Category: Announcements

Today’s Item: Jamaica’s First Movie

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Yes!

I repeat: Yes!

We’ve got some updates coming to our DVD department, including some of the best movies about music ever made.  My personal favorite also happens to be one of the first Jamaican flicks created, The Harder They Come. If you liked The Departed, The Godfather, Scarface, or any story that follows a rags to riches to corruption theme, then this will be of interest.

The lead character is played by Jimmy Cliff, one of the most influential men in reggae not named Marley, and the soundtrack is hot stuff.  It also highlights some issues within Jamaica’s economic structure during the 70s, with your rich neighborhoods and tourist attractions next to the poor shantytowns struggling with crime and violence.  It is a good look into the frequently ignored parts of the country, and the parts which the tourist commercials conveniently don’t mention.

But hey, while the movie may not be a feel-good picture, the soundtrack will lift you right back up!

Books of Today: GAME Support (Unleashed!)

Today, we’ve started to process two series of books: Game Programming Gems and AI Game Programming Wisdom. Both series have come recommended by the folks in our GAME curriculum, so if you possess any interest or are taking the classes, you’ll have these handy reference materials available for your perusal. They’re full of tips, tricks, interviews, how-tos and information about the different specializations within the game development industry.

If you’re not familiar with our Library Reserves, they’re the books on the first floor that you probably think are all dictionaries and encyclopedias.  FALSE! Well, not all of them, anyway.  They are materials that can’t be taken out of the library (sadface) because they’re either too valuable or (like these) are books designed to be glanced at in short intervals and not always worth reading cover to cover for your need at that moment.

‘White Like Me’ Author Speaks Today

Just a reminder (ripped straight from announcements here):

Diane Kappen, adjunct associate professor, psychology, will facilitate the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Book Club discussion of “White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son” by Tim Wise from 2 to 4 p.m. today. The group will meet in the In-Focus Dining Room, Commons Building.

“White Like Me” is available in the JCCC Bookstore. The book discussion is free and open to the public.

In addition, Tim Wise will speak at JCCC on Feb. 17. The first program runs from 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. in Craig Auditorium. A second, in Yardley Hall, runs from 7 to 8:30 p.m. A reception precedes the presentation from 6 to 7 p.m. in the Carlsen Center Lobby.

Yes We Can… Update the Blog

Happy Inauguration Day! Just a quick technical update from the library’s digital projects. One of our systems has been down for a couple weeks, preventing a feed of new books from coming in our RSS feed.  Since there’s been no new arrivals, we haven’t had any Books of the Day to write about.

Also, since class started on a Wednesday last week, our new project, based on a Tuesday class, hasn’t happened yet.  But! after tonight, I should have some experiences to share about what I learn and what the library can do to reinforce my experience.

Either way, exciting stuff, and sorry for the delays!  We’re not gone, we’re just slow recovering from the holidays.

End of Year / Holidays / Something to Look Foward To

Congrats to all of our students who survived finals, and a happy holidays wish to everyone.  I hope that this brief time off is treating the JCCC community well (and everyone else, too, of course!)  Next semester, you will see these updates get back to regular, as well as an exciting new feature.

While the feature doesn’t have a name yet, it will be a twice-a-week feature which follows me through a new experience:  I’m taking a class here at JCCC!  It isn’t uncommon for faculty to take classes, but I hope to show students and staff how the library can enhance your classroom experience, provides numerous resources for students, and can better enrich the general learning environment on campus.

Here’s hoping I do OK: It’s been a couple years since I was in school. I’m actually nervous about all of the can’t-find-my-class, hope-I-make-friends, hope-I’m-not-late stuff that everyone goes through.  It’s pretty exciting for me, and I hope I can use the experience to paint the library in an appropriate, positive light.

Book of the Day

Because you’ll probably ask for it:

Call Number: PN147 .G444 2008

First Floor, Reference Section.

… …

In other books:

Capital punishment is the eye-for-an-eye of our legal system, as handed down by a jury of peers.  This book is Execution’s Doorstep: True Stories of the Innocent and Near Damned by journalist Leslie Lysle.  This chronicle of five men put on death row, only to later be proven innocent, shows the hardships, stigma, fear, and degredation any innocent person convicted would feel or endure, yet with the added layer of knowing that meet their end early and in a predetermined fashion.

digitalLabs and Such

digitalLabs has been through a few changes.  First, logos are ready for a lot of our services.  Second, outside of projects we’ve created, we’ve put in links to a lot of our other services.  A quick rundown on what we have and where it stands.

  • The Facebook page is still a little lonely.  It has a few feeds running into it, and we’ve made at least 11 friends.  Still, that’s a little lonely!
  • Our Twitter account has more people following it than we have Facebook friends, but it is still fairly new.  At this point, its been linked from our Web site for a weekend.
  • LibGuides are quite the phenomenon for us, and they’ve been, as a whole, linked from the library’s page since Tuesday.  But even without that, we’re getting hundreds and hundreds of hits a month. We’re getting closer to replacing all of our old subject guides.
  • ScholarSpace is taking submissions and has a few well-defined spaces receiving papers and presentations.
  • The New Items RSS feed is integrated into multiple services we have, and has subscribers.  Hopefully we’ll be able to break down the feed into subjects.
  • 10 Minute Paper Guide:  I think a lot of people will be pleased with this.  Soon, students will be able to search books, articles, and our libGuides while building their bibliography and chatting with a librarian: all in one page.  It is so close to done.
  • This blog is still in the labs, and it is doing quite well. I hope its been fairly enjoyable, but moreso, I hope we get more than Books of the Day on here a tiny-bit more frequently.
  • The Mobile Browser is not yet finished, but for catalog searching, works fairly well with minor annoyances.  Here’s hoping that the completion of 10MPG will give me more time to flesh this out.

So there’s a quick update.  Check some of these out, leave feedback, e-mail me, etc. Here’s to getting things done.

Get Out and Vote!

You can vote too!
You can vote too!

Hey!  I just got my registration! After living here for 5 months, I’m finally prepared for election day. If you live in Kansas, you have until October 20th to register to vote!  Make sure you do.  Red State, Blue State:  Last night Linda Ellerbee reminded me that these are just made up terms to help the media.  To quote Ms. Ellerbee on Nick News’s Election Special (Sunday Night Football was a massacre…): “There’s no such thing as a red or blue state just like their are no red or blue people.” Learn about the issues, get your own opinion about what is best, and make your choices November 4th.

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.