Let’s go to the movies!

Gleeson Library is co-sponsoring two different free film events on campus in the next few days. On Monday, April 8, join us in the Rare Book Room at 6 p.m. for a delightful look at some very young Muslim scholars in Koran By Heart. And screening at Presentation Hall this Thursday through Saturday is USF’s 11th Annual Human Rights Film Festival, opening with  a selection of shorts produced by USF students. Issues highlighted in the festival range from free speech to drug trafficking. We share with the festival organizers a belief in the power of film to educate and encourage citizens to take action, and are pleased that several of the festival films this year are new library holdings.

Koran By Heart: film journey @ Gleeson Library

Gleeson Library has received a wonderful collection of books and DVDs as part of the Bridging Cultures Bookshelf: Muslim Journeys, a project of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Library Association.

Embarking on Gleeson’s Muslim Journeys, we’re pleased to present a free film screening of Koran By Heart, a film by Greg Barker, on Monday, April 8 @ 6:00 p.m. in the Donohue Rare Book Room. The screening will be introduced by Aisha Morgan from Islamic Networks Group, and is co-sponsored by University Ministry as part of UM’s annual Interfaith Week celebration April 7-13.

The film depicts the annual competition when about one hundred of Islam’s best young students from around the world come to Cairo for the International Holy Koran Competition. Koran by Heart follows the progress of three ten-year-old scholars, a girl and two boys, as they compete in the two-week event. Scheduled during Ramadan, the competition is grueling and exhilarating. The students adhere to the practice of daytime fasting, and the rounds sometimes go well past midnight. The finals are broadcast on Egyptian national television. Koran by Heart captures the skill, determination, and faith of the young competitors, and lets us glimpse the social and political tides that pull at them from every direction.

Our new books and DVDs are on display (and available for checking out) in the lobby. The grant also includes a subscription to Oxford Islamic Studies Online, a multi-layered, growing repository of reference content and commentary.

International pictures (vote on your favorite!), food and culture this week — don’t miss it!

Culturescape is one of my favorite things about USF. The annual signature event of the International Student Association brings amazing music, dance, and athletic performances to Presentation Theater followed by a fantastic dinner with cuisine from around the world in the McLaren Complex. You can get a glimpse of last year’s performances for a taste, and get your tickets at the door or at Market Cafe during lunch (11:30am – 1:45pm). Also at Culturescape, winners of the International Education Week photo contest will be announced and get their prizes. Please vote on your favorite today, Thursday Nov. 15 before 5:00 p.m. Vote online at the Flickr site linked on the ISSS website — just click on any of the photos for a link to the ballot — or in person at the Market Cafe at lunchtime today.

USF International Photo Contest deadline November 8

USF is kicking off International Education Week 2012 with a call for photos of your experiences abroad.

Photos will be displayed on campus and voted on by the campus community. Voting begins Monday, Nov. 12 and will end Thursday, Nov. 15 at 5:00 pm. Contest winners will be announced at Culturescape and receive great prizes!
Prizes will be awarded for photos that best represent one’s international experience.
To enter, please visit www.usfca.edu/isss/iew/
Deadline: Thursday, Nov. 8, 2012 @ 5 pm.
*Please send only one entry per person and one photo per entry. All students and USF employees are eligible and encouraged to participate.
For more information on International Educational Week at USF please visit http://www.usfca.edu/isss/iew

International Education Week is Nov. 12-17, 2012. The theme for IEW 2012 is “Building Cultural Understanding for a Healthier World”. It’s hoped that the week’s events will help stimulate cultural understanding in our own community and foster an inclusive worldview that supports the health and well-being of all. Feel free to contact International Student and Scholar Services with any questions or if you would like to get involved.

*The Invisible War* screening and discussion Monday 11/5 @ 5 p.m.

The Invisible War will screen Nov. 5 at 5 p.m. in McLaren 252.

Please join us on Nov. 5 at 5 p.m. when the USF’s Women & Violence Research Group, in collaboration with the Gender and Sexualities Center and Gleeson Library, presents a screening and discussion of The Invisible War, followed by a panel discussion with veterans, community organizers, and academics.

From Oscar®- and Emmy®-nominated filmmaker Kirby Dick comes The Invisible War, a groundbreaking investigative documentary about the epidemic of rape within the U.S. military. The film paints a startling picture of the extent of the problem– today, a female soldier in combat zones is more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire. The Department of Defense estimates there were 19,000 violent sex crimes in the military in 2010. The Invisible War exposes the epidemic and breaks open one of the most under-reported stories of the decade, to the nation and the world.

This event is co-sponsored by Comparative Literature & Culture, Gender & Sexualities Studies; B.A. and M.A. in International Studies; Legal Studies; Media Studies; Peace and Justice Studies; Politics; and Sociology.

Get your good grub from the garden this Thursday

USF students are serving up fresh (and cheap!) deliciousness from USF’s organic garden on Thursday, March 22, from 12-2. On the menu are 2 different salads, 2 different soups, 3 desserts and a gang of frittatas. Weather permitting, the farmstand will be set up on the grass between the library and Kalmanowitz Hall. We’re bringing books and DVDs about organic gardening, real food, and healthy cooking that Gleeson Library borrowers can check out on the spot.

photo cc Vicci at moon stars and paper

IEW@USF: At home in the world

Gleeson Library is proud to cosponsor International Education Week at USF (Nov. 14-18), and this year we’re inviting you to make yourself at home in the world by visiting the library lobby, where international newspapers, magazines and books await your perusal.

This year’s schedule for IEW looks great. The lineup includes Trivia Night, the USF World Cup, “Language and culture tables” in the Market Cafe, panels on USF internationalization and international education, folk tales from around the world, and much more.

Now’s the time (til Nov. 17) to vote in the IEW@USF photo contest. And tickets are on sale for Culturescape, the festival of performance and food that showcases the talents, culture and cuisine of USF students. I love Culturescape. It’s super fun and delicious and brought to us by USF students. Click here to see video and menus from years past.

Student Maddie Vanden Branden makes herself at home in the library with international news and literature.

USF In the World: Japan Spotlight, Photo Contest, & more

At Gleeson Library we’re proud to be co-sponsors of International Education Week at USF, a celebration of international culture and education exchange. Thirty-one wonderful images reflecting this year’s theme of “USF in the World” were submitted to the photo contest by USF students and staff engaged in learning and teaching around the world. Cast your ballot by Thursday at noon; the winner will be announced at Culturescape on Friday night.

Back at the library, we’re spotlighting new acquisitions from a grant by the Tokyo-based Nippon Foundation, “100 Books for Understanding Contemporary Japan.” As explained in the grant announcement: “The Nippon Foundation set in motion a book program, the first step of which was to ask ten experts with extensive knowledge of the country to select 100 books to serve as useful guides for those who want to understand present day Japan.” From foreign policy and economics to the environment, bushido to new Japanese film, the Tale of Genji to pop culture, this collection examines Japan from every angle. All the books are available to check out so please come to the library to see our new acquisitions from the “100 Books” collection on display. Also see IEW’s Facebook page for updates on International Education Week 2010 at USF.

Cookbooks for students

We are what we eat! But eating well can be challenging for busy people with odd hours or maybe not much money or running low on Dons Dollars. The library has hundreds of cookbooks in print and online and we’d like your recommendations, either of something we already have or a book we should acquire.

Some cookbooks aimed at students or anyone looking for good easy recipes are listed below. Try these or browse the link above; if you’ve used any please let us know what you think. You can even add a book review with the “Add a Review” button in the book’s library catalog record (more info here). Or make a recommendation for library purchase.

Cooking outside the pizza box : easy recipes for today’s college student / by Jean Patterson and Danae Campbell

College cooking: feed yourself and your friends / Megan & Jill Carle

The healthy college cookbook: quick, cheap, easy /Alexandra Nimetz, Jason Stanley, Emeline Starr

The minimalist cooks dinner: more than 100 recipes for fast, weeknight meals and casual entertaining / Mark Bittman. (ONLINE E-BOOK)

How to customize the library catalog with your tags, reviews, and virtual class collections

For those who want to be able to make the library catalog work better for themselves, we provide a growing group of tools that allows USF community members to log in and keep track of their own library use. One way you can help all our library users and add value to the catalog is by customizing it with community tags, comments and book reviews. To help people find an item in the catalog, you can tag it with terms that don’t already appear in the catalog record, and add your personal recommendations to books you’ve read or films you’ve watched.

If you use the catalog you may have noticed “Add a Tag” and “Add a Review” buttons when you look up a book or film. You might even have seen some tags and reviews. One group of library users, students in Professor David Silver’s Green Media class, has started tagging books they want to be able to find later, making a virtual collection of library books for their class. Anyone can search the catalog for the tag “green media” and see how it works.

To enter your own tags and reviews, start with a keyword search on the library home page. Click the Search button.

Figure 1 Library home page

The search results will look similar to Figure 2. In the center are the titles owned by the library that match your search. On the left will be facets to narrow your search. On the right will be sources outside of the library, along with a tag cloud that can also narrow your search.

Figure 2 Search results

If you click on one of the titles held by the library, you’ll see a catalog record that looks something like Figure 3. The keywords you searched will be highlighted. Here is a record for a book with the tag .

Figure 3 Community tags: someone has entered the tag “green media”

Here you can enter your own tag or book review as shown in Figure 4. Note that the catalog record may also contain “extras” including links to professional reviews and other information.

Figure 4 Part of a catalog record

When you submit a tag or click , if you are not already logged in you’ll see a screen that asks for your name and USF ID number. The login screen has a link for looking up your USF ID. Once you are logged in you can put in your tags or review.

You can put anything you want in the tags (though we have the ability to remove offensive tags or reviews.) New tags will be searchable within a minute or two using a keyword search. They will also appear and be searchable in the tag cloud. You can log in and add more tags or delete your tags any time.

The reviews may take up to a day to appear in the catalog record. At this time reviews are not searchable, and only one review per login is allowed. If you want to delete your review, please let us know.

If you have any suggestions or questions about use of these features or the catalog, please post them here or ask a librarian.

Human Rights Film Festival this week

We’re proud that Gleeson Library is a co-sponsor of USF’s 8th Human Rights Film Festival, free and open to the public this Thursday through Saturday.

From USF students’ short films screening Thursday afternoon, to presentations of documentaries co-sponsored by USF’s LGBT Caucus and the President’s Advisory Committee on the Status of Women… from the U.S. military to the International Criminal Court, from the sweatshops of Los Angeles to a squatter settlement in South Africa, the power of film can educate viewers and show the way to action for human rights locally and around the world.

From the website:

This year, the Festival will take place on February 18, 19, and 20. It will include films focusing on Ecuador, Haiti. South Africa, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, and the U.S., as well as other countries and regions in a couple of documentaries that illustrate the scope of global poverty and the crimes against humanity that prompted the formation of the International Criminal Court. For the second year, the festival offers a selection of shorts produced by USF students. In addition to the screenings, we are delighted to present a musical performance by Kalbass Kreyol, A Bay Area Haitian Band.

The festival will be held at the Presentation Theater, on Turk St. near Masonic Ave.

Books by Librarians

You know lots of librarians turn to writing, right? That Jorge Luis Borges was a librarian is pretty well-known but this list of the Top 10 Books Written By Librarians from online bookseller AbeBooks might surprise you. I didn’t know Madeleine L’Engle was a librarian. But another of my very favorite children’s book authors, Beverly Cleary, was a librarian for many years. Do you have other fave librarian-authors?

Bonus: at the bottom of the list is a link to songs about libraries and librarians. They left out my favorite library song though.

The World at our Doorstep– with a photo contest

Here at the library we’re proud to co-sponsor USF’s celebration of International Education Week 2009. Now in the lobby we’re featuring film, recent fiction and poetry by international newcomers to the Bay Area and across the U.S., in honor of IEW and our international students.

You might have already spotted photos from the IEW photo contest around campus or on Facebook. You can view them online here and on the monitor in the library lobby as well. The campus community is invited to vote for the three that best depict international education and cultural exchange. Cast your vote online or in Parina Lounge when it’s transformed into the USF World Village next Tuesday, Nov. 17 from noon to 2 p.m. Voting will be open through Tuesday at 2. The photo contest winners will be announced at the fabulous Culturescape. Don’t miss it!

Photo by Rob Guillen

Can scary be scholarly? You decide!

Jane Austen with zombies.

Photos by Rob Guillen

Frankenstein’s monster living on in the twenty-first century.

Abraham Lincoln, vampire hunter?

And then there are the classics: Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the legendary Golem of the Prague ghetto, the heroic tale of Beowulf and Grendel.

So-called “genre literature” is often the subject of debate in the academy. Mysteries, romance, science fiction, children’s books – all are sometimes stigmatized though often studied by literary snobs and scholars. The emerging genre or sub-genre of “monster lit” is no exception. Some may sniff but there are college courses and lots of erudite criticism of books that feature monsters.

Whatever your take on the question, monster books and movies are definitely a lot of fun! So check out the Library’s collection, featured this month in the lobby.

Here’s a list of some of the books and DVDs we’ve gathered.

I can hardly wait for Little Women with werewolves!

Photo Contest for International Education Week

To kick off USF’s celebration of International Education Week 2009, USF students, staff, and faculty are invited to enter the IEW photo contest.  Last year we had two fabulous entries from Gleeson Library staff! To enter, send a photo from your experiences abroad to usf.iew@gmail.com by Friday, October 30th. Include a brief (one or two sentences) caption explaining or describing the photo circumstances.

Co-sponsored by Gleeson Library along with International Student and Scholar Services, the ESL program, Residence Life, the Center for Global Education, and Bon Appetit, the IEW theme this year is “The World At Our Doorstep.”

Photo contest entries will be posted around campus and the campus community will vote on the photo that best depicts aspects of international educational or cultural exchange . You can see last year’s photos on the IEW@USF Facebook page. And here’s a taste of Culturescape, the signature event of International Education Week to be held on Friday, November 20 this year.