Gaming

Category: Gaming

International Games Week!

It’s International Games Week! Formerly National Gaming in Libraries Day, this event has expanded internationally and is now a week-long event to allow more school programming- not just for libraries!

Your friends at the Mudd Library have been celebrating this event for many years and are happy to continue. This year we are taking the opportunity to showcase the many games and gaming-related resources available at the Mudd, including:

  • Board games and puzzles on the second floor that can be checked out or played in the library. This year, we received donations of, Are you the Traitor? and Regular Show Fluxx from Looney Labs, and Pathfinder Adventure Card Game: Skull and Shackles from Paizo!
  • Video games and a Nintendo Wii system that can be reserved and checked out for residence hall gatherings, student organization events, a fun weekend with friends, or anything! Our collection of Just Dance games is especially popular- and a great way to get some exercise.
  • Scholarly books about games, including gaming culture, music, technology, history, psychology, and more!
  • Great selection of electronic scholarly research on games, compiled in a handy Game Studies LibGuide.

Follow the Mudd Library on Instagram, where we’ll be doing an International Games Week takeover.

Be sure to stop by and check out a game or learn about about the scholarly side of gaming at the Mudd Library.

Summertime Mudd!

Summer is here and it’s time to enjoy the Mudd in a whole new way. The Library transforms over summer break, as most of our students are away and the busy bustle of the academic year has subsided.

Cool down and take a load off in the Kruse Room on the fourth floor.

Of course, you’ll find an industrious student or professor or two huddled around a laptop, but for the most part, it’s fairly quiet around here.

This peaceful, settled atmosphere allows our resources and spaces to appear in a whole new light.

Here are some ideas to help you make the most of summer in the Mudd:

Relax with our popular magazines.
  • Come to our coffeehouse sessions! This is a summertime Mudd must!
  • Enjoy the air conditioning while catching up on local, national, and international news with our large selection of newspapers or popular magazines.
  • It’s finally time to binge watch your favorite TV series! Or, some popular or classic movies. We’ve got a ton of documentaries and musicals, too. Browse the DVDs in the media center, or check out our streaming resources (You’ll need to log in).
  • Make an appointment to FINALLY check out the Archives.

    Board games are on the 2nd floor. We have video games, too!
  • Challenge your family or your nemesis to a game night! We have both video and board games for check-out, or, stay and play!
  • Wander around the building to appreciate our art. Pay homage to The Katie while you’re at it.
  • Find a fabulous summer read! Stop by our coffeehouse on Wednesday, July 12 for our recommendations. Or, peruse the third floor for the latest and greatest in popular fiction and young adult or graphic novels. Of course we have poetry and classic literature, too, as well as some really compelling nonfiction.
  • Contact a reference librarian and ask for a peek at some of the rare books in our special collections.
  • Soak up the scholarly atmosphere while developing historical perspective and appreciation in the Lincoln Reading Room.
  • Come and introduce yourself to the staff and faculty who call the Mudd home. We enjoy getting to know members of the campus community and this is a great time of year to catch us with a few moments to talk about our work, the library’s offerings, and how we can best serve our community.
Lovely art, natural light, and cozy chairs.

Summer is here and so are we! We strive to make this library a welcoming, comfortable, peaceful, productive space, and we encourage you to make the most of it, regardless of the time of year.

Whether you’re reading, researching, or relaxing, we’d love to hear how you’re using the Mudd this summer!

See you soon.

Upcoming Library Events

The Mudd Library will be hosting a variety of fun and interesting events through the end of the term. From genealogy to video games- there’s something for everyone!

Professor Erica Scheinberg will talk about the 30th anniversary of Michael Jackson’s, Thriller.

October 18th: Tenth Library Mid-Term Reading Period Smash Bros. Tournament and Opening Gaming

  • Join us for our tenth Smash Bros. tournament and open gaming event! In addition to Smash Bros., we’ll also have open gaming Halo or Mario Kart as well as board games. In celebration of this milestone, we’ll have cake and extra prizes. Open gaming and warm-ups start at 6:30 pm, tournament begins at 7 pm.

October 25th: Things Worth Knowing: Haunted Lawrence

  • Learn about eerie happenings around campus. With Archivist Erin Dix.

November 1st: Things Worth Knowing: I See Dead People: Exploring Geneaology

  • Presented by Music Librarian Antoinette Powell, the library’s foremost forebear fanatic.

November 8th: Things Worth Knowing: Thriller at 30

  • November marks the anniversary of Michael Jackson’s super-smash album. Learn more about the music and MJ from special guest, Professor Erica Scheinberg.

All Things Worth Knowing events begin at 4:30 pm and take place on the first floor of the library. For more information on past topics, take a look at the guide.

We hope to see you at one, or all, of these events!

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.

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.

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!

Historical Media

We’d like to share a couple of awesome ways to share, view, and experience historical media.

Fourth of July Celebration photo compared with Google Street View

SepiaTown is a user-driven database that matches historical photographs with locations on Google Maps.  Users upload photographs, add the location the photograph was taken, the date it was taken, and any additional information about the picture.  The “then/now” feature provides a side-by-side comparison of the historical photo to the Google Maps Street View.  Users can do a keyword search, or look at images associated with featured locations. Check out the SepiaTown Blog to learn more about features and collections.

The ARIS game platform uses historical images and videos to create mobile games that allow the player to relive past events in the locations that they took place.  An example is the game Dow Day, which displays videos and images from Dow Day in 1967 when a player visits certain locations around Madison.

Dow Day: A game designed using the ARIS game platform.

ARIS was created to allow educators to create mobile games that integrate learning and augmented reality (the concept of using technology to add additional information to an existing environment). Educators/developers have created more than historical games using ARIS.  Some examples include, campus tours, museum exhibits, foreign language instruction,  bird and plant species identification, and one from the Library of Congress on using primary sources.  Games created by ARIS are currently only available on the App Store.

Chill Out @ the Mudd!


Looking for a fun way to stay cool on Friday afternoons this summer?   Why not come to the library?  We will have a variety of board games, puzzles, coloring books, card games, and video games available to play in the library.  Check out a movie from our staff movie picks to watch over the weekend, or watch it in one of our temperature-controlled viewing rooms.   Games will be available every Friday from 1 to 4pm, all summer long.

Things Worth Knowing

A few weeks ago, we began a new tradition in the library: Things Worth Knowing. Our patrons may not know this, but the denizens of the Mudd Library have a vast knowledge on a wide variety of topics.  What kinds of topics?  Check out our Facebook page, or take notice of the fliers around campus to find out.  We begin advertising Tuesday or Wednesday for the topic that will be shared on that Friday.

Amanda Lee reads "Shirt" by Robert Pinsky

Our first program happened to take place on the one hundredth anniversary of the Triangle shritwaist factory fire.  Music Librarian Antoinette Powell discussed the workers’ rights movements of the time, Acquisitions Assistant Amanda Lee shared a poem on the tragedy of the  Triangle fire, and Gretchen Revie introduced a short film about the fire.  Our second program was on April 1st, so the topic chosen was the history of April Fool’s Day.  Gretchen Revie discussed the history, and Archivist Erin Dix shared some April Fool’s issues of The Lawrentian.

Tomorrow, April 8th, we will geek out as Interlibrary Loan & Circulation Assistant Angela Vanden Elzen discusses the history and impact of Dungeons & Dragons, and Gretchen Revie delves into the world of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

All Things Worth Knowing events take place from 4:30-5:00 p.m. on the first floor of the Mudd Library. Of course, cookies are always available.

Let us know if you have any suggestions of topics you’d like to hear us talk about!

Take a look at all previous Things Worth Knowing events on our Facebook events page.

What’s in the Mudd?

You know that we strive to provide you with the best resources available for all of your research needs, but did you know that there’s more to the Mudd library?

Today, we begin a new series called “What’s in the Mudd”.  Stop in the library and take a look at our display of interesting and unusual resources.  Better yet, take one to the circulation desk and check it out.

Our display includes:

  • Pincus and the Pig: A Klezmer Tale– You know and love Peter and the Wolf. Here it’s performed by the Shirim Klezmer Orchestra.  Includes a helpful Yiddish glossary.  As a bonus, includes Klezmer versions of Brahms, Satie, and Mahler.
  • The Ramones, Anthology– The accompanying booklet says “loud and fast.” We think that sums it up nicely.
  • Airplane!– The “Don’t Call Me Shirley” edition.  A hilarious homage to disaster movies.  Technically, there is a plot, but mostly it’s a string of one-liners. A classic.
  • Super Smash Brothers Brawl– The back of the game case claims, “There’s no end to the smashing fun.” It’s true- ask a friend.
  • Dr. Seuss, The Cat in the Hat– Read it in English or attempt it in Russian.
  • Perfect Hips: Belly Dance Workout– Need we say more?
  • Caribbean Cooking for Pleasure- The Mudd library has scads of cookbooks.  You can find them by using the term “cookery” as a search term in LUCIA.
  • AC/DC Rockband Trackpack– Tired of playing the same songs on your Rockband setup? Why not totally rock out with “the majestic power of AC/DC?” (from game case)
  • International Sound Effects Library, volume 1-28- We are featuring volume 3, which contains such sounds as rat squeaks and baboon barks.
  • And more!

All this month, we will continue to delight and surprise you with some of the Mudd library’s hidden gems.