Tag Archives: new resources

New Digital Content Now Available

Image from African American Serials Collection

Each year, the Ames librarians take advantage of end-of-year opportunities to acquire digital access to new content. With the new year upon us, we are happy to announce that the IWU community now has access to the digital archives of the following titles:

Esquire

Maclean’s

National Review

New Republic

Sports Illustrated

Time

In addition, we have acquired access to the African American Historical Serials Collection, which “documents the history of African American life and religious organizations from materials published between 1829 and 1922 and contains more than 170 unique titles related to African American life and culture.”

Image from African American Serials Collection

Providing access to these resources electronically promotes enhanced discoverability of these valuable resources, and facilitates student use of these resources in their own scholarly and creative work. The African American Historical Serials Collection also enhances the diversity of materials available to our students and faculty through the Ames Library, and promotes greater opportunities for discovery and analysis of information documenting diverse American cultures. Print volumes of journal titles now available digitally are being reviewed for retention as part of the current review and shifting of library materials.

You may find these resources, and more, through the Ames Library A-Z list of digital resources. If you have any questions about these new resources, please contact Stephanie Davis-Kahl, Collections and Scholarly Communications Librarian.

New Materials Monday: Trans Literature

If you’ve read Becoming Nicole by Amy Ellis Nutt for the Summer Reading Program, then you may be interested in the following five books, selected by the author Susan Stryker. In a November 2018 interview with Five Books, Stryker explains how she made her selections. Jordy Rosenberg’s Confessions of a Fox is a retelling of the story of criminal Jack Sheppard (better known as Mack the Knife) as a transgender man, while I’ve Got a Time Bomb is an illustrated punk rock novel about “very non-normative sorts of trans lives.” Black on Both Sides looks at the intersection of blackness and transness. Histories of the Transgender Child explores “notions of the transgender child” that “[stretch] back to at least the early 20th century” and are “related to notions of emotional and physical plasticity or malleability that are intimately related to questions of race.” Trap Door is an “art-focused” book that documents trans people’s contributions to visual culture.

All five books are available through The Ames Library. (And if you’re not sure about how to find them on the shelf, just ask a librarian!)

Confessions of a Fox by Jordy Rosenberg: PS3618.O8323 C66 2018

I’ve Got a Time Bomb by Sybil Lamb: PS3612.A5449 I94 2014

Black on Both Sides: A Racial History of Trans Identity by C. Riley Snorton: E-book

Histories of the Transgender Child by Julian Gill-Peterson: HQ77.95.U6 G55 2018

Trap Door: Trans Cultural Production and the Politics of Visibility, edited by Reina Gossett, Eric A. Stanley, and Johanna Burton: NX650.G44 T73 2017

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!

 

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.

50 New Recordings Added to Archive of Hispanic Literature on Tape

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.

One Button Studio at the Library

The Thorpe Center at The Ames Library is now offering a One Button Studio. Designed for users who may not have prior experience with video software, the One Button Studio requires only a USB flash drive and yours truly. With the push of a single button, you can record a presentation for class or practice your public-speaking skills. Faculty and staff can use the One Button Studio to record lectures and professional-development videos. No more fussing with lighting, camera, or mics–it’s all taken care of for you!

Where do you start? Book an appointment online up to four weeks in advance, but please be sure to give us a 24-hour notice. For tips about design and copyright, see our LibGuide about the One Button Studio. Happy recording!

Cannes Film Festival Titles Now on Kanopy

With the 71st annual Cannes Film Festival now past us, it’s time to relax on the couch with some of your favorites! Kanopy offers 134 streaming films in its Cannes Film Festival Collection. All IWU faculty, staff, and students have free access to thousands of foreign, independent, and documentary films through Kanopy.

Home for the summer already? No problem. You can still access Kanopy and all of The Ames Library’s other resources by proxy. Just make sure to log in using our website as a jumping board.

One Button Studio Now at The Ames Library!

The Thorpe Center at The Ames Library is now offering a One Button Studio. Designed for users who may not have prior experience with video software, the One Button Studio requires only a USB flash drive and yours truly. With the push of a single button, you can record a presentation for class or practice your public-speaking skills. Faculty and staff can use the One Button Studio to record lectures and professional-development videos. No more fussing with lighting, camera, or mics–it’s all taken care of for you!

Where do you start? Book an appointment online up to four weeks in advance, but please be sure to give us a 24-hour notice. For tips about design and copyright, see our LibGuide about the One Button Studio. Happy recording!

Frederick Wiseman Collection Now Streaming on Kanopy

Are you a film buff? Do you like documentaries? If so, you’ll be excited to learn that the entire oeuvre of filmmaker Frederick Wiseman is now streaming for the first time ever through Kanopy.

In January, legendary documentary filmmaker Frederick Wiseman, who has been chronicling the lives of mostly American institutions for more than half a century, announced that he would finally be putting his movies online for the first time. Wiseman’s movies, which have been shot in mental institutions and on military bases, in hospitals and public parks, comprise one of the most monumental bodies of work by a single artist, but despite being awarded a lifetime-achievement Oscar in 2016, he’s remained something of a cult figure. His movies, which run as long as six hours, defy the rules of traditional theatrical distribution, and apart from a single PBS broadcast apiece, they’ve rarely been available to a mass audience.

That all changed today. As of this afternoon, a whopping 40 of Wiseman’s movies—nearly everything he’s every directed—are available via the streaming service Kanopy, which can be accessed through many public libraries, universities, and other institutions of the kind Wiseman has devoted himself to exploring in his work. (His latest, Ex Libris, is a portrait of the New York Public Library, and will be added to Kanopy after its PBS broadcast in the fall.)

Source: Slate.

What’s Kanopy? Think of it as Netflix for foreign, independent, classic, and documentary films. All IWU students, faculty, and staff have free access–all you need is your netID and password. You can use it off-campus, too! Just make sure that you’re logging in by proxy (click on A-Z Resources on our homepage).

Resources for National Park Week

Did you know that it’s National Park Week this week? In celebration, the Scout Report has put together a great list of online resources related to national parks in the United States and beyond. These include Rose Aguilar and Laura Flynn’s article “Your Call: The history of Native Americans and National Parks,” NASA’s National Parks from Space, and the Open Parks Network.

Photo courtesy of Dave Sizer.

You can start exploring all of these amazing resources here. And who knows? Maybe they’ll even lead you to explore a national park or two.