OMG, the Oxford English Dictionary Added New Words! We ‘Heart’ It! LOL!

According to the OED, the newest edition of the dictionary revises more than 1,900 entries and includes a ton of new words — including the neologisms above.

So what do OMG and LOL mean to the OED? In the electronic realm, they’re merely shorthand for surprise and laughter. In the real-world space — according to the OED’s blog post — “The intention is usually to signal an informal, gossipy mode of expression, and perhaps parody the level of unreflective enthusiasm or overstatement that can sometimes appear in online discourse, while at the same time marking oneself as an ‘insider’ au fait with the forms of expression associated with the latest technology.”

The OED also reveals that these neologisms aren’t as neo as we might think: The first quotation the dictionary uses for the definition of OMG is from a letter dating back to 1917, and LOL meant “little old lady” back in 1960.

The heart sign (<3), however, is perhaps the most interesting addition. As the post says, “This update may be the first English usage to develop via the medium of T-shirts and bumper-stickers.”

One thing to keep in mind is that popular culture is major driver of new vocabulary. Once a word makes it in, it is never removed even if it becomes antiquated; the purpose of the OED is to exist as a comprehensive, living history of the language.

Scheduled Downtime for GIL and GIL-Find

GIL and GIL-Find will be unavailable on March 26th from 5 AM to 7 AM due to scheduled maintenance.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

Favorite Children's Book Read-Out

During the celebration of National Library Week, CSU Libraries will host a Favorite Children's Book Read-Out. This event will be held on April 14 in the forum area of the main library from 12:30-1:30 p.m. We invite you to sign up to read from your favorite children's book by emailing jones_michelle@colstate.edu the title of your book and the author no later than April 8 at 5 p.m.

Rite of Passage Convocation

The campus community is invited to attend Rite of Passage Convocation celebrating CSU faculty promoted to the rank of full professor in 2009-10. Sponsored by the Office of the Provost and VPAA, and the Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning, these ceremonies offer new professors the opportunity to share brief thoughts with the university community on their teaching experiences, research, or, more generally, life in the academy.

Note that the lectures will be held in the main library's first floor forum area.

Tuesday, March 24

Light lunch refreshments served beginning at 12:00pm

Presentations, 12:30pm - 1:30pm

Dr. Abiye Seifu, Professor of Engineering

Dr. Teresa S. Irvin, Professor of Basic Studies

Database of the Month: ACM Digital Library

The ACM Digital Library contains the full-text for articles published in ACM and affiliated organizations' periodicals and proceedings since 1985, as well as bibliographic information, abstracts, and reviews for those articles. These publications cover various fields related to computing, including software, hardware, computational theory, artificial intelligence, information science, human-computer interaction, instructional technology, and the research and development communities involved in computing.

Searching of the full-text is available using keywords, authors, and ACM subject classification terms, and features phrase searching, use of wildcards, and Boolean expression searching as well as search limitation on fields, publication, and publication date. If you would like to see a video tutorial on how to use the ACM Digital Library from the James A. Cannavino Library at Marist College, click here.

This database includes links to two related resources: the Guide to Computing Literature and Computing Reviews. The Guide is a collection of bibliographic citations and abstracts of works published by the ACM and 3,000 other publishers. Computing Reviews comprehensively reviews books, articles, conference proceedings, theses, technical reports, and Web-based publications in computer science.

*Note: You will need Adobe Acrobat to access this information*

Rite of Passage Convocation

The campus community is invited to attend Rite of Passage Convocation celebrating CSU faculty promoted to the rank of full professor in 2009-10. Sponsored by the Office of the Provost and VPAA, and the Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning, these ceremonies offer new professors the opportunity to share brief thoughts with the university community on their teaching experiences, research, or, more generally, life in the academy.

Note that the lectures will be held in the main library's first floor forum area.

Tuesday, March 22

Light lunch refreshments served beginning at 12:00pm

Presentations, 12:30pm - 1:30pm

Dr. Floyd R. Jackson, Professor of Chemistry

Dr. Mark S. Schmidt, Professor of Psychology

ProQuest Maintenance and Outage

Due to a scheduled 12 hour maintenance ProQuest will be unavailable Saturday, March 19th at 10:00PM EST until Sunday, March 20th at 10:00AM EST.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

GIL Services Unavailable

Due to a power outage at the University of Georgia's Miller Learning Center, GIL services will be temporarily unavailable around noon today and later this evening.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

Rite of Passage Convocation

The campus community is invited to attend Rite of Passage Convocation celebrating CSU faculty promoted to the rank of full professor in 2009-10. Sponsored by the Office of the Provost and VPAA, and the Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning, these ceremonies offer new professors the opportunity to share brief thoughts with the university community on their teaching experiences, research, or, more generally, life in the academy.

Note that the lectures will be held in the main library's first floor forum area.

Thursday, March 17

Light lunch refreshments served beginning at 12:00pm

Presentations, 12:30pm - 1:30pm

Dr. Thomas P. Dolan, Professor of Political Science

Dr. Jose Villavicencio, Professor of Foreign Language Education

Federal Resources for Educational Excellence

The U. S. Department of Education maintains the FREE (Federal Resources for Educational Excellence) website, which provides links to K-12 teaching and learning resources from federal agencies. This is one stop shopping for the teacher who is looking for reliable web resources and free educational materials in the subjects of Arts & Music, Health & Physical Education, Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, World Studies, and U.S. History. Let’s look at a small sample of interesting resources:

• The National Institutes of Health, Office of Science Education - The OSE is the coordinator and sponsor of science education projects at the NIH. These programs are developed for elementary, secondary, and college-level students and teachers. The website organizes educational resources by topics, grade levels, and resources formats.

• The National Archives, Teachers Resources - The National Archives has a section devoted to providing teachers with lesson plans for using primary documents in the classroom. For example, one lesson is entitled: Powers of Persuasion - Poster Art of World War II. This lesson includes links to the National Archives’ online gallery of the war posters, standards correlations, teaching activities, and a poster analysis worksheet.

• The Central Intelligence Agency, World Factbook - The World Factbook contains “information on the history, people, government, communications, transportation, military, and transnational issues for 266 world entities.” There are also flags and maps - physical maps, political maps, regional maps, and a time zone map. One can also view a country comparison of a variety of economic data, demographics, geography, etc. On the lighter side, there is an entertaining, yet educational Kids Page that offers games, puzzles, and information about the CIA.

Spread a Little Sunshine and Celebrate Sunshine Week.

March 13-20 marks the 10th annual Sunshine Week. Begun in 2002, Sunshine Week celebrates and promotes open and transparent government. Take this week to explore the many resources available at your government depository library and online. Visit the White House's Open Government Initiative to learn more about Open Government on a national level. Or read more about Sunshine Week in Monday's edition of the Ledger-Enquirer.

Women’s History Month

In honor of Women’s History Month, here are a few resources in GALILEO to help you find the stories of women throughout history.

Encyclopædia Britannica offers a spotlight on women, Encyclopædia Britannica Profiles 300 Women Who Changed the World. This collection of items includes an illustrated timeline of women throughout history along with articles, essays, speeches, video clips, and learning activities.

A search for women in History Reference Center reveals articles about Amelia Earhart and other women aviators, about women in space, about female athletes, about women living the pioneer life on the frontier, and much more.

World History Collection offers historical accounts of women around the world, including this inspiring story of women in Peru and a look at the reading and work that Mary Wollstonecraft put in to writing Frankenstein.

For speeches, letters, and other primary source documents, search for women in Annals of American History to see a letter from Horace Greeley on women’s rights or a declaration of rights for women from Susan B. Anthony.

Interested in important women in Georgia? Take a look at the Women of Distinction in Georgia feature in the New Georgia Encyclopedia. You can read about interesting women like Mary Musgrove, Rosalyn Carter, Alice Walker, and many more fascinating women. The Digital Library of Georgia offers many historical images and documents related to women, and it also includes two collections focused on women’s history, For Our Mutual Benefit: The Athens Woman’s Club and Social Reform, 1899-1920 and Georgia Women’s Movement Oral History Project Collection.

Also take a look at the great print titles here at the Simon Schwob Memorial Library.

Article and search links may not work off site. Click the database name first for access.

Columbus State University Named HEOA Role Model

As specified by Congress and the Department of Education, colleges and universities have a great deal of flexibility in determining how they will comply with the HEOA. Compliance strategies will also change as technology and business models evolve and as experience accrue. There is thus no one-size-fits-all approach, now or in the future. Instead, EDUCAUSE has identified a range of campuses to serve as role models and case studies, whose choices can help, inform peer institutions. Click here to see other leaders in this important work.

Part 1: The plan to effectively combat copyright infringement

1-1. Link to relevant Web page(s)

Columbus State University Copyright Infringement page

1-2. What technology-based deterrent(s) have you decided to use?

We are using our firewall's application content filtering capabilities to block peer-to-peer application activity. We are also using bandwidth shaping to throttle general HTTP traffic.

1-3. What mechanism(s) are you using to educate your community?

Beginning of each semester sending “Information Security Tip of the Week” e-mail to all students, faculty and staff with information and URL. Scheduling speaking engagements to “Freshman Experience” courses. Have included in Student Handbook beginning in 2011.

1-4. What procedures are you using for handling unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material (e.g., monitoring, sanctions, etc.)?

Investigate instances that we discover either by USG abuse tickets, DMCA notices, through network traffic discovery (high bandwidth) or student’s network storage drive (music/movie files) discovery. Notification of students by Resnet department via e-mail of infraction and the incident will be turned over to the Dean of Students Office for a judgment hearing.

1-5. How are you periodically reviewing the plan? What criteria are you using to determine if it is effectively combating copyright infringement?

By monitoring the amount of USG copyright infringement abuse tickets, DMCA notices received and internal incidents. Student feedback from information security communications.

Part 2: Offering Alternatives

2-1. Link to relevant Web page(s)

Library Copyright Guides and Resources

USA Today Article "Colleges Bust File Sharing"

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (DMCA)(PDF)

EDUCAUSE Legal Sources of Online Content

Campus Downloading Booklet(PDF)

MPAA Letter to College & University Presidents

2-2. Are you carrying out your own survey of alternatives or linking to one or more lists maintained by others? If the latter, which list(s)?

See above.

2-3. Have you made any special arrangements with one or more content providers to obtain content through legal methods?

No; using the alternatives provided.

Part 3: Informing the Community

3-1. Link to relevant Web page(s)

Columbus State University Copyright Infringement page

3-2. Have you developed your own statement regarding copyright and copyright law in general or are you linking to such statement(s) maintained by others? If the latter, which statement(s)?

From CSU Student Handbook IV. Student Responsibilities Section A. Academic Misconduct

13. Computer Violations: Students will adhere to the Georgia Computer Systems Protection Act and all Federal laws and regulations with respect to criminal liability and penalties for the crimes of computer theft, trespass, invasion of privacy, forgery, copyright infringements, illegal downloads and password disclosure. In addition, using another person’s account, unauthorized copying of software, and tampering with/destruction of equipment is prohibited.

Also reference the U.S. Copyright Office.

Rite of Passage Convocation

The campus community is invited to attend Rite of Passage Convocation celebrating CSU faculty promoted to the rank of full professor in 2009-10. Sponsored by the Office of the Provost and VPAA, and the Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning, these ceremonies offer new professors the opportunity to share brief thoughts with the university community on their teaching experiences, research, or, more generally, life in the academy.

Note that the lectures will be held in the main library's first floor forum area.

Tuesday, March 15

Light lunch refreshments served beginning at 12:00pm

Presentations, 12:30pm - 1:30pm

Mr. Joseph D. Golden, Professor of Music

Dr. Sheri R. Noviello, Professor of Nursing

CSU Libraries Spring Break Hours

We would like to inform you of the change in library hours during Spring Break.

The library will be closed March 5th- 7th.

We will be open and operating 8:00am – 5:00pm, March 8th -11th.

Regular hours of operation will resume on March 12th.

If you need more clarification on these dates, please look at our online calendar.

From all of us here at the Simon Schwob Memorial Library and Columbus State University, we wish you a very enjoyable and safe break.