Vol. 8, No.2
October 1997
COMPUTER BYTES
by Juliet Casper Smith
When you use a password to access a computer or an account in
a student lab (i.e. the computer labs 208 B and 208 D in the Law
Library), remember to log out before you leave! If you don't,
you leave your account open to abuse by others and you may lose
your computing privileges. You may also be unable to log into
another computer until you go back and log out of the first one.
If you receive the error "Already logged on," it means
you're still logged into the last student computing lab workstation
you used.
Having trouble installing the PPP software on your home computer?
Want to know more about Netscape Navigator? Or Word Perfect? Confused
by First Class? Go to the UCS "How To Guides" located
at this web address: <http://www.indiana.edu/~ucspubs/>
Also at this site, you'll find the UCS Monitor and CS Times Online,
two newsletters to keep you up to date on computing at Indiana
University.
From July 1996 through June 1997, I.U. Law students searched Lexis
for a total of 4,349 hours. During that same time period, Westlaw
was searched a total of 10,279 hours. Just imagine what a law
firm (or its clients) would have paid for 14,628 hours of electronic
research!
Want to include colorful images in your documents? Find images
on the World Wide Web using Netscape or Internet Explorer. Point
your mouse on the image and click on the right side button of
the mouse. You'll get a menu of choices; one of which is "Save
Image As". Choose this and the image may be saved to diskette
or your locker account.
Table of Contents
WELL, IT CAME OUT OF THE SKY....
....and landed just a little northwest of Roswell, New Mexico.
Two publications issued by the Air Force earlier this year have
attempted to explain the "incident" involving the reported
crash of an alien space craft and the untimely demise of its occupants
in the New Mexico desert during summer of 1947. Curious lag in
time, wouldn't you say?
These government publications can be found in the Library in the
4th floor documents collection:
The Roswell Report: Fact or Fiction in the New Mexico Desert.
(D 301.82/7:R 73)
The Roswell Report: Case Closed. (D 301.2:R 73)
Get out your pencil and test your knowledge by matching the terms
listed below in the LEFT column with the appropriate (or most
interesting) terms in the RIGHT column.
alien corpse unidentified pediatrician
hot air big red-headed captain
debris extraterrestrial vehicle
two mysterious doctors Air Force
featureless dummies autopsies
missing nurse balloon
threat research specimen
Significant quote from Case Closed, "They was using dummies in those damned things."
If these reports conclude the investigation of the Roswell Incident,
what can be the explanation of the repeated disappearance of these
reports from the Library's shelves and the mysterious re-appearance
of these documents in a certain reference librarian's office?
Case closed? I don't think so.
Marianne Mason
Documents Librarian
Table of Contents
BOOK OF THE MONTH
Ferrell, Robert H. The Strange Deaths of President Harding.
Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1996. E786.F47 1996.
In numerous polls of historians, political scientists, and presidential
experts taken since 1948, one president has consistently been
ranked at the very bottom-Warren G. Harding, the 29th President of the United States.
This is interesting due to the fact that Harding was held in high
esteem during his lifetime, but his reputation quickly sank after
his death. The public and scholarly opinion of many presidents
has changed after they left office, usually for the better (just
look at Harry Truman), but Harding's went the other way, for a
variety of reasons. That is the purpose of this book, written
by Indiana University Professor of History, Robert H. Ferrell.
Professor Ferrell states in the introduction that while Harding
does not deserve to be ranked among the great or near-great presidents,
he certainly does not deserve to be ranked at the bottom. Thus,
Professor Ferrell examines the reasons for this fall in Harding's
reputation.
In Professor Ferrell's opinion, there are three reasons for this
decline in the reputation of President Harding. One concerns the
manner of his death and the rumors which surrounded it. Harding
died in a San Francisco hotel room while on a trip from Washington,
D.C. to Alaska. Looking back on it with today's medical knowledge,
it is clear that the President was suffering from cardiovascular
disease, and that what killed him was a massive heart attack.
The President had extremely high blood pressure, and the duties
of the Presidency only aggravated his condition. The understanding
of cardiovascular disease was in its infancy in the 1920's, which
did not help the situation. The stress of the long train ride
from Washington, D.C. to Seattle for the Alaska trip, and the
resulting public appearances caused even more difficulty for the
President, to the point that by the time he arrived in San Francisco,
he was completely exhausted. He spent five days in the hotel,
attended by doctors, nurses, his wife, and various aides and cabinet
officers. When he expired, the witnesses stated that the President
had a terrible seizure, shook the bed violently, he quivered,
and the color left his face. As quickly as it started, the seizure
ceased and the President was dead. Ferrell points out that this
string of events has all the markings of a massive heart attack.
However, the official death certificate, signed by the five doctors
present gave the official cause of death as apoplexy, which today
would mean a stroke. However, it had been suggested to the press
and public that prior to this, the President was suffering from
food poisoning. Ferrell states that the conflict between the "official"
cause of death (which was wrong), along with the suggestion of
food poisoning caused the poison theory to take on a life of its
own. In addition, Mrs. Harding did not permit an autopsy, which
could have disproved the poison theory. And finally two popular
and widely read books appeared several years after the President's
death which popularized this theory. As news about the scandals
in the Harding administration began to be known, this theory that
Harding was killed to keep him quiet, or that he committed suicide
took hold, with the obvious effect on his reputation.
Another reason for the decline in President Harding's reputation
was due to the claim that he fathered a child born to his mistress.
His mistress, Nan Britton wrote a book titled The President's
Daughter detailing her claims about their affair and birth of
their child. The book proved to be a bestseller and was widely
read. And finally, there were the numerous scandals that came
to light after Harding's death, the most famous one being Teapot
Dome. Ferrell points out how all these different events came together,
and books and articles were written that ridiculed Harding, with
the end result being a reputation that went from very high to
as low as it could go.
I found this book to be very interesting. Professor Ferrell presents
an interesting case for the reason in the decline of the reputation
of President Harding. I finished the book feeling more ambivalent
about Harding than when I started. What is now needed is a good,
scholarly, unbiased biography of Harding, that will present the
whole picture of his life. Then historians, political scientists,
and others will then be able to read it and make a better judgment
of President Harding.
Michael Maben,
Cataloging Librarian
Table of Contents
A WORLD OF BOOKS
When conducting research, the scholar takes for granted that
periodical indexes will provide information about articles published
in a larger number of journals than that held by the library in
which he or she is working. If the library does not hold the desired
journal, the researcher can place an inter-library loan request
for the item. Thus, periodical indexes perform the crucial service
of providing access to a whole world of journals, even if the
local collection is limited in its holdings.
But when it comes to books, researchers do not take such access
for granted. In fact, most researchers do not realize that they
can locate titles beyond those contained in the local library's
own online catalog. However, it is possible to locate books not
held by the library, through use of two databases available on IO.
These databases are called OCLC and RLIN, and appear as option
2 on the main IO menu screen (option 1 is IUCAT, the online catalog).
OCLC and RLIN are easy to miss, and difficult to use, since they
were not originally conceived as public-access databases. Their
main purpose was, and remains, to provide a means through which
libraries can share cataloging records. However, as libraries
over the years contributed their electronic cataloging records
to these databases, they became huge, and thereby acquired great
reference value as well. Today, both databases contain millions
of records of books and other types of material contained in the
collections of numerous research libraries.
Both RLIN and OCLC have public access interfaces that make them
somewhat simpler to use. Of the two, OCLC's Worldcat is the more
straightforward, but also somewhat more limited. It offers author,
title, and subject searching, but the subject search is actually
a keyword search of the subject, title, abstract, and note fields.
Through its user interface, Eureka, RLIN offers the option of
true subject searching, as well as the ability to limit search
output in various ways (by language, publication year, etc.).
The ability to conduct subject searches is extremely useful, because
it allows the researcher to search RLIN using a subject heading
associated with a relevant book found in the local online catalog.
Books found in this fashion can then be obtained through inter-library
loan. Title searches are also quite useful for verifying title
information. This is especially important for cite-checkers.
Following on screen instructions, the researcher should not find
it too difficult to search OCLC's Worldcat. However, RLIN's Eureka
is not self- explanatory, and the researcher should ask a reference
librarian for assistance before attempting a search. Both RLIN
and OCLC are important reference sources that should not be overlooked
by the researcher who wishes to do a comprehensive search of relevant
literature.
Access these and other databases from the web at the IUB Libraries Search page.
Ralph Gaebler,
Foreign and International Law Librarian
Table of Contents
PARDON THE NOISE
As you've probably noticed by now, the reference librarians
are once again conducting introductory Legal Writing & Research
classes on the 1st Floor of the Library. Last year's experiment
with more informal presentations and guided hands-on exercises
was such a wonderful success that the librarians and Writing &
Research faculty decided to continue using this format. 1st year
classes began meeting in the Library during the last weeks of
September, will run through the second week of October, and meet,
for the most part, during the latter part of the week. Second
semester research classes will last approximately three weeks.
Although the librarians are trying to keep noise to a minimum,
we recommend that you study on the Ground, 2nd, 3rd or 4th floors
during class sessions if you wish to avoid being disturbed. We
thank you for your patience during these invaluable educational
sessions.
Keith Buckley
Reference Librarian
Table of Contents
LIBRARY GOING TO THE DOGS?
Although it has always been the policy of the Library not
to allow dogs (or other animals) in the Library, we have not been
particularly diligent about enforcing this rule. The exception
to this rule, of course, is for seeing eye dogs. However, we now
have good reason to enforce the rule - fleas! Yes, the Library
has fleas! We have received two reports of students being bitten
by fleas while studying in the Library. On Saturday, October 4th,
after the Libray closes, Pest Control is going to spray all of
the carpets in the Library. We will open as usual on Sunday morning.
So, please, do not bring your animals to the Library! We will
be monitoring this much more carefully and will ask you to remove
animals from the Library if you bring them here. We appreciate
your cooperation with this policy.
Linda Fariss,
Associate Director
Table of Contents
~WORKING THE HALLS~ Happy
October Birthdays to the following people:
Earl Singleton on the 5th
Bill Oliver on the 6th
Bob Heidt on the 10th
Ken Dau-Schmidt on the 12th
Kevin Brown on the 13th
Pam Kriete on the 20th
Bruce Markell on the 24th
Bill Hicks on the 26th
Leslie Jackson on the 28th
Bill Popkin on the 28th
The Suggestion Box
Suggestion: Chairs - they are bent and recline. Buy
new chairs, fix and reshape existing chairs.
Response: We are surprised that it has taken so long for
someone to complain about this! We are obviously aware of the
problems with the chairs. Each summer we attempt to fix as many
broken chairs as we can and remove those that cannot be repaired.
We are currently investigating the possibility of purchasing new
chairs for the Library. In the near future, there will be some
sample chairs available for the students to test. If we do decide
to replace our chairs, it will likely take several years to complete
because we have over 700 chairs in the Library! Thanks for the
suggestion.
Table of Contents
Index to Issues of Res Ipsa Loquitur