Critical Encounters Salon Series: Banker to the Poor by Mohammad Yunus (Discussion about micro-lending and poverty in Bangladesh)
Thursday, Nov 29
12:30pm-1:50pm
Columbia College Library, 3rd floor
Light refreshments will be served
Don't miss this poetry event here in the Library tomorrow afternoon!
A Walk-In Book of C.D. Wright
Celebrating the influence of the MacArthur-winning American poet C.D. Wright on our work
Thursday, November 29, 2007
12:30-1:30 PM
Blum Room, 5th floor
Columbia College Library, 624 S. Michigan Ave
A live, 3D reading experience
Change the way you read a book!
Poetry * Video * Audio * Installation * Projection
Hosted by the Columbia College Experiment in Influence MFA poetry craft seminar: Flynn Dorholt, Arielle Greenberg, Ted Jackle, Thomas Mowe, Meg Reilly
For more information, email Arielle Greenberg at agreenberg@colum.edu
Please note that the Library will be closing at 7:00pm on Wednesday, November 21st. The Library will remain closed over the Thanksgiving Holiday weekend and return to Regular Hours on Monday, November 26th.
From yesterday's New York Times: Harry Potter, James Patterson and Oprah Winfrey’s book club aside, Americans — particularly young Americans — appear to be reading less for fun, and as that happens, their reading test scores are declining. At the same time, performance in other academic disciplines like math and science is dipping for students whose access to books is limited, and employers are rating workers deficient in basic writing skills.
That is the message of a new report being released today by the National Endowment for the Arts, based on an analysis of data from about two dozen studies from the federal Education and Labor Departments and the Census Bureau as well as other academic, foundation and business surveys. After its 2004 report, “Reading at Risk,” which found that fewer than half of Americans over 18 read novels, short stories, plays or poetry, the endowment sought to collect more comprehensive data to build a picture of the role of all reading, including nonfiction.
Read the whole NYT article HERE
Link to the NEA "To Read or Not To Read: A Question of National Consequence" report (.pdf file) HERE
Want to read more for fun but don't want to spend money on that new best-seller or that giant biography of your favorite band? Remember that the Library has more than research books, computers and videos! Use your Columbia College Chicago ID to check out (or request for delivery) books from over 70 libraries across Illinois. If we don't have the book you're looking for, we can get it for you.
Questions? Need help? Just click 
Library Circulation Assistant Dieter Kirkwood has been recognized by Chicago Magazine as one of the area's top emerging fashion designers. His line, DieterBennet, is produced with fellow Columbia College fashion grad Bennett Cousins. Check out the article HERE.
You may remember that Dieter was named "One to watch" in Chicago fashion by the Gen Art Fresh Faces in Fashion show back in October.
Congratulations, Dieter!
A belated welcome to two new staff members:
Amy Wainwright is the Library's new Circulation Assistant. She has been a student worker here at the Library for the past few years.
Jodie Stauffer is the Library's new Cataloging Assistant.
Both officially began their new positions last month. Welcome, Amy and Jodie!
Yet more news related to our talented Library staff. Cole is the Library's Visual Resources Coordinator and the opening of his exhibit corresponds with World AIDS Day.
Center on Halsted Hosts Cole Robertson's "After, image: A memorial for those lost to HIV/AIDS"
CHICAGO November 2, 2007 On Saturday, December 1, 2007, Center on Halsted, 3656 N. Halsted St., will host a visual arts installation, "After,
image: a memorial for those lost to HIV/AIDS", by Cole Robertson. This collection of photographs is meant to serve as a memorial, in the most traditional sense, an aesthetically beautiful gesture commemorating the past.
The images, donated by the family members of those lost to HIV/AIDS, are re-workings of photographs of those lost to AIDS. They are then digitally manipulated and printed on fine vellum. They hang as a testament, as a loving tribute, and as a call to action.
Cole Robertson, an MFA-photography graduate of Columbia College, has exhibited work internationally and nationally and chose Center on Halsted specifically to host the installation. "As I work on this, I feel some empty places in my life...spots that should be occupied by people...people who are gone.
The event begins with a reception at 4:00pm and is followed by a talk back with the artist and others who contributed images to the exhibit. A donation of $10 is requested.
This project is supported by a Community Arts Assistance Program grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Illinois Arts Council, a state agency.
For more information or to RSVP contact Culture@CenteronHalsted.org 773-472-6469, ext. 245 or visit www.centeronhalsted.org.
Contact: Lori King, Center on Halsted, 773/472-6469, ext. 290 lking@centeronhalsted.org
Jacob Saenz, the Library's Acquisitions Assistant, has a new poem, "Sweeping the States," in this month's issue of Poetry magazine. He's also the featured poet on PoetryFoundation.org's blog Harriet today.
Jacob is a recent Columbia College Chicago Poetry major graduate (B.A. '06), and was interviewed about this impressive accomplishment on the department's blog: http://columbiacollegepoetryba.blogspot.com/2007/11/jacob-saenz-sweeps-slush-pile.html
Congratulations, Jacob!
We hope you can join us at the next Art of the Library Opening and Reception. While you’re there, take a moment to welcome Jan Chindlund, our new Library Director!
Refreshments will be served (Mmmm...free food!)
Thursday, 11/15/07, 5-7pm
Columbia College Chicago Library, Third Floor
624 S. Michigan Avenue
Art of the Library is an ongoing series (four times a year) of exhibitions featuring the art of Columbia College Chicago students, faculty and staff.
Mark your calendars now for this upcoming Critical Encounters event. Find out more about Critical Encounters and other events on the Critical Encounters web site.
Critical Encounters Salon:
Banker to the Poor: Micro-lending and the battle against world poverty by Muhammad Yunus
Thurs. Nov 29
12:30-1:50pm Library, 3rd floor, 624 S. Michigan
Banker to the Poor is Muhammad Yunus's memoir of how he decided to change his life in order to help the world's poor. In it he traces the intellectual and spiritual journey that led him to fundamentally rethink the economic relationship between rich and poor, and the challenges he and his colleagues faced in founding Grameen. He also provides wise, hopeful guidance for anyone who would like to join him in "putting homelessness and destitution in a museum so that one day our children will visit it and ask how we could have allowed such a terrible thing to go on for so long." The definitive history of micro-credit direct from the man that conceived of it, Banker to the Poor is necessary and inspirational reading for anyone interested in economics, public policy, philanthropy, social history, and business. … In 1983, against the advice of banking and government officials, Yunus established Grameen, a bank devoted to providing the poorest of Bangladesh with minuscule loans. Grameen Bank, based on the belief that credit is a basic human right, not the privilege of a fortunate few, now provides over 2.5 billion dollars of micro-loans to more than two million families in rural Bangladesh.
Facilitators: Rob Watkins and Douglas Mann, President, Global Business Assist the Participants include: Students of “Politics of Poverty in Developing Countries” (Social Science class)
Check out some of these new books! Here's a list of our most recent acquisitions.
The box : how the shipping container made the world smaller
and the world economy bigger
Buy, buy baby : how consumer culture manipulates
parents and harms young minds
Canyonlands : wonders of nature on the Colorado Plateau
And then, you act : making art in an unpredictable world.
Think you can't carry an entire library of classic novels, cookbooks, magazines, horror stories and pulp fiction around with you? Think again! Impress your friends and family with your feats of strength (or at least your technical prowess and reading taste) by downloading ebooks to your PDA, iPod or eReader (or even your cell phone) using manybooks.net. Manybooks.net offers over 18,655 eBooks and they're all free!
You can find a link to Manybooks.net on the Library's eBook page. Just click on Find Books and then choose the eBooks tab.
Check out this article from the New York Times which mentions manybooks.net and discusses the digital book industry. Manybooks.net is maintained by Columbia College's Webmaster, Matt McClintock. Way to go, Matt! We heart manyBooks.net!
