Got a textbook you want to sell?

With the rising costs of textbooks, students are increasingly looking for innovative ways to save money. The TCC Textbook Task Force acknowledges the heavy burden textbook prices can have upon students and is hoping to offer some relief with a new site for TCC students to buy, trade and sell their textbooks www.text2trade.org. Right now this site is only available to TCC students who can create free accounts with their TCC email. Sean Weins, TCC Chief Technology officer, explains, "This is something we would eventually like to make available to all students at Oklahoma state schools," and goes on to state, "We know from TCC's Textbook Task Force and hearing from students that textbook prices weigh heavily on students' minds. We hope Text2Trade makes purchasing books a litter easier on their pocketbooks." To watch a short tutorial on navigating the site click here.

Graphic Novels @ the LRC. Part I: Real Life?

Recently, the LRC has been trying to improve our collection of graphic novels. We just got a bunch in, and they'll be ready for checkout soon. Here are a few that deal with the challenges that we face in our day-to-day lives:

American Splendor: Ordinary Life is Pretty Complex Stuff, by Harvey Pekar

"American Splendor is the world's first literary comic book. Cleveland native Harvey Pekar is a true American original. A comic book writer and V.A. hospital file clerk, Harvey chronicles the ordinary and mundane in stories both funny and touching. His dead-on eye for the frustrations and minutiae of the workaday world mix in a delicate balance with his insight into personal relationships. Pekar has been compared to Dresiser, Dostoevsky, and Lenny Bruce. But he is truly more than all of them - he is himself."


Asterios Polyp, by David Mazzucchelli

"Who is Asterios Polyp? Architect, professor, author, husband - but that was all in the past. Now, as he marks half a century, he's become a shadow of his former self. But it's a stormy night, and a lightening bolt is about to set him on a fateful journey."





Black Hole, by Charles Burns

"The setting: suburban Seattle, the mid-1970s. We learn from the outset that a strange plague has descended upon the area's teenagers, transmitted by sexual contact. The disease manifests itself in any number of ways - from the hideously grotesque to the subtle (and concealable) - but once you've got it, that's it. There's no turning back."



The notes about each one are taken from the covers of the items. In the coming weeks, I'll post a little on some of the other graphic novels we've gotten:

• DMZ: On the Ground
• The Death of Superman
• Maus I
• Maus II
• Pride of Baghdad
• The Uncanny X-Men
• Watchmen

More Research Guides

The LRC librarians have been adding and updating more research guides! Some of the newest ones are:

• Computer Tips & Tricks
• Controversial Issues
• Entrepreneur Research Guide
• eReader Information
• Music 2133: Introduction to the History and Literature of Music
• Nursing

To see more, check out our Research Guides home.

E-Books

Ever find yourself needing books late at night or on the weekends when the LRC is closed? Need to do research but don't feel like going out in the rain?

In addition to our electronic article databases like Academic Search Premier and CINAHL, the LRC has a dozen e-book subscriptions which provide us with about 55,000 digital, online, always-available e-books! TCC students, faculty and staff can search for books and access them from our library catalog (you have to be logged in through Blackboard to read them, though). To limit your catalog search to just e-resources, choose "Electronic Resources" from the drop down "Limit To:" menu underneath the search box.

You can find more information about using these e-books, see a list of the subscription providers, or access the collections directly from the E-books page on our website (look under the Books & More tab on our homepage).

Earth Day

April 22^nd is Earth Day, a international celebration of our green and blue planet. The LRC has some great resources to help you understand more about earth and environmental sciences:

Science Direct is an online database that includes ten million full text articles from 2,500 scientific, technical and medical well respected, peer reviewed journals.

GreenFILE, an EbscoHost database, offers articles about climate change, sustainable building, waste management, energy practices and agriculture and pollution.


If you’re looking for an introduction to these topics, Facts On File Today’s Science is a great place to start for a student-focused look at scientific disciplines. In addition, they provide access to a glossary of scientific terms and a science encyclopedia to help get you started and provide quick answers when you have questions.

On the Earth Day website, you can learn more about what you can do to preserve the air we breathe, the water we drink and the soil we depend on to grow our food. In addition, the LRC has created an Environment research guide to help you find more of our library resources.

Top photo by Andrew H. Brown, National Geographic Stock. Bottom photo from Facts on File website.

The Low Down On Plagiarism

In our copy/paste world it can be tempting to lift the work of another and claim it as one's own to complete an assignment. However, anyone who's done so can tell you there are tough consequences. Plagiarism can be a tricky concept, so we've created a research guide, "Understanding and Avoiding Plagiarism" dedicated to helping students make sense of it. This guide features useful resources for both students and faculty including links to the CSE style guides available in our Learning Resources Centers. A video tutorial discussing how to avoid plagiarism is also included in the guide. This guide is listed under the research guides tab of the LRC homepage. Be sure to check it out at this persistent link: http://guides.lrc.tulsacc.edu/content.php?pid=108241

Health Information Online

Good medical information can be hard to find on the internet. Without knowing who is writing the articles, you can't really trust what you find. Fortunately, there are some very good sources for health and medical information that are based on clinical trials and up-to-date research and published by the government or non-profit health organizations. The LRC has gathered a few of them together for you, in the Health section on the Sciences page under the "Websites" tab on our homepage.

Bookcrossing Books

As part of National Library Week, the LRC will release more Bookcrossing books on April 14th! Look for them around all four campuses and see if you can catch one. Some of the books we're releasing are:

• The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, by Alexander McCall Smith
• Twilight, by Stephenie Meyer
• One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel García Márquez
• The Princess Bride, William Goldman
• The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Julius Caesar, by Shakespeare
• The Odyssey, by Homer
• The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini

Didn't find the one you were hoping for? Stop by one of the LRCs to see if we have a copy!

National Library Week

Next week, April 11-17th, is a national celebration of libraries, sponsored by the American Library Association. You can participate by coming into the LRC to check out a book or look at our online resources, or by attending one of our library workshops.

On Tuesday, April 13th, at 1 pm, one of our librarians will be hosting a Lunchtime Learning program on copyright and intellectual property. Information on origin and purpose of copyright, exemptions (especially fair use), the TEACH Act, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, licensing agreements, use of digital learning materials, course packs, and the TCC policy statements about copyright and intellectual property will be useful to students, faculty and staff. Plus, there will be pizza!

If you wish to attend this workshop, please R.S.V.P. to dbereolos@tulsacc.edu or call 595-8093

Poetry Resources

Interested in learning more about American and English poetry? One of our librarians has put together a research guide of poetry criticism resources. In it, you can find links to some of our online and print poetry reference titles, such as Poetry for Students. Or, you can find out more about drama and short story criticism and what we have to help you out.

You can also find a list of some websites with information about American and English literature under the Humanities section of our Websites tab on the LRC homepage:

MLA and APA Citation Guides

Does citing sources get you down? Do you love to give credit to authors, but just hate remembering where the date goes and how to format the title of the article in the citation? Does making bibliographies for some subjects and reference lists for others drive you crazy?

You can find our guide to MLA and APA citation styles under "Quick Links" on the right-hand side of the LRC homepage. If you need more help, make an appointment with one of the writing center specialists at your campus:

Metro: 595-7240
Northeast: 595-7592
Southeast: 595-7749
West: 595-8063

New Research Guides Published

LRC Research Guides are now available electronically and are designed to help you find resources for all your research needs.

Check out some of the latest additions or visit http://guides.lrc.tulsacc.edu to see them all:

Business
Human Services
Streaming Audio/Video
Reading
Speech 1113

Website Redesign

If you cannot find what you are looking for, try one of 3 things:

1. Go to our old website here http://lrc.tulsacc.edu/webvoyold.htm.
2. Use the Search box in the upper right corner of the homepage and use the "guides" menu setting for a site search.
3. Get help from Kim Monday, our Virtual Librarian via chat.

Thank you for your patience while the website is in development.

Featured Resource: Greenfile

As we all stop to consider our impact on the environment this month the Learning Resources Center wants you to know about a great resource provided by Ebscohost: Greenfile.

"Focusing on the relationship between human beings and the environment, with well-researched but accessible information on topics ranging from global warming to recycling to alternate fuel sources and beyond. Comprised of scholarly and general interest titles, as well as government documents and reports, GreenFILE offers a unique perspective on the positive and negative ways humans affect the ecology" (ebschohost.com).

This is a great resource for research assignments as well as for general information about sustainability and the environment. Stop by the LRC for tips on using Greenfile!

Bookcrossing at your campus!

For the past two semesters the LRC has been releasing books into the wild as part of the global Bookcrossing project!

Bookcrossing is the practice of leaving a book in a public place to be picked up and read by others, who then do likewise (bookcrossing.com).

You may have found books with the Bookcrossing sticker placed throughout the campus for your enjoyment. Feel free to pick-it-up read, register it online, share your thoughts, and then pass it along. Nearly a million people are "hunting" Bookcrossing books across the world. Stop by any LRC to find out more information or visit Bookcrossing.com to register your "catch" today!

CINAHL, a Nursing and Allied Health Database

Looking for scholarly sources for nursing or allied health? A great place to start your research is CINAHL, an Ebscohost database of nearly 3000 titles that covers topics in many nursing and allied health specialties. For more information about the journals they include, see their website. To get help using CINAHL, talk to one of our reference librarians in person, by phone, by email (lrcelectroniclibrarian@tulsacc.edu) or online via chat.

EbscoHost Mobile

You can now access the TCC EbscoHost Research Databases from your cell phone or other mobile device!

Click on the icon above to access EbscoHost Mobile interface.

Click here for information on how to download the application for your iPhone.

For more help see the EbscoHost Mobile FAQ.

National Poetry Month

April is National Poetry Month! To kick off the month-long celebration of poets and poems, here are two selections from poets.org, the sponsor of National Poetry Month.

A selection from “Let America be America Again,” by Langston Hughes

O, I'm the man who sailed those early seas
In search of what I meant to be my home--
For I'm the one who left dark Ireland's shore,
And Poland's plain, and England's grassy lea,
And torn from Black Africa's strand I came
To build a "homeland of the free."

The free?

Who said the free? Not me?
Surely not me? The millions on relief today?
The millions shot down when we strike?
The millions who have nothing for our pay?
For all the dreams we've dreamed
And all the songs we've sung
And all the hopes we've held
And all the flags we've hung,
The millions who have nothing for our pay--
Except the dream that's almost dead today.

O, let America be America again--
The land that never has been yet--
And yet must be--the land where every man is free.

A selection from “Negotiations with a Volcano,” by Naomi Shibab Nye

Please think of us as we are, tiny, with skins that burn easily.
Please notice how we have watered the shrubs around our houses
and transplanted the peppers into neat tin cans.
Forgive any anger we feel toward the earth,
when the rains do not come, or they come too much,
and swallow our corn.
It is not easy to be this small and live in your shadow.

Often while we are eating our evening meal
you cross our rooms like a thief,
touching first the radio and then the loom.
Later our dreams begin catching fire around the edges,
they burn like paper, we wake with our hands full of ash.