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This Book Is OVERDUE!

What’s more exciting than Titus Andronicus playing the Pitchfork Music Festival or the Bears acquiring Julius Peppers, or (I guess) the Chiefs trying to get Darren Sproles?

Not much: this is a cap-free year! But if you’re a librarian, any good book that makes us look awesome is worth promoting.

Enter This Book is Overdue! How Librarians and Cybrarians can Save Us All. First admission, I hate the term “cybrarian”. That being said, this book argues that even though you may think Google and the Internet are killing the notion of a useful librarian, editor Marilyn Johnson shows all of the cool stuff librarians are still doing. From digital archiving to, what the Amazon review calls “curators of a community legacy.”

So if you dig it, you could check out this book. For a shortcut to what we’re doing, check out some of the library links here.

Going Bovine: As Nuts as the Author

If you enjoy the movies of David Lynch, the comedy of Tim and Eric, or the craziness of Chuck Palahnuk (the Fight Club author), then I highly recommend for you Going Bovine by Libba Bray.

A boy with a dysfunctional family gets Mad Cow Disease. He tries to find a doctor to cure it and fix some wounds in his family life. The problem? He’s tripping like crazy. The Mad Cow disease has set him on a hallucinatory voyage of adventure, danger, and vikings. Somehow, these are a few of the more tame aspects of the work.

For goodness sake, look at the author.

SERIOUSLY.

But don’t be mistaken: this book won the American Library Association Printz Award for Young Adult Fiction written last year.

Thinking Before You Talk

One thing I noticed in the burbs of Chicago amongst older white teenagers and younger college students was a complete ignorance of latent racism in many comments they would make. Chicago’s not the only guilty suburban area, and I’m not about to predict what area in the country (or beyond) is the worst. Nor am I going to predict if the blatant racism and prejudice I saw in my rural upbringing is any worse than the hidden or oblivious kind. What I can do is direct you towards and expert person who has written an expert book on the subject: The Everyday Language of White Racism by Jane H. Hill. This book helps identify ways in which social exclusion still occurs, and also provides suggestions on how to help eliminate some of the problem. It is worth a read, and is, as is everything we feature, available in the JCCC Library.

If You Dig This Blog…

…here’s a better attended library blog from K-State: Talking in the Library. Between our posts here, it’s a great time killer, and helpful for your general informationing needs. The video? It’s just bonus.

SIDLIT is Go

Follow our twitter feed, http://twitter.com/jccclib for updates from the conference! Should be good!

Campus Ledger: Summer Reading

“Beta” seems to be the excuse for “things don’t quite work perfect yet.” Well, here’s one of those excuses.

The Campus Ledger, JCCC’s student newspaper is now available online from beginning to 2006. Peruse it here before we get it ready to announce across campus. We’ll build it a pretty search page and gussy it up for prime time. It is just a long time comin’.

Hard Library Work

First round of photographs done for the Fashion Collection. You can tell I (Barry) don’t know what I’m doing. Thank goodness for the Tech Services Team. _DSC0022

Congratulations, Miguel Morales

miguel Library employee Miguel Morales has been named a Diversity Fellow, a position within JCCC’s Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Some of the countless exemplary qualities Miguel brings to the group include his work with student groups like LUNA (Latinos United Now and Always) and Queers & Allies; his contributions to both latino/latina publications and the ODEI journal, Voices; his public speaking engagements to faculty; and many more examples exceeding what many accomplish in a lifetime (at least me).
In addition to Miguel, Kerri Stephenson of the Foreign Language department was also named a Fellow. She also is a part of LUNA and has many outreach programs under her belt. Congratulations to both of them.

Seriously??

I was doing some research into our stats, and the most popular search to find this blog: “jccc car fire”. If anyone knows what this car fire is, I’m quite curious.

Book of the Day Looks at American Arguments

Let’s talk about Howard Fineman. Fineman’s a political correspondent frequently on MSNBC, writer for Newsweek and is probably best defined by an increasingly bad dye job:

hpost_fineman

Yeah, I know! But the truth is, he’s a smart guy. His book, Thirteen American Arguments: Enduring Debates that Define and Inspire Our Country is really neat.

Instead of taking on specific incidents in America’s past, he looks at general topics that keep coming up over the course of this nation’s life. So instead of taking on slavery, abortion, and other issues separately, one argument he presents is “Who is a person?” If this book has any shortcomings, it is certainly its focus on current events, which some argue will date the book. The theory behind it, however, is that future generations could look back at it, and say, “Yes, those questions applying to old issues are relevant to current issues now.” So, regardless of how it will hold up through time, it is worth reading now.