I just saw the new Nicole Kidman/Hugh Jackman/Baz Luhrmann epic movie Australia, and enjoyed it very much. Critics seem to be split almost 50-50 on it. I wasn’t expecting it to be almost 3 hours long, but I didn’t notice until it was over because it keeps moving along.
Now, if you’re inspired to learn more about Australia, your University Library has materials for that, including In a sunburned country by Bill Bryson (3rd-floor Main Collection DU105.2 .B83 2000), which I thought was very fun reading. Other titles have more to do with the serious topics in the movie, such as Australia at war, 1939-1945 (3rd-floor Main Collection, D767.8 .R63 1981) and Stolen generations (1st-floor Media Center Videos, GN666 .S87 2001 – VHS format), a film about the Australian policy of removing Aboriginal children from their parents that was in effect from the 1930s until the 1970s.
There is also the web site of the Australian Human Rights Commission, which includes the 1997 report Bringing them home: Report of the national inquiry into the separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families.
As you know, terrorism was in the news over Thanksgiving. It took place in India, which has experienced major terrorist attacks before (see “Safety and Security” on the State Dept.’s web page of country-specific information for India).
The University Library has resources for learning more about terrorism. Search the Library Catalog to find book titles such as the 2003 No end to war: terrorism in the twenty-first century (3rd-floor Main Collection, HV6431 .L354 2003), which includes a section called “Battlefields of the future 1: India and central Asia,” and 
the 3-volume title The making of a terrorist: recruitment, training, and root causes (3rd-floor Main Collection, HV6431 .M353 2006). Search the article databases to find titles such as “India and Southeast Asia in the age of terror: Building partnerships for peace” (Contemporary Southeast Asia: A Journal of International & Strategic Affairs, 2006, v.28, no.2, pp.297-321) and Inside the terrorist mind (Scientific American Mind, 20072008, v.18, no.6, pp.72-79).
Please ask a reference librarian if you’d like assistance in finding materials.
Cristina Garcia will be at Young Auditorium on Mon. Dec. 1st, 7 pm, for the Community Reading Initiative co-sponsored by the Auditorium and the College of Letters and Sciences. Her 2007 novel A Handbook to Luck tells the story of three teenagers from around the globe making their way in the world through the years, surviving war, disillusionment, and love, as their lives and paths intersect.
Born in Havana, Cuba and raised in New York City, Garcia is an important contemporary Latin American writer. Her first novel, Dreaming in Cuban, was nominated for a 1992 National Book Award. She also served as Time magazine’s bureau chief for Florida and the Caribbean and is the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Hodder Fellowship at Princeton, and the Whiting Writers Award.
Your University Library has both of the novels mentioned above. Search the Library Catalog for the author for locations & call numbers. If the titles are checked out here, UWW students and staff may request them from other UW campus libraries by using the free Universal Borrowing service.
The University Library also has resources about Latin American writers and literature, such as The Cambridge companion to the Latin American novel (3rd-floor Main Collection, PQ7081 .L37 2005–searching the text using Google Book Search will show where Cristina Garcia is mentioned in this book) and Encyclopedia of Latin American literature (2nd-floor Reference Collection, PQ7081.A1 E56 1997). You can search the Reference Universe database to find mentions of Ms. Garcia in other reference works in the University Library. Searching article databases such as Project MUSE or MLA International Bibliography will find articles such as “An interview with Cristina Garcia” (Contemporary Literature, 2007, v.48 no.2). Biographical information about Ms. Garcia is available from WilsonWeb’s Biography Reference Bank Select Edition database as well as free sources such as Wikipedia.
Please ask a Reference librarian if you would like assistance in finding materials.
Punishment and Inequality in America
by Bruce Western
HV9471 .W47 2006
New Book Island, 2nd floor
With news breaking about President Bush’s latest round of presidential pardons, this week’s featured title seemed appropriate to highlight the nation’s justice system.
Western, a Harvard sociology professor and director of the Program in Inequality and Social Policy, provides the results of an eight-year study on the constituents of the American penal system. Rather than focusing on the prisons as an institution, he and his colleagues examined the imprisoned individuals and the impact of their incarceration on themselves, their families and their lives. As the author states in the preface, the book is more about race and poverty than crime and deviance. This work is an excellent starting place when researching injustice in American prisons, as it offers not only original and empirical evidence, but also a lengthy list of references for further investigation of the issue.
Please note the University Library’s special hours due to the Thanksgiving holiday:
Wed., Nov. 26th 7:30am – 4:30pm
Thurs., Nov. 27th CLOSED (Happy Thanksgiving)
Fri., Nov. 28th 8:00am – 4:30pm
Sat., Nov. 29th CLOSED
Sun., Nov. 30th 6:00pm – Midnight
Even when the Library is closed, you can search the Library Catalog (electronic resources such as ebooks don’t require a trip to the Library), search article databases, look up course ereserves, and ask reference questions using the “Ask A Librarian” chat service. You can renew your checked-out materials online (students may renew items once) in your Personal Record: Click on “My Accounts” on the Library home page and login to “Personal Record/UB Account” with your campus Net-ID (same as what you use for D2L).
Enjoy the holiday, everybody!
Celebrate the scholarship & creative achievements of UWW faculty and staff at the 21st annual reception and exhibit in the Crossman Gallery (Greenhill Center of the Arts)! The exhibit is open on Tuesday, Nov. 25. The reception takes place on Wednesday, Nov. 26, between 10:30 and noon.
Articles, artwork, books, posters, and multimedia produced by staff and faculty of the University during the period July 2007-June 2008 will be on display. Refreshments will be available during the reception.
This event is co-sponsored by the Chancellor, University Library, Crossman Gallery, Office of Research & Sponsored Programs, and Photo/Graphics.
OK, the election is over, and between now and Inauguration Day (January 20th, 2009) President-Elect Barack Obama has a lot of work to do and decisions to make before assuming his duties as our 44th President.
You can track his transition to the White House at Change.gov, the Office of the President-Elect’s web site. Read the blog, watch weekly web video addresses, send Obama and his transition teams your advice, read bios of Obama, Biden, appointees, and more.
Your University Library has two books by Obama if you’d like to learn more about him: The audacity of hope: thoughts on reclaiming the American dream and Dreams from my father: a story of race and inheritance. If UWW’s copies are checked out, students and staff may borrow copies from other UW libraries using the free Universal Borrowing service. Requested items arrive in 2-4 weekdays. You can also use Library article databases such as Biography Reference Bank Select Edition (WilsonWeb) to search for additional information.
Please ask a reference librarian if you’d like some assistance in finding materials.
The University Library is a federal 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!
You may notice some activity on the main floor of the Library:
We’ve moved some study tables around to space them out and improve walking space, and then added some soft seating to make the study area more comfortable. We’re also reviewing the last portion of the Reference Collection to pare it down and make empty space for some additional changes that have been planned.
We’re hoping the students will find these changes to be an improvement and we welcome your comments.
In October I blogged about the UN’s International Year of Planet Earth and ocean monitoring. If you’re a bit of a news junkie like me you may know that NBC’s Today Show is running a series called “Ends of the Earth” this week. 
The show’s anchors are in different locations: Ann Curry is climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania and reporting on how its glaciers and snows have been dramatically shrinking and in turn endangering people’s water supply. Matt Lauer has been reporting from the Great Blue Hole near Belize about the health of coral reefs as well as the state of wildlife in Belize. Meredith Vieira has been in Australia talking about the significant drought there and pollution in Sydney Harbor. Al Roker has been reporting from geologically active Iceland.
If you’re interested in this–and it’s hard to be disinterested in the health of our planet–your University Library has resources for more information.
If you just want to follow the Ends of the Earth series you can go to the Today Show web site. You can also use the LexisNexis Academic database to find transcripts from the show (select “TV and Radio Broadcast Transcripts” and search for “nbc’s today show” and earth. If you sort the results by publication date you’ll see that the transcripts are posted in half-hour segments.
If you want to research topics related to the series, search the Library Catalog and/or article databases to find resources such as the book Darkening peaks: glacier retreat, science, and society (3rd-floor Main Collection GB2405 .D37 2008) and the American Scientist article “The Shrinking Glaciers of Kilimanjaro: Can Global Warming Be Blamed?” (Jul./Aug. 2007, v.95, no.4, pp.318-325).
Please ask a reference librarian for help in finding materials.
Remix:
Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy
by Lawrence Lessig
KF3020 .L47 2008
New Book Island, 2nd floor
This week’s featured book should resonate with anyone that has ever downloaded music from Napster (back when it was ‘free’), killed time watching videos on YouTube or cited Wikipedia. These websites are products of our culture, where sharing is caring and intellectual property laws, namely copyright, take a backseat. Is this a bad thing?
Lessig, Stanford law professor and the founder of the Center for Internet and Society, begins his latest work by using the example of a mother that recorded her toddler dancing to a Prince song and uploading the video to Youtube. The video was subsequently pulled from the site because the music producer had not authorized the ‘performance’ and thus the mother violated copyright. Lessig contends that copyright is no longer performing its original purpose and that it is actually hampering innovation from those who ‘remix’ original works to create their own. With this book, the author offers a solution in which artists, whether ‘professional’ or Joe the Plumber, are not criminalized for their actions and that both commercial and creative interests are served.
The Library also owns Lessig’s previous titles, Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace (ZA3225 .L47 1999), Future of Ideas (K1401 .L47 2002) and Free Culture (KF2979 .L47 2004), available in the Main Collection.
