2019 – Page 7 – Mary and Jeff Bell Library Blog

Meet Our Newest Librarian: Alexa

Post author:Alexa Hight
Post published:May 10, 2019
Post category:Hello, from the Staff

Hello, Islanders! My name is Alexa Hight and I am the new Scholarly Communication Librarian in the Bell Library here at TAMU-CC. What does scholarly communication mean and how does it apply to students, staff, and faculty in the TAMU-CC community? According to the Association of College and Research Libraries, scholarly communication can be defined as "the system through which research and other scholarly writings are created, evaluated for quality, disseminated to the scholarly community, and preserved for future use.…

Frame of the Day: Information Creation as a Process

Post author:Bell Library
Post published:May 7, 2019
Post category:Behind the Scenes Library Hacks

In our April 2nd post, we discussed the Information Literacy Frame, Authority is Constructed and Contextual. Today, we'll focus on the second frame: Information Creation as a Process. So first of all, let's get this out of the way: Everyone is a creator of information. When you write an essay, you're creating information. When you log the temperature of the lizard tank, you're creating information. Every Word doc, Google Doc, survey, spreadsheet, Tweet, and PowerPoint that you've ever had a hand in—they are…

Cuba’s Pirate Internet: A Short Story

Post author:Bell Library
Post published:May 3, 2019
Post category:Library Randomness Today's Special

Tourist hotels line the beaches of Havana; you can see their lights to the north as you ride the P5 bus along Avenida 41. You've never been inside, but you know they contain another world: a world filled with people from places that have never even heard of El Paquete Semanal. The sellers of El Paquete, the paqueteros, all say that's where the 'real' internet lives, that the Maestros all have connections inside, that the hotels are modern-day pirate ships.…

Paws on the Island — A Finals Tradition

Post author:Jennifer Anderson
Post published:April 30, 2019
Post category:Service for You Things to Do

As the semester winds down (or up – depending on your course load!) we all start to feel a little stress. Students are getting ready for exams, gathering sources for final papers, and polishing presentations! Faculty members are getting rubrics ready and getting ready for final grades. It can be a time of high energy. We do our best when we’re getting enough sleep, eating right, and taking care of ourselves. Paws on the Island is an amazing opportunity to…

Come work with us in Special Collections!

Post author:Bell Library
Post published:April 26, 2019
Post category:Behind the Scenes Hello, from the Staff Tech in the Library

You might think working in a library would be boring and all you would do is shelve books. However, modern libraries are bustling centers of traditional collection management and next level technology solutions. Working at Bell Library Special Collections offers something for everyone. Students interested in History can apply their skills researching and describing archival collections while being exposed to data management and networked systems. Students who are more technology oriented can work on digital projects and help develop our…

Do You Suffer from Library Anxiety?

Post author:Bell Library
Post published:April 23, 2019
Post category:Library Hacks

Yep, it’s a real thing, and you may suffer from it without even knowing it. Library anxiety is a common problem that can prevent people from using the library and its resources effectively, which can hurt your ability to complete coursework or possibly lower your potential grade. So, what exactly is library anxiety? Very basically, library anxiety is a fear of either using the library space, which is often seen as overwhelming and confusing, or the fear of not knowing…

You Mustn’t Be Afraid to Fail

Post author:Bell Library
Post published:April 19, 2019
Post category:Tech in the Library We Made This

If you're like me, you have had countless things that you've wanted to try and do in life. I toyed with the idea of learning to do carpentry after watching a house-flipping show. However, something stopped me from pursuing it. Sometime later, after binge watching Project Runway, I convinced myself that I could design and construct my own clothing. But again, something kept preventing me from trying. That invisible road block was fear, a fear of failure. For me, the…

A Review of The Library Book

Post author:Bell Library
Post published:April 16, 2019
Post category:Books & More Today's Special

I admit it. When I think about sitting down with a good book to read purely for enjoyment, I think of fiction…specifically science fiction or fantasy. So when I checked out The Library Book by Susan Orlean from the Library’s Popular Reading Collection, I was thrilled to discover how enjoyable and engrossing it was. On the surface this book tells the story of the 1986 fire of the Los Angeles Public Library main branch, one of the worst building fires in the…

Are You Gen X, a Millennial, or Gen Z?: Exploring the Generations

Post author:Trisha Hernandez
Post published:April 12, 2019
Post category:Library Randomness

You hear the terms flying around. Maybe they were used in relation to avocado toast, Tide pods, or even Oregon Trail. I’m talkin’ ‘bout my generation (well, not MINE alone, I just couldn’t resist referencing the song by The Who). I’m actually talking about generations X, Y, and Z, more commonly known as Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z. According to the Pew Research Center, these three generations (and a few others) are broken down like so: Silent - born 1928-45 (ages 74-91);Boomers -…

The Islander Family at Bell Library Welcomes Vanessa Claros

Post author:Bell Library
Post published:April 9, 2019
Post category:Hello, from the Staff

Meet Vanessa Claros, one of our newest library staff members, who began her position as Library Specialist II, Cataloging on March 11, 2019, as part of the Resource Management & Discovery Department. Vanessa, her husband and their young daughter, Isabelle, age 20 months, recently set forth on a major move from Lawrenceville, Georgia, a suburb of Atlanta, all the way to Corpus Christi, Texas. To be exact, we are talking about a distance of well over 1,000 miles, and roughly…