Independence Day

By Lisa M. Rabey
Systems & Web Librarian

Steevigh Cwayna, Library Acquisitions Specialist, has put together a YouTube playlist celebrating the Fourth of July. This playlist covers everything from the story of the American Revolution in five minutes, to how to make fireworks, and to how to calm pets during fireworks!

If this has whets your appetite for more information about the American history, we have loads on the American Revolution, colonial history of the United States and materials on general U.S. History available at the library.

Have a safe holiday!

How to do book protection and repair

If you were ever curious as how libraries repair and protect damaged and fragile books, Steevigh Cwayna, Library Acquisitions Specialist here at GRCC Library, has put together a YouTube playlist illustrating different methods and procedures GRCC uses to save damaged and protect fragile books!

Steevigh is also our YouTube curator, who has plans to create many interesting YouTube playlists on all things books, libraries, and Grand Rapids related, to name a few! So make sure you’re following us on YouTube!

Happy Columbus Day!

By Steevigh Cwayna
Library Acquisitions Specialist

I’ve created a playlist on the GRCC Library’s YouTube channel for students who want to know more about Christopher Columbus — who he was and why he has a federal holiday. I chose four videosthat explain his ideas and his struggle to get financing for his voyage.

The videos talk about the good and the bad; his discovering the Americas and how he treated the American Indians he met when he landed. I selected these videos to spotlight that the things we learned in grade school were not the whole story. When I viewed these clips, I was left wondering why we don’t teach our children the truth and if Columbus day should be a federal holiday. Some argue that it should not, and a few states (South Dakota, Hawaii and Alaska) do not celebrate Columbus Day at all.

If the videos have whetted your appetite, and for more information, the library has a number of materials available on Christopher Columbus.

Banned Books Week: Are you there God? It’s me, Margaret

To celebrate Banned Books Week 2011, the library will be posting reviews and commentary from college staff about their favorite banned books and why during the celebration.

By Steevigh Cwayna
Library Acquisitions Specialist

Growing up in the 1970s was strange enough, but having a fairly religious Polish/Catholic family in the 1970s was, looking back, really strange. My mother, bless her heart, never sat me down and told me what was going to happen to my body as I grew into my teen years, much less about the birds and the bees. I think she gave me the book “Are You There God, it’s Me, Margaret” so she wouldn’t have to. As a pre-teen girl, it answered questions I didn’t even know I had. Also, since most of my friends had a copy, I felt like I was part of the “in crowd.”

Imagine my surprise when I found out that this young girls “coming-of-age handbook” has ended up as one of the most often challenged books in the US! Young girls need this sort of information! What better way for a single father to tell his daughter about what to expect than to give this book to her! Margaret’s story shares her confusion of being a pre-teen girl whose body is developing (too slowly for her liking), and starting to think that boys maybe don’t have cooties after all. Margaret’s first crush, her first kiss and her begging God to make her “like everyone else” are something the readers can relate to even today. First published in 1970, and translated into 31 languages, it has been a valuable resource for countless pre-teen girls all over the world.

Banned Book Week

By Steevigh Cwayna
Library Acquisitions Specialist

Next week, Sept. 24 – Oct. 1, 2011, is Banned Books Week; a yearly celebration of the freedom to read and the First Amendment.

Titles include [Links open to GRCC's library or if we don't have the title available, to GRPL's library]:

• And Tango Makes Three by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson
  Reason for banning: homosexuality, religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group
• The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
  Reasons for banning: offensive language, racism, religious viewpoint, sex education, sexually explicit, violence, unsuited to age group
• Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
  Reasons for banning: insensitivity, offensive language, racism, sexually explicit
• Crank by Ellen Hopkins
  Reasons for banning: drugs, offensive language, racism, sexually explicit
• The Hunger Games (series), by Suzanne Collins
  Reasons for banning: sexaully explicit, violence, unsuited to age group
• Lush by Natasha Friend
  Reasons for banning: drugs, sexually explicit, offensive language, unsuited to age group
• What My Mother Doesn’t Know by Sonya Sones
  Reasons for banning: sexism, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
• Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America by Barbara Ehrenreich
  Reasons for banning: drugs, inaccurate, offensive language, political viewpoint, religious viewpoint
• Revolutionary Voices edited by Amy Sonnie
  Reasons for banning: homosexuality, sexually explicit
• Twilight (series) by Stephanie Meyer
  Reasons for banning: sexually explicit, religious viewpoint, violence, unsuited to age group

For more information on the subject of banned books, please visit the American Library Association’s site.