Check it out

Advance Your Swagger: How to Use Manners, Confidence, and Style to Get Ahead
Author: Fonzworth Bentley
Call no: 3120

Written by "P Daddy's" former personal assistant, Fonzworth Bentley, this book provides a modern presentation of etiquette. Where Emily Post leaves off with manners, Bentley picks up by providing the ingredients to "work your swagger." he combines manners, confidence and style tips, including current issues such as cell phone use ("your anytime minutes are not for anytime").

Advance Your Swagger is currently available in the New Books Area. Check it out for 4 weeks with your SWC photo ID.

Book review by Tanya Carr, SWC Librarian

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Explore Controversial Issues in FACTs.com

In search of a hot topic, or the latest research on an issue in the headlines, try the FACTs.com Issues and Controversies database. This online resource explores more than 800 topics in business, politics, government and popular culture. Updated weekly with in-depth articles, newspaper editorials, statistical tables and timelines this database can be a great resource for research papers and speeches.

Visit our Articles and Databases webpage http://www.swccd.edu/~library/articles.htm to search and use FACTs.com - Issues and Controversies. Select the Access Off-Campus link for information on how to access this resource from off campus locations.

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Temporarily Yours: Intimacy, Authenticity, and the Commerce of Sex

by Elizabeth Bernstein

University of Chicago Press, 2007

Call Number: New Books Area HQ118 B47 2007

Bernstein attempts to show how cultural and economic changes in major cities of the Western world have changed the nature of sexual commerce. This includes the characteristics of sex workers, characteristics of clients and what clients are looking for. One of her theses is that many clients are now looking for an “authentic emotional and physical connection” rather than an “impersonal sexual release”. She also illustrates how the recent experiences of sex workers and their clients “offer insight into broader trends at work within urban life….”

The numerous quotes from sex workers and clients which are interspersed throughout the text change this work from a book which might be too theoretical for many into something which is both interesting and readable.

Book Review by Sidney Laramie, SWC Librarian

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This Week in CQ Researcher

Public Defenders by Barbara Mantel, April 18, 2008

Do indigent defendants get adequate legal representation?

Several landmark Supreme Court decisions have established the right of an indigent defendant to the assistance of counsel at public expense. But today critics say the nation’s public defender system is in crisis. Roughly 80 to 85 percent of all criminal defendants in state courts, where most crimes are prosecuted, are indigent and represented by some kind of public counsel at an annual cost to states and counties of more than $3.5 billion. According to one expert, in some poorly funded systems in the field, a single public defender handles 1,000 cases a year.

• Do indigent defendants in criminal cases receive adequate representation?
  
• Are public defense lawyers beholden to judges and politicians?
  
• Should states rather than counties fund and supervise indigent-defense services?
  

To read this article and others visit our Articles and Databases webpage http://www.swccd.edu/~library/articles.htm and click on CQ Researcher. Select the Access Off-Campus link for information on how to access this resource from off campus locations.

Internet Resource - History Matters

History Matters: the U.S. Survey Course on the Web http://historymatters.gmu.edu/

This history site serves as a gateway to United States history web resources and offers first-person primary documents, guides to analyzing historical evidence and teaching materials.

The feature called "Many Pasts" contains more than 1,000 primary documents that portray the lives of ordinary people throughout U.S. history. The section WWW.History provides annotated guides with links to other sites that can be useful in research and teaching U.S. History.

The entire website is also searchable. This online resource was created by the American Social History Project at City University of New York and the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University.

For additional history websites view our History Internet Subject Guide webpage

Check it out

Born in America and enjoyed worldwide. April is Jazz Appreciation Month and new to the library is the book What is this Thing Called Jazz by Eric Porter.

This new title examines several crucial moments in the history of jazz: the formative years of the 1920s and 1930s; the emergence of bebop; the political and experimental projects of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s; and the debates surrounding Jazz at Lincoln Center under the direction of Wynton Marsalis.

Swing on by the library and check out What is this Thing Called Jazz, call number ML3508 .P67 2002, currently available in the New Books Area of the library for a 4-week check out.

Book review by Tony McGee, SWC Librarian

Friends of the Library essay contest winners are . . .

The two winners of the Friends of the Library essay contest are Eric Paul Rodriguez and Guadalupe de Jesus Olguin. They will receive their $250 checks at the Awards Ceremony on May 7th.

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Elephants on Acid : And Other Bizarre Experiments

by Alex Boese
Harcourt, 2007

Call Number: New Book Shelf Q173 .B667 2007

When Tusko the Elephant woke in his pen at the Lincoln Park Zoo on the morning of August 3, 1962, little did he know that he was about to become the test subject in an experiment to determine what happens to an elephant given a massive dose of LSD. In Elephants on Acid, Alex Boese reveals to readers the results of not only this scientific trial but of scores of other outrageous, amusing, and provocative experiments found in the files of modern science.

Here readers will learn whether people can or cannot tell the difference between Coke and Pepsi, if wine connoisseurs really know what they are talking about, why can’t people tickle themselves, would the average dog summon help in an emergency, will babies instinctually pick a well-balanced diet, is it possible to restore life to the dead. Read Elephants on Acid and find out! With well-chosen black-and-white photographs throughout, Elephants on Acid is by turns funny, scary, gross, but always entertaining.

Book review by Tony McGee, SWC Librarian

Lexis Nexis Online Library Research

Lexis Nexis Academic Universe provides access to over 6,000 full-text news, business, and legal sources.

The outstanding news coverage includes deep backfiles and up-to-the-minute stories in national and regional newspapers, wire services, broadcast transcripts, international news, and non-English language sources.

Use the company dossier in the business module to retrieve detailed company information and financial performance measures or identify and compare companies matching specific criteria.

Online legal access includes federal and states court cases back to 1789.

Visit our Articles and Databases webpage http://www.swccd.edu/~library/articles.htm to search and use Lexis Nexis. Select the Access Off-Campus link for information on how to access this resource from off campus locations.

This Week in CQ Researcher

Preventing Memory Loss by Marcia Clemmitt, April 4, 2008

Are we on the way to curing age-related dementia?

As the nation’s baby boomers age, they are increasingly worried that their memories will deteriorate – and with good reason. An estimated 10 million boomers will develop Alzheimer’s disease or another memory-destroying neurodegenerative condition in the coming years.

Intensified brain research begun years ago at the National Institutes of Health is just now beginning to produce data that scientists hope will advance efforts to prevent memory loss, but they worry that flat federal funding since 2003 may compromise the drive for solutions.

• Do we know how to retard age-related memory loss?
• Is memory loss a bigger problem today than in earlier generations?
• Are we on the way to curing Alzheimer’s disease?

To read this article and others visit our Articles and Databases webpage http://www.swccd.edu/~library/articles.htm and click on CQ Researcher. Select the Access Off-Campus link for information on how to access this resource from off campus locations.

Information Resource Ethnic NewsWatch

Through the Southwestern College Library you have access to Ethnic NewsWatch, a comprehensive full text database of the newspapers, magazines and journals of the ethnic, minority and native press -- African-American and Caribbean, Arab and Arab-American, Asian and Asian-American, European, Eastern European, Hispanic, Jewish, Native Peoples and Multi-Ethnic.

Ethnic NewsWatch is now a collection of nearly 1.5 million full-text articles from 275 publications. More than 7,500 new articles are added each month and is searchable in both English and Spanish, with publications in each language.

Ethnic NewsWatch is a valuable resource for many subject areas and gives you new insights on current topics as well.

Visit our Articles and Databases webpage http://www.swccd.edu/~library/articles.htm to search and use Ethnic NewsWatch. Select the Access Off-Campus link for information on how to access this resource from off campus locations.

Check it out

Better Looking, Better Living, Better Loving: How Chemistry Can Help You Achieve Life’s Goals

by John Emsley

Call Number: New Books Area QD 39.7 E47 2007

In this book Emsley gives us the past, present, and future of the products we use to look better, love better, and live better. He analyzes what they contain, how they work, whether the chemicals in them are safe, possible alternatives, and recent developments in some of the fields. The products range from Rogaine (for hair loss) to fabric softeners, and from condoms to deodorants and to varnishes.

Better Looking is currently available in the New Books Area of the library for a 4-week check out.

Book Review by Sidney Laramie, SWC Librarian

April e-book of the Month

Retire Happy: What You Can Do Now to Guarantee a Great Retirement by Richard Stim & Ralph Warner.


When planning for retirement, it's easy to become preoccupied with stock portfolios, 401(k) balances and doomsday predictions about baby boomer's lack of savings. But happiness in retirement isn't about how much cash you can manage to sock away before the age of 65.

The authors encourage future retirees to balance financial concerns with an enriching lifestyle by cultivating interests outside work, leading a healthier lifestyle, revitalizing family relationships, and more. Retire Happy helps readers prepare for retirement—not just financially, but in every aspect of their lives.


If you have already established a NetLibrary account through Southwestern College Library, visit http://www.netlibrary.com/ and log in to read "Retire Happy" or any of our other 19,000 e-book titles.

If you do not have a NetLibrary account, you can create your own account from any computer on the Southwestern College campuses. Visit our NetLibrary e-book page http://www.swccd.edu/~library/Lvl3/index.asp?L3=9 for more information.