Monthly Archives: November 2018

Films for Native American History Month

November is Native American History Month and Kanopy is streaming lots of related content, including PBS’s new four-part series, Native America: The World Created by America’s First Peoples. PBS’s description of the series reads:

Each hour of Native America explores Great Nations and reveals cities, sacred stories, and history that has long been hidden in plain sight. In America’s Southwest, First People emerge from the earth to build stone skyscrapers with untold spiritual power, and transform deserts to fertile fields. In New York, warriors renounce war and found America’s first democracy five hundred years before the Declaration of Independence – and later inspire a young Benjamin Franklin. On the banks of the Mississippi, rulers raise a metropolis of pyramids from swampland and draw thousands of pilgrims to their new city to worship the sky. And in the American West, nomads transform a weapon of conquest into a new way of life, turning the tables on European Invaders, and building an empire.

Kanopy is also offering a collection of over 250 films by and about native peoples. Some selections are derived from American Indian Film Festival winners, while others, like Songs My Brothers Taught Me (2015), star native actors. You can browse the collection here and watch the new PBS series here.

Holiday Gift Drive for Boys & Girls Club


Dear Campus Friends,

In the spirit of the upcoming holidays, The Ames Library is gathering presents for the Boys & Girls Club of Bloomington-Normal. Our local Club is hosting a Family Holiday Shopping opportunity for income-qualified families. Your gifts will help make this event possible.

If you would like to contribute, please bring unwrapped items to the Library Services Desk where we have a bin for donations. Suggestions for gifts have been provided by the Boys & Girls Club team:

Ages 0 – 12:

Popular asks this year include: Lego Sets, Lego Friends Sets, LOL Surprise, Shopkins, Hatchimals, Art Kits (Slime is a very popular item, Friendship bracelets), Unicorn themed items, Play Sets (like Melissa and Doug food, kitchen, construction), Littlest Pet Shop, Dress Up Kits, Nail Kits, Science Construction & Experiment Kits, Drones, Putty, Bath Bombs, Hot Wheels, Kinetic Sand, WWE Characters, Remote Control Cars, Dolls (Baby and Barbie)

Teens 12 – 18 (overlooked population this year):

Headphones, Earbuds, Speakers, Basketball (Compression) Socks, Basketballs, Hair Product and Accessories (our girls love the fat cloth headbands), Flat Irons, Gift Cards (Wal-Mart, Foot Locker, Rue 21, etc), Large Soft (furry) Pillows, Throw Blankets (fun)

Needs for all ages:

Socks, Mittens, Gloves, Hats, Scarves, Deodorant, Body Wash (Axe, Old Spice, Bath and Body, etc), Lotions (for boys & girls)

Board and Card Games

Puzzles (from 24 pieces to 1000 pieces)

How the Debt Stole Christmas

Or, The Ames Library Stealth Artist Strikes Again.

HeinOnline: We Have It

Remember back in August when we were extolling the virtues of our new trial database HeinOnline? How it has “160 million pages and 200,000 titles of historical and government documents in a fully searchable, image-based format?” (Source.) How it contains over two dozen smaller databases, from the Pentagon Papers to Slavery in America to Women and the Law? Well, we now have a subscription, meaning that you can access it any time and anywhere if you are an Illinois Wesleyan student or faculty / staff member!

HeinOnline also regularly add new content. The most recent examples include two new databases, Gun Regulation and Legislation in America and the John F. Kennedy Assassination Collection. If you are doing any research in the areas of law, government, politics, and history, then we cannot recommend HeinOnline enough. Log on today and do a little bit of browsing. We promise you’ll find it valuable!

 

What Are You Thankful For, IWU?

Every November, we set up gratitude trees on the main floor of the library and invite students, faculty, and staff to hang tags on the branches expressing what they are grateful for. Here are some of 2018’s selections, from the poignant to the humorous.


What are you grateful for this year?

Under Construction

Curtis at Work on Blog

The library website will be under development for the next couple months. This should not affect the accessibility of MegaSearch or any of our other electronic resources, but the look and feel of the website may change without warning. Please give the library a call at (309) 556-3350 if you have any problems or questions! Thank you for your patience.

 

Contribute to the Oxford English Dictionary!

Are you a logophile? Is epeolatry your thing? Then you might be interested in this free webinar from Oxford University Press on Thursday, November 29th about building dictionaries using crowdsourcing.

As part of the celebrations of the Oxford English Dictionary’s 90th birthday (https://public.oed.com/oed90th/), we will be having a live session about how crowdsourcing can be used to build dictionaries.

Dr Sarah Ogilvie, Director of Global Partnerships at Oxford Dictionaries, Oxford University Press, will be speaking about how you can get involved in collecting words for the OED.

Join us to find out how a dictionary is created: now and in the past, without the help of technology.

Follow a word’s journey until it is included in the dictionary, the reasons behind it, and why some words will never make it.

Focusing especially on the language of young people today, she will be showing how words are collected for the iGen Language project (https://dictionarylab.stanford.edu/igen-language), a Stanford University research initiative which aims to collect and analyse the language of people who have never known the world without the internet: the iGeneration, Generation Z, or digital natives.

This session will cover:
• How to crowdsource and sort out data to build dictionaries
• Case study: the iGen Language project
• The new OED words appeal: Youth words (https://public.oed.com/appeals/youth-words/)
• Q&A session – bring your questions or send them to Sarah in advance: ODO.uk@oup.com

Who is this session for?
Anyone who is interested in…
• Knowing more about how dictionaries are put together
• Lexicography and language in general
• The iGen Language Project
• The new Youth words appeal
• The history of the OED

HBO Documentary Films Now on Kanopy

It’s no secret that we love Kanopy here at The Ames Library, but with free streaming access to over 25,000 films and regular new additions like HBO Documentary Films, who can blame us? This latest collection includes brand-new films such as King in the Wilderness: The Final Years of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. , The Final Year: Following President Obama’s Foreign Policy Team During His Last Year in Office, and Baltimore Rising: The Struggles of Police and Activists Following the Death of Freddie Gray. Best of all, Kanopy is free to all Illinois Wesleyan students, faculty, and staff.

El Día de Muertos

Today is El Día de Muertos, a Mexican holiday celebrated on November 1st that honors deceased loved ones. In commemoration of the day, SALSA and Shaela Phillips (’20) have constructed an altar de muertos on The Ames Library first floor. You are invited to learn more about El Día de Muertos through posters at the altar and to leave offerings for your own dead or write their names on the sheets of paper illustrated with skulls.

At 7 p.m., SALSA and Carmela Ferradans will be screening the film Coco in Beckman Auditorium on the library’s lower level. All are invited to come.