New Stuff Tuesday – May 1

Posted on May 1, 2012 by kyle

Science of Yoga

The Science of Yoga:
The Risks and the Rewards
by William Broad
RA781.7 .B757 2012
New Arrivals, 2nd floor

Take a deep breath. It’s the last week of classes, and that’s when things get a little crazy. Hopefully you’ve been keeping up with your studies throughout the semester, but we all know that time can get away from us. How about a little relaxation [in case you missed the Relaxathon here a few weeks ago] through yoga? This week’s featured title goes into just what exactly goes on when you do all that stretching.

Broad, senior writer for the New York Times and forty-year practitioner of yoga, seeks to bring a scientific eye to the table with regards to the centuries-old practice that originated in India. He briefly covers all of the major types of yoga, because you know that you wondered what’s the difference between Bikram and Vinyasa [one’s really hot and sweaty], as well as the major influences over the years. The author then spends the majority of the book detailing the benefits found in empirical studies with regards to health and wellness, conveniently including plenty of references for further reading.

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The Literature Lover’s Mother-Lode

Posted on April 30, 2012 by Martha

Are you a short story or poetry fan? Are you searching for short stories by authors such as Thomas Hardy or Charles Dickens for an English class project? Or perhaps sweet poems like “A Thought for Mother’s Day” by Mamie Collins Barry for Mom this Mother’s Day? How about a soothing story about the flowers and birds of spring such as “Buds and Bird-Voices” by Nathaniel Hawthorne?

The LitFinder database from Gale Cengage Learning provides full text access to a wide variety of plays, short stories, poems, speeches and essays. For each item it also lists the title of the book or periodical where it was published. The topics and authors covered by this database range from classics like poetry by Robert Burns to science fiction stories by H.G. Wells.

So, click the link below and discover the literary treasures contained in this wonderful database!
LitFinder

Note: This database is available through BadgerLink and can be accessed for free by Wisconsin residents, including UW-Whitewater students, faculty, and staff, who access it within the state.

By Christine Fary

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What’s a prezi??

Posted on April 26, 2012 by Barbara

I learned very recently that a student was asking for help with a prezi. What’s that?! Someone told me it was like a PowerPoint presentation “on steroids.”

There’s a web site for Prezi. It says it’s a “zooming presentation editor” and provides some examples you can watch. There is also a lot of help on the site to get you started, whether you are starting from scratch or “Prezifying” an existing PowerPoint. The instruction includes cheat sheets of the main points, and there’s a manual available.

You can have content including text, images, videos, YouTube videos, PDFs, or other media, and you can direct elements to fly on and off the screen in exciting ways and resize them to emphasize their relative importance during the presentation. It’s free cloud-based software as long as you don’t need more the 100MB, and you don’t mind your presentations being public. If you want them to be private, or you need more storage space, you must subscribe. Either way, you can save your creations for offline presenting (backups are always a good idea!). There’s even a Prezi Viewer for iPad (which also lets you edit your Prezi on your iPad).

Have fun!

Here’s a sample (click the right arrow to advance, and then to select autoplay click it under “More”):

The magical theory of relativity on Prezi

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Earth Week events, photos Th 4/26

Posted on April 25, 2012 by Barbara

UW-W will have several events celebrating Earth Week on Thurs., Apr. 26, with the theme “We are All Connected by Rivers.”

Photos submitted by students, faculty/staff and community members will be displayed at a variety of venues around campus, including Andersen Library’s big screen TV (near the entrance and Circulation Desk)!

    Also on Thursday:

  • 9am-2pm (UC275): Earth Week Expo, focusing on sustainability, an important campus initiative, will consist of businesses and organizations displaying sustainability products and practices.
  • 9:30-10:45am (UC Hamilton Room): Chad Pegracke of Living Lands and Waters, will deliver a keynote talk about his years of experience cleaning America’s rivers.
  • noon-1pm (Timmerman Auditorium, Hyland Hall): Paul Scott, a founding member of Plug In America, speaks about the transition to electric transportation
  • 1-4pm (Upham Hall parking lot 14): Hybrid vehicle technology car show
  • 2-3:15pm or 3:15-4:30pm (depart from Upham Hall parking lot 14): Transportation will take you from the auto show to the LEED-certified Innovation Center for a 1-hour tour of the facility and the new trails surrounding it. George Clokey, Dept. of Biological Sciences, will lead the short trailwalks, so put your walking shoes on!
  • 4-5pm (Upham Hall 145): Representatives from Chevrolet, Ford, Honda, Nissan and Toyota lead an Automobile Forum on current and future hybrid technology.
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Historic Aerial Photos of Wisconsin

Posted on April 23, 2012 by Carol

historic photo of UWW

The Wisconsin Historic Aerial Image Finder allows users to experience Wisconsin from the air as it looked in the late 1930s. The web site provides provides free online access to over 38,000 aerial photographs of Wisconsin that were taken from 1937-41 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and U.S. Geological Survey.

The photos, which are housed in the Robinson Map Library at University of Wisconsin-Madison, were digitized and indexed in a three-year project funded by the Ira and Ineva Reilly Baldwin Wisconsin Idea Endowment at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

The Wisconsin Historic Aerial Image Finder can be searched by city, county, street address or geographic coordinates. Once the photos are located, the images may be downloaded in JPG or TIFF formats in varying resolutions.

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Earth Day & Frozen Planet

Posted on April 22, 2012 by Ronna

Earth Day is today, April 22. To celebrate, why not watch the Discovery Channel’s multi-part documentary, Frozen Planet? They are running the first 7 episodes today, beginning at 1 pm. The final episode premieres tonight at 7 pm CST.

Watch summer, spring, autumn, and winter in the Arctic and Antarctica. Follow polar bears, penguins, seals, and other wildlife as they live and survive the changing polar seasons. Breathtaking scenery, beautiful animals….you really want to see this.

You can also catch all episodes online, on the Discovery Channel website.

Want to learn more about our planet? The Library has lots of resources, e.g., Encyclopedia of the Antarctic, available in the Reference Collection on the main floor of the Library. Or try On Thin Ice: The Changing World of the Polar Bear, available in the Main Collection on the third floor. Or maybe you’d prefer Fraser’s Penguins: A Journey to the Future in Antarctica, also in the Main Collection. These and many other resources can be found by searching the Library’s online catalog.

Need help finding what you need? Ask a reference librarian.

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Tornado Drill statewide 1:45 today TH 4/19

Posted on April 19, 2012 by Barbara

Andersen Library will participate in the tornado drill at 1:45 p.m. on Thursday April 19.

So, if you are working (or socializing) in Andersen Library at that time, please be prepared to move to a designated tornado shelter area! That means you should save your work, etc., BEFORE 1:45 p.m.

Thank you for your cooperation. The drill should end at 2 p.m.

Of course, you don’t know where you’ll be when a real tornado warning happens! More information about tornado safety at home, work, or play is available from Ready Wisconsin. Additional tornado safety guidelines are available from the Wisconsin Dept. of Health Services.

Andersen Library is a federal and Wisconsin depository library with many federal and state government documents on a variety of current and relevant issues available to you in print, microfiche, CD-ROM, and electronically. Check out your government at Andersen Library!

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New Stuff Tuesday – April 17

Posted on April 17, 2012 by kyle

Colour Hunting

Colour Hunting:
How Colour Influences Why We Buy, Make and Feel
by Frame Publishers
NK1548 .C65 2011
New Arrivals, 2nd floor

All of this construction going on around here makes it a tad hard to concentrate. I find myself easily distracted, but not because of the saws and jackhammers. It’s because I can’t stop thinking about the finished product and what it’s going to look like. One of the major questions: what colors are they going to use? This week’s featured title tells me that the colors will impact how I feel about the new spaces.

Flipping through the pages of this book will put you on sensory overload, which is filled with amazing images of every shade and tone of color imaginable. Experts share their insights into what compels us to pick the shirt on the rack in the ‘Commerce’ section, the conceptual underpinnings of color in the ‘Aesthetics’ section, and finish up with touchy-feely side of the equation in the ‘Wellbeing’ section. It’s written and presented more in the coffee-table-book style of things, but that doesn’t mean that it won’t catch your eye as you learn about the nuances and idiosyncrasies of color.

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Media Arts and Game Development Expo April 16

Posted on April 15, 2012 by Barbara

The Media Arts and Game Development (MAGD) Expo will take place on Mon., Apr. 16, in the University Center. April 16th is also Foursquare Day (4sqDay), a social media holiday, so everyone is encouraged to check in at as many university locations as possible during the day!

Attendees will be able to test games and view 2- and 3-dimensional art, and listen to speakers from the game industry: Neil Glancy, vice president and creative director of the Fun Machine game studio, and Matthew Rathbone, lead engineer for Foursquare.

If you are interested in learning more about video games, Andersen Library has resources!

cover of bookSearch Andersen Library’s catalog to find books about the technology of game design, the history of gaming, or social and educational aspects of video games. Among the titles you could find are: Replay: The history of video games (3rd-floor Main Collection, GV1469.3 .D66 2010), Video games and learning: Teaching and participatory culture in the digital age (3rd-floor Main Collection, GV1469.3 .S76 2011), and Video game spaces: Image, play, and structure in 3D game worlds (3rd-floor Main Collection, GV1469.3 .N58 2008).

Andersen Library also has consoles (Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Wii and Nintendo 3DS) and a collection of video games (browse the 2nd-floor collection or search the catalog to find titles, e.g., xbox titles).

Search article databases for articles such as “Designing social videogames for educational uses” (Computers & Education, 2012, vol.58:no.1, pp.250-262, doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2011.08.014) and “Integrating dynamic full-body motion devices in interactive 3D entertainment” (IEEE Computer Graphics & Applications, 2002, vol.22:no.4, pp.76-86), and “Bringing VR and spatial 3D interaction to the masses through video games” (IEEE Computer Graphics & Applications, 2008, vol.28:no.5, pp.10-15).

Please ask a librarian for assistance with finding materials.

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Visit the Hoard Historical Museum

Posted on April 13, 2012 by Barbara

Hoard Historical Museum web site bannerNeed a break this weekend? Visit the Hoard Historical Museum in Fort Atkinson (401 Whitewater Avenue)! It’s open Tues through Sat, 9:30am-4:30pm. It’s free, but of course a modest donation would be most welcome.

Image of cover of Jan/Feb 2012 Columns  There’s something there for nearly everyone, including the National Dairy Shrine collection and exhibits; an exhibit on the poet Lorine Niedecker; information about Lincoln, Black Hawk, and Hoard (founder of the Hoard’s Dairyman); the “Bird Room” containing birds mounted by naturalist Thure Kumlein and taxidermist Walter Pelzerand; and a new exhibit, “Mysteries of the Mounds.” You can read a description of the Hoard on page 7 of the Jan./Feb. 2012 issue of Columns: The Newsletter of the Wisconsin Historical Society. The web site can tell you when events are taking place, such as garden education programs, art exhibitions, and programs on historical topics.

Also available during museum hours is the Knox Research Library and Archive, which contains “primary documents, personal and business records, photographs, maps, newspapers, and published materials that are of historical significance to the Fort Atkinson area.” Consult the web site for restrictions on the use of these materials and costs.

This can spark your interest in local history and whet your appetite for additional information!

For example, you can read more about Thure Kumlien in the Wisconsin Magazine of History by searching for his name on the publication’s web site. Andersen Library also has this magazine in the 1st-floor Bound Periodicals collection. The Library also has his biography, Thure Kumlien, Koshkonong: Naturalist, in Special Collections (1st-floor, call no. QH31 .K85 M34x), which is open M-F from 9am-4:30pm. You can always ask a librarian for help finding materials on taxidermy, Black Hawk’s War, Lorine Niedecker, and more!

Andersen Library is a federal and Wisconsin depository library with many federal and state government documents on a variety of current and relevant issues available to you. Columns, the bimonthly newsletter of the Wisconsin Historical Society, is available in print in the 2nd-floor Wisconsin Documents Collection at Wis HIS 4/3:. Come check out your government at Andersen Library!

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