May is Mental Health Awareness Month
The Moraine Valley Library has a large selection of mental health related resources. I have curated a small selection of books and e-books into a Mental Health Awareness virtual display.
Virtual Book Displays
Comic Convention Companion
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:
Bathing in the Forest to Relieve Stress… at the Library?
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.
If you’d like to learn more about Forest Bathing, check out the book “Forest Bathing: How Trees Can Help You Find Health and Happiness“. Find it in our After Class collection near the library entrance.
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!
The Virtual Rainbow Reception
The Celebrating Diversity Task Group’s LGBTQ+ Subcommittee is hosting the annual Rainbow Reception virtually this year! On Monday, February 1st you can learn about the different resources on campus available to LGBTQIA+ students. Join via WebEx. You can also show your pride by ordering a t-shirt!
After the reception, check out some of the resources available at the library with this selection of books, audiobooks, and graphic novels. Click on the image to view the collection:
Relax and Check out our Streaming Video and DVD Collection
Once finals are over, I’m sure you are all looking to do some relaxing. We have all kinds of streaming videos and DVDs in our collection for your enjoyment. Looking to stream one of our feature films? Or would you prefer to check out the feature films in our DVD collection? Do you like documentaries? Here are our streaming documentaries. We have many documentaries in our DVD collection as well. Are you a stand up comedy fan? We’ve got you covered. We have stand up comedy in our streaming collection. Here are our stand up comedy DVDs. We even have streaming audio stand up comedy. If you need help with these, or any of our resources, remember to Ask a Librarian. Here are some of my streaming films:
Take a Break in Tokyo
If the thought of immersing yourself in a far away place appeals, even while we must stay close to home, step outside the everyday with this virtual display of e-books and e-audiobooks from the library that explore these surreal, tender, and humorous examples of contemporary Japanese fiction.
If further exploration of contemporary Japan appeals to you, the hypnotic and beautiful videos of Japan on the YouTube channel run by the anonymous Rambalac are an unusual and captivating glimpse of everyday life.
In the middle of the lockdown last Spring, I stumbled across a recommendation for Rambalac’s channel, which posts ‘walking videos.’ Rambalac records themselves walking around Tokyo’s districts, neighborhoods, and suburbs–other Japanese cities and locations appear periodically. There are videos recorded during the day and at night, in rain and snow. Rambalac describes the videos as “Not a vlog, no intrusive faces or talking, pure Japan only.”
During the lockdown, I loved being able to get such an (extra)ordinary glimpse of an unfamiliar place even while I was stuck at home–in a more visual, but no less compelling way than in the Japanese fiction in the above display. Try Sakura in snow, recorded last April, or this night walk, to get a feel for the hypnotic calm and the vibrant glimpses of contemporary Japan.
Shake Up Your Table
2020 is the year of “new”. New rules, new regulations, new tech, new ideas about health and safety. How about new food traditions? Why not try something different this year? MVCC has a variety of cookbooks, and plenty available digitally, so you don’t have to make a trip to the library. Here’s a small selection of cookbooks that might spice up your table this season. Check out our book catalog for more!
Don’t forget that you can always contact a librarian for help finding more resources like these!
Celebrate Indigenous Authors
In honor of Indigenous Peoples’ Day, Monday, October 12th, 2020, explore this selection of works by Native American authors available at the library, in print and online.
If you are curious about the history of Indigenous People’s Day, which was first celebrated in Berkeley, California in 1992 and is observed in an increasing number of cities and states, check out the American Indian Center of Chicago’s page.
Click on the virtual display below to view selected works:
New E-book Spotlight: September Roundup
The Library acquired access to two new collections of e-books over the summer, University Press Scholarship and Wiley Online Library. To introduce these new collections, we are featuring e-book selections on our social media platforms (Follow the Library on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram!) and the Library blog and bringing all the recommendations together in a monthly roundup virtual display!
Check out the virtual book display below for the New E-book Spotlight picks for September.
Get to Know Eve L. Ewing, Author of the One Book selection 1919
Eve L. Ewing, the author of the 20-21 One Book selection 1919, is a scholar, writer, artist, cultural organizer, and according to the bio on her website “made in Chicago.”
One of the things that makes Ewing unique is the wide range of her work, from poetry to scholarly texts, from podcasts to graphic novels.
Explore her works available through the library below:
Ewing is amazingly prolific; her work is everywhere online. Here are a few interesting items:
- Find an extensive listing of her essays and poetry on her website.
- Check out her podcast Bughouse Square.
- Check out our list of Ewing’s interviews from around the web relating to 1919.
- Ewing has been a guest on 1A, Nerdette, Code Switch, and numerous other awesome podcasts.
- Ewing has a gallery of some of her visual art on her website.