Congratuations to our Graduating Library Student Assistants!

The Columbia College Chicago Library staff wish the very best to our 2014 graduating student assistants!  We appreciate them and the outstanding work they have done for us. Congratulations to all of you, and best wishes on your future endeavors!


Access Services
Jordan Berry, Journalism
Walt Schaffield, Art & Design
Sarah Stanley, Fiction Writing
Felix Ofosu-Yeboah, Cinema Art and Science

Community Engagement and Special Initiatives
Alida Banh, Arts, Entertainment and Media Management 

Reference/Interlibrary Loan
Amy Barger, Photography

March 4 - National Grammar Day

Today is National Grammar Day!

Grammar can be tricky and many people make mistakes in their writing. Here are a couple of resources to help you remember when to use their, they're and there, or the one that always trips me up, affect or effect.  

10 Words You Need to Stop Misspelling from The Oatmeal: 

Fix Your Grammar from Glove & Boots:

And finally Grammar Girl weighs in on the Top Ten Grammar Myths: 

Impress your professors or at least stop making them literally crazy!

How to Pronounce Fashion Designer Names

Stumped about how to pronounce Prabal Gurung or Thankoon? Unsure about how to say Elie Saab or Marchesa?  Is the last n silent in Lanvin and Balmain (hint, yes it is!)?

With awards season underway and fashion weeks happening all over the world, make sure you sound like a pro when you mention Lupita Nyong'o on the red carpet in Dior Couture or Rihanna's latest Vogue cover in Louis Vuitton.

Here are some tools to help you out:

Pop Sugar has a handy video that runs down the names of current designers in alphabetical order - and it includes the phonetic spelling!
 

If that was too fast, try these sites from Harper's Bazaar ...

Just a few examples from Harper's Bazaar

...and Valet 

Samples from Valet

The Chic Spy is my personal favorite - it includes audio clips so you can hear someone say the name (correctly).

(Just a screen shot - go to the site to play the audio files, or click the embedded link below)

And for those of you who need pronunciation on-the-go, download the Speak Chic app to your mobile device.

5 Tips for Starting the Semester Off Right

1. Don't skip the first day of class. You'll find out more information about the class and most importantly get an idea of what the professor expects of you.
2. Stay organized! Make your planner your best friend this semester and don't miss an assignment! Planners are available at the Columbia bookstore or online. (http://www.bkstr.com/Home/10001-10369-1?demoKey=d)
3. Ask questions. You'll be glad you got everything cleared up before classes start to get more intense. Visit your professor during office hours. They'll be happy to help!
4. Be optimistic! Embrace the fresh new start and look forward to it. You can become an even better student this semester! 
5. Visit the Library. It's a versatile place where you can print your homework, borrow your textbooks, get help with your research, and so much more! 

(Thanks to Jenna Stolz for helping compile this list!)

It's the last stretch of finals, but we still have free coffee for you!

It's almost over, but there's still studying to be done, projects to be completed, grades to be submitted and finals to be taken. 

Let us help you get through next couple of days.  Need a little pick me up? Stop by the Library for a free cup of coffee during finals week to help get you through!  Prefer tea or cocoa?  That's available too!

The last two days are Wednesday Dec. 11 and Thursday Dec. 12 from 6:00-9:00pm at the Coffee Cart (first floor of the Library), courtesy of your friends at the Library!

Good luck on finals!

Join the Library at Holipalooza 2013!

 

Join us at the Holipalooza 2013 celebration on Thursday, Dec. 12th from 5-8pm at the Conaway Center, 1104 S. Wabash, 1st floor. 

 

An annual Columbia College Chicago student tradition, Holipalooza celebrates the creative spirit of our campus. There will be raffles, holiday-themed food, games and vendor booths from local organizations. Come by and see us at the Library table, have some apple cider and get your picture taken!

 

Holipalooza is also a student-to-student fundraising initiative for ColumbiaCares, an emergency fund for students in crisis.  For more information about both programs, the Columbia Chronicle did a recent article about ColumbiaCares which can be found here.

The Giving Tree: Give a Gift to a Chicago Child in Need

The Columbia College Chicago Library and The Center for Community Arts Partnerships (CCAP)  are again providing the Columbia community an opportunity to give a gift to a child in need from one of Columbia's partner Chicago public elementary schools through The Giving Tree.  This year, 40 students from Mahalia Jackson Elementary School will be participating.

The Giving Tree will be located across from the Circulation desk in the Library. It will contain ornaments representing each child and the gift that they would like for the holiday season. Students, faculty and staff can select a child's gift by pulling the corresponding ornament off the tree, check out their ornament at the Library Circulation desk, and then purchase the gift noted on the ornament.

Please wrap the selected gift and bring it to the Library Circulation Desk by 8pm on December 11th, 2013.

Gifts will be delivered to students at Mahalia Jackson Elementary on Friday, December 13th, 2013. All are welcome to participate or attend!  Send questions to givingtree@ccap.colum.edu.

Create Happy Memories…One Gift at a Time

 

An Evening with David Plowden: Tuesday, November 19, 2013

The Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago and the Columbia College Chicago Library present An Evening with David Plowden: Closing Reception for Heartland: The Plains and the Prairie exhibit on Tuesday, November 19th from 5:30-7:30pm in the 3rd Floor North Reading Room of the Library.  The Library is located at 624 S. Michigan Ave., Chicago IL.

David Plowden’s work spans over fifty years. He has authored more than twenty photography books, including The American Barn, Vanishing Point: Fifty Years of Photography and Requiem for Steam. Plowden’s photographs can be found in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Beinecke Library at Yale University, the Center for Creative Photography, the Library of Congress, and the Smithsonian Institution.

The reception begins at 5:30pm, followed by a talk by David Plowden at 6:00pm. He will be signing copies of his latest work, Heartland: The Plains and the Prairie at 7:00pm. Copies will be available for sale at the event.

Heartland: The Plains and the Prairie Exhibit - Photographs by David Plowden

Photograph by David Plowden

The Museum of Contemporary Photography and the Columbia College Chicago Library are pleased to display prints by photographer David Plowden.  The photographs on exhibit are from Plowden's latest book,  Heartland: The Plains and the Prairie, and will be available for viewing from November 11-November 19th 2013 in the 3rd Floor North Reading Room during Library hours.  The Library is located at 624 S. Michigan Ave., Chicago, IL.

David Plowden’s work spans over fifty years. He has authored more than twenty photography books, including The American Barn, Vanishing Point: Fifty Years of Photography and Requiem for Steam. Plowden’s photographs can be found in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Beinecke Library at Yale University, the Center for Creative Photography, the Library of Congress, and the Smithsonian Institution.

A closing reception for the exhibit, featuring a talk by David Plowden will be held on Tuesday, November 19th from 5:30-7:00pm in the same location.

Alumni on 5: Fall Exhibition & Opening Reception

Join us for the Alumni on 5 Fall Exhibition & Opening Reception this Friday, October 18, 2013 from 5pm-7pm on the fifth floor. Meet some of the alumni artists, view their work, and mingle over food and drinks. This exhibition's theme is the Start of Something and is curated Nick Albertson (MFA '13).

Celebrate Constitution Day: Tuesday September 17th, 2013

Constitution Day is quickly approaching, but what exactly is it?  Constitution Day is a day commemorating the signing of the United States Constitution which occurred  on September 17, 1787.  Since 2004, Constitution Day has been recognized each September 17th as a national day of observance, one for American citizens to learn about the importance of the Constitution and know their rights.   Find out more about Constitution Day here:

Each year Columbia College Chicago observes Constitution Day, and this year we have exciting activities planned for the College community.  First, the Library will host voter sign-ups at two campus locations. Voter sign up forms, information and goodies will be available at each station, including FREE copies of the US Constitution in both English and Spanish.

Voter sign-up
Tuesday, September 17,  10am - 2pm
624 S. Michigan, Library, 1st Floor  AND 623 S. Wabash, Lobby

In October, we will continue our recognition of Constitution Day by screening the award-winning 2013 documentary, Gideon's Army, directed by Dawn Porter.   The documentary follows three young public defenders in the South, where sentencing is exceptionally steep and the prison population swollen. The film takes its name from Gideon v. Wainwright, the landmark 1963 Supreme Court decision that guarantees the right of legal representation to all criminal defendants.     

Gideon’s Army screening and panel discussion
Thursday, October 24, 6pm
Film Row Cinema, 1104 South Wabash, 8th floor
This program is FREE and open to the public.

Classroom Upgrades Coming Soon!

The library classroom is receiving a fancy upgrade.  Most of the changes will be in place by early September so keep an eye out for more posts on the progress.

First, the obligatory BEFORE pictures.  In case you haven't visited recently, here's what it looked like until last week:

The view from the back of the room

The view from the front of the room. 

The first order of business is to remove the power poles, paint and re-carpet the room.

Power poles. Yuck!

This week the laptops were removed...

No more laptops

And the furniture was re-located.

So much space!

Now, the power poles get removed...

And then new carpet and paint!

This is a work in progress - but there's no turning back now!

I don't think we'll miss all those cords!

We'll be posting updates along the way - so keep checking back!

New Ask A Librarian

If you click the Ask A Librarian button 

you'll now go to a new resource.  

It's super easy - all you have to do is start typing your question in the search box...

...and if we've already answered it, a link will appear as you type.  

If we haven't answered your question before...

...not to worry, you can enter your question in the form provided.   

And someone will get back you ASAP.  

Easy as can be! 

New Way to Renew Books and Check Fines...

New Way to Renew Books and Check Fines... 

The MyAccount button takes you to a new login page: 

The first time you use this you will be required to create an account. 

CREATE A NEW ACCOUNT

1. Start here (or once in I-Share, go to LOGIN & Create New Account):
   
   
2. Create a new username & password -- anything you want! (We recommend using your email Columbia username and password)
   
   
3. Enter your Borrower ID*:
   
   
   
   *Borrower ID is the 14-digit number on the back of your Columbia ID.

Bike to Work Week, June 8-14, 2013

In honor of Bike To Work Week we've put together some resources on cycling:

Photo courtesy of U.S. National Archives on Flickr Commons

Biking Around Chicago:

• City of Chicago Bike Maps
• Chicago Online Bike Map & Trip Planner
• Protected & Buffered Bike Lanes - Active Transportation Alliance and CDOT
• Maps and Route Tools - Chainlink: A Chicago Bicycling Online Community

Photo courtesy of State Library Queensland on Flickr Commons

Bike to Work Week

• Bike Commuter Challenge
• City of Chicago Bike Week Events & Partnerships
• Bike to Work & Bikes on Transit - Active Transportation Alliance
• Bike to Work Week Events - Higher Gear Chicago

Photo courtesy of  Nationaal Archief on Flickr Commons

A round-up of Library resources on bicycling from our collection on Pinterest:

Take a class with Lynda this summer!

 

Looking for something to do this Summer?

Why not brush up on some of your computer skills by taking a class or two with Lynda at Lynda.com?   

Lynda.Com offers over 900 online training courses that cover topics such as photography, business software, web development, graphic design, editing video, sound and much more!  All these videos are available to Columbia College students, staff and faculty free of charge.

Some of the new courses offered at Lynda.com include:

Outlook Web App (OWA) 2010 Essential Training

Learn how to access your Microsoft Exchange account online using Outlook Web App (OWA). In this course, author Gini Courter takes you on a tour of OWA, and shows how to send, receive, and manage your email on the web. Learn the ins and outs of tagging and organizing your email and discover how to create appointments, request meetings, and view multiple calendars. Plus, find out how to add, group, and search for contacts and use the task feature to manage your to-do list effectively.  Duration 3h 27m

InDesign Secrets

In this series, David Blatner and Anne-Marie Concepción, co-hosts of the web's top resource for InDesign tips and tricks, InDesignSecrets.com, share some hidden and sometimes surprising workflow tips that will make working in InDesign more efficient and more fun. The course covers built-in timesaving features such as Quick Apply and auto-expanding text, but also little-known tricks, such as using the eyedropper to copy and paste character and paragraph text attributes and making accurate selections by selecting through or even into objects.  Duration 8h 37m

Enhancing a Travel Photo with Photoshop and Lightroom

Learn how to develop a travel photo into a wonderful memory of your trip in this short start-to-finish project from author Jan Kabili. Jan shows you how to combine the power of Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom to achieve the best possible results from your corrections. The course covers adjusting tone and color, correcting hue/saturation and lightness, precisely targeting adjustments with masks, and removing distracting objects with the Content-Aware toolset in Photoshop.  Duration: 54m 

Use your Columbia Login to view all of the courses available at:  Lynda.com

Congratulations to our graduating Library Student Assistants!

The Columbia College Chicago Library staff wish the very best to our graduating student assistants.  We appreciate them and the work they have done for us in the Library.

Congratulations to the Class of 2013!

Access Services

Ade Adewole - Film & Video

Antonio Hernandez - Film & Video

Caroline Browne – Cultural Studies

Jerrica Martin - Television

Lynette Velazquez – Art & Design

Sean Struble – Film & Video

College Archives

Jay Seawell - MA Photography

Nick Albertson - MA Photography

Library Administration/Access Services

Joy Thornton – Music

Library Marketing, Outreach and Special Initiatives

Samantha Funt – MA Arts & Entertainment Management

Julius Baldridge – Film & Video

Reference & Instruction

Rachel Doe - Film & Video

Technical Services

Ahmad Daniels – Game Design

Ram Catapang – Film & Video

Free Coffee During Finals Week--This Monday thru Thursday Evenings!

Studying late for finals? Need a little pick me up? Stop by the Library for a free cup of coffee during finals week to help get you through!

When and where, you ask?

Monday May 13th - Thursday May 16th, 2013 from 6:00-9:00pm at the Coffee Cart (first floor of the Library), courtesy of your friends at the Library!

Good luck on finals!

Julia Alvarez: Keynote Speaker for The Big Read, Friday May 10, 2013

Photo credit: Bill Eichner

Julia Alvarez, author of In the Time of the Butterflies, and other books such as How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent and Return to Sender joins us via videoconferencing as the keynote speaker for The Big Read.  The program will be held on Friday, May 10, 2013 at Columbia College Chicago's Ferguson Lecture Hall, 600 S. Michigan Ave., 1st Floor from 6:00-7:30pm.  A reception follows the program.
 
Ms. Alvarez is a novelist, prize-winning poet, children's author, essayist and currently a writer in residence at Middlebury College in Vermont. Her latest work, A Wedding in Haiti was published by Algonquin Books in 2012. The program will be moderated by Jesus Macarena-Avila, faculty member in the Humanities, History and Social Sciences Department at Columbia College Chicago.

Also on the program will be Grupo Marivilla, a Chicago area senior citizen Latina/o folk dance group who will be performing dances of the Domincan Republic in native dress. They are based at Centro Maravilla, part of Alivio Medical Center in the Pilsen neighborhood.  Members of the dance troupe are between the ages of 65-93.

The Big Read is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest.  This program is also made in part by a grant from the Illinois Humanities Council, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Illinois General Assembly.

The Big Read Screening TONIGHT: Tropico de Sangre

The Big Read Screenings conclude with Tropico de Sangre, starring Michelle Rodriguez in the role of Minerva Mirabal.  The film, directed by Juan Delancer, focuses on Minerva Mirabal and tells the true story of how she and her sisters came to represent the greatest threat to dictator Rafael Trujillo and his regime.

She, along with her sisters, Patria and Maria Teresa would eventually be murdered by Trujillo on November 25, 1960 for their underground work toward overthrowing his dictatorship.





The film came under fire in 2008 by Carlos Leiter, president of the Minerva Mirabal  Foundation for using Rodriguez due to her past legal troubles and illegal use of the Mirabal name.  Find out what happened here.

Trópico de Sangre
Wednesday, May 8 from 6:30-8:30pm 
Columbia College Chicago Film Row Cinema
1104 S. Wabash, 8th Floor, Chicago IL