Library News
American History in Video
Posted on December 12th, 2019
One of Booth Library’s resources available to all students and faculty is called American History in Video. This is an extremely helpful tool for history students, or those who want to learn more about American history through the medium of media. Through this database, Booth Library has access to thousands of primary and secondary sources.
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Getting to Grove Music Online from Booth’s homepage is easy. Click on the database option in the “Articles” tab. (Above)
Then scroll down to “History” in the drop down menu to get to the history databases. After that, it is as simple as scrolling down and clicking on the link to go to Grove Music Online. (Below)
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There are different filters that are available to search through all of these films, videos, documentaries, and other formats! These six different filters include areas like Subject, Publisher, Person, Content Type, Language, and Release Date. (Below)
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Within these catagories are many other sub-divisions to narrow your search to what you are looking for. Subjects range from airplanes and war, to sports and politics. Even further catagories are given until the specific film you are looking for has been found. The same is with all of the other filters as well in finding specifc things.
When clicking on a specific video to watch, there are a few options available. (Below) Viewing the video in fullscreen is fairly self-explanatory, but there are other features of this database that help make research a breeze. The transcript option provides a full transcript of the video as well as time stamps for the dialog. There is also an option for searching within the transcript to find certain words or phrases.
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One of the other panels that opens up when watching a video is the details tab. This tab is very nice because of how specific it is to the information about the video. For example, in this political advertisement about Dwight Eisenhower, it gives the detail about things like the release date, duration, publication type, field of interest, and others. (Below)
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Overall, American History in Video has a lot of very interesting features that can be helpful when students are researching. Their interface is easy to use and very detailed to give the person looking, exactly what they want. In addition to having documentaries and other secondary sources, they also have raw film footage, newsreels, and many other primary sources to search through. This helps make this database an important asset to Booth Library in having many different resources available for faculty and students alike.
Grove Music Online
Posted on December 7th, 2019
One of the many helpful resources that Booth library has access to is the database called Grove Music Online. This was originally a print music dictionary, but has expanded greatly since being brought online and serves as a useful tool for many.
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Getting to Grove Music Online from Booth’s homepage is easy. Click on the database option in the “Articles” tab. (Above)
Then click on the “G” to get to databases starting with “G”. After that, it is as simple as scrolling down and clicking on the link to go to Grove Music Online. (Below)
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Grove Music Online is essentially a music dictionary, but nonetheless is extremely useful when looking at a wide range of topics within the music world. This can be helpful for anyone who wants to learn more about music in general, or the researcher, who needs specific information about a topic. What makes Grove Music Online so useful is its layout and variety of search options.
The world of music is very broad, spanning world cultures and world history. Grove Music Online does a good job of providing intuitive categories for searching. The website describes itself as, “the authoritative resource for music research with over 52,000 articles written by nearly 9,000 scholars charting the diverse history, theory and cultures of music around the globe.”
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The general categorization that Grove Music Online has are Topic, Instrument, Era, Region, Place Type, and Occupation. Beyond those categorizations are sub-sections that go into more detail about each category. For example, the Topic section has general points of interest about a wide array of fields from Audio Engineering to the Philosophy of Music and more. The Instrument category specifically looks at wind instruments, stringed instruments, keyboards, and others. The section pertaining to Era includes a timeline of how music has been written, divided chronologically into different categories, like 18th c./Late Baroque (1700-1750). The Region section is by continent. Place Type is more granular and provides country, city, state, etc. Finally, the Occupation category lays out different careers within the music industry broadly speaking.
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In addition to the categories Grove Music uses, the platform also uses a filtering system in the advanced search, allowing you to narrow your search to very specific articles. It is a very useful tool to navigate 52,000 entries! Filters include: format, type, place type, and life event (See the image to the left for greater detail). One of the more useful of these filters will probably be type. This would refine the search to a type of article, like Biographical, Family, Place, Subject Reference, and more.
Subject guides and research resources are available on Grove Music Online to help any student find a place to begin looking. They can also be helpful for better understanding the website.
Some of the many useful tools on this page include an Opera index, timelines of different articles published, as well as topical guides for Grove Music Online (Below). I have personally found the research resources to be helpful when looking at articles when researching on a topic from some of my music classes. This especially came in handy when I was looking at music libraries, festivals, and looking at specific sources and manuscripts. Overall, Grove Music Online has many different resources and can be extremely helpful to everyone!
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The Ups and Downs of NFL and College Football
Posted on December 4th, 2019
Football is sometimes considered the new American pastime. When people think of football, they usually think of November and December. So here at Booth library, we have plenty of reading to catch up on before the bowl games and the Super Bowl this season.
Many of these books have great athletes remembering their time in football, or other books talking about how to watch it. There are books that talk about the controversies revolving around football and how it has effected the players both in college and professional. Also at the table are great photographs from across the years of EIU alumni who made it big in the NFL as well as big names that come from the state of Illinois. Come check out the table on the third floor corrider of Booth library.
Finals Week activities at Booth!
Posted on December 3rd, 2019
As the end of the semester nears, Booth Library staff members are planning many activities to help students focus, relax and succeed. Extended hours will be offered, and a variety of stress busters are planned.
The library will offer seven days of extended hours leading up to and during Finals Week this semester. Extended hours will be offered from Dec. 4-10. The library will be open from 8 a.m. to 1 a.m. Dec. 4-5; from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m. Dec. 6; 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Dec. 7; noon to 1 a.m. Dec. 8; and 8 a.m. to 1 a.m. Dec. 9-10.
While you’re at Booth, let your friends and families know how you’re preparing for final exams by sending them a “Don’t worry, I’m at Booth Library!” postcard. Students are encouraged to fill out and address a postcard, then place it in the mailbox. Your friends at Booth Library will mail it for you!
Many other activities will be offered to help students destress. On Dec. 9-10, members of All Things Pawsitive will bring certified therapy dogs to greet students from 2-6 p.m. in the library’s South Lobby.
The EIU Mindfulness Club will offer special sessions to help students alleviate stress, reduce anxiety and strengthen focus. These sessions will be offered in the library’s Edgar Room at 6 p.m. Dec. 8 and two sessions, at 6 p.m. and at 6:30 p.m., on Dec. 9-10.
Beginning Dec. 5, mad-libs, coloring pages and Sudoku puzzles will be available to take and complete on your own. At 6 p.m. Dec. 9, free popcorn and lemonade will be served to students while supplies last.
All activities and refreshments are free.
Celebrating literature in translation!
Posted on December 2nd, 2019
“…I want to create a text that has its own integrity, that is, miraculously, both true to the original and true to itself. And that is the miracle of a good translation, not to be invisible, but to be as seductively fresh and original as the original.”
— Margaret Jull Costa [source]
Translators can open up a new world for readers, introducing them to new literary works and cultures other than their own. Our new exhibit in the 3000 South corridor of Booth Library, next to the circulation desk, celebrates the art of literary translation. Browse through a wide range of titles, from children’s bilingual alphabet books from the Ballenger Teachers Center to international award-winning novels. Translated works are presented alongside the works in their original languages, when available.
Selected titles from the exhibit are listed below. Stop by Booth Library to learn more about the translator’s art, pick up a book to read, and take a bookmark or book list home with you. This exhibit is curated by Sarah Johnson and Deborah Fennema, Booth Library, in collaboration with Martha Zárate, Faculty Member from World Languages and Cultures.
Ballenger Teachers Center books:
“La traducción juega un papel tradicional importante como el medio que nos permite tener acceso a la literatura escrita originalmente en una de las incontables lenguas que no podemos leer. La traducción siempre nos ayuda a saber, a ver desde un ángulo diferente, a darle un valor nuevo del que estamos poco acostumbrados.”
“Translation plays its important traditional role as the means that allows us access to literature originally written in one of the countless languages we cannot read. Translation always helps us to know, to see from a different angle, to attribute new value to what once may have been unfamiliar.”
— Edith Grossman
Literature for adults:
