Virginia Tech

What happened at Virginia Tech? What do we know about such murders? murderers? recovery?

Last Monday I was working on Ask a Librarian when a student IM'ed me asking, "Have you heard about what happened at Virginia Tech?"

Being in librarian mode, I said, "Yes. Did you want more information about it?"

"No," the student said. "I just wanted to make sure you all did." Then we continued to talk about the events at Virginia Tech and what we'd heard. Apparently he was on his computer when he heard and needed to talk to someone about it, so he IM'ed us at Ask a Librarian.

You might want to find out what we've learned about school shootings, those who shoot their fellow students, and how communities can try to recover from these traumatic events. We have several resources:

Encyclopedia of Murder & Violent Crime

School Shooting
Mass Murder

Ramsland, Katherine. (2005) Inside the Minds of Mass Murderers: Why They Kill. p cover. Westport: Greenwood eBooks.

Staub, Ervin. (2003). The psychology of good and evil : why children, adults, and groups help and harm others Cambridge, U.K. : Cambridge University Press.
short excerpt
LIBRARY WEST -- -- BF789.E94 S83 2003

Staub also discusses how we can work on making us more giving and altruistic towards others and how to make it through these horrible experiences.

Douglas, Johns and Olshaker, Mark. (1999) The anatomy of motive : the FBI's legendary mindhunter explores the key to understanding and catching violent criminals. New York: Scribner.
LIBRARY WEST -- HV7911.D68 A33 1999 [Regular Loan]

Kelleher, Michael D. (1997).Flash point: the American mass murderer. Westport, Conn.: Praeger.
LIBRARY WEST -- -- HV6529 .K45 1997 [Regular Loan]

Lavergne, Gary M. (1997). A sniper in the Tower: the Charles Whitman murders.
Denton, Tex.: University of North Texas Press.

Webber, Julie A. (2003). Failure to hold : the politics of school violence. Lanham : Rowan & Littlefield.
EDUCATION LIBRARY -- -- LB3013.3 .W43 2003

There are several different databases that would be helpful:

PsycINFO

for psychological information on the shooter, the families left behind, the students who are friends and those who are hurting, grieving, frightened and angry just by living on campus. And the rest of us, feeling the same things because we live in the same world and are affected by knowing that such things can happen.

mass murderers

Another article in the Journal of Primary Prevention discusses (and this is a simplification of the argument) the limited ethical development in the family, restricted social interaction with his peers which doesn't allow further development, and then a school that is competitive, frustrating to a not completely competent person. It is quite interesting.
Thompson, Stephen and Kyle, Ken. (2005).Understanding Mass School Shootings: Links between Personhood and Power in the Competitive School EnvironmentJournal of Primary Prevention. 26,(5). 419-438.

ERIC
Education Full Text

for information on schools and education, including higher education.

Criminal Justice Abstracts

as it sounds, for information on criminology and criminal justice. This includes both forensic psychology, legal research, and sociological research.

Sociological Abstracts

for information about our society, violence, schools, alienation, community, globalization, etc.

If you'd like to know about what other material we have that can help us understand or help you try to help other people, let me know and we can look for information together. Remember to take care.

PsycArticles and the Proxy Server

I can't download APA Journals from home!

This has happened a couple of times this semester. APA reported massive downloads from our proxy server several times. To protect itself, APA blocked our proxy's IP-address from access to PsycArticles and PsycBooks. APA believes the download occurs via a robotic method. You might have noticed that last weekend until yesterday (March 31 - April 4, 2007) access was again down. (Then again, you might have been too busy watching the Gators win a 2nd National Championship in Basketball!)

If this happens again, please access PsycArticles and PsycBooks through the VPN. I know that a few of you have had problems with the VPN and at least one of you have a complicated local network which the VPN interferes with. However, for most of the off campus UF community, the VPN should mimic your computer life on campus.

Wireless Laptops

Checking Out Wireless Laptops

Is it too noisy around the computer workstations for you? Are all the computers taken? Not to worry. The entire library is accessible to your wireless laptop. (Although the 4th floor may have a few dead spots. You might want to move around to look for a stronger connection.)

"Alas," you say, "I left mine at home." "Good grief," you mutter, "I have a husband and 2 babies and a desktop at home. You think I can afford a laptop as well?"

Still, no worries. You can check out a laptop at the circulation desk. Just present your Gator1 card and all will be well.

Areas at the periphery of the library, on the 4th floor, and on the graduate students' 6th floor are much quieter.

A web page should come up asking for the login as soon as you open a browser and try to connect to any page. It's on the left-hand side of the page in the blue column. You'll need to log into the network with your Gator1 account and password.

Then click on the "to browse the web click here" link in the center of the page.

There have been times when I've browsed few pages before the webpage asked for my login. Probably a cached page saved by my browser came up from an earlier visit here before the network noticed I was around.

Take care!