Contribute to the Oxford English Dictionary!

Posted by on November 8, 2018 No comments

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

Posted by on November 2, 2018 No comments

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

Posted by on November 1, 2018 No comments

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.

Happy Halloween!

Posted by on October 31, 2018 No comments

Happy Halloween from The Ames Library!

JSTOR makes Nobel Prize Laureate papers free until November 19th

Posted by on October 30, 2018 No comments


In honor of this year’s Nobel Prize Laureates, JSTOR has made their papers free until November 19th! More below.

2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

Awarded to Frances H. Arnold “for the directed evolution of enzymes” and to George P. Smith and Greg Winter “for the phage display of peptides and antibodies.”

“Directed evolution of the tryptophan synthase β-subunit for stand-alone function recapitulates allosteric activation” (Andrew R. Buller, Sabine Brinkmann-Chen, David K. Romney, Michael Herger, Javier Murciano-Calles, Frances H. Arnold, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2015)

“Kinase Interaction Domain of Kinase-Associated Protein Phosphatase, a Phosphoprotein-Binding Domain” (Jia Li, George P. Smith, John C. Walker, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 1999)

“Mapping Epitopes and Antigenicity by Site-Directed Masking” (Didrik Paus, Greg Winter, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2006)

2018 Nobel Prize in economic sciences

Awarded to William Nordhaus and Paul Romer for designing “methods for addressing some of our time’s most basic and pressing questions about how we create long-term sustained and sustainable economic growth.”

“Mathiness in the Theory of Economic Growth” (Paul M. Romer, The American Economic Review, 2015)

“The Economics of Hurricanes and Implications of Global Warming” (William D. Nordhaus, Climate Change Economics, 2010)

“Economic aspects of global warming in a post-Copenhagen environment” (William D. Nordhaus, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2010)

2018 Nobel Prize in Peace

Awarded to Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad for their “crucial contribution to focusing attention on, and combating, war crimes.”

“Congo: No Peace Without Women” (Denis Mukwege, Journal of International Affairs, 2013)

2018 Nobel Prize in Physics

Awarded to Arthur Ashkin, Gérard Mourou, and Donna Strickland for inventions that “have revolutionized laser physics.”

“Design for an Optical CW Atom Laser” (Arthur Ashkin, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2004)

“Extreme Light” (Gérard A. Mourou and Donald Umstadter, Scientific American, 2002) *Note: Only available to licensed subscribers*

“More Intense Shorter Pulses” (Gérard A. Mourou and Toshiki Tajima, Science, 2011) *Note: Only available to licensed subscribers*

2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

Awarded to James P. Allison and Tasuku Honjo “for their discovery of cancer therapy by inhibition of negative immune regulation.”

“APE1 is dispensable for S-region cleavage but required for its repair in class switch recombination” (Jianliang Xu, Afzal Husain, Wenjun Hu, Tasuku Honjo and Maki Kobayashi, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2014)

“Recognition of a Ubiquitous Self Antigen by Prostate Cancer-Infiltrating CD8⁺ T Lymphocytes” (Peter A. Savage, Keith Vosseller, Chulho Kang, Kevin Larimore, Elyn Riedel, Kathleen Wojnoonski, Achim A. Jungbluth and James P. Allison, Science, 2008) *Note: Only available to licensed subscribers*

 

 

 

Horror Film Collection from Kanopy

Posted by on October 26, 2018 No comments

George Romero’s original Night of the Living Dead (1968), Roger Corman’s The Little Shop of Horrors, Fritz Lang’s M, David Lynch’s Eraserhead–these are just some of the more than 250 psychological thrillers and horror flicks currently available through Kanopy!

If you’re feeling that Halloween mood this weekend and want to catch a classic like House on Haunted Hill or a new favorite like A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, simply log in to Kanopy through our website to browse their Horror & Thriller Collection. All IWU faculty, staff, and students have access to Kanopy’s thousands of foreign, independent, and documentary films for free.

Literary Costumes

Posted by on October 25, 2018 No comments

Still searching for that perfect Halloween costume this year? Literature is a great place to turn for inspiration. The following simple costume ideas were suggested by Litographs.

Book Riot and BuzzFeed have even more incredible suggestions that won’t break the bank and are guaranteed to impress party-goers.

Have you every worn a literary costume on Halloween? If so, share it in a comment!

Black Folklore for Halloween

Posted by on October 23, 2018 No comments

If you’re the type of person who likes to curl up with a creepy story around Halloween, look no further than this list from Shondaland.com, a website founded by Shonda Rhimes. The list features several pivotal works of African-American folklore, such as Virginia Hamilton’s The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales, to get you into that Halloween mood!

“Hamilton’s expansive set of folktales is the perfect introduction to a staple of African trickster characters, slave folklore, and the tradition of oral storytelling that black Americans have long held close. Perhaps most importantly, Hamilton provides a straightforward, blunt explanation of the origin and importance of black folklore in America, noting that while you’re having fun reading these stories you must remember, “these were once a creative way for oppressed people to express their fears and hopes to one another… We must look look on the tales as a celebration of the human spirit.”

You can find The People Could Fly; The Dark-Thirty: Southern Tales of the Supernatural by Patricia C. McKissack; Her Stories: African American Folktales, Fairy Tales, and True Tales by Virginia Hamilton; and The Annotated African American Folktales by Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Maria Tatar right here at The Ames Library. If you need help locating them on the shelf, just drop by a librarian’s office on our first floor.

 

 

 

50 New Recordings Added to Archive of Hispanic Literature on Tape

Posted by on October 16, 2018 1 comment

The Library of Congress has just added 50 new recordings to their free, open-access collection the Archive of Hispanic Literature on Tape. According to the Library of Congress, “The Archive of Hispanic Literature on Tape was begun in 1943 by the Hispanic Division of the Library of Congress to record audio recordings of poets and prose writers from Spain, Portugal, Latin America, the Caribbean and from the Hispanic Community in the United States reading from their works.” The collection includes audio from authors from Angola, the Caribbean, Central America, and South America. One highlight from the newly added recordings is indigenous literature.

[The Archive of Hispanic Literature on Tape] also includes, for the very first time, recordings of works in indigenous languages, such as the recording of Mexican scholar Ángel María Garibay (1892-1967) who reads Aztec poetry in Nahuatl and Spanish; Mexican writer Andrés Henestrosa (1906-2008) who reads works in Zapotec, a pre-Columbian language from Oaxaca, Mexico; and poet Andrés Alencastre (1909-1984) who reads verses in Quechua, the language of the Inca Empire. Another linguistic gem included in this release is a reading by Spanish writer Unai Elorriaga (1973- ) in Basque or “Euskara,” a Pre-Indo-European language spoken in northern Spain.

The recordings include audio recordings from authors like Argentine writer Griselda Gambaro. (Image copyright Diario de Cultura.)

Head on over to the archive to listen to check out this wealth of almost 800 recordings from well-known authors like Pablo Neruda and Jorge Luis Borges, as well as new favorites like Griselda Gambaro, Beatriz Guido, and Denise Chávez.

Hispanic Heritage Film Collection on Kanopy

Posted by on October 13, 2018 No comments

If you have some downtime this weekend, Kanopy has put together a collection of films in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month. All of these great films, which celebrate Latinx experiences and contributions, are freely available to anyone with a current IWU netID and password. Just log in here!