Month: September 2009

Japanese Internment Photos in BotD

It is a shameful part of American history often brushed under the rug too easily considering what was happening on enemy soil at the time. Nonetheless, during World War II, following the attacks on Pearl Harbor, the United States government thought rounding up everyone of Japanese descent would keep us safe.

Though there is little collected, some material recording this 3+ year forced relocation has survived.  In Moving Pictures: Photography and the Japanese American Incarceration, Jasmine Alinder collects some of these images to present a view from the inside of what was happening. To learn more, also check out Time of Fear in our DVD section.

Book of the Day: Tri-State Tornado

I’m told (by my little sister when I moved here) that Overland Park is in the heart of Tornado Alley.  Aside from the fact that she is 12, it is worth noting that the Tri-State Tornado, the nation’s worst tornado disaster, occurred in Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana. In your face, 12 year-old!

In all seriousness, Tri-State Tornado: The Story of America’s Greatest Tornado Disaster recaps and examines the night in 1925 that claimed nearly 700 Midwestern lives in just 3 hours.  That is absolutely crazy.  The author, Peter Felknor, was able to secure interviews with 14 survivors. As a native Missourian, Felknor had heard stories of the tornado and went on to get college degrees in the field of atmospheric sciences.  The book is available today at the library, as indicated by our New Books RSS feed (to your right in the blog, folks: subscribe!)

Digital Resource Usage

In checking out the digital projects we provide (not subscriptions like journals or e-books), we found some interesting things.

First, the most popular resource we have is our LibGuides collection, which received an insane number of hits over the last two years. The most popular guides are the Gay and Lesbian Film Guide, Autism & Asperger Syndrome Guide, Graphic Novels, and Italian Films & Music.  Now, we made the Autism guide in conjunction with the Autism conference held on campus, so we knew that it would be popular, and the graphic novel guide is one of our oldest.  The biggest from the guides was the Italian Films & Music resource.

Now, even though those guides got good hits, our college repository, ScholarSpace, had a few articles with significant downloads. Hopefully this raises awareness of the resources we have, and hopefully gets more contributors as time goes on.

Here are the Top 20 individual resources:

  1. Gay and Lesbian Film Guide (LibGuide)
  2. Autism & Asperger Syndrome (LibGuide)
  3. Graphic Novels (LibGuide)
  4. Italian Films and Music (LibGuide)
  5. World War II Novels (LibGuide)
  6. The Interactive Research Guide: Will Function Bring Users Content? A Project Model Illustrated by a Proposed Paper-Writing Guide (article by Barry J. Bailey)
  7. Taking Sides (LibGuide)
  8. Into the Great Wide Open… (presentation by Nick Greenup)
  9. Holocaust Fiction (LibGuide)
  10. This Month (Campus Publication): February 2008 (full issue in ScholarSpace)
  11. Japanese Films and Music (LibGuide)
  12. Chinese Film and Music (LibGuide)
  13. Library Newsletter: Spring 2008 (newsletters are stored in ScholarSpace)
  14. Novels About Aging (LibGuide)
  15. Fighting Neurelitism (article by Mark A. Foster from campus publication Many Voices)
  16. Informé 2007 (field report by William McFarlane)
  17. Ethical Dilemmas in Film (LibGuide)
  18. Anthropology Fiction (LibGuide)
  19. The Rolling Stone: Fiscal Close and Fund Structure Design (presentation by Judi Guzzy)
  20. Muslim World: Film and Music (LibGuide)