Today we start with a question: if, while hiking, you fell into a previously undiscovered underground cavern, do you get to name it after yourself?  What if you wanted to name it Cavern Awesome?  The process is more involved than just placing a flag with your name on it and claiming it as your own.  The US Board on Geographic Names is the federal entity which manages the standardization of geographic names, and their website allows visitors to search for natural and man-made features.  You can suggest a name change, or even suggest a new name for a recently discovered feature.

The website is rather unattractive but searches still function well and intuitively.  Searching domestic information is done using the Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) through either a basic or advanced search.  There is also a way to search Antarctic geographies through a separate search, or undersea features via the GEOnet Names Server.  The GNIS system allows the search result to be plotted on a topographical map.  It is also possible to see the area via satellite image. The Board on Geographic Names is a small entity, but an important one to know.

Happy searching! 

It's been two years since Apps-olutely debuted. Since then we've showcased great apps from Evernote to RemoteMouse, helping our faculty members use the iPad in innovative ways. App reviews are easy to find on the web, though, and the cream of the crop get press in major publications including Slate, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Chronicle. With that in mind, we will be retiring this column and refocusing our attention on a wider range of emerging technology with applications for teaching and learning. Look for a new column in the fall! 

• Helmke Library's Popular Reading Collection  Helmke Library has an arrangement with the Allen County Public Library to supply a rotating collection of popular fiction for our students, faculty, and staff and summer is the perfect time to relax with a good book. Check out the collection which includes mysteries, romance, general fiction, and even some large print in the first floor lounge near the elevators! 

• How like a prison is my cubicle  This speaks to the worker in summer!  A fun crowd-writing exercise with The American Scholar.

• Library Construction: Books and Skeletons Waiting?  Construction workers removing the ceiling panels found 2 books in the ceiling of the 2nd floor journal browsing area. One was Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea, marked Missing in our system in March 2008. The other was Sherwood Anderson: Dimensions of His Literary Art; its last recorded use was in 1996. Librarian Brandon Bowen muses: How I think The Old Man and the Sea got there: The warm sunlight streamed through the 2nd floor windows on a Friday afternoon. Outside, birds chirped in the blossoming trees, and the smell of freshly cut grass faintly drifted in from the lawn. A male student was reading, slouched in a comfortable chair by the window, sunshine pouring over his back onto the page. Half way through the book, his brow furrowed by Hemingway's prose, he'd had enough. "Nope!" he thought, stood on his chair, and shoved it into the ceiling. "Now you can never harm another person!" He climbed down, stretched his back muscles, and strolled outside into the spring air...but his thoughts circled back to the fish and to the sharks...

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