English vs Metric Measurement Conversion: NOW it's WAR!!!

Ever wonder what the temperature in Fahrenheit degrees would be in Centigrade? Planning a trip to Montreal and you'd like to know how many liters are in a gallon? World Wide Metric has a pretty handy online Metric/English conversion device that'll change any English unit of measure to Metric with a few clicks. Find the unit of measure you want to convert, type the amount you have in the appropriate box and click on calculate.

Try it out here.

2010 Big Read: Edgar Allan Poe

“Once upon a midnight, dreary...” – Poe, The Raven

It’s the Big Read time of the year again! This year’s Big Read is author Edgar Allan Poe and the Poughkeepsie Public Library District will be celebrating the works of the famous mystery author throughout the month of October. If you’d like to know more, go to their site for a schedule of events and locations.

The Ritz Library of Dutchess Community College will be featuring a display dedicated to Poe’s life and work, featuring books, curio objects and photographs of Poe’s homes. The Ritz Reference Department staff has also created a webpage for the event here.

On October 19th and 20th the Dutchess Community College Department of English presents “Poe Goes to the Movies.” Clips from film adaptations will be shown in conjunction with live readings of Poe’s works by DCC professors John Desmond and Richard Malboeuf. Light refreshments will be served and both events are free and open to the public. Times and locations for both dates are:

October 19: 7:30pm-8:30pm, in Bowne Hall, Rm 122

October 20: 9:30am-12pm, in the DCC Theatre, Dutchess Hall

Calling all Nurses

The Ritz Library has just added electronic access to two new publications: AJN (American Journal of Nursing) and Nursing 2010. Coverage of AJN begins in 1996, Nursing coverage starts in 2001.

So what's the big deal? After all, we already have over 600 nursing journals available online. Well, AJN and Nursing are the two most important nursing titles out there. AJN, for example is both the oldest and largest circulating nursing journal in the world, while Nursing is one of the best sources for core clinical skills. To find out what's going 0n in the nursing profession, these are "must reads".

So how do you get to these journals? Start by going to the Ritz Nursing Research Guide . In the middle of the page there's a list of databases. The "Core Nursing Journals" database contains AJN and Nursing. If you do a search in any of the other databases (such as CINAHL) and do not limit the results to full text, there will be links to this database for any AJN or Nursing articles.

Credo Reference

What is Credo Reference?  Why should I be interested?  How can I make use of this tool?

Credo Reference is a publisher who specializes in reference titles.  A reference title is a book that is known to be a good source of information for research papers and is typically kept in the Reference section of the library.  Usually Reference books are available for in-house use only.  However, since Credo Reference is offered online, you are now able to access this material from the comforts of your own home.

The Ritz Library recently purchased a subscription to Credo. Per Credo's website, "Credo Reference puts the world's best citable information at your fingertips."  What does it mean at the Ritz?  In short, we now have access to 100 book titles that you can use for research online.

To take a look at the titles that we have access to, check out the Ritz Library Guides which may be found by logging onto myDCC --> Library tab --> How do I find information for research projects? --> Ritz Research Guides.  On most of the pages, the widget to access Credo can be found in the upper left hand corner listed under the title "Basic Information".

With the introduction of the new Ritz Research Guides comes a new way to search our databases: 360 Search. You’ll find it on most of the research guides we’ve created to streamline searching our resources in order to get you the right information faster.

360 Search is a “federated” search engine, which means that it can search several databases on a single subject at the same time. So, instead of the more traditional way of searching your subject in all the applicable databases, 360 allows you to search them simultaneously and lists the results according to relevance.

You’ll notice that results come up in a list that is categorized according to database. At the top to the right above the shaded search summary area is a box to check if you’d like full text articles only. There is also a box to check for peer-reviewed articles if your interest is in getting articles written by professionals in a specific field.

The 360 Search does not appear on every RitzGuide, however, you can spot it by looking for a box at the top of the middle column, titled Search all [Subject] Databases. Enter your words in the search box, separated by “and” unless they form one term and click the search button to right.

If you have any questions about 360 Search or any of our other resource, please contact us at (845) 431-8634 or refdesk@sunydutchess.edu.

Introducing the Ritz Research Guides

Over the summer the DCC Library has been busy with lots of important improvements in our research services.
The change you'll probably notice first is that our resources pages have a new look. Called the Ritz Library Guides, these are a series of custom designed collections of tools to that will make your research easier and more accurate.
Most of these guides are set up to highlight research in a particular academic area. For example, the Business Research Guide focuses on our databases and books that cover that subject. Most guides also have a "Best of the Web" section as well.
Some guides are set up to supply resources for specific assignments or projects, but all Ritz Research Guides are designed around one ideal: To get you to the right information as quickly as possible.
All of the guides have Meebo widgets so you can chat with our staff and are enabled for handheld devices like Iphones & Ipads. There are other enhancements that will be discussed here in the weeks ahead. So for the time being, take a look at the Ritz Research Guides and let us know what you think!!

PDF Creator

In an effort to minimize printing and cut down on fileable materials, I've recently taken to using PDFCreator which can be downloaded from sourceforge.net for free.  An open source software,  the user is able to select PDFCreator from the valid printer list on your computer once installed.   Once selected from the drop-down list, a grey box opens up with saving options.  Name your document and hit save, specifying a destination.  A neat function of PDFCreator is that you can combine saving a document and emailing a document in one step using the Email button.   I particularly like this tool for documents that I want to store, but don't necessarily want to print. Give it a try!