Instructor support in the Academic Innovation Studio

AIS, Dwinelle 117

The new Academic Innovation Studio will host an open house for faculty, graduate student instructors, graduate student researchers and academic support staff to learn about the resources available to instructors, have questions answered, and receive on-site support consultations.

The Library is also excited to offer instructor drop-in support hours in the AIS throughout August.

  • Library office hours for instructors
  • 10-noon, Mon-Fri during August
  • AIS, Dwinelle 117

Please stop in for help arranging library instruction; adding course readings, media and library guides to your bCourses sites; navigating scholarly publishing and open access issues; and much more!

Gisele Tanasse from the Media Resources Center will also be available in the AIS to help instructors with film and media support for the classroom and bCourses, from 10-1, August 8-12.

Hope to see you there!


Summer Reading List: Blindsight

Blindsight by Peter Watts

The UC Berkeley Summer Reading List is an annual compilation of recommended (though not required) readings suggested by Cal faculty, staff, and students as a welcome to incoming freshmen and transfer students.

Blindsight

Peter Watts, a former marine-mammal biology researcher, writes an engaging story of first contact between humans and an alien intelligence. (Available for free at www.rifters.com/real/Blindsight.htm)

ZED LOPEZ Library Systems Office


Post contributed by:
Michael Larkin Lecturer, College Writing Programs
Tim Dilworth First Year Coordinator, Library


The Library Welcomes Tiffany Grandstaff

Tiffany Grandstaff

Tiffany Grandstaff has been appointed the Library’s Director of Communications.

Tiffany joins us from the Bay Area News Group, where she oversaw visual communication strategy for over twenty-five publications, including the San Jose Mercury News, the Contra Costa Times, and the Oakland Tribune. Previous to managing the design, video/photo, graphics, and copy-editing departments in her role as Managing Editor for Presentation at the Bay Area News Group, Tiffany spent three years as their Design Director, and before that, she was Design Director for the San Jose Mercury News. From 2001 to 2006 she worked as a designer for newspapers including the Charlotte Observer (N.C.), the News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.) and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. She has a BA in Journalism & Mass Communication from UNC, Chapel Hill, with a concentration in visual communication. You can view her portfolio at tiffanygrandstaff.com/.

In her new role, Tiffany will be leading a team of communicators, providing services to all units of the Library.

Please join us in welcoming her to campus!


Jeff MacKie-Mason
University Librarian


Summer Reading List: Essential Keats: Selected by Philip Levine

Summer Reading - Essential Keats

The UC Berkeley Summer Reading List is an annual compilation of recommended (though not required) readings suggested by Cal faculty, staff, and students as a welcome to incoming freshmen and transfer students.

Essential Keats: Selected by Philip Levine

John Keats was what you would call a punk–constantly getting into fights with other kids–until a schoolmaster lent him a copy of Edmund Spenser’s The Fairie Queen. After being exposed to this work John Keats had to be forcibly evicted from the school’s library.

Philip Levine writes a good introduction to this edition where he gives a brief account of Keats’s short life. It will be reassuring to young poets to learn that John Keats’s work wasn’t universally accepted when he wrote it. He received harsh criticism, sometimes outright rejection, from some of his contemporaries whose names have since been forgotten except by scholars specializing in 19th century English literature.

This selection contains many jewels, one of which is “On First Looking Into Chapman’s Homer.” Overall, the poetry of John Keats is relevant for any young person whose youth allows them to experience the world with a freshness that has yet to be weathered and eroded by age. His best work is incredibly sensual; resonating deeply for a sensitive reader. Keats was gifted and his magnificent odes, written when he knew he would die within a year, are heartbreakingly beautiful, enduring wonders.

MIKE PALMER Curriculum Planner, College Writing Programs


Post contributed by:
Michael Larkin Lecturer, College Writing Programs
Tim Dilworth First Year Coordinator, Library


Bancroft Welcomes Undergraduate Students

Welcome mat

You may walk past The Bancroft Library’s entrance every day. You’re busy and rushing to get to class on time, so you may not even realize that we’re here. Or, perhaps you notice the entrance and wonder where it leads.

The Bancroft Library is UC Berkeley’s primary special collections library, which means we preserve and make accessible significant historical and cultural materials. Our collections include handwritten documents (“manuscripts”) such as letters and drafts, old (“rare”) books, photographs, drawings, and much more.

Come in to do research or learn from these extensive historical and cultural materials. You could include primary source materials in your research papers. Incorporate archival resources into your class assignments or thesis. Find inspiration for a creative project. Research local or university history. Or just indulge your curiosity.

We’re here for you. You don’t need to be faculty or an experienced researcher to access these collections. Bancroft welcomes everyone interested in our collections, including and especially undergraduate and graduate students at UC Berkeley.

Reference staff are available to help you navigate our collections and find resources. Send an email to the reference staff or stop by the Reference Desk. We’re open Monday through Friday between 10:00 am and 5:00 pm.

Don’t be daunted by the foreboding-looking security desk at our entrance. At the desk, our friendly staff will explain that you must leave things like your backpack, books, papers, electronic devices, pens, and snacks inside one of the nearby lockers. After that, come upstairs and register to use the library. It takes five minutes and you only need your Cal ID.

If you’re curious to discover more, join us for The Bancroft Library Open House on Friday, February 26th at Noon -4:00 pm. And bring a friend!

We look forward to your visit!


Post contributed by Shannon Supple, Head of Reference and Research Services, The Bancroft Library


Sustainable Cities and Equitable Development: Discussion with Author Karen Chapple

Karen Chapple will discuss her book, Planning Sustainable Cities and Regions: Towards More Equitable Development, at the Environmental Design Library.

Chapple’s book explains how blending the “three Es” of sustainability–environment, economy, and equity, can show us the most just path moving forward for cities and regions across the globe.

This thought-provoking book provides a framework to deal with the new inequities created by the movement for more livable – and expensive – cities, so that our best plans for sustainability promote more equitable development as well.

When: Tuesday, September 15, 2015,   7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Where: Environmental Design Library Atrium, 210 Wurster Hall


Cuban Poster Art on Display at FSM Cafe

Image Source:  UC Regents

Stop by the Free Speech Movement Cafe and enjoy the inspiring posters in the four exhibit cases.  These posters highlight the cultural and artistic aspects of life in Cuba and are part of the library’s collection of Cuban posters that are to be cataloged and digitized.

The exhibit is sponsored by the FSM Educational Program.

Post contributed by

Shayee Khanaka, Librarian for Near/Middle East Collections, Africana (interim) & Scandinavian (interim) Studies

Carlos Delgado, Librarian for Latin American Collection

Aisha Hamilton, Exhibits and Environmental Graphics Coordinator

 


Lunch Poems with Joshua Weiner

The monthly Lunch Poems series kicks off the Spring semester series on February 5, 2015 with readings from poet Joshua Weiner. Weiner is the author of three books of poetry including his most recent, The Figure of a Man Being Swallowed by a Fish (2013). He is also the editor of At the Barriers: On the Poetry of Thom Gunn, and the poetry editor at Tikkun magazine. He is the recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award, the Rome Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a 2014 fellowship from the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, among others. A professor of English at the University of Maryland, he lives with his family in Washington DC.

Photo of author Joshua Weiner