The Andersen Library Blog

From the Desk of Chancellor Dwight C. Watson – New Kid by Jerry Craft

Posted on March 30, 2020 by Ellen Latorraca

New Kid – Jerry Craft

One in a series of reviews contributed by Chancellor Dwight

As a former elementary teacher, I truly enjoyed teaching reading. My dissertation was a study about bibliotherapy which is how to help students choose and read books to help them heal. I so enjoyed children’s literature that my work as an elementary teacher educator focused on literacy development and the use of children’s literature to increase self-esteem, reading achievement, and reading attitude. I had many successes with reluctant readers if I could find the right book for the right person.

The New Kid is the right book that would be ideal for reluctant readers since it is a graphic novel written and illustrated by the main character, Jordan Banks. This unique approach to storytelling will captivate reluctant readers especially if they are middle-school aged males of color, but also anyone else who would enjoy a celebratory adolescent adventure. The New Kid also won the 2020 Newbery Award, the most prestigious award for children’s literature, and the 2020 Coretta Scott King Award, the most outstanding book written by African-American authors for children and young adults.

The New Kid is the first graphic novel to be chosen as a Newbery Award winner and vividly illustrates the tale of Jordan Banks. As Jordan enters middle school, a Black boy from Washington Heights, he takes his readers through the day-to-day reality of his mostly White prep school in this heartbreakingly accurate tale of race, class, micro-aggressions, and the quest for self-identity.

As Jordan navigates his new life in the school that is several bus rides away from his current school, he must learn to adapt and adopt to practices that are foreign to him such as playing soccer, friends who actually travel on Spring Break, and teachers as well as classmates who say things that are micro-aggressive and unconsciously biased. One such incident is when a teacher constantly calls Jordan’s friend who is a Black young man by his wrong name because the teacher was remembering another Black young man from a class she had before. Another incident is when everyone just assumes Jordan is good at sports when all he really enjoys doing is writing and drawing in his sketch pad. Other incidents include White administrators mistaking a veteran Black teacher for the football coach, and White classmates parroting African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) to make themselves sound cool. This school story stands out as a robust, contemporary depiction of a preteen navigating sometimes hostile spaces yet staying true to himself thanks to friends, family, and art.

One reviewer stated, “Jerry Craft, the author, skillfully employs the graphic-novel format to its full advantage, giving his readers a delightful and authentic cast of characters who, along with New York itself, pop off the page with vibrancy and nuance. Shrinking Jordan to ant-sized proportions upon his entering the school cafeteria, for instance, transforms the lunchroom into a grotesque Wonderland in which his lack of social standing becomes visually arresting and viscerally uncomfortable” (Kirkus Reviews, 2018)

The story does a nice job of having readers question the relationships between characters, no matter their race or ethnicity, and inspires thoughts about equity, diversity, and inclusion. Jordan learns how to adapt, adopt, and assert as he makes a variety of friends from different races, genders, and socio-economic backgrounds. The story, as a graphic novel, showcases the themes and issues in a way that mere words would not have captured. The images propel the story along in ways that highlights the nuances and amplifies the instances.

Reference: New Kid. (2018). Kirkus Reviews. Retrieved from https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/jerry-craft/new-kid-craft/

Posted in Chancellor Dwight C. Watson, Warhawks Recommend | Tagged young adult books | Comments Off

T³: Annotating PDFs and Word Documents Online

Posted on March 26, 2020 by Diana

Suddenly find yourself needing to read everything online? Learn how to take notes on PDFs or other files.

Google Drive:
You can use the commenting feature in Google Drive to highlight and comment on Microsoft Word documents and on PDFs. You can also share these files with others who can comment on them as well.

When you leave a comment on Microsoft Office files, the comments will still appear when you open the file in Microsoft Office. Comments you make on PDFs will show up in some PDF reader apps, but not all.

1. Make sure you have uploaded the file to your Google Drive.
2. Double-click the PDF or Microsoft Office file you want to comment on.
3. At the top right, click Add comment (the conversation bubble with the plus sign inside).
4. Highlight the section of the PDF or click the text, cell, or section of the Office file you want to comment on.
5. Enter your comment and click Comment.

Adobe Acrobat:
Use this program to comment on PDFs. You can view a video from LinkedIn Learning about how to do this in three different Adobe Acrobat versions.

Posted in tech tips | Tagged Adobe Acrobat, annotating, Google Drive | 1 Comment

“On the Trail of the Sioux” manuscript (New Stuff Tuesdays)

Posted on March 25, 2020 by Jennifer Motszko

This past summer the Archives & Area Research Center received a package in the mail along with a letter addressed “To Whom It May Concern.” UW-Whitewater has a collection of General George Custer materials. The letter writer thought we would be an appropriate place for a manuscript they had found while remodeling their home in Sacramento, CA.

The document is a typed transcript of a diary written by Sergeant G.P. Harrington in 1876 that describes his experience serving with the 2nd Cavalry during the time of the Battle of Little Bighorn.

An accompanying letter from A.W. Sibley, Colonel of the Cavalry, serves as a reference for Harrington’s credibility and briefly outlines the contents of the manuscript:

“He was with me as Acting 1st Serg. of a scouting party of thirty picked men which I commanded, on the 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th of July, 1876. This detachment sent from camp on Goose Creek, Montana, by order of General Crook, along the base of the Big Horn Mountains was to obtain information if possible as to the whereabouts of the renegade Sioux and Cheyenne Indians, who were constantly annoying us at night, threatening our communications with Fort Fetterman, and trying to burn us out of camp and stampede our stock. On this scout we ran into what proved later to be the entire hostil force of Indians which was fresh from the slaughter of Custer and his command.”

Come to the Archives to view the manuscript and learn more about General George Custer.

On the Trail of the Sioux manuscript
by G.P. Harrington
Archives & Area Research Center, 1st floor

Posted in Archives & ARC, new stuff tuesdays | Comments Off

Physical library spaces closed / online availability

Posted on March 13, 2020 by Barbara

UPDATE March 19
Andersen & Lenox Libraries will close to the public due to the coronavirus situation. Please be safe and healthy, everyone, and take advantage of our online resources and services. More details are forthcoming.

Remember that whenever the physical Library is closed, you can:

Search article databases …just login when prompted with your campus Net-ID (same as for your campus email or Canvas),
Search Andersen Library’s holdings of books, media and more (part of Research@UWW) and use links to the titles that are online, including links to ebooks,
Search Research@UWW for articles, books, and more all at one time–it’s best to login to get all possible results.
Renew your checked-out books, DVDs, etc., online through your Account,
Consult online guides for assistance, including citation guides for APA, MLA, and Turabian format, and class assignment guides, and
Ask a librarian for help using email or chat, or phone us at 262-472-1032 during reference hours (Mon-Fri 9am-4:30pm).

A process for requesting and picking up physical materials from the campus libraries’ collections will be set up by March 27th, which will be linked from the library home page.

ILLiad Interlibrary loan requests for “returnables” (books, DVDs, etc.) from other libraries will be limited, but requests for scans of articles and book chapters should continue as usual.

Please stay healthy! Consult the campus COVID-19 (Coronavirus) page for updates, referrals, and guidance.

Posted in around the library, campus connection | Tagged hours | Comments Off

Be Counted: It Matters! Respond to the 2020 Census

Posted on March 5, 2020 by Barbara

The goal of the 2020 Census is to count everyone living in the U.S. on April 1, 2020, and to count them where they usually live and sleep. In mid-March we will begin to receive invitations to respond to the 2020 Census, and in April Census workers will visit locations of groups like students living on college campuses. College students, including international students, should be counted at their on- or off-campus residences, even if they are elsewhere on April 1. U.S. college students who are living and attending college outside the U.S. are not counted in the Census. More information about who is counted where is at https://2020census.gov/en/who-to-count.html

The U.S. Government has been conducting this once-per-decade, Constitutionally-required count of the United States population since 1790. The numbers collected are important to all of us! They are used to distribute billions of dollars of federal funding to states and communities, set the number of Congressional seats for each state, and provide statistics that are used by state governments, communities, schools, businesses, social service agencies, researchers, and more. To learn more about the impact of the Census in our communities, see https://2020census.gov/en/community-impact.html

Once an invitation to respond to the Census is received, you can respond online, by phone, or by mail. Your personal information is kept confidential, and your data is combined with data from other households to provide statistics. Your home and the people in it will not be identified. You will not be asked for Social Security numbers, bank or credit card information, or citizenship. You may preview the questions at https://2020census.gov/en/about-questions.html

Andersen Library is a federal depository library with federal 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!

Posted in campus connection, info.gov | Comments Off

Postponed: The 8th Annual Stuffed Animal Sleepover

Posted on March 3, 2020 by Ellen Latorraca

Due to current circumstances, we will postpone the 8th annual…

Stuffed Animal friends will have a drama-filled evening

Stuffed Animal Sleepover in the Library. Watch for the event later in the year! Here’s what will be in store:

UW-Whitewater students, staff, faculty and Children’s Center families, accompanied by a child 6(ish) years of age or younger, are invited to join Andersen Library for the 8th annual Stuffed Animal Sleepover. Child participants bring a stuffed animal friend to join them in a drama-filled library story time and a craft activity. The stuffed animals get to sleep over and explore the Library after hours. Children will pick up their stuffed animal and a photo memory of their animal’s theatrical adventures ~~on Saturday, April 4th, or Monday, April 6th.~~

Note: Children need to be accompanied by an adult, but the library will provide chaperones for the stuffed animals’ overnight adventure.

Please fill out this form to register: Stay tuned!

When? Stay tuned!

What Time? ~~4:00-5:00PM~~

Craft activities begin at 4:00 followed by stories and song starting at 4:30.
We will have two concurrent story times: a lapsit story time for infants and toddlers, and another for 3’s and older.

Where? UW-Whitewater, Andersen Library, 141 Wyman Mall, Whitewater, WI 53190, 2nd Floor

Want to know more? See our post from previous years’ events. Need accommodations? Have questions? Contact Ellen, the Education Librarian at 262-472-5525.

Posted in education, Story Times | Tagged Stuffed Animal Sleepover | Comments Off

Bring Your Brain to Work (New Stuff Tuesday)

Posted on March 3, 2020 by Naomi Schemm

Since presumably 100% of the students at UWW want to make money someday, I expect that most students would also be interested in the subtitle of this book: how to “get a job, do it well, and advance your career.” While this may not be the ultimate one-stop guide to all things related to jobhunting, it certainly provides an interesting twist on the flurry of job guides out there: Markman posits that by understanding the motivational brain, the social brain, and the cognitive brain, you can be better prepared to excel in all of the areas mentioned in his subtitle.

He continues to return to those “brain parts” in various real-world situations related to jobhunting and working, like what part to engage when you’re interviewing, when you have a job offer but before you accept it, when you have a disagreement with your coworker or your boss, and more. He doesn’t get too caught up in the scientific jargon surrounding neuroscience, and helpfully, the relevant takeaways related to each “brain part” are listed in a table form at the end of each chapter, so it’s reasonably accessible to the non-scientist. Much of each chapter’s content doesn’t strike me as particularly original (when you get a job rejection, no, you should not send a scathing email to your interviewers detailing their poor decision) but it’s still solid.

Much of excelling at work is in the soft skills, the people skills, that largely aren’t taught in a classroom. I could see this book appealing to those who want a more logic-based primer on all the “squishy” parts of working with people, or any job-hunter who appreciates and wants to further understand the marvelous complexity that is the human brain.

Bring your brain to work: Using cognitive science to get a job, do it well, and advance your career
by Art Markman
New Arrivals Island, 2nd Floor
HF5381 .M268 2019

Posted in new stuff tuesdays, uncategorized | Tagged job hunting, jobs, new stuff tuesdays | Comments Off

History of Illustration (New Stuff Tuesday)

Posted on February 25, 2020 by Carol

So what is the difference between illustration and fine art? This book helpfully defines illustration as “visual communication through pictorial means” and notes that illustration is often created through mechanical processes (p. xvii). The authors specifically note that illustration is largely kept out of histories of art because of its (often) commercial nature. But they further point out that the commercial nature of illustration contributes to making it an ideal vehicle for studying popular culture.

This scholarly volume traces illustration from pre-history through the present. The history is presented chronologically, beginning with cave paintings and ending with digital forms. The authors also explore various themes and genres, including comics, children’s books, anatomical drawing, natural science illustration, fashion illustration, and many chapters on the unique contributions to the field from different regions of the globe.

The pages are sprinkled liberally with high-quality color and black-and-white images, bringing the history to life.

History of Illustration
by Susan Doyle, Jaleen Grove, and Whitney Sherman
New Arrivals Island, 2nd Floor
NC998 >H46 2019

Posted in new stuff tuesdays | Tagged art, illustration | Comments Off

From the Desk of Chancellor Dwight C. Watson – The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead

Posted on February 25, 2020 by Ellen Latorraca

The Nickel Boys – Colson Whitehead

One in a series of reviews contributed by Chancellor Dwight C. Watson

Colton Whitehead won a Pulitzer Award for his 2016 book, the Underground Railroad. Whitehead has received the MacArthur Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Writers Award, the Dos Passos Prize, and a fellowship at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers. His latest book the Nickel Boys has been noted as the Time Magazine best fiction book of 2019 and one of the Best Books of the Decade 2010 – 2019. The book also won the National Book Foundation Award, and the Kirkus Prize, and is a finalist for the 2019 National Books Critics Circle Award.

The Nickel Boys dramatizes the Jim Crow era piercing effect, following the lives of two boys sentenced to brutal reform school in 1960s Florida. I was growing up in the South in the 1960s and the threat of reform school was the boogie man that adults would whisper to keep boys in line. Neighborhood bullies and petty thieves were the bad boys that were slated to the juvenile detention center and the ones that the good boys were not to hang around. The nightmares depicted in the Nickel Boys which springs from the harrowing true story of the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in northern Florida is beyond what we imagined as young children. The school opened in 1900 and reigned for more than a century as one of the country’s largest and most notorious homes for abandoned children and those deemed wayward. According to historical accounts and testimonies from survivors, the boys as young as 6 were chained to walls. There were reports of rape, forced labor, solitary confinement. More than 100 children died at the school between 1913 and 1960 (Kiser, 2009).

Whitehead’s capturing of these events mystified and terrified me because the origins of these accounts were so vivid and unimaginable that happened during the time that paralleled my own upbringing. We often talked about the boys that did not return from reform school. We just assumed they moved on to their adult lives. My hope is that they did and their fates were not that of Turner and Elwood, the main characters of the book.

Whitehead captured the varied lives of two boys assigned to the Nickel Academy — the two friends: Elwood, who insists on people’s decency was a straight – A student raised on his grandmother’s conviction that “duty might protect him, as it had protected her.” Elwood is enamored with the message of Martin Luther King Jr. and the beauty and bravery of the civil rights protesters — “how the young men’s ties remained straight black arrows in the whirl of violence.” Even in Nickel Academy, he vows to make the best of it. Turner, who believes in the essential evil in people. Turner was a product of poverty, segregation, homelessness, and abandonment. He viewed incarceration as an opportunity and learned how to navigate the harrowing confines.

The juxtaposition and the interconnectivity of these two lives takes the reader on a journey of discovery, recognition, disbelief, and release. It took me back to my own recollections of not only the reform school threats, but my ingrained teaching of Dr. King, “must walk the streets of life every day with [a] sense of dignity and … somebody-ness.”

I am so fortunate that my cousin gave me a first edition signed copy of this book that I will treasure always. My cousin too knows the truths of the 1960s south and that Black boys were often collateral.

Reference:

Roger Dean Kiser (2009), The White House Boys – An American Tragedy

Posted in Chancellor Dwight C. Watson, Warhawks Recommend | Comments Off

Kanopy change is now Live!

Posted on February 18, 2020 by Nancy Bennett

As we mentioned in our “Kanopy changes to come!” post on January 21, 2020, we have implemented the change and gone to a mediated model. This means that any Kanopy film that does NOT have a current license, as found in the Research @UWW search, will produce a pop-up request form that needs to completed. This will then be sent to Nancy Bennett, Electronic Resources Librarian, for review and verification that we do not have the film accessible elsewhere. If the film is approved, Nancy will contact Kanopy to have the video activated. According to Kanopy, this activation will take up to 24 hours to complete!

Please plan ahead for any film that you wish to show in your classes and remember to check out all our other video resources.

Films on Demand: Over 38,000 titles covering a wide range of academic subjects. Content includes documentaries, lectures, instructional/curricular videos, and historical primary source videos.
FedFlix: Featuring the best movies from the United States Government, all these videos are available for reuse without any restrictions.
LGBT Studies in Video: A cinematic survey of the lives of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people as well as the cultural and political evolution of the LGBT community.
PBS Video Collection: This collection of almost 800 titles provides video documentaries and series from PBS on topics that range from science to history, art to Shakespeare, diversity to business & economics, and more.
Psychotherapy.net (UWW selected): Curated by our Counselor Ed and Social Work faculty, this Psychotherapy.net collection offers streaming videos which show actual psychotherapy sessions, and experts discuss their thoughts behind their interventions.
Psychotherapy.net (Alexander Street): Includes more than 150 in-depth training videos from one of the counseling professions’ most respected video providers.
Nursing and Mental Health in Video: Nursing and Mental Health in Video features over 240 videos of the most common mental health disorders nurses may encounter – whether in a primary care setting, emergency room, medical, psychiatric or other.

If you are currently using a Kanopy title for class or need any assistance, please contact Nancy Bennett or your librarian liaison.

Posted in around the library, online @ the library, tech tips | Tagged database updates, video databases, videos | Comments Off