Celebrate National Library Week with Calvin T. Ryan Library

April 8-14 marks this year’s National Library Week!  First sponsored in 1958, National Library Week is a national observance sponsored by the American Library Association (ALA) and libraries across the country each April.  It is a time to celebrate the contributions of our nation’s libraries and librarians and to promote library use and support. All types of libraries – school, public, academic and special – participate. 

Calvin T. Ryan Library will be having an open house to commemorate the week.  Please join us!

When:   Wednesday, April 11, 2012, 2:00-4:00p.m.
Where:  Library, first floor
What:    Refreshments and the unveiling of our new READ posters, featuring Chancellor Doug Kristensen!

While in the Library, check out the display boards by the stairwell on first floor.  One board highlights what the Library staff are reading.  The other board will be ready for you to let us know what you are reading!  Please come celebrate libraries and the joys of reading and discovery with us!

See it @ the library…

Rescuers:
For the next several weeks, the UNK community can view displays from PROOF: Media for Social Justice.  One of the displays is on the second floor of the library.  According to Proof’s website, the goal of the Rescuers Project with its photographs and narratives is threefold:
        –To heighten awareness and understanding of the presence of rescue behavior during genocide or mass violence;
        –To better understand the conditions that support compassionate behavior in the face of communal violence;
        –To encourage social healing, reconciliation, and the prevention of further cycles of violence in societies recovering from mass violence through the   
                   promotion of positive narratives.

MONA art:
The Museum of Nebraska Art highlights a specific artist regularly in the library.  This semester’s artist is John Falter, a native of Plattsmouth, NE, and best known for his cover paintings in The Saturday Evening Post.   The artwork is displayed on the main floor, at the entrance to the library and within the  Cafe.

Departmental posters:
For the last three years the Library has been show casing the work of UNK’s faculty, departments, and service units through a series of displays.  The displays are up for about a month during the school year.  You can view many past displays on the Library’s flickr page.   Current posters featured are from the departments of Geography & Earth Science and Computer Science & Information Systems.

Student research:
During the same period, over thirty students have had their research displayed in Library in the form of posters.  The posters are provided by the Office of Undergraduate Research and represent the broad range of research interests UNK students have; all have been previously exhibited at either the Fall or Spring Student Research Day.   Posters, two at a time, are up for about a month.  Currently, see posters by Jordan Heiliger/Dr. Longo and Jess T. Lammers/W. Wyatt Hoback.  You can view many of these posters  on the Library’s flickr page.

Gifts from China:
Chancellor Kristensen joined a delegation from the University of Nebraska at Kearney on a Recruitment and Development trip to China in the summer of 2011.  Some of the beautiful and unusual gifts he received from our Chinese counterparts and colleagues are on display on the first floor by the Cafe for all of the UNK community to enjoy.  Cities visited include:  Shanghai, Chengdu, Chongqing, Beijing, Weihai, Shenyang, and Shijiazhuang.

Newspapers relocated

by Michael Sutherland, sutherlandmj@unk.edu

The library has renewed the subscriptions of several local Nebraska newspapers and relocated the collection from the lower level to the main floor near comfortable seating.

A listing of our current newspaper subscriptions may be found by clicking here.

If you would like to renew a local newspaper subscription for the library, or subscribe to one not listed, please contact Jon Ritterbush, Electronic Resources Librarian, at 308-865-8585 or ritterbushjr@unk.edu.

Native American Month

By Tone’ Mendoza, mendozaac@unk.edu

Red Fox James, a Blackfoot Indian, rode on horseback in 1915 from state to state seeking official approval for a day to honor Indians. He delivered the endorsements of 24 states to the White House, but not until 1990 with President George H.W. Bush’s approved did the resolution designating the month of November as National American Indian Heritage Month become a reality.

First Nation people in Nebraska

About 15 tribes have been identified as having lived in, hunted in, or otherwise occupied territory within the current state boundaries of Nebraska: the Arapaho lived for more than a thousand years throughout the western part of Nebraska and was home to the Arikara and Pawnee. The Kiowa also once occupied western Nebraska as did the Cheyenne. The Comanche had formerly lived in the territory and moved south toward Texas. The Ponca were forced to move south into present day Oklahoma and others such as the Kansa, Omaha, Osage, and others were also forced to move out of the Nebraska area.  But it was the Great Sioux Nation and the Lakota that used Nebraska as a hunting ground.

Eventually they ceded their lands through various treaties to the U.S. Government, which rendered these among the lands it gave away to new settlers moving in from the east under the Homestead Act. Despite this, several Indian reservations still exist in Nebraska and one of the most famous confrontations between Native Americans, with their leaders, including Russell Means, and the US government came about on the Pine Ridge Reservation in the 1970s.

Library Resources:
DVD E 98 .S7 N38 2001
Native Americans: celebrating traditions 

E 98 .C8 B737 2009
Native American clothing: an illustrated history, by Theodore Brasser

Gov Doc SI 1.33:27/
Ceremonies of the Pawnee, by James R. Murie

Web Resources:
American Indians in Children’s Literature (AICL) provides critical perspectives and analysis of indigenous peoples in children’s and young adult books, the school curriculum, popular culture, and society. 

Lewis & Clark and Native Americans

Lewis & Clark in Nebraska

Native American Nations

Hispanic Heritage Month

By Tone Mendoza, mendozaac@unk.edu

Hispanic Heritage Month, observed annually from September 15 to October 15, was created to celebrate Hispanic culture.  Hispanic Heritage Week was approved by President Lyndon Johnson and was expanded by President Ronald Reagan in 1988 to cover this 30-day period.

To learn more about this month, check out the Library’s online catalog to discover our resources.  

A few books include:   
The disinherited : exile and the making of Spanish culture, 1492-1975, by Henry Kamen

Ideologies of Hispanism, by Mabel Moraña, editor

Encyclopedia Latina : history, culture, and society in the United States, by Ilan Stavans, editor

Government Documents:  
Subcommittee hearing on minority and Hispanic participation in the federal workforce and the impact United States. Congress. House. Committee on Small Business. Subcommittee on Regulations, Health Care, and Trade Washington : U.S. G.P.O., 2008

Toolkit material for Hispanic outreach, partnership development and training [Washington, D.C] : United States Department of Health & Human Services, c2008

For materials directed toward children:
La familia student workbook, by Ana Consuelo Matiella ; illustrations by Ron Salinas

Grandma Francisca remembers : a Hispanic-American family story, by Ann Morris  

A kid’s guide to Latino history : more than 50 activities, by Valerie Petrillo

Picture books by Latino writers : a guide for librarians, teachers, parents, and students, by Sherry York

Teaching music with a multicultural approach, by William M. Anderson

When you are in the building, please take a moment to check out the Hispanic Heritage Month display, located on the second level, adjacent to the Learning Commons Welcome Desk.