22 Great Photos from Presidential Libraries

Just a quick plug for one of my favorite blogs/magazines/websites/sellers-of-great-t-shirts, mental_floss.com. I just stumbled across this post from December: 22 Great Photos from Presidential Libraries. Check it out! The Reagan years alone are worth the trip--you have to see a Chief Executive in a kick-line.

This date in literary history: Dracula is released upon an unsuspecting London!

On May 26, 1897, Bram Stoker's gothic horror novel Dracula was first offered for sale in London bookshops. The story of the undead Transylvanian count has thrilled readers ever since, and, in my opinion, has yet to be surpassed by any of the many vampire tales written since. I was a horror fan who was obsessed with vampires when I read Dracula for the first time, and I remember it scared me like no other.

Dracula is available in Reinhardt's North Fulton Library and also as an e-book in our collection through eBrary.

We also have the sequel, Dracula, the Un-dead in our Leisure Reading section, written by Bram Stoker's great grand-nephew Dacre Stoker and Ian Holt. I haven't read it yet. I think I just may "check it out" for myself.

It's Geek Pride Day: Do you know where your towel is?

Today is a day of great significance to my people! It's Geek Pride Day, and I'm letting my geek flag fly. (Actually, it's more of a towel than a flag).

According to Wikipedia (note: I am not endorsing the use of Wikipedia in your research), Geek Pride Day started in 2006 to proclaim the right of every person to be a nerd or a geek. It is celebrated on May 25 in honor of the anniversary of Star Wars' premiere on May 25, 1977.

Coincidentally, it is also the date of another geek observance: Towel Day, in honor of the late author Douglas Adams. I still have a towel I bought specifically for the first Towel Day, held two weeks after the author's death in 2001. If you are wondering about the significance of the towel, it is my duty as a library assistant to direct you to Adams' book The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, call number PR6051.D3352 H5 2004, located on the third floor of the Hill Freeman Library.

I remember very clearly reading this book for the first time. I was a freshman in high school. I was sitting at the top of a hill with my mother and a bunch of other moms, overlooking the field on which my brother and his teammates were having football practice. At 14, I was at pretty much prime-embarrassment age, and didn't want to call attention to myself in front of the adults. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to stifle my giggles as I read. Or my chuckles and snorts. To my mortification, I occasionally laughed out loud, and when I read the line, "Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.", I laughed so hard I literally rolled down the hill. Douglas Adams robbed me of any dignity I had, and I am grateful for it.

Fans of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels also celebrate The Glorious 25th of May, a historical event observed in the books. Following the announcement of Pratchett's Alzheimer's diagnosis, fans have used this day to raise awareness of the disease and raise funds for Alzheimer's research. You can learn more about this initiative here.

Yes, I am a geek, but in a way, aren't we all? I'm sure every one of us has a geeky side, no matter how one may try to hide it. Maybe you don't dress up for comic book conventions or collect action figures, but you probably have your obsession. Maybe you're a devout sports fan and you follow every game, and you spout statistics at a moment's notice. Maybe your interest in history leads you to collect bits of trivia about the Ottoman Empire. Maybe you've gone to Civil War reenactments. You might be a sports geek, or a history geek, or a math geek or a science geek or a music geek. There's something that sparks your interest. So celebrate Geek Pride Day by respecting and enjoying your obsessions, whatever they may be.

And do check out the Hitchhiker's Guide. There's even a "guide to the guide" on eBrary. Check that out too. And thanks for all the fish.

Now hear this! New audio books in the library!

Great news, Reinhardt folks! You asked, and the Hill Freeman Library has delivered!

We have several new books on cd in our Leisure Reading section, just in time for summer break road trips! Titles include Queen Latifah's Put on Your Crown: Life-Changing Moments on the Path to Queendom, Hunting Evil by Guy Walters, Call for the Dead by John Le Carre, London Match by Len Deighton, Executive Intent by Dale Brown, A Nation Rising: Untold Tales of Flawed Founders, Fallen Heroes, and Forgotten Fighters from America's Hidden History by Kenneth C. Davis, Last Snow by Eric Van Lustbader (parenthetically, is that not one of the greatest names ever?), Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Deception (also by Van Lustbader), and, of course, Star Wars Death Troopers by Joe Schreiber!

Come check them out!

How to Fill The Void in My Life After This Sunday

Your library blogger is already mourning the loss of her favorite television program, which will come to an end this Sunday night. If you too will be feeling "lost" soon, I have a literary-minded suggestion for how to fill the empty hours.

Squidoo.com has the Lost Book List, containing all the books shown or referenced during the series. This includes the titles featured on the shelf in the "hatch," and all of the books James "Sawyer" Ford, the castaways' most prolific bookworm, has been seen reading. (That alone would endear Sawyer to me, but the character also has a special place in this blogger's heart because the actor Josh Holloway grew up in Cherokee County and attended my high school. I didn't get to go to school with him, but I was in marching band with his little brother. Yep, and that is probably the closest brush I will ever have with celebrity. But I digress...)

My suggestion for Life after Lost: join the Lost Book Club! Check out the Lost book list, then come to the library and check out some of the books that have influenced and inspired the series' creators. Not only is it a way to fill the void Lost will leave in our hearts and minds, the books may even inform our understanding of the show. Just in case, you know, heaven forbid, they leave a few questions unanswered...

This date in history: Christopher Marlowe arrested!

On this date in 1593, it is believed an arrest warrant was issued for the playwright Christopher Marlowe. The charge was heresy. The accuser? fellow playwright Thomas Kyd. Kyd was arrested on May 15 on suspicion of treason. It is believed that Kyd, under torture, may have pointed the finger at former roommate Marlowe in order to save his own skin. Marlowe was arrested and made bail, but was killed (perhaps under suspicious circumstances) in a barroom brawl on May 30. It sort of places today's celebrity scandals in perspective, doesn't it?

I just had a nice chat with Reinhardt Theatre professor Kevin Crawford, who gave me a very favorable review of Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare? by James Shapiro, which we have in our Leisure Reading section. I'm not a Shakespeare conspiracy theorist (except in fun: I'd love it if Marlowe turned out to have faked his death and written Shakespeare's plays for a dozen years, but I don't believe it). Dr. Crawford tells me that the history behind the Shakespeare conspiracy theories is as interesting as the conspiracy theories themselves. I certainly plan to check the book out for myself. Thanks for the recommendation, Dr. Crawford!

The picture for this blog post is Christopher Marlowe as Elvis in "Jailhouse Rock," which I made on faceinhole.com I may have had a little too much time on my hands today.

Library users: wouldja like to take a survey?

Hello! TGIF everybody!

I really appreciate the members of the Reinhardt community who read this blog or visit our Facebook page! You make it all worthwhile!

Today I am asking for your help. As some of you know, I am responsible for the serials department at the Hill Freeman Library. I'm the one who takes care of the print magazine, journal and newspaper subscriptions.

The new fiscal year is coming up, and I want to make the best possible use of our serials budget. We have been able to eliminate paying for many print subscriptions by finding databases that offer the publications online in full-text; this allows us to conserve our resources. Of course, there are still many periodicals that are only available to us in print format.

This is YOUR library, and I want to make sure I'm ordering the journals that you want and use. If there's a magazine we're getting that no one reads, I'd rather eliminate that subscription and put the money to better use elsewhere.

Please take a few minutes and respond to this survey about your magazine and journal use. If there's a title you'd like to see, please let me know!

Thanks for your help in making our library the best it can be! Help me spend our money. ;)

Happy Birthday Daphne du Maurier!

Lady Browning, better known as Daphne du Maurier, was born on May 13, 1907. Du Maurier wrote plays and works of nonfiction, but she was best known for her romantic suspense fiction, including my own guilty-pleasure favorite, the novel Rebecca, about a young bride whose husband's first wife (the titular character) died under mysterious circumstances. The movie adaptation of Rebecca was directed by Alfred Hitchcock, whose famous movie The Birds was based on a short story by du Maurier. Hitchcock's Rebecca won the 1941 Academy Award for Best Picture. (In my opinion, the film was inferior to the novel, primarily because of a change in the story that had me yelling at the TV when I watched the movie the first time. The Hill Freeman Library has the video if you'd like to see for yourself).

Du Maurier was created a Dame of the British Empire in 1969. She died in 1989, and her ashes were scattered in her beloved Cornwall, which was the setting for many of her works, including Rebecca.

Woof! Legendary Vince Dooley coming to Woodstock!

Thanks, Professor Smith, for the tip!

Legendary UGA football coach Vince Dooley will be in Cherokee County this Thursday! Dooley will be visiting Foxtale Book Shoppe in downtown Woodstock on Thursday, May 13, from 4 to 6 pm.

While he is beloved by Georgia football fans for his coaching career, Dooley has also gained renown as one of the region's finest gardeners (he was once in a UGA plant identification class with Reinhardt's own horticulture legend, Zach White, who has planted Vince Dooley hydrangeas in the shade garden at RU). At Foxtale, Dooley will be signing copies of his book Vince Dooley’s Garden: A Horticulture Journey of a Football Coach, as well as his other work Dooley's Playbook: The 34 Most Memorable Plays in Georgia Football History.

For more information, contact Foxtale Book Shoppe at (770) 516-9989.

Book Review: Orange is the New Black

Piper Kerman is an alumna of two somewhat exclusive, single-sex institutions, and received an education at each. The first is Smith College. The second is the federal correctional facilty in Danbury, Connecticut, and this experience is the subject of her memoir, Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women's Prison, now available in our Leisure Reading section.

The first and obvious question, one asked of Kerman many times both during and after her incarceration: how did the “All-American Girl” (blonde, blue-eyed, privileged and educated) end up behind razor wire and heavy locked doors? As Kerman herself says in an interview with the Christian Science Monitor, she “went looking for trouble and found it.” After graduation from Smith with a theatre degree, Kerwin stayed in Northampton, Massachusetts, waiting tables and generally leading a bohemian existence. She meets and becomes romantically involved with Nora, a sophisticated older woman with a secret: she is in the employ of a West African drug kingpin. The younger woman is seduced by Nora’s glamorous lifestyle and easy money, and agrees once—just once—to help out by smuggling a suitcase full of drug money from Chicago to Brussels. After that mission, Kerman begins to feel that she’s gotten in over her head, breaks off the relationship, and starts a new life on the West Coast. With a new job and a new boyfriend, she believes she’s put the whole episode behind her for good—until there’s a knock at the door. Two U.S. Customs agents informed her she’d been indicted on charges of drug smuggling and money laundering.

As part of a plea bargain, Kerman pled guilty to money laundering and was sentenced to 15 months in federal prison. Her lawyer gave her this advice: “Don’t make any friends.” It was advice Kerman found difficult to follow. She was surprised by the unexpected kindness of her fellow inmates, who took her under their wing and showed her how to navigate the official and many unofficial rules of her incarceration. For example, one could ask how long someone’s sentence was, but one should never ask about the offense that led to someone’s arrest. Women of varying ages and races shared both personal goods (toothpaste, extra shower shoes) and advice (smuggle food out of the cafeteria in the front of one’s pants for clandestine cooking later). Danbury was no Club Fed—Kerman details the humiliating strip searches and the behavior of guards who were sometimes cruel and frequently incompetent. She admits that she had an easier time of it than most of her fellow prisoners; racism both subtle and overt abounded in the prison, and a blue-eyed blonde had certain advantages. Also, she had a loving fiancé, a supportive family and a network of friends on the outside that visited regularly and sent her letters and books; many women had no such support system beyond the prison walls. Inside the prison, though, they formed a surrogate family and looked out for one another.

The book is, to be sure, a commentary on America’s war on drugs; Kerman is critical of mandatory minimum sentences for even minor, nonviolent offenses. She heartbreakingly tells of crying toddlers ripped from their mothers’ arms after visiting hours. Still, she doesn’t shy away from her own guilt. She admits her culpability and describes her shame when she met drug addicts in prison and realized she shared some responsibility for their plight. Kerman also raises concerns about the “corrections” system, which institutionalizes inmates and doesn’t prepare them for the realities of life after prison, so that recidivism is rampant.

The real heart of the book, though, is the resilience and compassion of the women she met at Danbury. Her “bunkies” Annette and Natalie, her prison mentor “Pop” and the others are characters as fascinating as any you could find in fiction, and one wishes to know what happened to them after their release. Kerman writes with wit, humor and sensitivity about a place and situation few of us will ever experience (and none of us wants to). The book reads like a novel, and can arouse laughter, anger and tears. It is a love letter both to her now-husband Larry, whose patient devotion is evident throughout, and to the women who became her prison “family.”

If anything, I felt Kerman gave short shrift to the story of her life before her arrest. Maybe she is still somewhat in the "don't ask/don't tell" prisoner's mindset, but I wanted to know more about how she became involved in criminal activity. I thought she rushed over that to get to the main topic of her incarceration. Perhaps a prequel is in the offing? Still, I really enjoyed this memoir, and hope to see more from Ms. Kerman in the future.

Orange is the New Black is available in our Leisure Reading section on the second floor of the library. You can visit the author’s website at piperkerman.com.

New book in our Leisure Reading section: Orange is the New Black

Piper Kerman is an alumna of two somewhat exclusive, single-sex institutions, and received an education at each. The first is Smith College. The second is the federal correctional facilty in Danbury, Connecticut, and this experience is the subject of her memoir, Orange is the New Black, now available in our Leisure Reading section.

The first and obvious question, one asked of Kerman many times both during and after her incarceration: how did the “All-American Girl” (blonde, blue-eyed, privileged and educated) end up behind razor wire and heavy locked doors? As Kerman herself says in an interview with the Christian Science Monitor, she “went looking for trouble and found it.”

After graduating from Smith with a theatre degree, Kerwin stayed in Northampton, Massachusetts, waiting tables and generally leading a bohemian existence. She met and became romantically involved with Nora, a sophisticated older woman with a secret: she is in the employ of a West African drug kingpin. The younger woman was seduced by Nora’s glamorous lifestyle and easy money, and agreed once—just once—to help out by smuggling a suitcase full of drug money from Chicago to Brussels. After that mission, feeling she'd gotten in over her head, Kerwin broke off the relationship and started a new life on the West Coast. With a new job and a new boyfriend, she believed she’d put the whole episode behind her for good—until she heard a knock at the door…

See tomorrow for the full review of Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman!

Trivia question...

Which employee of the Hill Freeman Library & Spruill Learning Center just got accepted to library school?

Reinhardt, libraries and BASEBALL!

First of all, I have to say "GO REINHARDT EAGLES BASEBALL!"

Our team beat the nationally-ranked Union College Bulldogs on Wednesday, denying them the #1 seed at the Appalachian Athletic Conference Championship Tournament. The tournament begins today in Kingsport, Tennessee. Our boys play tomorrow at 7:30 pm against Milligan College. Go Eagles!

If you're a baseball fan and would like a chance to win a trip to the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY (and basically, who wouldn't? I would!), check the website of the American Library Association. The ALA is sponsoring a baseball trivia contest to improve people's information literacy. Basically, you download the appropriate Playbook for your age group, and head to the nearest library to research your answers! Then mail in your completed Playbook for a chance to win! Don't forget to list the name of the library you visited. See the official site for more details. Play ball!

Great E-book Tutorial!

Did you know that you have access to well over 80,000 electronic books through your Reinhardt library? These are real ink-and-paper books from reputable publishers (e.g., Oxford University Press, MIT Press, Routledge and others); the books have just been digitized. You can view any of these titles 24/7/365 from the comfort of your own Internet connection. It's like having the library at your fingertips, wherever you may be!

Public Services Librarian and Head of Reference Karen Preslock has created a wonderful Powerpoint tutorial on how to use eBrary. Her tutorial is thorough and easy to understand. I hope to post a link to it soon. In the meantime, if you're interested in the Powerpoint presentation, e-mail Karen at kp1 "at" reinhardt.edu or me at amm "at" reinhardt.edu, and one of us will send it to you.

Brava Karen!

Market opens today!

The Waleska Farmer's Market at Reinhardt officially opens today! It will be open from 4:30pm to 8:30pm in the parking lot behind the old Waleska Baptist Church at the corner of highway 140 and 108.

There will not be any fruits or vegetables until later in the season. HOWEVER, this is a great time to pick up homemade and handcrafted gifts for Mother's Day! The market today will feature pottery, pound cake, jewelry, candles, aprons, birdhouses and other items. There will also be locally-grown plants such as Japanese Maple trees, hanging baskets, vegetable plants, shrubs, bedding plants, hosta, herbs, flowers, native plants and much more. Fresh eggs will also be available.

It's going to be fun! Come out and support your community!

Mail Call! (Something besides bills today)

As you may or may not know, writing this blog is a "side gig" for me at the library. My major responsibility here is handling the serials department. As a result, I often get more mail than anyone else here--not because I'm popular, but because I get to check in all the magazines and journals and newspapers we get in every day. It's kind of a fun job because I get to read the really interesting articles first (shhh).

Today's mail call was an extra-special treat, because today's Cherokee Tribune had a front page article about the various farmers' markets being held this summer. The Waleska Farmer's Market at Reinhardt University was prominently featured! Check out the article. (I understand Professor Elizabeth Smith thinks the cover model is "devastatingly handsome," but you didn't hear that gossip from me). Don't forget to attend the grand opening of the market TOMORROW starting at 4:30 pm in the parking lot of the old Waleska Baptist Church. Library employees Stephanie Olsen and Nikki Preslock will be among the featured vendors!

Another pleasant delivery today was my copy of "Under the Bell Tower," the Reinhardt faculty and staff newsletter. I always enjoy reading about my colleagues and their accomplishments. What a lovely surprise to see THREE library student workers featured! There was a photograph of 2010 graduate Kirsten Rodning presenting her paper at the Convocation of Artists and Scholars and one of her fellow graduate Brielle Chinn donating items to Goodwill. Awwww! I am really going to miss those girls! There was also a picture of student worker Kelsey Floyd, #44, featured with her teammates on the Lady Eagle softball team. The women's softball team won the AAC championship this year (as did the men's golf team)! Way to go!

Archiving the thoughts of the Twitter generation

You've probably heard about Twitter.com turning over its entire archive of tweets to the Library of Congress. 50 million tweets a day-- that's a lot of people talking about what they had for breakfast and how much they love Justin Bieber, right? Well, it's true that there's a lot of banality in most of those 140-character missives (there certainly aren't many of my tweets I think are worth anything to posterity), but taken collectively, this archive could be of great use to sociologists and future historians. Twitter messages are sent almost at the speed of thought, before the passage of time and reflection colors the writer's impressions. A scholar could study these tweets and take the pulse of society at any given moment. What are people really thinking? What is important to them? (Justin Bieber, if the trending topics are any guide).

Yeah, I'm a little skeptical, but it should be very interesting to find out where all of this leads. Is it worth doing? Here's the Library of Congress's take. Also check out what The New York Times has to say. (I found out about the article from @librarycongress on Twitter, naturally enough).

Summer hours posted

Our hours for the summer break are as follows:
Monday - Thursday 8am-6pm
Friday 8am-5pm
Saturday and Sunday CLOSED

As always, our 24-hour study rooms will be accessible to students with their Eagle cards.

Come in and take advantage of your library over the summer! It should be peaceful and quiet, and you won't have to wait for a computer!