Free Workshop Today!

Stop by Room L-244 at 5:00 pm today for a free, one-hour workshops on how to find primary sources!

Can't make it today? Additional primary sources workshops will be offered during the month of March.

• Monday, March 9th — 5:00 pm 
• Tuesday, March 10th — 11:00 am 
• Wednesday, March 18th — 9:00 am 
• Thursday, March 19th — 1:00 pm 

Check It Out

Business Brilliant: Surprising Lessons from the Greatest Self-Made Business Icons.
by Lewis Schiff.
New York: HarperBusiness, 2013.
Call Number: HF 5386.S378 2013
Available for 4-week check out with your SWC photo ID card

Author Lewis Schiff is the Executive Director of  Inc. Business Owners Council (a membership organization for Inc. magazine's top entrepreneurs) and co-author of The Influence of Affluence: The Rise of the New Rich and How They Are Changing America and The Armchair Millionaire.

This book is a fascinating, quick/easy-to-read (and frequently humorous!) statistical study contrasting the financial views of middle class workers and self-made millionaires. These two groups possess strikingly different views on saving vs. earning, innovating vs. imitating, what you know vs. who you know, win/win vs. win/don't lose, and the importance of success vs. failure.

Schiff asserts that, in the economic climate of the past several decades, regardless of our education and occupation, we are all "free agents" (entrepreneurs), whether we want to be or not. Using statistical data, he illustrates the importance of "do[ing] what you love, but follow[ing] the money." To support his argument, he presents fascinating profiles of successful entrepreneurs including Guy Laliberte (street performer who founded Cirque de Soleil) and John O'Hurley (Seinfeld's J. Peterman), and argues that financial pundits like Suze Orman have it all wrong.

Business Brilliant "doesn't promise to make you rich" but it is a fascinating, quick read that will inspire you to re-think your financial views.

Review by Rachael Smithey, SWC Librarian

Solar Energy Exhibit

The Library is currently featuring an exhibit highlighting solar energy and the new solar panels and Southwestern College.

We have many resources on this topic. Visit the second floor of the Library to learn more!

Primary Sources... What are they?

Stop by one of our free, one-hour workshops about primary sources! We'll talk about how to identify primary sources, and how to use the best search strategies and research tools to find them.

Workshops begin next week and are held in Room L-244.

• Monday, March 9th — 5:00 pm 
• Tuesday, March 10th — 11:00 am 
• Wednesday, March 18th — 9:00 am 
• Thursday, March 19th — 1:00 pm 

Database of the Week

The Sixties in America (Salem Press)
Library Database - Free for SWC students and staff

So much happened during the 1960’s in America! Southwestern College currently subscribes to a database of articles dedicated to topics and people during that decade.

Perhaps the movie Selma has made you want to learn more about The March on Selma, Martin Luther King, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Articles on all of these topics are available in this database, as well as many more!

Just browsing through the titles in this database is fascinating! Did you realize Betty Friedan’s book The Feminine Mystique was published in 1963? It is credited by some to have launched the modern feminist movement. In Cold Blood, a book about a famous murder, was published by Truman Capote in 1966 (Philip Seymour Hoffman played Capote in the 2005 film with the same name). The film Easy Rider, published in 1969, is said by the article to “…capture the spirit of the 1960’s”. IMDB.com [Internet Movie Database] recently listed Easy Rider as one of the ‘twenty five most influential movies’ in the history of cinema.

Take a look at this database; you won’t be disappointed. All of the information in this library database is freely-accessible to SWC students and staff.

Review by Ann Willard, SWC Librarian

Women's History Month

Celebrate Women's History Month at the Library! Stop by our display on the third floor -- we have many print books, e-books, and other resources to learn more about this topic.

Check It Out

Ordinary Resurrections: Children in the Years of Hope.
by Jonathan Kozol.
New York: Crown, 2000
Call Number: HQ792.U5 K69 2000
Available for 4-week check out with your SWC photo ID.

The author has written several books on the lack of educational opportunities for poor and minority children in big city public schools, including the seminal and classic Death At An Early Age. In Ordinary Resurrections he tells the personal stories of a group of children just starting school in New York City's South Bronx, one of the poorest and most segregated communities in the nation. This is an optimistic book and most of the children in it are, despite where they live, "... still unsoiled by the world and still can view their place within it without cynicism or despair."

One hopes that the author will write a follow-up to this book to tell us how things have turned out for these children who would now be adults.

Review by John Tibbals, SWC Librarian