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Getting back in the swing of things can be hard. This Back to School special at mashable.com will empower you to choose some tech tools and get organized, study better, work and collaborate, and cite it right!

An Omnivore's Labor Day

If you're looking for a way to continue thinking about Pollan's book or to meet people very committed to the slow food movement, join Time for Lunch at Richmond Park on Labor Day. The Atlantic just ran an interesting piece about this nationwide potluck:

On Labor Day, the tens of thousands of us who will sit down together in public parks, on school grounds, at churches, and in front of City Halls will do it for an overtly political purpose: to tell Congress to stop giving our children food that hurts them.

Who knows, maybe your professor will give you extra credit?

It's only natural

The 8th Annual Humanities Symposium, which will focus on Nature and the Human Spirit, is just around the corner (September 13-21). If you have not yet perused the event listings, here is a friendly push. You're sure to find something of interest. Lila recommends that you supplement the experience by picking up a related book from the first floor display.

Remiss?

Lila hasn't extended her traditional Fall Semester welcome...and she feels terrible about it. Better late than never, right?

Welcome, one and all!

• Please stop by and visit us! You know where to find us, here is when you can find us.
• If you'd like to learn more about the library and where to find what you need, you should take a Library Tour! We'll start in the lobby at 10am on Mondays and 2pm on Thursdays all September long.
• We have a fine assortment of Convocation Lectures planned for this semester. Check the BIC calendar and this blog for more info!
• Add Lila D. Bunch as a Facebook friend for equal parts silliness and totally useful information.

Google Book downloads...free!

Any Google Book fans out there? For those of you who download books to portable devices, Google Books has some great news! According to the Inside Google Books, they're now offering free downloads of public domain works in EPUB, an additional format that will display better on portable devices!

More people are turning to new reading devices to access digital books, and many such phones, netbooks, and e-ink readers have smaller screens that don't readily render image-based PDF versions of the books we've scanned. EPUB is a lightweight text-based digital book format that allows the text to automatically conform to these smaller screens. And because EPUB is a free, open standard supported by a growing ecosystem of digital reading devices, works you download from Google Books as EPUBs won't be tied to or locked into a particular device.

Digital book lovers rejoice!

Freewheeling no more...Wikipedia tightens reins

A recent NY Times article, Wikipedia to Limit Changes to Articles on People , reported changes to Wikipedia entries on living people. Wikimedia Foundation has imposed an editorial sign off before any change can go live.

Lila is thrilled that Mr. Wales, one of Wikipedia's founders, acknowledges the huge impact of his little encyclopedia and is seriously considering how readers are using its information.

"We have really become part of the infrastructure of how people get information,” Mr. Wales said. “There is a serious responsibility we have.”

Hey, omnivores!

Need resources for the Belmont's 2009-2010 Common Book (Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan)? Lila just put up a page with links to book reviews, related reference books, the author's other writings, and more very useful stuff. It probably won't solve your dilemma, but it may help you write a brilliant paper for FYS?