Monthly Archives: February 2014

Reader’s Advisory: Spring Reads!

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Happy Spring UGL’ers! (let’s ignore the fact that it is still freezing). Spring time is not only time for blooming flowers, but also a time for a new reader’s advisory post. We have gathered the favorite books from the UGL graduate assistants just for you.

 

The Secret Garden

Christina recommends…
The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Tiny British orphans living in a dreary manor discover a secret garden on the premises and bring its plants and animals (and themselves) back to life. Perfect for reading as the world theoretically thaws and things start growing again. There’s also a movie ver??

 

 

 

How to live safely in a science fictional universe

Zoe recommends...

How to Safely live in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu

Want to escape into a new world but never leave your couch? Meet a fellow lazy man in Charles Yu’s fantastic novel How to Live Safely in a Science Fiction Universe. Bringing the love of machines before Her became famous, this novel follows the story of a young man who loves his operating system, fixes time machines, and lives in a very small universe indeed. Travel the universe, begin to understand paradoxes, and never leave your bed.

 

 

 

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.

Lily recommends…Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of food and life by Barbara Kingsolver.

A newer work by a beloved writer, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle details the author’s journey with her family into a lifestyle of gardening, local produce, and organic ingredients. Far more than a how-to book, this work combines journalism, food culture insight, narrative, humor, and recipes into an extremely readable exploration, written collaboratively by several members of the Kingsolver clan. It’s liable to make you want to spend some time outside, assuming things warm up around here (or inside cooking if they don’t). Check out “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” for an instant taste!

 

The Art of Fielding Book

The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach

Ira recommends…The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach

Spring means the return of baseball. Get ready for the season with this fantastic debut novel about a slick-fielding college shortstop named Henry Skrimshander, as he strives for perfection on the field. Littered with allusions to Melville, this novel is doubly recommended for those who like both Moby Dick and the national pastime.

 

 

 

Claude Monet; Springs in the Field

Claude Monet: Springs in the Field

Quetzalli recommends…Claude Monet: Springs in the Field by, Claude Monet

Spring is almost nearing (well, at least, it’s supposed to). Although there might be snow and ice on the ground, that doesn’t mean that we can’t prepare for the spring. Let this book take you into the world of impressionist painter, Clause Monet. With paintings of beautiful spring scenery, this book is sure to leave you wanting for Spring!

 

Watership down Book

Watership Down

Linsy recommmends….Watership Down by Richard Adams

Watership Down is a tale of an epic adventure undertaken by rabbits.  After surviving a mass genocide of their warren, rabbits Fiver, Hazel and Bigwig must set out on their own to establish a new home.  Their adventure contains many near-death experiences as this band of survivors tries to “make it” in this unknown world (South-central England).  Richard Adams has anthropomorphized these animals, giving them their own language, proverbs, poetry and mythology.  Reading about these rabbits adventures will transport you to warmer weather until Illinois is able to catch up.

Chasign Spring book

Chasing Spring

Other recommendations:Chasing Spring: An American Journey Through a Changing Season by Bruce Stutz

Join author Bruce Stutz as he journeys through the United States in the changing season of Spring. A good read for those wanting to have a good book and some black coffee. The author will journey through the dry desert, Alaskan Arctic, and other places throughout the country. In this book, you will find a wonderful story that will eagerly leave you waiting for Spring.

 

 

Well, there you have it folks! All of these books are available through the library catalog. Happy book hunting!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Black History Month Resources

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February, as you may know, is Black History Month. It’s a month-long celebration of African-American history in the United States. The UIUC libraries have lots of resources to help you learn about African-American history during this national observance, as well as the other 11 months of the year.

John Sharper, African-American soldier in the Union Army. Image courtesy of National Archives.

A good place to start for all things Black History Month is the official government site for the holiday. There you can find online exhibits and collections from the Library of Congress, the Smithsonian, and other national institutions. If you’d like to keep things closer to home, the University Archives also have research guides about African-American history on campus. The archives blog also has a post about Black Power movements at UIUC in the 1960s, and the Student Life and Culture Program has guides to integration and civil rights.

Research on African-American history in the library at large can be accomplished with help from the African American Research Center, an extensive collection of books and other sources about ” the Black experience in the Americas and worldwide outside of Africa.” There are also lots of research guides about Black history topics, including African-American literature and political activism.

The UGL has a Pinterest board featuring biographies of African-Americans from A-Z, if you’re looking for books about inspiring individuals. The National Archives also have a Pinterest board for Black History Month, so if you’re on Pinterest all day anyway, you can stay there and still learn about African-American History.

How have you celebrated Black history? Are there great book, movies, or online resources you recommend? Let us know in the comments!

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A Day in the Life: Jake

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Have you ever wondered what a librarian’s job looks like?  Or what exactly the faculty and staff members at the Undergraduate Library do during the day? We’d like to give you a behind-the-scenes look at the inner workings of the UGL in our new blog series “A Day in the Life.”

Due to high student use of the Media Commons and the recent media attention of the sound booth, we thought we would introduce you to Jake, our Media Commons Technology Support Specialist.

 

Jake is responsible for connecting students, staff, and faculty at UIUC to all the technology the Media Commons has to offer. When he isn’t working at his desk, you can find him all over the UGL, teaching students how to effectively use technology to create, edit, and produce quality digital media. Whether you want to use high end media editing software, need help shooting a video project in front of the green screen in the video production studio, or want to record a podcast in the sound booth, Jake is your guy.
Jake has a fancy-ass computer.

Need help? Ask Jake.

The best part about working in the Media Commons, Jake says, is that it offers everyone–undergraduate students, graduate students, faculty, and staff– the opportunity to create their own digital media on professional-quality technology.
Recently, Jake has been working hard to move, test, and set up the equipment in the sound booth to get it up and running for you. When asked about his favorite technology in the Media Commons, Jake replied that he is pretty pumped about the sound booth set- up and is excited to collaborate with students to take their audio projects to a higher level.
Jake’s passion for audio recording carries over into his work outside of the Undergraduate Library. Check out what Jake does on the weekends by visiting UrbanaBasement.com, a web series highlighting the live music scene in the Champaign-Urbana area.

 

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Office Hours are here!

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And the award for best student goes to……you! Yes, you! For going to office hours and getting the help offered to you by the librarians and writing center. Hopefully, you have seem the awesome new flyers promoting office hours. We’re all aware that midterms are coming up and we’re scrambling to get projects done and papers turned in. Why not let the librarians and the writing center give you a hand with all that coursework?

The award for SMARTEST HELP ON CITATIONS goes to...Writer's Workshop Consultants!

Check out our awesome new flyers!

In case you haven’t see the flyers promoting office hours, here is the run-down. Office hours for the 2014 spring semester will be Tuesdays 7:00-9:00 P.M. and Wednesdays2:00-4:00 P.M. These will take place in the Undergraduate Library in room 291. You will be able to get in-depth research help from librarians, but wait, that’s not all! A representative from the Writer’s Workshop will also be there to help students with any help they might need.

So there you have it folks, if you need any help with research or finding a certain article, or help with revising an essay, come find us at the UGL! We are more than happy to help! After all, it’s why we’re there.

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Arch-I’ve Got Some Sources for You

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Hey, do you know about the University Archives? Well, you should, because they can help you meet all your campus-related primary source needs, as well as give you a fascinating glimpse into what life as a student at UIUC has been like over the years.

black and white vintage image of students walking down main quad

The quad in ye olden days. (Photo courtesy of University Archives)

An archive is a collection of historical documents that documents the life or developments of a person or organization. The University Archives, as the name suggests, collects documents that contain information about the history and functions of UIUC, and people who have been associated with it in some way. A lot of them are primary sources – interviews, letters, and things like that. If you’re working on an assignment that requires primary sources, why not visit the archives website or contact an archivist to see what they can help you with? The archives also have a guide to primary sources in general, if you need to start with the basics.

A lot of the things kept in the archives relate to the running of the University and its general history, but a lot of it is also about students just like you! The Student Life and Culture Program is one part of the University Archives that highlights the student experience at UIUC (and the United States in general), and how it has changed over time (and how it’s stayed the same). Some of your assignments might require you to investigate an issue on campus; the SLC has research guides that can help you find information about the history of hot-button topics on campus. Maybe you’re interested in Greek life on campus, or the experiences of African-American students. Those are just a few things you can learn about using archival materials!

If this brief introduction has you curious about archives, feel free to search their website for things that you’re interested in. You can get a sampling of their collection on the UGL’s Facebook and Twitter pages – we’re highlighting fun and interesting things we find in the archives in weekly Throwback Thursday posts.

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UGL 101: New Sound Booth

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Hey UGL-ers, it’s time we addressed the elephant in the room. And by elephant, we mean the huge metal structure that has taken over a corner of the lower level this past year. We would like to officially introduce you to the newest member of the Media Commons collection–the sound booth!

Large metal structure = professional quality sound booth.

Like the video production room on the upper level, the sound booth is a space for students, faculty, and staff to create high-quality digital media projects. Need an interview to complete a class project? Want to record your latest podcast? As a UIUC student, the sound booth is available to you! (QB looks forward to using the sound booth to record the answers to all your questions.)

In order to use the sound booth, you will need to contact the Media Commons at mediacommons@illinois.edu in advance to book a reservation. Whether you want to reserve time in the sound booth, ask advice on recording equipment, or just find out more information, the Media Commons staff is here to help! Don’t forget to check out our loanable technology page for any additional equipment you might need, from cameras to microphones or voice recorders.

Now, to answer one final question. We know all too well how difficult the doors at the UGL can be to open, not to mention fitting large pieces of unbending metal through. So, just how did the UGL manage to construct the sound booth in the lower lever?

Huge crane lowering a section of the sound booth into the UGL courtyard

The things we do for you!

That’s how.

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On Being Inclusive

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We’re guessing that you’re just as sick of the snow this season as we are. One of the nicest things that can happen when it’s cold, wet, and windy, though, is the possibility of a snow day. A week or so ago, when Chancellor Phyllis Wise announced that inclement weather wouldn’t mean the University was closing, some members of our community turned to Twitter to announce their displeasure with unfortunate racist and sexist remarks.

In response, many units of our campus, including our very own University Library, have planned an event, #ONECAMPUS: Moving Beyond Digital Hate, in order to promote an open dialogue about maintaining an inclusive atmosphere on campus. It takes place this evening, Thursday, February 6, at 7:30 pm in the Krannert Great Hall.

As Club UGL-ers, we hope that you’re interested in keeping our hoppin’ underground spot as safe and welcoming for all kinds of people as we possibly can. In addition to letting you know about that event, we’d like to feature some resources, available right here at the UGL, that will help you extend your knowledge beyond this one-time conversation, and which we hope help make the UGL an inclusive place to be.

Book cover: Static TVs to represent the media

Race/Gender/Class/Media 3.0 by Rebecca Ann Lind

Lind’s newly updated anthology is jam-packed with all kinds of fascinating essays about race, gender, class, and sexuality in the media. She looks at an enormous array of media, from TV to magazines and from radio to social media, digging into important issues to help us understand how racism and sexism can play out in media spaces, especially those online.

book cover: hand-made signs in windows of houses advertising parties

 House Signs and Collegiate Fun: Sex, Race, and Faith in a College Town by Chaise LaDousa

Club UGL-ers know how to have a good time, right? In this book, LaDousa looks at the experience of “just havin’ fun” in universities and analyzes the cultural meanings put into signage produced by partying college students . LaDousa shows how the ways that we understand race, gender, sexuality, and religion show up in things that we often don’t even think twice about, making this an especially timely book on this topic.

book cover: plain white text on blue background, very academic

 Why Aren’t We There Yet?: Taking Personal Responsibility for Creating an Inclusive Campus edited by Jan Arminio, Vasti Torres, and Raechele L. Pope

In Why Aren’t We There Yet?, the editors ask why, despite years of talk about increasing diversity and making campuses inclusive, events of racism and sexism like SnowDayTweetGate still happen. Their answers aren’t easy, but the book is a guide to helping us continue to have difficult conversations about power and justice and asks us to step up in ending discrimination on our campus.

The UGL thinks this is an important conversation and wants to make sure that you know that we’ve got the resources to help you with all kinds of problems, from the big ones like our campus climate, to the little ones. We hope that you’ll join us as we try to make sure that the library—and the university—are safer spaces for people of all races, genders, orientations, and abilities. The Media Collection will still be waiting when you get back.

Special thanks to guest blogger Tad Andracki.

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UGL 101: Reach Out and Touch (Some Scanner’s Screen)

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At the Undergraduate Library, you can reach out and touch our new scanner’s screen, to give your PDFs a better face, if you scan.

You could also scan to a JPEG or other image file, and then immediately send it via email to whoever needs it, or just save it to your smartphone for later. What is it that enables you to do all these things? What has us referencing Diana Ross? It’s the new touchscreen scanners we have on the upper level of the UGL!

You can find these scanners on the north side of the upper level, near where our book scanners and flatbed scanners are. They’re different from our other scanners in a few ways, which is what this blog post will outline for you.

Firstly, when you want to use one, you’ll have to log in with your NetID and password (the same combo you use to get into your illinois.edu email address). After you sign in, it’ll ask you how you want to receive your file – you can scan directly to a USB drive just like our other touchscreen scanners, but you can also choose from several other options.

Options for sending include sending to a smart device, email, USB drives, Google Drive, or the UGL printers.

Files can go anywhere.

You can also save to a variety of different formats. Each format will have different options for you to choose from to get the best quality image for your needs. After scanning (which works the same way as on our other scanners), you’ll be able to edit your file as well, and give it a name  so you can find it again.

Options include black and white, grayscale, or color images; JPEG, PNG, or TIFF files; or PDF, searchable PDF, or Word documents.

Choose wisely.

So many options! That’s the main difference between these new scanners and our others – they give you many options in one place, so you have to think less about which scanner to use. If you need help figuring out which of the options is best for what you need to scan, just ask a librarian at the reference desk or online, and we’ll be happy to get you started. Happy scanning!

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