Citations May 16, 2007
Posted by Library Answer Person in : Uncategorized , add a commentWhen doing up a bibliography, when do you use the city with state? In some cases it seems obvious not to bother to cite the state = Washington:Smithsonian Institution Press. It also seems obvious when the publisher is a university = Gainesville:University of Florida Press. However, I have seen it cited like this: Gainesville, FL:University of Florida Press. Is there some rule about when to cite the city plus state?
ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: In general, you can get away with leaving out the state if it’s a “well-known” city, like New York or San Francisco. That’s fuzzy, but has always seemed to be the case. The examples that we give at http://library.duke.edu/research/citing/workscited/index.html show “New York” and “Chicago,” but “Greenwich, CT” regardless of the style being used. But you should still consult the particular style manual that you’re supposed to be using (MLA, APA, Turabian, etc.) for guidance to see if/how they address this.
Don’t quote AP on this, since it’s often forgotten, but the bottom line is that the citation is supposed to provide sufficient information for a reader to look up your source, so just try to keep that in mind.
gyro November 14, 2006
Posted by Library Answer Person in : Uncategorized , add a commentHow do you pronounce the name of that delicious sandwich-type food, the gyro? I don’t want to sound ignorant, but also not like I’m trying way too hard to sound greek or intellectual.
I thank you.
ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: The Oxford English Dictionary says the first consonant sound is a soft “g,” like “j” or maybe like “dj” and the first vowel sound is either “ai” (like an English long “i”) or “ee” (like an English long “e”. The Merriam Webster Collegiate Dictionary says “yee-ro” or “zhir-o”. The “ro” part is pretty clear, but the first syllable is all up to you. I think I’ll go with jzhee-ro. The fine folks in the Perkins Reference department will be happy to show you many other dictionaries to peruse for that perfect gyro.
curling November 14, 2006
Posted by Library Answer Person in : Uncategorized , add a commentIs there someplace to go curling in New York City? Even just outside the city would be cool. Thanks, eh!
ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: There are a number of New York clubs listed here, even one right there in Manhattan: http://www.gncc.org/gnccclubs.html
You’ll have to contact them to see if you need to be a member to play.
IT IS TOO COLD! November 14, 2006
Posted by Library Answer Person in : Uncategorized , add a commentI am currently on second floor Bostock, and it is absolutely freezing up here–with no way to turn down the air. A girl across from me is wearing scarf and gloves, I am wearing a sweatshirt and still freezing, and someone just walked past me wearing a heavy winter coat with her hood on. This is ridiculous! It is 30 degrees outside and the air is set on 73. Granted, it doesn’t need to be a sauna in here or we will all fall sleep, but a little bit of warmth on especially cold nights would be greatly appreciated.
ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: I think you mean that it’s cold despite the fact that the thermostat says 73. I believe you. You’re correct that the heat and a/c can be erratic over time and inconsistent through the building. Be aware that in the fall and spring when seasons change, there are hiccups when they switch from chilled water to steam and vice versa and that sort of thing. There are rumors that when all the renovations are complete in the Perkins/Bostock library complex, the HVAC systems will work evenly and comfortably, but your concern will be passed on.
high school November 14, 2006
Posted by Library Answer Person in : Uncategorized , 2commentshow many high school students were there in the United States in 2005?
ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: The National Center for Education Statistics projected 14,847,000 in public high schools (grades 9-12) and 1,439,000 in private high schools. That’s 16,286,000 total. See: http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=65
The Boss in Cameron October 10, 2006
Posted by Library Answer Person in : Uncategorized , add a commentI was recently told by someone that Bruce Springsteen played a concert in Cameron at one time. Is there any information about this concert: set list, student impressions, etc.? Also, related to the Springsteen question, can students access archived issues of the chronicle?
ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: March 28, 1976, seven months after the release of *Born to Run*. He was 26 years old. He’s now 57. See: http://www.brucebase.org.uk/gig1976.htm for a setlist, although it says there were some other unknown songs also played. It credits Rolling Stone and The Chronicle for information (no dates given). Here’s another version: http://db.etree.org/lookup_show.php?shows_key=7292
The Chronicle is electronically archived and searchable from their website at http://www.dukechronicle.com back to 1993. There’s an electronic subject index covering 1989 to June 1996 (six months at a time) at the University Archives website: http://www.lib.duke.edu/archives/pubs/chronndx.html
Earlier printed indexes to The Chronicle are available if you visit the Archives, on the third floor of Perkins Library: http://www.lib.duke.edu/archives/pubs/ Many years, however, aren’t indexed.
The Archives keeps all the old issues of The Chronicle in paper, so you can look in those just after March 28, 1976.
In the Archives you can also see if they have other records of musical events at Duke besides what’s in The Chronicle.
You can get the microfilm of Rolling Stone for March 1976 from the Microforms Dept. in Bostock Library at call number S71, or request the paper issues from the Library Service Center using the library catalog.
group study room usage October 9, 2006
Posted by Library Answer Person in : Uncategorized , add a commentI have tried in vain over the course of the last week to find space for my group to study in Perkins’s new group study rooms. On each occasion every room was occupied and at least a few of the rooms were occupied by individuals studying (not in a group).
Could the library put up some sort of policy guidlines stating that groups have priority in the group rooms? It would only make sense.
Also, I tend to scan a lot of documents and the scanning computers in Perkins are seemingly always in use by people that DONT need the scanners. Could you put up signs stating that people wanting to scan documents have priority??
thanks.
ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: Right now, there is no official written policy on this, but there is a de facto policy that groups have priority in these rooms. (Actually, there’s a clearly worded statement on the door of Bostock 312, but not on other group study rooms, nor, it seems, on our website.) If you contact a librarian, they will ask a single person to leave so that a group can use the room. We do need to advertise and post this policy more, so thanks for the reminder.
There are priority statements on the scanners in Bostock, so thanks for reminding us about the need for such statements in Perkins. (Once again, you can ask a librarian to intervene on your behalf.)
a book October 9, 2006
Posted by Library Answer Person in : Uncategorized , add a commentCan you suggest a book for me? I’m looking for a coffee table book with photos of Britain. I’d appreciate a few recommendations as I wouldn’t know how to search for one in a library.
Cheers!
ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: Well, I don’t have any specific recommendations, but you can do this search in the library catalog. Look for “Title Keywords” of:
britain illustrated
You get lots of books with those two words in the title. Some of these relate to history, and probably have a lot of photos of castles, megaliths, etc. Play around with other such words.
You can do a similar search at amazon.com if you’re looking for something to purchase. You can also throw in words like “landscape” or “history.” The “narrow by category” choices in the left margin might also help.
There isn’t an easy way to limit only to large-format books either in the catalog or at Amazon. In the catalog’s Advanced Search interface, you can search for keywords in the title like I said, and then in “All Fields” search for “32 cm.” (use quotes) to look for specific large sizes. This works. Anything over 30 cm. tall is pretty big. You’ll have to do a search for each size one at a time.
lower case October 9, 2006
Posted by Library Answer Person in : Uncategorized , add a commentThere’s that way of formating microsoft word words so they are all capitals. But if you have a bunch of words that are all capitals, can you make them all lowercase without having to retype everything?
Thank you!
ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: Sure. Under the Format menu, choose “Change Case.” There are options for all lowercase and all uppercase, as well as Sentence Case (only the first word begins with a capital) and Title Case (all words start with capitals). A flaw in the latter choice is that even prepositions, articles, conjunctions, etc. will be capitalized.
crust October 9, 2006
Posted by Library Answer Person in : Uncategorized , add a commentThey say it’s good to eat the crusts of bread, right? But is the crust any healthier than the middle since it’s all the same bread?
ANSWER PERSON RESPONDS: I had always thought this old saying was to keep kids from wasting precious foodstuffs, back when food was a scarcer commodity. But there have been studies showing that there are more antioxidants in the crust, probably developing due to the chemical changes affected by the “intensity of the thermal treatment.” See: Lindenmeier & Hofmann, “Influence of baking conditions and precursor supplementation on the amounts of the antioxidant pronyl-L-lysine in bakery products,” in the Journal of Agricultural Food and Chemistry, 2004 Jan 28;52(2):350-4, as well as other articles of theirs (references in MedLine).
