Government Comics Digitized

The University of Nebraska-Lincoln has a digital Government Comics Collection containing comic books produced/distributed by various governments (U.S. Federal, state, United Nations and European Commission). Also included are some state and federal hearings, posters, and pamphlets.

excerpt from Army comic pageThere are some really unexpected items in this collection. Who’d expect the 1964 Army Equipment Record Procedures technical manual to be in a “comic” format?! Anything to get people to read it, I guess.

Federal Reserve Bank of NY comic pageThey aren’t all historical titles, though. One that is more timely, from 2006, is A penny saved: Why and how we save and how saving helps the U.S. economy (from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York).

McGruff's Surprise Party comic coverAnd of course a number of the comics are aimed at children (in spite of the Army title I mentioned earlier!), such as McGruff’s Surprise Party.

UN landmine comic excerptAn example of a UN comic is UNICEF’s Superman and Wonder Woman: The hidden killer, which is about land mine awareness and aimed at children in Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica.

There’s a simple search box for finding comics of interest to you at the top right, or use the “Search” link above the search box to do more sophisticated searching, such as limiting to specific phrases. If you use this search page, be sure to select the “Government Comic Collection” from the list of collections and click “add>>” before running a search.

Government Printing Office logo

The University Library is a federal depository with many federal, state, local, and international documents on a variety of current and relevant issues available to you in print, microfiche, CD-ROM, and electronically. Come check out your government at the University Library!

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New Stuff Tuesday – July 7

Fixing Sex

Fixing Sex:
Intersex, Medical Authority and Lived Experience
By Katrina Karkazis
JK1764 .H56 2009
New Book Island, 2nd floor

Raise your hand if you’re heard of cystic fibrosis. That’s probably most, if not all, of you. Now, raise your hand if you’re heard of intersex (bonus points if you’re heard of disorders of sex development). I’m going to go out on a limb and say that a significantly less number of you know about the latter. But can you guess which is more common? This week’s featured book explains much more about this sensitive, yet virtually unknown, topic.

Karkazis, a Senior Research Scholar at Stanford University, takes a look at intersexuality and the current debate regarding its diagnosis and treatment, as well as the societal issue of gender. The author provides a history of how the medical condition(s) have been treated in the past, when it was referred to as hermaphroditism, and the controversy that has surrounded those procedures. Karkazis delves deeper than just the medical dispute and gives it a human face with interviews from intersexed individuals and their parents, as well as physicians. The writer does an excellent job making an accessible and thoughtful volume on this complex and contested issue.

As the King of Pop would say, “It doesn’t matter if you’re black or white.”

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Import/Export Figures

Euromonitor has recently bulked up their foreign trade offerings. Our Passport Reference & Markets subscription now contains import/export figures for all sorts of commodities, from fruits to furniture, for approximately 140 countries. Here are a few interesting tidbits that I just learned from looking at the new data:

  • Germany was the world’s biggest exporter of passenger cars in 2008 (US$140,158 million). Forty percent of all of the world’s passenger car exports come from Germany or Japan.
  • The USA was the world’s biggest importer of petroleum and petroleum products in 2008 (US$482,787 million). However, China is rapidly catching up, with growth of 397% in US$ terms between 2003 and 2008.
  • China was the world’s biggest exporter of iron and steel in 2008 (US$65,065 million), exporting 41% more than the second biggest (Germany) with exports growing at an annual average rate of 68% between 2003 and 2008.

To access the new information, click on the Countries link in the main navigational bar – the statistics can be found under the Foreign Trade category to the left.

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Search Engines: Bing v. Google

So I saw on Twitter recently a site where you can compare Bing search results to Google results:

http://www.bing-vs-google.com/

Bing, in case you haven’t heard (or seen the many TV ads), is Microsoft’s new web search engine, which is being advertising as the first “decision” engine.

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Karl Malden, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson

On the Waterfront DVD case coverActor Karl Malden passed away on Wed., July 3rd. I enjoyed watching Mr. Malden in television’s The Streets of San Francisco with a young Michael Douglas, but he also appeared in many movies. Andersen Library has a couple of movies if you’d like to see some of his best work: On the waterfront from 1954 (2nd-floor Browsing DVD, Feature Film, call no. “On”) and A Streetcar named Desire from 1951 (2nd-floor Browsing VHS, call no. PN1997 .S74x), both starring Marlon Brando, by the way.

You can obtain biographical information about Mr. Malden in the database Contemporary Authors, or look for his book, written with his daughter Carla Malden in 1997, When Do I Start?: A Memoir. Andersen Library does not have a copy, but UWW staff & students can request it from other UW campus libraries using the free Universal Borrowing service.

Moonwalk cover artOK, we also lost some other well-known people recently. The Library has a movie Farrah Fawcett made with Robert Duvall in 1997: The Apostle (2nd-floor Browsing DVD, Feature Film, call no. “Apo”) and books about Michael Jackson, including Moonwalk written by the King of Pop himself (3rd-floor Main Collection, ML420 .J175 A3 1988).

If the Fourth of July celebrations aren’t enough for you this weekend, check these out and enjoy.

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July 2nd-6th Library Hours

7am-9pm

Remember that even when the Library is closed:

  • The Library’s article databases are available…just login when prompted with your campus Net-ID (same as for your campus email or D2L).
  • You can search the Library Catalog and use links to the titles that are online, including ereserves for classes.
  • You can renew your checked-out books, DVDs, etc. online (once) through your Personal Record.
  • You can ask a librarian for help using email or chat, or phone us at the Reference Desk during open hours (262-472-1032). Chat will be answered by non-UWW librarians. If you call or email you will not receive a response until the Library is open again.
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New Stuff Tuesday – June 30

The Myth of Digital Democracy

The Myth of Digital Democracy
By Matthew Hindman
JK1764 .H56 2009
New Book Island, 2nd floor

The Internets have revolutionized the way we live our lives. You get your news of the day from CNN.com as opposed to flipping through a newspaper or turning on the television. Instead of making phone calls, you send e-mails. You rely on online product reviews to make purchasing decisions. You blog about your opinions to the world on everything from how you’re feeling at the moment to your political leanings. The electronic series of webs and tubes have given the power to the people, right?

Not so fast there, buddy, says Hindman, political science professor at Arizona State University. The popular belief that the Internet has made politics and the public sphere more accessible given the proliferation of political websites and blogs doesn’t hold up. The author contends that the power has not shifted, that when in reality, it has only strengthened the elite media outlets. He and his colleagues not only looked at the top political and news websites, but also examined link structures and search engine queries to find out just how individuals end up at particular sites. Hindman’s work demonstrates that while the Internet has definitely changed political participation in some ways, the corporate media, the big guys if you will, still control the scene.

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2nd-floor work

You may have noticed some activity and noise on the Library’s 2nd floor lately, as the staff sorted through the large Reference Collection and moved the titles we’re keeping into large shelving stacks behind the Reference Desk. The remaining Reference Collection is much smaller than it was (and a bit less dusty).

The emptied shelves are going to be dismantled this week, and that may be noisy.

If you need quieter study space, please try the 3rd or 1st floors. There are computers on both floors also, and laptops may be checked out for in-library use at the Circulation Desk.

Thank you for bearing with us.

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International Year of Natural Fibres

I’ve blogged a few times now about international years, which the United Nations has been designating since 1959 to to draw attention to major issues and to encourage international action addressing concerns with global importance and ramifications.

2009 is the International Year of Natural Fibres (also of astronomy and reconciliation). Since it’s been so hot lately I thought it was appropriate to talk about cotton, one of the 15 natural fibers being celebrated, and probably my favorite fabric all summer long. One of my coworkers, though, swears by her bamboo shirts and socks.

image of sheep saying I always wear natural woolBut natural fibers like cotton aren’t good only for their ventilation. They also are environment-friendly, renewable, and sustainable, as well as vital to the economies of many developing countries and the livelihoods and food security of millions of people. Did you know that “more than 60% of the world’s cotton is grown in China, India and Pakistan? In Asia, cotton is cultivated mainly by small farmers and its sale provides the primary source of income of some 100 million rural households.” You can get more information from the web site linked above.

Search the Library’s article databases (Academic Search Premier, etc.) to find related articles such as “Waste Couture: Environmental Impact of the Clothing Industry” in Environmental Health Perspectives (2007, vol.115, no.9, pp.A448-A454) and “ECO-CHIC” in Discover (2008, vol.29, no.9, pp.70-71).

Please ask a librarian if you would appreciate assistance in finding these and related materials.

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What to Read Next?

It’s summertime – for some, that’s the time when they actually read books for enjoyment. Although I don’t normally read a whole bunch (I know, I’m a failure of a librarian), I did just finish my second book of the year. Be nice now, because that’s twice as many as I read last year.

Anyway, I’ve kind of gotten the hang of this whole ‘reading’ thing and decided that I wouldn’t mind reading ANOTHER book. Whoa.

But here’s my dilemma – what do I read next? I could either A) ask anyone else that works here for recommendations or…

B) use the Book Seer to offer suggestions on my next literary adventure. To put it to the test, I just finished reading Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs (good stuff). The Book Seer thought that I would also enjoy A Million Little Pieces by James Frey or Stuart: A Life Backwards by Alexander Masters, as well as other titles by Burroughs and Frey.

Just make sure that you actually liked the book that you just finished reading when using the Book Seer. Otherwise, you’re stuck with another bomb.

Thanks to Patty (and Lifehacker) for the link!

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