Apparently there has been a nationwide “I Love My Library!” video contest, complete with cash prizes. The entries have been posted to YouTube. This little gem was not one of the top five, but you’ve got to feel good watching someone love what they do so much. Enjoy this Friday pick-me-up (you might need your dancing shoes)!
Archive for June, 2007
During the 2007 Fourth of July festivities, the City of Whitewater also will celebrate the anniversary of its 1907 Home-Coming.
From the celebration website: “In the first week of August, 1906, Whitewater Normal School President Albert Salisbury placed an open letter in the Whitewater papers, inviting members of the community to come out and plan for a Home-Coming festival to be held the following year in honor of the 70th anniversary of the first settlement in Whitewater. As a result of that meeting, a Home-Coming was planned for July 4-7, 1907. Over 2,500 playful letters of invitation were sent to former Whitewater residents across the nation, with the hope that up to 1,000 would find their way home. The names of 109 community members were listed on the invitation, to extend as warm and encouraging a welcome as possible. In the end, over 2,000 residents returned for the event!”
See the 2007 schedule of events online. These include many events on campus, such as an exhibit in the Crossman Gallery, a dinner hosted by the Chancellor, and a rededication of the Halverson Log Cabin. The University Library Archivist, Karen Weston, will be involved with tours of the Oak Grove Cemetery given by costumed volunteers on July 3rd. She has also created a display in the Library lobby.
Interested in knowing more about local history? We have copies of Early Annals of Whitewater, 1837-1867, Whitewater Home-Coming: Seventieth Anniversary of Founding of the City (uncataloged in the Archives), and the 2006 pictorial history Whitewater by Fred Kraege, as well as other materials on both the City’s history and the history of the campus.
Truth is stranger than fiction.
The Diana Chronicles
By Tina Brown
MCN Bro
McNaughton Collection, 2nd floor
Granted, there have already been hundreds of books written on Diana, Princess of Wales. But this new addition to the field should be a good one. Author Tina Brown was editor-in-chief of the England’s gossipy Tatler magazine when Diana began her rise to fame. Brown went on to become editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair and later The New Yorker.
Brown not only knew Diana personally, but she interviewed 250 people who moved in Diana’s inner circles, to put together a compelling portrait of the “real” Diana. However, it’s more than a little disappointing that the only photographs in the book are the black & white montage on the front- and end-papers of the book.
Secret History of the American Empire
By John Perkins
MCN Per
McNaughton Collection, 2nd floor
John Perkins’ bestselling 2004 book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (Main Collection, 3rd Floor, UB271.U52 P47 2004), chronicled his descent from a Peace Corps volunteer to an international pawn for corporate greed. In this sequel Perkins demonstrates how the U.S. “empire” imposes its will on much of the world. His overarching theme is that an “empire” is ruled by a potentate whose reign is entirely independent of the will of the people. And Perkins names multinational corporations (the corporatocracy), tied to the power of American military might, as this autocrat. Perkins’ saga blazes through dozens of countries where he chronicles political assassinations, CIA-backed coups, crushing debt for foreign governments, deepening poverty for the masses, and billions of dollars in profits to the corporatocracy. Some critics have called Perkins books “paranoid” while others find his revelations just plain scary. Judge for yourself – one guarantee is that you won’t find this book boring.
Back in April, I wrote about the Google Book Project (“Google’s Book Project Keeps On Scanning”) and how the University of Michigan and UW-Madison are participating. Well, the rest of the Big Ten has jumped on the Google bandwagon. The Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC), which includes the universities of the Big Ten Conference and the University of Chicago, recently made the partnership with Google to scan over ten million volumes. The agreement between the two marks a first for the Library Project, as this is the first consortium of universities to sign on. Google had previously only collaborated with individual institutions.
For more information, check out the CIC’s overview of the project details.
Every year the best of Wisconsin government agency publishing is honored as Wisconsin Distinguished Documents.
Tied for top honors for 2006 are:
Filing a Petition for Review: A Guide to Seeking Review in the Wisconsin Supreme Court (Wisconsin Supreme Court)
This brief booklet manages to explain the potentially dry topic of how to ask the state Supreme Court to review a Court of Appeals court case clearly, simply, and in a visually appealing way for all of us non-lawyers.
Wisconsin Land Legacy Report: An Inventory of Places to Meet Wisconsin’s Future Conservation and Recreation Needs (Wisconsin Dept. of Natural Resources)
This beautifully illustrated book, thanks to the graphic work by the Dept. of Transportation, is really a coffee table book showing and describing the places in the state that will serve our future needs. A print copy is available for checkout in the University Library’s Wisconsin Documents collection.
More information about the award, administered by the Wisconsin Library Association’s Government Information Round Table, is available online.
The University Library is a federal and Wisconsin depository with many federal, state, local, and international documents on a variety of current and relevant issues available to you in print, microfiche, CD-ROM, and electronically. Come check out your government at the University Library!
To save you some time if you were searching for the video mentioned in Joyce’s all-campus e-mail, I’ve decided to post the video again.
link to the original post
If you’d like to subscribe to our blog, check out the post describing how to do so.
Project MUSE has announced the availability of a new journal through our subscription. Comparative Drama, published by Western Michigan University, is “devoted to studies international in spirit and interdisciplinary in scope.” The Library houses print copies of previous issues, back to volume 7 (1973).
Comparative Drama via Project MUSE
JSTOR, one of the major online scholarly journal archives, began a similar venture devoted to scholarly resources from and about Africa. The project, named Aluka, recently added another collection entitled Struggles for Freedom in Southern Africa, which focuses on liberation movements in Angola, Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. As a subscribing member of JSTOR, the University Library has a free preview of Aluka through the end of the year. Please take the time to check out this valuable resource.
Aluka from JSTOR
Who says reference books have to be old and boring?
McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science & Technology
Tenth Edition
REF Q121 .M3 2007
Reference Collection, 2nd floor
Need to know more about lean manufacturing? Wondering what the heck dactyloscopy is? The McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science & Technology provides those answers and more. This massive, twenty-volume encyclopedia covers everything related to science and technology. The new edition features articles by leading scientists from all over the world, include thirty-six Nobel Laureates. This is the definitive source for up-to-date information on all fields of science, from nanotechnology to fluid mechanics and everything in between.
And just so you know, dactyloscopy is the fancy way to say the study of fingerprints for the purposes of identification, if you can pronounce it.
Berkshire Encyclopedia of Extreme Sports
Edited by Douglas Booth & Holly Thorpe
REF GV749.7 .B47 2007
Reference Collection, 2nd floor
Extreme sports have gained significant popularity over past decade (didn’t they just host X-Games 12 or something?), and that attention has given way to the creation of this reference work. The Berkshire Encyclopedia of Extreme Sports not only looks at the sports themselves, but also the people involved and the sociology and psychology associated with these sports, such as injury and risk factors. In addition to the individual articles, it includes segments by groundbreaking athletes like Tony Hawk that recount their experiences of living on the edge. The articles also contain “Further Reading” for ideas on other sources of information.
Cry Rape:
The True Story of One Woman’s Harrowing Quest for Justice
KF225 .B66 L84 2006
Main Collection, 3rd floor
Madison, Wisconsin, prides itself on its open-minded, progressive image. But one woman knows just how mistaken that image can be. Patty was raped in September of 1997 in her own bedroom by a man who broke in to her Madison home. He threatened her with a knife, and he made threatening remarks about her 18-year-old pregnant daughter, asleep in the next room. Patty, legally blind, kept quiet and did as she was told, and she survived. After the rapist finally left, she called 911 and reported the crime to the police.
What happened next is the harrowing quest referred to in the title of the book, Cry Rape: the True Story of One Woman’s Harrowing Quest for Justice. Because the main detective on the case didn’t believe Patty. He thought she was lying, that she made the rape up. And he also convinced many others involved with the case that she was lying. Patty spent the next seven years fighting within and fighting against the legal system, trying to prove she was telling the truth. And when physical evidence was finally uncovered that backed up her story, did the police start looking for her rapist? No. They still didn’t believe her.
Everyone who lives in, has ever lived in, or has ever visited Madison should read this story.
Global health is the theme of the 2007 World Affairs Seminar (on campus June 16-22). The University Library has resources that can help! Some are on the shelves and some are online; you are welcome to come into the Library to make use of them.
There are many fine government or intergovernmental entities that provide information on global health. These will get you started:
- The World Health Organization (WHO) produces the annual World Health Report. The 2006 report focuses on the shortage of health care workers worldwide. Previous years’ reports have focused on topics such as HIV/AIDS (2004), the overall picture of major health threats (2003) and health systems around the world (2000). The WHO website provides a great deal of information on specific health topics such as climate change & human health, avian influenza, disease outbreaks, and of course world health statistics.
- The U.S. Dept. of Health & Social Services has a globalhealth.gov website that provides information and links to other sites with additional information.
- The World Bank may not immediately come to mind for information on health topics, but in fact it funds health projects worldwide, e.g., using education systems to combat HIV/AIDS in Africa and south Asia. Visit its Public Health at a Glance webpage to obtain information about its other health priorities, such as malaria, immunizations, and tuberculosis.
Search the Library’s online catalog for the keyword phrase “world health” or search for more specific topics to find useful materials on the shelves. Some of the listings will be online books or documents (location will be “Internet”). To read an Internet title click on the title and then on the link following “Linked Resources” in the catalog record. If you want to limit your search to books in the 3rd-floor Main Collection, set the “Quick Limits” to Main Collection before you do your search. Questions? Ask the reference librarian on duty for assistance (in person, by calling 262-472-1032, or by emailing or chatting).
The University Library is a federal and Wisconsin depository with many federal, state, local, and international documents on a variety of current and relevant issues available to you in print, microfiche, CD-ROM, and electronically. Come check out your government at the University Library!
