Welcome!
by Elizabeth Keen, Circulation Supervisor

Welcome to all students, new and returning! The Library has been eagerly anticipating your arrival – in fact, we’ve been gearing up all summer.

You’ll first notice some changes as you enter the Library and make your way around the stacks – the Microform Room has been moved to the first floor behind the Reference Desk, and in its place on the second floor are the Curriculum collection and all of the dissertations, theses, and portfolios. Looking for a videotape, a CD, or any other kind of media? Look no further than Room 214! We’ve consolidated all of the media (audio and audiovisual) into this room, and also created a new room (Room 212) for all of our media equipment.

Check out our new theme – “Silence is Golden on the 2nd Floor.” We know that during the course of the semester, you will have times when you need to do a group project requiring collaboration and communication with your classmates, but you will also have times when you need to study quietly for a test or research a paper. The Library is committed to serving the total you – which is why we have labeled the first floor as the place for group studying and the second floor as the place for silent study and research. Keep an eye out for the reminders posted throughout the Library!

Also – we heard your requests through our Customer Satisfaction Survey, and the Library has extended its hours! We will open a half-hour earlier (7:30 a.m.) Monday through Friday, and an hour earlier on Saturdays (8:00 a.m.) and Sundays (2:00 p.m.)! Also, our Friday and Saturday evening hours have been extended so that we are open until midnight on both of these days. Our goal is to serve the Regent community by offering as much study and research time here as possible. To view a more detailed schedule of the Library’s openings and closings for the 2006-2007 school year, please click here.

Also, be on the lookout for some fun and informative events that the Library will be hosting this fall semester. Some of them are:

See you around this semester!

Back to contents

You Spoke -- We Listened!
by Harold Henkel, Assistant Librarian

Back to contents

Meet Jon Ritterbush!
by Jon Ritterbush, Assistant Librarian

Inside the Library
by Charlise Holmes, Assistant Circulation Supervisor

Graphic Novels, Anyone?

Did you know that the University Library has a diverse collection of graphic novels available for check-out? Built largely on donations, we have items ranging from obscurities like Cages by Dave McKean and Space War by Steve Ditko, to more popular books like the Fantastic Four by Mark Waid and X-Men by Grant Morrison. Enthusiasts might take special interest in our collection of DC Archive Comics from the 1930s-1970’s, while Animation students should find our ever expanding Manga collection especially helpful with their academic research. Whatever your interest, the University Library is sure to have something to satisfy the comic book lover in anyone.

                          Back to contents

Undergraduate Research
by Harold Henkel, Assistant Librarian

Welcome to our new and returning students. Undergraduate Research will be a monthly column this year, with information and recommendations on the fundamentals of college research. Although the column will be especially geared for our undergraduates, it is hoped that all researchers will find it informative as well.

Don’t Full Text!

As a reference librarian, I have noticed that students searching databases often automatically select the full-text option, which limits the search to only those results that also include the full text of an article. This is almost never a good strategy because the very best article for your paper may be in the database as a citation (possibly with an abstract), but you will not find out about it if you select full-text limiter. Very often, the article will be in another of the Library’s premium databases, sometimes only a couple of mouse clicks away. Librarians at the Reference Desk can help you go from a citation in one database to the full article in another. If the article is not available in any of the Library’s resources, Interlibrary Loan will be happy to acquire the article for you from a library that has it.

Nearly all databases contain a combination of full-text articles, abstracts, and citations. Not selecting the full-text option gives you complete access to all the articles indexed in the database and give you a much better understanding of “what’s out there” on your research topic.

Back to contents

Collection Spotlight--Memory and the Mediterranean by Fernand Braudel
Reviewed by Fotini Kontos, Assistant Librarian

Fernand Braudel embraces the monumental task of explaining the history of the Mediterranean from Paleolithic time to classical antiquity in one volume. He begins in the second half of the stone age and ends in the 4th century A.D. with the building of Constantinople by Emperor Constantine and his conversion to Christianity.

Fernand Braudel (1902-1985) was a leading French historian and leader of the Annales School which had as its goal the study of historical time as a combination of three factors: geographical, social and individual times to make the past a unity and reality.

From Braudel, we see that human society cannot be explained by an abstract theory, but is the combination of underlying forces such as geographical constraints as well as economical and natural forces all working together to shape human history. Therefore, the author invites us to see the Mediterranean in its broad geographical context that brought together with the great civilizations of the Middle East, Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Sahara, the steppes of Russia, and the forests of Germany. According to Braudel, the sea has to be seen again and again: “By looking at the [Mediterranean] sea somebody can look into the past and that past comes back to life.”

Braudel sees the sea as the witness to the changes that occurred in the civilizations that came into contact with the Mediterranean. According to Braudel, these civilizations gave and received, influenced and were influenced by other cultures and civilizations. He indicates evidence of the changes and influences of the civilizations in the art, shippery, farming, agriculture, metallurgy, writing, religious, and monetary aspects of life.

As the editor indicates, the book does not have an obvious conclusion since it was meant to be the first volume in a series of works. Memory and the Mediterranean is a fascinating book addressed to both historians and the general public who are interested in studying the past and tracing the roots of contemporary western civilization.

Back to contents

Past Issues

Would you like to be notified when new issues of Library Link become available?
Send us an email with "Subscribe" in the subject line.
Please send your comments and suggestions . Your opinion matters!