Monday, September 28, 2009

Banned Books Week

Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read
September 26−October 3, 2009

Announcement of the American Library Association:

Banned Books Week (BBW) is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment. Held during the last week of September, Banned Books Week highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books across the United States.

Intellectual freedom—the freedom to access information and express ideas, even if the information and ideas might be considered unorthodox or unpopular—provides the foundation for Banned Books Week. BBW stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints for all who wish to read and access them.

The books featured during Banned Books Week have been targets of attempted bannings. Fortunately, while some books were banned or restricted, in a majority of cases the books were not banned, all thanks to the efforts of librarians, teachers, booksellers, and members of the community to retain the books in the library collections. Imagine how many more books might be challenged—and possibly banned or restricted—if librarians, teachers, and booksellers across the country did not use Banned Books Week each year to teach the importance of our First Amendment rights and the power of literature, and to draw attention to the danger that exists when restraints are imposed on the availability of information in a free society.

Banned Books Week is sponsored by the American Booksellers Association; American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression; the American Library Association; American Society of Journalists and Authors; Association of American Publishers; and the National Association of College Stores. It is endorsed by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress.

Friday, September 25, 2009

A Night with W. Ralph Eubanks

W. Ralph Eubanks, author of The House at the End of the Road: The Story of Three Generations of an Interracial Family in the American South, will be on campus Monday, September 28th, for “A Night with W. Ralph Eubanks.” The event will begin at 6:30 p.m., in the Montevallo Room, Anna Irvin Dining Hall. Light refreshments will be served.

In 1914, in defiance of his middle-class landowning family, a young white man named James Morgan Richardson married a light-skinned black woman named Edna Howell. Over their more than 20 years of marriage, they formed a strong family and built a house at the end of a winding sandy road in South Alabama, a place where their safety from the hostile world around them was assured and where they developed a unique racial and cultural identity. Jim and Edna Richardson were Ralph Eubanks’ grandparents.

The event is sponsored by Multicultural Affairs, in association with Carmichael Library.

Related:

Thursday, September 17, 2009

College Life 2009 Display and Booklist

As students head back to school this semester there are a lot of issues, both personal and academic, that must be faced. For those just entering or re-entering the university, the transition to college life can be difficult. That's why the library has teamed up with the Counseling and Career Center to present this information about adjusting to life as a college student.

In the library's foyer you'll find our College Life 2009 display, which includes a selection of books available for checkout. You'll also find a series of handouts dealing with issues such as homesickness, time management, reducing stress, maintaining healthy relationships, and more. We invite you to visit our display and check out a book or take a flyer. We also hope you'll consider these resources for friends and classmates who may be having difficulties adjusting to college life.

College Life 2009 Bibliography

Anderson, Debra J. College Culture, Student Success. (2008) LC 191.94 .A46 2008

Arrington, Zach. Confessions of a College Freshman: A Survival Guide for Dorm Life, Biology Lab, the Cafeteria, and Other First-year Adventures. (2001) LB 2343.32 .A74 2001

Baer, Justin. 7 Secrets of Savvy Students: Study Smarter, not Harder. (2006) DVD LB 2343.32 .S48 2006

Disbro, William. 100 Things Every College Freshman Ought to Know: An Abridged College Orientation Catalog of Definitions, Customs, Procedures, and Plain Old Good Advice about Adjusting to the Start of College. (2007) LB 2343.3 D57 1995

Fogg, Neeta P., et al. College Majors Handbook with Real Career Paths and Payoffs: The Actual Jobs, Earnings, and Trends for Graduates of 60 College Majors. (2004) Ref. HF 5382.5 .U5 F644 2004

Gelb, Alan, et al. A Survival Guide For Students: Tips From the Trenches. (2004) LB 2343.3 .G45 2004

Hanson, Jennifer. The Real Freshman Handbook: A Totally Honest Guide to Life on Campus. (2002) LB 2343.32 .H36 2002

Humphrey, James H., et al. Stress in College Athletics: Causes, Consequences, Coping. (2000) GV 347 .H 86 2000

Kadison, Richard, et al. College of the Overwhelmed: The Campus Mental Health Crisis and What to Do About It. (2004) RC 451.4 .S7 K336 2004

Lindsay III, C. L. The College Student's Guide to the Law: Get a Grade Changed, Keep Your Stuff Private, Throw a Police-Free Party, and More! (2005) KF 4243 .Z9 L56 2005

Litt, Ann S. The College Student’s Guide to Eating Well on Campus. (1994) RA 777.3 .L58 2000

Oz, Daphne. The Dorm Room Diet: The 8-step Program for Creating a Healthy Lifestyle Plan that Really Works. (2006) RA 777.3 .O9 2006

Smith, M.S., et al. The Smart Student’s Guide to Healthy Living: How to Survive Stress, Late Nights, & the College Cafeteria. (2006) RA 777.3 .S63 2006

Tyler, Suzette. Been There Should’ve Done That II: More Tips for Making the Most of College. (1997) LB 2343.32 T95 2001

Tyler, Suzette, Been There Should’ve Done That: 995 Tips for Making the Most of College. (2008) LB 2343.32 .T95 2008

Vye, Christopher, et al. Under Pressure and Overwhelmed: Coping with Anxiety in College. (2007) LA 229. V94 2007

Wilder, Jenifer. The Doctor’s Complete College Girls’ Health Guide: From Sex to Drugs to the Freshman 15. (2006) RA 778 .W53 2005

The library would like to thank Kassie Doggett and the staff of the UM Counseling and Career Center for their expertise and continued partnership. Thanks also to my colleague Amanda Melcher for selecting materials and supervising students who helped with the display. Finally, we thank our student assistants Robin Hyche, Kate Lewallen, and Kimberly Newton for their contributions to this project.

Information needed about the Hill House Collection


A few weeks back, Karen Neal in Hill House contacted Carmichael Library about a rediscovered collection that had suffered water damage. The collection contains biographical information on noted Alabamians and consists mostly of newspaper clippings. The bulk of the articles are from the 1950s and 1960s.

With the help of Dallas Hanbury, archives student worker, and Jamie Rawls, archives intern, we were able to save this collection. After allowing the paper to fully dry, Dallas and Jamie organized the articles and rehoused them in archive appropriate containers. The material has been named the Hill House Collection.

If anyone has any information on this material, please contact me at heatherlycw@montevallo.edu or Karen Neal at nealkg@montevallo.edu

To see photos of the collection, click here.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Access to NetLibrary Audiobooks Restored

Access to Carmichael Library's collection of audiobooks that can be downloaded from NetLibrary has been restored. To download an audiobook, you first need to create a free account in NetLibrary and then use that account to "check out" the audiobook. Download the book to your PC or portable device, and you're good to go! Some of the books available through NetLibrary cannot be played on an IPod, so check compatibility before you download.

Tuesday, September 08, 2009

Information Literacy Discussed on NBC's Meet the Press 9/5/09

Perhaps I should have described Tom Brokaw's and Thomas Friedman's comments on NBC's Meet The Press as concerning our society's lack of information literacy skills. Below is an excerpt from the transcript.

MR. GREGORY: You talk about Van Jones (a special assistant to the President) as well, you know, the fact that in this, in this media age, what he said, by anybody's estimation, was objectionable, to sign a petition saying the government was behind 9/11. But it goes to something that's going on in this information age...

MR. FRIEDMAN: David, yeah...

MR. GREGORY: ...which is you can be a target real fast.

MR. FRIEDMAN: David, when everyone has a cell phone, everyone's a photographer. When everyone has access to YouTube, everyone's a filmmaker. And when everyone's a blogger, everyone's in newspaper. When everyone's a photographer, a newspaper and a filmmaker, everyone else is a public figure. Tell your kids, OK, tell your kids, OK, be careful. Every move they make is now a digital footprint. You are on "Candid Camera." And unfortunately, the real message to young people, from all of these incidents, OK, and I'm not here defending anything anyone said, but from all of these incidents, is you know, really keep yourself tight, don't say anything controversial, don't think anything--don't put anything in print. You know, whatever you do, just kind of smooth out all the edges, and maybe you too--you know, when you get nominated to be ambassador to Burkina Faso, you'll be able to get through the hearing.

MR. GREGORY: OK.

MR. BROKAW: Well, I've--one of the things I've been saying to audiences is this question comes up a lot, and a lot of people will repeat back to me and take it as face value something that they read on the Internet. And my line to them is you have to vet information. You have to test it the same way you do when you buy an automobile or when you go and buy a new flat-screen television. You read the Consumer Reports, you have an idea of what it's worth and what the lasting value of it is. You have to do the same thing with information because there is so much disinformation out there that it's frightening, frankly, in a free society that depends on information to make informed decisions. And this is across the board, by the way. It's not just one side of the political spectrum or the other. It is across the board, David, and it's something that we all have to address and it requires society and political and cultural leaders to stand up and say, "this is crazy." We just can't function that way.

MR. FRIEDMAN: You know, David, I just want to say one thing to pick up on Tom's point, which is the Internet is an open sewer of untreated, unfiltered information, left, right, center, up, down, and requires that kind of filtering by anyone. And I always felt, you know, when modems first came out, when that was how we got connected to the Internet, that every modem sold in America should actually come with a warning from the surgeon general that would have said, "judgment not included," OK? That you have to upload the old-fashioned way. Church, synagogue, temple, mosque, teachers, schools, you know. And too often now people say, and we've all heard it, "But I read it on the Internet," as if that solves the bar bet, you know? And I'm afraid not.