A Little Library Humor

It's National Library Week! And if there is one thing librarians don't shy away from it's poking fun at ourselves. So take a minute to celebrate with us by checking out some library humor...

What I Really Do
(http://mashable.com/2012/02/15/what-i-really-do-meme/)

The Lives and Deaths of Academic Library Staplers

(http://deadstaplers.tumblr.com/)

Librarian Shaming

(http://bit.ly/1p42wUM)

Hey girl. I like the library too. 

(http://librarianheygirl.tumblr.com/)

And, finally...

I like big books and I cannot lie.

Celebrate National Library Week!

This week is National Library Week, an annual celebration of libraries and library staff across the nation.  First sponsored in 1958, National Library Week is a national observance sponsored by the American Library Association (ALA) and libraries across the country each April. It is a time to support, promote and recognize the contributions and impact that libraries have on the communities they serve.  Libraries provide key resources as budgets are reduced, speaking out forcefully against book-banning attempts and advocating for free access to digital content in libraries.

Celebrate National Library Week with us!  Here's how....

Lives change @ your library is the theme for National Library Week 2014.  Do you have a story about how the library has impacted your life? Share what your library means to you and you could win a Kindle Fire.

1. Tweet about how a library has changed or made an impact upon your life using the hashtag #LivesChange and #NLW14. Need more thatn 140 characters?   Add your story to the @ your library story collection.

2. Snap a library selfie that tells your library story with this bubble prop. Send a copy of your photo to khale@colum.edu, and we will post to our Facebook page!

 

To be entered in the grand-prize drawing your text or photo library story must be posted to Twitter, Facebook or Flickr using the hashtags #LivesChange and #NLW14 or added to the @ your library story collection between 9:00 a.m. CDT Monday, April 14 and and noon CDT on Friday, April 18, 2014.

Celebrate National Poetry Month

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.  - T. S. Eliot, "The Waste Land"

April is National Poetry Month.  We've compiled some resources to inspire you to celebrate.

• Visit our Pinterest Board featuring just a fraction of the poetry books and anthologies we own in the Library.

Follow CCC Library's board Poetry on Pinterest.

• In addition to books of poetry, we also have a plethora of resources for writing poetry. Take a look...

Follow CCC Library's board Writing Poetry on Pinterest.

• Poets.org is a treasure trove of information including full poems, biographies and selected bibliographies for poets, audio and videos, information on writing and reading poetry, and resources for educators. The site also includes 30 ways to celebrate National Poetry Month:

A sampling of ideas from Poets.org

• Poetry Out Loud  - sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation - is a contest that encourages youth to learn about great poetry through memorization and recitation.  Students master public speaking skills, building self-confidence, and learn about their literary heritage.  Piloted in Washington, DC and Chicago in 2006, the program has grown to involve millions of students across the country.

• The Poetry Foundation - browse poems and poets, listen to audio and podcasts, download the poetry app, and learn about all aspects of poetry on their website.  
  

• Favorite Poem Project - Founded by Robert Pinsky, 39th Poet Laureate of the United States in 1997, the Favorite Poem Project invited Americans to submit their favorite poems.  An anthology, suggestions for hosting local events and videos of individual Americans reading and speaking personally about poems they love are included on the site.

• Poetry of America - Library of Congress - The “Poetry of America” initiative is part of the Poetry and Literature Center’s 75th Anniversary celebration. Through two features, “Poetry of American Identity” and “Poetry of American History,” this initiative explores how poetry connects to the following themes: immigration and migration, work and industry, social change, and peace and war. 

  

  From the Library of Congress - Poetry of America resource

No matter your interests, you can find a poem on it. Try browsing Poets.org or the Poetry Foundation for any number of poems on apples to zebras and everything in between. Including basketball...

I seemed to watch myself go up      effortlessly for the basket,      and saw the ball drop through the net.
- Ray Fleming "One on One in Basketball"

Art in the Library Opening and Reception, Tonight

Thursday, April 3, 2014, 5:00-8:00 pm
Columbia College Chicago Library
624 S. Michigan Ave.
3rd Floor North

"Trophy Case", photograph by Maria Murczek, student

Join us for the Art in the Library Opening and Reception, Spring 2014 Exhibition - Thursday, April 3, 2014 from 5:30 - 8:30 p.m., 3rd Floor North.

Presenting the work of Columbia College Chicago students, faculty, staff and alumni, the Art in the Library program exhibits works in all forms of visual arts, including sculpture, painting, drawings, and paper and book arts. Exhibitions by different artists are shown quarterly on a rotating basis.

Untitled mixed media print by Walter Schaffeld, student

For a preview of the show visit the Art in the Library website and view work from some of the artists featured in the show.

The Art in the Library Committee welcomes all Columbia College Chicago artists to submit work for consideration.

Please visit the Art in the Library website for more information including submission guidelines, artwork forms, and examples of current and former exhibits.

Light refreshments will be served.

March is Women's History Month

Take a look at some of the Library's great resources  about, by, and for amazing women:

Follow CCC Library's board Women's History on Pinterest.

This Flickr set from the Library of Congress has some amazing photographs - including these gems...

Operating a hand drill at Vultee-Nashville, woman is working on a "Vengeance" dive bomber, Tennessee, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

Penn[sylvania] on the picket line-- 1917, Library of Congress, Manuscripts Division

Also take a look at History Pin, which includes several collections from National Archives: Women's Suffrage, Famous Women, Women in the Military, and Women at Work:

Women Electric Welders at Hog Island Shipyard City Hall Station, 1918, Philadelphia, PA, National Archives

And I stumbled across this comic book treasure: Wonder Woman ran a back-up series called Wonder Women of History featuring real-life female superheroes like Sojourner Truth, Emma Willard, and Marie Curie.

Sojourner Truth - Famous African-American women's rights activist and abolitionist - Wonder Women of History

So celebrate Women's History and take it from Ruth Bader Ginsburg:

Our New Library Advisory Board!

We are excited to announce the formation of our Library Advisory Board with student representatives from the Student Government Association. It promises to be a fruitful partnership; the Library learning more about Columbia students and their academic needs and students sharing their ideas and opinions regarding library services.

Hanging out in the new classroom. 

Our inaugural meeting was held on Friday, March 14th with five students representing several academic departments. Highlights included a pizza lunch and a tour of the library.

Testing out the whiteboard wall.

We look forward to future meetings (2-3 per semester) which will include activities like website usability testing, discussions about how to better reach students with library marketing, and much more!

Papermaking Workshop with The People’s Library

In collaboration with the Center for Book and Paper Arts, The People’s Library will lead a DIY paper making workshop on the 3^rd Floor of the Library tomorrow between 10am to 1pm. Drop-in at any time to participate! 

The People's Library re-purposes discarded books otherwise headed for a landfill by making new paper from their pulp. The Columbia College community is invited to participate in making paper and binding the paper into blank books. After the workshop concludes, students can contribute their own content to the blank books until April 15th. 

So join us for the open workshop Friday, March 14^th from 10am until 1pm or stop by the Library between March 18^th and April 15^th to contribute content to the blank books.

Additionally, visit The People’s Library at Chicago Zine Fest this Saturday, March 15^th. 

Need Help with Research? Just Ask.

Image by karendalziel http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Do you need to find a good monologue for an audition, research a company, brand, or industry, find a short story, identify scholarly research, track down statistics?

Columbia Library's reference librarians can help with all that and more. Reference librarians are expert researchers, and we would love to help you! There are lots of ways to reach us:

• Ask A Librarian Chat 
• At the 2nd floor Ask Desk in the Library
• By phone (312) 369-7153
• Text us at (312) 257-3906
• Tweet us @LibraryTweet 
• Schedule a Research Consultation 
• Ask Us FAQ and Email

When We're Here:

M-Th: 8 am - 8 pm
F: 8 am - 6 pm
Sa: 9 am - 5 pm

Don't be shy! Ask us today!

Spring Fever? Now there's a problem we could get behind!

Winter blues are no fun. But what about spring fever?

We went looking for an excuse to day dream about the end of winter and found some facts about a malady some of us are looking forward to.  Spring fever can have a real impact on your day-to-day life.  Forget about snow and sub-zero temps for a minute, and prepare for the glorious problem that sometimes comes with longer, warmer days.

From the Huffington Post Healthy Living section:
Spring Fever: Why You Feel Different With the Change in Season
 

Even Elvis understood the problem!  But it looks like he knew how to deal with it.

Does anyone really know what time it is?

Groove this tune and read on:

This Saturday at 2am marks the beginning of Daylight Saving Time (DST) for 2014. And with it comes the dreaded mantra, “spring forward”! For days after the start of DST, every clock you meet will have a different time. You will be constantly in wonderment as to whether the clock before you has been changed. You find yourself checking and re-checking the time, for every clock seems to say something different. And it doesn’t help that some ARE woefully wrong. 

It was not always this way. According to the Crystal Reference Encyclopedia, DST is “a means of making fuller use of the hours of daylight over the summer months, usually by putting clocks forward one hour so that daylight continues longer into the evening. This idea was first proposed by Benjamin Franklin, and later by William Willett, an English builder. Adopted during World War 1 by Germany in 1917, it was retained after the war by the UK, where it is known as (British) Summer Time. In the USA it was enacted in a federal regulation of 1966, but states were given the choice of whether to ignore it (and some have done so). Many countries now have some form of daylight saving time. 

Nor did it always go smoothly. In its May 12, 1967 issue, Time Magazine reported that “forty-five states are now keeping D.S.T.; still out of step are Alaska, Hawaii, Indiana, Kentucky and Michigan. The ultimate in confusion is Kentucky; there local option prevails, and the state must therefore cope simultaneously with four different times! (Exclamation is mine!)

(Pssst! Need a fascinating topic for a paper or speech? Read up on DST in Seize the Daylight by David Prerau.)

OK! Back to the real world! And this affects you how?

An article on October 27, 2007 in the Chicago Tribune opined that the time change “can confuse the body’s circadian rhythm, leading to poor concentration, excessive sleepiness and difficulty remembering things”. So not good for a student, right? The article posits a quick method for sailing through the switch.

Quick is not always best. My recommendation for the coolest, best-est route can be found at: http://www.wikihow.com/Adjust-to-Daylight-Saving-Time.

Hurry, time is running out!

Library Cats

A wise person once said, "the internet is made of cats." But the relationship between libraries and cats dates back centuries. Cats in ancient Egypt protected ancient papyrus from rodents and snakes. The State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg Russia is still patrolled by cats descended from Empress Elizabeth's court (they even hold a Day of the Cat celebration for these felines!). In fact, a library in Russia employs Kuzma the Russian Library Cat, protects the books and sports a bow-tie collar. 

Kuzma the Library Cat, on the job.

While the Columbia College Library doesn't have a cat wandering the shelves, we do have many, many books about cats. 

Follow CCC Library's board Library Cat on Pinterest.

You can see some highlights on our Pinterest board some of my favorites include:

Why Cats Paint: A Theory of Feline Aesthetics

Dancing with Cats

Feng Shui for You and Your Cat

And finally, here's a silly interactive game to occupy your during your study breaks. Enjoy!

Cat Bounce - an interactive game for your enjoyment

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!

Extended Hours

Did you know that the Library has extended its hours?

We are now open until 8pm on Fridays and 7pm on Sundays! This in addition to staying open until 10pm Monday through Thursday and until 5pm on Saturdays.

This change was the result of feedback we received from students. You asked, we delivered!

For a complete listing of hours visit: http://www.lib.colum.edu/about/hours.php.

All Things Oscars!

The Academy Awards are coming up so we put together some resources available in the Library to meet all your Oscar needs.
Take a look at our pinterest boards for books about the Oscars and all of the Best Picture winners since 1927 available in the Library!
The Margaret Herrick Library at the Academy of Motion Pictures has amazing information documenting the history of the Academy of Motion Pictures including Photographic Archive, Graphic Arts Collection, Alfred Hitchcock Papers, Production Art Database, Costume Design and Film Posters (and more!).
.

Mediarun Digital put together an infographic of all dresses worn by Best Actress winners.

Make your picks at the official Academy Awards site:

And while you watch the telecast, play Oscar Bingo.  Here are a few of the printable Oscar 2014 Bingo cards available on the web.

• Crushable Oscar Bingo 
• Trophy Life Oscar Bingo 
• Splash - Sun Times Oscar Bingo
• Punchbowl Oscar Bingo

What's wrong with that link?

Faculty - have your students mentioned that they are having problems accessing the Library materials you have put online for your class?  Do they get an error message when they try to click on a Library link in your Moodle or OASIS class?  What's the problem with those links?

Well, the problem might be related to something called "permalinks." Access to articles and e-books from the Library's databases require that a special link, a "permalink", be used.  Usually, if you want to include a link to a webpage, you can just copy the URL from the top of the webpage and everything works fine.  Unfortunately, in order to have a link to the Library materials that will authenticate properly and won't time out, you can't use the URL from the top of the browser page.  You need to find the "permalink."

 You can find detailed instructions on how to create "permalinks" to use in your Moodle class in this research guide:  Faculty Tutorials:  Link to Articles in Library Databases.  

In the meantime here is a very quick guide to finding the "permalink" for an article or e-book you want to use in your class.

1.  Locate the article you want to use and click on the title.

2.  Locate the Permalink Icon and click on it.  Every database is just a bit different so look for something that says Permalink, URL, or some type of link icon. 

 In this example the Permalink icon in on the right-hand side of the page.








 3.  Copy the Permalink.  Use this Permalink with your Moodle or OASIS class or in emails that you might send to your students.  

 

 

 As always, if you have any questions or need help finding a "Permalink" you can ASK A LIBRARIAN!

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.