Credo Reference

Credo Reference is an online reference service made up of full-text books from the world's best publishers. Whether you're working on a research paper, trying to win trivia or just curious, Credo Reference has something for you.

As easy to use as your favorite search site and fully citable in any research paper, Credo is the perfect place to get your research started.

Whether you are just starting your project, looking to add some interesting images to your final draft or building a bibliography, Credo Reference has something for you.

Credo Reference offers:

•Tools to quickly map your paper topic
•Citable sources for your bibliography
•Answers to your research questions
•Thousands and thousands of images, charts, graphs, diagrams and more

To access Credo Reference visit are Article and Databases website. Select the Off Campus Access link for information on how to access this resource from off campus locations.

This Week in CQ Researcher

Health-Care Reform
by Marcia Clemmitt, June 11, 2010

Is the landmark new plan a good idea?

The health-care reform legislation signed into law by President Obama on March 23 marked the biggest attempt to expand access to health care since Medicare and Medicaid were launched in the 1960s. The massive legislation will help 32 million Americans get health insurance coverage and bans insurers from denying coverage to those with preexisting illnesses. It also expands Medicaid to all poor people – except illegal immigrants – and gives subsidies to low- and low-middle-income people to buy insurance.

Opponents, including every Republican member of Congress, say the coverage expansion is simply too expensive, at a price tag of about $1 trillion over 10 years. They also say new fees and taxes to help pay for the coverage place too big a burden on currently insured people. Meanwhile, a group of state attorneys general is challenging the constitutionality of the law’s requirement that everyone buy health insurance.

• Is the new health-care reform law a good idea?
  
• Will people with insurance lose out under the new law?
  
• Will health care reform make care more affordable?

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.

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Check It Out

The making of African America : the four great migrations
by Ira Berlin.
New Book Shelf E185 .B473 2010

Ira Berlin offers a fresh reading of American history through the prism of the great migrations that made and remade African and African American life. The first was the forcible deportation of Africans to North America in the 17th and 18th centuries, followed by their forced transfer into the American interior during the 19th century. Then came the migration of the mid-20th century as African-Americans fled the South for the urban North, and the arrival of continental Africans and people of African descent from the Caribbean during the latter part of the 20th century.

Berlin analyzes the movements, the dynamics of changes in customs and mores, as well as the sense of place developed by African Americans as they adjusted to each migration, voluntary and involuntary. He explores the changes in culture, music, politics, social institutions, and economics that defined each movement and redefined African Americans. Berlin also explores the latest migration, tensions, and feelings of kinship between native-born African Americans and newcomers, and the ultimate impact on perceptions of what it means to be black in America.
( Review from Vanessa Bush, Booklist 1/1/2010)

Check out The making of African America : the four great migrations by Ira Berlin., available now in the library on the New Book Shelf E185 .B473 2010.

Check It Out

March of the Microbes: Sighting the Unseen
by John L. Ingraham
New Book Shelf QR56 .I54 2010

Though most people are only familiar with microbes that cause disease (germs, etc.), those "felonious" microbes actually constitute a tiny percent of all microbes, and just a single chapter in this fascinating survey of single-celled organisms and their role in shaping life on Earth, from University of California Professor Emeritus of Microbiology Ingraham. Among other processes, Ingraham explains how vaccines have been developed, frequently with the aid of other microbes; the carbon, nitrogen, and sulfur cycles which make life possible; and how microbes give us cheese, wine, and other foodstuffs.

Ingraham also discusses recently-discovered microbes inhabiting extreme environments (hot, cold, salty, etc.) that promise to tell us much about the evolution of life on Earth and what life on other planets might look like. Ingraham's entertaining, breezy style makes even difficult topics accessible, and every chapter contains intriguing anecdotes about microbes in history (did the CIA try to poison Castro's cigars with botulinum toxin?).
(Review from Publisher's Weekly)

Check out March of the Microbes : sighting the unseen, available now in the library on the New Book Shelf QR56 .I54 2010.

ARTstor: Fowler Museum

The Fowler Museum's collections include more than 150,000 art and ethnographic objects and approximately 600,000 archaeological objects from ancient, traditional, and contemporary cultures around the world. The collection in ARTstor will have a particular focus on the arts of Africa, reflecting the museum's status as a repository of one of the largest and finest collections of African art in the United States. The museum also has significant holdings of African diaspora arts from Brazil, Haiti, and Suriname.

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.

This Week in CQ Researcher

Jobs Outlook
by Peter Katel, June 4, 2010

Is a college education important?

The economy has finally started to grow again, but more than 8 million jobs that disappeared after the economic crisis began in late 2007 haven’t returned, and the unemployment rate is nearly 10 percent. To be sure, 290,000 jobs have been added, but the jobless rate remains high. People who do have jobs are working harder, increasing productivity. In another major change on the job front, advances in technology are intensifying the allure – to employers – of offshore jobs.

What’s the best strategy for getting a job in today’s tough job market? Experts may argue over how many jobs are at risk, but no one disputes that a college degree gives by far the best salaries and the best odds for finding a job – and the ability to switch careers if necessary. Demand is also rising at the low end of the market, but mid-level jobs that fall in between the two extremes may be most at risk.

• Is the job market most dynamic only at the high and low ends of the scale?
  
• Does offshoring present a major threat to U.S. jobs?
  
• Are “green” jobs an important source of new employment?
  

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.