What’s New

Tip: Practice a Foreign Language with Digital Videos

Learning a foreign language? Practice Russian, Arabic, French, German, Japanese, Mandarin, Spanish, or Swahili with foreign language videos and clips from the OhioLINK Digital Media Center.

The Foreign Language Video Instruction collection contains video clips in which native speakers of Russian, Arabic, French, German, Mandarin, Spanish, and Swahili elaborate on a wide variety of topics about their culture, family, daily life, and more. Each video clip is accompanied by a description of its contents, the country of the speaker, and additional grammar and vocabulary notes. These videos are produced by the ViewPoints Project of the Five Colleges of Ohio consortium and are freely available to anyone via the Internet.

If you're studying for class, getting ready for a trip abroad or just exploring another culture, visit the Educational Films & Documentaries collection for videos that will help you learn more about foreign languages and cultures. The collections includes several instructional series, including Get By in French, Get By in German, Get By in Spanish, Japanese for Beginners, and Talk French. The digital videos may be viewed online or downloaded.

New Tech E-Books: Coding, Javascript, iPhone, Second Life and More

Need to learn a new software program, solve a computer problem or fix some code? Try Safari Tech Books Online. Safari offers more than 4,700 computer science, information technology and related e-books. You can search across the entire collection or a single e-book and read an entire chapter or book from the comfort of your home, office or on the go.

New e-books are added regularly, some of the newest titles include:

	The Book of JavaScript, 2nd Edition by Thau!		Code Craft by Pete Goodliffe
	Deliver First Class Web Sites by Shirley Kaiser		Flash CS3: The Missing Manual by E. A. Vander Veer and Chris Grover
	The iPhone Book: How to Do the Things You Want to Do with Your iPhone by Scott Kelby and Terry White		Mastering Perl by Brian D. Foy
	Second Life: A Guide to Your Virtual World by Brian A. White - a.k.a Ansel Gasparini		SOA: Principles of Service Design by Thomas Erl
	Sams Teach Yourself Adobe Creative Suite 3 All in One by Mordy Golding and John Ray		Upgrading and Repairing PCs, Eighteenth Edition by Scott Mueller

Safari Tech Books Online is available to all students, faculty and staff at OhioLINK member institutions and is accessible via any Web-enabled computer.

Looking for more e-books? Try OhioLINK's Electronic Book Center. Your library may subscribe to additional e-books, so be sure to ask what is available.

E-Book Center Updated; E-Books Added

Update September 17, 2007: We successfully reindexed the E-Book Center over the weekend and added more new books. The Electronic Book Center now contains 5,624 e-books. In addition, series titles are now indexed and display. To search by series, go to the Advanced Search page.

The OhioLINK Electronic Book Center will be unavailable on Friday, September 14, beginning at 10 p.m. We will be reloading and reindexing the e-books to make Series Titles available. We estimate that the process will take 12-15 hours.

This will only affect the E-Book Center, other e-book collections, such as Safari Tech Books Online, the Humanities E-Book Project, netLibrary, and Oxford Reference Online Premium Collection will still be available.

ODCE 2008: Call for Proposals

Where can faculty, administrators, librarians and technology gurus all meet to discuss learning, libraries, technology and the convergence of these activities? At the Ohio Digital Commons for Education 2008 -- The Convergence of Learning, Libraries and Technology Conference, of course!

Be a part of ODCE 2008! The Ohio Digital Commons for Education partners--Ohio Learning Network, OhioLINK, and the Ohio Supercomputer Center/OSCnet--are seeking interactive and engaging proposals for presentations, pre-conference workshops and technology demonstrations. Proposals are sought for the following themes and topics:

• Teaching and Learning in the 21st Century - Possible topics include: pedagogy (particularly as it relates to instructional technology), achievable learning objectives, assessment and evaluation, and skills development for the 21st century educator.


• Student Success - Possible topics include: mentoring and tutoring, first year experiences, student learning communities, documenting knowledge and providing opportunities to under-served populations.


• Moving Ohio Forward - Possible topics include: effective business/academic partnerships that serve more Ohioans, collaborations between K-12 and higher ed that serve demonstrated state needs, strengthening ties between Ohio's colleges and universities, programs that remove barriers for adult learners, and addressing educational needs of the Ohio workforce.


• Transforming Technologies - Possible topics include: emerging technologies, virtual environments for learning, gaming/visualization and security.


• What's The Buzz? -- Vendor Presentations

Visit the ODCE 2008 Web site to review the complete call for presentations (PDF) or to submit a proposal. The deadline to submit a proposal is Tuesday, October 30, 2007. Please note that the proposal deadline will not be extended this year.

ODCE 2008 will include a keynote presentation by Chancellor Eric Fingerhut, vendor exhibits and technology demonstrations. It will be held March 2-4, 2008, at the Columbus Hilton at Easton Town Center in Columbus, Ohio. Online registration will be available in December.