Sister Emily as enlightened by Jane Yolen's storytelling.

 Sister Emily's Lightship and Other Stories

Jane Yolen

Open Road Integrated Media, Pub Date: Jun 18 2013

Sister Emily's Lightship and Other Stories is a collection of Jane Yolen's short stories. The title story is a "what if" look at Emily Dickinson, a poet from Amherst, Massachusetts. Emily's eye and health issues force her to become a recluse within her family home, venturing out only at night. The story brings excitement and travel to her life through a visit from a being on a lightship. Emily gains personal peace and perspective from her view of the earth from space. This twist of reality explains the life of an otherwise private woman of the Nineteenth Century.

Yolen's short stories in this collection often describe situations in which the characters face moral and social dilemmas. Sometimes the stories resemble fairy tales that often end in reality not “happily ever after”. Readers will gain perspective and understanding from the stories. I read the stories as comments on our society and its past that brought us to our present. Her bold stories express life beyond the magic of fairy tales; humanity relying on life skills, emotions and self-knowledge to persevere. Many times the endings involve ironic twists of fate with the protagonist displaying stoic determination.

I recommend Sister Emily's Lightship and Other Stories to you to challenge and spark your thinking. As Yolen explores her topics, the author often emerges as narrator/commentator to express a voice that often connects the stories. Jane Yolen is a gifted storyteller and the images drawn in this collection are entertaining and intriguing. 

Read on!

Sue McFadden

Historical Treatment of John Brown's Family: a women's history

Bonnie Laughlin-Schultz

Cornell University Press

Pub Date: Aug 6 2013  |  Archive Date: Jul 23 2013

The Tie That Bound Us: The Women of John Brown's Family and the Legacy of Radical Abolitionism

This account focuses on the women of John Brown's family, his second wife Mary, daughters and daughters-in-law. Use of letters, newspaper accounts and works by Brown biographers tells a story of a family supporting a husband and father's abolitionist beliefs within a religious context. Brown and his family's antislavery work went beyond nominal support. The family lived for some time in a community of ex-slaves and worked to help escaped slaves find freedom. 

The women in Brown's life worked hard to bear the burdens of belief and to maintain a house and livelihoods. Brown, often absent, relied on other wealthy abolitionists' gifts and funds to continue his work and feed his family. Brown and his family were the arrow point of the abolitionists of the time. Brown took action while others only talked. The story related by Laughlin-Schultz's portrays the Brown women as strong, yet human characters that face tragic national and personal events. All Brown family members alive after the Civil War were forever intwined with the memory and actions of John Brown.

I recommend this book as a look inside the family of a man willing to take on the government and slaveholders to help free the slaves and raise them to a level of equality with their fellow Americans. The account is balanced and explains some of the thinking of the women. The family letters used to illustrate the lives of the Brown women show real life at the edge. 

Port Mortuary by Patricia Cornwell

Port Mortuary by Patricia Cornwell, is an interesting Kay Scarpetta story. Told from the perspective of the main character, Kay, the story line keeps you guessing and your senses whirling. The reader is enlightened by Kay's early career experiences and the impact on the current murder mystery. Kay and friends have left New York city and are working in a new facility. Discover more about these characters as you turn the pages!

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Pinterest in the library for students: E-Books and Beyond.

Pinterest is serendipity as well as a graphic bookmarking tool. As a librarian guiding students to course resources I believe Pinterest is a useful way to offer access to research materials. I have created several boards with academic subjects and include library resource accessible through the student login. The idea is, as students Pin for their own "fun" they will run across research resources to help them in their academic work. In the Nursing Board  I have included library resources and images nursing students may find useful, humorous and fun. For more information on Pinterest check-out my Pinterest LibGuide. If you are considering Pinterest below is a list of ideas to use for academic Pinning!

Pinning Checklist:

• Pinterest account settings
  Select how and when you'll be notified about re-pins, likes, and follows.

• Respond to Re-pinners, contacts
  Visit, re-pin from, and follow pinner's boards, pins, and develop social interaction.

• Pin resources students will use
  Library resource pins mingled with other related pins.

• Check the links
  Be sure to proxy or manage links to be accessible from off-campus.
  EDIT Pins to correct 500 word content, links, etc.

• Identify Pins that require login
  Notate pins that require user login.

• Create course boards
  Invite students to Pin to course board.
  Pin course relevant content.

• Create subject boards
  A goal is to create a mix of Pins, library resources, visual images of relevant information.

• Pin weekly, daily, use a schedule.
  PIN content to your academic boards weekly, daily, monthly or as your schedule allows. This keeps your interaction "fresh" and findable by other Pin when you need to Pin.
  Re-Pin important Pins like catalogs and specific database images. 

IU East Campus Library LibX Toolbar Updates for 2013!

The organization responsible for the development of the library toolbar is LibX.org and provides open-access software and development support for librarians and libraries everywhere!

The toolbar is developed by individual libraries and offers a variety of options for searching. The IU East Campus Library Toolbar includes access links to several important resources and web pages, it allows searching of several library resources from the browser's toolbar and provides options for the search field to be processed.  The Campus Library Toolbar searches Find-It, IUCAT, WorldCat.org, Google Scholar and Credo Reference. IUCAT has been updated, library links updated and other IU East links are included: Oncourse, OneStart, & KB.

The developers of this wonderful product provide an instant-access path for library users to some of the most used resources in libraries.  The toolbar finds library resources from typed search terms without individuals needing to remember resource or page addresses/URLS.  The toolbar also looks at several web-based book sellers and places the Find-It image,
on the book page.  In this way IUCAT can be searched for that specific book using the ISBN (International Standard Book Number); the tool uses only the Campus Library, Indiana University East's records to accomplish this search. Once installed the image will show on various websites including Google Scholar.

This product provides proxied access to the Campus Library resources from off-campus for all Indiana University East members with an IU username and passphrase.   Please, visit us to try out this useful and fun toolbar!  Once installed the Mozilla/Firefox product will download updates for you, so you may use the most recent version with ease!

The permanent URL of 'Indiana University East-Campus Library Edition' Edition for the Mozilla Firefox extension is:

http://libx.org/releases/ff/libx2-latest.xpi?edition=71B82B5A

The permanent URL of 'Indiana University East-Campus Library Edition' Edition for the Google Chrome extension is:

http://libx.org/releases/gc/libx2-latest.crx?edition=71B82B5A

 

If you have questions regarding the Campus Library Toolbar for IU East, contact Sue at smcfadde@indiana.edu.