Congratulations, IWU! You made it through the fall 2015 semester. The Ames Library will be open until Christmas Eve, after which we’ll open in the new year. Make sure you return any items before you travel for the holidays.

Safe travels, Titans!

Holiday Break 2015

• Friday, December 11th: 7:45 a.m. – 4:30 p.m. (close early)
• Saturday, December 12th & Sunday, December 13th: CLOSED
• Monday, December 14th – Friday, December 18th: 8:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
• Saturday, December 19th & Sunday, December 20th: CLOSED
• Monday, December 21st – Wednesday, December 23rd: 8:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
• Thursday, December 24th – Sunday, January 3rd: CLOSED
• Monday, January 4th & Tuesday, January 5th: 8:00 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.
• Wednesday , January 6th: 7:45 a.m. – 1:30 a.m.

Feeling stressed!?! Don’t crack under the pressure. Take a break and take care of yourself. To help reduce your stress level during finals week, counselors from Counseling & Consultation Services will be at The Ames Library from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Monday and Tuesday, Dec. 7 & 8, offering FREE giveaways. There will be snacks, Biodots, stress balls/bendeez and other information to help you manage your stress level. Please stop by to get some of the tools you may need to reduce your stress level.

As you celebrate, we’d also like to make you aware that there have been reported issues with our catalog (searching for and checking out books). Please make sure to have your ID card when checking out materials today. Thank you!

Wednesday, 2 December, 11am

Students will present on the works they’ve done in various classes focused on this year’s intellectual theme – Nation(s) Divided?

As part of Illinois Wesleyan’s strategic initiatives and commitment to a strong intellectual campus environment, we continue to enhance the use of intellectual themes in curricular and co-curricular programming. Ultimately, the goal is create an annual campus-wide theme that serves to frame engagement for the summer reading, convocations, May term programming, and any other potential collaborative efforts across campus. This year, the theme that’s been selected is Nation(s) Divided?.

In the spirit of collaboration and mutual support, the faculty involved with the course clusters led by Tom Lutze also selected this theme. This “Nations(s) Divided?” theme reflects faculty-led interest that we hope will permeate the campus community in 2015-16.

The theme of “Nation(s) Divided?” invites us to cross, intersect, and transcend borderlands in the ways we think about others and ourselves by deconstructing notions of unity and division, of nations and national identities. We invite all students, faculty, and staff to explore the concepts and realities of “Nation(s) Divided?” and we encourage you to think about how this theme can be a part of the programs that your department, class, or student organization may sponsor this year.

Tuesday, 1 December, 6-11pm

Writing Center staff and librarians will be in The Ames Library to support completion of student projects/papers/videos etc. If they need help working on video editing – we are there! If they are finishing a poster – Yes! Starting a paper and don’t know where to begin – we can talk them through the research process. Writing Center tutors and Joel Haefner will be on hand to review drafts of papers. ITS staff have agreed to be available for technical questions that may be hanging someone up with creating that special project. Poster printing on demand will also be possible from 6:30-9:30 p.m.

Thursday, 19 November, 7pm, Beckman Auditorium

International Film Series: “Women from the Lake of Scented Souls”

Presented by Professor of History Thomas Lutze. Due to copyright restrictions, this event is free and open to the IWU community only.

From the NYTimes: In a rural area of China, a woman makes the best sesame oil in the neighborhood. A Japanese businesswoman wants to buy her oil and proposes to modernize the oil mill. The woman agrees to cooperate. Her son is in love with a local girl, but the girl’s parents don’t let her marry him because of the boy’s epilepsy. However, using the poor financial state of the girl’s family, the woman arranges this uneasy marriage. The film is slow-paced and many story lines remain unresolved, but some viewers might be attracted by the fact that it received the Grand Prize at the 1993 Berlin Film Festival. ~ Yuri German, Rovi

Believing in magic : the psychology of superstition

From Amazon: While we live in a technologically and scientifically advanced age, superstition is as widespread as ever. Not limited to just athletes and actors, superstitious beliefs are common among people of all occupations, educational backgrounds, and income levels.

In this fully updated edition of Believing in Magic, renowned superstition expert Stuart Vyse investigates our tendency towards these irrational beliefs. Superstitions, he writes, are the natural result of several psychological processes, including our human sensitivity to coincidence, a penchant for developing rituals to fill time (to battle nerves, impatience, or both), our efforts to cope with uncertainty, the need for control, and more. In a new Introduction, Vyse discusses important developments and the latest research on jinxes, paranormal beliefs, and luck. He also distinguishes superstition from paranormal and religious beliefs and identifies the potential benefits of superstition for believers. He examines the research to demonstrate how we can better understand complex human behavior. Although superstition is a normal part of our culture, Vyse argues that we must provide alternative methods of coping with life’s uncertainties by teaching decision analysis, promoting science education, and challenging ourselves to critically evaluate the sources of our beliefs.