Vital Statistics

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reference, research, Tech Tip, Vital Statistics

What it is and why to use it?

One of the mainstays of our reference collection is Vital Statistics of the United States: Births, Life Expectancy, Deaths, and Selected Health Data. A vital statistic is a record of birth, death, or marriage. Although in the genealogy world it is often used to reference information on a particular person, this source congregates and analyzes mass data for the entire country.

Want to know the rate of marriage in Iowa? The total number of divorces across the country in 2012? The current life expectancy in the US? (78.8 years FYI) The percent of babies born to non-married women? All of that and more is available for use in both informational and persuasive papers and speeches.

Where to find it

The last time we were going to re-order our paper version for reference we discovered that the Center for Disease Control had this information online for free. So if you are looking for charts of data of vital statistics (birth, death, and marriage, etc.) check out this link instead.

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss.htm

Caution

There is sometimes an expectation that the numbers will be up to the minute when they will often be two or three years behind. That is because the data the numbers are extracted from needs to be collected at the end of the year from state governments and other sources and then analyzed and imputed to the CDC’s various reports. This causes the delay, so don’t look for results from this year yourself or expect your students to find them.

Sarah Uthoff is a reference library at Kirkwood Community College. LIKE the Kirkwood Community College Library on Facebook and find links to Sarah all over the web at her About Me Profile.

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Welcome Back!

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Ask a Librarian!, books, del.icio.us, hours, research, website

The staff at the Kirkwood Libraries hope you had a fun and relaxing Spring Break. Library hours are now back to normal. Now it’s time to get back into the swing of things and start those final papers and projects you may have been putting off until later. The library Web site: www.kirkwood.edu/library has many resources available to help you research your topic. You can search our catalog to find a book, search our databases for magazine and journal articles, or check our list of “librarian approved” Web sites. If you hit a roadblock in your research, Ask a Librarian! for help. As always, the library is a great place to study for finals or just curl up with a good book. Come visit us!

Easy Off-campus Access to Databases

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Ask a Librarian!, research

Remember the bookmarks for the library with the huge list of passwords on the back for accessing library databases? Well, you can throw those away now. The library has successfully implemented a new proxy-server that will allow Kirkwood students, faculty and staff to access all library databases from home using a single login: your k number and password.

To access Kirkwood Library databases, simply go to the library homepage: http://www.kirkwood.edu/library, click on the database you wish to search and if you are off-campus, you will be prompted to login with your k number and password. If you are on-campus, you will not be required to login.

Good luck with your research! And as always, if you need help, Ask a Librarian!

Another FREE H1N1 resource

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H1N1, reference, research

Gale has also given us free access to their H1N1 resources.  There is information on the science and history of H1N1 as well as global news on the topic. This information is available at http://www.gale.cengage.com/flu/.

Successful Remote Research Workshop

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research, workshop

Kirkwood librarian Steve Sickels is offering a new 50 minute workshop for Kirkwood Distance Learning students called “Successful Remote Research“.

It is a presentation for distance learning students of online access to Kirkwood’s hosted library research databases demonstrating the following:

• Approach the finding of supporting materials using various books, video, periodical databases and the internet
• Obtaining immediate full text, downloads and interlibrary loan materials
• Illustrate the narrowing of a topic, the transition to controlled vocabulary and the recursive nature of research
• Address evaluation and citation of resources

Students can best utilize this presentation by trying out the information and attending the next week’s session and noting the distance learning students’ questions and experiences.

The workshop will be held during the activity hour (11 – 11:50 AM) on Tuesday, February 10th in KTS 1 classroom.  The follow-up workshop will be held during the activity hour (11 – 11:50 AM) on Tuesday, February 17th in KTS 1 classroom.

If you can’t make it this month, don’t worry, Steve will offer the workshop again on March 24th and 31st (same times and locations).

More new databases

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Ask a Librarian!, research

It’s research paper time!  For those of you who prefer to do your research online, the library has added more new databases to its growing collection:

Wilson Web Databases

• Current Issues: Reference Shelf Plus – provides full-text articles from key publications covering a variety of current social, scientific, health, political, and global issues.
• Current Issues: Health – provides full-text article from key publications covering a variety of health issues.
• Library Literature & Information Science Full-Text – delivers full-text articles cover to cover from over 100 select library publications.
• Science Full-Text, Select Edition – covers some 320 science journals with full-text articles, indexing and abstracts

Gale Database

• Literature Resource Center – provides information on literary figures from all time periods writing in such genres as fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama, history, journalism, and more.

If you need help searching or for off-campus access, please Ask a Librarian!

New Reference Database!

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Credo Reference, dictionaries, encyclopedias, reference, research

The Kirkwood Community College Library continues to put your money to good use with the purchase of a new database: Credo Reference.

Credo Reference provides online access full-text articles from 150 reference titles, including specialized dictionaries, encyclopedias, handbooks, guidebooks, thesauri, atlases and chronologies.  Credo’s advanced search allows researchers to search within specific subjects, book types, book titles and entry types.  For visual learners, there is an excellent concept mapping feature.

So, the next time you need to do some research, check out Credo and let us know what you think!

Library research workshops for students

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research, workshop

Need help doing research for your research paper?

• If you’re not sure what you’re looking for…
• If you need information but you don’t know where to look…
• If Google has failed you…

The library can give you the skills you need to succeed!

Come to the library for Search Strategies for Success!

Learn how to quickly and effectively search the library’s databases to find information for your paper.

Workshops every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday from 11 AM – Noon in Room 158.

Students can contact Steve Sickles or others at the Cedar Rapids Kirkwood Library (library@kirkwood.edu or 866-452-8504 toll-free) for more information.