Angela Vanden Elzen

Author: Angela Vanden Elzen

Be Well This Summer

Whether you are looking for a cookbook, exercise video, or just need to get out of the heat, the Mudd Library is your place for summer wellness. Take a look at a few items from the library collection that will help you on your path.

Healthy Eating:

The Food Matters Cookbook Contains 500 recipes to improve your health, and your impact on the environment.

American Dietetic Association Complete Food and Nutrition Guide This guide covers a variety of topics relating to healthy living- from facts about vitamins and minerals, to nutrition for athletes.

Indoor Exercise:

Zumba Fitness Created by Alberto Perèz, fitness trainer and choreographer.  Have fun and get in shape with Latin rhythms and upbeat dance moves. Set includes DVD and toning sticks.

More Yoga for the Rest of Us Instructional DVD of lower-impact yoga for stretching, balance, strength, and relaxation.

Deepak  Chopra’s Leela: Mind, Body, Spirit, Play This Nintendo Wii video game was designed with the guidance of Deepak Chopra to teach meditation and relaxation exercises.

Just Dance 3 Dance along with a selection of more than forty popular songs. For the Nintendo Wii.

Positive Psychology:

How Full is Your Bucket? Learn how to make the most of your interpersonal interactions at work and at home.

If, like many of us at the Mudd, you believe that wellness comes from relaxing with a good book- take a look at some staff favorites from our recent coffeehouse.

Summer Coffeehouses

We’re into summer now, so it’s time for the library’s coffeehouse series. If you’re unfamiliar with the coffeehouses, they provide an opportunity to come to the library, enjoy a snack, and learn about resources and services available to help you with work or leisure interests. Coffeehouses will be held on the first floor of the library in the reference area. We’ll start promptly at 10:00, finish at 10:45. All staff and faculty are welcome to attend.

Visit our coffeehouse webpage for these details and more!

July 11 –Kickin’ It Old School: Reading Books in the Library

What is summer in a library without reading? Come hear about the library staff’s favorite summer reads. And please share yours with us!

Screenshot of Lux the Lawrence University Institutional Repository

July 2 5—Kickin’ It New School: Lawrence’s Digital Repository

This summer witnesses the official launch of Lux, a digital repository of scholarly and creative work produced by Lawrence students, staff, and faculty. Join us as Antoinette Powell, Erin Dix, and Colette Lunday Brautigam tell us about this new tool for ensuring the long-term access and preservation of the work of our vibrant academic community.

August 8— Hey, You, Get Onto My Cloud!

So you’ve heard people use this nebulous phrase “cloud computing,” but what does it mean? How can these “cloud” products and services help me with collaborative projects, in my teaching, or in my work life in general? Julie Fricke will lead us as we explore some of the latest in cloud computing and applications.

Main Hall and surrounding community, circa 1860

August 22 – Lawrence University in the History of Appleton

Since the founding of Lawrence and the growth of the city of Appleton in the mid-1800s, LU and Appleton have shared much history. Erin Dix will help us explore the intertwining of Lawrence and Appleton history over time, highlighting sources from our University Archives.

Refreshments, as always, will be provided. So come to the library and get a jolt of information along with your java. Reminders will be sent closer to the dates of the coffeehouse sessions, but mark your calendars — we hope to see you there.

Spring Break Coffeehouses

The librarians of the Seeley G. Mudd Library would like to invite all Lawrence University faculty and staff to coffee.  We’ll provide beverages and something tasty, and use the opportunity to tell you about these interesting topics:

Tuesday, March 20:  Choice Reviews Online

Choice review slips will soon be a thing of the past; you can begin to take advantage of electronic access through Choice Reviews Online.  Anyone who participates in ordering library materials for their department will find this session useful.

Wednesday, March 21  Audio and Video Online

The library subscribes to several online collections of audio and video resources.  In this session you can learn about sound and film for history, education, literature, theater, dance, government, religion, science, and more.

Thursday, March 22 Primary Sources Online

An impressive variety of primary source material is available online.  Come find out about a sampling of the electronic archives provided by the library.

We will meet on the first floor of the library, at the south end the reference area (near the windows).  Our sessions will start promptly at 10:00 am, and finish at 10:45 am.

If possible, R.S.V.P. by noon on March 19 to Gretchen Revie at gretchen.m.revie@lawrence.edu or by calling 920-832-6730, but feel free to attend even if you don’t contact us in advance.

Hope to see you there!

The Art of Video Games at the Smithsonian

Today is the opening day of the new exhibit, The Art of Video Games, at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Not able to visit this weekend for the opening festivities? The Mudd Library can help you out.  We have a variety of materials about video games and art as well as some primary source materials (i.e. video games).  Below is a selection of resources for those interested in video games and art.

KRAZY: The Delirious World of Anime + Comics + Video Games +Art: Catalog of an exhibition held at the Vancouver Art Gallery.

The Art of the Video Game: Explores the artistry of a variety of video games.

The Art of Alice: The Madness Returns: Book of concept art and stories behind the creation of the macabre art of this video game, based on Lewis Carroll’s, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

The Art of Video Games: From Pac-Man to Mass Effect: Companion book to the Smithsonian exhibit. Will be available on the Mudd Library shelves soon.

The Orange Box: A collection of five popular video games, including the very popular, Portal.

Want to learn more about games and scholarly research and the gaming community on the Lawrence University Campus? Take a look at our Why Gaming? research guide.

Spring Primary Day

Today is spring primary day in Appleton. We’re voting to narrow down the field forAppleton’s mayor and alderperson for district 4 (which includes LU). Lawrence students will vote at Alexander Gym; shuttles are being provided from 7am-7pm.

New rules require you to provide ID at the polling place, so stop at the ID office in the Campus Center to make sure you have the right ID. More information about the new voter ID law found at Bring it to the Ballot.

Presidents’ Day

Abraham Lincoln Book Tower. Photo by Maxell Mackenzie. From npr.org

Presidents Day is celebrated yearly on the third Monday in February.  It was created in 1977 with the merging of the celebrations of Presidents Lincoln and Washington. The Encyclopedia of American Studies (from Credo Reference) notes, “although some communities still mark the observance with patriotic speeches by public officials, most Americans associate the day with department-store sales.”  While the library is hosting neither patriotic speeches nor any type of sale, we have found a couple of President Lincoln web pages that you might find interesting.

Tower of Abraham Lincoln Books: A group of historians in Washington D.C. created this exhibit made of the approximately 1,500 books that have been written by President Lincoln.  Their intention of this 34 ft. tall tower, was ” to physically illustrate Lincoln’s importance.”

Lincoln Reading Room:  The Mudd Library is home to the Lincoln Reading Room.  This room, which was dedicated in May 2000, contains an excellent collection of materials relating to President Lincoln and the Civil War.  The materials in this collection were donated by Robert S. French (LU ’48) and Keville Larson (LU ’20).

Verse-O-Matic Poetry Dispenser

The Mudd Library is hosting the Verse-O-Matic poetry dispenser!  Just turn the handle and receive a plastic egg filled with an inspiring poem and a piece of candy (no coins required). This fun machine is a project of the poetry magazine, Verse Wisconsin, and Poetry Jumps off the Shelf, a group dedicated to “bringing… poetry into the general arena.”  Stop in the library and give it a try!  It is located on the first floor on the new book shelf, and will be here for about a month.

 

“Do you guys have a video camera I can check out?”

Media Center, located on the first floor of the library.

You may already know that the media center is the area of the first floor where we house our CD, DVD, and VHS collection, as well as several listening stations, viewing rooms, group study tables, and a scanner. Did you know that we also have a variety of equipment available for loan? In need of a video camera for a project? Check out one of our Flip cameras. Planning a group activity or residence life program? Check out our Nintendo Wii system and one of our fun games.  For a list of the items available for loan, as well as a link to the reservation form, take a look at our media services equipment page. Do you need help editing your audio/video project? We also offer media-related support.  Take a look at our media support page for details.

 

 

Some Great New Resources

Like elves in a workshop, your friends at the Mudd Library have been busily preparing all kinds of great new stuff during winter break.  We’d like to take a moment to highlight a few.

JSTOR Arts & Sciences VIII: This set has been added to our existing JSTOR electronic database collection.  By adding this collection, we have increased our JSTOR access to core humanities journals, as well as new titles in philosophy, classical studies, and music.  In addition to modern journals, it also contains “a group of rare 19th and early 20th century American Art periodicals digitized as part of “a special project undertaken with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Frick Collection, and the Brooklyn Museum of Art.”

Interested in watching some classic musicals?  We now have DVDs of some of the best, including (but not limited to) Fiddler on the Roof, Bye Bye Birdie, and Annie Get Your Gun. Speaking of classics, we have also just added the entire set of the original Japanese Godzilla movies.

We’ve recently acquired some very interesting books from a wide variety of genres. Read Tonight No Poetry Will Serve, written by one of the “essential voices of our time,” Adrienne Rich.   Our collection of dance resources has been greatly expanded with titles such as, Envisioning Dance on Film and Video. Learn about the archaeological field of prehistoric warfare with Warfare in Prehistoric Britain. Need something to reinforce your fears of a zombie apocalypse?  Check out the most recent volumes of the terrifying and amazing, The Walking Dead.

We’ve also added some new video games, including what has been referred to as, “the Wii game we’ve been waiting for,” The Legend of Zelda : Skyward Sword.   Three Xbox 360 games have also been purchased, and will soon be ready for checkout.

Of course, this is just a small sampling of some of our new acquisitions.  After you’ve enjoyed your winter holiday festivities, stop by the library and take a look!