Library Blog

Extended finals hours begin Monday April 23rd

The library is hosting extended hours in the Murray Green Library and the Performing Arts Library to accommodate study and research needs as students prepare for finals. Librarians and library staff at both the Chicago and Schaumburg Campus will be available to provide research paper and project assistance and assist in finding and locating research resources. Extended hours will run from April 23 through May 2.

Murray-Green Library, Auditorium 10th Floor
Monday-Thursday: 9 a.m. to 11 p.m.
Friday: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Saturday & Sunday: 12 to 8 p.m.

Performing Arts Library, Auditorium 11th Floor
Monday - Thursday: 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Friday: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Sat & Sun: 12 to 6 p.m.

Schaumburg Campus Library will maintain regular hours from April 23 through May 2.

Schaumburg Campus Library
Mon - Thurs: 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Friday: 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Sat: 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Sun: Closed

For more information, visit http://www.roosevelt.edu/library

New in the catalog: over 2 million ebooks

Are you a fan of ebooks? The library recently gained access to over 2 million public domain ebooks, and you can find them all in the library's catalog.

The ebooks are part of the HathiTrust Digital Library (http://www.hathitrust.org). HathiTrust, a partnership between major research institutions and libraries, is working to preserve the cultural record by digitizing collections and ensuring their access into the future.

Now those public domain ebooks are available by searching the library's catalog. Simply go to the library's webpage and click the Advanced Search link that appears below the Search RU Catalog search box. When you reach the Advanced Search page, scroll to the bottom, and you will see options to include, exclude, or search only for HathiTrust titles in our catalog.

When you have found a HathiTrust title that you wish to view, click the HathiTrust Digital Library online access link, and you will be taken to the ebook.

Celebrate freedom: read a banned book

Banned Books week is September 26th through October 3rd. 

From the American Library Association:

Banned Books Week (BBW) is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment.  Held during the last week of September, Banned Books Week highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books across the United States.

The books featured during Banned Books Week have been targets of attempted bannings.  Fortunately, while some books were banned or restricted, in a majority of cases the books were not banned, all thanks to the efforts of librarians, teachers, booksellers, and members of the community to retain the books in the library collections.  

The Roosevelt University Library has created a LibGuide listing the many banned books featured in our collection, as well as providing resources on how, when, where, and why books are challenged and censored all over the world. 

Click Here to view the Banned Books LibGuide

CELEBRATE YOUR FREEDOM TO READ: CHECK OUT A BANNED BOOK!

Meet Roosevelt's First Librarian

FROM THE ARCHIVES

Roosevelt University was founded by extraordinary individuals: some well-known, like President Edward Sparling, and some less-well known but no less extraordinary, such as the first university librarian, Marjorie J. Keenleyside (at left).

Reference Librarian Michael Gabriel has written a post about Dr. Keenleyside for the RU Archives blog, where he discusses how she may have been "overqualified" for the job, and explains how archives are helpful in preventing extraordinary characters such as her from being forgotten.

Click Here to read about Roosevelt University's First Librarian

Election 2008

Unless you have been hibernating this winter, you probably know that we are in the middle of Election 2008. Below, you will find a list of some Web sites to help you decide for whom to vote.

Indecision 2008
http://www.indecision2008.com
Comedy Central’s Web site provides video clips, interviews, a political news blog, interactive polls and featured content from Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart. You can’t get through the election season without some comic relief!

The University of Michigan Documents Center: Elections 2008
http://www.lib.umich.edu/govdocs/elec2008.html
This metasite provides links to all things election, including the candidates, campaigns, issues and historical elections. There are also links to scholarly sources for further research.

FactCheck
http://www.factcheck.org
Okay, you follow the debates and candidate sound bites. How do you separate fact from fiction? FactCheck is a resource from the University of Pennsylvania, and they do the legwork for you. Along with textual content, FactCheck offers video and audio clips. You can ask them specific questions about the candidates’ claims and also subscribe to the site via RSS feed or e-mail. Their archive goes back to 2003.

Federal Election Commission
http://www.fec.gov/index.shtml
Here is the official government Web site, which provides all of the rules and regulations pertaining to federal campaign finance issues. You can see which groups are donating to which candidates and how much. A searchable database is available.

YouTube: You Choose ‘08
http://youtube.com/youchoose
The candidates have discovered the popularity of YouTube and have a visible presence here. You can see them responding to questions raised by voters through videos that they have posted on YouTube. The site also links to videos produced by individual campaigns. Find immediate and accessible information to candidates’ views on a wide variety of subjects.

-Written by Librarian Renee Roth

Welcome Back!

It was a long winter break, and I'm sure many of you are excited to back in school, or starting for the first time this spring.  The library wants to welcome you back.

We invite you stop in to learn about how the library can help you this semester, meet the librarians, have some candy on us and start your year off on the right foot.

Where is your Roosevelt University library?

1.) Main downtown Chicago Library
On the 10th floor of the Auditorium Building

2.) Performing Arts Library
On the 11th floor of the Auditorium building

3.) In the Gage Building, room 500

4.) On the Schaumburg campus in room 140

Deep Freeze is Coming to a Library & Lab Near You

Deep Freeze is a technology for personal computers which allows them to be
restarted in the middle of the night so that in the morning, any changes
users have made will be wiped clean.

Why use Deep Freeze?
The library and lab PCs currently run more slowly than they could, and there
is garbage savedto the desktop, as well as pop-ups. The RU Division of
Information Technology choose Deep Freeze over a couple of other brands.
Deep Freeze is used at other universities and has a good record; there are
technicians constantly working to develop it at the company; and tech support
is 24/7. Fortress was used in the past—very restrictive.  Deep Freeze allows
much more control over things.

What it does…
Deep Freeze provides a cleaner image when students sit down on machine.
In the middle of the night, the software is rebooted and reverts to the
original state from which it was built.  A nightly “thaw” erases any alterations
made during the day and allows the PC to download any software upgrades
that might be pending.  During the day, Deep Freeze will also reboot after
45 minutes of inactivity.  The user will be warned 5 min before it has done so.

What does it mean for me?
Students need to adjust by saving their work to USB drive or CD-RW, both
available at the university bookstore.  The library also has USB drives that
students may request for a 3-hour loan.  Saving to the desktop is still
possible; however, the file should then be sent as an attachment in an
email to one’s self – either to a personal account or to MyMail – prior to
leaving the library.

For more information, visit:  http://www.roosevelt.edu/doit/labs/deepfreeze.htm

Remembering Harold Washington

November 25 marks the twenty-year anniversary of former Chicago mayor Harold Washington's death in office.  The mayor graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree from Roosevelt University, then known as Roosevelt College, in 1949. 

To honor his legacy, we have created a photo album comprised of pictures of the mayor taken from the university's archives.  It includes pictures from his time as a Roosevelt student, while campaigning for the mayor's office, and receiving a number of honors as a distinguished alumnus.

View the Harold Washington photo album

The library also has a number of books on Harold Washington's life, career, and legacy:

• Bashing Chicago traditions: Harold Washington’s last campaign, Chicago, 1987 by Melvin G. Holli and Paul M. Green.  Chicago Circulating Books and Schaumburg Campus Library: F548.54.W36 H65 1989
• Chicago divided: the making of a Black mayor by Paul Kleppner.  Chicago Circulating Books: F548.52.W36 K541985
• Climbing a great mountain: selected speeches of Mayor Harold Washington.  Chicago Circulating Books: F548.52.W36 A51988
• Fire on the prairie: Chicago’s Harold Washington and the politics of race by Gary Rivlin.  Chicago Circulating Books:  F548.54.W36 R581992
• "Harold," the peoples mayor: an authorized biography of Mayor Harold Washington by Dempsey J. Travis.  Chicago Circulating Books: F548.54.W36 T731989
• Harold Washington: a political biography by Florence Hamlish Levinsohn.  Chicago Circulating Books: F548.52.W36 L481983
• The Making of the mayor, Chicago, 1983 edited by Melvin G. Holli and Paul M. Green.  Chicago Circulating Books: JS718.3 .M34 1984
• The Mayors: the Chicago political tradition edited by Paul M. Green and Melvin G. Holli.  Chicago Circulating Books and Schaumburg Campus Library: F548.25 .M39 2005

For additional information about Harold Washington, Chicago Public Radio and the NPR program This American Life are offering radio programs about the mayor, which you can listen to for free on their websites:

• Harold: Then and Now; a series of stories about Harold Washington by Chicago Public Radio
• This American Life episode 84: Harold; an hour-long program covering Washington's election and his legacy in Chicago politics

Labor: Past, Present & Future

Library Grant Strengthens Labor Collection

Roosevelt University Library, in partnership with DePaul University, Northeastern Illinois University, and Western Illinois University and sponsored by the Consortium of Academic & Research Libraries in Illinois, was awarded a grant from the State of Illinois.  Funding was allocated for enhancing the statewide collection of books dealing with labor issues.

Roosevelt focused on the relationship between government and labor.   Social policy impacts employment and labor relations in diverse ways:  minimum wage, unemployment insurance, equal opportunity and affirmative action, public service employment, welfare reform, parental leave, collective bargaining regulations, etc. 

A number of books were purchased for the library collection, including:

Blue-collar women at work with men / by Jeanie Greene.  Chicago Stacks: KF3467 .G737 2006

Doing without : women and work after welfare reform / edited by Jane Henrici.  Schaumburg Stacks: HV95 .D63 2006

Gender segregation : divisions of work in post-industrial welfare states / edited by Lena Gonas.  Schaumburg Stacks: HD6060.65 .E85 G455 2006

Income support for the unemployed / by Milan Vodopivec.  Schaumburg Stacks: HD7095 .V63 2004

Minimum wages and poverty : an evaluation of policy alternative / by John Formby.  Chicago Stacks: HC110 .P6 F68 2005

The Promise of welfare reform : political rhetoric and the reality of poverty in the twenty-first century / edited by Keith Kilty.  Chicago Stacks: HV95 .P7372 2006

Work, welfare and politics : confronting poverty in the wake of welfare reform / edited by
Frances Piven.  Chicago Stacks: HV95 .W686 2002

Please contact the Library reference desks for assistance in locating additional books, journal articles, and other information on this topic. 

The library celebrates National Coming Out Day

The first National Coming Out Day was celebrated on October 11th, 1988 which was the one year anniversary of the "March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights" and today National Coming Out Day is organized by the Human Rights Campaign.  The library has many resources on the issues surrounding coming out including books about this particular topic as well as resources on LBGTQ rights, the history of the movement, books about the literature, the lives of activists and more.  Members of the LBGTQ community and their allies are all celebrated on this day, and we should have resources available for everyone in the library.

Look for the following books or similar ones in the library catalog:

Boys like us : gay writers tell their coming out stories / edited by Patrick Merla. Chicago Stacks HQ75.7.B691996 

The other side of the closet : the coming-out crisis for straight spouses and families / by Amity Pierce Buxton. Chicago Stacks HQ74.B891994. 

Between women : friendship, desire, and marriage in Victorian England / Sharon Marcus. Chicago Circ DeskHQ1599.E5 M37 2007  

Freedom in this village : twenty-five years of black men’s writing, 1979 to the present / [edited by] E. Lynn Harris. Chicago Stacks PS509.H57 F74 2005. 

Femme/butch : new considerations of the way we want to go / Michelle Gibson, Deborah T. Meem, editors. Schaumburg Stacks HQ75.5.F459 2002. 

Transgender rights / Paisley Currah, Richard M. Juang, Shannon Price Minter, editors. Chicago Stacks HQ77.9.T16 2006

Click here to read an article from the Roosevelt Newspaper, The Torch about RU Proud, Roosevelt's LBGTQA Association.

Click here for a list of the winners of the Stonewall Book Awards, which are chosen by The American Library Association's Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Round Table.

What is you favorite book that touches on LBGTQ issues? Let us know by leaving a comment.