Join us on Thursday, May 10 at 4:30 on the first floor of the library for a very special episode of Things Worth Knowing. Linda Fuerst and her champion agility dog, Maya, will be here to regale us with tales of the wild world of agility dog training and competition. Not to be missed!
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!
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.
It’s Pi Day! As everyone knows, the mathematical constant pi is (approximately) 3.14 — and today is 3/14. A closer approximation of pi is 3.1415, but we’ll have to wait three years for 3/14/15. If you want an even closer approximation, visit PiDay.org and get a million digits of pi… And who doesn’t want a million digits of pi?
To celebrate this auspicious (and delicious) day, you could look for some books and videos about the mathematical pi or you could read the award-winning novel, Life of Pi, or you could find a recipe for pie in one of the Mudd’s many cookbooks….
Or you could finish your finals, grade that last paper, and go outside to enjoy the 70-degree weather…
The magical, mystical change from Standard Time to Daylight Savings Time occurs on Sunday, March 11 at 2:00 a.m. local time. Turn your clocks FORWARD one hour. If you even have a clock that requires you to change it….
Remember: it’s FALL back and SPRING forward.
And don’t forget to search LUCIA for clocks. You’ll find excellent stuff like the prize-winning The Invention of Hugo Cabret and It’s About Time: Understanding Einstein’s Relativity.
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 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).
February 7. 2012 is the 200th birthday of one of the English language’s great authors, Charles Dickens. Born in Portsmouth, England, Dickens spent some of his early childhood in London. When he was 12, his father was imprisoned for debt and Charles had to go to work in a warehouse. He never forgot either part of his life. He became a court stenographer at age 17 and later became a reporter for the Morning Chronicle. His sketches of London life (signed Boz), began appearing in periodicals in 1833, and the collection Sketches by Boz was published in 1836.
Dickens’ work appeared first in monthly installments and then were made into books. Dickens wrote quickly, often working on more than one novel at a time, and usually finished an installment just when it was due (sound familiar?). However, speed did not keep his intricately plotted books from being the most popular novels of his day.
Dickens wrote more than a dozen major novels, a large number of short stories, several plays, several books of non-fiction, and many essays and articles. He died in 1870 at the age of 58. He’s buried in Westminster Abbey.
Some Dickens links
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.
Frans de Waal, primatologist and Professor of Primate Behavior at Emory University, presents a University Convocation on Thursday 2 February 2012 at 11:10am in the Lawrence Memorial Chapel. Professor de Waal will speak on “Morality Before Religion: Empathy, Fairness and Prosocial Primates” (read more).
Some Frans de Waal resources from your friends at the Mudd:
Do Humans Alone ‘Feel Your Pain’? from the Chronicle of Higher Education, October 26, 2001
The Living Links Center at Emory University. The primary mission of the Living Links Center is to study human evolution by investigating our close genetic, anatomical, cognitive, and behavioral similarities with great apes.
Professor de Waal’s public Facebook page
Search LUCIA for books by Frans de Waal
Search Academic Search Premier for articles by and about Frans de Waal (on-campus only)
