Do You Write Like a Man or a Woman?

Enter text into a box, choose fiction, non-fiction, or blog entry, and click "submit." The Gender Genie at BookBlog.net claims to know if you are a man or a woman.

The New York Times Magazine published an article and a test that inspired "the Gender Genie." According to the Bookblog website, "It's a simplified version of an algorithm developed by Moshe Koppel, Bar-Ilan University in Israel, and Shlomo Argamon, Illinois Institute of Technology, to predict the gender of an author."

Try it! I copied & pasted the text from the library's previous blog entry about Del.icio.us, which seemed neutral to me. Alas, it pegged the author as "female."

Why Not E-Textbooks?

Would you like to save 50 percent on textbooks?

Many students come through Logue Library's doors seeking a copy of their text book to check out. In most cases, we will only have it if a professor has placed a personal copy on reserve for you. But there may be a way to cut your textbook expenses in half.

Chestnut Hill College's bookstore already offers downloadable versions of some textbooks, ranging between 40 percent and 50 percent less than the cost of the tangible version.

But the process is not yet as easy as purchasing the book you hold in your hands.

• You have to buy them on-line (they are not offered in the bookstore just yet).
• Be sure that your PC or laptop can support the download first. Once you buy it, it's yours, whether you can use it or not.
  
• Campus computers and tech support are not available for downloading.

A survey of students on Florida college campuses showed that these cheaper e-books are not flying off the cyber shelves. Reasons like those mentioned above, plus a general lack of awareness due to poor marketing may be the reasons. See the article in the Miami Herald titled School of thought: Why aren't e-textbooks selling? for the full story. To see what Chestnut Hill College's bookstore offers in the way of e-textbooks, check out the eFollett.com website.

Del.icio.us !

If you look to the left you'll see listed under the Research Links section "Del.icio.us." If you've never used this universal bookmarking system, give it a try. When you bookmark your favorite web pages at Del.icio.us all of your bookmarks are at your fingertips wherever you go.

Logue Library is experimenting with Del.icio.us

It's a convenient place to give you access to all of the sites we recommend for your research! These sites are also linked from the library's Chestnut Hill College home page. On the right hand side of the Del.icio.us page, you'll see floating in a "tag cloud" a group of clickable subject words. The bigger the word in the tag cloud, the more resources we have listed for that subject (so far). We are constantly adding new resources for your scholarly research. Click a word and the list of bookmarks on the left will include everything we've added for that subject to date.

If you find a site and think we should add it to our Del.icio.us bookmarks, send an email or comment here and we'll review it!

Martin Luther King Jr. Day Of Service

Welcome back! We hope you had a nice break and are looking forward to the classes you've chosen for this semester. After you've been to your first day of classes, you have an opportunity to participate in a Day of Service in honor of civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Rather than just another holiday off work or school, the King Holiday and Service Act, passed 13 years ago, chose to set this day aside as a national day of volunteer service.

"The King Day of Service brings together people who might not ordinarily meet, breaks down barriers that have divided us in the past, leads to better understanding and ongoing relationships, and is an opportunity to recruit new volunteers for your ongoing work."[From MLK Day.gov]

Opportunities for service in our area on January 15, 2007 range from attending MLK programs that include poetry, skits, singing and arts & crafts, to making cards for senior citizens in nursing homes; park & building clean-up projects; or painting murals and stencils. There are almost 300 opportunities in our zip code to choose from! (Fill in the zip code -- 19118 -- choose today's date as the start and end dates, and click the search button.)