the Library Channel

October is Archives Month and Meriam Library, Special Collections is celebrating with an exhibit “Celebrating Archives Month: Selections from Special Collections,” located on the second floor of the library, between the main staircase and the elevators. The exhibit features a replica of diseño of Rancho Arroyo Chico, 1846 with a hand drawn map by John Bidwell, Anti-Chinese League Minute Book, 1894-1895, brochures for Diamond Match homes, 1927, a hand written cookbook open to a recipe for marshmallow pudding, 1922-1937, historic photographs, scrapbooks, and much more. These one of a kind items depict just a sampling of the unique materials found in Special Collections.

Special Collections holds books, maps, historic photographs, scrapbooks, diaries, correspondence, manuscripts, business records, and rare books pertaining to the 12 county region known as “Northeastern California”. Visit us on the third floor of the library and take a journey through California’s past. For more information on this exhibit contact Pam Nett Kruger at x6213.

More information about Special Collections is available online.

Image by DML East Branch, used under the Creative Commons license.

The first thing when I got in the elevator, the elevator guy said to me, “Innarested in having a good time, fella? Or is it too late for you?”

“How do you mean,” I said. I didn’t know what he was driving at or anything.

“Innarested in a little tail t’night?”

“Me?” I said. Which was a very dumb answer, but it’s quite embarrassing when somebody comes right up and asks you a question like that.

“How old are you, chief?” the elevator guy said.

“Why?” I said. “Twenty-two”

“Uh huh. Well, how ‘bout it? Y’innarested? Five bucks a throw. Fifteen bucks the whole night.” He looked at his wrist watch. “Till noon. Five bucks a throw, fifteen bucks till noon.”

…………………………

All those women having jobs: hard to imagine, now, but thousands of them had jobs, millions. It was considered the normal thing. Now it’s like remembering paper money, when they still had that. My mother kept some of it, pasted into her scrapbook along with early photos. It was obsolete by then, you couldn’t buy anything with it. Pieces of paper, thickish, greasy to the touch, green colored, with pictures on each side, some old man in a wig and on the other side a pyramid with an eye above it. It said In God We Trust. My mother said people used to have signs beside their cash registers, for a joke: In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash. That would be blasphemy now.

…………………………

On weekends, Heather and her two mommies are all together. They do lots of fun things. On sunny days they like to go to the park. On rainy days they stay inside and bake cookies. Heather likes to eat two gingersnaps and drink a big glass of milk.

…………………………

And George raised the gun and steadied it, and he brought the muzzle close to the back of Lenny’s head. The hand shook violently, but his face set and his hand steadied. He pulled the trigger. The crash of the shot rolled up the hills and rolled down again. Lennie jarred, and then settled slowly forward to the sand, and he lay without quivering.

…………………………

“Will Bigger Thomas rise and face the court?”

The room was full of noise and the judge rapped for quiet. With trembling legs, Bigger rose, feeling in the grip of a nightmare.

“Is there any statement you wish to make before sentence is passed upon you?”

He tried to open his mouth but could not. Even if he had the power of speech, he did not know what he could have said. He shook his head, his eyes blurring. The courtroom was profoundly quiet now. The judge wet his lips with his tongue and lifted a piece of paper that crackled loudly in the silence.

You guessed it, its Banned Books Week. The passages above are taken (in order) from The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger), The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood), Heather Has Two Mommies (Lesléa Newman and Diana Souza), Of Mice and Men (John Steinbeck), and Native Son (Richard Wright), all of which appear on the American Library Association’s list of the 100 most frequently challenged books of the 1990s.

Contributed by Aaron Bowen

Image by Advocacy Project, used under the Creative Commons license.

Though it (ironically) doesn’t mention Greg Mortenson, NPR recently ran a report by Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson, titled Despite Dangers, Afghan Girls Determined To Learn. Ms. Nelson offers many powerful stories in her piece, both about the desire for education among Afghan women and girls, the positive benefits it can bring, and the challenges that accompany it — challenges brought by forces opposed to education for women. Among other things, she writes that

Public education is among the many casualties of the growing war in Afghanistan, and the threat of violence is especially acute for Afghan girls. Parents, who in the past did not allow their daughters to go to school because of societal taboos, are once again keeping them at home because of the threat of attacks by militants wielding acid or worse.

But many girls are refusing to give up their schooling — no matter what the cost.

Image by Advocacy Project, used under the Creative Commons license.

Nelson continues:

There is another option for the girls of Kandahar.

Afghan supervisors, who asked they not be taped or named for fear of reprisals, say they started about 200 of these in-home courses two years ago.

Image by thechildrenofwar, used under the Creative Commons license.

There is an accompanying audio piece here.

Article written by Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson. Blog post contributed by Aaron Bowen.

You pose questions to yourself on a daily basis — do I trust this website enough to cite it in my paper? What was that recent privacy thing involving the Facebook news feed? Does the library have any new books in my major, and how late are they open today?

The Library Channel is how you can keep informed about information issues that affect you and the questions you find yourself asking as a result. We blog about library specific stuff, such as what a reference librarian is and how s/he can help you conduct your research, and also about digital information issues of interest to to you as a student (or a professor, or a staff member), such as navigating the world of social media or evaluating the trustworthiness of a website.

Thanks for taking a look at the Channel and for contributing your thoughts!