Sad because the Minnesota Orchestra is still locked out and we are all missing out on their music? You can partially fill the void by listening to Minnesota Orchestra recordings on audio CD’s or via online streaming audio.
The Music Resource Center (rm 103, Brady Education Center) has about 25 audio CD’s available for check-out, including all of the critically acclaimed Osmo Vanska recordings of the Beethoven symphonies (and yes, they indeed are wonderful). For online options, try Naxos Music Library, which also has many recordings of the orchestra.
Interested in other local classical ensembles? More recordings from many other hometown ensembles are available either for checkout at the Music Resource Center or for online listening via Naxos Music Library and DRAM, including:
Want to listen really close to home? The Music Resource Center has CD’s and DVD’s of St. Thomas musical groups in concert, faculty recordings, prominent organists in recital on the Chapel’s fine Kney organ, and the popular Christmas concerts. And check out the Symphonic Wind Ensemble’s online recordings via Naxos.
Happy hometown listening!
Banned Books Week
Celebrating The Freedom To Read
September 22-28, 2013
Banned Books Week is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read. Held September 22-28, it highlights the value of free and open access to information. Banned Books Week brings together the entire book community –- librarians, booksellers, publishers, journalists, teachers, and readers of all types –- in shared support of the freedom to seek and to express ideas, even those some consider unorthodox or unpopular.
Banned Books Week was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries. A challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group. A banning is the removal of those materials. Challenges do not simply involve a person expressing a point of view; rather, they are an attempt to remove material from the curriculum or library, thereby restricting the access of others. As such, they are a threat to freedom of speech and choice.
What does the children’s book series ‘Captain Underpants’ have in common with ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’? They both top the 2012 list of most frequently challenged books according to the American Library Association’s State of America’s Library Report 2013. In order to highlight instances of challenges made to books on local levels, the UST Libraries will join thousands of libraries and bookstores across the nation to celebrate the 31st. anniversary of Banned Books Week Sept. 22nd. – Sept. 28th. Since its inception in 1982, Banned Books Week has promoted the idea that while not every book is intended for every reader, each person has the right to decide what to read, listen to or view. By focusing on efforts across the country to remove or restrict access to books, Banned Books Week draws national attention to the harms of censorship.
Throughout the week the university’s libraries will observe Banned Books Week with displays and events in the O’Shaughnessy-Frey Library, a “Banned Books Coffee House” discussion lounge, library tours, updates on the UST Libraries Facebook page and an informative UST Banned Books Week website that will link to other libraries, articles and videos that focus on issues of intellectual freedom.
Also returning is the popular Banned Books Week trivia contest (posted on the UST Banned Books website). Test your knowledge each day of the week with a new question about a famous or infamous work of literature. Each day’s winner will be selected randomly from among those with the correct answers and will receive a $5 gift certificate to the UST Bookstore or a popular banned book.
We all know that UST Libraries have a wonderful collection of rare and archival materials. Sometimes, however, taking care of so many old books can be a challenge, especially when they are discovered to be growing things they’re not supposed to. Who knew that we had a real-world chemistry problem sitting right here on campus!?
When Mr Curt Le May, Director of the Archbishop Ireland Memorial Library, approached the Chemistry department for help in identifying white film forming on the surface of leather bound 300-year-old books, Meghan Talbot, chemistry major and a research student under Dr. Marites Guino-o, was glad to help.
Meghan Talbot
Meghan collected the white film/powder by using a spatula and carefully scraping off the residue found on the surface of the leather bound book, “Histoire des variations des églises protestantes.” Through a combination of three characterization techniques (FTIR, Mass and NMR spectroscopy), she deduced that the white film/powder is a spew (or speu). A spew is a combination of carboxylic acids that originated from the leather itself, and leather dressing used to increase the leather’s preservation and flexibility.
“Being able to work on a project such as this was a great honor. It was a very interesting experience to be able to work with a book that was evidence of a time in which I had learned about in previous history classes. I am glad that the work that I was able to do has the ability to help the library preserve books, such as this one, as they are such a crucial connection to our past.” ~Meghan Talbot
We at the library are grateful to Meghan for helping us find out what the white substance was, so we could find a way to safely remove it and keep these books for future Tommies. Cooperation across the campus can certainly be a great thing!
Interested in meeting and having conversations with students from different cultures?
Want to learn about different cultures and meet students with diverse backgrounds?
Interested in improving your conversational (English) skills?
Peer consultants from the UST Center for Writing will be hosting the English Café at Coffee Bené in the O’Shaughnessy-Frey Library, starting on Sunday, September 15th, 2013. The English Café is an effort to bring together both native and non-native English speakers and provide an opportunity to get to know one another in a casual setting.
Students interested in diversity in their UST community can learn about the different cultures present on campus. For non-native speakers, this is also a great opportunity to practice conversational skills.
In addition, peer consultants from the Center for Writing will be available to work with interested students on their assignments at any stage of the writing process.
The English Café will be held on Sunday evenings, 6:00 to 9:00 p.m., at Coffee Bené in the library (by the leather room). Students should feel free to bring homework if they would like, and just hang out.
Questions may be directed to Shannon Heitkamp at: heit3437@stthomas.edu.
It’s Friday! Though this first week was a short one, I bet you are ready to relax a little bit this weekend after all the back-to-school excitement. Well, guess what… the library can help you with that, too! Sure, we are all about helping you academically, but we like fun, even if we don’t always look like it! :O)
Feel like going out, but either don’t have a car or don’t want to give up the killer parking space you scored? Come check out a bike from the library! Whether you feel like cruising it around on the river path, exploring The Twin Cities, grabbing something to eat, or snagging some forgotten essentials, the bikes are free and come equipped with both a helmet and a bike lock. These go fast, so check on availability.
Don’t feel like going anywhere? How about staying in and watching a few movies? While most of our streaming movie sites consist of documentaries and educational stuff (which can be just as fun), we have lots of Hollywood movies and t.v. shows available for check out from our Media Resources Collection, currently located behind the Circulation Desk (but soon to move to the new space being built out on the first floor across from the coffee shop). 
Go in and browse the collection old school (but be aware their hours differ slightly from OSF’s regular hours), or check out some of their offerings online. Whether you want to laze about re-watching the first few seasons of Breaking Bad or want to feel smart and impress your roommate by taking in a few TED Talks, the Media Resources Collection can be the place for you.
I know we say this every year, but it’s true…we missed you! Contrary to popular belief, we library staff are not content merely surrounded by piles of moldering books. No way! What we really love is helping you, and connecting you with the content, resources, and services you need to succeed!
Daniel J. Boorstin wrote in Democracy and Its Discontents, “Education is learning what you didn’t even know you didn’t know,” and that is something we take seriously here at the library. Outside of the classroom, this is where you come to find out what else you don’t know, so when you get stuck, don’t be embarrassed to ask us for help! Whether you visit it us in person or prefer to connect via phone, chat, email, text, or Twitter, we are waiting for you!
As a new group of Tommies come to campus, I am reminded of Freshman traditions of the past. Beginning 1926, freshmen and new students to campus were required to purchase and wear purple and gray colored beanies to class and college social events. The caps were worn from the start of classes until Homecoming where they were burned in the annual bonfire. The wearing of the beanies was thought to foster school spirit among the new students. Members of the school’s Tiger Club enforced the hat rule, often stopping freshman students to make them sing the college song and “Rouser”. The tradition faded in the late 1960s.
Photographs from the University of St. Thomas Archives
Kudos to the OCB faculty, whose publications are among the most downloaded this month from the Management Sciences and Quantitative Methods Commons. Earlier this year, UST faculty works have also ranked highly in the Feminist Philosophy Commons, the Clinical & Medical Social Work Commons, and the Business Law, Public Responsibility, and Ethics Commons. Our congratulations to all involved!
The Commons are part of a national network of universities that provide access to faculty research via an institutional repository. UST’s institutional repository is called UST Research Online. Faculty can arrange to upload and display their published or unpublished scholarly work in their department’s section of the site. In addition, the repository can be used to publish online journals (like the UST Law Journal), and is also used by several programs for electronic publishing of graduate student theses and dissertations.
We’re sometimes asked why faculty should bother making their work available through UST’s repository, especially if it’s already been published in a peer-reviewed journal. The answer is simple: it multiplies the visibility of the articles.
The citation (and article copy or link) is published in UST Research Online, and Digital Commons, which powers our repository, aggregates and makes available works from all participating institutions via their Digital Commons network, from which the works are organized into disciplinary collections (like those linked above) available for searching and browsing. Perhaps the paper gets published in a journal, and also in one or more disciplinary sites like SSRN, etc. Then the search engines crawl these sites, discover the articles and the connections between them, which in turn raises their placement in online search results.
Fame, fortune, and scholarly ninja status are sure to follow.
BTW, OCB faculty aren’t the only ones who can get in on this action: the repository is open to all faculty members. For more information, contact your department chair or Linda Hulbert, Associate Director for Collection Management Services at the Libraries.
