Hunter College Libraries

Just in time for its annual meeting in San Francisco this weekend, the American Psychiatric Association has announced the release today of the fifth edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5).  This marks the first revision of this flagship guide to psychiatric diagnoses since 1994.

Because the DSM defines criteria for the diagnosis of mental health conditions and can influence health insurance coverage, changes to its classification system can sometimes be controversial.  Below are some of the revisions included in the new edition:

• The DSM-5 expands the definition of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, allowing children up to age 12 who show symptoms to be diagnosed with  ADHD (as opposed to age 7 in the previous edition)[1]
• The DSM-5 eliminates Asperger’s syndrome as an independent category, placing it under the larger category of autism spectrum disorder
• The fifth edition adds new disorders for “hoarding” (allowing one’s home to fill up with possessions) and for “excoriation” (for persons who compulsively pick their skin).  The DSM-5 also does away with the “bereavement exception,” so that persons mourning the death of a loved one can now be diagnosed with depression.

The DSM-5 will be available at the Hunter Health Professions Library, Wexler Library, and Hunter Silberman Building.

At April’s Library Day festivities, we gave awards to the following students for writing excellence:

The 20th Annual Paul LeClerc Competition for Best Research Papers

100-level undergraduate papers

1st place:
Max Bachhuber, “Straight from the Underground: A Look at Revolutionary Content in Rap”
Instructor: Prof. Wendy Hayden
Course: English 120

2nd place:
Sophia Curran, “Take a Seat: Combating Fraternity Bred Rape and Rape Culture through Education”
Instructor: Prof. Wendy Hayden
Course: English 120

200-level and above undergraduate papers

1st place:
Jonathan Perri, “The Molyneux Question and Its Answers”
Instructor: Prof. Alan Hausman
Course: Philosophy 215

2nd place:
Lauren Prusecki, “All that Glisters Is Not Gold: The Economic-Religious Relations in The Merchant of Venice”
Instructor: Prof. Cristina Alfar
Course: English 352

Graduate papers

1st place:
Sylvia Morse, “Housing in Luanda, Angola: Challenges and Alternatives”
Instructor: Prof. Owen Gutfreund
Course: Urban Geography 787

2nd place:
Sarah Meehan, “Food Manufacturers: Does a Poor Food Safety Profile Indicate an Unsafe Work Environment?”
Instructor: Prof. Franklin Mirer
Course: EOHS MS Program

The Charlotte Katz Millenson Book Review Contest

Undergraduate Level

1st place:
Maria Sava, “A Woman’s Journey of Troubling Times ”
About The Farming of Bones by Edwidge Danticat

2nd place:
Casey Sammon, “The Strength Gained from Belief”
About American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Graduate Level

1st place:
Jeannie Vanasco, “On Valery Larbaud’s A.O. Barnabooh: His Diary, translated by Gilbert Cannan About the book of the same name

2nd place:
Cesar Florencio, “Do You Know Where the Wild Things Are, Tom S?”
About Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

Photos of student prize winners.  Congratulations to all!

Navajo: Early Pictorial Germantown Blanket, 1880s, Private collection

The Image Kiosk, a digital collection providing access to over 63,000 images and descriptions representing visual culture from prehistoric times to the present, is accessible to all Hunter College faculty, students, and staff. Full-size images and descriptions are easy to copy/paste into PowerPoint presentations. For access, click on “Image Kiosk” from either of these two pages:

• Alphabetical list of Databases
• Zabar Art Library home page

Pierre Jacques Volaire: Eruption of Vesuvius by Moonlight, 1774, oil on canvas, Caisse Nationale des Monuments Historiques et des Sites, Paris

If you have a need for digital imaging services for your Hunter College classes or assignments, click  here for more details.

Marcos Acayaba: Hélio Olga House, 1987-1990, Sao Paulo, Brazil

It’s almost time for finals and the Hunter College Libraries are great places to study!  Wexler Library will have extended hours from May 10 – May 24, including continuous hours (open all night!) from Wednesday May 15 at 8 am until Sunday May 19, when we close at midnight.  For full details on our hours, please see the hours page.

And please remember: if there’s any way that we can be of assistance, Ask a Librarian.

Good luck!

Screenshot of a section of the massive Pubmed Bioethics Subset Search Strategy. Click the image to see more.

Can you describe your search strategy?

I don’t mean something like, “I type words in a box and a computer shows me things.” That’s a description of what we do sometimes when we search, but that’s not what I mean by a description of a search strategy.

What I mean by a search strategy is an approach to answering critical questions about the research process: What kind of information would help to answer the research question? How could that information be produced? Who would have an interest in producing that information? Where might that information be stored? How might the information be identified? How might different sources of information be combined to address the research question?

Mason Brown and I ask students taking our library research assignment to analyze and describe their search strategies for us in clear, natural language addressing questions like those listed above because we think that good critical thinking supports good research and clear communication supports success in collaborative environments.

We recently made a five-minute video in which we share some advice on developing strong search strategies for students working on our library research assignment. You can watch it here.

We welcome your thoughts.