Going, Going, Gone...until 2009!

This week we will be here only on Monday, December 22 and Tuesday, December 23 from 8:00 AM until 4:30 PM. In order to save energy, the College will close all buildings except the Student Center after 4:30 Tuesday. Library staff and other college personnel who did not take vacation time will be in the Student Center until we leave on Wednesday.

If you have books to return in order to clear your account, come to the Student Center and one of us will help you.

We wish you a safe and happy holiday and look forward to being back for another challenging and rewarding semester on January 5.

You'll see something new when you come to the library next year. Just watch where you're going so you don't run into it!

What We Did This Semester

Maybe you're one of those people who has a preconceived notion about librarians. You know, we sit behind a desk and point to stuff; we pour over large books of trivial information; we count stuff and put it in alphabetical order. Well, some of that is true; we do tend to count stuff and organize things, but you like that about us, don't you?

Want to know how we spent our time this semester? Well, from August to the end of November, here's what happened in the library:

• We welcomed 97,560 of you into our sanctuary of study.
• We answered 3,296 of your questions.
• We conducted 186 classes in our classroom.
• We taught 2,630 of you in those classes.
• We checked out 3,798 books to you.
• We let you use 2,041 reserve items.
• We loaned you 638 DVDs and 176 CDs.
• We borrowed 88 books and journal articles for you.
• We ordered 407 new books for you.
• We updated our catalog and website for you.
• We added 16 additional computers for you.
• We created a soundproof group study room for you.
• We hosted a guest artist's fabulous paintings for you.

AND

We did it all with the intention of providing the best customer service around!

Whew! We're ready for a little break, aren't you? After this week of exams, we will shorten our workday to 8:00-4:30 Monday through Friday.

Check the website for our hours during the week of Christmas and the first couple of weeks in January.

And rest up over the holiday break. We'll be waiting on you when you get back.

Coffee, Juice, Bagels, and Biscuits

No, that's not the title of the hottest tune on the CMT charts. That's what we had for you this morning if you arrived in time.

Thanks go to Panera Bread for the bagels, Cracker Barrel for the sausage and biscuits, and the library staff for the coffee and juice. And an additional pat on the back to Jed Mescon in Marketing for getting the donations from these area businesses. There's a rumor that the SGA will set the table tomorrow morning (Tuesday).

So, study hard and help yourself to the offerings provided by our sponsors.

And good luck on your exams!!

NetLibrary's E-Book of the Month--December




Hey, remember the tune to the Mickey Mouse Club song? What do you mean, you're not old enough? Yeah, you've heard it, think back.

M-I-C-K-E-Y (short pause) M-O-U-S-E, Mickey Mouse, Mickey Mouse;
Forever let us hold our banner high, high, high, high....

Well, the tune fits with this month's NetLibrary ebook of the Month. Just wave your banner and sing:

B-A-R-A-C-K (short pause) O-B-A-M-A, B'rack Obama, B'rack Obama;
Forever let us hold our Presidents high, high, high, high....

"Written by Martin Dupuis and Keith Boeckelman, this book examines Barack Obama’s meteoric rise to fame and what it means for American politics. The roots of President-elect Obama's politics and presidential campaign strategy are traced in this detailed political biography, ascending from his successful run in 1996 to represent Chicago's South Side in the Illinois Senate, through his partial term as the junior U.S. senator from Illinois beginning in 2004, to his campaign for the presidency. Dupuis and Boeckelman analyze in illuminating detail the critical ways in which the political calculus so brilliantly deployed in Obama's 2007-2008 national campaign was shaped by the lessons he learned from the successes and failures of his previous local and statewide campaigns....

Provided through the generous support of Greenwood Publishing Group, Barack Obama, the New Face of American Politics will be available to Chattanooga State library patrons December 1-31. If you have already established a NetLibrary account through this library, visit www.netLibrary.org and log in. If you do not have a NetLibrary account, you can create an account from any CSTCC library computer. For more information about NetLibrary or other services available through the Chattanooga State library," please contact any of your friendly librarians.

Image credit to NetLibrary.

Attention! NBA Winners Have Been Named!

Aren't you excited? What do you mean, why is the library so interested in the National Basketball Association. Uh...let me start again.

The National Book Award winners have been revealed! You know, the NBA.

Since 1950 the National Book Foundation has celebrated the best of American literature by recognizing and nominating books in the categories of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and young people's literature. The winning awards are given by writers to writers, which makes the recognition even more prized by those who receive it.

As their mission states, the "National Book Awards continues to recognize the best of American literature, raising the cultural appreciation of great writing in the country while advancing the careers of both established and emerging writers...."

This year's winners are:

• Shadow Country, by Peter Matthiessen (fiction)


• The Hemingses of Monticello, by Annette Gordon-Reed (non-fiction)
  
• Fire to Fire: new and collected poems, by Mark Doty (poetry)


• What I Saw and How I Lied, by Judy Blundell (young people's literature)

Don't we all love awards and award shows? Aren't you excited for these writers? We knew you would be. We also thought you might be interested to know who some of the past winners were, so we created a display of previous winners that we have in our book collection. You may have read some of them, but if not, we know you will want to add lots of them to your "to-read" list. That list just gets longer and longer, doesn't it?

Tell you what, they're writin' 'em faster than we can buy 'em!

Image credit to Recorded Books weblog

Money, Money Everywhere and not a Cent to Spend

Is that the way you feel nowadays? People are throwing billions of dollars around like it was birdseed at a wedding, and you just want to be able to buy groceries and gas for the next few months, and maybe get a Christmas present for your devoted mother.

Well, guess what? No, we are not giving away cash, but you can go to one of several Money Management workshops offered by Career Services Center and Consumer Credit Counseling this Thursday, November 20 in OMN-124, otherwise known as the Faculty Dining Room. These times should fit everyone's schedule:

• 8:00
• 9:30
• 11:00
• 12:30
• 2:00

Can't do that? Workshop not your thing? Then take a look at the book display here in the library and you'll find financial advice from the likes of the fabulous Suze Orman, the practical Jean Chatzky, the trusted Motley Fool, and the entertaining Robert Shemin, et al.

OR

How about, you know, the Internet? Here's a coupla useful money management sites you might like to peruse while you wait for Thursday:

SmartMoney.com (investing, saving, and personal finance)

9 Sites That Help with Everyday Budgeting (free online tools and services that help consumers save money and manage it wisely. Whether you're looking to track your credit score, find a better savings rate or finally balance that monthly budget)

Mint.com (Mint downloads, categorizes, and graphs all of your finances automatically every day— so you don’t have to. Know where you’re spending, without spending any effort.)

Motley Fool's Personal Finance (Make more, save more, spend smarter, and keep more of what you earn.)

And good luck with that money managment project or maybe you'll have a New Year's resolution not to buy the $80.00 Wii game you thought you just had to have.

Life may be just a bowl of cherries, but at $4.69 a pound, we want the pits removed first!

Got New Stuff?

Uh, yeah. We add new stuff all the time--books, books on CD, DVDs, too. Didn't you see the current display when you came into the library? Instead of heading for the computers, keep going straight ahead and you will run into the display shelves where we have a selection of new books for your edification. (Look that one up in your Funk & Wagnalls.)

But stop before you run into the display and take a few minutes to notice what we've added just for you!

Here are a few representative titles:

Fine Just the Way it Is: Wyoming stories by Annie Proulx

Good Woman by Danielle Steel (current fiction)

Hot, Flat, and Crowded by Thomas Friedman

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (CD)

One Hour Photo (DVD)

The Last Lecture (CD)

West Side Story (DVD)

Anytime you get to wonderin' what's new under our sun, just go to the library's catalog search and select the "New Books" tab. Choose from a list of locations (or not) and a time when the items were added to see a list of new stuff alphabetized by call number. Click on the title links to see if the they are available or already checked-out.

See, and you thought all we had was computers. Tsk, tsk, tsk.