In honor of our upcoming "Year Of"

Hello all!

Here's a Fun Friday video for you--a clip from the BBC's The Life of Birds. Here's the Australian Lyrebird, an amazing mimic doing his impressions of a kookaburra, a camera shutter, a car alarm and a chainsaw!



This is going to be a great "Year Of"!

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!

Salamanca students pleased with Reinhardt experience

Thursday, July 23, was the last day the students were here at Reinhardt from the University of Salamanca's graduate program. A couple of the students agreed to let me follow up with them about the experience. My thanks to Sandra Reynolds and Marilyn Rodgers!

Marilyn Rodgers was born in New York and raised in Puerto Rico and Florida. She has lived in Kennesaw with her family for 18 years. She teaches Spanish to middle schoolers at Mount Paran Christian School. This is her first year in the University of Salamanca's program.

Sandra Reynolds is originally from Ecuador. She teaches Spanish at East Bay High School in the Tampa Bay area. She is in her second year of the program.

Check Us Out: What your impressions of Reinhardt?

SR: Excellent. You all treated us with the best quality of service we could get. The apartment was comfortable, the environment healthy. I could breathe clean air. I like that the use of the gym facility was included. The only thing that I missed was a recycle dumpster for plastic and aluminum.

MR: I was pleased with Reinhardt and the surroundings. It is a lovely campus and everyone is friendly. I like the idea of being on a college campus for this program. It feels genuine and in keeping with higher learning.

Check Us Out: Did you use the library while you were here?

MR: I went to the library to inquire about the information I needed to be able to access the databases from my home. I received the help I needed with no problem. I noticed many computers available for use, and some of my colleagues were taking advantage of the resources available. The library was clean and quiet.

SR: To check out a video, to navigate the Internet, to copy very important material. When I needed to order a video online, Mr. Martinez helped me personally, and it came in two business days. I also liked the easiness to let us come to the library and make copies in and out of business hours when we needed! Some professors emailed us new material after hours, and we needed to be prepared with those for the next day.

Check Us Out: What, in general, are your impressions of the Salamanca program?

MR: It is a great collaboration with challenging and engaging content as well as expert instructors who guide the students and offer practical ideas that can be implemented in our classrooms. I think it will help me become a better teacher buy giving me more insight into the history of the language and culture of Spain. Additionally, I can use the examples of pedagogy as I have experienced them and modify them for my students.

SR: I learned a lot, and I expect to apply it in my classes. The attitude of the professors was great, a good example for us in our interaction with our students.

We at the Hill Freeman Library and Spruill Learning Center wish all of the students and professors from the University of Salamanca well, congratulate the graduates, and look forward to seeing the rest of the students again next summer.

Book Review: Confessions of a Prairie Bitch

Whoa, Nellie!

We're getting a whole bunch of new books in these days, including many in our Leisure Reading section. (I know some of you will be especially happy to see many new audiobooks--I am, too)!

One book in particular stood out to me, and I snatched it up the moment I saw it. It is Alison Arngrim's autobiography, Confessions of a Prairie Bitch: How I Survived Nellie Olesen and Learned to Love Being Hated. Nellie Olesen, of course, was the character Arngrim portrayed on the long-running television series Little House on the Prairie, based on the books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Nellie, the antagonist to series star Laura Ingalls, surely deserves a place of honor among the greatest TV villains of all time. She was pure evil in petticoats and fat blonde ringlets. Even as a child, I secretly rooted for Nellie despite her nastiness--Arngrim's portrayal made being bad look so good. Alas, Nellie always got her karmic comeuppance, often at the fists of the pigtailed little Half-Pint.

Of course, I knew that Alison Arngrim wasn't really the evil Nellie. I'd read about her charity work and her second career as a stand-up comic, and I looked forward to reading her autobiography and getting to know the woman behind the "prairie bitch." I wasn't disappointed. It was a rollicking read from start to finish. Did you know Ms. Arngrim's mother provided the voices of Rocket J. Squirrel, Sweet Polly Purebred and Gumby? Or that her (closeted) dad was Liberace's manager? From the very beginning, it seems that young Alison was privy to the stranger side of show business.

There are light-hearted moments, but the story quickly turns dark when Alison tells of the molestation and abuse she suffered at the hands of a family member. In an attempt to escape a hellish situation at home, she tells her parents she wants to be an actress, and she lands the part of a lifetime when she auditions for Little House (thank goodness Jodie Foster wasn't there). Arngrim treats the reader to the reality behind the Walnut Grove facade. Far from being enemies in real life, Arngrim and her onscreen nemesis Melissa Gilbert, who played Laura, became fast friends and got up to all sorts of pranks and hijinks behind the scenes. When the cameras rolled, however, a grown-up work ethic prevailed (this may be the reason the Little House kids escaped the tragic child-star syndrome--no arrests, no convictions)! And when things got hard, Alison learned to use her role as Nellie as an outlet, while internalizing some of her alter ego's strength to help her persevere.

Arngrim's gently sarcastic sense of humor infuses her backstage stories as she shares her impressions of her costars and details some of the outrageous things she sometimes had to do on camera. (Mud-wrestling? The show must go on)! She also tells of the dear friend she meets on set (her TV "husband") and how he inspired her to work for social change on behalf of AIDS patients and victims of child abuse.

Arngrim is not only a talented actree, but she is also a gifted storyteller.I would recommend Arngrim's Confessions to any fan of the Little House series and to anyone who likes a good showbiz memoir. It's a Hollywood tell-all that manages to be forthright without being mean-spirited.

Congratulations Dr. Paula Thomas-Lee!

Congratulations to Dr. Paula Thomas-Lee! Dr. Thomas-Lee, an Assistant Professor of Music here at Reinhardt University, has had her work published in the July/August 2010 issue of Clavier Companion. Her article, "Accessible and Musically Stimulating", reviews the Hal Leonard Student Piano Library from her perspective as a piano instructor. Dr. Thomas-Lee teaches piano, piano pedagogy, music history and elementary music methods at RU.

Clavier Companion is available here at the library if you would like to read Dr. Thomas-Lee's excellent article!

Amazon Prime for College Students

Amazon is offering a free 1 year subscription to Amazon Prime (Free 2 day shipping!)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/student/signup/info

This is being marketed to college students. All you need is a valid .edu email address.

I don't know how long this offer is going to last, so you might want to jump on it!

Cheers!

Even better!

Awesome job.

"The Old Spice Guy" on Libraries

Could it be that he's both handsome AND well-read?



He's no Bruce Campbell, but he'll do...

I've found my dream house

An apartment built completely out of bookshelves? Yes, please.

Library blog offers tips on landing a Federal job

Looking for a job after college? Don't neglect the civil service sector!

The @yourlibrary blog from the American Library Association just recently posted some tips for finding and applying for Federal jobs and using the USAJobs site. Those of you who have taken seminars with our public services librarian Karen Preslock already have a leg up; Karen's very knowledgeable about the process and is a great resource for you!

According to the blog, there are several reforms either in place or in the works to make the federal job application process easier. The website has been revamped to facilitate better communication between job seekers and Federal agencies.

Good luck!

Let's get reading to rumble!

Wow. I never heard of this before, but I can't stop grinning about it. YALSA, the Young Adult Library Services Association (a division of ALA), and World Wrestling Entertainment sponsor a Wrestlemania-themed Reading Challenge every year for students as part of Teen Read Week. Students from grades 5-6 have to design a bookmark promoting reading. Students from grades 7-12 (and this is the part I love) are supposed to come up with a tag team pairing their favorite WWE wrestler and their favorite literary character and describe how this team would unseat the current WWE tag-team champions.

It's too bad I'm just a little too old to enter. I'd love to see how Thursday Next (from the series by Jasper Fforde) would demolish the Hart Foundation...

Welcome "new" library employees!

The Reinhardt University library is excited to announce the two newest members of our staff! Although they are new staff members, they are actually old hands around here. Drew Childers and Kirsten Rodning, both recent alumni from the class of 2010, were both library student workers during their college days. Well, we decided that we can't do without them! Drew is now the North Fulton library assistant, and Kirsten is on staff here at the main campus. Please join us in welcoming "back" two of Reinhardt's finest!