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Showing posts from 2019

The Yellow House by Sarah M. Broom

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The Yellow House By Sarah M. Broom Call Number:  PS 3602 .R6458 Z46 2019 Winner of the National Book Award in Nonfiction Review from National Public Radio Publisher's Description :  In 1961, Sarah M. Broom’s mother Ivory Mae bought a shotgun house in the then-promising neighborhood of New Orleans East and built her world inside of it. It was the height of the Space Race and the neighborhood was home to a major NASA plant―the postwar optimism seemed assured. Widowed, Ivory Mae remarried Sarah’s father Simon Broom; their combined family would eventually number twelve children. But after Simon died, six months after Sarah’s birth, the Yellow House would become Ivory Mae’s thirteenth and most unruly child. A book of great ambition, Sarah M. Broom’s  The Yellow House  tells a hundred years of her family and their relationship to home in a neglected area of one of America’s most mythologized cities. This is the story of a mother’s struggle against a house's entropy, an

EXAM CRAM TIME!

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We have A LOT of cool things happening this semester for EXAM CRAM. THERAPY DOGS CLASSIC VIDEO GAMES  FREE COFFEE FREE COOKIES FREE FRUIT FORTUNES INDEX CARDS TUTORS WILL BE HERE TO HELP REFERENCE LIBRARIAN WITH ANY LAST MINUTE QUESTIONS We don't think you want to miss it. We look forward to seeing you to chill a bit and study! WHEN: MONDAY, DEC. 16 - 6:00-11:00 p.m. WHERE: LOBBY OF ALBERTSON HALL Bring your classmates!

Kanopy Film Streaming Service - for faculty and instructional staff

Dear campus faculty and instructional staff, Due to the increased cost of our Kanopy film streaming service, the UWSP Libraries is considering a move to a mediated access model. This new model will require approval of new licensing requests for course-related films and will continue to allow access to already licensed films. We are currently monitoring the situation and cost, and will trial this new mediated access during the break between semesters. If anyone is teaching a class over winterim and is planning to use any Kanopy films, please contact Terri Muraski at tmuraski@uwsp.edu by December 31, 2019. Thank you.

Make it! Play it! Bust it!

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The Library is excited to introduce new events and activities this semester, in addition to our traditional Student Fan Favorite, the end of semester EXAM CRAM! Make it! Hump Day-Fun Day November 20 th Noon-1:00 pm ALB 103A Paper Crafts with Old Books – Turkeys, Feathers, Bookmarks Play it! – Play Classic Video Games – 1990s November 21 st 5:00-8:00 pm ALB 107 Earthworm Jim 2, Sega Genesis (1995) Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sega Genesis (1992) Earthbound, SNES (1994) Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island, SNES (1995) Saturn Bomber Man, Sega Saturn (1997) Crash Bandicoot, PS1 (1996) Spyro the Dragon, PS1 (1998) Tomb Raider, PS1 (1996) Super Mario 64, N64 (1996) Mario Party 2, N64 (1999) GoldenEye 007, N64 (1997) Crazy Taxi, Sega Dreamcast (1999) Bust it! – EXAM CRAM December 16 th 6:00 p.m. – 11:00 p.m. ALB Lobby Bust out good grades and destress! Free

Coders by Clive Thompson

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Coders:  The Making of a New Tribe and the Remaking of the World By Clive Thompson Call Number:  QA 76.6 .T4496 2019 Review from Nature Publisher's Description :   Facebook's algorithms shaping the news. Self-driving cars roaming the streets. Revolution on Twitter and romance on Tinder. We live in a world constructed of code--and coders are the ones who built it for us. From acclaimed tech writer Clive Thompson comes a brilliant anthropological reckoning with the most powerful tribe in the world today, computer programmers, in a book that interrogates who they are, how they think, what qualifies as greatness in their world, and what should give us pause. They are the most quietly influential people on the planet, and  Coders  shines a light on their culture. In pop culture and media, the people who create the code that rules our world are regularly portrayed in hackneyed, simplified terms, as ciphers in hoodies. Thompson goes far deeper, dramatizing the psychology of

The Way We Eat Now by Bee Wilson

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The Way We Eat Now:  How the Food Revolution has Transformed Our Lives, Our Bodies, and Our World By Bee Wilson Call Number:  TX 631 .W5484 2019 Review and interview with the author from Vice Publisher's Description :   An award-winning food writer takes us on a global tour of what the world eats–and shows us how we can change it for the better.  Food is one of life’s great joys. So why has eating become such a source of anxiety and confusion? Bee Wilson shows that in two generations the world has undergone a massive shift from traditional, limited diets to more globalized ways of eating, from bubble tea to quinoa, from Soylent to meal kits. Paradoxically, our diets are getting healthier and less healthy at the same time. For some, there has never been a happier food era than today: a time of unusual herbs, farmers’ markets, and internet recipe swaps. Yet modern food also kills–diabetes and heart disease are on the rise everywhere on earth. This is a bo

Historical Photos Timeline Installation - Celebrating 125 years!

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Last class held in Old Main (March 1979)  Check out the new installation of historical photos in the Lobby of Albertson Hall along the 2nd floor stairwell to celebrate the 125th anniversary of UWSP!  UWSP spring 2010 Commencement  UWSP Chemistry Class - 1894

Quichotte by Salman Rushdie

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Quichotte: A Novel By Salman Rushdie Call Number:  PR 6068 .U757 Q53 2019 (currently on the New Book Shelf) Review from The Guardian Publisher's description :   Inspired by the Cervantes classic, Sam DuChamp, mediocre writer of spy thrillers, creates Quichotte, a courtly, addled salesman obsessed with television who falls in impossible love with a TV star. Together with his (imaginary) son Sancho, Quichotte sets off on a picaresque quest across America to prove worthy of her hand, gallantly braving the tragicomic perils of an age where “Anything-Can-Happen.” Meanwhile, his creator, in a midlife crisis, has equally urgent challenges of his own. Just as Cervantes wrote  Don Quixote  to satirize the culture of his time, Rushdie takes the reader on a wild ride through a country on the verge of moral and spiritual collapse. And with the kind of storytelling magic that is the hallmark of Rushdie’s work, the fully realized lives of DuChamp and Quichotte intertwine in a profound

Celebrate OPEN ACCESS WEEK! October 21-27

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What is Open access (OA)? It refers to freely available, digital, online information. Open access scholarly literature is free of charge and often carries less restrictive copyright and licensing barriers than traditionally published works, for both the users and the authors.  “Open Access Week is an opportunity to take action in making openness the default for research—to raise the visibility of scholarship, accelerate research, and turn breakthroughs into better lives. It also is an important opportunity to catalyze new conversations, create connections across and between communities that can facilitate this co-design, and advance progress to build more equitable foundations for opening knowledge.” ( source: T he Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition ). While OA is a newer form of scholarly publishing, many OA journals comply with well-established peer-review processes and maintain high publishing standards.  There are many discipline specific and multi

Celebrate Banned Books Week!

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“Don’t let censors take books out of our hands! Celebrate free expression during Banned Books Week (September 22 – 28, 2019). The theme of this year’s event proclaims “Censorship Leaves Us in the Dark,” urging everyone to “Keep the Light On.” Banned Books Week is the most important opportunity during the year for advocates — publishers, booksellers, librarians, educators, journalists, and readers — to explain why we must defend everyone’s right to choose what they want to read and view. Banned Books Week has been shining a light on censorship since it was founded in 1982, and the fight for free expression is as urgent as ever. In recent years, the attacks on the right to read have become bolder, as legislatures have introduced bills that would eliminate crucial safeguards for the right to read books that some people find offensive. The American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom released their list of the  Top 11 Most Challenged Books of 2018 . In

GAME ON! Classic Video Games and Gaming Night Schedule

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GAME ON! Our University Archives team has curated an amazing historic video game collection for anyone to use, and with scheduled game nights! GAMING NIGHT SCHEDULE Time: 5pm – 8pm Location: ALB 107 November 21 – 1990s Games Earthworm Jim 2, Sega Genesis (1995) Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Sega Genesis (1992) Earthbound, SNES (1994) Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island, SNES (1995) Saturn Bomber Man, Sega Saturn (1997) Crash Bandicoot, PS1 (1996) Spyro the Dragon, PS1 (1998) Tomb Raider, PS1 (1996) Super Mario 64, N64 (1996) Mario Party 2, N64 (1999) GoldenEye 007, N64 (1997) Crazy Taxi, Sega Dreamcast (1999) Read a bit more about the gaming collection below: Purpose The University Archives provides preservation of, and access to, video games and video game systems ranging from the 1970s to present. The Historic Video Games Collection supports research in a wide range of campus programs interested in pop culture and entertainment representations o

"125 Years of Higher Education in Stevens Point" Exhibit

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From furniture belonging to former chancellors to the first computers used on campus, artifacts from the first 125 years of the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point will be on display as part of a special exhibit this fall.  "125 Years of Higher Education in Stevens Point" will be at the Edna Carlsten Art Gallery Monday, Sept. 16, through Saturday, Oct. 19. A public reception will be held Thursday, Oct. 17, from 4-6 p.m. featuring a talk by Bob Wolensky, professor emeritus of sociology. The gallery is located on the second floor of the Noel Fine Arts Center, 1800 Portage St., Stevens Point. Curated by the university's Historic Preservation Subcommittee, the exhibit features items such as dining place settings from the former domestic science program, Pointers athletic and Trivia memorabilia, technology from the past, the chip carved furniture collection of late faculty member Mildred Davis, the red vest of late chancellor and Wisconsin Gov. Lee Sherman Dreyfus and

The Heartland: An American History

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The Heartland: An American History By Kristin L. Hoganson Call Number:  F 351 .H75 2019 (Currently on the New Book Shelf) Review from the New York Times Publisher's Description :   When Kristin L. Hoganson arrived in Champaign, Illinois, after teaching at Harvard, studying at Yale, and living in the D.C. metro area with various stints overseas, she expected to find her new home, well, isolated. Even provincial. After all, she had landed in the American heartland, a place where the nation's identity exists in its pristine form. Or so we have been taught to believe. Struck by the gap between reputation and reality, she determined to get to the bottom of history and myth. The deeper she dug into the making of the modern heartland, the wider her story became as she realized that she'd uncovered an unheralded crossroads of people, commerce, and ideas. But the really interesting thing, Hoganson found, was that over the course of American history, even as the

How the UWSP Libraries Prepare for a New School Year

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The start of the semester is soon approaching, and the librarians are busy preparing for a successful start to the new academic year.  Here are some things we are up to: Archives: Scheduling archival instruction sessions for classes, meeting with professors to discuss class sessions, and designing sessions around topics or assignments. Returned Area Research Center materials to their repositories to make room for students’ new requests. Hiring new student workers to help with special projects throughout the academic year. Hiring a career-focused Pathways intern. Acquired new titles to add to our video games collection in anticipation of student and class use. Relocated Rare Books to the Archives to facilitate easier access to researchers. Processed archival records from UWSP at Wausau to make their collections available to students beginning this academic year. Cataloging: Completed the migration of branch campus records into one single catalog. Processed books, eBoo

Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis by Jared Diamond

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Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis By Jared Diamond Call Number:   HN13 .D53 2019   (currently on the New Book Shelf) Book Review from National Public Radio Publisher's Description:    In his international bestsellers  Guns, Germs and Steel  and  Collapse , Jared Diamond transformed our understanding of what makes civilizations rise and fall. Now, in his third book in this monumental trilogy, he reveals how successful nations recover from crises while adopting selective changes — a coping mechanism more commonly associated with individuals recovering from personal crises. Diamond compares how six countries have survived recent upheavals — ranging from the forced opening of Japan by U.S. Commodore Perry’s fleet, to the Soviet Union’s attack on Finland, to a murderous coup or countercoup in Chile and Indonesia, to the transformations of Germany and Austria after World War Two. Because Diamond has lived and spoken the language in five of these six countries, he

Horizon by Barry Lopez

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Horizon By Barry Lopez Call Number:  PS 3562 .O67 H67 2019 (Stevens Point and Wausau libraries) Review from the New York Times Publisher's Description:  From the National Book Award-winning author of the now-classic Arctic Dreams , a vivid, poetic, capacious work that recollects the travels around the world and the encounters–human, animal, and natural–that have shaped an extraordinary life. Taking us nearly from pole to pole–from modern megacities to some of the most remote regions on the earth–and across decades of lived experience, Barry Lopez, hailed by the Los Angeles Times Book Review as “one of our finest writers,” gives us his most far-ranging yet personal work to date, in a book that moves indelibly, immersively, through his travels to six regions of the world: from Western Oregon to the High Arctic; from the Galápagos to the Kenyan desert; from Botany Bay in Australia to finally, unforgettably, the ice shelves of Antarctica. As he takes us on t

EXAM CRAM!

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We have A LOT of cool things happening for EXAM CRAM. ·         THERAPY DOGS ·         OLD VIDEO GAMES - (will be set up in Room 107) ·         LEGO BUILDING (2nd floor of the lobby stairs) ·         FREE COFFEE ·         FREE COOKIES ·         FREE FRUIT ·         POEMS ·         KISSES (the chocolate candy kind) ·         REFERENCE LIBRARIAN WITH ANY LAST-MINUTE QUESTIONS I don't think you want to miss it. We look forward to seeing you to chill a bit and study! WHEN: MONDAY, May 13, 6:00-11:00 p.m. WHERE: LOBBY OF ALBERTSON HALL Bring your classmates!