Celebrating Martin Luther King Day

Today marks the birthday of one of America's greatest native sons, Martin Luther King, Jr.  Ripon College has a series of events this week designed to honor him and further the causes closest to his heart and we hope everyone on campus will attend at least one of these events (see below for events).

Although there will be memorials across all media and on campus, we recommend (as we always do) that you check out some primary documents to learn more about King as he was known during his own lifetime.

We've found a few wonderful sites online for you to take a peek at.  The archive at The King Center has an amazing digital collection full of his personal documents and other primary sources that illustrate all aspects of his life and works, as well as documents that illustrate race relations and the fight for civil rights in America before, during, and after his lifetime.

A piece of the American historical literary cannon, his "Letter from Birmingham Jail" is his 1963 response to other clergymen's assertions that civil rights should be fought for in courts and not in the streets.  The quote "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." is from this landmark letter.  Stanford has a very useful annotated reprint of the letter that gives a full explanation of his references.  Available here.


Everyone has seen clips of his "I Have a Dream" speech, but have you ever watched it in its entirety?  Almost fifty years later his historic speech still brings chills to the viewer:

For some non-electronic sources, Lane Library has many, many volumes about King's life and work.  I have posted just a few here, but recommend you check the catalog to see all of them.

                              

We hope to see you at the events on campus this week (for more details, check out the college blog)

Inauguration Oath Screening
10:30 a.m., Monday, January 21,The Pub, Harwood Memorial Union.

MLK Week Brunch
11:15 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 22, Great Hall, Harwood Memorial Union.
The brunch will celebrate the Ripon community and community leaders who emulate the ideals of Martin Luther King Jr.

Keynote Address by Tim Wise
Tim Wise, anti-racist essayist, author, and educator, will present the keynote address from 7 to 9 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 23, in Great Hall.

“5 Issues, 5 Leaders, 5 Minutes” 
5 p.m., Dahm Heritage Room, Pickard Commons
An interactive workshop featuring five prominent Ripon leaders condensing their most thought-provoking and critical perspectives into five intense minutes on issues within one of five topics: media, arts, education, economy and activism. 

“Continuing the Legacy: What’s Next?”
2 p.m. Friday, Jan. 25, in the MLK Lounge of Harwood Memorial Union.
A 20-minute interactive workshop led by Pieper Chair of Servant Leadership David William Scott, in remembrance of Martin Luther King and continuing his dream. 

Giving Back Community Service: Guest House Homeless Shelter
9 a.m., Saturday, Jan. 26, meet in Pickard Commons
Volunteers will spend time at this homeless shelter which serves meals to at least 85 homeless people daily. Food donations will be accepted in the Student Activities Office through Jan. 25. 

Dave Brubeck at Ripon College 1959

Dave Brubeck 1920-2012

On February 4^th, 1959, David Brubeck and his fellow quartet members, Paul Desmond, Joe Morello and Gene Wright played the first jazz concert at Ripon College to a capacity plus crowd of over 675.  The quartet started the night with W.C. Handy’s “St. Louis Blues” and in the first set played several selections reflecting on their travels to Eurasia and Germany.  The group had spent part of 1958 traveling on behalf of the State Department on a good will trip to Afghanistan and other Eurasian countries. The second set focused on improvisations with noted a noted saxophone solo from Paul Desmond and drum solo from Joe Morello.

                                                      Brubeck signing autographs

                                                   Brubeck, Unknown, and Morello at dinner

Happy Halloween!!

Need a good, scary movie for the occasion?  Stop by Lane Library and get something really frightening!  We have modern classics, thrillers, suspense, supernatural, and super campy.  All are available in the video section of the main floor in Lane Library.

Let the Right One In - Scandinavian vampire, note: she doesn't glitter and she is spooky

The Orphanage - Spanish suspense/horror film

Ringu - Often named as one of the only *truly* scary movies

Or maybe you don't want something too scary, but still fantasy/dark, watch Pan's Labyrinth by Guillermo del Toro

The Devil's Backbone - horror/drama (also by Guillermo del Toro)



Gozu - a Japanese horror movie described as "sick" "twisted" "psychosexual" and "surreal" on RottenTomatoes



Lastly, for a cult-classic campy horror movie, watch Dead Alive - one of Peter Jackson's (who directed The Lord of the Rings films) first movies.  Gorey, funny, ridiculous, fantastic.  Not actually scary unless you fear New Zealanders.


These are just a sampling of what we have, stop by and browse the videos to see more.  Of course, there are always lots of good, spooky books in the library too!

Lane Library celebrates the freedom to read! (by guest poster, Emelia Erickson)

Ripon College recently joined the fight for the freedom to read in the 2012 Virtual Read-Out hosted by the American Library Association during Banned Books Week, September 30^th to October 6^th.

15 members of the Ripon College Community, students and staff participated in making a video for the Virtual Read-Out. Each read a section of a banned or challenged book found on the shelves of Lane Library. The video was submitted as part of a nationwide event to spread awareness about Banned Books Week and speak out against censorship.

The issue that I wanted to capture with this event was that the books that are being banned or challenged are books that we love. While, to a certain extent, banning a book increases its popularity or infamousness, the act is a slap in the face to the fact that we should be able to decide what books we can read for ourselves. In the library the day of the event, there was an entire cart of banned books, and the best part was that I saw people struggling to choose just one book.

Leading up to the event, I talked to many people who were almost as excited as I was that Ripon was hosting such an event. Several professors voiced their support, and told me how glad they were that this had come to Ripon. Many classes here read texts that have been banned at some point, somewhere in the world.

Here in the U.S., most books are banned in K-12 schools because parents raise concerns about their content. But there are still some countries that have governmental bans on books. Some of the students I talked to about Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” being banned thought that maybe Germany is right to ban it. But who decides what criteria should be banned? And for whom should it be banned? As you’ll see in the video, Dr. Seuss’s “Green Eggs and Ham” was banned in China.

Censorship is nothing more than trying to force your views on others, by restricting the information they have access to. I’m grateful that Ripon College has shown such strong support for the freedom to read, and that as a school, we support access to all knowledge.

For more information, visit www.ala.org and view Advocacy, Legislation, and Issues. 

-Emelia Erickson

Lane Library display assistant and BBW video director

@nfl #packers #scabs #paytherefs

The big news this morning is the absolutely terrible call made last night in favor of the Seahawks.  This is the image that best sums up the situation:

Photo courtesy of Rachel Nichols twitter feed, @Rachel_Nichols

At the heart of the matter is the fact that these referees are not as well trained as the refs who should have been on the field last night.  Those refs are currently on strike due to contract disagreements. People who take jobs from striking workers are called "scabs" - and this word is supposed to bring out all the negative connotation you can imagine.  Those two in the picture are scabs, doing their job badly.

Scabs have a long and colorful history in our country. One of the most infamous incidents is called the Haymarket Riot.  After a prolonged and bitter strike where the scabs were given the working conditions that the union had demanded, some union members had attacked scabs and the police ended up killing two men and wounding many others.  On May 4th, 1886, what was supposed to be a peaceful gathering ended up killing seven police officers, four men, and countless wounded.  May Day is now used as a commemoration of this.

Image taken from PBS's History of US:   http://www.pbs.org/wnet/historyofus/web09/features/see_it_now/1880.0093.html

Read a first person account of the Haymarket Riot from an eyewitness
Read a first person account of the Haymarket Riot from a police officer, titled "Anarchists were flying everywhere"

For more information on the history of unions, striking, and scabs, Lane Library has tons of books, here are just a few:

                    

Here are more books on the history of the labor movement available at Lane Library

Thanks to PBS for information on the Haymarket Riot

#yougetwhatyoupayfor

Traveling the globe via postcards

Our main job here at Lane Library is to help our students get the most out of college, usually that means helping out with research.  One thing that is so particular and important to the college experience is the opportunity to travel abroad.  It is truly a priceless experience in every respect and we want to encourage everyone to take this rare opportunity!  

It is in the spirit of encouraging our students to travel that we joined up with Postcrossing.com. For every card we send out telling people all about Ripon, Wisconsin, we receive one in return from a randomly chosen location across the globe.  So far we have received 7 from across Europe and Asia.  All of the postcards we get are hanging in the copier room at the library next to a map with numbered pins in the area the card is from.  Here are digital images of the postcards we've received so far:  

The first one we got was from a teacher, Inna, in the Ukraine 

From Vatsala in Pune, India celebrating her country's badminton bronze medal winner in this year's Olymipcs

A beautiful seascape from Tatyana, in Tomsk, Russia

From Matylda in Bialystok, Poland, one of Poland's largest cities with 3 major universities

From Verna in Hong Kong, who wrote all about the amazing food in her city (as if we need ANOTHER reason to go!)

From Xu in China, who wrote "Welcome to China" on the back in Chinese (thank you to Ray, our circ worker for helping with the translation)

From Winni in Funkstadt-Nauen, Germany, home of Deutsche Welle and Radio Berlin

We love getting postcards from around the world and look forward to building quite a collection.  Next time you are printing something out, take a moment to flip through the cards and check out the map.  If you are interested in learning more about Postcrossing, visit Postcrossing.com.  Happy Postcrossing, Lane Library!

Last day of summer

There has been so much activity here at the library with the renovations that we aren't sure where the summer went.  If you have not been following us on Facebook, we had the red-orange carpet removed from 3A, got lots of new chairs and tables, removed carpet from walls (yes, you read that right), got new paint, and new computer set ups.  I would say we're "leaner and meaner," but "more inviting" and "cozier" is a much more accurate way to phrase it. (see pics below)


Just a few of our improvements include:

• No more waiting to print a document!  Students will now be able to use a "Quick Print" station.  Basically, this is two computers whose only function is to open files and send to the printer.  

• The South Reading Room has popular magazines and newspapers, and lots of comfy furniture to study, read, work, and socialize.

• The North Reading Room has all new wooden chairs and tables for group work or if you need a lot of surface area for your stuff.  

• The Information Commons now has secluded cozy spots, comfortable people-watching seating by windows, lots of group work space, three movable white boards, and plenty of computers.

North Reading Room (before) - note the plastic chairs and veneer tables

North Reading Room (after) with hard wood tables and chairs

South Reading Room (before)

South Reading Room (after) with comfortable furniture and newspapers

Looking into the North Reading Room from the Circ Desk before renovation

After renovation - so much brighter and more open!  Did you notice the new wall paint and decoration, too?

We are so happy with the new interior.  I know the library will be used much more this year due to how elegant and comfortable it has been made - the library is exponentially more inviting.  I can't wait to hear the returning students' reactions (and am keeping a running list of quotes).  We'd like to thank those who have generously given to make this possible - from the librarians, student workers, and patrons, thank you!