History

Chicago‘s Arab American Community (video)

The Arab American community has a long history of involvement, contributions, activism and community building in the Chicago. Join us as we explore the immigration, geographic trends and historical settlement of the Arab community in the greater Chicagoland area.  We welcome Dr. Nina Shoman-Dajani to give this talk as part of Arab Heritage Month. 

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January 6 Insurrection: What’s Happened Since?

PBS’ Frontline is an award-winning documentary series that is known globally for its investigative reporting of key issues facing the US and the world.

Frontline has released its documentary on the January 6th insurrection and attack on the United States Capitol. This documentary has available for free online. At the one year anniversary of January 6th, Frontline released an updated version of this episode. You can watch it onlne here:

UPDATE: January 6 Insurrection: What’s Happened Since? (full documentary)

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Chicago–The Candy Capital of the World

Halloween is almost here. Getting to dress up in costumes is only part of the holiday fun. Because let’s face it, Halloween is also about the candy. Did you know that a lot of the candy that fills trick-or-treaters’ buckets has a history in Chicago?

Tootsie Rolls, M&Ms, Snickers, Brach’s, Wrigley, Lemonheads, Red Hots, Baby Ruths, Butterfingers, Jolly Ranchers, Milk Duds, Cracker Jack, the list goes on and on. These candies and many more are Chicago products. Even Hershey owes its start to Chicago, since it was at the1893 Chicago World’s Fair that Milton Hershey got the idea to start his own chocolate company. Chicago has long been known as the Candy Capital of the World, having been throughout most of its history the producer of one third of all the candy made in the United States.

Learn more about Chicago’s delicious history in the book Chicago’s Sweet Candy History, by Leslie Goddard. You can also find more histories of candy here in the MVCC Library collection.

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Columbus Day or Indigenous Peoples’ Day?

If you have children, chances are they have no school tomorrow (October 11th) due to Columbus Day. If they go to Chicago Public Schools, it’s due to Indigenous Peoples’ Day. (Moraine Valley is NOT closed tomorrow.) So which is it, Columbus Day or Indigenous Peoples’ Day? According to an NBC5 article entitled What to Know about Indigenous Peoples’ Day and Columbus Day in Illinois, in 2017, Illinois designated the last Monday of September as Indigenous Peoples’ Day. However on Friday, President Biden made a proclamation that October 11th will officially be known as Indigenous Peoples’ Day.

If you are interested in learning more about Indigenous Peoples’, the Moraine Valley Library has you covered. We have many books and videos about Indigenous Peoples’. We have many databases that might be useful for finding articles or videos about Indigenous Peoples. Here are the search results from our Academic Search Complete database on Indigenous Peoples of the Americas.

When in doubt, the librarians are always happy to help. Just be sure to Ask a Librarian.

Photo credits: “National Indigenous People’s Day Celebration” by danna § curious tangles is licensed with CC BY-NC-ND 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/

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Jane Austen July

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a student in possession of a summer break, must be in want of a reading challenge.

Okay, maybe not, but if you are looking for a month-long reading challenge and you enjoy a little early 19th century English literature, look no further than Jane Austen July!

Hosted by three Booktubers: Blatantly Bookish, Books and Things, and Spinster’s Library, the challenge has a Goodreads group, read-alongs, and a Bingo card that readers can complete.

The hosts have created 7 challenges, all of which can be completed with materials from MVCC Library!

  1. Read one of Jane Austen’s Six Novels
  2. Read something by Jane Austen that is not one of her main six novels
  3. Read a non fiction work about Jane Austen or her time period, The Late Georgian or Regency Era
  4. Read a modern retelling of a Jane Austen book
  5. Read a Book by a contemporary of Jane Austen (Some examples are Walter Scott, Mary Shelley, and more)
  6. Watch a direct screen adaptation of a Jane Austen Book.
  7. Watch a modern screen adaptation of a Jane Austen Book. (Some examples are Bride and Prejudice and Clueless)

I propose an 8th challenge: Read an article from a peer-reviewed Jane Austen academic journal!

Will you be partaking in this Regency read-a-thon?

#JaneAustenJuly2021 #JaneAustenJuly

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Juneteenth: A Celebration of Freedom

Since President Biden just signed the law making Juneteenth a federal holiday, here is a video from our library from 2019 about the Juneteenth holiday.

Talk Description: “Moraine Valley Community College students will learn about the oldest known holiday to commemorate the ending of slavery in the United States. The session will focus on the historical significance and cultural traditions of the forgotten holiday.”

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The Science Behind Why We Wear Masks

Novel Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2

Do you remember at the beginning of the pandemic when many were saying that masks don’t protect against Covid-19? At the time, based on a long standing myth in the physics, it was thought that the virus could not be airborne because the particles were too large to remain aerosol. Last summer, a group of scientists challenged that thought which finally lead the World Health Organization and CDC to acknowledge that SARS-CoV-2 is, in fact, airborne. You can read about the origin of the myth and the research that lead to uncovering it in Wired magazine’s article, The 60-Year-Old Scientific Screwup that Helped Covid Kill. You can also read about it in this British Medical Journal editorial, Covid-19 Has Redefined Airborne Transmission or this government document Dismantling Myths on the Airborne Transmission of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2). If you would like to do more research on SARS-CoV-2 or any other scientific topic, you can try one of the Moraine Valley Library’s science databases or our nursing and biological science databases. For help with this or any other research inquiries, the librarians are always happy to help. Just Ask a Librarian.

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And the Oscar Goes to…

Last night, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (also known as “The Academy”) gave the award for Best Picture of the Year to the movie Nomadland. We don’t own the movie yet, but the library does have copies of Nomadland, the book both in print and as an e-audio book. The book and movie tell the story of a woman who lives out of her van while traveling around the American west looking for work. A few of the actresses in the movie are actual van-dwelling nomads in real life. Hopefully we will have the movie soon, but in the meantime, you can check out some of the previous Best Picture winners from the library. Click on the image below to get to a list with descriptions and available options (including the books if we own them and they share the same name as the film).

Image of theater seats and stage








And the Oscar Goes to… Read More »

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