Global Café 10/30: England, Jordan, France

Posted on October 30, 2013 by Barbara

The Fall 2013 Global Café series continues on Wed., Oct. 30th, at 5:30pm with a focus on England, Jordan, and France (location: Andersen Library’s big-screen TV area, near the Food for Thought café). In this series, co-sponsored by the Center for Global Education and and International Student Association, international, study abroad, and travel study students talk about their home countries or international experiences.

graphic from Center for Global Education web page

Check it out! Andersen Library has resources on cross-cultural communication and travel.

cover of Culture and Customs of JordanSearch HALCat, the online catalog, for books or videos, such as A traveller’s history of England (3rd-floor Main Collection, DA30 .D34 2006), Londoners: The days and nights of London now — as told by those who love it, hate it, live it, left it, and long for it (3rd-floor Main Collection, DA688 .T39 2012),
Culture and Customs of Jordan (3rd-floor Main Collection, GN635.J6 S56 2007), France: A quick guide to customs and etiquette, Rick Steves’ France 2004 (3rd-floor Main Collection, DC16 .S84 2004), and Rick Steves’ Europe through the back door 2013 (2nd-floor New Arrivals Island, D909 .S84 2012).

Or, check out the information on these and other countries in Library resources such as the Global Road Warrior! The Ultimate Guide to the World and Europa World Plus database. There also are authoritative free sources online, such as the State Dept.’s Country Background Notes or Fact Sheets and the CIA’s World Factbook.

Please ask a librarian for assistance with finding materials.

FDLP logo Andersen Library is a federal and Wisconsin depository library with many federal and state government documents on a variety of current and relevant issues available to you in many formats, including online. Check out your government at Andersen Library!

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Kenneth Hammer & Custer materials

Posted on October 29, 2013 by Barbara

Kenneth M. Hammer, 95, passed away on Oct. 18, 2013. Hammer was a professor of economics at UW-Whitewater from 1966-1983, but it may surprise you to know that he also gave to Andersen Library a special collection of materials related to the Battle of Little Bighorn, the Native Americans who fought there, George Armstrong Custer, and the Seventh Cavalry. And the Library has been acquiring additional materials since.

From the web page describing the collection:

Born in South Dakota in 1918, Dr. Hammer grew up listening to stories about the settlement of the Dakotas and Montana. His particular interest in Custer grew from a visit to Fort Abraham Lincoln as a child with his father. Over the years, he collected many materials related to the Custer fight and wrote several volumes about it. In 1977, Dr. Hammer was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in History for his book, Custer in ’76: Walter Camp’s notes on the Custer Fight. His most recent work is Men with Custer: Biographies of the 7th Cavalry, June 25, 1876, Custer Battlefield Historical and Museum Association, 1995.

Men with Custer coverAndersen Library’s Special Collections (1st floor, open 9am-4:30pm Mondays-Fridays) has the collection for anyone who is intrigued, including the Custer in ’76 book that Hammer edited, his book Men with Custer: Biographies of the 7th Calvary, artwork, and more. There is a bibliography online, and seven items have been digitized.

You also can find materials that are not in Special Collections–circulating books and journal articles–by searching HALCat and article databases (such as America: History and Life and ProQuest Historical Newspapers. Chicago Tribune). There also are web sites, such as the National Park Service’s web page for the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument (MT).

Please ask a librarian if you would appreciate assistance with finding materials.

FDLP logo Andersen Library is a federal and Wisconsin depository library with federal and state government documents on a variety of current and relevant issues available to you in various formats (print, DVD/CD-ROM, online). Check out your government at Andersen Library!

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New Stuff Tuesday – 29 October

Posted on October 29, 2013 by Diana

Cornbread Nation 2: The United States of Barbecue

Cornbread Nation 2:
The United States of Barbecue
edited by Lolis Eric Elie
TX840.B3 C67 2004
New Arrivals, 2nd floor

I love barbecue so this book naturally caught my eye as I reviewed our New Arrivals shelves to pick a book for this week. I often get a hankerin’ for a plate of corse-chopped barbecue (just a little outside meat for some smokey tang), red slaw, hush puppies, and fried okra. Oh, and some sweet tea. (And maybe some peach cobbler.)

Living here far away from my home state of North Carolina, I fear that I may have to explain my terms to those of you not well-versed in barbecue theory and practice. First of all, barbecue is most definitely a NOUN and not a verb. Barbecue is the result of cooking meat low and slow over a (wood) fire for hours and hours until the meat becomes juicy, tender, and smoke-infused. Secondly, the meat should be pork shoulder.* Thirdly, the sauce (and there should be sauce, Texans!) should be the Western North Carolina-style mixture of vinegar, cayenne pepper, and a touch of ketchup (also called Piedmont style). No thick, sticky-sweet Kansas City-style sauce, thin, runny, vinegar sauce (I’m looking at you, Eastern North Carolina), blasphemous mustard-style (no thanks, South Carolina!), or truly bizzare mayonnaise-based sauce of Alabama (mayo?!?).

The essays in Cornbread Nation are like wafts of sweet, hickory-smoke-filled air that whet your appetite for Southern barbecue and related foods. The force behind the book, the Southern Foodways Alliance, is a non-profit organization that helps revive and promote Southern-style cooking, food traditions, and farming throughout the country. The writers in this book range from nineteenth-century journalists recording their impressions of a Georgia barbecue and political rally to the foremost essayist on North Carolina barbecue today, John Shelton Reed.** Check out this book is you want opinionated, funny, enlightening, and fortifying thoughts on Southern food and culture—but don’t drip sauce on the book while you are eating!

*Although, as Ellen so graciously modeled the sense of open-mindedness that all librarians should aspire to last week in her post on dogs, I will admit that there are many barbecue traditions throughout the South that use meat other than pork. Beef, chicken, and mutton (Really, Kentucky? Mutton?) are the most popular. I will say however, that these other meats do not come anywhere close to being as good as pork.

**To get an idea of how seriously some folks take their barbecue, check out this exchange between John Shelton Reed (an aficionado of Western-style NC barbecue) and the new barbecue editor of Texas Monthly, Daniel Vaughn.

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Taco USA

Posted on October 28, 2013 by Barbara

Gustavo Arellano will talk about “Taco USA” at 7pm on Mon, Oct 28 (Young Auditorium). This is the second Fall 2013 Contemporary Issues Lecture.

Arellano, author of Orange County: A personal history; ¡Ask a Mexican!; and Taco USA: How Mexican food conquered America, is a lecturer with the Chicana and Chicano Studies Dept at California State University, Fullerton. He also is an award-winning writer, investigative reporter, and editor for OC Weekly, an alternative newspaper in Orange County CA, for which he writes the nationally-syndicated weekly column “¡Ask a Mexican!.” Arellano is the recipient of the Los Angeles Press Club’s 2007 President’s Award and an Impact Award from the National Hispanic Media Coalition, and was recognized by the California Latino Legislative Caucus with a 2008 Spirit Award for his “exceptional vision, creativity, and work ethic.”

Andersen Library owns a copy of Taco USA (3rd-floor Main Collection, TX716.M4 A74 2012), but if it’s checked out UWW faculty/staff and students may request copies of that title from other UW libraries via the free Universal Borrowing service. You can read a biography of Arellano in the Biography Reference Bank database. You can search for him in broadcast transcripts using the LexisNexis Academic database to find, for example, his remarks on National Public Radio’s Talk of the Nation on January 15, 2013 on “Shifts in race relations since Obama’s election.” You also can search for him in YouTube and find videos, such as “Ask a Mexican Already! Q&A with Gustavo Arellano ” (http://youtu.be/d9EZUof8N48) and Arellano reading from Taco USA:[youtube]http://youtu.be/_okQ7CJiNoU[/youtube]

If you’d like assistance with finding additional materials, please ask a librarian.

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Happy Birthday, UN!

Posted on October 24, 2013 by Barbara

October 24 is United Nations Day because the United Nations was officially established on October 24, 1945 when its charter was ratified. The purpose of the new organization was to maintain peace. You can learn all about the United Nations at its web site, including more about its history.

Cover of Kofi Annan memoirAndersen Library has many resources about the United Nations. Search HALCat for books or videos such as the memoir of Kofi Annan, former Secretary-General, of Interventions: A life in war and peace (2nd-floor Browsing Books, D839.7.A56 A3 2012), No enchanted palace: The end of empire and the ideological origins of the United Nations (3rd-floor Main Collection JZ4986 .M39 2009), and Peacekeeping under fire: Culture and intervention (3rd-floor Main Collection JZ6374 .R83 2008). The catalog will also identify federal government documents related to the UN, including Reforming the United Nations: The future of U.S. policy, a hearing before the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Foreign Affairs on April 7, 2011 (2nd-floor U.S. Documents Y 4.F 76/1:112-35 or online), and U.N. climate talks and power politics: It’s not about the temperature, a hearing before the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations on May 25, 2011 (2nd-floor U.S. Documents Y 4.F 76/1:112-22 or online).

Ask a librarian for assistance with finding materials.

FDLP logo Andersen Library is a federal and Wisconsin depository library with federal and state government documents on a variety of current and relevant issues available to you in various formats (print, DVD/CD-ROM, online). Check out your government at Andersen Library!

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T3: Audio Books

Posted on October 24, 2013 by Diana

Did you know that you can listen to our audio books on your own MP3 device? Here’s how to upload the files to your computer using RealPlayer (Windows) or iTunes (Mac/Windows):

  • Open RealPlayer or iTunes then insert the disc
  • Select the “Add Files to my Library” option from the File menu
    • In iTunes for Windows, press the Alt key to show the menu options
  • Open the disc containing the audio book files and then select ALL of the mp3 files
    • If the computer asks you to add files from a “networked, removable
      CD-ROM” click “Yes”
  • Depending on the speed of your computer the uploading process may take several minutes
  • Follow your normal syncing procedure to transfer the audio book chapters to your MP3 player
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Neverwhere challenged

Posted on October 23, 2013 by Barbara

Neverwhere cover imageUse of Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere as reading material at Alamagordo High School in NM was challenged earlier in October. The school has temporarily removed it from classroom use (but not from the school’s library), pending a review by a district committee. The review committee is accepting public comments (via email) until 4pm (Mountain time zone, so 5pm here) on October 25.

The CBLDF (Comic Book Legal Defense Fund) has posted information about the suspension and submitted a letter in defense of “the professional judgment of teachers and freedom to read of students.” The CBLDF also posted some reactions from teachers and librarians.

Have you read this book? Andersen Library has a copy (2nd-floor Juvenile Fiction, Curriculum Collection, at F Gai). OK, curious about the part that was considered objectionable? Go to Neil Gaiman’s Tumblr.

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New Stuff Tuesday – October 22

Posted on October 21, 2013 by Ellen Latorraca

Debt to the Dog: How the Domestic Dog Helped Shape Human Societies

Our Debt to the Dog:
How the Domestic Dog Helped Shape Human Societies
by Bryan D. Cummins
SF422.5 .C85 2013
New Arrivals, 2nd floor

I work surrounded by cat people. Really. I make up part of the mere 18% of my colleagues who have no feline friend to greet me after my work day. I have no cat tales to add to the banter at the office printer, no experience to add to the collective wisdom for helping a colleague discourage his cat from prowling the kitchen countertops. When I saw Richard Cummins’ Our Debt to the Dog: How the Domestic Dog Helped Shape Human Societies on the New Arrivals Island, I felt it a fine opportunity to demonstrate the Library’s commitment to representing varied points of view by including publications espousing the virtues of the minority canine community.*

Cummins characterizes his approach in the opening sentence of his preface, stating that “This  is an absurdly ambitious book.” He has woven his extensive research into a narrative spanning  the 15,000 years of the relationship between Canis lupus familiaris and Homo sapiens sapiens. This book invites a cover-to-cover reading (a full-out scratching from belly to back?), as easily as a sampling of chapters (a scratch behind the ears?) each of which can stand on it’s own, from “Hail Anubis: The Dog in Religion and Myth” and “By Our Side: Assistance Dogs and the Enabling of the Disabled,” to “Blood Sports.”

While I have neither cat, nor dog, ferret or otherwise as part of my household, I am fascinated by Cummins’ presentation of the hound in literature, having missed Shakespeare’s references in Midsummer Night’s Dream to the hound “With ears that sweep away the morning dew” (Act IV, scene 1). I respectfully salute my cousin, the Connecticut state trooper and his canine colleague, on reading chapter eight, “To Serve and Protect,” and learning that their partnership has a history dating back as early as the 1300s. These are merely a few of the details that have drawn me into Our Debt to the Dog, a wealth of fascinating and occasionally troubling research into how we have treated our canine companions since their – and our – domestication.

Dog or Cat or…? Click here to take our completely unscientific survey!

*It should be noted that while this group is a minority in the Library, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association (2012) 36.5% of U.S. households reported having a canine companion, yet only 30.4% reported sharing their home with a cat  (https://www.avma.org/KB/Resources/Statistics/Pages/Market-research-statistics-US-pet-ownership.aspx).
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Friday fun: “Life made easier”

Posted on October 18, 2013 by Barbara

While wandering among the current periodical issues on 1st floor the other day, I discovered a magazine called REALSIMPLE. Under the title it says “Life made easier.” Aha! Now that sounds like a magazine I should read on a regular basis.

image of Real Simple issue coverA randomly-selected issue’s cover and table of contents promised information on

  • trends that never go out of style,
  • “surprising” sandwiches good enough for guests,
  • diet vs. exercise,
  • mentoring,
  • job hunting and social media,
  • new uses for a pool noodle (that’s for you, Katie!),
  • ballet-barre workout,
  • de-germifying the bathroom,
  • an autumn reading list, and more.

Inside it also advertises the realsimple.com web site (when I visited, the “New Use of the Day” was unflavored, waxed dental floss as a cake slicer, which one of my coworkers claims to have heard before). My favorite bit of text came from a University of Arizona professor of microbiology (for the article on de-germifying the bathroom): “…a flushing toilet, when viewed in slow motion, resembles a fireworks display.”

In spite of the mental image of a spraying toilet, I enjoyed the magazine, I enjoyed the web site, and if I have time I’ll enjoy more issues. I think it offers a nice break from concentrated periods of work or study. The colorful content is an important part of the magazine’s value, but if you haven’t the time to visit 1st floor, UWW students and staff can read the text via the MasterFILE Premier database.

Have a good weekend, everyone. Keep it real simple!!

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ARTstor Digital Library – Image Repository

Posted on October 17, 2013 by Carol

ARTstor Digital Library

ARTstor Digital Library is an online image repository of 1.5 million digital images in the arts, architecture, humanities, and sciences with an accessible suite of software tools for teaching and research. Take a look and see for yourself how ARTstor Digital Library can enhance your teaching.

The Library’s ARTstor Guide will help you get started using this powerful teaching tool. Online training webinars are held regularly, so take a look at the ARTstor Digital Library Training page to sign up.

The Chancellor’s Office has provided funding for this valuable teaching tool.

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