#terrell main library

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Terrell Main Library: What’s Up Those Stairs?

Just a little over a year ago we were asked to close the upper floors of the Terrell Main Library, but if you have been following us on Instagram, Facebook and/or Twitter you have gotten to see a bit of the upper floors that are usually packed full of Obies

Since part of the job of the reference staff is teaching students, staff, and faculty how to navigate the libraries, I thought I might just take you on a short tour, highlighting some of the things this space has to offer. So jump aboard while I navigate. Mudd Center was built to house the expanding library and the computing center in the 1970’s, so you will see lots of 70’s style and bright colors (Interiors Magazine), a stand out against the cold, grey brutalist architecture of its exterior.

We will start on the 4th floor where Special Collections and Archives live. Here you will find a unique feature — the sun deck. In the cold and rainy months no one gives it much mind, but when the sun shines you can study right next to the skylights that look down to the second floor. You will find womb chairs and the scholar study bridge, both which also appear on floors 3 and 2. The womb chairs are set so you gaze out the front windows at the scholar study bridge. The bridge is filled with small study rooms which are available to those working on final research projects such as capstones or honors.

Moving to the 3rd floor you will find the East Asian collection in the brightly lit core where you can look up at the skylight and down to the cushion pit below. You will find this is to be a studious floor with plenty of stacks filled with books, original bright plastic seating options and study carrels galore.

One more floor down you will find the Letterpress Studio, where many a winter term has been held and classes have come to visit the old hand-operated printing presses. You can see examples of the types of prints that can be produced in our studio just outside the door, as well as displays of tools historically used in printmaking. On the 2nd floor, you will also find more books, mostly literature, and plenty of places to study, even a spot next to a big plant or two. Speaking of two, along the west wall you will find carrels, yes built for two.

Thank you for coming aboard. Closing the floors has been hard, but we hope in the not too distant future things will change and you can find yourself stuck in Mudd once again!

[oberlincollegelibraries]

Here for You

The library is extra quiet today, since most of you are traveling home to finish remotely. Though many staff do not have to travel, we will take a couple of days off before we return to campus. As you settle into your new remote study routine keep this in mind, the library staff and library materials can be accessed online.

Books, articles and more

Now that you are off campus you will have to connect through the proxy server first, but then you can access the millions of online library resources to complete your work.  If our online resources aren’t what you are looking for, but our print items are, we can supply that too. If you have a section of a book you need simply fill out an inter-library loan request, here’s how.

Can’t find what you need? We can help.

Library staff is available on chat, several hours a day, six days a week (Sun - Fri.)  We can help with access problems, finding materials, citation questions and more.

If you are struggling with finding peer reviewed articles, primary sources, books or other sources for you final projects, sign-up for a Research Appointment.  We will meet you on zoom for 30 minutes and help you find what you need.

Looking forward to helping you online.

[oberlincollegelibraries]

Not an Island: some of the ways the library partners with academic departments

This week we are partnering with the German department in celebrating 50 years of Max Kade German Writer in Residence Program.  This program has brought many distinguished German, Austrian, or Swiss authors to campus for a 10-week residency.   It provides an exciting a unique opportunity for students to learn more about German literature.  Don’t miss the display in the Terrell Main library featuring a selection of these many authors’ works or the talk by this year’s writer in residence, Nora Gomringer (Thurs., Nov.7).

Next week we are partnering again with the English department to bring you 5th Early Modern Recipe Transcribathon (Tues. Nov. 5).  You can be a part of a worldwide event and contribute to feminist scholarship by being a transcribers of Seventeenth-century recipes.  No experience necessary.  You learn how to read 17thc manuscripts, uncover interesting stories, recipes and health care tips from another era and create searchable test for scholars and students to use.

For many years the library has promoted the right to read with a banned books display, but this year we partnered with the English department which enabled us to add a Read-aloud event.  This event was attended by students, faculty and staff passionate about the right to read any book.  In addition Special Collections brought books from their collection where you could see how they had be physically altered so certain words and/or ideas could not be read or shared.  

Thank you partners for helping us bring these opportunities to students and the Oberlin Community.

[oberlincollegelibraries]

Sunday Edition:  Travel farther, check out a novel for Spring Break

Whether you are traveling by train, car, plane or just hunkering down here for the week, Spring Break is a great time to read. Let a novel take you to new places, introduce you to unique people, pull you through puzzling encounters, challenge your emotions, enlighten your day, and/or make you laugh. Following are just a few of the newly arrived novels that can do this and more. Check one out and enjoy your break.

The wolf at number 4 : a novel / Ayo Tamakloe-Garr

Desire Mensah, a disgraced schoolteacher in her thirties, sees moving to sleepy little Cape Coast, Ghana, as her chance to get away from a shameful secret not buried deeply enough. And maybe, just maybe, she will find the love she craves and the husband her mother craves for her.  (Keywords: Student-teacher relationships,  Cape Coast, Ghana)

In our mad and furious city / Guy Gunaratne

Inspired by the real-life murder of a British army soldier by religious fanatics, Guy Gunaratne's In Our Mad and Furious City is a snapshot of the diverse, frenzied edges of modern-day London. While Selvon, Ardan, and Yusuf organize their lives around soccer, girls, and grime, Caroline and Nelson struggle to overcome pasts that haunt them.  (Keywords: Muslims, London psychological)

Welcome to Lagos / Chibundu Onuzo

When the army officer Chike Ameobi is ordered to kill innocent civilians, he knows it is time to desert his post. As he travels toward Lagos with Yemi, his junior officer, and into the heart of a political scandal involving Nigeria's education minister, Chike becomes the leader of a new platoon, a band of runaways who share his desire for a different kind of life.  (Keywords: armed forces, desertion, Lagos, psychological)

Something like forever / by Jay Bell

Love, like everything in the universe, cannot be destroyed.  But over time it can change.

The hot Texas nights were lonely for Ben before he met Tim Wyman, the man he would one day mary.  Now, twenty years later, everything is perfect.  Isn’t it?  (Keywords: gay men, romance)

Speak no evil : a novel / Uzodinma Iweala

On the surface, Niru leads a charmed life. Raised by two attentive parents in Washington, D.C., he's a top student and a track star at his prestigious private high school. Bound for Harvard in the fall, his prospects are bright. (Keywords: sexual orientation, Nigerian Americans, gay teenagers)

Destroy all monsters : the last rock novel / Jeff Jackson

An epidemic of violence is sweeping the country: musicians are being murdered onstage in the middle of their sets by members of their audience. Are these random copycat killings, or is something more sinister at work? Has music itself become corrupted in a culture where everything is available, everybody is an artist, and attention spans have dwindled to nothing?  (Keywords: murder, musicians, rock concerts)

Reservoir 13 / Jon McGregor

A teenage girl has gone missing and everyone is called upon to join the search. The villagers fan out across the English moors as the police set up roadblocks and news reporters descend.  (Keywords: missing children, country life, England)

The removes / Tatjana Soli

Traces the intertwining stories of Civil War hero George Armstrong Custer, his frontierswoman wife Libbie, and fifteen-year-old Anne Cummins, a captive of the Cheyenne after surviving a homestead attack. (Keywords: Indian captives, women West (U.S.), pioneer life)

Eternal life : a novel / Dara Horn

Ever since she made a deal to save her son's life in Roman-occupied Jerusalem, Rachel has been doomed to live eternally, but as her descendants develop new technologies for immortality, she realizes that, for them to live fully, she must die

"What would it really mean to live forever? Rachel is a woman with a problem: she caǹt die.  (Keywords: immortality, idea)

Mother India : a novel / Tova Reich

Literary, lyrical, and cuttingly satiric, Mother India is a brilliantly original novel about Jews who go to India to find transformation and eternal release from the sufferings of life. Narrated in luminous prose by Meena, a Jewish American lesbian who has claimed India as her home, the novel is vividly populated by the darkly comic universe of three generations of women along with other family members, as well as by the Indians whose world they seek to penetrate. (Keywords: divorced people, Jewish, India, parent and child)

[oberlincollegelibraries]

Sunday Edition: Cookbooks!

Ah, Thanksgiving. A time for family, food, and family fights (but hopefully not family food fights)! Nothing diffuses inter-generational tension like good food. For this week’s Sunday Edition, we’re highlighting cookbooks in the Terrell Main Library’s collection! The books highlighted here (plus more!) will be on display in Azariah’s and available to be checked out at the circulation desk. 

The Fake Food Cookbook: Props You Can’t Eat for Theatre, Film, and TV by Karestin Harrison and Tamara L. Honesty

This first cookbook isn’t a cookbook at all! Well, at least not in the traditional sense. Written by two professionals working in prop and set design, The Fake Food Cookbook contains recipes for fake food that can be used in theatre and film productions, for decoration, or to prank your friends! If you’ve ever wondered how to make a fake wheel of brie or a delightfully realistic sticky bun, this is the book for you! 

Oberlin College Libraries Staff Association Cookbook (compiled by The Staff Association Cookbook Committee)

In 1988, a group of Oberlin College Library staff members got together and created the Oberlin College Libraries Staff Association Cookbook. Featuring recipes like ‘Kevin’s Top-Secret Sirloin Tips’ and ‘Sausage and Cheese Surprise’, the recipes in this collection are guaranteed to garner laughs, fun, and maybe a delectable meal or two.

A Taste of Africa by Tebereh Inquai

Learn how to make things like jollof rice, a tasty rice dish prepared all over West Africa, or injera, an Ethiopian fermented bread. Written by Ethiopian chef Tebereh Inquai, A Taste of Africa is guaranteed to delight the senses and teach you a thing or two about the diversity of African cuisine. 

The Locavore’s Kitchen by Marilou K. Suszko

The term ‘local foods movement’ is a little misleading, as it implies eating ingredients that are in season and locally produced is a modern fad. While for some eating locally might be a a new thing, sourcing ingredients from regional farms has been the norm for most of human history, and many indigenous peoples today continue to center their diets on what is available locally. 

The Locavore’s Kitchen by Ohioan Marilou K. Suszko teaches its readers the ins and outs of preparing fresh, local ingredients. Suszko explains when different foods are in season and how to prepare them to best highlight their natural flavors. Home cooks looking to reconnect with local foods should check this book out. 

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A Thanksgiving post would be incomplete without mentioning that the original inhabitants of what we call Northeastern Ohio are the Erie and Shawnee people, who were forcibly removed from the land during the period of Westward Expansion. Whether you’re heading home, visiting relatives, or staying in Oberlin for Thanksgiving, we encourage you to research the indigenous groups who are native to those places and learn about how they came to be removed from the land. 

That’s all for this week’s Sunday Edition- Happy Thanksgiving! 

[oberlincollegelibraries]

Sunday Edition

Introducing OCL’s newest regularly scheduled post: the Sunday Edition! Why the Sunday Edition, a weekly post focused on easy, fun reads?

It really comes from an experience during my own college years and now that I am a Reference Assistant in the main library it seemed that the Sunday Edition was a good way to share that experience with others.

I was in the midst of the final researching and writing stages of my senior honors paper.  It was nearing spring break, a break I had already decided to “skip” so I could continue to plow ahead on this monster of a research paper.  I walked into my advisor’s office for our weekly update meeting.  She handed back the sections I had drafted and we talked about the places that I needed to go back to fill in gaps in my arguments.  She suggested some more sources to seek out and read.  I told her my plans to stay in town to work on it over break.  On that note she turned to a bag beside her desk and pulled out a small stack of Tony Hillerman mystery novels and handed them my way.  She said, “before you go back to writing and reading for this paper, take a break, read at least one of these books.  It will do you good.”  So I left her office with my fully marked up draft and a pile of paperbacks.  In a few days when break rolled around and I was sitting in an empty off campus house I pulled out one of those Hillerman books and began to read.  Over the next few days I devoured each and everyone of those mysteries.  I read, laughed, cried, shivered with anticipation, and most importantly I gave my mind a break.  Once done, I opened up my research project with a fresh set of eyes, a cleared head, and much more energy to apply myself to finalizing my honors paper.

So the Sunday Edition is our way to give you the same study break  - to hold out our “hand” each week with a few ideas about books you might curl up with on a Sunday morning instead of rushing off to the library to do your school work.  Most of the books we will suggest can be found on the new book shelves in Azariah’s cafe in the Terrell Main library. This week’s suggestions are Florida, White Houses , and The Middleman, three books by New York Times best selling authors.

[oberlincollegelibraries]

Study Spaces for Everyone

According to the students there are many great places to study in the Terrell Main Library with four unique floors. So let’s hit some highlights starting at the top floor (4th) and moving down.

On the 4th floor you will find plenty of natural light with big windows looking out the front of the building and into the courtyard. Many days are too blustery and grey to go outside to study, but the windows make for a nice view. You can sit at a table or cozy up in a womb chair to enjoy a bit of natural light.

Shh... The 3rd floor is known to be a very quiet place to study. Here you will find out of the way study carrels for two, the inner core filled with the East Asian collections, many comfy chairs, and various tables where you can concentrate in a calm quiet space.

Quieter then Main, but not as silent as 3, the 2nd floor has many unique places to sit. You can climb on the cushion pit under the glass ceiling, curl up in a womb chair, or spread out at a giant table. According to some, “2nd floor is where it is at.”

If you like to study where there is a steady rumble of voices, computers, and printers, Main is your floor. Whether you are here to study or just to be seen, plenty of folks know if you want to meet up with friends, just take a seat in the Academic Commons. If group work is your game, then reserve a group study rooms on the Main level. Oh, and don’t forget if you’re hungry, you can stop for some food and drink at Azariah’s Cafe.

Yes, Main is nice, but if the space doesn’t meet your needs, then check out the other libraries — Art, Conservatory or Science — each with their own unique feel. Check us out on Instagram (@oberlin.college.libraries) to get more ideas of places to study.