Ohrstrom Blog » Science

New Reference Books: A Dictionary of Biology, A Dictionary of Earth Sciences

Lura Sanborn — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 12:00:12 +0000

Two new updates by famed reference publisher, Oxford University Press are now available in Ohrstrom:

A Dictionary of Biology edited by Robert S. Hine, Oxford, 2008.

Find it in Ohrstrom at: REF 574 Ox2M

A Dictionary of Biology, now in its 6th edition is, in fact, a straight-forward dictionary of biology. Flip through the alphabetical listings to find brief definitions of:
•   Abductor
•   Corolla
•   Factor VIII
•   Palaeozoic

A Dictionary of Earth Sciences edited by Michael Allaby, Oxford, 2008.

Find it in Ohrstrom at: REF 550 AL5D

A Dictionary of Earth Science, now in its 3rd edition is also a straight-forward dictionary, this time about earth sciences. Flip through the alphabetical listings to find brief definitions of:
•   Accumulation zone
•   Goldschmidt’s rules
•   Moisture budget
•   Tidal current

Helpful for: Biology, Ecology, Eco-Action, Human Anatomy

New Reference Book: Encyclopedia of Gender and Society

Lura Sanborn — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 12:00:56 +0000

Encyclopedia of Gender and Society edited by Jodi O’Brien, Sage Publications, 2009.

Find it in Ohrstrom at: REF 306.7 Ob6G

A 2-volume set focusing on gender scholarship. Articles cover many categories including: art, popular culture, sports, body image and health, economics, politics, race and ethnicity, relationships, religion, science and sexuality.

Examples: Bachelors and Spinsters, Body Hair, GI Joe, Nuns, “Personal is Political,” Sports and Homosexuality, Tomboy/Sissy

Helpful for: Women’s Studies, Gender Studies, Humanities, Social History, U.S. History, Science

New Reference Book: Landmarks and Pioneers in American Science

Lisa Laughy — Tue, 19 May 2009 12:00:58 +0000

Lura Sanborn – Reference Librarian

Research and Discovery: Landmarks and Pioneers in American Science edited by Russell Lawson, M.E. Sharpe, 2008.

Find it in Ohrstrom at: REF 509 L44R

This three volumes set presents scientific biographies, topics and inventions from fourteen different branches of science. A handful of primary source documents conclude each section.

Read about Weather in Early America, John Josselyn’s Description of Seventeenth-Century Fauna, Psychoanalysis in America, Count Rumford and/or browse the entry on New Hampshire’s own Mary Baker Eddy and her connection to Medicine & Health.

Helpful for: Science, Humanities IV, Ecology

Photo credit:

Count von Rumford, Benjamin Thompson. Essays, Political, Economical, and Philosophical. 2 vols. Boston: Manning & Loring, 1799. Thomas Jefferson’s Library. Lib. of Congress. 17 Apr. 2009 .

World Collections Online: Expanding our Global Perspective

Lisa Laughy — Thu, 14 May 2009 17:51:57 +0000

Lura Sanborn – Reference Librarian

The World Digital Library is a partnership between UNESCO and the U.S. Library of Congress. The site aims to provide free access to digitized treasures currently housed in libraries, museums & other institutions around the world.

Search by keyword or browse using different methods including: place, time or topic.

Europeana is collaboration between dozens of European institutions including: museums, libraries, archives and galleries. Currently housing 4 million items, the project aims to have 10 million items online in 2010.

Search for James Bond, Descartes, hippos or Alice in Wonderland. Searches may be further narrowed by item type including: texts, images, videos and sounds.

Helpful for: Humanities III, Humanities IV, Humanities V, Religious Studies, Art, Science, books, Primary Sources

Periodical Picks: The Science of CAPTCHAs

Lisa Laughy — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 13:34:48 +0000

Lisa Laughy - Archives Assistant

The September 12th issue of Science, recently out on the shelf in Ohrstrom Library’s periodical room, features a cover article about the combination of new tech and old books. Five researchers have tested the effectiveness of the CAPTCHA web security measure to pick up the slack in OCR book digitization. If you regularly browse the web, you have encountered a CAPTCHA – asking you to decipher a difficult to read section of text and type the letters into a box. Now researchers are finding a way to re-purpose your small efforts into something rather useful. Science describes the project:

“Millions of books written before the computer era are being digitized for preservation. Because the ink has faded, optical character recognition software cannot decipher many words. Through a repurposing of an existing online security technology called CAPTCHA, these words are being manually transcribed by millions of Web users.”

Here is the abstract from the published paper:

“CAPTCHAs (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) are widespread security measures on the World Wide Web that prevent automated programs from abusing online services. They do so by asking humans to perform a task that computers cannot yet perform, such as deciphering distorted characters. Our research explored whether such human effort can be channeled into a useful purpose: helping to digitize old printed material by asking users to decipher scanned words from books that computerized optical character recognition failed to recognize. We showed that this method can transcribe text with a word accuracy exceeding 99%, matching the guarantee of professional human transcribers. Our apparatus is deployed in more than 40,000 Web sites and has transcribed over 440 million words.”

The article estimates that over 100 million CAPTCHAs are typed a day, amounting to hundreds of thousands of human hours. Taping into that resource to accomplish such a useful task as the digital preservation of old books is a fascinating prospect. Come into Ohrstrom Library’s periodical room and read the full text of the article in the September 12th issue of Science, starting on page 1465.

Periodical Picks: From A(dvocate) to Z (Magazine)

Lisa Laughy — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 17:10:25 +0000

Patti Lynn – Library Assistant, Periodicals

Did you know that Ohrstrom Library subscribes to nearly 200 periodicals? With titles ranging from A (Advocate) to Z (Z Magazine), our periodicals cover almost every imaginable subject. While there are many academic titles to choose from (Science and Journal of American History come to mind) we also subscribe to a number of titles selected largely for recreational reading (Car and Driver and Sail are two examples).

Two recently received magazines illustrate the range of our holdings. First, the 798 page September issue of Vogue is now on the shelves (weighing in at an impressive 3 pounds 11.4 ounces). Second, the current issue of the magazine with what I consider to be the most curious title in the collection, Journal of Recreational Mathematics, has arrived. So, the next time you visit Ohrstrom Library, take a quick tour of the Pillsbury Reading Room, and I’m sure you’ll find at least one magazine to browse through.

New Reference Book: The NYT Guide to Essential Knowledge

Lisa Laughy — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 19:41:47 +0000

Deb Baker – Interim Reference Librarian

The New York Times Guide to Essential Knowledge: A Desk Reference for the Curious Mind, St. Martin’s Press, 2007.

Find it in Ohrstrom at: Ref. 031 N42

With over 1300 pages of information on dozens of subjects, the newspaper whose motto is “All the News That’s Fit to Print,” attempts to offer all the facts your curiosity desires. Dip into overviews of everything from the “History of Computing” to “African Literature” or a “Dictionary of Food” – and don’t miss puzzle editor Will Shortz’s tips on solving the NYT crosswords and sudoku.

HELPFUL FOR: Life, the Universe, and Everything

FUN FOR: puzzlers, foodies, trivia buffs, game show lifelines, Jeopardy contestants