Your window to taking advantage of Fintel Library’s offerings.

Shelflife Volume VI, Issue III January / February 2010

Some of Fintel’s Latest Book and DVD Arrivals

It is not too early to start think-ing about your life after graduation. Maybe your cho-sen profession requires more education —- maybe lots more education! Graduate school may be in your future! Fintel Library has many resources available for exploring and investigating graduate school, preparing for the Graduate Record Exam, LSAT, MCAT, and applying to schools of your choice. One of the best tools for starting is CollegeSource. CollegeSource contains the full text catalogs of graduate and professional schools including course descriptions and requirements. A very helpful feature is the criteria search available through the advanced searching link. You can search by type of degree (masters or doctorate), public or private institutions, and location. This tool makes it easy to locate a public institution in Florida offering a master’s degree in social work. To access CollegeSource from the library homepage : Resources > Reference Resources. Are you nervous about taking the GRE? Fintel Library has study guides for vocabulary review, reading comprehension practice, synonyms and anto-nyms review, and quantitative practices too. Spend some time with these review guides and you will not be tripped up selecting the opposite of dif-fuse, if a = b which of the following statements must be true, or analyzing the logical soundness of an argument. And do not forget the GRE website itself. It includes practice test questions, too. The web address is http://www.ets.org/gre/. Then there is the tough job of writing that personal statement, the gradu-ate admission essay. We can help you with that, too. Donald Asher’s book, Graduate Admissions Essays, gives tips for making your statement distinctive. He includes a chapter on planning and managing the applica-tion process and many sample statements to trigger your own thoughts. The Writing Center can assist with your personal essay as well. Contact the Center for an appointment at 540-375-4949 or email them at writingcenter@roanoke.edu. Your favorite professor or advisor is an excellent resource as well for ad-vice on particular graduate programs, life as a graduate student, and the current job market. For a list of the many library resources, both print and online, start from the library homepage and follow this path : Resources > More Resources > Li-brary Handouts.

SENIORS, WHAT’S IN YOUR FUTURE???

Shelflife You’re Hooked Up With the King of

Electronic Reference Databases

College libraries all across the nation try very hard to provide their students with the best electronic databases possible to support their course assign-ments. That’s why Fintel Library recently acquired your access to Credo Refer-ence. Its simple search box on the front page is deceiving; while it might look like it offers access to a single reference source, you’re really tapping into over three million entries contained in over 360 reference sources from about 60 publishers. Clicking on the encyclopedias link to the right links you to a list of 100 full text encyclopedias including such varied works as Holocaust Literature: An Encyclopedia of Writers and Their Work; The Encyclopedia

of Latin American and Caribbean Literature, 1900-2003; The Hut-chinson Unabridged Encyclopedia with Atlas and Weather Guide; The Encyclopedia of Insects; The Encyclopedia of Urban Legends; and The Encyclopedia of Urban America: The Cities and Suburbs --- and that’s naming just a few!

It doesn’t stop with various encyclopedias, though. There are dic-tionaries, biographies, bilingual dictionaries, crossword solvers (!), and measurement converters. And that’s not all! There’s a very nifty – and potentially useful – “concept search” mode that yields results such as this “map” of concepts (left), showing interconnected search terms and topics.

Also, be sure to check out the image search function which takes your search terms and provides you with visually illustrative images like the one on the right. It’s no wonder Credo Reference was given the highest score in a comparison of 176 databases rated by The Library Journal in their 2009 E-reference Ratings feature. The ease of use, the content, bells and whistles, and the linking functionality all put Credo Refer-ence at the top of the heap. Do yourself a favor. Visit the library’s webpage and try this database out for your next assignment. From the library’s page : Resources > Reference Resources > Credo Reference.

Shelflife

Shelflife • Shelflife • Shelflife • Shelflife

©2009 Roanoke College. All rights reserved.

January 2010 Hours 1

Closed 2 Closed

3 Closed

4 8 am—4:30 pm

5 8 am—4:30 pm

6 8 am—4:30 pm

7 8 am—4:30 pm

8 8 am—4:30 pm

9 Closed

10 Closed

11 8 am-mid

12 8 am-mid

13 8 am-mid

14 8 am-mid

15 8 am - 5:30 pm

16 10 am - 5:30 pm

17 12 noon - mid

18 8 am-mid

19 8 am-mid

20 8 am-mid

21 8 am-mid

22 8 am - 5:30 pm

23 10 am - 5:30 pm

24 12 noon - mid

25 8 am-mid

26 8 am-mid

27 8 am-mid

28 8 am-mid

29 8 am - 5:30 pm

30 10 am - 5:30 pm

Research Assistance Available : Daytime hours : Mon—Fri 9 am to 4:30 pm Evening hours : Sun — Wed 7 pm — 9 pm

February 2010 31 12 noon - mid

1 8 am-mid

2 8 am-mid

3 8 am-mid

4 8 am-mid

5 8 am - 5:30 pm

6 10 am - 5:30 pm

7 12 noon - mid

8 8 am-mid

9 8 am-mid

10 8 am-mid

11 8 am-mid

12 8 am - 5:30 pm

13 10 am - 5:30 pm

14 12 noon - mid

15 8 am-mid

16 8 am-mid

17 8 am-mid

18 8 am-mid

19 8 am - 5:30 pm

20 10 am - 5:30 pm

21 12 noon - mid

22 8 am-mid

23 8 am-mid

24 8 am-mid

25 8 am-mid

26 8 am - 4:30 pm

27 Closed

28 Closed

Research Assistance Available : Daytime hours : Mon—Fri 9 am to 4:30 pm Evening hours : Sun — Wed 7 pm — 9 pm