Monthly Archives: December 2018

Holiday Gift Ideas for Book Lovers

Whether you’re looking for a book for a fiction fan or a nifty, one-of-a-kind literary print, The Ames Library has assembled a pastiche of bookish gift ideas from other websites for all of your holiday-shopping needs.

The first guide, from Paste Music, highlights ten noteworthy music books from 2018. Maybe your giftee is a Lou Reed fan, in which case Ezra Furman’s newly released Lou Reed’s Transformer ($10.37 from Amazon) is the ideal thing.

Or perhaps they have a burning desire to answer the decades-old question of whether rock ‘n’ roll is dead. In that case, Steven Hyden’s Twilight of the Gods: A Journey to the End of Classic Rock ($14.27 through Amazon) is a good pick.

If your giftee (or you) leans more toward art and fashion, then the Obvious State shop may be the perfect place to get started. They offer a variety of exquisitely designed journals ($10), art prints ($24), totes ($24), mugs ($16), and more.


The American Library Association has also gotten in on the action with a number of gifts to please the bibliophiles in your life, ranging from $3 to $95. Our favorites include a replica card catalog box from the Library of Congress ($19.95) and the ALA’s own prompt journal This Journal Is Overdue ($16.99), which is designed to get its owner thinking about the authors and books that have made an impact on them.


Finally, if your giftee is just looking for a good read in general, Library Journal has put together a slide of the 10 Best Books of 2018 in 19 categories, from graphic novels and biography to world literature and poetry.

If you’re more interested in treating yourself to all these book-related goodies, though, we promise not to tell! 📚

Extended Weekend Hours for Finals

The Ames Library has the following extended weekend hours for finals:
 
Friday, December 7:  7:45am – 12am
Saturday, December 8:  10am – 12am
Sunday, December 9:  10am – 1:30am
 
Good luck! We’re rooting for you!

Braccio di Bartolo

What’s with Braccio di Bartolo and his strategically placed moth? Braccio was a court jester of Cosimo I de’ Medici in 16th-century Florence and stood for this Agnolo Bronzino portrait around 1564. Somewhere in the ensuing centuries, Braccio was given a pair of underwear made of vines and his owl replaced with a goblet, transforming him into a more modest Bacchus. The painting was restored to its former glory for a 2010 exhibition on Bronzino.
 
You too can become the possessor of strange and wonderful facts when you browse The Ames Library’s collection of periodicals on the east side of the first floor, from which this issue of The Art Bulletin is drawn!

Celebrating CARLI!

If you’ve ever used I-Share (and if you haven’t, do it now) or searched our VuFind catalog for materials, you have CARLI to thank.

CARLI, which stands for Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois, is one of our most fantastic resources. Through CARLI, IWU faculty and students have access to incredible databases like EBSCO as well as many collections, digital and otherwise. CARLI also maintains a Last Copy program, meaning that they work to ensure access to monographs that exist in only a single copy across academic and research libraries in Illinois. Their diverse membership includes large libraries like the University of Illinois and small libraries like the Carl Sandburg Community College. Together, the libraries in this partnership advocate for you, the library user! As their new infographics demonstrate, CARLI served 800,000 students, faculty, and staff and delivered $43.1 million worth of materials and services to member libraries in the past fiscal year alone. It goes without saying that The Ames Library couldn’t be happier to be a member.