This season is full of great pop culture events. New York Comic Con was last month, San Diego Comic Con will be in-person next week, and Chicago’s own C2E2 will be in-person in December. So many awesome shows!
Maybe you’re one of the lucky ones attending this year, or maybe you feel the time isn’t right. Either way, the library has graphic novels, cosplay resources, artists, and more to connect you with the pop culture community!
Check out some of the resources below in our Comic Convention Companion, and visit the library in the near future to see some of our staff’s best graphic novel and manga recommendations for your holiday break! Click the image below to view the collection:
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.
The Frida Kahlo exhibit that spent the summer at nearby College of DuPage was impressive and drew visitors from all 50 states and 42 countries. In case you were unable to enjoy the event in person, or would like to revisit some of what you experienced, this virtual tour is a great way to connect with the exhibit. Through exhibit photos and narrative, the curator walks us through Frida’s difficult life and then helps the viewer engage with a few of the paintings on display. We also see reproductions of Frida Kahlo’s garden and house. Frida Kahlo Timeless Virtual Tour
To engage even further with the life and works of the artist, check out the MVCC Library’s collection on Frida Kahlo.
This year’s One Book One College selection is All We Can Save, a collections of essays by women leading the fight against climate change. Thinking about climate change and the environment can be really stressful, but getting out into and enjoying nature can have some really positive benefits.
You might have heard of “Forest Bathing“, the concept of immersing yourself in a natural environment as a form of stress relief. While participants do not actually bathe or even enter into water, sounds, smells, textures, and even tastes of nature are explored and enjoyed.
To find the After Class book collection, turn right after you enter the library
If you’d like to get out in nature and learn about it at the same time, check out some of the Library’s upcoming public events. We have a couple opportunities for members of the MVCC community to learn more about the natural areas on campus! Register for events on our Events page. Events are always FREE!
MVCC Prairie Tour (Weds 9/29 and Thurs 9/30) Join earth science faculty member, Jana Svec, for a tour of MVCC’s own prairie. Learn about the geography, plants and animals that are in our own backyard, right on campus.
Native Plants: Foundation of Our Ecosystem (Online Event 10/6) We will discuss how native plants, insects and birds interconnect to maintain our food supply, water, air quality, climate etc. The significant decline in birds and insects is largely due to habitat loss and lack of native plants. We will show what the individual can do to reverse this trend. This discussion will be presented by Catheryn Bryla, Sag Moraine
Prairie Seed Collection Event (Tues 10/12 and Thurs 10/14) Help us protect MVCC’s prairie! Join us and Jana Svac, earth science faculty member, in collecting seeds from native plants to ensure that our prairie remains healthy for the future. This is a chance to get outside and make a difference.
Finally, if you want to dig deeper into the native plants and wildlife of Illinois, check out this librarian-curated list of websites, field guides, and books! Click on the image below to browse!
Are you looking to up your game in the evaluation of online information? Bestselling author John Green wants to help!
Misinformation, disinformation, fake news, and conspiracies have become so common that we stumble across these all the time in our web searches and in our news feeds. And it’s getting harder and harder to evaluate the information that we find. Really bad information is often presented in a professional looking manner with a great looking list of references. Those old checklists just don’t work anymore.
What we really need to do is find out who is behind the information and why they want us to see it. A great way to do this is to leave the webpage we’re on, open a new tab, and google the person or organization presenting the information. Instead of reading vertically, up and down the page we found, we need to read laterally, across the web, to find out what other people have to say about the presenter.
Here’s where John Green comes into the picture. His Crash Course YouTube series has produced a collection in collaboration with researchers at Stanford University to help us learn more about how misinformation is spread and to demonstrate how to use lateral reading skills to evaluate online information. The videos are really engaging and really helpful.
Check out the first Navigating Digital Information video below. As always, the MVCC Library has lots of helpful information as well. Click here for a sample.
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!
Check our this amazing visual guide to understanding comics! Candida Rifkind, Brandon Christopher, and Alice RL’s “How Comics Work”.
Our library provides access to 1000s of graphic novels and comics (in both print and digital options). Sometimes getting started in this medium is the tough part, so that’s why “How Comics Work” is a great guide. In just a few pages, it gives you the short and to understand this iconic popculture literary form.
The spectrum of cartooning styles (from realistic to iconic). “Closure” is a term used for the act of reading and interpreting movement & meaning from still images.
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).
National Poetry Month is coming to a close, but there is still time to explore and enjoy some of the poetry resources available at the Library. Explore the virtual book displays below for poetry recommendations from the Library! For each display, click “Read More” to view the virtual book display.
Have questions about accessing any of these resources? Ask a Librarian!
What makes a poet a “Chicago Poet?” A poet born in Chicago? Someone who wrote poetry in or about Chicago? An artist embraced by the City? However you define a Chicago Poet, these artists and books are a great way to end National Poetry Month! Click “Read More” to view the full display.
Looking back on our celebrations of Black History Month and Women’s History Month, “Distilled and Powerful,” display of poetry by African American women, brings our poetry celebration full circle! Click “Read More” to view the full display.
Keep National Poetry Month going all summer! Poetry is meant to be heard, so listen to these fantastic poetry e-audiobooks, many of which are read by the authors! Click “Read More” to view the full display.
These words were uttered by beloved children’s book author Beverly Cleary, who passed away last week at 104 years old. Her love of reading started at an early age. Her own school librarian suggested she should write books when she grow up. She did just that, after first becoming a librarian herself, when a young patron asked her “Where are the books about kids like us?” From this came her first book, Henry Huggins, introducing us to the characters of Henry, his dog Ribsy, and sisters Beezus and Ramona. Hearing news of her passing makes me want to take a trip down memory lane and re-read some of the wonderful books that I grew up with. If you’d like to join me, check out what we have in our catalog!
