timeless principles that drive performance excellence by Joe Montana and Tom Mitchell

Diversity Lecture Series: Maziar Bahari

By Nan Schichtel
Information Literacy & Outreach Librarian

Maziar Bahari, an Iranian-Canadian journalist, was arrested in Tehran on trumped-up charges of espionage in the aftermath of the contested 2009 election. Held in solitary confinement for 118 days, enduring physical and psychological torture, he chronicles his story in, Then They Came for Me: A Family’s Story of Love, Captivity, and Survival. As a correspondent for Newsweek, Bahari is an expert on Iran yet also embraces a wide range of subjects as a filmmaker, from Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany, to Iraqi child prisoners, and Aids in South Africa.

On November 9, Bahari will be speaking at GRCC as part of the Diversity Lecture Series. For more information about Bahari, please see the selected listings of his works and articles about him.

Works by Maziar Bahari
• Bahari, Maziar. [Excerpts from some of Bahari's BBC films.]
• Bahari, Maziar, and Aimee Molloy. Then they came for me: a family’s story of love, captivity, and survival. New York: Random House, 2011.
• Bahari, Maziar, and Malu Halasa. Transit Tehran: young Iran and its inspirations. Reading UK: Garnet, 2009.

Articles/Videos about Maziar Bahari:
• “2009 Human Rights Report: Iran*.” 2009 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices. U.S. Department of State, 11 Mar. 2010.
• Bahari, Maziar. “‘We know where you live’: working for a Western magazine in Dan, a journalist finds that he has acquired some surprisingly close acquaintances–from the ministry of intelligence. And strangely, they are all called Mr. Mohammadi.” Nieman Reports 63.2 (2009): 17+.
• Bahari, Maziar. [A selection of recent articles from Newsweek where Bahari served as a correspondent from 1998 to 2011.]
• Dehghanpisheh, Babak, and R.M. Schneiderman Christopher Dickey. “The Shadow War.” Newsweek 20 Dec. 2010: 28.
• Smiley, Tavis. Journalist-filmmaker Maziar Bahari. PBS Video. 24 June 2011.