News for Undergraduates

We’ve created two new guides to get you started with Google Books and Google Scholar. These tools can help you discover books and articles found online and at the University of Texas Libraries.

Google Books - Find books that mention your search terms anywhere in the text and let’s you discover books on similar topics. Once you find a helpful book, you can search for the book in a library or access the full text of select titles. Learn more!

Google Scholar - Search for articles, books, citations and more. Once you find a resource you want to use, it allows you to retrieve it from a database or search for it at the UT Libraries. Learn more!

Need more help? Just Ask a Librarian!

Classes are finished, finals are over — what should you do while you wait for your grades to be posted and summer to begin?  Time to catch up on your movie-watching!

Check out one of these DVDs (for free!) from the Audio Visual Library on the 3rd floor of FAC.

Never checked out a DVD from the Libraries?  Here’s what you should know:

DVDs have a three-day checkout period and there’s a three item limit.  Click on the title below to visit its record in the Catalog.  Make sure its Current Status is “Available,” jot down the DVD number, and then present the number to the staff at the AV Library.

The Wrestler

Marley & Me

Bedtime Stories

Milk

Frost Nixon

Mad Men: Season One

Rachel Getting Married

Slumdog Millionaire

High School Musical 3

Lost: The Complete Fourth Season

Tropic Thunder

Encounters at the End of the World

Mamma Mia!

Vicky Cristina Barcelona

Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!  Season 2

Pineapple Express

Search for more DVDs online

Spring Intersession hours go into effect today and last through Wednesday, June 3.

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/about/hours/upcoming1.php

Also, the branch libraries will open at 10am on Thursday, 5/21 due to staff training.

PCL will remain open on Saturday, 5/23, 10am-8pm for Commencement.  Congratulations to this year’s graduates!

Need to return books while the Libraries are closed?  Use one of three remote book drops on campus:

1) West of the Perry-Castañeda Library in the one-way alley off 21st Street between the University Christian Church and the University Teaching Center (UTC). As you proceed south, the book return is on the left.

2) A second drive-up book return is located on the north end of campus. The return is located on the south side of Dean Keeton Street between Speedway and San Jacinto streets. It is accessible to pedestrians at street level between Ernest Cockerell Jr. Hall and Robert Lee Moore Hall (RLM) and to vehicles driving through the parking and delivery area behind RLM.

3) A third return is located in the central part of campus near the Main Building (the Tower). It is in the circle drive between the Flawn Academic Center (FAC) and the Main Building. The return is at the bottom of the steps at the west entrance to FAC.

Maps of these locations are available at:

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/services/borrower/returning.html

We asked you this: You’re stuck on a desert island…with a DVD player. Which three movies are with you?

Here is what you said — click on linked titles to check out the movie (or the book that inspired the movie) from the Libraries:

exam anxiety, by Flickr user cl0r

There are numerous resources across campus that can help you manage stress this time of year.

The UT Learning Center publishes useful handouts on topics such as:

• Dealing Successfully with Conflict
• How to Keep Calm During Tests
• Self Talk for Reducing Anxiety

The Counseling and Mental Health Center offers a Student Stress Checklist and Tips for Stress Management on their website as well as an interactive stress management site called Stress Recess: Stress Management and Reduction.

And while you’re working on those final projects, don’t forget that librarians are available to help. Chat with us, call us, visit us, or schedule an appointment with a subject specialist with expertise in your area of study. All of these services are available through Ask a Librarian.

Good luck in these final weeks of the semester!

In response to students’ requests for extended library hours, the Perry-Castañeda Library (PCL) will be open twenty-four hours a day beginning a week earlier than in past semesters.  PCL will be open continuously from 7am Friday, May 1 through 7pm Tuesday, May 19.

Spring Intersession and Summer hours are now available on our website at:

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/about/hours

Want your own armor, with jet boots and repulsor blasts? Come hear Dr. Mitch Pryor (Robotics Research Group) discuss the science of Iron Man. And take notes.

Wednesday, April 15
6-7pm
Main 212

Take a break from the books and join UT researchers for cookies, chips, and chat about popular movies and TV shows that deal with science topics. (more…)

Do you like cotton candy?

Do you like games?

Do you like learning more about the University of Texas Libraries?

If you answered yes to any one of those questions, you should join us outside on the PCL Plaza on Wednesday, April 15 for the University of Texas Libraries Fair. The fun starts at 10am and continues until 1pm.

Each of the University of Texas Libraries will host a table, with some offering games you can play to win an assortment of prizes.

A preview of just some of the fun that awaits you:

- Want to impress everyone with how well-read you are? Stop by the PCL Table and play our Guess the Author game!

- Are you a numbers whiz? Visit the Kuehne Physics Mathematics Astronomy Library table to demonstrate your math genius.

- Have a real eye for architectural details? See the friendly folks at the Architecture and Planning Library table for some visual architecture trivia.

The Fair will also kick off our Library Quest three-day challenge for current undergraduate and graduate students. Visit three different libraries on campus by Friday, April 17, answer a question about each space, get your passport stamped, and be entered to win a 16GB iPod Touch. More details will be available at the Fair.

Free food and games for all, all in celebration of Research Week. We hope to see you there!

Join us for our Undergraduate Book Discussions in April. Faculty will lead discussions of Bram Stoker’s Dracula and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz. Refreshments will be served. Each discussion is limited to 25 undergraduates.

To reserve a spot, email
Meghan Sitar
msitar@austin.utexas.edu

Please include:
Name
Email address
Status (freshman, junior, etc.)
Major or Department

Monday, April 6
6:30-8:00pm
Dracula
Bram Stoker

Dr. Elizabeth Richmond-Garza
Distinguished Teaching Associate Professor
Department of English

Find a copy of Bram Stoker’s Dracula to check out in the Library Catalog
Read Bram Stoker’s Dracula online in Google Books

Have you spent the last year devouring the Twilight series?

Do you need more vampire fiction in your life while you wait for the next movie to hit the theatres?

Then join Dr. Elizabeth Richmond-Garza, Distinguished Teaching Associate Professor, Department of English, for a discussion of Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

In 1887, sitting in a library in London, Bram Stoker created Count Dracula, a villain, who continues to frighten and intrigue us. Drawing on Transylvanian legends, Stoker invented a dangerous, bloody and exciting vampire who combined the intensity of a gothic novel with the terrible reality of the Jack the Ripper murders. From films to novels to computer games, few novels have inspired so many imitators, and few themes have resonated so strongly across generations of readers.

Tuesday, April 21
6:30-8:00pm

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Junot Díaz

Dr. Jennifer Wilks
Assistant Professor
Department of English

Find a copy of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao to check out in the Library Catalog
(Are all the copies checked out? Use the “Request” button to recall the book.)
Preview The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao in Google Books

Join Dr. Jennifer Wilks, Assistant Professor, Department of English, for a discussion of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz, the second entry in our spring Undergraduate Book Discussion series.

From the publisher:

“Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao tells the story of Oscar, a sweet but disastrously overweight ghetto nerd, a New Jersey romantic who dreams of becoming the Dominican J. R. R. Tolkien and, most of all, of finding love. But he may never get what he wants, thanks to the fukú—the ancient curse that has haunted Oscar’s family for generations, dooming them to prison, torture, tragic accidents, and ill-starred romance. Oscar, still dreaming of his first kiss, is only its most recent victim—until the fateful summer that he decides to be its last.

With dazzling energy and insight, Junot Díaz immerses us in the uproarious lives of our hero Oscar, his runaway sister Lola, and their ferocious mother Belicia, and in the family’s epic journey from Santo Domingo to New York City’s Washington Heights to New Jersey’s Bergenline and back again. Rendered with uncommon warmth and humor, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao presents an astonishing vision of the contemporary American experience and the endless human capacity to persevere—and to risk it all—in the name of love “