Author Archives: mdilwort

Author Archives: mdilwort

Streaming Video You Can Use

Streaming Video You Can Use

We all enjoy using YouTube and other streaming video sites like it.  It’s a great source for amusing movies of cats or music videos or kids waving sticks around like they’re in a Star Wars film.  But wouldn’t it be great if this powerful tool could be used for your classes?  Well, you’re in luck.  IU East subscribes to hundreds of high quality academic streaming videos that you can use as sources for your papers, in oral presentations, or just to learn.  First, go into IUCAT at http://www.iucat.iu.edu.  Click ‘Guest Access’.  Then, on the right side of the screen, click ‘DVD/Video Search’.  On the main part of the screen, put a check in the box for ‘streaming’ (it defaults to … Continued
Free at Last: A History of the Abolition of Slavery in America

Free at Last: A History of the Abolition of Slavery in America

“Free at Last: A History of the Abolition of Slavery in America” is an exhibit in the Art Gallery from March 2-30, hosted by the IU East Student Social Work Association (http://www.iue.edu/socialwork/club). When members of the SSWA asked us about resources related to this traveling exhibit, we were eager to provide supplemental content to extend the learning experience. This libguide http://iue.libguides.com/freeatlast features books, databases and other sources of interesting and reliable information.   The “Free at Last” exhibit presents letters, documents, cartoons, photographs and broadsides from the The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. Prior to this traveling exhibit, these important documents were unavailable to the public nationally. Among the highlights are an early fragment of the “House Divided” speech … Continued
E-Book Publishers

E-Book Publishers

If you’ve been keeping up with the news in the publishing world, you may have heard that Penguin Press has just withdrawn support for their e-books from libraries.  Now, of the ‘Big Six’ publishers, only Random House still makes e-book content available for libraries to lend.   Does this mean that the library will no longer be able to support e-books?  What if e-books end up almost entirely replacing print books?  Where will that leave you?  Well, first, the problem – while serious – almost entirely affects popular literature.  The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Twilight books, James Patterson and John Grisham novels – interesting, current books, but not the kind of books that scholars use.  So, while you might … Continued
FYI not TMI

FYI not TMI

When it comes to databases and journal article retrieval there’s really no such thing as TMI.  You never know what random bit of information you’ll find from some of our most unique databases in the A-Z list.  You may look at this list and think “I’ll never need that.” But challenge yourself to think beyond what you need, starting with a few of the databases mentioned below, FYI.   Soon you’ll be singing a different tune about your daily life like, “Yoho, Yoho a Viking’s life for me.” The Daily Life Thru History database gives you organized and accessible info about eras from as far back as 10,000 BCE Greece to modern day America. Know your ancestry? Find out more … Continued
Blackout

Blackout

If you tried to use the Internet on Wednesday, you may have noticed that a lot of your favorite sites, like Wikipedia, were down.  Even Google changed its logo with a big black ‘censored’ bar.  All of those outages were in protest of legislation before the U.S. Congress, which could change the laws on how the government deals with stolen content on websites, known as SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act, HR 3261) in the House of Representatives and PIPA (Protect IP Act, S 968) in the Senate.  Opponents claim that this proposed legislation is too intrusive, that it will eliminate a lot of good content and chill new attempts at innovation and online speech.  They say that the burden of … Continued