Conversation

Category: Conversation

Student Research in the Library: Sierra Parker

We are so grateful when our hard-working students take time out of their busy schedules to share what they’re up to in the library!

Sierra Parker has been spending an awful lot of time in her student office this term. The Linguistics and Russian Studies major is from Michigan’s Upper Penisula and will be graduating in June. Sierra plans to attend graduate school to study communication disorders after taking a year or two off to work with FoodCorps (a branch of AmeriCorps that helps start school gardens and educates kids about healthy foods) or the National Park Service.

Sierra, what are you researching?

I am researching aphasia, a language disorder.  People with aphasia lose the ability to find words and/or use them coherently.

More specifically, I am looking at how aphasia was studied by two Soviet psychologists: Alexander Luria and Lev Vygotsky. I am interested in what they believed about aphasia, as well as the chain of thought that led them there.

What are you hoping to learn or gain from this research?

I am fascinated with how people with aphasia experience the world. I am hoping to gain some insight by learning more about conceptions of aphasia that differ from the modern Western approach.

Why do you think this research is important?

I believe it is always important to step into someone else’s shoes (in this case: people with aphasia, Vygotsky, and Luria) and try to see the world from their point of view. Also, Western histories of aphasiology tend to overlook the groundbreaking work done by Vygotsky, Luria, and other Russian/Soviet psychologists.

How did you become interested in this line of research?

I took the class Brain & Behavior, which introduced me to aphasia. As someone who has always been interested in language, I was stunned by the implications of losing it. I instantly wanted to know more about the disorder, as well as the lives and minds of those who live with it every day.

What library materials and resources have been the most useful to you in pursuing this research?

The library created a research guide specific to my senior seminar, which has been extraordinarily useful. The PSYCInfo database has been helpful, as well as the fact that the library owns four volumes of Vygotsky’s Collected Works!

What would you like your fellow students to know about the Mudd Library?

Apply for an office! They are a big help, especially if you are planning on using many books from the Mudd’s collection.

Also, do not be afraid to ask the librarians for help. That’s what they’re there for!

Thanks, Sierra. We couldn’t have said it better ourselves. See you around the Mudd.

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The Mudd Visits The Center for Spiritual and Religious Life

As you know, the Mudd Library supports the entire Lawrence community. Because of this, we strive to connect with other departments on campus to learn more about their services, how we can best assist them, and to explore possibilities for collaboration.

Recently, we reached out to Lawrence’s Dean of Religious and Spiritual Life, Linda Morgan-Clement, to welcome her to campus and to learn more about her work. She graciously invited us to The Center for Spiritual and Religious Life to check out the recently-renovated space and to hear more about the offerings of the center.

We happily obliged.

Mudd Library Staff with Reverend Dr. Linda Morgan-Clement in the beautiful living room at The Center for Spiritual and Religious Life.

It was a grey, icy morning the day we slowly made our way to Sabin House, but once inside the space we were suffused with warmth and comfort. The Center for Spiritual and Religious Life is filled with lovely colors and soft light. We took off ours shoes, as directed, and looked around the beautiful, comfortable first floor.

According to their website, “The Center for Spiritual and Religious Life is a welcoming place for curious, intentional, respectful engagement with persons of similar, different or no religious tradition, and for quiet personal reflection and spiritual practice.”

There’s a lovely meditation room, a cozy living room/meeting space, and a spacious community room with a kitchen, perfect for hosting group meals or even yoga classes. The downstairs bathroom features a foot wash station for Muslim guests.

To our delight, each of the spaces has its own library which corresponds to the space; the meditation room features brief works and poetry to foster centered reflection, whereas the living room houses classic religious texts and works meant for deep reading and to foster respectful conversation.

The second floor features the administrative offices for the center as well as a meeting room.

Linda explained that one of her many roles as the Dean of Religious and Spiritual Life is to offer one-on-one spiritual direction and guidance relating to important questions of meaning and purpose.

We loved visiting Sabin House and learning more about this great campus resource, and we highly encourage you to do the same. Visit their webpage to find out more about the center and to see the rich and timely offerings available to the Lawrence community.

Thank you so much for having us, Linda.

The Mudd Welcomes Natasha Trethewey to Lawrence!

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Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Natasha Trethewey will be at Lawrence November 1.

The Seeley G. Mudd Library is pleased to welcome poet Natasha Trethewey to Lawrence!

You can read more about Natasha and her work at the Poetry Foundation. Ms. Trethewey is also a professor at Emory University. Check out the links provided to learn more about her numerous accomplishments and honors.

The library has many of Natasha’s works available in our collection, including:

Native guard

Beyond Katrina : a meditation on the Mississippi Gulf Coast

Bellocq’s Ophelia : poems

Domestic work : poems

Black nature : four centuries of African American nature poetry

In addition, we’ve created a display featuring her poetry for your reading pleasure. Stop by the library to enjoy an assortment of Ms. Trethewey’s work before what is sure to be an interesting and thought-provoking convocation.

Natasha Trethewey’s talk, titled “The Muse of History: On Poetry and Social Justice,” will take place on Tuesday, November 1, at 11:10 am in the Chapel.  We’ll see you there!

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Stop by the Mudd to read some of Natasha Trethewey’s work!

Using Your Library Wisely

The library offers so many resources and services, it can be hard to keep track of all the ways in which we can help you succeed at Lawrence.

Below you’ll find a handy list of just a few ideas for optimizing your experience in the Mudd. How many have you employed?

Lots of seating for lots of studying.
  • Grab a study buddy and a rolling whiteboard to parse out those tricky formulas.
  • Head for the quiet solitude of the fourth floor and hide out in the stacks to read.
  • Contact a reference librarian for research assistance or make a research appointment: visit the desk, call, email, or text!
  • Watch a movie for class or relaxation in one of our five viewing rooms.

    Books and art and standing desks!
  • Browse the fiction and graphic novels on the third floor during a study break.
  • Wheel one of our standing desks to your favorite spot to focus.
  • Lounge on one of the comfy couches in the Milwaukee-Downer Room (1st floor) or in the Roger Dale Kruse Room (4th floor) while doing your class reading.
  • Reserve a group study room on either the 2nd or 3rd floor by signing your name on the clipboard outside the door. Invite your friends for an intensive study session.
  • Practice your PowerPoint presentation in the group study room on the 2nd floor.
  • Check out the art in the Mudd Gallery on the 3rd floor during a study break.
  • Cozy up to read or nap in one of our beanbag chairs! There are three spread out across the upper floors.
  • Browse the free book shelf on the 2nd floor. You can find some great music there as well!
  • Catch up on domestic or international current events with a newspaper.
  • Hide away for some quiet study among the bound periodicals on level A.
  • Visit the Circulation Desk to check out a locker for your research materials. Or check out the Wii for the weekend!
  • Gather some friends for a game break: everything from Candyland to Catan can be found on the 2nd floor.
  • Pop into the Archives on Level B one afternoon and visit with Erin Dix, our friendly and informative archivist. Find out the answers to your burning questions about the history of Lawrence and Milwaukee-Downer.

Are there any other ideas that you would add to this list? How do you use the Mudd? We’d love to hear from you!

Regardless of how you use the Mudd, we look forward to seeing you soon.

The beautiful and serene Lincoln Reading Room.

(In)visible: Homelessness in Appleton

         It’s hard to imagine what homelessness looks like in Appleton from within the Lawrence bubble. During Spring term of last year, Sankofa CODA hosted a conversation that focused on the issue of Housing Inequality. The discussion looked at the social and historical conditions that threaten people’s access to shelter – especially for people of color and members of the LGBTQ community. Thanks to a partnership between Lawrence and the History Museum at the Castle, we are lucky enough to have an excerpt of the exhibition “(In)visible” on view in the Mudd Library to continue this conversation. The exhibition, located on the library’s second floor, is sponsored by the Fox Cities Housing Coalition as a part of their initiative Project RUSH (Research to Understand and Solve Homelessness).
        “(In)visible” refers to how those struggling to find stable housing in the Fox Valley often feel. This exhibition sought to amplify the voices and experiences of members of Appleton’s homeless community by providing them cameras to capture moments of their lives. Many of these photographs as well as written accounts by the photographers are on view as well as statistics about this population gathered by Project RUSH in 2015.

Image and caption by Del, a participant in the program

        The result is a moving insight into the daily lives of Appleton’s homeless population. Be sure to stop by the exhibition before it is taken down on Sunday October 16th and to get involved in Project RUSH or other organizations dedicated fighting housing insecurity in the Fox Valley. Lawrence students should check out volunteer opportunities through the campus Volunteer Center.

Celebrating Diversity in the Mudd Library

Banned Books Week display celebrating diverse books.

At a recent library staff meeting, we were honored to welcome Kimberly Barrett, Lawrence’s new Vice President for Diversity and Inclusion and Associate Dean of the Faculty. Vice President Barrett shared her vision for diversity and inclusion at Lawrence and helped us to discover ways in which the library can show the students, faculty, and staff that we are dedicated to celebrating and exploring diversity.

As a result, we’ve compiled many of these efforts and made them available on the library website:

Diversity Efforts in the Mudd Library
Library Diversity Resources

And on some Pinterest boards:

Diversity and Inclusion: Books, Journals, and Media in the Mudd
Diversity and Inclusion: Reading Lists and Resources

September is National Hispanic Heritage Month.

Is your department or student organization interested in collaborating with us on a library display or event? Fill out our form and share your ideas!

Your friends in the Mudd Library are happy to be a part of the diverse and welcoming community of Lawrence University.

Summertime and the Living’s Busy

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Librarians and staff learning how to efficiently use one of our art databases during a webinar.

We’re often asked what we do during the summer, when we’re not focused on assisting students or helping faculty.

In reality, summer is a very busy time for everyone in the Mudd. It’s our chance to catch up on the tasks that take second place to our main priority: supporting students and faculty. Read on to learn a bit more about what we’re up to when campus is quiet.

  • Continuing to improve OneSearch, our new library system. We implemented OneSearch last summer. While this tool provides a lot of research advantages, overhauling and learning a new and complex system takes some fine-tuning. We’re working with the provider to ensure that the system runs smoothly and effectively before everyone returns to campus in the fall.
  • Maintaining our collections. This includes binding older periodicals into hardcover volumes for preservation purposes, repairing damaged items, shifting and reorganizing the stacks and processing gifts and new materials.

    A huge music collection that was gifted to the Mudd awaits processing.
    A huge music collection that was gifted to the Mudd awaits processing.
  • Digitizing. Summer is a great opportunity to digitize items that we’d like to share with classes or the world. Some examples of this include items from our rare book collection and recordings of Conservatory concerts and other performances, which leads us to Lux:
  • Adding items to Lux. Lux is Lawrence’s institutional repository and the digital home of the scholarly and creative works of the community. It is maintained by the library. This summer we’ll be adding some older issues of Lawrence magazine.
  • Researching. Some of the subjects our librarians are digging into include pedagogy, new information literacy guidelines and, as always, best practices. We participate in webinars and attend conferences throughout the summer, too, ensuring that we remain on the cutting edge of research, instruction, technology and librarianship.
  • Hosting. This summer we’re welcoming folks from the ACM schools to Lawrence for a makerspace conference, so we’re tending to the many details involved in preparing for that.  We also host our summer coffeehouse series each year, creating interesting and helpful programming for folks who remain on campus.
  • Gathering statistics from the previous academic year. This includes tallying all of  the new materials that we’ve purchased, the amount of time that we spent offering research instruction to classes or individuals, the types of items that were checked-out, how many folks used the library and for what and, of course, examining closely how much money we spent on everything.
  • Preparing. We’d be remiss to not mention the fact that we spend quite a bit of time preparing for the upcoming year. We develop new classes that we’ll be involved in teaching, ensure that all of our systems are running smoothly, stock up on supplies and ideas for the coming year and discuss how to better serve all of the wonderful students, faculty and staff with whom we have the pleasure of working.
  • Odding and ending. Offices are cleaned, items are organized and inventoried, newer and clearer signs are posted and all sorts of other odds and ends get taken care of each summer.

As you can see, your librarians and library staff work hard all year round, even in the summer. The feedback that we receive during the academic year is taken seriously and we continuously aim to improve the experiences of everyone on campus, regardless of the time of year.

We trust this sheds some light on our summertime activities, and hope that this doesn’t disappoint those of you who envisioned us sipping iced tea in hammocks while reading our favorite literature. That’s what we do at home!

Looking forward to seeing everyone again soon.

Every summer we welcome guests to our popular Summer Reads Coffeehouse. We sip coffee and discuss the latest books that we've read and loved.
Every summer we welcome guests to our popular Summer Reads Coffeehouse. We sip coffee and discuss the latest books we’ve read and loved.

The Mudd Welcomes Lan Samantha Chang to Lawrence!

Spring term finals are over and the hustle and bustle of students writing, reading and concentrating intently in the busy, buzzing library has given way to quiet stillness.

This can only mean one thing: Commencement is just a few days away!

If you’re as excited as we are about Lan Samantha Chang delivering this year’s commencement address, you’re in luck. We’ve created a display featuring all three of the Appleton native’s novels.

The display also features The Workshop: Seven Decades of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop – 43 Stories, Recollections, & Essays on Iowa’s Place in Twentieth-Century American Literature. This book is a compilation of works created by participants in the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, of which Chang is the current director.

If you’re wondering what to do with the several days before commencement, stop by the Mudd and check out some of Chang’s work before she arrives.

While you’re here you can catch up on some current news, watch a movie, read a magazine or novel (Chang’s are available!), work on a puzzle or just hang out. (You know, all of the things you’ve been daydreaming about doing since spring break ended.)

Thanks for a fabulous academic year, everyone, and congratulations to our graduating seniors!

Join us as we welcome Lan Samantha Chang back to Appleton.

 

Start Spring Term Strong in the Mudd!

We just love the feeling of a new term, when minds and notebooks are fresh and the work feels manageable. Staying abreast of readings and assignments and spending quality time with coursework from the very beginning of the term will go a long way toward avoiding stress later, when papers and projects and finals are looming.

Are you feeling motivated to start your spring term strong?

We can help!

We offer group study spaces throughout the first and second floors, including helpful tools like moveable white boards and standing desks. Why not create a study group during the first week of the term and begin meeting regularly to discuss readings and to further analyze ideas presented in class?

For more group study options, check out a private group study room on the second or third floors, where you will find large blackboards and whiteboards for parsing difficult concepts or formulas.

The second floor group study room has a computer and a large screen monitor, prefect for practicing presentations or compiling and sharing large amounts of data.

For times that you’d rather study alone, the third and fourth floors offer quiet space and individual study carrels perfect for deep reading, research, reflection, and writing.

Speaking of research, we offer a plethora of books, over 20,000 music scores, 103,000 microforms and a digital microform reader and scanner, tons of electronic resources organized by subject, periodicals and newspapers, videos, and many government documents.

Becoming familiar with the stacks and with our online resources and digital collections before midterm madness is a great way to ensure your academic success and to mitigate stress later.

If you need assistance navigating all of our resources or are in need of research guidance of any kind, our friendly reference librarians are available to assist you. You can even schedule a research appointment and meet with a librarian one-on-one! The earlier you start a dialogue with the librarians about a particular project, the better. And even without a project on the horizon, the librarians would love to take a few moments to get to know you. Stop by the reference desk to say hello.

The Mudd is here to help you succeed! We can also help to reduce your stress and maximize your experience at Lawrence. Start your spring term strong by spending some time with us. Come tenth week, you’ll be glad that you did.

Student Researcher in the Library: Terese Swords


Whether she’s studying English or biology, we love to see Terese Swords’ smiling face in the Mudd! This Midwestern senior may be winding down her career at Lawrence, but she’s still using the library full force. Read on to learn more about Terese, her research and why she loves the library.

What library materials and resources have been the most useful to you in pursuing your research, Terese?

I frequently use ILL to gain access to both electronic journal articles as well as PDFs of books. The main collection of books within the library, especially regarding 18th century credit economies, has also been extremely useful.

What would you like your fellow students to know about the Mudd Library?

It is a great resource and can allow you to gain a better understanding of questions (in any academic field) that interest you.

Also, having a student office in the library is extremely useful when pursuing large research projects, because it allows for both a quiet study space as well as a secure location to keep an immense amount of research materials.

The Mudd, and its staff, are awesome!

What are you researching?

I am researching many things!

For my honors project in English, I am researching the representation of 18th century economies in two of Daniel Defoe’s works: Robinson Crusoe and Roxana.

For my biology senior capstone, I am writing a review paper analyzing how the parasitic protozoan Toxoplasma gondii is able to manipulate its intermediate rat host and how Toxoplasma, which can infect humans and cause the disease toxoplasmosis, may be manipulating our behavior!

I am planning to use my biology research on Toxoplasma as content for a radio script that I am going to be writing and producing in the spring.

What are you hoping to learn or gain from this research?

For my honors project in English I am hoping to gain a deeper understanding of capitalist economies in the 18th century and how the South Sea Bubble’s burst drastically influenced the social and economic thought of the time. I am also looking to understand where critics stand on the issue of economic representation in Daniel Defoe’s works so I can enter into a conversation with them within my paper.

For my biology capstone, I am hoping to further understand the mechanisms by which Toxoplasma gondii is able to manipulate its hosts as well as the global health implications of the disease toxoplasmosis in humans.

Why do you think this research is important?

I believe that both research topics are important because both projects look to further answer/understand gaps present within the critical literature in each respective field.

How did you become interested in this line of research?

I became interested in researching 18th century credit economies after taking Dr. Barnes class “Gender and the Enlightenment” last winter, where I was first introduced to Daniel Defoe and his work Roxana. Since then, I have not stopped thinking about economic representation within Defoe’s works and other literary/artistic works post South Sea Bubble.

After taking parasitology with Dr. Humphries, I amazed at the idea that Toxoplasma gondii, a parasite that is estimated to be infecting ¼ of the population of the US above the age of 12, could be manipulating mammals’ behavior. Since then, for my capstone, I have been researching how humans, a dead end host for the parasite, may also experience behavioral changes due to infection.

What are your plans after graduation?

I am taking a gap year or two before attending graduate school or law school (I haven’t decided yet). For my gap year, I am applying to boarding school programs where I will have the opportunity to teach high school students while earning a masters degree in education. I am also planning on applying to pharmaceutical companies.

My job search is just about as broad as my academic interests! I am hoping that work experience during my gap will help inform my decision of what higher education to pursue.

All the best to you, Terese! We think you’re awesome, too.