Searching Tips

The Medical Library Association published a helpful table with links to places where you will be able to find the best directory information on government health care services.

While keyword searching is helpful, using these services will help you get more accurate results.  They are web services sponsored by the government that will provide current and accurate information.  The chart that the Medical Library Association published includes a description of the directory, where they get the information for it, how frequently it updates, and what kind of information it contains.

This information is useful for anyone who needs to find current information about where to find government health care services.  Local information may also be available from the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals.  Emergency information for our state is always available at the state emergency web portal.

Exhibit at the Library Commons

The Literature of Prescription: 
Charlotte Perkins Gilman and "The Yellow Wall-Paper"

In the late nineteenth century, at a time when women were
challenging traditional ideas about gender that excluded them
from political and intellectual life, medical and scientific experts
drew on notions of female weakness to justify inequality between
the sexes. Artist and writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman, who was
discouraged from pursuing a career to preserve her health,
rejected these ideas in a terrifying short story titled “The Yellow
Wall-Paper.” The famous tale served as an indictment of the
medical profession and the social conventions restricting
women’s professional and creative opportunities.

Exhibit on Display Now
Library Commons, Upstairs

October 31st - December 11th

For more information, visit the NLM's site:  http://www.nlm.nih.gov/theliteratureofprescription/index.html
Wikipedia page for "The Yellow Wallpaper" : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Yellow_Wallpaper

This exhibition is brought to you by the National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health

National Novel Writing Month

November is National Novel Writing Month, the month long challenge to write your very own 50,000 word novel.
The library here has multiple useful resources for the dedicated novel writer.  Beyond mere unabridged dictionaries, we have style guides for grammar and both general and subject specific encyclopedias for that all important background information.  Both can be found in the reference room of the main library building.  To see what's available before making the trek over in weather like we're having today, you can peruse the library catalog in advance.

More resources are available online through NetLibrary.  If you haven't done so already, you can contact the library to set up an account to be able to access NetLibrary resources from home.  The resourceful novelist will find these sources extremely handy when trying to make their spaceships sound scientifically viable or their illiterate peasants period correct.

Most student researchers will already know how very useful it is to search in EBSCO to find current research for academic papers, but what you might not have realized is that we have a whole other resource for searching newspaper articles from across the globe.  If you're looking to base your court drama or tale of ciminal activity on real events, searching LexisNexis will help find the stories you can rip straight from the headlines.

Don't forget, while you're doing all this research for your novel, that you should still be avoiding plagiarism.  A novelist may not be citing works they use as inspiration, but they're not paraphrasing a source and calling it a novel.  Be aware of where your words end and theirs begin.  It's also a good habit to be in for the rest of your writing.  Try to keep a record of what resources you use and thank their authors when you're finished.

Good luck to anyone making the attempt.  I hope you'll all share your novel writing success stories in December. :)