RSU student finalist in national video competition

Kaitlin Crotty, RSU student and STL worker, has been named a finalist in the 2009 Making the Cut Competition, a national video contest for college students. Kaitlin’s entry, a 30-second spot for the CW 12/19 TV-show Supernatural, will be shown at the Making the Cut session at the PromaxBDA Promotion, Marketing and Design Conference in New York City on June 17.

RSU dean discusses book on social theory

Dr. Frank Elwell, Dean of the School of Liberal Arts at Rogers State University, discussed his recently-published book, Macrosociology: The Study of Sociocultural Systems, on Thursday, April 9, at the Stratton Taylor Library.

The book introduces readers to the classical social theory of Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, and T. Robert Malthus, as well as the modern expressions of these perspectives.

The discussion focused on one particular contemporary theorist, Robert Nisbet, and his thesis of the State as Leviathan, Elwell said. In his first book, The Quest for Community, Nisbet makes known his primary concern about the direction of social development: the expansion of administrative power, particularly government, and the consequent weakening of traditional groups and organizations. It was a concern he expressed over the next four decades. Initially, his primary focus was parallel to Durkheim's: the impact that this weakening of primary group ties had on the normative structure of society, and the consequent lack of integration of individuals into the social order. But over the years he began to focus more upon the impact that this shift had on representative government and individual liberty.

Traditional sociologists were interested in macro forces that affected society, Dr. Elwell explained. Sociologists today are more specialized and attuned to micro theory rather than the "big picture."

Dr. Elwell also displayed the painting Common Ground, which RSU Professor Gary Moeller created for the cover of the book.

Dr. Elwell's areas of academic specialty include social evolution, industrialization, cultural ecology, and social theory. He received a doctoral degree in sociology from the State University of New York at Albany, master's degrees from SUNY-Albany in sociology and SUNY-New Paltz in political science and education, and a bachelor's degree in history and education from Eastern Michigan University. He is the author of several books including Macrosociology: Four Modern Theorists, A Commentary on Malthus' 1798 Essay on Population as Social Theory, The Evolution of the Future, and Industrializing America: Understanding Contemporary Society through Classical Sociological Analysis.

Book Review: Metaphysics and the Forms

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Library talk focuses on 1967 films

Alan Lawless, library director, discussed the book Pictures at a Revolution: Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood by Mark Harris on Jan. 15 at Stratton Taylor Library.

The book by Entertainment Weekly writer Harris gives readers a different take on the five films nominated for the 1967 Academy Awards: Bonnie and Clyde,
The Graduate, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner,
In the Heat of the Night and Doctor Dolittle.

Alan discussed movie reviews, book reviews, and back stories on the films. The book discusses the impact of cultural issues such as the Civil Rights Movement the movie industry and the nation faced in the 1960s. The author also profiles producers and the new wave of actors in the films representing Hollywood's transition from the old studio system.

Alan shared the following from the book:

• It took four days to shoot the famous death scene in Bonnie and Clyde
  
• When the director instructed a nervous Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate to drive faster across the Golden Gate Bridge, Hoffman told himself, "I can't get hurt. This is only a movie."
  
• Filming In the Heat of the Night most hotels in Tennessee would not rent to Sidney Poitier because of his skin color
  
• Spencer Tracy died a month after Guess Who's Coming to Dinner was completed
  
• Animals returned to California after the filming in the Caribbean of Dr. Dolittle had to be quarantined for a month.

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Library to host RefWorks Worshop

Faculty and Staff:

• Do you wish you had one spot online to organize your citations and links from all the sources you use; whether database articles, websites, RSS feeds, or even books?
  
• Would you like an easy way to generate a bibliography in both the file format and style format of your choice? (including in-house format styles for most major scholarly journals)
  
• Do you get tired of students making the same citation formatting mistakes every single semester?
  

Stratton Taylor Library will host a one-hour workshop on Refworks on Thursday, January 8. The workshop for RSU faculty and staff will begin at 2:30 p.m. in room 207 of Stratton Taylor Library.

RefWorks is an online research management, writing and collaboration tool, designed to help researchers gather, manage, store, and share all types of information, as well as generate citations and bibliographies.

 Librarians will demonstrate essential skills needed to

• create an account and log in
  
• create a citation from scratch
  
• export citations from databases, websites, and the WorldCat global library catalog
  
• Edit existing citations
  
• Generate a bibliography of selected citations
  

Attendees will also receive a handout with detailed instructions on every skill covered in the workshop.

Early in the spring semester, Stratton Taylor Library will launch a web tutorial on RefWorks. The library also plans to offer instruction sessions on RefWorks basics on request. Faculty members interested in scheduling a session of RefWorks for their classes should contact Sarah Clark at 343-7719 or sclark@rsu.edu.

"We look forward to serving the research needs of the RSU community with this new project," Sarah said.

Retirement party honors veteran library cataloger

Stratton Taylor Library hosted a retirement party on November 3 for longtime cataloger Shirley Windle. Shirley will retire in February after 32 years of service at Rogers State College and RSU.

A crowd of admirers gathered in the Bird Room for the event. Wearing a crown created by student workers Kaitlin Crotty and Valerie Brown, Shirley regaled attendees with memories from her long career. The room was decorated with green and white streamers, multicolored flowers, and paper stars. Cameras flashed as various associates recounted memorable incidents and humorous quips.

RSU President Dr. Larry Rice met Shirley as a faculty member at Rogers State College in 1979. He praised her long years of service to the institution.

Student worker Anne Mpatiyia appeared at the event wearing a costume from her native Kenya. "Shirley took me under her wing when I started at the library," Anne said. "She made me feel right at home."

"Shirley also took me under her wing 30 years ago," a former student added. "I will always appreciate how she helped me."

In an emotional exchange, Shirley described how much the institution has meant to her. "This place has been my life," she said. "I have been blessed by all the friends I have made over the years."

According to Alan Lawless, library director, Shirley has cataloged more than 70,000 library items. "Shirley's influence will be felt for many years to come," he said.

Campus food service provided refreshments for the party, which included cake, a fruit tree, chips and dips, punch, and coffee.

Librarian presentation features resource-sharing plan

Two Stratton Taylor Library staff members presented a poster session at the annual conference of the Oklahoma Chapter of Association of College and Research Libraries. The conference was held on Nov. 14 at Rose State College in Oklahoma City.

Jan Ferris, public services librarian, and Charles Chessher, library assistant, described the resource-sharing plan between Stratton Taylor Library and Will Rogers Public Library of Claremore. The plan allows patrons of both libraries to check out materials from the partner library.

In 2007, the two libraries launched a pilot resource sharing program to better serve their users. This year the two libraries unveiled a revised plan that will be "faster, simpler, and more convenient," said Alan Lawless, director of the RSU Stratton Taylor Library.

The presentation materials included three handouts and the poster. The color poster, displayed on an easel, depicted the plan in diagram form. Titled "Public-Academic Library agreement benefits patron communities," the poster represented in bullet points the benefits of the plan for libraries and patrons. The handouts included the poster reduced, a summary of lending and requesting library procedures, and a patron information sheet.

During the session, Jan and Charles described the program and answered questions. Librarians asked how Google Docs worked and whether the program has been effective. The presenters explained that Google Docs was selected because it is free and easy to use.

"We explored a number of software platform alternatives," Charles said, "but Google Docs seemed the best fit."

Patrons can go to their primary library, request materials and then go to the lending library to pick up the materials. Each customer can check out four books and two audio/visual items at a time through the resource sharing agreement. Patrons return materials to the lending library.

Although the two libraries are part of a state-wide interlibrary loan program, the plan reduces patron wait time. "Sometimes it takes weeks to receive material through the loan program," Jan said. "The resource sharing agreement will often allow library patrons to pick up materials on the same day or within 24 to 48 hours."

"We are continually seeking to update and improve our lending processes for the good of all of Claremore," Alan said. "This new streamlined program will make the library resources of both libraries more accessible to the public."

WRL and STL librarians are considering a joint presentation on the program at next year's Oklahoma Library Association conference.

 "The new procedures improve what we tried in the pilot program," said Sherry Eldridge, director of the Will Rogers Public Library. "Both libraries want to make it as easy as possible for patrons to take advantage of the program."

More information about the resource sharing program is available by calling Janice Ferris, public services librarian for RSU, at 343-7720, or Sara Slaughter, interlibrary loan coordinator for the Will Rogers Public Library, at 341-1564.