Author Archive for Ronna

Banned Books readings, 9/30, 3:00 p.m.

Published
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Ronna
on September 29, 2009
in around the library
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As part of the Library’s commemoration of Banned Books week, we invite you to join us at 3:00 p.m., Wednesday, Sept. 30, on the Library’s Main Floor to listen to readings from banned or challenged books.

A “banned” book is one that has been removed from a library collection or a school based on the successful objection of a person or group. A “challenge,” on the other hand, is “an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group.” It is important to note that while some books, such as The Catcher in the Rye, continue to sustain many challenges, others may appear on a frequently-challenged title list for several years, and then fall off the list as social and community mores change. For a list of frequently banned or challenged books of the 21st century, see the American Library Association’s web site. (None of these books have been banned at UW-Whitewater, and in fact, many are available for checkout in the Library!)

Join us as campus and community leaders, faculty, and students read excerpts from banned books, such as The Golden Compass, The Color Purple, and Ulysses. The first reader is … Chancellor Richard Telfer!

This event is free and open to the public.

“Right to Read” lecture, 9/29, 7 p.m.

Published
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Ronna
on September 28, 2009
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As part of the Library’s Banned Books Week events, Carin Bringelson will speak on “40+ Years of the Right to Read” at 7:00 p.m., Tuesday, Sept. 29, on the Library’s Main Floor. Ms. Bringelson works for TeachingBooks.net and is the Director of Friends of the Cooperative Children’s Book Center (CCBC) at UW-Madison.

The lecture is free and open to the public.

For more about the Library’s Banned Books Week events, see our previous post.

Banned Books Week events at the Library!

Published
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Ronna
on September 27, 2009
in around the library
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The 28th annual Banned Books Week is September 28-October 2, 2009. Sponsored by the American Library Association, Banned Books Week celebrates America’s freedom to read. It also serves as a reminder not to take this freedom for granted.

To commemorate Banned Books Week, the Library staff has created a large display highlighting various banned books. Titles owned by the Library are available next to the display for check out. The display is located near the library cafe.

The Library and the Friends of Andersen Library are also sponsoring several Banned Books Week events:

  • 7:00 p.m., Tuesday, Sept. 29, Library’s Main Floor: Carin Bringelson will speak on “40+ Years of the Right to Read.” Carin works for TeachingBooks.net and is the Director of Friends of the Cooperative Children’s Book Center (CCBC) at UW-Madison.
  • 3:00 p.m., Wednesday, Sept. 30, Library’s Main Floor: Campus and community leaders, faculty, and students will read excerpts from banned books. The first reader is … Chancellor Richard Telfer!
  • Monday-Thursday, Sept. 28-Oct. 1: Test your knowledge of banned books by answering our daily quiz questions! Correct answers earn you an entry into the drawing to win one of our daily prizes. Prizes include a T-shirt, a coupon for Toppers Pizza, a gift certificate for the Sweet Spot coffee shop, and a 25-minute massage from the University Health and Counseling Center! Read the Library blog to get each day’s questions, and return your answers to the Circulation Desk or Reference Desk on the main floor of the Library.

Read more about the Library’s events here.

CELEBRATE YOUR FREEDOM TO READ!!

Presidential campaign TV commercials, 1952-2008

Published
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Ronna
on May 4, 2009
in around the world
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I know, I know, after the recent presidential election, we’ve probably all had our fill of campaign commercials. But this web site is worth a few minutes of your time, I promise. The Museum of the Moving Image put together The Living Room Candidate: Presidential Campaign Commercials, 1952-2008. You can watch campaign commercials starting with the Dwight D. Eisenhower v Adlai Stevenson contest of 1952, all the way up to Barack Obama v John McCain in 2008.

The site is easy to browse. Just choose the year for the campaign you are interested in and at the bottom of the screen, thumbnails of the commercials appear, divided into Democrat and Republican. Click the one you want to view, and voila, you’re watching the commercial. You can even watch the “Peace Little Girl (Daisy)” commercial from Lyndon B. Johnson’s 1964 campaign, called by this web site: “the most celebrated and perhaps most notorious of all political commercials.” It aired only once, and was so controversial it even made the cover of Time.

Besides the pure entertainment value, what I really liked is the additional information provided by the site. The credits and a transcript for each commercial chosen are easily accessible, and tabs to the right of the commercial provide information on the campaign, each candidate, and the results of the election (including the number of popular votes, states, and electoral votes won by each candidate).

So take a moment and check out this site. It’s cool, it’s funny–and who knows what you might learn along the way?

Free Comic Book Day: Saturday, May 2

Published
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Ronna
on May 1, 2009
in around the world
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I’m not a big comic book reader, but I do like free books. So I am excited about Saturday, May 2. It’s Free Comic Book Day! Just walk into any participating comic book store and pick yourself up a free comic! Seriously! It’s free!

Free Comic Book Day is an annual event that takes place the first Saturday in May. Shops around the world take part. But does that mean that every store that sells comics will hand you a free one on Saturday? No. Only stores participating in the event will do so. Luckily, there is a handy dandy shop locator service where you can look up these stores in your area.

You’re probably now wondering, “What comic book can I get?” A list of the available comics is also posted on the Free Comic Book Day web site. For more information about the event, check out the FAQ section of the site.

So if you’ve got a little free time this Saturday, May 2, drop by a participating comic book store in your area and pick up your free comic!

World Digital Library: Cultural treasures, at your fingertips

Published
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Ronna
on April 23, 2009
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On April 21, 2009, the World Digital Library debuted. Its mission: “[to make] available on the Internet, free of charge and in multilingual format, significant primary materials from countries and cultures around the world.”

Developed by the Library of Congress with the support of UNESCO (the United Nations Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization), and many other partner institutions, the WDL contains books, journals, manuscripts, maps, motion pictures, prints and photographs, and sound recordings. At its launch, the site contained contributions from 25 institutions in 19 countries.

You can browse the site by place, time, topic, type of item, or by institution. The movable timeline at the bottom of the home page starts at 8000 BC, and runs up to the present time. Keyword searching is also available. Both browsing and searching can be done in seven different languages: Arabic, English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Chinese, and Russian. Many more languages are found in the actual materials, which are shown in their original languages.

Browsing by type of item, I found and listened to a beautiful rendition of Amazing Grace, played on bagpipes by a military band from Scotland in 1972 (contributed by the Library of Congress). Browsing by place, I looked at the pages of The Four Books in Chapter and Verse with Collected Commentaries (in Chinese), created in China in 1217 (contributed by the National Library of China). And finally, I browsed by time, and studied a 1775 Latin map of the world (contributed by the National Library of Brazil).

As you can see, there are lots of fascinating cultural treasures in this online library, and it will continue to grow. Take a look, and see what treasures you can find!

Women’s History Month film festival

Published
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Ronna
on March 4, 2009
in campus connection
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In honor of Women’s History Month, the UW-Whitewater Women’s Issues Committee, Women’s Studies Department, and the Women’s Resource Center are sponsoring a free film festival of documentaries by and about women.

All films will be shown on Wednesdays at 7 p.m., in the Summers Auditorium of the James R. Connor University Center. The schedule is:

* March 4: “The Education of Shelby Knox” : A self-described “good Southern Baptist girl,” 15-year-old Shelby Knox of Lubbock, Texas has pledged abstinence until marriage. But she becomes an unlikely advocate for comprehensive sex education when she finds that Lubbock, where high schools teach abstinence as the only safe sex, has some of the highest rates of teen pregnancy and STDs in the state.
* March 11: “Desire” : In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, DESIRE offers a poignant perspective on the complicated dynamics of race and class in New Orleans. The film documents the lives of a group of young women from the city–-two teenagers from the Desire housing projects in the Ninth Ward, a working class single mother, and two girls from a prestigious private school–-by letting them film their own stories. Masterfully interwoven throughout the film, these vibrant and candid shorts record the intimate dramas of the girls’ changing lives, and stand in stark contrast to mass media images of hopeless Katrina victims.
* March 18: “Girl Inside” : Following 26-year-old Madison during a crucial three years of her transition from male to female, GIRL INSIDE is a beautiful film that tracks her emotional, intellectual and spiritual journey of self-discovery that is as important as the physical journey of hormones and surgery. Sharing the spotlight is Vivien, Madison’s glamorous 80-year-old grandmother, who has taken on the job of advising her on all things feminine. While Vivien’s attempts to school Madison in old-fashioned codes of fashion and behavior are often hilarious, the juxtaposition of two vastly different experiences of womanhood, from different generations, raises profound issues about the nature of gender, femininity and sexuality.

For more information, see this article from University Marketing & Media Relations.

Women in Leadership awards, Wed., 3/4

Published
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Ronna
on March 3, 2009
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All students, faculty, and staff are invited to attend the annual Women in Leadership Awards ceremony honoring outstanding women on the UW-Whitewater campus. The ceremony is Wednesday, March 4 at 1:00 PM in the Fern Young Terrace. A reception (with food!) will follow. Sponsored by the UW-W Women’s Issues Committee.

Looking for a final summer read? Try Phantom Prey

Published
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Ronna
on August 15, 2008
in summer reading
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Phantom Prey

Phantom Prey
by John Sandford
MCN San
McNaughton Collection, 2nd floor

This just might be my last review for “summer reading,” since classes start very soon (I refuse to think in more specific numbers). I’m back to series reading again, but this time it’s a series by a male author. I’ve been reading John Sandford’s “Prey” series for years, and have been anxiously waiting to read this latest one. When I finally got the chance, I found it to be…not bad.

Lucas Davenport is the star of the series, which is set in Minneapolis. He started out way back in the beginning as dark and dangerous—he followed his own path, solved crimes, had lots of love affairs. Over the years he’s matured and changed and is now a family man. Frankly, I preferred him the way he used to be, but oh, well.

This latest book has Davenport looking for a killer (or killers, we don’t know) who is viciously stabbing people involved in the Minneapolis Goth community. All seem connected in some way to the disappearance of Frances Austin, the crime Davenport is originally recruited to solve.

The main reason I found this book only “not bad” is because the author reveals the killer/killers (to the reader, not the police) about halfway through the book, and for some reason that made the rest of the book anti-climactic.

Like the J. D. Robb “Death” series I blogged about a few weeks ago (see our blog archives), I find the books in the “Prey” series hard to keep straight due to very similar titles (Invisible Prey, Broken Prey, all the way back to the first book, Rules of Prey). Most of them can be read out of order, but there are a few titles with recurring criminals. The complete list of books and their synopses can be found on the author’s web site. The University Library has five of the series titles in our Main Collection and two more—including this one—in the McNaughton Collection. All seven can be found using the library’s online catalog, or by asking a reference librarian.

Give this series a try. Lots of action, great characters, all set in locales you may have visited (or even lived in) yourself. Enjoy the rest of your summer!

It’s No One You Know, but read it anyway

Published
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Ronna
on July 30, 2008
in summer reading
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No One You Know

No One You Know
by Michelle Richmond
MCN Ric
McNaughton Collection, 2nd floor

First, let me say, I liked this book. But, I thought it moved a little slow. And the ending was, well, let’s say it’s not what I expected.

Unlike my last three reviews, this title is not from a series. I thought you might like a break from series fiction, since a colleague told me that thanks to me, she now has a very long list of books to read! Michelle Richmond’s No One You Know is a murder mystery, a family drama, and a tale of growing up, all rolled into one. And it is a standalone title.

Ellie Enderlin’s older sister, Lila, a math genius in the doctoral program at Stanford University, was murdered when Ellie was in college. A best-selling true crime book pointed the finger at one man. There was no real proof, but everyone thought he did it. Ellie’s family struggled to get through the tragedy, and the aftershocks of the murder and the bestseller effect the way Ellie ultimately lives her life.

Ellie finally decides to find out what really happened, and along the way she comes to terms with who she is and why she became the person she did. As an interesting twist, because of who Lila was, all throughout the book are stories of mathematical personas, theorems, and unsolvable problems. Not being a math genius myself, I can’t tell you how much of that is fiction and how much is truth. But I like to think I am a little smarter after reading the book.

Take a look at No One You Know. You might learn something (sorry about that, I know it’s summer), but it’s also a good story. Available in the University Library’s McNaughton Collection under the call number RIC.