Help us celebrate National Library Week!

April 13th-19th, 2008

Become a fan of the John T. Richardson library or the DePaul Center Library on Facebook, and then stop by either library reference desk for a small, sweet token of our appreciation!

 

According to the economic research service of the US Department of Agriculture, carrot consumption is on the rise, and highest in the East and Central regions of the country.  The online publication "Factors Affecting Carrot Consumption in the United States" examines where and how much fresh and processed carrots are eaten and links this consumption to various economic, social, and demographic characteristics of consumers."  More consumption reports are available from the USDA at: http://www.ers.usda.gov/briefing/consumption/ . 

Don't forget to file your taxes today!  We are excited to bring you further posts highlighting the sometimes unexpected information collected and distributed by official government agencies.

 

If CTA construction is getting you down, stop by the Barnes & Noble DePaul Center this Thursday, April 17, at 5:30 to find out how you can become your own alternative transportation. J. Harry Wray, professor of political science at DePaul, will discuss and sign his new book "Pedal Power: The Quiet Rise of the Bicycle in American Public Life" (LPC 388.34720973 W943p2008), which grew out of the Discover Chicago course he's taught for several years. Wray shows how "politics, economics, and the environment combine to affect culture and be affected by it," and how a bike seat can be the best place to experience that.

Then, if you ride north fast enough, you'll be in time for Steve Almond's reading here at 7 pm in room 300 of Richardson Library. Almond first gained attention with the story collection "My Life in Heavy Metal." He followed that up with "Candyfreak: A Journey through the Chocolate Underbelly of America" (LPC 338.47664153 A452c2004) and a co-authored novel with confessional narrators alternating by chapter. His newest offering is "(Not That You Asked): Rants, Exploits, and Obsessions," a collection of essays with "biting humor, honesty, smarts and heart," according to Kirkus Reviews.

The Academy of American Poets (http://www.poets.org) cites compelling (and somewhat sobering) examples of April in verse:

April is the cruelest month

-- T.S. Eliot

Whan that April with his showres soote
The droughte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veine in swich licour,
Of which vertu engendred is the flowr

-- Geoffrey Chaucer

To what purpose, April, do you return again?

-- Edna St. Vincent Millay

Overcome the year’s dreary passage to spring with the gripping images and enlightening reflections of poetry. Join the month’s celebration at DePaul by attending a reading by Dr. Bernardo Navia, assistant professor in Modern Languages. Stay tuned for details.

 

  The safety pin was patented on this day in 1849 by Walter Hunt of New York.

 

 Source: Chase's Calendar of Events, 2008 Lincoln Park Reference, R.905 C487A1

 

Just to get it out the way, first of all, I love Firefox. It's tabbed browsing functionality has changed the way I work, and it has been a valuable contribution to the open source community.

Now, what's a plugin? For those of you who are not familiar with plug-ins, the open source status of Firefox means that anyone can access the underlying code that makes it run (which is cool, trust me), and therefore, programmers can develop their own tweaks and addons in their free time to firefox that make our computer lives easier.

For me, my add-on of choice is the Download Status Plugin. Essentially, what this did is remove the download status pop-up window that was constantly getting in the way, and replaced it with an intergrated status bar at the bottom of my browsing window. Now, I can keep an eye on my downloads without battling with a pop-up window.

There are hundreds of addons for Firefox, and you can find everything from Forecast Fox, which lets you keep an eye on the weather from your browswer's status bar, to FoxyTunes, a music manager. Check out all the available addons: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/ 

 (1)

Q: What does the phrase "what side your bread is buttered on" really mean?

A: Thanks for your question!  According to the American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms, to "know which side of one's bread is buttered" means to be "aware of where one's best interests lie, as in Jerry always helps out his boss; he knows which side of his bread is buttered. This expression alludes to the more favorable, or buttered, side of bread and has been used metaphorically since the early 1500s."* 

*CredoReference, American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms (2003).

(1) Todd, Mark. Take Care of Billy #28. 7 Apr 2008 <http://www.GIANTROBOT.com>

 

Anniversary of the birth of Billie Holiday, April 7, 1915.  Born Eleanora Fagen in Philadelphia, PA.  Also known as "Lady Day", she was known for her dramatic and unique vocal style.  She died on July 17, 1959 in New York City.  Click here  for biographies and other DePaul library materials about Ms. Day.

Source: Chase's Calendar of Events, 2008 Lincoln Park Reference, R.905 C487A1, Picture courtesy of the American Memory Project. 

Last week in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Judith Tabron, the director of faculty computing services at Hofstra University, wrote a commentary entitled, "How to Find What clicks in the Classroom." http://chronicle.com/weekly/v54/i29/29a03801.htm

I can still remember when submitting an assignment by email, rather than handing the professor a print copy, seemed like cutting edge. These days, educational technology has gone way this point, and, in fact, a student can now complete an entire degree program without ever setting foot on a college campus. Obviously, some technologies, like course management software (Blackboard, Moodle), have enjoyed more success than others, and new tools seem to constantly pop up. In her article, Tabron makes a strong argument for trying out new technologies in the classroom, regardless of cost, and the impact it can make on teaching.  

She comments, "It may seem that the seeds are too expensive, but we have a compelling reason to pay the price: Our students live online. They fall in love, they shop, they order pizza on the Web. Their iPods, TV's, and Xboxes are sophisticated technologies. They instant-message their blogs from their cellphones, and they can't picture college having a place in any of this, because we haven't shown them that it can. It will be a dismal future if the only thing our graduates cannot do online is learn."