May 2007 Archives

Are you in the mood for a good baseball book? Try H. G. Bissinger's Three Nights in August: strategy, heartbreak, and joy, inside the mind of a manager. This book has received great reviews. "A Pulitzer Prize-winning author captures baseball's strategic and emotional essences through a point-blank account of one three-game series viewed through the keen eyes of legendary manager Tony La Russa. Drawing on unprecedented access to La Russa and his team, Bissinger brings the same revelatory intimacy to major-league baseball that he did to high school football in his classic besteller, Friday Night Lights. Three Nights in August shows thrillingly that human nature -- not statistics -- can often dictate the outcome of a ballgame. We watch from the dugout as the St. Louis Cardinals battle their archrival Chicago Cubs for first place, and we uncover delicious surprises about the psychology of the clutch, the eccentricities of pitchers, the rise of video, and the complex art of retaliation when a batter is hit by a pitch." -- publisher's description. 

 

 

You can always count on John Feinstein for entertaining sports writing, and he has just published Tales from Q school : inside golf's fifth major. "It is the tournament that separates champions from mortals. It is the starting point for the careers of future legends and can be the final stop on the down escalator for fading stars. The annual PGA Tour Qualifying Tournament is one of the most grueling competitions in any sport. Every fall, veterans and talented hopefuls sweat through six rounds of hell at Q school, as the tournament is universally known, to get a shot at the PGA Tour, vying for the 30 slots available. The grim reality: If you don't make it through Q school, you're not on the PGA tour. John Feinstein tells the story of the players who compete for these coveted positions in the 2005 Q school. With arresting accounts from the players, established winners, rising stars, the defeated, and the endlessly hopeful, America's favorite sportswriter unearths the inside story behind the PGA Tour's brutal all-or-nothing competition." -- publisher's description.

You have required summer reading for English class, but summer is also a great time to read books that you never have time to read during the school year. Here are some suggestions: Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling. How can you let the summer go by and not find out the fate of the characters that you've grown up with? What's not to like about such mindless & fun reading? Even though it doesn't come out until July 21, there will be plenty of time to read it before school starts. 

 The Children of Hurin by J.R.R. Tolkien "The first complete book by Tolkien in three decades, this book reunites fans of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings with Elves and Men, dragons and Dwarves, Eagles and Orcs. This stirring narrative will return fans to the rich landscape and characters unique to Tolkien." -Publisher's description. Tolkien's son Christopher compiled various pieces from his father's unpublished works to create this book. If you're a fantasy fan, you can't miss this one. 

 The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky This is one of those classic books to read as a challenge to yourself. It's long, but it's truly a great book. It will definitely give you something to write about on a college admissions essay, or impress admissions interviewers if they ask you what you've been reading in your free time! I encourage you to give it a try. Here's a summary of the book: "Dostoevsky's last and greatest novel, The Karamazov Brothers (1880), is both a brilliantly told crime story and a passionate philosophical debate. The dissolute landowner Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov is murdered; his sons - the atheist intellectual Ivan, the hot-blooded Dmitry, and the saintly novice Alyosha - are all at some level involved. Bound up with this intense family drama is Dostoevsky's exploration of many deeply felt ideas about the existence of God, the question of human freedom, the collective nature of guilt, the disastrous consequences of rationalism. The novel is also richly comic: the Russian Orthodox Church, the legal system, and even the author's most cherished causes and beliefs are presented with a note of irreverence, so that orthodoxy and radicalism, sanity and madness, love and hatred, right and wrong are no longer mutually exclusive."--Publisher's description.

Congratulations, Seniors... The Library staff has enjoyed working with you and we wish you well in your continued studies in college and beyond! We hope your experience using our library has been a positive one. Here are a few things we would like for you to keep in mind when using your college library next year and in the years to come:

 

1. Don't be afraid to ask for help! Unlike the stereotypes, librarians in general are nice people who truly want to help you. They want and expect you to ask them for help. They will be sitting at a Reference Desk waiting to answer your questions and give advice, which leads us to tip #2.

 

2. Go to the Reference Desk for research help instead of the Circulation Desk. In college & university libraries, the people who work at the circulation desk are usually students and just deal with book circulation matters and directional questions. The librarians man the reference desk, which is usually separate from the circulation desk. Librarians will cover the reference desk late into the night and on weekends to help you, too. You don't have to go it alone when you're thrown into a new library and don't know where to start.

 

3. Be prepared for call numbers to look completely different from the Dewey call numbers you've been using for years. The majority of college and university libraries use the Library of Congress classification system, which is better suited to large collections and to expanding for new areas of knowledge. LC numbers begin with one or two letters followed by numbers. For example, a book we have on the Civil War has the call number 973.3 C582t. The same book with an LC call number would be E468 .C612 2004. If you're curious, here's a link to an outline of the LC Classification System: http://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/lcco/

 

4. If you've gotten used to relying on certain databases for research (JStor for instance), you will probably be able to find your old favorites at your college library, as well as more that we don't have at MUS. Check your library's website or ask a librarian to see what databases you'll be able to use.

 

5. If your college offers a library orientation session or class, it's a good idea to take advantage of that. We know this is probably the last thing you're going to want to do, but it will really come in handy when you have to start writing research papers.

 

6. You will likely find many of the comforts of home in your college library, such as coffee shops and comfortable easy chairs. When exam time rolls around, many of them will stay open all night to accommodate your study habits.

 Best wishes to you all!