Native American History Month

In 1895 a Seattle photographer named Edward S. Curtis (shown above right), met and photographed Princess Angeline (aka Kickisomlo), the daughter of Chief Sealth of Seattle. This was to be his first portrait of a Native American. In 1906 Financier J.P. Morgan commissioned Curtis to produce a series on the North American Indian. It was to be in 20 volumes with 1,500 photographs. Curtis' goal was not just to photograph, but to document as much Native American traditional life as possible. He wrote in the introduction to his first volume in 1907: "The information that is to be gathered ... respecting the mode of life of one of the great races of mankind must be collected at once or the opportunity will be lost." Curtis made over 10,000 wax cylinder recordings of Indian language and music. He took over 40,000 photographic images from over 80 tribes. He recorded tribal lore and history, described traditional foods, housing, garments, recreation, ceremonies and funeral customs, while writing biographical sketches of tribal leaders. Critics of his work have claimed he manipulated his images to remove western influence, and did not show the poverty and loss of rights suffered by his subjects. Still, in most cases, Curtis’s writings and photos are the only record we have of Native American life. ~ Laurie

Read more about Edward S. Curtis and Native Americans:
Edward Sheriff Curtis: Visions of the First Americans by Don Gulbrandsen
Shadow Catcher: The Life and Work of Edward S. Curtis by Laurie Lawlor
Sacred Legacy: Edward S Curtis And The North American Indian by Joseph Horse Capture, N. Scott Momaday, Christopher Cardozo, and Edward S. Curtis

Tell us what to get!

What do you want to watch? Listen to? Read? We want to know!

We will be purchasing new DVDs, CDs, & paperback books for our recreational collections, and we want to know what suggestions you have. We will do our best to purchase all recommendations if they are available and appropriate for the collections. Feel free to leave your suggestion(s) as a comment to this post or in person at the library front desk.

Many thanks to the Brandon campus Student Government Association for funding our recreational collections!!!

Hispanic Culture Coast to Coast

In 1513 explorer Juan Ponce de León landed somewhere on the northeast coast of the present State of Florida. He claimed "La Florida" for Spain and then sailed south passing around the Florida Keys. By 1568, Spain had claimed a vast area of land along the western side of North America and to secure that claim they created a series of farms which were built within missions, leading to the creation of the twenty one missions along what is now Highway101 in California. From east to west the city of St Augustine and the California Mission Trail bear witness to Spain's nationwide influence on the history of America. Today, approximately 42.7 million Hispanic Americans make up the largest ethnic minority in the nation. In addition to a historical connection with Spain and Mexico, Hispanic Americans now come from all over South and Central America, Cuba and Puerto Rico, and with them come five centuries of enriching Hispanic culture for us to celebrate. The BLRC salutes Hispanic American Heritage and invites you to discover more about the California Mission Trail or the city of St. Augustine by visiting the links below or the BLRC for our selection of titles on Hispanic culture.~ Laurie

Pictured above: Carmel Mission, Carmel California

http://www.staugustinelinks.com/st-augustine-history.asp
http://www.nps.gov/archive/jeff/LewisClark2/Circa1804/WestwardExpansion/EarlyExplorers/CaliforniaMissions.htm

Free People, Read Freely

"To prohibit the reading of certain books is to declare the inhabitants to be either fools or slaves." -- Claude Adrien Helvetius

Many authors we now take for granted on our library shelves have often been denied to the reading public. A common practice in totalitarian societies, we don’t think book bans happen in America, but they do. The Grapes of Wrath, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Catcher in the Rye, Call of the Wild, Beloved, Don Quixote, and Fahrenheit 451 (a book about banning books) have all been burned, banned or withheld from readers in America and abroad. September 27th through October 4th is Banned Books Week, but here in the BLRC we’re observing for the entire month of September with books that someone didn’t want you to read. Use your library and exercise your right to read, and think, freely. Free People Read Freely ~ Laurie

It's Easy bein' Green

Green is the new fashion these days with green clothing, green household cleaners and smart cars. But recycling is nothing new.to our parents and grandparents who called it "not wasting.” In an effort to not waste in the BLRC we've reused paper for a recycled printer and used recycling containers to collect more. Now recycling is in place campus wide, so it’s easy to be green. We are happy to provide a daily 30 page print limit, academic printing only, for free and avoiding waste and unnecessary costs will continue to make that possible. So please remind students: Wasting paper wastes trees, wasting trees wastes fuel to cut down, transport and process trees, wasting fuel leads to higher costs, foreign dependency and increasing the threat of global warming.

Re-duce, Re-use, Re-cycle~ Laurie

Here is a list of our new "multiple use" books courtesy of SGA's Lease Book Program:

Careless in Red by Elizabeth George
The Forgery of Venus by Michael Gruber
Hell’s Bay by James W. Hall
Rouge by Danielle Steel
Just Too Good to Be True by E. Lynn Harris
Tribute by Nora Roberts

"Sequoias" courtesy Alain Thomas

Tis the Season .........For Hurricanes

It’s that time of year again. We start stocking up on drinking water and batteries. We take note of hurricane routes and wonder if we have enough plywood to cover the windows on the house. This is all part of sensible preparation and, according to experts, the most important factor in surviving a disaster. The June issue of Time Magazine addresses this topic citing the examples of Beverly Hills Supper Club Fire in 1977, The Estonia, which sank in the Baltic Sea in 1994 and the World Trade Center in 2001. In each instance preparation and a cool head prevailed for many of the survivors.

Evolutionary Psychologist Gordon Gallup, Jr. has heard many stories from police and emergency workers who’ve observed people freezing under extreme stress. Gallup notes that animals do this in a state of fear and describes it as “playing dead” to evade predators. Humans, under stress, search the brain for a survival response and many cases freezing is the choice, and often the fatal choice. But humans can break out of such a state through focus and preparation, by something as simple as knowing which exit to take in an emergency. This gives the brain a starting point, and the person the ability to react.

At home and at work we are all responsible for our survival in an emergency. A realistic perception of the dangers, preparation and keeping our focus can mean the difference for us, and those around us.

Visit the link below for the full article in Time and the story of Rick Rescorla, whose preparation and courage saved the lives of more than two thousand people on 9/11.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1810315-1,00.html

Let us know what you think!

Click on the image to take a quick survey of the resources and services provided by HCC Libraries. It will only take a few moments of your time. Your feedback is essential for us to provide the best resources to support your research needs. Thanks for your input!

Literary Databases Update

There have been some recent changes to our Literature databases. For one, the popular LRC or Literature Resource Center has changed names. It is now called Literature Resources from Gale.

Not to confuse things but there is also a new literary database called Literary Reference Center, So, in effect there is still an LRC, just a different database.

Both of these are quality article databases for literary research. They are available from our Online Databases list under "Literature". To access these you will need your HCC ID information. Do you have your HCC ID card?

2007 Pulitzer Prize Winning Titles at the Library

The 2007 Pulitzer Prize Winners at the Library are:

Fiction: Cormac McCarthy's The Road.


(Click on book jacket for more information)

History: Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff's The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation.



(Click on book jacket for more information)

Election 2008

The HCC Libraries Election 2008 Resources guide provides links to information on candidates, their positions, ballot measures, and helpful elections info for Hillsborough County voters. Follow the elections through the primaries to the Nov '08 general election...and don't forget to vote!

YOUR BRAIN ON BOOKS

The December 31 to Jan. 7 US News and World Report offers a list of 50 things we can do to make our lives better in 2008. Two pages are devoted to the subject of reading, and for those of us who love to read, the news that reading is good for us comes as no surprise. However, article author Deborah Kotz offers this evidence:

“More than income, social class, or education, says NEA Chairman Dana Gioia, the more you read, the greater likelihood that you will do well in school, be successful in business, and become involved in your community. The bottom line, he says: ‘Reading allows us to achieve more of our personal potential than almost any other activity.’ Neuroscience further backs up those contentions, says Tufts University child development Prof. Maryanne Wolfe. "Reading not only creates its own circuitry within the brain; that circuitry gives us the capacity to go beyond the text to new thoughts of our own," says Wolfe "My worry is that our children's and our societal immersion into the ever more immediate, digital presentation format for text will short-circuit" part of that ability.”

Feed your brain: Read

New in the Library: