SURVEY WINNERS!!!!!!!!

Check the list at the front desk of the library to see if you won a $25 gift certificate. Thanks to all 200 (!) of you who filled out a library survey and entered our drawing. We randomly pulled names from the box yesterday and twenty of you now have $25 to spend at the UCC Bookstore. Claim your prize!

Playing Games at the Library

Does the weather have you retreating inside to play some video games? What if you could turn that favorite hobby into a research topic? Read on!

Video games have a 50-year history, reaching back to the crazy computer scientists in MIT's Building 20 knocking out walls according to Supercade: a visual history of the video game age. And while we're no longer building bookcase-sized machines to play them, video games are even more popular today than ever before: some online games have 12 million subscribers (That's more people than the entire population of Greece)!

The average gamer will have spent 10,000 hours playing by the time they're 21 years old. According to Michael Gladwell in his book, Outliers, that's roughly the amount we need to become an expert in any field.

So what can all this game playing do? Dr. Jane McGonigal, a theorist and multiplayer game designer, thinks that games might save the world:

Jane McGonigal: Gaming can make a better world | Video on TED.com

I really hope that we can come together to play games that matter, to survive on this planet for another century. And that's my hope that you will join me in making and playing games like this. When I look forward to the next decade,I know two things for sure, that we can make any future we can imagine, and we can play any games we want. So, I say let the world-changing games begin.

At right: What video games can teach us about learning and literacy.

Sound good?

Want to get started on creating games right away?

These books and more are waiting for you at the library- game on!

It's that time of year when we ask YOU to let us know how you use the library and its services. We also invite you to rate how we're doing. We use the results for library planning. The survey only takes a few minutes. Maybe less.

Please grab a survey form from a library staff member or pick up a form at the front desk. Check off the boxes; write your comments. AND THEN, fill out the little coupon at the end of the survey and enter our drawing to win a bookstore gift certificate for $25. You could be one of TWENTY to win.

The library staff truly appreciates your help!

Enjoy Oregon!

Sometimes it is easy to take the beautiful state that we live in for granted. Oregon is full of beautiful trails, scenic waterfalls, and abundant vineyards and Fall is a perfect time for an adventure. Here are some books to help you to make the most of the state that you live in.

If exploring vineyards and tasting local wines sounds like something that you would enjoy, then check out "Oregon Wine Country" by John Doerper. It offers guides to wineries throughout Yamhill County, Umpqua Valley, and Willamette Valley with suggestions on hotels and resturaunts. For further reading, check out "The Grail: a Year Ambling and Shambling Through an Oregon Vineyard in Pursuit of the Best Pinot Noir Wine in the Whole Wide World" by Brian Doyle.

If bird watching sounds like an interesting hobby to you, then flip through "Handbook of Oregon Birds: a Field Companion to Birds of Oregon" by Hendrik G. Herlyn and Alan Contreras. It is a useful guide to the birds that you will come across the next time that you are strolling through the woods or relaxing on your patio.

When you need to escape to a more urban setting for the weekend, a brief road trip to Portland can prove to be quite rewarding. Carl Abbott's "Greater Portland: Urban Life and Landscape in the Pacific Northwest" offers a useful account of Oregon's largest city.

If you are seeking inspiration on where to go on your next hiking adventure, look no further than Greg Vaughn's "Photographing Oregon: a guide to the Natural Landmarks of Oregon." The pages are full of mesmerizing landscapes that are easily accessible for Oregonians.

If you would like to take up a new hobby that involves getting into shape and enjoying nature, then "Rock Climbing Western Oregon" by Greg Orton may be an interesting book to browse through. If you are more interested in backpacking or hiking, and you need advice on which trails to take, then the UCC library has several books that will come in handy. Rhonda and George Ostertag's "75 Hikes in Oregon's Coast Range and Siskiyous" and Garret Romaine's "Gem Trails of Oregon" are both useful guides.

UCC Library is now loaning iPads!

Starting this fall, we have three iPads available for student use in the library! In order to check one out, you'll need a student ID card with a Fall 2010 sticker.

The iPads come with a number of cool features, including the ability to access and read available ebooks in seconds! Most novels and books in the public domain (published before 1923) are freely down-loadable: this means Shakespeare, Dickens, Mary Shelley, and much, much more are at your fingertips!

If you have any questions or to add ebooks to your iPad on checkout, talk with a librarian.

PS- The cat is not included. :)

Cat/iPad photo from Veronica Belmont

Shrinking Print

The UCC Library online reference collection keeps growing. . .as our print reference collection keeps shrinking. More and more of the big (and not-so-big) publishers of quality reference books are moving their collections online.

Check here for all of our online databases: http://www.umpqua.edu/index.php/search-databases

A few highlights:

• EBSCO’s Literary Reference Center contains tens of thousands of literary critical analyses and over a thousand literary reference works.

• Oxford Online Premium contains hundreds of reference books from Oxford Press.

• Nearly all of our medical and nursing reference books are available both in print and online in Gale Health or Salem Health databases.

• Credo Reference is an online general reference collection of 500+ books from various publishers.

• Small Business Resource Center includes the complete text of dozens of handbooks, “—for Dummies” titles, and start-up books

• Learning Express Library is a database of eBooks on test preparation, GED study guides, practice entrance exams to health occupations, math skills, reading skills, writing resumes, and more.

• Access Science includes the 21 volume McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology

Whether it’s the history of popular culture, current social topics, foreign language dictionaries, or encyclopedias, we have it online in an eBook. (And, of course, we have thousands of journals and magazines in our databases, as well.)

While we always like seeing you in the library, please be sure to check out all of our online offerings from wherever you are.

Dinner and a Movie

The next time that you are trying to decide what to do on a Friday night, try pairing a movie with dinner. You can explore another culture through a movie, and you'll get to learn about foreign cuisine by cooking an ethnic dish. The UCC library has many options for dvds and cookbooks to help you plan your evening. Here are some ideas to help you get started.

If the idea of French cuisine and film strikes your fancy, you could rent Amelie, An American in Paris, or Bonjour Tristesse. For dinner ideas, browse through "The Cooking of Provincial France" by M. F. K. Fisher for some savoury French recipes.

If Asian food sounds more appealing to you, you could watch The Blue Kite and check out "Simple Chinese Cooking" by Kylie Kwong or "The Chinese Kitchen" by Ken Hom. You could also try watching Lost in Translation and preparing a meal from Kimiko Barber's "Sushi" or John Belleme's "Japanese Foods that Heal."

If cooking Indian food is something that you would like to try, you could find plenty of ideas in "1,000 Indian Recipes" by Neelam Batra or "India's Vegetarian Cooking" by Monisha Bharadwaj. A film that could be paired with your Indian dinner would be Bombay Talkie, a great Bollywood film from 1970. If you're feeling like eating in a more serious setting, the inspirational Ghandi could be a more appropriate selection.

The classic film Roman Holiday starring Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck is always a pleasant film to watch, especially when accompanied with a tasty dinner prepared from "Cookery and Dining in Imperial Rome" by Apicius.

Other, perhaps more obvious, pairings could include the film Into the Wild with "Wilderness Cookery" by Bradford Angier, Julie and Julia with "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" by Julia Child, and Marie Antoinette with "The Cake Book" by Tish Boyle.

These are just a few ideas to help you get started. The shelves of the UCC library are full of materials to help you and your friends have a fun night in this weekend!