Geography Awareness Week, November 15-21, 2009, is upon us and has the theme of exploring the world through mapping. How are you celebrating?
If nothing else, “test your geography smarts” online with one of these challenges:
Yikes! They even ask about all those islands out there…
Need to brush up (as I do)? Check out CIA World Factbook maps and “World Maps” available through the Oxford Reference Online Premium database. Or, Andersen Library has a number of print atlases and books about mapping–please ask a librarian for assistance with finding materials.
Do you keep up with news from around the country and the world, or is your head stuck in the Whitewater sand? There’s a lot going on! Take the CNN Challenge and see what you know. Some questions test knowledge of old news (aka history).
Feeling like you need to learn more? There are daily newspapers to read in Andersen Library (see 2nd-floor newspaper rack for current issues), web sites of news organizations, and of course, news on radio and TV. For older topics, Andersen Library has books, videos and government publications that can be found by searching the HALCat library catalog, and articles in newspapers and magazines can be found by searching article databases such as the ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The New York Times (1851-2006).
Please ask a librarian for assistance with finding materials.
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.
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!!
Jerry Apps will give a talk at the Irvin L. Young Memorial Library (Whitewater’s public library at 431 W. Center St.), on Wed., Sept. 9, at 7 p.m. Apps, a former UW-Madison professor, is the author of many books.
UWW’s Andersen Library has some of his books, including Ringlingville USA: The stupendous story of seven siblings and their stunning circus success (3rd-floor Main Collection, GV1821.R5 A66 2005) and Cheese: The making of a Wisconsin tradition (3rd-floor Main Collection, SF274.U6 A66 1998).
UWW students and staff also can get Apps’ titles from other UW libraries by using the free Universal Borrowing service, which brings requested materials here in 2-4 weekdays. Among the titles available are
Living a country year: Wit and wisdom from the good old days and Every farm tells a story: A tale of family farm values .
Please ask a librarian if you would like assistance with finding and requesting materials.
My blog posts usually promote Library events, services, & resources. But I saw this video on a blog about how to promote a reference chat service, and I simply could not resist sharing it! Maybe I can claim it’s relevant to the Library because we are constantly striving to get the word out to people about what we offer so that they make use of our resources and services, but I wouldn’t say that’s really like “herding cats” because people are pretty receptive when we talk to them. Well, in any case, enjoy.
When you have some time to kill, you can spend it helping Google “improve the quality of Google’s image search results.” Go to Google Image Labeler.
They’ve made this into a “game.” When you start labeling you are paired with a partner (someone else who happens to be playing at the time). Each of you is shown the same series of images, one at a time, and you enter descriptive labels until the two of you match on a label. Points are awarded based on “how specific your label is.” At the end of two minutes you get a total score.
Now, I’m not sure how much this will improve image retrieval, because I often matched my partner on very simplistic labels like “woman,” “people,” and “black and white.” And sometimes I just had NO IDEA what an image was. so my descriptive labels may have been way off.
Try it for yourself, but I think the time limit influences players to stick with very simple labels and discourages coming up with more interesting (and useful) ones, which would be less likely to match your partner’s labels.
Believe it or not: This came to my attention at a meeting of librarians (Yes, that’s right, we get together sometimes, and you just never know what you’ll learn when we do!).
A Wild Hare was released on July 27, 1940, and it’s considered the first appearance of both Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny in their mature forms. It’s also the first time Bugs pops up and asks Elmer, “What’s up, Doc?”
The illustrated “biography” Bugs Bunny: Fifty years and only one grey hare is available to UWW students and staff from UW-Oshkosh’s library (use ILLiad interlibrary loan to make requests while Universal Borrowing is down for an upgrade July 27-August 17).
Andersen Library has materials on the history of cartoons. Search the Library Catalog to find titles such as Cartoons: One hundred years of cinema animation (3rd-floor Main Collection, NC1765 .B4213 1994) and the DVD Looney tunes (2nd-floor Browsing DVD, Feature Film, Call Number Loo).
Please ask a librarian for assistance with finding materials.
John Dillinger was killed as he left Chicago’s Biograph Theatre after attending the gangster film Manhattan Melodrama on this date (July 22nd) in 1934.
You may have seen the currently-playing film Public Enemies starring Johnny Depp (I did!), which was partially filmed in Wisconsin. It’s based on the book Public enemies: America’s greatest crime wave and the birth of the FBI, 1933–34. The book is available to UWW students and staff from other UW campus libraries by using the free Universal Borrowing service (requested materials arrive in 2-4 weekdays). Other titles, such as Dillinger: The untold story, are also available.
More information is available from Library article databases and reference materials, such as full-text newspaper databases including NewspaperARCHIVE or ProQuest Historical Newspapers – The New York Times.
Other article databases provide access to articles such as Public enemies keystone cops (American History, Aug. 2009, vol. 44:no. 3, pp. 34-39).
You can also read a 20-page entry (with several photos) on Dillinger in the 2nd-floor Reference Collection title Bloodletters and badmen (Ref HV 6785 .N37).
And check out The FBI: A Centennial History, 1908-2008 which details Dillinger and other gangsters as well as other intriguing cases encountered by the FBI in its history. It’s in our 2nd-floor Federal Government Documents collection (call number J 1.14/2:C 33/3) and available online at http://fbi.gov/book.htm. Dillinger is on the cover. Can you spot him?
Please ask a librarian for 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!
Yet another listing of recommended books, as if I need a longer list! The July 13 issue of Newsweek has a list of 50 books (alternatively link to the Newsweek site) that supposedly “open a window on the times we live in, whether they deal directly with the issues of today or simply help us see ourselves in new and surprising ways.” Since it’s Friday I thought you’d want to plan your weekend reading. And if these 50 books don’t keep you busy, the magazine’s web site lists Newsweek’s Top 100 Books: The Meta List.
Most of the books should be available from Andersen Library, and also from other UW campus libraries (through the free Universal Borrowing service, which is down for an upgrade July 27-August 17, so plan ahead) and some public libraries.
Pictured at left are covers of American prometheus, Underworld, Random family, The botany of desire, and The line of beauty (titles on the list of 50 books to read now).
