After-Hours Studying

Looking for a quiet place to practice a presentation or brainstorm a group project? You now have 24/7 access to rooms A103 and A104, located by the auditorium. These rooms each have a projector, giving you the ability to give that Power Point presentation a test run before class.

New Library Books

Here are a two titles that may be of interest, both for research and non-required reading:

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie (2007)

This National Book Award Winner tells the tale of Junior, a boy caught between two worlds. Junior, who is teased mercilessly, decides to attend school outside of the Spokane Indian reservation. Junior loves to draw, and his pictures and cartoons intersperse each short chapter of his story. This is a great, fast read!

Sugar in My Bowl: Real Women Write About Real Sex, edited by Erica Jong (2008)

This collection of essays, short stories, and even a short comic, tells (very) frank tales of sexual encounters, ideals, and societal mores. Included in this anthology are notable figures like Eve Ensler, Jennifer Weiner, Gail Collins, and Liz Smith.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, by Jonathan Safran Foer (2005)

Oskar, a smart and spritely boy of nine, loses his beloved father in the terrorist attacks of September 11th. Soon after his loss, Oskar finds a mysterious key among his fathers possessions, and he is convinced that his puzzle-loving parent left him a final mystery to solve. He embarks on a journey to trace the lost lock, coming across a variety of unique New York personalities along the way.


Stop into the library to check them out today!

Wikipedia's 24 Hour Blackout Starts Tomorrow

No, you did not break Wikipedia by placing your friend's name in the entry for "vampire" for the fifteenth time.* Wikipedia has joined a host of other websites in protesting the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA), two recently-proposed Congressional bills that seek to resolve issues of copyright infringement.

According to the following blog entry from The New York Times, Wikipedia will be joining Reddit and technology blog Boing Boing in protest by shutting down their servers this Wednesday. Google will also participate, but it will not shut down service; according to Bloomberg Businessweek, they will be posting a link to their dissenting stance on the proposed bills.

SOPA would allow the Department of Justice to block and prosecute foreign websites that violate U.S. copyright laws. According to Reuters, "Internet service providers could be required to block access to foreign sites and U.S. online ad networks could be required to stop ads and search engines barred from directly linking to them."

PIPA allows for similar action. OpenCongress, a subsidiary of Project Sunlight, states that PIPA allows the Justice Department to shut down websites that are alleged of copyright infringement. (OpenCongress also houses a complete list of backers and dissenters of SOPA and PIPA.)

So, when Wikipedia is down, what is a boy or girl to do? You can try these similar library-backed resources to get you through the day:

• The Gale Virutal Reference Library houses thousands of entries from definitive subject-based encyclopedias. Log on from the library's website.
• The library also houses a number of subject encyclopedias in print. Stop in and browse our reference collection, which is only a few steps away from our computer bank on the first floor.

New York Times' blog post
Full text of SOPA 
Full text of  PIPA

* This really happened. It was not pretty for all parties involved. Do not do it.