New Quick Search Feature

Visit the NHTI Library home page to use the newest search feature, Quick Search.  

Notice that the library has updated the home page to include a single search box, that offers the user Boolean searching capability, and links to the library catalog,  E journals and over 75 databases. Here is an easy, yet powerful way to access the library’s holdings and databases from a single search box. 

To use this feature effectively, combine your keyword(s) with a Boolean operator as shown below:

AND to narrow the search, make the results smaller, more specific

            Ex. poverty and crime; jazz and blues

OR to expand the search, search for similar terms

Ex. capital punishment or death penalty; weight lifting or body building

NOT to select one term but not the other; exclude a subject

            Ex. cloning not animals; dolphins not football

As always, be sure to visit the reference librarians for tips and search help.

Presentation- What Do You Stand For?

Over the last year, we have seen a steady breakdown of trust and confidence in both institutions and individuals through a variety of ethics scandals.

How did we get in this mess? How do we restore trust in our leaders and our institutions? More importantly, how do we get back America’s integrity?

In his book, What Do You Stand For?, writer and ethics specialist Jim Lichtman details six core ethical values along with stories told by people who have done it right, including former Secret Service Director Lewis Merletti, former Johnson & Johnson CEO James Burke, as well as those who would call themselves “ordinary” citizens. All provide insight and inspiration to encourage each of us to live up to our highest aspirations.

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Jim Lichtman has been writing and speaking on ethics for ten years. Feature stories and appearances include USA TODAY, the Weekend Today Show in New York, National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition, CNN’s NewsNight with Aaron Brown, and New York-1. Jim’s commentaries have appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Chicago Tribune, and New York Times.

On Tuesday January 17, 2012, join Jim for a Q & A discussion on ethics and his book. The event will be held in the NHTI Library’s Living Room at 7 pm and is free and open to the public.

Book Review- A for Effort!

Joel Best, Professor of Sociology at the University of Delaware, writes about American culture and the impact of awards, prizes and other competitions in the United States.  He describes award inflation as an increase in the number of awards given, such as a high school class with multiple valedictorians, with little distinction as to the degree of competency. 

This prize proliferation demonstrates our society’s interest in becoming the best and it has erased the merit of many awards.  He chronicles baseball, where there was one Rookie of the Year in 1947 but one for each league in 1949.  In 2001, there was the Rookie of the Month Award and in 2003 the Player of the Week awards started with over 50 players in a 25 week season.

The annual prize for outstanding mystery writing was the Edgar, starting in 1947. Britain’s Crime Writers Association started its own awards in 1955.  Today we have more annual mystery awards; the number has grown to over 100 per year by associations creating new awards and more categories of awards.

Best identifies this interesting phenomenon and writes about our definition of heroes along with our over- the- top expectations in education.  He addresses two schools of thought – one being the theory of mastery, where students earn grades and take series of lessons.  Education benefits our society because it increases our knowledge.  The second point of view, argues that schools need to provide opportunity and equal access to education, because education offers upward mobility.  He discusses the value of each viewpoint along with the tension between advocates for either theory.

Best, Joel. (2011). Everyone’s a Winner: Life in Our Congratulatory Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press.   HN90 .S6 B47 2011