Library at the Taste of Coker

The library had a terrific time at Taste of Coker 2010. Genna and Charles did a great job of serving up some excellent chocolate. Willy Wonka and Roald Dahl would have been proud. Check out the video on our facebook page.

Fall Public Review of Instructional Materials

We are assisting the South Carolina Department of Education (SCDE) with the fall public review of instructional materials that have been recommended for adoption. The purpose of the review is to solicit citizen input regarding the potential textbooks and instructional materials to be included on the state adopted list. The State Board of Education will receive for approval the adoption recommendations along with a summary report of comments from the public review on December 8, 2010.

The public review period is from October 8 through November 7, 2010. The items we have received are displayed in the lounge area on the high counter closest to the reference section.

Please use the available comment forms to provide feedback on these materials.

Peanut Butter for Carolina Kids

Coker College Commissioners are collecting 16 oz. or less jars of peanut butter for an important local charity, Carolina Kids. Although we'll be collecting peanut butter jars in the library until the cutoff date of October 1, the Commissioners will be with us today from 10am-5pm collecting and answering any questions you might have.

More about Carolina Kids:

"Carolina Kids, a non-profit organization in Darlington County, is teaming with school and community partners in an effort to ensure that students have food at times when school is not in session, weekends and breaks in the regular school year.

Carolina Kids have a food program titles Hunger Busters that provides bags of supplemental, kid friendly food to children who are "food insecure" over the weekend. When a child is "food insecure," he or she is at great risk of going hungry. To combat this problem, food is delivered weekly to participating schools when volunteers pack and distribute them.

Carolina Kids currently distribute 1,050 meals per week to children in public schools."

Reimagine Libraries: Telephone Booth Books

One of Britain’s few remaining traditional red phone booths has been recycled into one of the country’s smallest lending libraries – stocking 100 books. Villagers from Westbury-sub-Mendip in Somerset can use the library around the clock, selecting books, DVDs and CDs. Users simply stock it with a book they have read, swapping it for one they have not.

9/11 Remembrance Banners

Currently banners are being displayed in the LITC in remembrance of 9/11. We invite you to drop in, grab a marker, and express your thoughts on that day.

The banners will be leaving the library tomorrow morning (9/9/10) to be hung in the Susanne G. Linville Dining Hall.

Fun with Lexis Nexis

If you've ever used Lexis Nexis, the last way you would ever describe the experience would be "fun." Don't get me wrong: Lexis Nexis is an exceptional, powerful resource. It can be a bit daunting, even for a librarian.

What is Lexis Nexis? It is a full-text database with over 16,000 published sources, blogs, press releases, pamphlets, brochures, magazines, TV and radio broadcast transcripts, and many other sources in a variety of languages.

Lexis Nexis is a no-frills database, meaning you won't get images and PDF versions of articles -- but you will get an enormous range of content, with one legal journal beginning in 1831 (most coverage begins in the 1980s however).

The good folks at Lexis Nexis recently created a Youtube channel with very helpful video tutorials. Check this one about how to find a story from National Public Radio in 60 seconds:




Here is an introduction to entire database, definitely worth seven minutes of your time:





The entire video collection can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/user/LexisNexisAcademic

Reimagine Libraries: Biblioburro

Biblioburro: A traveling library that distributes books to patrons from the backs of two donkeys, Alfa and Beto.

Luis Soriano, and elementary school teacher from La Gloria, Columbia, came up with the idea of Biblioburro after witnessing first-hand the power reading had on his students. Since the late 1990s, Soriano has traveled to communities in Colombia's Caribbean Sea hinterlands with a portable library, which began with only 70 books.