Tuesday, December 04, 2018

Extended Hours During Finals Week


Armacost Library will open its doors for extended hours during Finals Week. Quiet spaces, open late, are available at the following hours:

Friday, December 7: 8:00 a.m. - 10:00 p.m.
Saturday, December 8: 10:00 a.m. - 10:00 p.m.
Sunday, December 9: 10:00 a.m. - 2:00 a.m.
Monday, December 10 - Thursday, December 13: 8:00 a.m. - 2:00 a.m.
Friday, December 14: 8:00 a.m. - 10:00 p.m.
Saturday, December 15: 8:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. 

Good luck!

Lua Gregory
First Year Experience Librarian
Armacost Library

Tuesday, November 20, 2018

Transgender Day of Remembrance


Monica Helms, the Trans woman who created the Transgender flag, stated, "The stripes at the top and bottom are light blue, the traditional color for baby boys. The stripes next to them are pink, the traditional color for baby girls;the white stripe is for people that are nonbinary, who feel that they don't have a gender."
Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) is an annual observance on November 20 that honors the memory of those whose lives were lost in acts of anti-transgender violence. As we remember those we have lost, we must pick up the mantel they left behind, in order to move toward an anti-trans violence free world. A way to help is to spread awareness through available resources for trans people and their allies. 

As a center of informational wealth, this week Armacost Library will focus on wonderful resources for those who are Trans, Trans allies, or looking for more information. There are many resources available on the topic of Transgender culture and experiences, from personal blogs to informational books and articles, to clubs at community centers, libraries, and across campuses! There are many ways to engage with different communities. Let’s talk about two of the most common resources that often serve as starting points. 

Local Resources


The Pride Center was opened in 2005 after students campaigned for funding from the University for a safe space for people who identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer or allies and for those that wanted to have a resource on campus for exploring such topics.
The Pride Center serves as the meeting space for student groups and host speakers, discussion groups and community events. It has it's own Pride library, too! 



With a host of books, articles, DVDs and more, the Armacost Library has it's own collection of valuable resources available both online and at the library itself. Stop on by to check out what we have to offer. Chat with a librarian to help narrow down your search through e-mail, online chat, over the phone, or in person. 


The LGBTQ Center provides addiction treatment & recovery, HIV-related care and prevention, community development though educational, career, and entrepreneurship coaching, leadership development, as well providing cultural competency training to local providers, businesses, and the community.

Transgender Community Coalition 

There are an estimated 27,000 transgender people in the Inland Empire.

Transgender Community Coalition (TCC) devotes its energies to passionately advocating for the transgender, intersex, queer, gender non-conforming and socially and politically under-represented members of our community. We invite you to explore this site and find ways to support this underserved community.


PFLAG 

Uniting people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) with families, friends, and allies, PFLAG is committed to advancing equality through its mission of support, education, and advocacy. PFLAG has 400 chapters and 200,000 supporters crossing multiple generations of American families in major urban centers, small cities, and rural areas in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. This vast grassroots network is cultivated, resourced, and serviced by PFLAG National, located in Washington, D.C., the National Board of Directors and 13 volunteer Regional Directors.
Trans & Gender Force
Rev. Renee J. Painter
860 E. Gilbert, San Bernardino, CA 92404 / (626) 824-7837
Email: RevRJPainter@aol.com
A group for talking about transgender issues and educating the community. Meets at 6:30 p.m. on the last Thursday of each month.


Long Distance Support & Information 

Jennifer Pellinen's Transgender flag
GLBT National Help Center
(800) 246-7743 (4 p.m. – 12 a.m.)
Peer counseling and resources for LGBTQ individuals, including coming-out support, relationship concerns, HIV /AIDS anxiety, and referrals to social and support groups, and gay-friendly businesses.
(866) 4U-TREVOR (866-488-7386) / Text “Trevor” to (202) 304-1200
Crisis and suicide prevention services for LGBTQ youth, including toll-free and online chat hotlines.

GLAAD Transgender Resources 

An extensive, in depth list covering legal services, health, emotional support, trans veterans, economics, information, trans campaigns, and much more. GLAAD is at the forefront of LGBTQA+ advocacy: GLAAD rewrites the script for LGBTQ acceptance. As a dynamic media force, GLAAD tackles tough issues to shape the narrative and provoke dialogue that leads to cultural change.



The National Center for Transgender Equality 

This national social justice organization is devoted to ending discrimination and violence against transgender people. They provide education, advocacy, and resources on national issues of importance to transgender people. They have two key initiatives: The Racial and Economic Justice Initiative (REJI) and the Trans Legal Services Network (TLSN). 

The Jim Collins Foundation 

The Jim Collins Foundation raises money to fund gender-affirming surgeries for those transgender people who need surgery to live a healthy life, but have no ability to pay for it themselves. We recognize that for those people who require surgery for a healthy gender transition, lack of access to surgery may result in hopelessness, depression, and sometimes, suicide. The Jim Collins Foundation is a community-based initiative promoting the self-determination and empowerment of all transgender people. JCF co-founders and board members are available for speaking engagements.




Progress Pride Flag designed by Daniel Quasar.
LGBTQ 6 full sized color stripes representing life (red), healing (orange), sunlight (yellow), nature (green), harmony/peace (blue), and spirit (purple/violet) 5 half sized stripes representing trans and non-binary individuals (light blue, light pink, white), marginalized POC communities (brown, black), as well as those living with AIDS and the stigma and prejudice surrounding them, and those who have been lost to the disease (black)


Monday, November 05, 2018

Vaclav Havel and The Memo

 Image credit: Vaclav Havel Library

This month the University of Redlands theatre department presents The Memo by the Czech playwright, human rights activist, political philosopher and statesman Vaclav Havel.

Havel was born in Prague in 1936 to an affluent family who lost their wealth and status after Communists came to power in 1948. Denied the ability to attend high school, Havel got a job as a lab assistant, took classes at night school, and struck up friendships with other young writers and intellectuals. At the age of twenty, he attracted notoriety when he made a speech appealing for official recognition of banned poets at a government-sponsored writers' conference. Havel's interest in theater developed during his two years of army service; upon being discharged, he found work at Theater of the Balustrade, a small, avant-garde theater company. Here he had the opportunity to try a little of everything - shifting scenes, electrical work, manuscript reading, dramaturgy, and eventually playwriting. He also fell in love with another company member, Olga Splichova; their marriage would last 32 years until her death in 1995.

The Memo was the second of three significant early plays Havel wrote for Theatre of the Balustrade. Premiered in 1965, it displayed the influence of the Theatre of the Absurd - the company was regularly staging plays by Beckett, Ionesco and Kafka - as well as Havel's fascination with "the power of language as a perpetuator of systems, a tool to influence man's mind and therefore one of the strongest (though secret) weapons of any system that wants to mould him" ("Vaclav Havel").

Absurdist theater was a natural outlet for Havel's need to communicate the crushing effect of political repression. As he later wrote, "life saves itself by going offstage. Forced to be actors, people return to the audience as soon as they can, and take the chance to jeer at their forced selves. Their real culture must be hidden. It must go underground for protection" (qtd. in Chamberlain 76).

But within a few years, Havel's life would change dramatically, sending him on a path towards another type of salvation - active resistance. A brief period of political and cultural liberalization in Czechoslovakia, the "Prague Spring" of 1968, would end violently with Russian troops invading to crush protests and help hard-line Communists retake control of Czechoslovakia. Denied work in the theatre and put under surveillance, Havel would travel the country talking with workers, sign open letters, give underground radio broadcasts and smuggle his writing and speeches to the West. He would be jailed multiple times, once for four years. His writing would make him famous worldwide. He would write more plays, now more autobiographical and deeply introspective, probing the risks of moral compromise and self-deception facing people living in relationship to power. The plays would find audiences, abroad and - despite the risks to performers and audience members alike - in Czechoslovakia. Acknowledged for his skill at organizing coalitions and giving voice to human rights causes, Havel would be the unanimous choice for president when the country's last Communist leader resigned in December 1989 and Parliament needed to choose a successor. He would be "a new type of leader for Czechoslovakia. The long-persecuted but never silenced dissident was a modest, diffident intellectual who, lacking a professional politician's self-conscious self-confidence, readily admitted his fears for the future and amazement at his success. In his first months in office he accomplished much" (Byers 204).

During this transition away from autocratic rule, Havel's early plays, banned for so long, were  officially allowed to be performed again on Czech stages. Barbara Day observes the irony of plays like The Memo seeing their belated revival "as the work not of an aspiring stagehand, but of the country's President" (Day 457).

Works Cited

Byers, Paula K., ed. "Vaclav Havel." Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2nd ed. Detroit: Gale, 1998, pp. 202-204.

Day, Barbara. "Havel, Vaclav." International Dictionary of Theatre, vol. 2: Playwrights. Detroit: Gale, 1994, pp. 455-457.

Havel, Vaclav, "In the Communist Mirror." 1990. Cited in Chamberlain, Lesley. "Play It Again, Vaclav: The Wisdom in Havel's Plays." The World & I, vol. 16, no. 8, 2001, pp. 76-81.

"Vaclav Havel." Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2012. Literature Resource Center, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/H1000043432/LitRC?u=redl79824&sid=LitRC&xid=ac925923. Accessed 26 October 2018. 

Sunday, October 07, 2018

National Hispanic Heritage Month

Some National Hispanic Heritage Month Resources @Armacost Library

 [Download poster art —  JPEG  or  PDF ]
Santana, Carlos, et al. Dolores. Arlington, VA: PBS Distribution, 2018.
Front Desk: DVDs HD 6509.H84 D65 2018

La Nueva California by David Hayes-Bautista
Hayes-Bautista, David E.  La Nueva California: Latinos from Pioneers to Post-Millennials.  Oakland: University of California Press, 2017.
F 870 .S75 H385 2017

Thumbnail
Ramos, E. Carmen. Our America: The Latino Presence in American Art. Washington, DC: Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2014.
N 6538.H58 S65 2014

Image may contain: 1 person, text
Matiella, Ana Consuelo.  Las Madrinas: Life among My Mothers.  El Rito, NM: Tres Chicas Books, 2016.
PS 3613.A83 Z46 2016

Rhythms of Race
Abreu, Christina D.  Rhythms of Race: Cuban Musicians and the Making of Latino New York City and Miami, 1940-1960.  Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2015.
ML 480 .A27 2015


September 15 to October 15 is National Hispanic Heritage Month
The Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution and United States Holocaust Memorial Museum join in paying tribute to the generations of Hispanic Americans who have positively influenced and enriched our nation and society.

National Hispanic Heritage Month 2018

Monday, September 24, 2018

Open Access Week is Around the Corner

Open Access Week (Oct. 22-28, 2018) is around the corner, and in this post I'd like to focus especially on open educational resources. But first, a few acronyms!

Movements to Free Scholarship and Textbooks 

image of an open access icon that is an unlocked orange lockOpen Access (OA) is a movement working to make scholarship both free to read and easy to share (free from most usage restrictions), which is important given the obscene profits made by big publishers. Ever find an article or book chapter you wanted to read only to be told you'd need to pay $$ to get it? That's called a paywall and it thwarts students, researchers, and even folks just trying to help sick loved ones.
Open Educational Resources (OER) is an important piece in the OA movement that focuses on making educational resources (e.g., textbooks, videos, handouts) both free to read and easy to share. Its value stems from the incredible rise in college textbook costs, the way use restrictions can hinder faculty from adopting the best material for learning, and studies that show the positive impact OER can have on student learning. From a marketing perspective, it's unclear why we as educators would support a legacy system that holds buyers captive at the expense of learning.
  
image of a captive cycle showing how publishers solicit professors to select a text which student then pay publishers to usean image of a more balanced market where buyers (students) push in one direction and sellers (publishers) push in the opposite direction



A Word of Caution

As OER has gained momentum and influenced legislation, textbook publishers have responded by providing their own OER and related materials. While these affordable (and sometimes questionably marketed as inclusive) educational resource packages can reduce the costs of education, these platform-based strategies risk reproducing the same kind of lock-in for students and more recently for institutions.

What You Can Do

Faculty

screenshot of the OER Guide for faculty

Faculty, if you're interested in learning more, check out our OER guide where you'll find the latest news, why support is strong and increasing, and how you can review, adopt, and create OER.

Events
You might also find the following of interest.


Students

There are multiple ways students can get involved in OER. Here are just a few ideas.


Students can also provide valuable contributions to open textbooks... It might seem that only upper-level students would be able to do so well, but that need not necessarily be the case. As Plymouth State University professor Robin DeRosa puts it, “Students are the perfect people to help create textbooks, since they are the most keenly tuned in to what other students will need in order to engage with the material in meaningful ways.” -- from Students' Vital Role in OER

Advocates need partners, and we do make a difference.

College students are spending less by accessing free course materials, often assigned by faculty. They’re borrowing, sharing, and downloading the materials needed for their classes. Notable in the 2017-18 academic year is that nearly 20% of students surveyed reported downloading free course materials from a variety of sources. -- from the National Association of College Stores' Student Watch Attitudes & Behaviors toward Course Materials 2017-18 Report

Wednesday, September 19, 2018

Banned Books Week 2018




September 23 - 29 is Banned Books Week, a time in which we can celebrate our freedom to read! Events planned include a lunch time Read-Out and an exhibit in the Armacost Library.

The American Library Association's Office of Intellectual Freedom keeps track of challenges to books in the United States and has published the top ten banned and challenged books for 2017. Banned Book Week was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in challenges to books in schools, bookstores, and libraries.

While a "challenge" is an attempt to remove or restrict access to material, a "ban" is the actual removal of material. Although the reasons for challenging materials are wide and varied, recent requests to remove books generally refer to violence, offensive language, sexually explicit content, religious viewpoint, or the representation of gender roles and gender identity.

This year's Banned Books Week urges us to consider how banning books silences stories. Join us for Banned Books week at the following events:

Banned Books Read Out
When: Wednesday, September 26, 11:30 a.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Where: Outside the Irvine Commons
Members of the community will read from their favorite banned or challenged book. Stop and listen for a spell, or join in the freedom to read. Banned and challenged books will be available for perusal.

Banned Books Exhibit
When: All week
Where: Library entrance, 2nd floor
The Armacost Library will highlight banned and challenged literature.

Banned Books Week events are sponsored by Armacost Library, Center for Diversity and Inclusion, Johnston Center for Integrative Studies, and Sigma Tau Delta.

Wednesday, August 29, 2018

Welcome, bulldogs!


Welcome back bulldogs! And welcome, our first-year students!

We're excited to have you on campus. As you wander the nooks and crannies of our Library, you might get lost. Here's a map.

While you're here, you might find yourself in need of some research help. Feel free to contact your subject librarian, via email, phone, or instant chat, for library or research-related questions. You can also make a research appointment with your librarian, or drop by during office hours just to say hello!

You might also be interested in our library hours, which are posted for the entire semester online here: library.redlands.edu/hours. Notice that the hours in red are the hours in which the Library building is open, and the hours in blue are when a librarian is around to help you.

If you're a newbie, remember that your student ID card is also your Library card. You can check out up to 25 physical items with it, including books, DVDs, LPs, and music scores. If you've forgotten all the things you've checked out, you can view a list of your items in your Armacost Library account. You can also renew all your stuff in your account.

And, if you're signed up for a class in a subject you've never explored before, don't forget to visit our Research Guides. We have research guides for every subject studied here at Redlands. They feature hand-picked databases in specific subject areas, contact info for subject libraries, search strategies, and call number ranges for areas of the Library that you'll be interested to browse. 

Enjoy, bulldogs!

Lua Gregory
First Year Experience Librarian


Thursday, May 24, 2018

Annual Book Sale!

The Armacost Library annual book sale will be held on Thursday, June 14, from 7:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. You will find us at the Armacost Library's North Patio, Garden Level.

For complete details, please refer to the flyer below:

Wednesday, April 11, 2018

Thank you student workers!

Photo credit: Trisha Aurelio
Armacost Library could not support your teaching and learning without help from our many student workers. Student employees fill many roles in the library: they are the friendly faces welcoming you as you enter, helping you look up an item and checking out your books at the front desk; they reshelve items and free up space for new titles in the stacks; they help to process course reserves, assist with purchasing and getting books shelf-ready, and prepare items to be withdrawn from the collection.

Today we celebrated our hard-working students with a potluck in the staff breakroom (a.k.a. "the bindery"). Students stopped by for a quick bite to eat on their way to study for finals and complete last minute assignments. We appreciate their work and wish them the best with the end of the semester!

Thursday, April 05, 2018

Submitting your honors project to the Library



It's that time of year again when students are polishing up their senior projects. If you're currently working on your Departmental Honors or Proudian Honors project -- or perhaps you're thinking about doing an honors project in the future -- here's what you'll need to do to submit your work to the Armacost Library.

New this year:  We are no longer accepting physical, signed Agreement Forms; everything will be completed online during the submission process. Nice, right?




Wednesday, April 04, 2018

Celebrate National Poetry Month at Armacost Library



From the heart of this dark, evacuated campus
I can hear the library humming in the night
a choir of authors murmuring inside their books
along the unlit, alphabetical shelves,
Giovanni Pontanto next to Pope, Dumas next to his son,
each one stitched into his own private coat,
together forming a low, gigantic chord of reading.

                                                           - Billy Collins

In 1996 the National Poetry Foundation declared April to be National Poetry Month to increase public awareness of poets, support publishers of poetry books and support teachers who assign poems to their students. It has become the world's largest literary celebration, with online and physical events taking place across the country.

Armacost Library's collection includes works of poetry spanning languages, genres and time periods. Search the library to find your favorite poet or get introduced to a new one.

We also carry the latest issues of many literary magazines. A list can be found on the Creative Writing research guide.


During your next visit to Armacost Library, stop by the magnetic board in the lobby by the library entrance to try your hand at writing a poem!

Or, if you're ready for something more challenging, try one of the daily prompts at Poets and Writers magazine.



Work Cited:

"Books." Collins, Billy. Sailing Alone Around the Room: New and Selected Poems. New York: Random House, 2001.

Sanjeet Mann
Arts & Systems Librarian
Armacost Library, University of Redlands

Friday, March 30, 2018

ALURA Reception: 4/4 at 4


Please join us to honor Quinn Navarro, the 2018 recipient of the ALURA Awards in both the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences (AHSS) category, and the STEM category. The AHSS Selection Committee and the the STEM Selection Committee independently concluded that the submissions received from Navarro earned him the distinction of being an ALURA recipient.

Navarro's AHSS reflection essay documented how he dialogued with faculty mentors, and overcame challenges with moments of insight. His research, "Healing Without Gloves: Can Religion Influence the Interaction Between the Patient and Healthcare Provider?" illustrated the range of methods used in investigations including a "narrative vignette, mapping, a literature review" and personal experiences.

Navarro's reflections to STEM prompts communicated his decision-making processes, strategies  learned, and overall growth as a researcher. For his research, "Recently Discovered Benzo(a)Pyrene Induced Health Effects and Their Threat to the Inland Empire," Navarro demonstrated exceptional initiative in the development of his topic, recruitment of faculty resources, and overall resolve to forge a path unique from his peers.

Please join us on April 4, 2018 at 4pm in the Library Conference Room to celebrate Quinn Navarro and honor his achievements.


The ALURA Selection Committee, AHSS Category
  • Bridgette Callahan, Coordinator of Writing, College of Arts & Sciences
  • Janelle Julagay, Armacost Library
  • Sanjeet Mann, Armacost Library (chair)
  • Tim Seiber, Johnston
  • Renee Van Vechten, Political Science


The ALURA Selection Committee, STEM Category
  • Ben Aronson, Biology
  • Les Canterbury, Library
  • Eric Hill, Physics
  • Hilary Jenkins, Environmental Studies
  • Paige Mann, Library (Chair)

To see the list of current and past recipients, visit the ALURA site in InSPIRe.

Tuesday, March 13, 2018

Sunshine Week & Freedom of Information Day

"Fun with FOIA" @ https://vimeo.com/133790152

Sunshine Week is a national initiative driven by the American Society of News Editors (ASNE), that seeks to educate on the importance of open government and the dangers of government secrecy. National Freedom of Information Day falls during Sunshine Week, on or near March 16th of each year, and highlights the benefits of government transparency. In 1965 the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) was enacted to provide the public/the people with the right to request access to records from any federal agency. The FOIA also requires that federal agencies proactively post publicly (online) certain categories of information.

Books on the Freedom of Information Act @ Armacost Library:

          

Organizations interested in government transparency: 

Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
Non-profit organization defending civil liberties in the digital world. Founded in 1990, EFF champions user privacy, free expression, and innovation through impact litigation, policy analysis, grassroots activism, and technology development.

Open the Government
Coalition of government groups, environmentalists, journalists, library and consumer groups, labor, and others united to make the federal government a more open place in order to ensure integrity and accountability in the operation of our governing institutions, foster confidence in representative government, and support our democratic principles.

Public Citizen
Non-profit, non-partisan organization that seeks to ensure that all citizens are represented in the halls of power. They have challenged the abusive practices of the pharmaceutical, nuclear and automobile industries, and are leading the charge against undemocratic trade agreements that advance the interests of mega-corporations at the expense of citizens worldwide.

Sunlight Foundation
National, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that uses civic technologies, open data, policy analysis and journalism to make our government and politics more accountable and transparent to all.

FOIA'd data and information:

Archive Team
Collective of rogue archivists, programmers, writers and loudmouths dedicated to saving our digital heritage.

Muck Rock
Non-profit, collaborative news site that brings together journalists, researchers, activists, and regular citizens to request, analyze, and share government documents, making politics more transparent and democracies more informed.

National Security Archive
Investigative journalism center, research institute on international affairs, library and archive of declassified U.S. documents.

Happy Sunshine Week! 🙃

Thursday, February 08, 2018

Armacost Library Undergraduate Research Award


Undergrads: Did you write a great research paper, present an excellent research poster, create a well-research performance last semester? Did you use library resources? If so, you can submit it for the chance to win a $500 award! 
Faculty: Know an undergrad who completed (or, nearly completed) a well-researched project? Let them know about the award!

Submissions are due Friday, March 16th.

Find out more @ library.redlands.edu/alura

Sunday, January 07, 2018

Welcome, back, to Armacost Library!

“Added ‘Back’ to ‘Welcome’" by Bob Duran under a CC BY 2.0 license

Welcome to the new year, and welcome back to the academic year!

The new year provides an opportunity for undergraduate students to have their scholarship recognized for its creativity and excellence. Consider submitting your researched projects for the Armacost Library Undergraduate Research Award (ALURA): library.redlands.edu/alura. Submissions are due Friday, March 16, 2018. Review the guidelines, talk to a librarian, talk with your professor(s). 

As always, our hours are posted for the entire semester online: library.redlands.edu/hours. Notice that the hours in red are the hours in which the Library is open, and the hours in blue are when a librarian is around to help you.

Feel free to contact your subject librarian, via email, phone, or instant chat, for library or research-related questions. You can also make a research appointment with your librarian, or drop by during office hours just to say hello!

And here's my "welcome, back" ear worm from the 1970s, the television theme song for Welcome, Back Kotter.