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I am not exactly sure 'Generation F' is really going to take off as the new short hand description for the up and coming generation, but I thought this article did a good job of highlighting some of the working and learning styles of students and those just entering the workplace.
The Facebook Generation vs. the Fortune 500 via Management 2.0.
New to St Thomas Libraries! POIESIS Philosophy Online
The opening search screen in this database divides journal titles between those in full text and those that are only indexed. But the SEARCH box works across all the titles, like other ordinary library databases. This SEARCH is the best way to use this database, unless you want to “browse” specific publications.
The basic search defaults to a search term anywhere, which is problematic in full-text collections. (In Advanced Search, you can limit to title, author, or abstract, but there is no subject indexing. Relevance seems controlled by term frequency and proximity).
We now have two philosophy indexes for research. On the one hand, Philosopher’s Index remains our major one since it covers many more journals than POIESIS. On the other hand, POIESIS provides exclusive full text access and full text searching for a number of journals of special interest to St Thomas students and faculty.
BONUS: And why is it called POIESIS ?
Poïesis is etymologically derived from the ancient Greek term ποιέω, which means "to make". This word, the root of our modern "poetry", was first a verb, an action that transforms and continues the world. Neither technical production nor creation in the romantic sense, poïetic work reconciles thought with matter and time, and man with the world
Find It is our name for a “link resolver,” that is to say, our automated method to tell you if St Thomas owns a specific journal article. It is a fantastic time saver, though a little complex, even a tad confusing until you get the hang of it
You may have noticed the recently improved look of the Find It tool -- a few design and some cosmetic changes have been made. 
So this may be a good time to review major Find It features.
In searching databases you will often come across citations that include the small Find It button. Find It retrieves/displays a lot of access information and lets you see if UST has the article you need and in what format.
• Find It checks UST resources to see if we have an article and if it is available online or in print form View image of Find It
• Find It tells you which UST library has the journal View image of a print-only article
• If an article is online, Find It can usually provide a direct link to the article, even in another resource you are not logged into. View image showing online access
• If St Thomas does not have access to an article, Find It tells you. Right there you can choose to request it through interlibrary loan View image of options
• Find It is not perfect. It has trouble with books and essays in books, or separately index chapters. View image
If in doubt, use the CLICnet search option View image
Let's celebrate the 50th anniversary of the O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library -- with a talk about books.
You are all invited to a Noon Conversation with Donna Nix on Tuesday, March 31 in Room 102 of the O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library. Donna is currently a reference and curriculum librarian who manages the Children's Literature and Curriculum collections at the Keffer Library. She has experience as a classroom teacher, school librarian, consultant for school libraries, and has been a "reader of kids books for a very l-o-n-g time."
In a modified and condensed version of her program at the 2009 Hubbs Children's Literature Conference this past February, Ms. Nix will introduce us to the award-winning children's and young adult books for 2009 and answer your questions about books you might want to give to your children, your grandchildren, your little brothers and sisters.
Bring your lunch if you wish -- we'll provide the beverages and light dessert Call Julie at 962-5014 for more information.
The New York Times published the above-titled article on March 14th. The author interviews a variety of academic and business sources exploring this question and issues whether an increasingly quantitative and research-based focus of business faculty places inadequate emphasis on real world situations and ethical concerns.
We all now have a powerful new tool: Google Book Search working in tandem with the CLICnet library catalog. Google Book lets you search the actual content of several million books. The CLICnet library catalog shows readily available titles; it also shows subjects to direct you to other relevant books.
CLICnet to Google Books
Find a book on topic in CLICnet, then use Google Book Search to see if it has been digitized and, if so, then much of the text may be viewable (Limited Preview feature offers a generous sample).
Example of CLICnet to Google Books:
Give it a try:
GOOGLE BOOK SEARCH in tandem with
CLICNET LIBRARY CATALOG
In connection with its series on immigration in the United States, the New York Times has used census data to develop an interactive immigration map. From 1880 to 2000, you can track selected immigrant groups (including groups from Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas) in their movement to, and around, the United States. It's a wonderful and visual use of census data.
An article in yesterday's New York Times describes search funds, or venture capital firms that use recent MBAs to identify midmarket acquisition targets, which the funds buy, and the MBAs help to run for one or two years. In about a quarter of the cases, these investments return thirty percent, making a lot of money for everyone involved. This business model started at Stanford twenty-five years ago.
This is the way a search fund typically works: One or two ambitious graduates of a top-tier business school, who want to run their own business but recognize they lack practical experience, offer themselves as fledgling entrepreneurs who can make some tough-minded investors a lot of money.
Read the rest of the article, part of Bill Bowers' small business and entrepreneurship column, "In The Hunt," here.
Visit our online exhibit of these cards: Holy Cards as Objets Trouves.
When discovered wedged into returned library books, most "found" holy cards, if harmless (bookmarks, scraps of paper, postcards, letters, receipts, etc.) are simply tossed into a box to be eventually disposed of, sometimes decades later. For long years library staff here at Ireland Library have set aside hundreds of holy cards (in a box of course).
Some are beautiful (handmade paper lace cards, art nouveau, art deco, Italian and German chromolithographs), some have local associations (ordinations, funerals, anniversaries), some are rather odd, many are touching. All have a wonderful immediacy and embody popular piety in the very best sense of the word.
With the success of photo sharing on the web (the best known is Flickr, although we use SmugMug for its flexibility), our library now has an opportunity to share some cards with you.
A handicap is that these sites do not readily support a “two up” view of the card, the recto usually the image (either handmade or chromolithograph) and the verso often a prayer, petition, or occasion notice.
In some ways, too, as convenient as online display may be, the tactile nature of the holy card is missing – held in the hand, turned over, and read, or prayed these cards are somehow more like textiles and ceramics than many other art objects. To say nothing of their significance as devotional items! Some of the cards in our library exhibit signs of wear, having been held and faithfully used, thumbed, prayed, replaced, and held again.
Rafael Tarrago, librarian for Iberian and Ibero-American Studies at the University of Minnesota, will lecture today on the origins, development and contemporary implications of indigenous Andean religious art in the 17th and 18th centuries.
The presentation will be held from 4 to 5:30 p.m. Thursday, March 12, in Room 108, the O'Shaughnessy Room, of O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library Center. A short reception will follow the lecture.
European artistic media and styles were introduced to the Andean region of South America during the 16th century. By the end of that century, the cities of Potosi and Cuzco had produced
accomplished artists in all the fine arts.
Like their European counterparts, Andean painters in the 17th century began incorporating regional landscapes and fauna in their depictions of traditional religious subjects (Jesus Christ, Mary and the saints), though some unique forms of representing the Virgin were beginning to appear in Potosi and Cuzco.
In the 18th century, Cuzco painters divorced themselves entirely from European models by accentuating symbolic design over naturalistic image. In religious paintings this development resulted in depictions of Jesus Christ, Mary and the saints that resemble paintings of sculptures rather than pictorial representations of reality. Tarrago will describe the origin, nature and contemporary implications of these developments with ample numbers of reproductions used as illustrations.
This event is co-sponsored by the Center for Catholic Studies and the Art History Department.
By Dan Gjelten, Director of UST Libraries
Bulletin Today, March 10, 2009
In the fall of 2008, as we began the yearlong celebration of 50 years of service to the UST community at this location, the UST Libraries contracted with the Association of Research Libraries to conduct the LibQual survey among our users. This highly regarded survey has been completed more than 1,000 times at 500 college and university libraries around the world.
The goals of the survey as stated by LibQual:
Foster a culture of excellence in providing library service
Help libraries better understand user perceptions of library service quality
Collect and interpret library user feedback systematically over time
Provide libraries with comparable assessment information from peer institutions
Identify best practices in library service
Enhance library staff members' analytical skills for interpreting and acting on data
The UST Libraries were interested in finding new ways of measuring the quality of our services in the three main areas covered by the questions in the survey:
The quality and affect of services provided by staff
The quality and scope of the libraries’ content collections (print and electronic)
The quality of the library’s physical spaces
We conducted the online survey for two weeks in October and had a total response rate of more than 22 percent. The survey was sent to students (undergraduate and graduate), faculty and staff. Of all respondents, 25 percent described their academic areas as business, 17 percent as humanities, 13 percent as social sciences, 12 percent as education and 8 percent as science and math, and the rest were distributed among other disciplines. Fifty-nine percent of our respondents were over the age of 30, and 21 percent were between 18 and 22.
(In addition to the questions, respondents were given the chance to comment. A few of the more than 200 comments we received are included in the column to the right.)
The answers to the 27 questions in the survey (22 standard and five "local") had three dimensions each:
What is the minimum acceptable level of service?
What is the desired level of service?
What is the perceived level of service?
Asking the questions in this way allows the library to measure the degree to which we are meeting our user’s expectations. We interpret "desired" to be an indication of the importance that our users place on each of these aspects of library service – giving us a good idea of what our users really want us to be doing. The gap between the perceived level of quality and the desired level of quality, then, is a measure of the opportunity to improve library services. In a few cases, we learned that we were actually exceeding user expectations – with "perceived" levels of quality that were higher than "desired"– and for one population, on one question, we fell below minimum expectations.
Our preliminary findings
As we began to look at the preliminary results, it became clear that the user groups had differing expectations of the libraries at UST. Faculty are most concerned about having resources that support their work (understanding that "work" can mean teaching, research or consulting.) Faculty are happy with our interlibrary loan services and feel that the libraries are doing well at providing community and learning spaces for students, but felt we need more extensive collections. We are more aware now that there is room for improvement in communicating and describing the full extent of our collections to the faculty – many are unaware of the resources that the libraries’ already own.
Graduate students, on the other hand, care most for the ability to use our resources remotely – with a Web site that makes our electronic services and resources as easy to use as possible. When they come to the library in person, they want a building that is easy to navigate and with working and accessible technology – they don’t want to waste their time.
Our undergraduate populations clearly care about the library as place – with plentiful and well-functioning equipment, places for group study as well as places to "get away." Interacting with library staff isn’t necessarily a priority for the undergraduate population, which would like to do their work on their own and be able to navigate and search without help. Undergraduates also place a high value on a clear and easy to navigate Web site. Our UST staff colleagues appreciate library staff who are courteous and willing to help – they, among all of our user groups, seem to value a personal connection to the library staff.
For each of our constituent groups, we see opportunities for improved library services that more closely address the identified desires and needs of our users. We will be increasingly focused on designing and developing a Web site that is clear and easy to navigate, and which makes available a wide and deep collection of information resources. We also will work to communicate more effectively so that all of our users know what the libraries own. Creating physical and virtual library spaces that are sophisticated, information-rich and “easy to use” is a challenge, and one that the libraries take seriously.
More data and analysis will be forthcoming from the LibQual survey and the libraries intend to continue the conversation within the UST community with the goal of continuous improvement in library collections and services.
We have posted the full text of the survey along with our preliminary analysis on our LibQual Web site, and further additions will be added to this page and announced on our UST Library blog.
Some Survey Comments:
"I have been very pleased with how the library supports teaching and research and how it provides book-oriented events and displays (April poetry reading, banned book week, etc.)"
"I think the Library staff is first rate and the service provided – reference, interlibrary loan, multimedia, etc. – is very strong. I could not do the work I do both in the classroom and in my research without the UST Library."
"The staff has always been courteous and extremely helpful in answering questions and helping me get desired materials. The one thing I would really like to see is for the library to become a more central gathering place for the campus community."
"I am a very very frequent user of interlibrary loan. It is my doorway to research."
"I use the library electronically constantly through the day every day. I am able to find the research materials I need. With five books in little more than five years, I believe the library is very much part of my personal success … ."
"I think our expectations for online access to materials have just zoomed, so it is understandable that the library can't possibly keep up. I have to admit that I share the same frustration as students when something I'd like to see is not available online … ."
"I'd like to see more electronic journal collections or other research resources accessible from the Web."
It took almost 2 months of persistence to get the GVRL databases working for everyone from every place! I know the students will benefit from the hard work and perserverance Carolyn contributed to this problem. Thanks for your hard work Carolyn!
Diane
The University of St. Thomas' O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library Center and Center for Irish Studies will co-host their annual St. Patrick's Day Open House from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesday, March 17, in the library's Special Collections Reading Room (Room LL09).
A brief program begins at 12:15 p.m., and the public is invited.
The event features readings and the display of new and rare Irish books from the university’s Celtic Collection. St. Thomas' 9,200-volume Celtic Collection, the largest of the university's special collections and one of the 10 largest collections of Celtic materials in North America, includes works on Irish history and politics, church history and religion, and folklore, art and music of the Celtic nations.
The collection was begun in 1917, when the Ancient Order of Hibernians of Minnesota gave to the library 500 titles on then-contemporary Irish politics and 19th-century Irish history, evidently to commemorate the 1916 Easter Uprising in Ireland.
Donations and acquisitions since have bolstered the collection. About 85 percent of the collection focuses on Ireland; 10 percent on Scotland; and 5 percent on the other Celtic nations ( Wales, Cornwall, the Isle of Man and Brittany). Nearly 30 percent of the Celtic Collection consists of titles written in Celtic languages, most often Irish.
The St. Thomas Center for Irish Studies was established in 1996 to advance teaching and scholarship in Irish studies for students, faculty and friends of the university through publications, instruction and public programs. Among other activities, the center publishes New Hibernia Review, a quarterly journal of Irish Studies.
For further information about the open house, call Special Collections, (651) 962-5467, or the Center for Irish Studies, (651) 962-5662.
Founded in 1959, Motown is not just the name of an iconic record label, but it is also a linguistic term the same as ‘infotainment’, ‘blog’ and ‘fanzine’. What is the name of this splendacular linguistic term first coined by Lewis Carroll?
If you know the answer please let me know.
Speaking of icons there is one historic politician who looms largely not only in this world but in the world of 'The Watchmen'. It seems like those who knew that I was looking for Richard Nixon came to that conclusion based on what he did in this world in 1959 – namely debating with Nikita Khrushchev the pros and cons of capitalism vs. communism in front of a model kitchen at an exhibition in Moscow.
Those who were in the know are
Mike Hudson
Ryan Carter
Michael Blissenbach
Thanks to all who played!
Dr. Michael Bellamy, professor emeritus of English, will present "Civil Religion in America: Virtue, Vice or Necessary Stage?" – the fourth lecture in the 2008-09 English Department Colloquium Series.
This event, open to all UST students, faculty and staff, will be held from 3:30 to 5 p.m. Friday, March 13, in the O'Shaughnessy Room, Room 108, in the O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library. Light refreshments will be served.
Bellamy will explore the idea of patriotism as religion, beginning with a close reading of the original and current versions of "The Pledge of Allegiance." What is the genre of this famous pledge that begins school for elementary students and sessions of Congress for senators and representatives?
Questions about the colloquium series can be directed to the English Department, (651) 962-5600.
You are all invited! There are some very nice student posters in the O’Shaughnessy Frey Library from Ann Klejment’s class, African American Liberation, History 116, African American History in Global Perspective.
This set of four posters highlights music written and performed by African American musicians. We have set up a laptop with samples of their music playing nearby. Stop by and listen for a while – Duke Ellington, Miles Davis and Louis Armstrong are playing right now. Bessie Smith will be added to the sample as well.
These posters will be on exhibit on the first floor of the O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library through next week, March 9-13.
Posted on our web site: New Books at Ireland as of February 2009.
Check ‘em out ... Here you will find a wide ranging selection of books newly added to the Ireland Library collection. You can also see the latest acqusitions monthly via the main library's home page, several options are listed under New Titles.
If a member of the St Thomas community, use your library bardcode (back of your id) to request books -- when you are not in our library. Just go to CLICnet, find a book, click the red request button, enter name and barcode, and select a pick up location.
At long last, Oxford has released this "storied" one volume dictionary now in its venerable third edition. Use this resource to look up most anything unfamiliar to you for a brief, authoritative entry, with a bibliography. Don’t expect anything in depth but libraries have found this work invaluable.. Up to now, Oxford has only made available online a skimpy abridged version (why one would abridge a dictionary is a mystery).
Give it a whirl: Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (3rd full edition)
Although maybe a bit over hyped, this publisher blurb does capture its steady if unglamorous utility: “Uniquely authoritative and wide-ranging in its scope, 
The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church is the indispensable reference work on all aspects of the Christian Church.
It contains over 6,000 A-Z entries, and offers unrivalled coverage of all aspects of this vast and often complex subject, from theology; churches and denominations; patristic scholarship; and the bible; to the church calendar and its organization; popes; archbishops; saints; and mystics.”
One useful features of this (or any reliable) dictionary is the quick and dirty search to clear the mind. As one example: I always confuse the Eucharistic doctrinal controversalists of the early middles ages: Ratramnus, Rabanus Maurus, Paschasius Radbertus. Who? Short of having a copy at hand , this online version is a life saver. I just log in and look up a principal in the disputes: See the entry.
In January the Journal of Business and Finance Librarianship published a comparison of the six major MBA rankings and a review of the literature about them entitled "Comparing the Rankings of MBA Curricula: Do Methodologies Matter?" Included in this analysis are the rankings of Business Week, Economist Intelligence Unit, Financial Times, Forbes, US News & World Report, and the Wall Street Journal.
The most interesting part of the paper are the brief descriptions of each system's methodology.
Although other business school ratings often make comparisons based on salary offers received by recent graduates, Forbes is the only source to take account of salaries before enrollment and to calculate a cumulative gain from the MBA over the first five years after graduation.
After a statistical analysis of the rankings over time, the authors see that "the ranking of U.S. MBA programs does not change greatly, at least over a 4-year period."
Find the entire paper here.
The Non-Exempt Staff Council appreciates the LMT’s Donation and co-sponsor for the Staff Appreciation Breakfast. LMT purchased an Airline ticket for the charity auction. All the proceeds will benefit the Dorothy Day Center, Father Dease’s charity this year.
Posted by Non-Exempt Staff Council
In July of 1959 there was an off the cuff debate between two leaders about the perceived industrial strengths of the Soviet Union and the United States at an American products exposition in Moscow. I bring this up not because I am obsessed with cold war political history, but because one of the participants in that debate is predominant in the movie ‘Watchmen’ which is based on the iconic graphic novel that opens this week. Can you name this American politician? Can you give me the moniker attributed to this impromptu debate? Can you tell me if you plan to see 'Watchmen' on Friday? I want to know all of these things so please let me know.
Either my question last week about the crazy baseball play was too cryptic, or no one is that interested in the Chicago Cubs or games in which there is more than one baseball on the field. But through a series of errors and misjudgments not one but two balls were in play at the same time and the extra ball was used by the Cubs to get a player from the opposite team out. The play was contested but since the Cubs lost the game anyway, it was not a big deal and the event was consigned to realm of obscure trivia.
Thanks to everyone who tried!
To celebrate the 200th anniversary of Edgar Allan Poe's birth, the English Department and the English honor society, Sigma Tau Delta/Literary Club, are hosting a Poe celebration. Professional character actor Jake Esau will dramatically recite several classic Poe stories and poems and will present biographical information on the writer. Featured Poe tale and poems include, "The Cask of Amontillado," "The Masque of the Red Death," "The Raven," and "Annabel Lee."
Jake Esau has been a professional character actor/adapter-writer for 37 years, and has developed and performed more than 30 one-person shows and programs - mostly on literacy and historical themes. Portraying Poe's friend and employer, N.P. Willis, Esau has performed "A Tribute to Edgar Allan Poe" since 1979 and is considered a Poe scholar. A native of St. Paul, MN he has also lived and performed in Southern California, Arizona, and Washington state.
The celebration will be held at 3 p.m. Friday, March 6, in Room 108, the O'Shaughnessy Room, in the O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library Center.
Everyone is invited and audience questions about Poe's life and writing are encouraged.
