Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Take Back the Night Detroit - April 9

Please join us at our second annual Take Back the Night Detroit, to be held at Marygrove College, Alumnae Hall, on Friday, April 9, 5:00-8:30 pm.

The purpose of this event, celebrated nation-wide, is to raise awareness, promote prevention, and support survivors of sexual assault as they cast off shame and guilt and access the help they need on their journey towards healing and wholeness.

Take Back the Night-Detroit is being sponsored by the Marygrove Student Government, the Women's Center, and the Social Work Department, together with Sasha Center, a community based organization.

The Take Back the Night Committee invites each of you to attend this important event!

If you would like more information, please contact Prof. Kalimah Johnson, Chair, at kjohnson1099@marygrove.edu, x1484, or Prof. Darcy Brandel, Co-chair, at dbrandel@marygrove.edu, x1447.

We hope to see you on April 9th!

Monday, March 15, 2010

March 18: An Evening of Recent Detroit Fiction

The Marygrove College Institute for Detroit Studies and English and Modern Languages Department present a Defining Detroit event:

An Evening of Recent Detroit Fiction: a reading and book signing featuring Peter Markus, Susan Messer, and Michael Zadoorian.

Thursday, March 18, 2010 at 7:00 PM
Marygrove College
8425 West McNichols, Detroit
Alumnae Hall, Madame Cadillac Building

Free and open to the public

* * *

Peter Markus has written two books of short stories, "Good, Brother" (2005) and "The Singing Fish" (2006), and a novel, "Bob, or Man on Boat" (2008).

"Peter Markus' gorgeously spare, riverine fables of brotherly sweetness and violence are hypnotic, haunting, and sublime." - Gary Lutz

Novelist and short-story writer Susan Messer is the author of "Grand River and Joy" (2009).

"With unsparing candor, Susan Messer thrusts us into a time when racial tensions sundered friends and neighbors and turned families upside down. The confrontations in Grand River and Joy are complex, challenging, and . . . spot-on accurate." - Rosellen Brown

Michael Zadoorian is the author of two novels, "Second Hand" (2000) and "The Leisure Seeker" (2009), and one book of short stories, "The Lost Tiki Palaces of Detroit" (2009).

"Zadoorian’s pace [in "The Leisure Seeker"] is deceptive, it's restful. But unexpected scenes jump out at you. Come to the end and you’ll say, 'Oh my God!'" - Elmore Leonard

Check out Marygrove's weather station!

The Marygrove College weather station is now linked and reporting data to the Weather Underground Network, a nationwide network:

http://www.wunderground.com/weatherstation/WXDailyHistory.asp?ID=KMIDETRO12

Data from the weather station are presently used by the students in Dr. Mary Lynam's ENV 300 (Weather and Climate) as part of their learning experience.

In addition, student Lloyd Weishap will make a presentation titled "The Marygrove Weather Station Project: Using Technology to Teach Students" at the Sigma Zeta Conference in Cambelsville, KY, at the end of March.  Lloyd has been working with Dr. Lynam as a research assistant and has been instrumental in getting the station up and going.  The weather station was purchased through a generous gift from the Sr. Mary Cabrini Fund.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Aardvark - the virtual reference desk

Have you seen this?

http://vark.com/

"Crowdsourcing" reference questions was one of the themes of the ALA TechTrends webinar that Dana, Michelle, and I attended, and it appeared at several points during the Handheld Librarian II conference. Many see it as an extension of what lots of libraries are already doing - joining a consortium so that one librarian, when s/he's on duty, is responsible for responding to the virtual reference questions (sent via IM, email, text) of students who may or may not be at the librarian's home university. Some have followed that thought to its logical conclusion. . .why should only librarians be responsible for answering these reference questions? Perhaps in the future (which is NOW) students will use sites like Aardvark for most of their questions and librarians (cybrarians) will work in a context less tied to the reference desk.

Want to weigh in on this controversial topic? Submit a comment below. :-)

New database: A to Z Maps!

A-to-Z Maps is the Marygrove Library's newest database. Included in the 4,000+ maps are political maps, physical maps, outline maps, population maps, precipitation maps, climate maps, and other thematic maps. New maps are added to the collection every month, so check back often!

Begin searching A-to-Z Maps.