Got a Question? Need an Answer?

Try our Online Reference Chat Service

Real People - Real Help - Real Fast

24 hours a day, 7 days a week

http://www.swccd.edu/~library/ask.htm

Library Closed for Spring Break

We will reopen on Monday April 5 at 8:00 a.m..

Have a happy and safe Spring Break.

Library Access From Off Campus

Before leaving campus for spring break, make sure you drop by the library Reference Desk and pick up a list of off campus passwords so that you can access thousands of journals, magazines, and newspapers along with other online resources located on our Articles and Databases website. Currently enrolled students may also request the off campus passwords by using our Password Request Form. Students who are currently enrolled will receive the list of passwords within minutes by email.

While your in the library you might as well create your own NetLibrary e-book account. With your own account you can access over 21,000 electronic book titles from off campus locations.

For additional information view our off-campus access website.

Check It Out

Bigger Than Blockbusters: Movies That Defined America by James Roman

New Book Shelf PN 1993.5 U6 R64 2009

Bigger Than Blockbusters: Movies That Defined America tells the stories behind the most significant and influential films in American culture, movies that have had a profound influence on the literary, cinematic and popular culture of our time.

It is arranged by decade to illustrate the cultural and historical context of the films of a particular period. From 1915's Birth of a Nation to 2008's No Country for Old Men, James Roman presents not only historical background on each film but also critical assessment that together establish the filmmaker's influences and the impact of the film on society at large.

Check out Bigger Than Blockbusters: Movies That Defined America , available now in the library.

How to Find Newspapers

The Southwestern College libraries have an outstanding collection of current, recent and historical newspaper which may be avaialble in paper, digital and microfilm formats.

We receive daily print copies of the San Diego Union. Please check our catalog for the location. If you would like access to hundreds of newspapers from around the world please visit our Articles and Databases webpage. This site also includes digital access to the Historical New York Times and Historical Los Angeles Times with issues dating back into the late 1800s (including photographs). Our Internet Resources webpage includes links to newspaper websites on the Internet.


The library provides an excellent research guide "How to Find Newspaper Articles" which provides very helpful information about our U.S. and other newspaper holdings. If you have any questions, please contact our reference desk and speak with a librarian.

Library Services @ Otay Mesa

The Otay Mesa library is open 32 hours each week during the spring semester to serve students and staff at the Otay Mesa campus. The library is located at 8100 Gigantic Street, in San Diego, on the top floor of the 4200 building on the Otay Mesa campus.

Our hours this semester are:

• Monday & Thursday: 12 noon - 6:30 PM
  
• Tuesday & Wednesday: 7:30 AM – 5:00 PM

The Otay Mesa library has reference services, a growing collection of reserve and reference books and books to check out. The collection also includes journals, popular magazines, the SD Union newspaper and a Leisure Reading collection. Drop by the next time your on campus

Got a Question? Need an Answer?

Try our Online Reference Chat Service

Real People - Real Help - Real Fast

24 hours a day, 7 days a week

http://www.swccd.edu/~library/ask.htm

Check It Out

The Numbers Game: The Commonsense Guide to Understanding Numbers in the News, in Politics, and in Life by Michael Blastland and Andrew Dilnot

New Book Shelf QA 141.15 .B535 2009

Americans are assaulted by numbers, whether it's the latest political poll or the most recent clinical study on caffeine. But what do these numbers really mean and are they communicating a categorical truth? One strategy, commonly used by those of us on better terms with words than numbers, is to ignore the world of digits altogether. A better approach,though, is to overcome one’s natural tendency to be intimidated by numbers.

The Numbers Game shows us how much we already know, and gives practical ways to use our knowledge to become better consumers of the media. In each concise chapter, the authors take on a different theme—such as size, chance, averages, targets, risk, measurement, and data—and present it as a memorable and entertaining story.

Check out The Numbers Game: The Commonsense Guide to Understanding Numbers in the News, in Politics, and in Life , available now in the library.

Check It Out

Golden Dreams: California in an
Age of Abundance, 1950-1963.
by Kevin Starr.
F866.2 .S733 2009

This volume concludes Kevin Starr's seven-volume history of a single American state. Starr covers a broad range of subjects: demography, water, freeways, politics, culture, the state's major cities, race relations. This volume focuses on the post-World War II era, when California's prosperity and cultural exuberance astonished the world.


In particular, war played an enormous role in the shaping of modern California: World War II accelerated California's growth, as the federal government created a manufacturing base here for the defense industry that led to a massive migration of African Americans to the West Coast, and Cold War defense expenditures not only fueled California's economy but also financed the University of California system.


Check out Golden Dreams: California in an
Age of Abundance, 1950-1963, available now in the library.

ArtStor: Ezra Stoller

A new release of more than 7,100 images from the Ezra Stoller Archive (Esto) is now available in the ARTstor Digital Library. This launch includes additional modern architecture photographed by Ezra Stoller, including buildings designed by Alvar Aalto, Joseph Esherick, Wallace Kirkman Harrison, Richard Meier, Kevin Roche, John Dinkeloo and Associates, Paul Rudolph, Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Edward Durell Stone, and Ralph Twitchell, among others.


To view the Ezra Stoller Archive (Esto): go to the ARTstor Digital Library, browse by collection, and click "Ezra Stoller Archive (Esto)." Or, search the keywords: esto stoller


To view ARTstor from off campus locations you need to create an ArtStor account at http://www.artstor.org/index.shtml from any computer on the Southwestern College campuses.

Don't Drown in an Ocean of Results

Try our Online Reference Chat Service

Real People - Real Help - Real Fast

24 hours a day, 7 days a week


http://www.swccd.edu/~library/ask.htm

Check it Out

America's Food: What You Don't Know About What You Eat. HD 9005 B628 2008
by Harvev Blatt

This new title describes in considerable detail how the world of food production has changed greatly since the US was founded, how food is presently produced, and how the process, driven by profits and efficiency, has seriously harmed human health and the environment. America’s food explores a food supply system whose efficiency and productivity is unparalleled in human history. Modern industrial farming is not unique to the USA, but it has been refined and deployed here on a scale unmatched anywhere else.

Americans are now able to spend a smaller fraction of their disposable income
on their daily food than anyone on the planet, but as Harvey Blatt makes clear,
there are many other consequences to consider, most of them undesirable. After taking us on a tour of the American food system—not only the basic food groups but soil, grain farming, organic food, genetically modified food, food processing, and diet—Blatt reminds us that we aren't powerless. Once we know the facts about food in America, we can change things by the choices we make as consumers, as voters, and as ethical human beings.

Check out America's Food: What You Don't Know About What You Eat, available now on the library's New Book Shelf and in electronic digital format.

This Week in CQ Researcher

Youth Violence by Thomas J. Billitteri,

March 5, 2010


Are “get tough” policies the best approach?

Several recent violent crimes by youths, including the vicious beating death of a Chicago honor student by a mob of teenagers, have sparked a new look at urban youth violence. Despite a steep overall drop in youth crime in recent years, researchers say many urban areas continue to be plagued by homicide and other violence involving young offenders. Some experts say tougher sentencing laws and a greater focus on parental responsibility are the best ways to fight the violence, while others argue for more federal money for social programs and anti-violence efforts. In some cities, collaborative approaches involving police, educators, community leaders and neighborhood groups are aimed at pressing youths to forsake violence while offering them a path toward redemption. Meanwhile, two competing proposals are being considered on Capitol Hill, and major foundations are funding programs to help youths in trouble.

• Is youth violence on the upswing?
  
• Are minority youths singled out for arrest and detention?
  
• Are “get tough” policies the best approach for fighting youth crime
  

To read this article and others visit our Articles and Databases webpage and click on CQ Researcher. Select the Off Campus Access link for information on how to access this resource from off campus locations.

Check It Out

Easy green living : the ultimate guide to simple, eco-friendly choices for you and your home by Renée Loux.

Organic chef, author, and eco-lifestyle consultant Renee Loux has written a fun and helpful book that will encourage you to change your lifestyle in small ways while making your home more eco-friendly.

Included in this book are plenty of recipes for non-toxic, all natural, great-smelling cleaning solutions made out of common household ingredients like baking soda, vodka, and vinegar (along with a hefty dose of essential oils!). Sections include basic green cleaning tips, steps to take for a green kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom, eco-alternatives for doing the laundry, and information on energy efficient lightbulbs, home furnishings, and building materials. This book is filled with useful tips and important information about common chemicals and their harmful side effects, and demonstrates how very easy it can be to be green!
Book review by Jamie Lin Southwestern College Library

March e-book of the Month

J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye: Bloom's Modern Critical Interpretations


Edited by Harold BloomChelsea House Publishers, 2009

The Catcher in the Rye is one of the most popular and influential coming-of-age novels ever written, and its 17-year-old protagonist, Holden Caulfield, has become an icon of teen angst. The full-length essays in the March eBook of the Month provide a critical look at this classic by J.D. Salinger.

Edited by master scholar and Yale University Professor Harold Bloom, this comprehensive study guide presents a selection of the best current criticism and includes:

• Critical essays reflecting a variety of schools of criticism
  
• Notes on the contributing critics, a chronology of the author's life, and a bibliography
  
• Introductory essay by Harold Bloom.

The Catcher in the Rye: Bloom's Modern Critical Interpretations will be provided with free, unlimited access March 1-31, 2010.

If you have already established a NetLibrary account through Southwestern College Library, visit http://www.netlibrary.com/ and log in to read "The Catcher in the Rye: Bloom's Modern Critical Interpretations" or any of our other 21,000 electronic book titles from your home, work or any other off campus location.

Check It Out

How Sex Works: Why We Look, Smell, Taste, Feel, and Act the Way We Do
by Sharon Moalem

Birds do it, bees do it, but why do humans do it? In this wide-ranging look at the evolutionary reasons for sex, physiologist and evolutionary biologist Sharon Moalem says that it's all about shuffling the gene pool and getting rid of any unwelcome guests, such as viruses, that may have latched onto human DNA. But why is one particular person attracted to another? Moalem relays the latest research showing that smell plays a very important role in attraction, and that even our genes may influence one's smell, and thus a person's desirability, to others. Chapters also cover puberty, factors in attraction and arousal, sexually transmitted diseases, and birth control.

Check out How Sex Works: Why We Look, Smell, Taste, Feel, and Act the Way We Do, available now on the library's New Book Shelf.