Winter Reads: SCTC Suggestions

Looking to earn your pizza party by reading a book over winter break?  Here are some recommendations from your library's bookshelf - perfect books to keep you going during the cold winter months.

Griffin Campus Library

61 Hours
by Lee Child

Summary:  A tour bus crashes in a savage snowstorm and lands Jack Reacher in the middle of a deadly confrontation. In nearby Bolton, South Dakota, one brave woman is standing up for justice in a small town threatened by sinister forces--and Reacher will risk his own to save her from a coldly proficient assassin who never misses.

Call Number:  PS 3553 .H4838 A614 2010



The Devil in the White City
by Erik Larson

Summary: Erik Larson intertwines the true tale of the 1893 World’s Fair and the cunning serial killer who used the fair to lure his victims to their death. Combining meticulous research with nail-biting storytelling, Erik Larson has crafted a narrative with all the wonder of newly discovered history and the thrills of the best fiction.

Call Number: HV 6248 .ML37 2004

A Game of Thrones
by George R.R. Martin

Summary: A tale of court intrigues in the land of Seven Kingdoms, a country "blessed by golden summers that go on for years, and cursed by cruel winters that can last a generation." The story that inspired the HBO series.

Call Number: PS 3563 .A7239 G36 1996




The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
by Stieg Larsson

Summary:  The disappearance forty years ago of Harriet Vanger gnaws at her octogenarian uncle, Henrik Vanger. He is determined to know the truth about what he believes was her murder. He hires crusading journalist Mikael Blomkvist to get to the bottom of Harriet’s disappearance. Lisbeth Salander, a twenty-four-year-old, pierced, tattooed genius hacker assists Blomkvist with the investigation.

Call Number:  PT 9876.22 .A6933 M3613 2008


Flint River Campus Library



Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking
by Malcolm Gladwell

Why do some people follow their instincts and win, while others end up stumbling into error? And why are the best decisions often those that are impossible to explain to others? Drawing on cutting-edge neuroscience and psychology, the author reveals that great decision makers aren’t necessarily those who process the most information or spend the most time thinking.

Call Number: BF 448 .G53 2007


The Secret Life of Bees
by Sue Monk Kidd

Summary: Fourteen-year-old Lily and her companion, Rosaleen, an African-American woman who has cared from Lily since her mother’s death, flee their home after Rosaleen is victimized by racist police officers. The story takes place in 1964 when racial unrest and civil rights were in high mode in the South.

Call Number: FIC KIDD



Middlesex
by Jeffrey Eugenides

Summary: "I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of l974. . . My birth certificate lists my name as Calliope Helen Stephanides. My most recent driver’s license...records my first name simply as Cal."

Call Number: FIC EUGE


The Yiddish Policemen's Union
by Michael Chabon

Summary: Imagine if Franklin Roosevelt had opened Alaska to unlimited Jewish immigration during and immediately after World War II. In Chabon's alternate history, millions of Jews emigrated to Sitka, establishing a vibrant Yiddish-speaking culture. Now, sixty years after the creation of this independent Jewish settlement, Alaska is about to revert to U.S. control. What will happen to the population?

Call Number: FIC CHAB

Winter Break Reading Challenge

Tired of those boring textbooks? Want to snuggle up with some mind candy during Winter Break?

We do too, and that's why we (the libraries) are allowing currently enrolled students to check out library materials over the Winter Break.

Your challenge, should you accept it, is to read any book over the break and write a short (100-200 words) review of the book. Select entries will be published on the library blog PLUS everyone who participates will be able to attend a Pizza Party in the library.

Entries are due January 19th to the library circulation desk or by emailing tnesbitt@sctech.edu.

Technology Tuesday: Wired's Top 10 Tech This Week

Take a break from studying to check out some of the wild, remarkable and sometimes disturbing tech inventions unveiled this week in Mashable's Top 10 Tech This Week.  From shoes that can 'see' to tiny projectors that fit in your pocket, this list is a good representative of some of the amazing innovations we're making in the world of technology.

Check out the list here.

Oprah's Best Fiction of 2011

As 2011 draws to an end, Oprah's O Magazine takes the chance to step back and review this year's crop of new fiction.  Visit her website here to learn more about the books and why they won.

Most Ambitious Book of 2011
The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht

Remembering childhood stories her grandfather once told her, young physician Natalia becomes convinced that he spent his last days searching for "the deathless man," a vagabond who claimed to be immortal. As Natalia struggles to understand why her grandfather, a deeply rational man would go on such a farfetched journey, she stumbles across a clue that leads her to the extraordinary story of the tiger’s wife.

Find it at the Griffin Library: PS 3615 .B73 T54 2011

Most Of-The-Moment Book of 2011
The Leftovers by Tom Perrotta

What if the Rapture happened and you got left behind? Or what if it wasn't the Rapture at all, but something murkier, a burst of mysterious, apparently random disappearances that shattered the world in a single moment, dividing history into Before and After, leaving no one unscathed? How would you rebuild your life in the wake of such a devastating event?

Request this book through Interlibrary Loan: Online form

Most Layered Book of 2011
Ten Thousand Saints by Eleanor Henderson

A sweeping, multigenerational drama, set against the backdrop of the raw, roaring New York City during the late 1980s. Adoption, teen pregnancy, drugs, hardcore punk rock, the unbridled optimism and reckless stupidity of the young - and old - are all major elements in this heart-aching tale of the son of diehard hippies and his strange odyssey through the extremes of late 20th century youth culture.

Request this book through Interlibrary Loan: Online form

Most Cinematic Book of 2011
Rules of Civility by Amor Towles

Set in New York City in 1938, Rules of Civility tells the story of a watershed year in the life of an uncompromising twenty-five-year-old named Katey Kontent. Armed with little more than a formidable intellect, a bracing wit, and her own brand of cool nerve, Katey embarks on a journey from a Wall Street secretarial pool through the upper echelons of New York society in search of a brighter future.

Request this book through Interlibrary Loan: Online form

Most Deceptively Deep Book of 2011
Blueprints for Building Better Girls by Elissa Schappell

From a reader review on LibraryThing: "It is a series of short stories that center around women and the relationships we have with one another, with our lovers, with our spouses, our children, our parents. Most of the stories intersect with another story in some way. There was laughing, there was crying. There was one particular 8 page section that I had to read out of the corner of my eye because I just couldn't face it head on."

Request this book through Interlibrary Loan: Online form

December 1: World AIDS Day

Today is World AIDS Day, a day to remember the victims of HIV and to encourage education on this virus.

To learn more, check out the World AIDS Day display at the Griffin Campus Library for a great selection of DVDs and both fiction and non-fiction books.

You can also learn more through some of the fantastic AIDS education resources online.  Here's a list to get you started:

A Timeline of AIDS
This timeline does a great job of showing the development of the AIDS epidemic, year by year.  Starting with 1981, each year has its own blurb and series of relevant links to news and issues of that time.

Southern AIDS Living Quilt
This site focuses on the stories of women in the South living with AIDS.  Watch these video testimonials, or consider contributing one of your own.

NAM AIDS Map
Find resources in your area supporting those with HIV/AIDS.

Kaiser State Health Facts
The Kaiser Foundation’s State Health Facts site allows users to begin their information search either through searching by category or by state.  The ‘state’ search is incredibly helpful for educators looking for grassroots-based initiatives in their local community to provide guest speakers or resources for students living with AIDS.  If searching by the ‘HIV/AIDS’ category, users will be taken to an incredibly comprehensive page of fact sheets, prevention programs and resources, funding sites, and drug assistance programs.

Peer Corps - Teen AIDS
As its title suggests, this site is primarily directed toward educating teens, as well as providing youths with HIV/AIDS with a creative and social outlet.  The site also encourages HIV+ teens to tell their own stories by submitting art, videos, written stories and surveys.

Technology Tuesday: Finals Edition

December is just around the corner - and with it, the finals crunch! This Technology Tuesday features tools to help you cope, whether you're cramming for a test or trying to churn out another paragraph for a research paper.

Noodle Tools
*What: Noodle Tools walks you through the whole research process, from information gathering to writing the paper to citations and bibliographies.  You can use Noodle Tools to help you organize your resources, format your paper, and even set up 'To Do' lists to keep you on track with your assignments.  Check out the online tour for more information!
*How: You can access Noodle Tools through the library website.  To create your account, you will need the school/library password, which you can get by talking to your librarian.

Scholarly vs. Popular Resources
*What:  One of the hardest parts of any research project is figuring out how trustworthy your sources are.  This video is a great starting point for judging any information resources you might think about citing.



Internet Public Library
*What:  Google not giving you the resources you need?  Search through the Internet Public Library (IPL) for free, reliable online resources.  You can search by subject or by resource type.  Still not enough?  You can submit a research question, and a librarian will help you find relevant resources.
*How:  Click here to browse IPL's resources, or here to ask a question.

Write or Die!
*What:  If you need that extra boost to get you writing, Write or Die gives great motivation - if you stop writing for too long, it'll slowly start erasing what you've done so far!  You can adjust the speed and the length of the 'crunch time' before it starts deleting.  This is a life saver for procrastinators.
*How:  Visit Write or Die, set your time and word goal, and start typing directly into the text box.  When you're done, you can download or copy/paste what you've written to Word.

Technology Tuesday: Robotic Bears and Singing Butlers

Call me old fashioned, but I usually don't expect to be woken up by a stuffed bear smacking me in the face.  But as we look to the future of robotics, alongside surgical aids and car manufacturing, one of the next big advances is... the teddy bear snore-preventer.



This video shows a demo from 2011's International Robot Exhibition in Tokyo, featuring a visibly uncomfortable test subject as the robotic bear reacts to the sound of snoring and strokes the side of his face to get him to turn to his side.  Another bear attaches to your hand and measures your oxygen levels as you sleep.  The robot's developers hope that, by encouraging sleepers to lie on their sides, they can reduce the incidence of snoring and sleep apneas.

Aside from working as the snoring police, robotics engineers also see a future for robots as musical butlers.  The company Ologic presented the AMP, or 'Automated Music Personality' at this year's RoboBusiness Conference in Boston, MA.  Aside from rolling around and serving you drinks, this remote-controlled robot also streams music through its speakers, making it an instant dance party on wheels.  That is, if you're willing to shell out $300-$400 for a roaming set of speakers.  Personally, until the AMP goes more mainstream, I would suggest taking a tip from Parks and Recreation's Tom Haverford and just strapping an iPod to Roomba.