What would Emily Post Say?

Is it poor etiquette for two different teachers to be sleeping with the same junior high school student at the same time? An article in the Salt Lake Tribune addresses just such an offense and while neither woman seemed to be using Emily Post’s book of etiquette, I doubt they were even using common sense. It’s quite likely that this is a specious connection at best and certainly in poor taste, but it raised a few questions in my head and I needed to answer them in the best and most responsibly researched way I can.

“They” always say that men are the majority of persons arrested for sexual offenses, but how can “they” prove that. I visited the Official U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics to see what they had to say. According to their July 2000 Statistical report using data from the National Incident-Based Reporting System for the United States 96% of all sexual offenses reported to law enforcement agencies were committed by men.

Now I am interested in some scholarly articles about the 4%. I decide to dive into our databases and take a look at GenderWatch.

GenderWatch is a full-text collection of international journals, magazines, newsletters, regional publications, special reports and conference proceedings devoted to women's and gender issues. Contains archival material dating back to 1970.

Inside this database I have the ability to limit my searches to exclusively full text, as well as scholarly publications. Take a look for yourself. I chose the following article to help better inform.

Steven Angelides. . "Subjectivity under Erasure: Adolescent Sexuality, Gender, and Teacher-Student Sex. " Journal of Men's Studies 15.3 (2007): 347-360. GenderWatch (GW). ProQuest.

I rarely get this serious or potentially in poor taste, but it truly interests me and I always appreciate when any side of a discussion is responsibly researched. Let me know what you think, you can even give this BLOG the CRAAP Test. I also recommend this report form the Center for Sex Offender Management.

Historic Flickr!

There's a great deal of historic stuff out on the Flickr.com these days. Our very own Marriott Library is experimenting with posting a few of our special collections greats. While there are the big names like the Library of Congress posting away there, Flickr has created a catch-all site for you to peruse called The Commons for you to see many of the players. There's a bunch of great media to peruse and it is all open to public access. The beauty of many of these images is their inherent freedom to copy. These aren't copyrighted, in other words, but meant to be used as part of our national historic heritage by all of us. There's a neat civics lesson in there somewhere!

Orange you glad I didn't say banana?

We all have aspirations and the like; mine is to learn another language. I just can't seem to muster the time and the desire except when it is 3am and I have just finished watching The 400 Blows.
Instead of turning to Google or youtube for answers or even investing in those expensive courses by mail check out some of the library resources.

I discovered the MANGO Languages database!

Mango Languages is a immersion language learning database that the Library subscribes to. It allows you to select a variety of lessons in Portuguese, Spanish, Japanese, French, German, and Chinese.

This resource is provided to students, faculty, and staff without additional cost and I say put it to use! Werther you're like me and have those late night aspirations or you need to brush up before a round the world trip give it a try. Now I'm just waiting for them to add the Esperanto component.

ĝis la revido until next time

KSL and Sex!

I should be up front and say that my sensational title is a bit misleading :-). This is an example of what to do when you're only getting part of the information. KSL, one of our local television and internet news sources, is a great place to find out about local events as they occur. However, in the name of getting the news to you as fast as possible, they're less likely to cite their sources or go into great detail. One recent day though, they actually (sort of) quoted an academic study on subscribers to internet sex sites. The gist of the blurb was that Utah is at the top of the heap in per capita subscribers. So how do I track down the original article? Their "citation" didn't mention an author ("a Harvard Business School Professor" and "some experts"), no publication date (but you can infer recent), volume or issue numbers -BUT! we actually were given the journal title: The Journal of Economic Perspectives. How do we track that down?

1. Go to the library catalog and look for the text box, "Journal/Newspaper title begins with:"
2. Type in Journal of Economic Perspectives and perform the search (hit enter).
3. First look for the journal title with "electronic resource" next to it and click that link.
4. Find the latest issue and look through the table of contents for something about "sex"
Note: I found for this particular journal, we only have the current 12 months available in print. The online versions are sometimes held back by publishers or we choose not to subscribe for financial reasons.

The moral of the story is that you really can find a source, even if you're only given a tiny bit of information. And here's a kudo to KSL for being academic (kinda)!

Here's the full citation (MLA style):
Edelman, Benjamin. "Markets: Red Light States: Who Buys Online Adult Entertainment?." The Journal of Economic Perspectives 23.1 (2009): 209-220.

How to Search Using Words You Know - ex. "Hot Tub Monkey"

So I was talking with another librarian a while back about different and interesting animals in our world, and I couldn't remember what the "Hot Tub Monkey" actually was. You've heard of them, haven't you? A species of monkey on an island in Japan likes to hang out in hot springs -hot tub monkey. So let's take a look at several resources and see what my 'entry level' search turns up! (I call it 'entry level' because I have no plan whatsoever in citing resources at this point, I'm just trying to nail down better keywords for more academic/credible info.)

Internet search - hit!: Japanese macaque (Macaca fuscata -now that would be a great handle) -the only problem with this search is all of the crap included with the good fuscata!

Library Catalog Search: denied! -You have to actually know a little more than a nickname for entering a search here.

Academic Search Premiere: hit!: -Not a lot, and mixed accuracy like the internet, but it was there!

JSTOR: hit!: surprise because this is almost completely academic/scholarly stuff!

JapanKnowledge: (an all Japanese language database so I had help on this one from my good friend in Inter-Library Loan, Hiroko, do this part): denied! -the vernacular "hot tub monkey" is not a cross-cultural phenomenon! Ah well, something for your trivia backlog then!

Don't forget to try every iteration of keyword when doing a search in a database you're unfamiliar with. The author, academic group, or even culture may describe it differently than you!

"Sexting" and other very recent language searches

Ok, So I'm teaching a library session for a writing class, and a lot of the language that students use simply doesn't show up in an academic journal. When you're looking for Jessica Simpson and the media focus on her weight, you need more information on the issue before you dive into JSTOR (because she simply isn't there -yet). And how about finding words like "sexting"; (sending nude pics via cell phone). That word seems to have been made up yesterday for all intents and purposes. Newspapers my friend! They've been coining phrases and words for years. They also point to more academic sources, authors and keywords. Here at the library, many of the newspapers (including the ones you see in print), now have an online version. We have several databases that aggregate many newspapers so you can search for very very recent issues across the country and recent years.

Try: ProQuest Newspapers, Global Newsbank
Or Try: All of the newspapers databases we offer
Or Try: The title of a newspaper you happen to know in the library catalog

I’ve got SPIRIT, how ‘bout you?

Join the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, The Will & Ann Eisner Family Foundation, and the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in celebrating Will Eisner Week, Match 1-7^th.

This first annual celebration is themed "The Spirit of A Legend," examining Will Eisner's seminal Spirit comic, as well as the spirit inherent in his work that has inspired generations of comic readers and artists.

Created to promote graphic novel literacy, free speech awareness, and commemorating the 92nd anniversary of Eisner's birth. Will Eisner Week is an ongoing celebration check out his works in our catalog.