September 2008 – JCCC Billington Library

This Book of the Day is Quite Spicy

I have an absolutely disgusting confession. I don’t know if you’re prepared for it, so grab your barf bag and cross your fingers: I absolutely love Tabasco-flavored Cheez-Its. I know, right!? They’re so gross! Yet, I cannot get enough of them. And the real kicker is that I don’t like Tabasco on anything else. But when I saw our brand new edition to the library, Tabasco: an Illustrated History, I knew I’d found today’s book. Fantastic images and an interesting stories about the McIlhenny family who started the product. Even beyond the fact that Tabasco Sauce is the focus of this, its really interesting to read the story, see the old pictures, and learn a little about an American family success story.

Banned Books — Weak

The book in question — Ban my book, please!

Banned books usually make us think of inappropriate library materials at middle schools, maybe intense subject matter at high schools. Yet one would think a library on a college campus is immune; after all, this is where free thinking is encouraged.

That’s why I was surprised last spring when a patron demanded that the Billington Library ban a book. The book, Mapplethorpe, contained nude images along with other photographs.

She complained that children shouldn’t have acess to it.

I urged her to put that in our suggestion box.

But what I really wanted to say was, “Hello? Earth to crazy lady: this is a college library not childrens’ story hour at Borders.”

Materials at college libraries differs from those at public libraries because our primary charge is to provide materials that support courses. That matierial provide is selected to provoke thought, expand minds and facilitate discussions. Librarians work with instructors to procure material that enhances the required and suggested texts students purchase.

Sometimes that material is ugly, violent, sacrilegious or even naked.

If you can’t find material in a college library that offends you, then they aren’t doing their jobs.

Book of the Day

So today’s Book of the Day is a real upper! Let’s take a look!

AAHH!!!! New book! New book! New book!

YES! Thank goodness. I can’t take any more nuclear scares.

I’d much rather get my fashion on with A cultural history of fashion in the twentieth century : from the catwalk to the sidewalk. It is 177 pages of designs, designers, and the integration of innovation into daily wear. Certainly this is more uplifting than the first choice, plus I truly can respect someone who can go through this book and point out shifts in cultural asthetic paradigms… I see pretty pictures for the most part. But at least it can be enjoyed on both levels.

Book of the Day

Hey! It is Deaf Awareness Week! If you’re on campus, I recommend you check out the following:

MELANIE MCKAY CODY

Hudson Auditorium, Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art

3:30-5 p.m.

Melanie McKay Cody will give a presentation, Cultural Identity. Cody, a Deaf American Indian, has been employed with the Kansas State Department of Education as a linguistic specialist. This fall, she will be a professor at William Woods University, Fulton, Mo.

There’s more on campus. And because of this week’s event, I’ve got a book for you: Day by day : the chronicles of a hard of hearing reporter by Elizabeth Thompson. It is what it says it is: Thompson’s account of the life of a hard-of-hearing journalist brings awareness to people functioning, living with identity over disability, and interacting in the world.

Other events are taking place on campus, including a documentary showing at 7pm tonight, Audism Unveiled.

Book of the Day

A lot of things go wrong in the tech world. Web pages crash. Microsoft ads are created on Apple computers. You know how things can be. One thing that might confuse you are the 4 entries for what appears to be the same book coming into the RSS Feed of new items. Think again! Actually, that’s a multi-volume set, The Encyclopedia of Global Warming & Climate Change, and it is here to ROCK YOU. Or at least sway you to a greener life.

I actually think this book is perfect. Somewhere between policitcal gobbledygook and activist buzzwords, you may be lost on what the issues are, the arguments mean, and the definitions of the terms thrown around. No matter how you feel on the issue, it can’t hurt to keep up on what people are fighting about.

Book of the Day

You’d never know it looking at me: I’m a fairly large dude. I do, however, run. I try to throw down a half hour on a treadmill at a fairly fast pace, and considering that my surroundings are pretty lackluster, I’m left to my own thoughts to keep me from falling asleep and pulling a Kool-Aid Man through the back of the gym.

But, man, do I get to thinking. I think I’ve dissected about thirty rock albums, as well as debated over who was a better wrestler, Animal or Hawk, both from the Legion of Doom (Hawk, if you’re curious). And of course, interspursed is the serious life stuff.

Its that awkward flow of information that frames What I Talk About when I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami. This memoir is a jumble of thoughts centered around the author’s long-distance running hobby adopted in adult life. Haruki manages to squeeze out a life story, constantly hinting at what might make the most subtle instance or object a significant answer to a greater of life’s mysteries. Next time you let your mind drift off as your physical world slips into monotony, consider your surroundings, your life, and think about giving this book a once-through.

ScholarSpace Redux

Do you write? Do you present? Do you have papers, reports, presentations, handouts from conferences, or any other intellectual property produced by you during your reign of employment or enrollment at JCCC? Then I challenge you!

ScholarSpace is our Institutional Repository, and while I’ve mentioned it here before, it has been awhile. Chances are, if you’re faculty, I’ve already made plans to knock on your door. But you are henceforth challenged to approach me first!

If you are not faculty, help me! I can only go department to department and ask for your intellectual output. The whole point is to capture the work of everyone, including faculty, staff, and students. Please, if you are a student and have a work you’re really proud of, then speak with your instructor, speak with me, and we’ll see if ScholarSpace is the appropriate spot for your work.

It’s pretty awesome. Your work has its own page where people can download it, get the proper citation for it, and you can even bump a notification to your facebook page or digg account about it.

An Institutional Repository is fancy-pants talk for the collected material of one entity (JCCC in this case). If a work is put in the repository, it is by all means published. What better way to show your pride, our value, and the quality of students we have than by showing what those students, their teachers, and the supporting staff around them can create?

It may look small now, but it is ready to grow. If you have a work that doesn’t fit into a department, just e-mail bbaile14@jccc.edu, and we’ll get it set up. If you have any questions, stop by my office. JCCC, you’ve been challenged to help store our legacy! Let’s get it going!

Book of the Day

After a sick day (yesterday), I come back to the blog to find my stat tracker telling me that traffic is up about 1299%. That’s a lot of percent. So I figured I should pick a book that highlights a few things about the library.

First, this book is from the McNaughton Collection. This collection is part of a rotating, leased collection of books which are intended to provide current leisure reading to campuses around the nation. Since we participate, we have a selection always available. So, while I’m featuring a book from the collection now, there is no guarantee it will be here forever. The collection is housed together on the second floor of the library.

Second, the book is the 25th novel by American author Philip Roth. Now, between librarians, Mr. Roth has mixed emotions for us. There might be a librarian who thinks he is absolutely brilliant, and there might be librarians who think that he has added to negative stereotypes of Jewish culture, as well as negative stereotypes about New Jersey: sort of like a sophisticated Kevin Smith but without an obvious underlying love of the state. Or the funny. One thing most of us have agreed on is that his best work might be a recent title called The Plot Against America, an alternative history story, somewhere between science fiction and a “what if?” tale involving Charles Lindberg (of flying planes fame) winning the presidency, being a Nazi sympathizer, and trying to ruin America on our way into World War II. That’s not what he normally writes like, and for some reason it was brilliant.

No, what he normally writes like is captured in the Book of the Day, Indignation. The story is about a 1950s boy from Newark, New Jersey (which could be the beginning description for any Philip Roth book) named Marcus Messner who decides to transfer to a college in Ohio after his father starts becomes overbearing with safety concerns. Culture shock hits Marcus immediately, and his experience shapes the rest of the novel. Who knew the Midwest could shock anyone?

El Libro del Día

Primera Página: Poetry from the Latino Heartland
Latino Writers Collective
Scapegoat Press, 2008

Members of the Latino Writers Collective, a local writers group, will read selections from their book, Primera Página, at Johnson County Community College in the Nerman Museum’s Hudson Auditorium, Thursday, Sept. 24.

Along with the group’s veteran members, the reading and discussion will feature the collective’s JCCC student members.

Rigoberto González, author of Butterfly Boy and Men without Bliss, examined Primera Página in a posting on Critical Mass, the blog of the National Book Critics Circle Board of Directors.

“Fourteen distinct voices contribute to this anthology, showcasing an impressive range of subject matter and poetic traditions that make it difficult to pin down ‘poetry from the Midwest.’ If anything, it’s interesting to see how a number of the poets bring to the work other landscapes, like Mexico, the Southwest, the East Coast and even Europe, although it’s clear that the Midwest is home, or the home away from home.”

The Latino Writers Collective appears as part of the college’s Hispanic Heritage Month celebration and is sponsored by newly formed Hispanic student group, LUNA (Latinos United Now and Always), and the college’s Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

The Latino Writers Collective: readings and discussion
Welcoming reception begins at 6 pm.
Readings start at 7 pm.

Hudson Auditorium in the Nerman Museum,
Johnson County Community College
Overland Park, Kan.

Book of the Day

I’m not old enough to know first-hand how the Bay of Pigs incident was handled in the United States. I guess that shows something dangerous about history: we depend on the historians to get it as accurate as possible. This is why I have to look at a work like Howard Shore’s Bay of Pigs as a book of research conducted to best explain facts. What was found, though, is pretty disturbing. JFK authorizing assassination of Fidel Castro? Sending back Cuban exiles to attack while the US Military withholds support in order to mask their involvement? That’s some heavy cloak-and-dagger business, and the more I find out, the more scared I am. You may recall earlier reports reflecting my fear of nuclear apocalypse. I’m kinda glad I missed the Cold War, but I’d feel like I was committing quite the disservice by not finding out as much about American history as possible.