So far this year we have borrowed 1565 items — 506 books and 1060 articles. Most of them were borrowed from other WorldCat libraries. We got 330 from the Kansas City Library Consortium, another important partner.

We lend items, too. This year we sent out 2490 books and 221 articles. A thousand of those were lent to WorldCat libraries.

For those of you that have never used it, or don’t know what it does…….Lexis/Nexis is a multifunctional database. In the area of news, it provides the full text of more than 350 newspapers from the U.S. and around the world, along with the full text of thousands of periodicals. Also included are transcripts from radio and t.v. news programs, blogs, and wikis. Heard a story on NPR and want to discuss it?  Get the transcript from Lexis/Nexis. Taking a French class and want to put your knowledge to the test?  Try reading a newspaper written in French.

In the area of law, it contains both federal and state statutes, codes, and regulations. On top of that, it covers federal and state cases, including landmark cases from the Supreme Court.  Next time you’re writing a report about Brown vs. the Board of Education or Roe v. Wade, don’t forget the full cases are in Lexis/Nexis.

Finally, Lexis/Nexis covers a full range of company information, both national and international. Company Dossier is a tool that collects information from multiple sources and compiles it into a comprehensive report on a targeted company. Want to know if your company is involved in any patent infringement cases? Lexis/Nexis is your place.

One of the newer enhancements is featured on the Lexis/Nexis landing page. On the bottom left of the screen, you’ll find a list of Hot Topics links. These are timely topics covering general categories of news. Want to follow what’s happening with the new Gun Control measures? Here is an easy way to see lots of articles in one place. There is even a link for Today’s front page news gathered from hundreds of newspapers. Don’t walk around uninformed. Become a walking newsflash!

Another new enhancement is the addition of Web news to the Results Screen. When you do a search on a topic, the Results page will feature two tabs. One features links to regular sources, and the other tab returns links to websites. Lexis/Nexis has vetted 300-350 websites that you can trust to give you accurate information. Some of the news sources include videos, as well.

Take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with the abundant resources gathered together in one place. Need more help? Contact us and let us help you expand your stores of knowledge

• Accelerating lean Six Sigma Resultys, by Terence T. Burton. (J. Ross Publishing, 2011)
• Accounting Ethics (2nd ed.), by Brenda Shay and Ronald F. Duska and Julie Anne Ragatz. (Wiley-Blackwell, 2011)
• Advertising and consumer psychology : handbook of brand relationships, by Deborah J. MacInnis, C. Whan Park and Joseph R. Priester. (ME Sharpe, 2009)
• Academic research and researchers, by Angela Brew and Lisa Lucas. (McGraw-Hill, 2009)
• After “Brown” : the rise and retreat of school desegregation, by Charles T. Clotfelter. (Princeton, 2011)
• Advancing the culture of teaching on campus : how a teaching center can make a difference, by Constance Cook, Matthew Kaplan, and Lester P. Monts. (Stylus, 2011)

The entire list is available at Ebrary. You’ll notice that all the titles in my lists begin with “A” – that’s all the further I got into the list! But you can do a subject search on either broad or narrow subject headings. I found 32 new books on “Biology” and 115 on “Education.” Most of the books were published within the last two years, but I noticed Derek Bok’s Beyond the Ivory Tower, from 1985 on the list.

Here are a few more titles to entice you:
• Ai Weiwei’s blog : writings, interviews, and digital rants, 2006-2009. (MIT Press, 2011)
• Android application development for Java programmers, by James C. Sheusi. (Cengage, 2012)
• Agricola and Germany, by Anthony Birley. (Oxford, 1999)
• A series of books by Burton Fisher on operas – Les Troyens, Maria Stuarda, Parsifal, Francesca da Rimini (2012)
• Arte Povera and the Baroque : building an international identity, by Laura Petican. (Peter Lang, 2011)
• After Empire : the conceptual transformation of the Chinese state, 1885-1924, by Peter Zarrow. (Stanford, 2012)
• ALPH : Good Dragons are rare : an inquiry into literary dragons East and West, by Fanfan Chen and Thomas Honegger. (Peter Lang, 2009)
• Actor within : intimate conversations with great actors, by Rose Eichenbaum and Aron Hirt-Manheimer. (Wesleyan, 2011)
• Amherst Series in Law, Jurisprudence and Social Thought : Imagining new legalities : Privacy and its possibilities in the 21st century, by Austin Sarat, Lawrence Douglas, and Martha Umphrey. (Stanford, 2012)
• Anatomy of Harpo Marx, by Wayne Koestenbaum. (California, 2012)
• Antimatter, by Frank Close. (Oxford, 2009)
• Animal osmoregulation, by Tim Bradley. (Oxford, 2008)

Nine series are owned by the library and five are among our most heavily used videos.
• Voices & visions which explores the work of 13 poets, including Hart Crane, Langston Hughes and Sylvia Plath;
• Discovering psychology
• Against all odds : inside statistics
• Planet Earth
• Unseen life on earth : an introduction to microbiology
Economics U$A, originally made thirty years ago, was updated in 2012 as were Ethics in America and Discovering psychology.

A caution: most of the series are available via video streaming and may be used for free in classrooms using “a regular computer screen or projection screen.” (from their FAQ) You can even link to them from your website, but they must be licensed for use in a learning management system like Moodle.

Each guide offers an overview of the country along with a myriad of information on culture, communications, investments, security, taxes, trade, and travel info. For those doing research on the issues covering business topics, each guide will cover the demographics that may drive your marketing plans. In addition, you can find out the country’s major industries, their regulatory issues, the government’s attitude toward foreign investments, and how disputes may be settled.

The benefits for the casual traveler can’t be overlooked. How nice to know the local customs, greetings and courtesies, and gift giving practices. Answer questions like, “How much should I tip,”, “Do I need a visa”, and “What kind of diseases and immunizations are necessary before attempting to enter the country”. You can’t leave home before having a cell phone dialing guide, along with information about Internet access. It never hurts to have an overview of the crimes and threats to safety in any particular location.

Our trial ends on April 1, 2013. Take advantage of this resource and let us know how you liked it.

1. What percent of firearm permit denials by the FBI are due to mental illness?
2. How has the rate of male childhood obesity changed over the last 40 years?
3. What percentage of Americans spend leisure time filling in Sudoku puzzles?
4. How many households  with an income under $20,000 own a bird?
5. What is the projected population of Africa in 2050?

One place you might want to start your search for any statistical question is the Statistical Abstract of the United States.   Formerly a publication of the United States Census Bureau, the Statistical Abstract is a compilation of statistical data from federal, state, local and over 130 private sources.   The new database version of the publication provides a variety of features not accessible in the print publication, including:

1. Searching, browsing, and limiting by different aspects (such as geography, subject, date, and source).
2. Tables will be updated throughout the year as new data becomes available, rather than an annual publication.
3. Data can be downloaded in excel for easy editing and, in some cases, extended statistic information prior to the print table is provided.
4. Additional capabilities such as links to data sources, emailing, printing, relevance searching, bibliographic information, etc. (some of these features will be rolled out in the next few weeks).

The database is accessible from the databases tab under various subjects in the dropdown menu, by clicking on the “S” to browse by alphabetical listing, and as a link in the reference tab of the library homepage.  While the product is setup to be user friendly, detailed help resources can found on the ProQuest LibGuide for the product.

And now the answers:

1. In 2009, 1.4%
2. In the late 1970’s the rate was 5.5% whereas in 2009/10 the rate was 19.7%
3. In 2011, 11.1%
4. In 2006, the 4.4%
5. The2013 projection for 2050 is 2,270,000,000

Here are some key differences:

Zero Click Responses: For most searches, DuckDuckGo will offer you an instant, no-click answer displayed in a shaded text box at the top of the page. Typically, the source is from Wikipedia and other similar sites.

Privacy: DuckDuckGo keeps no search history and does not track users. Nothing searched on the site will be sold to advertisers. This has legal as well as personal advantages for users.

NoFilter Bubbles: “Filter Bubble” is a term coined to describe a filtering technique employed by many search engines, especially Google. This is the process of using algorithms to sites the search engine “assumes” the user may prefer to view. This assumption is based on factors such as the individual’s browser and search history, click history, location, social networks, and other modifiers. Certain websites get pushed up or down in your search as a result. For example: Searching “benefits of higher education” in Google, the IRS publication on Higher Education Benefits comes up on the fourth page, as  #40. In DuckDuckGo, the same item comes up on the first page as #5.

Some folks think that Filter Bubbles may skew the results and limit the amount of information a user can access. For example, in Google,  two users can conduct the same search and get vastly different results. DuckDuckGo does not use these filters, and two different users will view identical results.

There are times when both Google and DuckDuckGo will agree on the results. Try typing the term “industry norms” in both search engines. As you can see in the examples below, the Baker subject guide on finding industry norms comes up as the first result after the D&B paid advertisement. It comes up in the third spot after the paid ad in DuckDuckGo. That’s pretty close and we laud both search engines for recognizing a quality site!

So… at 7:00 in the evening on November 17 & 18, I’ll settle in to watch Ken Burns’ documentary on the Dust Bowl.

For a little background information, take a look at this short article in the Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History & Culture.

Or, read John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men or In Dubious Battle. Steinbeck drew on the conditions he had seen in the course of his investigations for a 7-part series he wrote on the migrant camps for the San Francisco News. Public response to The Grapes of Wrath was extreme. It was banned and burned, but everyone read it – it was an immediate bestseller.

For more, take a look at one of the dust bowl photo archives like the Wind Erosion Multimedia Archive housed at K-State, or listen to oral history interviews at Farming in the 1930s (Living History Farm in York, NE), or watch this footage made in 1934 by the Kansas Emergency Relief Committee. posted on UTube by the Kansas State Historical Society.

Don’t have time for any of the above? Well, come by the library to see the display on the dust bowl with photos and snippets from diaries and newspaper clippings.

1. You will need to create an ebrary account using the Sign In link in the upper right corner of the ebrary platform.
2. You should review the Quick Start Guide, which provides an overview of the searching, navigation, highlighting, note taking, and other features of the platform.
3. You can review the Printing and Downloading eBooks handout to learn how to print, download, and check out eBooks to a personal eReader or IOS device.
4. You can watch tutorials regarding the ebrary platform from ebrary’s YouTube playlist.
5. You can search for an answer to your question using the ebrary knowledgebase.
6. You can ask a librarian to assist you through your preferred means of communication (in person, over the phone (785.594.8414), online chat, text message, or by email).