Puget Sound’s youngest readers were out in full force this past Saturday, Feb. 9, during our second Rocking Chair Room Reading Hour. Chelsea Pemberton read If You’ll Be My Valentine by Cynthia Rylant and our young “scholars” had the chance to sing and then make pop-up Valentine cards to mark the occasion. Our Rocking Room story hours are designed for Puget Sound families and members of our community and showcase our great collection of children’s literature.
This recent blog post on Salon.com, “Bring back shushing librarians,” pleads to bring back shushing librarians. Ah — what a concept! The grim-faced, dour librarian controlling and patrolling the learning environment for the sake of peace and quiet. The librarian who is unapproachable and generates a feeling that only the silent are welcome here. We have read the Pew Report as well and we understand.
Modern life is complicated; libraries and cultural organizations, particularly in the public realm, are struggling with ways to reach diverse populations. We think libraries can do both. The best in library design offers a combination of active, engaging and creative spaces — spaces that do promote social interaction where discussion (noise?) becomes part of the communication experience. These libraries may indeed prove to be training grounds for the real world, where most employers want individuals who can communicate, work in groups, and think creatively. But most libraries still have havens of refuge, contemplation and reflection, and it is important to offer both types of spaces.
Today’s librarians are more than just the gatekeepers of sacred books. Please, lose the shushing stereotype — and recognize the importance of reaching out to diverse users. We can be respective of private contemplative spaces and welcoming at the same time.
What is noise to your ears, just might be music to ours.
Check out this article from USA TODAY about a website helping readers find and buy books they like!
The Collins Memorial Library Archives & Special Collections Summer Research Fellowship is back! The 2013 application is now available online. Applicants may choose one of the four suggested projects or design their own project!
Learn more about this summer’s opportunities:
And view the material in person at our Open House on Wednesday, February 27th from 4:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. in the Collins Memorial Library, room 211. For more information, or if you are unable to attend the Open House, please contact Katie Henningsen, Archivist & Digital Collections Coordinator.
Carter G. Woodson
February is Black History Month. This annual tradition celebrates the history and achievements of African Americans. It began in 1926 when Dr. Carter Woodson, noted educator and scholar, established Negro History Week. He wrote, “If a race has no history, if it has no worthwhile tradition, it becomes a negligible factor in the thought of the world, and it stands in danger of being exterminated.” In addition to educating the general public, Woodson believed that “Just as a thorough education in the belief in inequality of races has brought the world to the cat-and-dog stage of religious and racial strife, so may thorough instruction in the equality of races bring about a reign of brotherhood through an appreciation of the virtues of all races, creed and colors.” Woodson chose the month of February for the celebration because it marks the birthdays of President Abraham Lincoln, who signed the Emancipation Proclamation ending slavery, and Frederick Douglass, the noted African American abolitionist. In 1976, Black History Week became Black History Month. This year’s theme commemorates the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation signed by President Abraham Lincoln and the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington when Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech.
Check out the featured resources listed in the library’s African American Studies subject guide for background information about Black History Month, the Emancipation Proclamation, Martin Luther King, Jr., and the March on Washington.
Sources:
Aguiar, Marian. “Black History Month.” Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience, Second Edition. Ed. Kwame Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates Jr.. New York: Oxford UP, 2008. Oxford African American Studies Center.
“Black History Month.” Encyclopedia of African American Society. Ed. Gerald D. Jaynes. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, Inc., 2005. 118-19. SAGE knowledge. Web.
Pencak, William. “Negro History Week/Month.” In Encyclopedia of African American History 1896 to the Present, Oxford University Press. (, n.d.).
– By Lori Ricigliano, African American Studies Liaison Librarian
Read about our Literary Cats in Collins Library!
This week’s “Feline Fridays” series presents a change of pace: Distorting the Law: Politics, Media, and the Litigation Crisis (Call No.: KF380 .H35 2004), doesn’t actually feature a cat. But author Bill Haltom indicates that his cat, Mr. Χάρυβδις (or Mr. Charybdis), provided occasional assistance during the research of the book.
This Tacoma author visited Collins library 4 years ago! His book, once banned, is now a movie with a fall release planned! Read more.
Read about winner Katherine Applegate’s “The One and Only Ivan” from the Tacoma News Tribune!
NEW YORK (AP) — Author Jennifer Gilmore is reading a biography of the late David Foster Wallace. She’s curious about his most famous book, the novel “Infinite Jest,” and wants to poke around on the Internet to learn more.
Her destination is Small Demons, www.smalldemons.com, an encyclopedia and “Storyverse” that catalogues names, places, songs, products and other categories for thousands of books.
Officially launched in August, Small Demons is the book world’s latest mind game and guilty pleasure and a proving ground that everything really is connected. You can find out how many books mention the Beatles or the Pacific Ocean or Rice Krispies. You can find answers to questions you never meant to ask, like whether writers favor Marlboros or Camels (Camels have the edge, 85-65), or which brands of cold medicine are cited in EL James’ “Fifty Shades of Gray” (NyQuil, Advil, Tylenol).
“I was sure they featured ‘Infinite Jest,’ which of course they have,” Gilmore, whose novels include “Something Red” and “Golden Country,” wrote in a recent email. “I can get deep(er) into the Wallace brain there and as I do so, learn about the context, the ether around the book. I can relent and buy Wittgenstein or ‘Ethan Frome’ or Irving Berlin.”
Small Demons founder Valla Vakili, a former Yahoo executive, dates the idea back to 2005, November to be exact. He read Jean-Claude Izzo’s novel “Total Chaos” and became curious about the book’s setting, in Marseilles. The main character was a French police officer with a taste for malt whiskey and jazz and blues.
“I had a vacation planned to Madrid and Paris, and I changed my Paris leg to go to Marseilles instead,” Vakili says. “I spent a week in Marseilles drinking the drinks, eating the food, and roaming the streets described in the book. I came back from that trip convinced that many of the best experiences we can find are within books. And that if we could gather them all up and put them in one place, we could unlock a world of pretty incredible discovery.”
The company’s name, which could be mistaken for a New Wave band, is itself a game of free association. Vakili was inspired in part by a Jorge Luis Borges passage declaring that history “is the handwriting produced by a Minor god in order to communicate with a Demon.” As Vakili sees it, “minor Gods” are writers, and demons the passion to read and to write. And so, “Small Demons,” or, as Vakili likes to joke, the devil is in the details.
Looking through the site is like knocking on a door, then another and another. You might start with Doris Kearns Goodwin’s “Team of Rivals,” the basis for Steven Spielberg’s “Lincoln.” Click on the image of the book’s cover and you will find a variety of sub-categories: People in the book (from Lincoln himself to abolitionist Frederick Douglass), places identified, songs mentioned (“The Star Spangled Banner,” ”La Marseillaise”), newspapers cited.
Each sub-category links to other sub-categories. Click on the icon for “The Star Spangled Banner” and you’ll see a list of other books mentioning it, among them the unlikely bedfellows Joseph Heller’s “Catch’22” and Ronald Reagan’s memoir “An American Life.” Click on the cover image of “Don Quixote,” which is referred to in “Team of Rivals,” and you’ll find additional background on the Cervantes novel and a “Buy” tab that allows you to purchase it from Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble and independent stores.
Publishers are sensitive to letting outside companies use copyrighted text and several members of the Association of American Publishers sued Google when the Internet giant began collecting snippets from books without permission. But Small Demons has the cooperation of most of the major publishers. One of the first was Simon & Schuster, where authors include Stephen King, Bob Woodward and David McCullough.
“It was a unique approach that looked at the interior of books and provided discovery and browsing of books by utilizing fun and imaginative concepts,” said Simon & Schuster’s chief digital officer, Ellie Hirschhorn. She cites a Simon & Schuster book, Walter Isaacson’s “Steve Jobs,” as a text she enjoyed exploring. “Jobs himself was such a curious guy and his story had everything from Bob Dylan to marijuana to Bill Gates. It’s a fun way to drill around.”
Dani Shapiro became curious about Small Demons after she learned that her novel “Black & White” was included. Published in 2008, the book tells of a daughter trying to escape the influence of her mother, a famous photographer. The book is rich in literary and pop culture, from Shakespeare to “The Flintstones.” Shapiro herself was surprised by some of the references catalogued.
“Honestly I didn’t even remember some of them, especially when they’re bumped up against one another like a strange, out-of-time fantasy dinner party. Nietzsche next to Warhol next to Kant and Meryl Streep! But philosophy and the 1980s art world and fame are central preoccupations of that novel,” Shapiro wrote in a recent email. “I find it fascinating to see the cultural and historical references, especially in fiction, laid out visually — sort of a Rorschach test of the writer’s mind and preoccupations.”
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Online:
http://www.smalldemons.com
125 Years in the Stacks Lecture Series:
Award winning historian, educator, and living history performer Karen Haas will return to campus to perform her one-woman show No Woman Has Ventured As Far: The Art and Adventures of Abby Williams Hill. Abby Williams Hill (1861-1943) was a painter and activist with an insatiable love of travel and learning. She moved to Tacoma with her husband in 1889 and began painting the beautiful landscapes that surround our area. Between 1903 and 1906, Hill accepted four commissions from the Great Northern and Northern Pacific railroads which allowed for extended stays in the North Cascades and at Yellowstone National Park. These commissions resulted in dozens of paintings, many of which are on display in Jones Hall, Collins Memorial Library, and Thompson Hall. Hill was also the founding president of the Washington State Chapter of the Congress of Mothers (today’s Parent Teacher Association) and advocated on behalf of disadvantaged children, African Americans, Native Americans, and other marginalized groups. Karen Haas will assume the identity of Abby Williams Hill and discuss the painter’s life in Tacoma, her adventures in the Pacific Northwest, and the significant contributions that she made to our community. The free performance will take place in Trimble Forum on Monday, January 28 at 4:00 PM. This event is part of the Collins Memorial Library’s 125 Years in the Stacks Lecture Series. Refreshments will be served.
A small exhibit on Abby Williams Hill’s life titled Abby Williams Hill: Artist and Advocate is on display in the Jones Hall Mini Galleries (basement of Jones Hall) from January 22 through March 1. The exhibit focuses primarily on Hill’s artwork and the commissions that she received from the Great Northern and Northern Pacific railroads to paint Northwest scenery along their rail lines. These paintings were used in railroad advertisements to entice families from the East Coast to travel to the Pacific Northwest. A self-guided walking tour of the Hill paintings displayed on campus is available at the exhibit. The exhibit is free and open to the public. For additional information please contact Laura Edgar, Curator for the Abby Williams Hill Collection at ledgar@pugetsound.edu or 253-879-2806.
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