With construction of the Lindsay Center for Mathematics and Science now well underway, it is fitting that the St. Paul’s School community reflects back upon the places that have served the study of science and mathematics so well throughout the School’s history.

Photos from the Archives were scanned specifically for the online exhibit including this image of a Biology classroom in the Westinghouse Lab:

The online exhibit features images ranging from the first science lab built on the St. Paul’s School grounds in 1889 to the architectural renderings of the Lindsay Center for Mathematics and Science, now under construction. The main gallery of thumbnail images includes links to individual pages that feature larger images and brief descriptions. There is also a slideshow of the images that can be initiated from any of the pages in the exhibit.

Take a few moments to browse through the gallery of images and follow the development of the places that have helped to facilitate the high standard of education in mathematics and science that has been a part of the St. Paul’s School vision from its very beginning.

Visit the online exhibit by clicking HERE.

Visit the full Archives exhibit in the upper level lobby of Ohrstrom Library.

Related posts:

1. New Archives Online Exhibit: The Rectors of SPS
2. New Archives Online Exhibit: The Roll of Honor
3. From the Archives: SPS Under Construction

Ohrstrom Library has a page on Facebook and you are invited to become a fan!

The Ohrstrom Library Facebook Page has been set up for a few months now and the number of fans is growing every day.  If you spend time on Facebook, becoming a fan of the Ohrstrom Library page is a great way to stay in touch with library-related news and information.  Links are added to new Ohrstrom Blog posts as soon as they become available.  New links added to Ohrstrom Library’s Delicious account are posted as well.  When you become a fan of Ohrstrom Library you will receive updated notices of these postings on your account’s Home page News / Live Feed.  You will then be able to keep track of all of the great new reference books, reliable online resources, and the latest news from Ohrstrom Library.  It is an effortless way to stay connected while networking on Facebook.

To become a fan of Ohrstrom Library, log into your Facebook account and type “Ohrstrom Library” into the search box.  Look for the familiar Ohrstrom logo under the “Pages” heading.  Or – click the link located further down in the Ohrstrom Blog sidebar where it says “Ohrstrom Library on Facebook”.  Once you are a fan, invite your friends to join too!

Related posts:

1. Ohrstrom Library 2.0: Join Our New Facebook Group!
2. Ohrstrom Library on Blackboard
3. Selected Websites: They’re “Delicious” and Good For You Too!

A few months ago Google began offering access to an unprecedented collection of photographs available as part of the Google Image search.  Google has partnered with LIFE Magazine to offer the LIFE Photo Archive, a fully searchable database of images from the extensive collection amassed over the years by LIFE Magazine.

According to the Official Google Blog:

“This collection of newly-digitized images includes photos and etchings produced and owned by LIFE dating all the way back to the 1750s.

Only a very small percentage of these images have ever been published. The rest have been sitting in dusty archives in the form of negatives, slides, glass plates, etchings, and prints. We’re digitizing them so that everyone can easily experience these fascinating moments in time. Today about 20 percent of the collection is online; during the next few months, we will be adding the entire LIFE archive — about 10 million photos.”

This incredible visual resource is available for “personal non-commercial use only” providing students a valuable research tool.  Fourth Form students working on their research papers may find inspiration by browsing the image collection for their assigned date range.  Additionally, students researching a particular photographer could search for works by that artist, and students researching specific events could find images related to that event.

Whatever your research needs are, be sure to take time to browse through the LIFE Photo Archive.

Apollo 14 astronauts Alan Shepard & Elgar Mitchell practicing moon landing procedures inside LM simulator, 1970.

Related posts:

1. Twenty Years After the Fall
2. New Reference Book: Nature and the Environment in 20th-Century American Life
3. Primary Source Round-up: Something for Everyone

Lisa Laughy -Archives Assistant

The Ohrstrom Library Database web page now has a new search box for the EBSCOHost suite of databases.  The new embedded search box allows users to start searching EBSCO’s sixteen databases right from the library website without the need to navigate through the EBSCO launch and database selection screens.  The new embedded search box provides seamless access to EBSCOHost’s thousands of resources including:

• magazines
• journals
• newspapers
• selected reference material

Once your search is executed you can access advanced search options including selecting specific databases to focus your search results.  EBSCOHost database searches are faster and more direct thanks to the new embedded search box.  Try a search now and see how efficient it is: then consider adding EBSCOHost to your arsenal of research tools for your next homework assignment.

Related posts:

1. ProQuest RSS: Tap Into Search Feeds
2. Recreational Reading: Spotlight on EBSCO NoveList
3. ARTstor Image Resources for Humanities V

Ohrstrom Library now has a group on Facebook called, surprisingly enough, The Ohrstrom Library Group!  If you are a St. Paul’s Student, Faculty or Staff member and have a Facebook account you are cordially invited to join the group by clicking HERE and then following the links to join.  The Ohrstrom Library Group is a place to discuss ideas and thoughts about your library experience, ask questions about library use, and share information among other group members.  If you already use Facebook as your social networking source, why not contribute your views and ideas to the Ohrstrom Library Group to help make Ohrstrom an even better resource for the St. Paul’s community?  Join today and get the discussion under way!

Related posts:

1. Ohrstrom Library on Facebook: Your New BFF!
2. Ohrstrom Library on Blackboard
3. Seeking Ohrstrom Library Prefects: 2010-2011

ProQuest offers access to English-language versions of several major international newspapers.  Follow the steps below to find the information you need:

Step 1: From the Ohrstrom Website – Select ProQuest Periodicals

Step 2: Click on “Databases Selected” to limit searching

Step 3: Select: International Newspapers

*Tip:  Click the “View Titles” option to browse by title.

Step 4: Select your paper and browse by date or search by keyword.

Helpful for:  Humanities III, Humanities in general, Newspaper readers

Related posts:

1. ProQuest RSS: Tap Into Search Feeds
2. The New York Times: All the news that’s fit to print (or surf)
3. New Reference Book: International Encyclopedia of Men and Masculinities

The sidebar of Ohrstrom Blog now features feeds from all of the daily newspapers that we subscribe to with the exception of The Wall Street Journal.  If you are interested in a quick headline fix take a moment to check out today’s feeds, or add these feeds to your own feed reader using the links at the end of the post.

The Wall Street Journal doesn’t offer your average RSS feed, but instead has this overly clever flashy widget / gadget.  I can’t seem to format it to fit the width of the blog sidebar, so I have put it on this post page where it can spin and whirl in all its glory. You can change news categories by clicking on “Edit” in the upper right hand corner of the widget, which makes it whiz around like a slot machine.  You can then use the up and down arrows on the bottom to scroll through the headlines. I have included a permalink to this post in the sidebar with the rest of the RSS newspaper feeds.

Add these feeds to your reader and stay in touch with world beyond Millville:

Boston Globe Feeds

Concord Monitor Feed (local news feed – others available at www.concordmonitor.com by clicking the orange RSS feed buttons in the news category headings)

New York Times Feeds

Union Leader Feed

Wall Street Journal Newsreel Widget Add it to Facebook, Google, as a Vista desktop widget, and many other applications.

Related posts:

1. ProQuest RSS: Tap Into Search Feeds
2. RSS: Feed For Thought
3. The New York Times: All the news that’s fit to print (or surf)

Lisa Laughy - Archives Assistant

Above is a very groovy tag cloud featuring the most frequently used tags on Ohrstrom Blog. Your everyday tag cloud looks like THIS (in the right sidebar), but this Wordpress plugin created by Roy Tanck organizes Ohrstrom Blog’s tags into a 3D whirling cloud of tag related fun (requires Flash Player 9 or better and JavaScript enabled).  It is a dynamic list so it will update as new tags are added. Take some time to explore the tag cloud by clicking on the floating words: the larger the type face the more posts that use the tag.

One of the ways we tag posts here is to use the name of academic classes as tags when a particular bit of information might be helpful to students in the class.  For example, if you click on the Humanities III tag – either in the tag cloud or in the list located at the bottom of a post – it will take you to two posts about new reference books that are good resources for subjects studied in that class.  Any time we add a new blog post with some information pertinent to the Humanities III curriculum, that post will be added to the tag list.

There is a mini version of the 3D tag cloud in the sidebar, and a permalink back to this post for fun and easy tag browsing.

Related posts:

1. Ohrstrom Library on Facebook: Your New BFF!
2. RSS: Feed For Thought
3. Ohrstrom Library on Blackboard

Our third RSS feed related post this week is about using your feed reader to keep track of search results from the ProQuest database.  It is very simple to set up a RSS feed for your searches and then receive automatic updates whenever new items are added to the search results.  Here’s how it is done:

Once you have narrowed down your search in ProQuest, scroll to the bottom of the search list and locate the little RSS icon (see the image below).

Click on the “Create RSS Feed” link and a window will pop up with your customized feed address.  Click on the feed address located in the yellow box in the new window (shown below).

This will open up a browser window that takes you to the feed address.   You can now either select your feed reader from the drop-down list at the top of the page (I am using Bloglines – see picture below), or copy and paste the feed address from your browser’s navigation bar into your feed reader and follow the steps to subscribe.

Now that you have subscribed to your search feed in ProQuest, you can keep track of updates to your custom search without having to go back to the ProQuest website.  It will save you time and ensure that you have the most current periodical resources for your research topic.

Related posts:

1. RSS: Feed For Thought
2. OED RSS: Word of the Day Feed
3. The New York Times: All the news that’s fit to print (or surf)

Lisa Laughy - Archives Assistant

Oxford English Dictionary Online is a subscription service available to students, faculty and staff through the Ohstrom Library website.  You can use this service to check meanings of words, find the first recorded use of a word, or for inspiration in solving word puzzles, among other things.  One of the services they now offer is the Word of the Day RSS feed.  Now that you have read the earlier post introducing feed readers, you are ready to add OED to your daily feed.

The Word of the Day feed address is: http://www.oed.com/rss.xml Cut and paste the address into your feed reader, or click on the link to add it through your browser.

You can read more about the feed service HERE including ways to add Word of the Day to your Google and Yahoo homepages.

Related posts:

1. RSS: Feed For Thought
2. ProQuest RSS: Tap Into Search Feeds
3. Care to Comment?