This Week in CQ Researcher

Future of Homeownership: Should government do more to help homeowners?
by Barbara Mantel

"The housing market is finally showing signs of recovery after the housing crash and Great Recession of the late 2000s. The number of foreclosed homes is shrinking, sales of homes are climbing, prices are rebounding and builders are ramping up construction. Yet the share of Americans who own their homes dropped to 65.5 percent in the third quarter — the lowest since 1997. Many of today's buyers are investors who are snapping up houses in some of the hardest-hit neighborhoods and converting them into rentals, which experts say is a new trend. Analysts wonder whether many Americans are permanently rejecting homeownership in favor of renting. Meanwhile, policymakers are weighing how much the government should help the millions of remaining distressed homeowners and how to reform mortgage financing to avoid another housing debacle."

Read more about this topic and many others in CQ Researcher, accessible from off-campus with the current passwords.

Library Hours Reduced - Effective Spring, 2013

We regret to inform you that we’ve been directed to cut library hours next semester. We will no longer offer hours in the early morning, later evening, or Saturday.

Spring 2013 Hours

Monday –Thursday: 9 am—6 pm

Friday: 9 am—1pm

Saturday and Sunday: Closed

If you would like to voice your concerns, we invite you to:

• Fill out a petition at a service desk inside the library, or:
• Fill out a petition online http://swccd.libguides.com/petition
• Contact your ASO representative

Website of the Week

 The National Archives Experience: Digital Vaults 

www.digitalvaults.org/ 

Be prepared to spend a fair amount of time exploring the documents, photographs, drawings, maps, and other materials that make this an online experience that is unlike any other. Each record in the Digital Vaults is also linked to the National Archives' Archival Research Catalog (ARC), so visitors who want to know more can take the first steps toward a research journey into the National Archives. The site has a special interactive resources section for educators and students. Teachers can get great ideas on lesson plans using reproducible primary sources. Students can create digital content with primary resources. Students can search photographs, documents, and other records and collect them. Students can use collected items to create their own digital poster or to make a movie. http://www.digitalvaults.org/#/create/

Review by Tony McGee, SWC Librarian

Library Open Today

No classes on Thursday, December 13, 2012

SWC Libraries are open regular hours

Main Library: 8 AM - 7 PM

National City Library: 9 AM - 12 PM

Otay Mesa Library:  12 PM - 5 PM

San Ysidro Library: 9:30 AM - 12:30 PM

Website of the Week

 Wolfram Alpha – http://www.wolframalpha.com

Wolfram Alpha is not a search engine, it’s a knowledge base -- but one that’s very smart. The site describes itself as: “a fundamentally new way to get knowledge and answers— not by searching the web, but by doing dynamic computations based on a vast collection of built-in data, algorithms, and methods.”

 The best way to begin is to go to the home page and click on “random” searches. You’ll get the hang of what it can do with its prescribed search parameters.

Another way to explore the site is to go to the Examples page and play around with a particular category. For example, under Social Statistics, Crime, one example search is: “crime Texas.” The results page has simple, easy to read information about total crimes, a chart showing change in crime over time, the crime rate, property crimes, and violent crimes (with the option of more charts). There is a Source link at the bottom of the page to trace the data, and in this example if you click on the External Data sources, you will get a drop down bibliography of sources, which includes the US Dept of Justice BJS and National Center for Education Statistics, among others.

There are 30 categories in the free version of the site, and each category has multiple sub and sub-sub categories. It is amazing what you can discover here.

A few highlights:
 “President of Argentina” = political leader name, photo, basic dates
“star chart San Diego” = generate a star chart for a location
“1000 to Babylonian” = 1000 in Babylonian numerals
“Russian language” = get information, basic words, and stats about a particular language

SWC Library - Four Locations

 Stop by one of the SWC Library's four locations. Call, email, or chat. We are here to help!

 Main Library

Monday - Thursday: 8:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m.
Friday: 8:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.
Saturday: 10:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.
Closed: Sunday

San Ysidro Library

Monday: 11:30 a.m. - 2:30 p.m.
Tuesday: 9:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
Wednesday: 8:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. & 2:30 p.m. - 6:30 p.m.
Thursday: 9:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. 

 Otay Mesa Library
Monday: 11:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.
Tuesday & Wednesday: 9:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.
Thursday: 12:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. 

 National City Library
Monday: 1:30 p.m. - 3:30 p.m.
Tuesday: 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. & 4:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.
Wednesday: 4:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.
Thursday: 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.

 

Website of the Week

Healthfinder - http://healthfinder.gov 

This site is sponsored by the National Health Information Center. One can find resources on a wide range of health topics selected from over 1,600 government and non-profit organizations to bring you the best, most reliable health information on the Internet. Information is also available in Spanish.

I particularly like that one can browse topics by A-Z, “Health A-Z”. Another easy tool to use is “myhealthfinder”. This assists in finding specific health advice depending on age and sex. Although most people have probably heard these recommendations from their primary care doctors, it’s a quick reminder of what one can do to maintain a healthy lifestyle. It’s not too technical and in my opinion a great resource for the layperson

Review by Patty Torres, SWC Librarian