Author Archives: jgrey

September in the LLC

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During Banned Books Week from September 24th-September 30th we’ll be celebrating our fREADom (get it?) on our social media, including a series of interviews with our librarians about their favorite banned books. On that Tuesday, September 26th, you can join professors Audrey Antee, Carl Colavito, and Mark Creegan, along with FSCJ’s PaRDi Club at 2:00pm in E104 at Kent Campus for Obscenity Trials and fREADom. Whether or not a work is considered obscene depends on its perceived value. But who determines what does and does not have value? This event will discuss the question of obscenity and merit by examining several obscenity trials from the past, including those of William Burroughs and Robert Mapplethorpe. We hope to see you there!

Meanwhile if you haven’t visited the gallery inside the South Campus LLC, now is the perfect time to see what you’ve been missing!  Our current exhibit features works by Phillip Gusman, Trina McCowan, Marcie Williams, and Yvonne Xu – all South Campus LLC employees.  A variety of subjects and techniques are featured including collage, color pencil, intaglio prints, oil painting, and woodcuts.  There is even an enchanting set of hand carved magic wands (which is a neat tie-in to Banned Books Week, since the Harry Potter series is among the most frequently banned or challenged books in America).

We’ve got lots of things planned for October – Fall Fest at Cecil! Gamerween at South and Deerwood – so be sure to keep up with us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Until next month, we’ll see you in the stacks!

August in the LLC

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Just like you, the LLC spends August gearing up for the Fall term – and then in a whirlwind of activity, as we celebrate Welcome Week with a smorgasbord of activities.

First, Monday through Thursday all day students can visit each campus LLC to pick up their Passport to Success and take a tour of our services and resources. Once they’ve had every stop on their passport stamped by an LLC staff member, they can turn in their Passport to enters student into a drawing for a graphic novel or manga collection. Here’s what we’re drawing for at each campus:

Cecil Center: Legend of Zelda Box Set

Deerwood Center: Sandman

Downtown Campus: Ms. Marvel Omnibus Vol 1

Kent Campus: The Dark Tower

Nassau Center: Scott Pilgrim Precious Little Box Set

North Campus: Locke and Key

South Campus: Saga

As a bonus, students who complete the activity Monday 8/28 between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. can Spin to Win when they hand in their Passport and pick up a cool pair of shades or a frisbee.

Photogenic students can double their chances of winning a graphic novel by taking a selfie at our photobooths Monday through Thursday and posting it to either Facebook or Instagram with the hashtag #FSCJLLC and then following our new Instagram account. We’ll repost or regram our favorite photos.

From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Thursday, we’ll also have tables up with information on LLC services and resources, including our anatomical models (plastic, not people), which you can try your hand at disassembling and reassembling. Thursday we’ll have a table all day where students can practice paper crafts. And we haven’t even mentioned our musical interludes: Jazz it Up, featuring jazz guitar performances from Michael Turnquist and Al Murr at Kent Monday, 8/28 from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. and Cano on Piano from 10 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. at Deerwood on Tuesday, 8/29.

Whew. We did mention it was a whirlwind.

In the calm before that storm of activity, we’re taking some time to reflect on some of the people we’re proud of in the LLCs:

Dr. Kathleen Ciez-Volz, Associate Provost of Curriculum and Instruction, was selected for the Administrative and Professional Collaborative Exceptional Service and Initiative Award.

Tom Messner, Executive Dean of the Library and Learning Commons, was elected to serve as the 2017-18 Chair-Elect for the Members Council on Library Services (MCLS) of the Florida Academic Libraries Services Cooperative (FALSC).

Youlanda Henry, the Director of Tutoring Services, was elected to serve as the Vice-President of the Florida College Learning Center Association (FCLCA) for the 2017-2018 academic year.  She will serve as President for 2018-2019 academic year.

Susan Mythen, South Campus Librarian, was named the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) Member of the Week in April 2017.

Esteban Cano, Deerwood Center Academic Tutor for Spanish, received a Career Employees’ Council Recognition of Excellence Award.

We’re also celebrating some new faces who joined us over the summer. The Nassau Center LLC welcomed new Library Assistant I  Miranda Minton (pictured below), who came to them from the Deerwood Assessment and Certification Center where she’d been working as a Test Proctor, as well as peer math and writing tutor Kelly Kaiser. North Campus welcomed math tutor Richfield Quist, nursing tutor Christina Jacques, and computer support representative Thomas Elledge. Downtown welcomed new writing tutor Melody Gamber. Deerwood Center and South Campus welcomed some part time librarians:  Amber Mottram (DWC), Alex Goodman (STH), and Kristin Davis (STH).

Though it may seem like we’re already full up on fun, rest assured we’ve got much more planned for September. But until next month, we’ll see you in the stacks!

July in the Library and Learning Commons

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July may seem like a quiet month in the LLC, but don’t be fooled – we’re busy planning our shenanigans for Fall and Spring.

Until then, however, we’ve still got interesting stuff going on, including the VIVA Art Show at Kent Campus. If you didn’t make it to the opening back in June, don’t worry – you’ve still got time to vote for your favorite pieces. Just visit the Kent Campus Writing Lab to peruse the art and then drop your ballot in the box to indicate who you think should win, then join us on Wednesday, July 19th from 6:00PM-8:00PM for the closing ceremony and announcement of the winners.

After you’ve gotten your art on, you can close out the month with us by celebrating Shark Week. As always, we’ll be featuring fun facts about sharks on our Facebook page, and the Downtown Campus Library will have a small display of sharks teeth for you to check out.

We hope you’re looking forward to Fall as much as we are, and look forward to seeing those of you who took the summer off back on campus again. Until next month, we’ll see you in the stacks!

June in the Library and Learning Commons

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For the third year running, the LLC is celebrating Indiana Junes, where we spend the entire month highlighting fascinating stories about archaeology, anthropology, and sociology on our Facebook page. Our celebration culminates with a screening of an Indiana Jones film at the Downtown Campus prefaced by an academic talk from an FSCJ professor. This year we’re showing Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and Professor Wil Kaiser will be giving a talk on the Third Reich’s obsession with the occult and the Nazi belief that they were destined to inherit the mantle of Western Civilization.

Meanwhile, the Kent LLC Writing Lab will be accepting submissions for the VIVA Art Contest from the 12th-14th, 9:00 am – 5:30 pm. Categories for submissions (which must be ready to hang) include paintings, drawings, and photography. For more details, contact the Kent LLC at 904 381-3522

The next meteor shower isn’t until the Perseids in August, but until then you can get your meteorite fix at the Cecil Center LLC, which is temporarily home to a 200 lb meteorite recovered from Argentina. This little bit of space is on loan to us courtesy of Professor Mike Reynolds.

We’re already looking forward to July (Shark Week!), but until then, we’ll see you in the stacks!

 

May in the Library and Learning Commons

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If you’re just now recovering from the end of the semester, don’t worry – so are we! May started off with a whirl of activity in the LLCs, as various campuses offered Stress Relief Week options such as mini-massages, paper crane folding, and mini Zen gardens to take the edge off students’ (or faculty’s!) finals angst. We also offered coffee and snacks to help fuel your brains. If you missed it this time, keep an eye on your LLCs during finals week next Fall, because this is a recurring event.

If you’re based at South Campus, you may have heard a strange beeping sound coming from the stacks the first week of the month as the staff at South worked to finish the campus’s first complete inventory of their holdings, which is no small matter considering they carry almost 45,000 items. The inventory finished ahead of schedule, and marks the conclusion of a cycle of inventories at all the main campuses.

We plan to lie low for the rest of May and work on planning for Indiana Junes and Shark Week for June, as well as starting to plot Banned Books Week fun in the Fall. Until next month, we’ll see you in the stacks!

April in the Library and Learning Commons

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April is the coolest month, as it’s when we get to celebrate National Poetry Month. This year we’re going all-out, with a variety of events, as well as a chance for you to have your favorite poem (or an original work) featured on the LLC Facebook page. Just submit your poem of choice to downtowncampuslibrary@fscj.edu by 4/28, and we’ll illustrate it and post it online. If you submit your poem at Deerwood’s LLC on Thursday, 4/27 for Poem in Your Pocket Day you’ll also be entered to win a poetry month poster.

If sharing online isn’t enough, feel free to come speak your word at either or both of our events this month. On Wednesday, 4/12 South Campus will be hosting a spoken word event to help celebrate the winners of the Just Imagine Poetry Contest, and then on Thursday, April 20th, you can participate at a slam at the Downtown Campus emceed by adjunct Marq Mervin.

If you’re looking for something a little more resistance, join Rawlslyn Francis and Heidi Marshall for Alice Walker: Poetry and Protest, at South Campus on Tuesday, 4/18.

If just the idea of poetry exhausts you, you’re also in luck: Stress Relief Week is April 24th-29th. The Downtown Campus LLC will offer mini-massages from 10:00am-2:00pm on 4/25, and coffee breaks from 9:30-10:30am and 4:30-5:30pm. Check with your local campus LLC to see what they might have on the schedule to help ease your finals stress.

Amidst the whirlwind, don’t forget that National Library Week is also this month. If you happen to be a faculty or staff member Downtown, you’re welcome to join the Downtown Campus LLC in celebrating on Tuesday, April 11th, from 11am-1pm in A2102Q. Come talk to us about the services we offer, and the services you might like us to offer, and enjoy cake and a chance at door prizes.

Finally, if you noticed an awful lot of people in the Downtown and Deerwood LLCs on April 6th and 7th, that’s because we were hosting the 4th Annual College Learning Center Association Conference. More than 100 participants from Florida’s colleges and universities attended the conference, which took as its theme “Reaching for the Stars:  Helping Students Discover their Dreams by Delivering Excellence in Academic Support.”

In May we’ll be slowing things down a bit for the start of summer, but keep an eye on our Facebook page just in case we plan any late-breaking shenanigans. Until then, we’ll see you in the stacks!

March in the Library and Learning Commons

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There’s a lot to celebrate in March, and we’re not just talking about Spring Break. (Though that, too.)

First, in honor of Women’s History Month, the Downtown Campus LLC is hosting Make Margaret Atwood Great Again: Why The Handmaid’s Tale Remains So Relevant 30 Years Later. Over three decades after its publication, Margaret Atwood’s feminist dystopia The Handmaid’s Tale still looms large in the popular consciousness. At the Women’s March in January, signs bearing Handmaid-related slogans popped up, and a new television adaptation is due to premiere soon on Hulu. Professor Audrey Antee hosts an event that discusses the literary and historical context of the novel and features a presentation by Professor Jennifer Chase on her experiences at the Women’s March and a debate of the novel’s issues by FSCJ’s Politics and Rational Discourse Club.

Throughout the month, you can also stop by the Deerwood Campus LLC to check out their timeline of women’s marches from the Suffrage Parade to the Women’s March on Washington this past January. While supplies last, patrons can also create their own signs with markers and posters provided by the LLC.  Finally, we’ll be highlighting women’s history and women’s issues on our Facebook page, including interviews with famous female authors and civil rights activists.

March is also the month we celebrate Pi Day, and several of the campuses will be hosting games and activities in their Learning Commons to ring in 3/14. There will be pie available at South Campus and Cecil (who will also have cookies, pizzas, and other food that has a circumference), as well as games and puzzles. Downtown Campus will be making Pi Day a two day affair (3/14-3/15), largely because their plan to have students use post-it notes to recreate the infinite string of numbers of Pi to wrap around the Learning Commons might take a while. Aside from the notes, there will be additional games and prizes.

Finally, Kent Campus is getting a head start on April by launching their Just Imagine poetry contest. Students may submit poems to the contest until April 1st, and winners will be announced at a poetry reading at South Campus April 12th. There’s an open forum and discussion group to help workshop student poetry at Kent on March 14th at 5pm in room E104.

If you love what we’re doing in March, just wait until you see what we’ve got planned for National Poetry Month in April. Keep an eye on your monthly newsletter and the LLC Facebook page for updates.

Until next month, we’ll see you in the stacks!

 

February in the Library and Learning Commons

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There’s a lot going on at your LLCs this month! So first thing’s first: if you’re not already following us on Facebook, take a minute and do so now. We’re running a month-long celebration of African-American History Month on our Facebook page, featuring interviews with famous African-American authors, trivia about local civil rights luminaries, and videos with recommendations from FSCJ administrators, faculty, staff, and students about books by African-American authors that meant something to them, but if you don’t follow us you’ll miss out on the great content we’ve put together.

Another reason to follow us on Facebook: it’s a great way to keep track of all the events we’re running throughout February at our various campuses. First, get mindful at Deerwood Campus from February 13th-17th as they present Mindfulness Week in collaboration with the Mindfulness Parlor. All week long you can reflect on the moment and share what you are grateful for with a collaborative flipchart display and learn more about mindfulness practices by browsing our library displays on meditation, yoga, and stress relief. From 1:00pm-4:00pm Tuesday and Thursday you can take some time to relax in a meditation room with yoga mats, dim lights, and calming images and sounds or reduce stress with our selection of herbal teas. From 1:00pm-2:30pm on Tuesday and Thursday, enjoy a curated selection of films in G2730 that will help you understand how to be more fully present in the moment.

Next, at Downtown and South Campus we’ve got two events on African-American representation in pop culture: Miles to Go: Why a Black Spiderman Should be Just the Beginning takes on representation in graphic novels on February 21st in the small auditorium at Downtown Campus, and More Than a Half Life: Black Video Game Characters from Assassin’s Creed to Watch Dogs 2 tackles representation in video games and will be in the Lakeside Room at South Campus on February 28th.

At North Campus this month the LLC is presenting The Struggle Continues: Author Rodney L. Hurst, SR. in the North Campus Auditorium from 10:00am-11:00am on February 27th. Hurst, a civil rights activist, Black historian, and award-winning author, will discuss his latest book, Unless WE Tell It. . . It Never Gets Told! The book tells the story of notable blacks from Jacksonville who impacted the city and nation and relates stories of America’s Black history and the historical fight against racism.The presentation will be followed by Q & A.

Finally, stop by your Deerwood, Downtown, or North Campus LLC during the times below to check out African-American Hairstyles: A Traveling Exhibit.

We’ve got more big plans for March and April, but until then we’ll see you in the stacks!

January in the Library and Learning Commons

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We’re back from winter break and already planning big things for the Spring semester! To kick off the year, we’re participating in the community-wide initiative Voices of Hope, a partnership between the College and the Museum of Science and History to bring Anne Frank’s optimism and vision for a better world to life, to our community, and to FSCJ.

For our part, we’ll have displays up in the libraries featuring books on Anne Frank and the Holocaust, and we’ll be featuring a traveling exhibit called Parallel Journeys: World War II and the Holocaust through the Eyes of Teens. You can catch the exhibit in the Downtown Campus Library from 1/30-2/3, at the North Campus Library from 2/6-2/10, in the Kent Campus Library from 2/13-2/17, and in the lobby outside the Deerwood Campus Library from 2/21-2/27. You can read more about Anne Frank and the exhibit at our LibGuide on the subject here.

We’re already looking forward to February (and to National Poetry Month in April!), and will have big news about events in those months soon. But until then, we’ll see you in the stacks!

December in the Library

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We’re in the final stretch of the Fall 2016 term, and things are winding down for the year here in the Library. Generally this is the time of year we use to do a little housekeeping, and part of that effort this year involves making plans for how awesome we’re going to be in 2017. We already have a few ideas, but if you’re interested in seeing us tackle anything in particular, please let us know, either by commenting here or by emailing us at downtowncampuslibrary@fscj.edu.

The college closes for the holidays on December 23rd, and will remain closed until January 4th – which means you should definitely swing by and check out a few good things to read to keep you occupied. We look forward to serving you in the next year. Until then, we’ll see you in the stacks!