Movie Review: Everything Everywhere All At Once

For the IDEA (Inclusivity, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility) Committee blog this month, I am going to talk about a new film that touches on several aspects of marginalized groups. I am a big fan of cinema. I am about 180 films into the Internet Movie Data Base’s Top 250 films as ranked by users. I can appreciate the highest of highbrow Oscar bait, and the most ridiculous spectacle you can imagine. I like stories, which is part of what compelled…

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Book Review, Free Resources, and New Computers!

It's hot outside right now. I mean people are literally moving away from Texas because it's so hot! Thankfully here in the library, we have A/C. I am an indoor person and while I like to go out and experience things, my perfect day out is one where it looks like it might rain. Regardless, stay safe out there - it’s going to be a long summer! Book Review I wanted to review this book because 1: I have never…

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Blücher is a Bad Name for Warships

While many residents of Corpus Christi are familiar with the German pioneer family of surveyors, the Blüchers, the famous family name also lived on in Germany simultaneously. The Blüchers had been landowners and nobility for hundreds of years when Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher was born in 1742, a little over 100 years before his kin would arrive on the unsettled Texas coast. Blücher would go on to match Paul von Hindenburg as the most highly decorated Prussian-German soldier in history.…

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Red Flags: How to Identify Predatory Publishing

What is predatory publishing? The term “predatory publishing” refers to an exploitative academic publishing business model that involves charging publication fees to authors without checking articles for quality and legitimacy, and without providing editorial and publishing services that legitimate academic journals provide, whether open access or not. If you are unfamiliar with the term “open access,” you can read about it in another blog post, but a quick definition of one model of open access, is that instead of having…

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IDEA in the House!!!!

For this week’s post, we decided to do something a little different. Following a format based on questions, we wanted to present insight into ourselves and the work we are currently completing as the chairs of the Mary and Jeff Bell Library’s Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility (IDEA) committee. We both are committed to the work (hence our willingness to serve as co-chairs!) but the unique perspectives, stories, and experiences we each bring have incredible value to the committee’s work.…

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Oh, There’s No Place Like Home for the Holidays: At-Home Library Resources!

When I used to think of “the library,” I would think solely of it as a physical place: the colorful walls and cozy carpets from when I was little, to the computers, printers, and quiet study areas from when I was in college. However, working in a library has opened my eyes to all the other possibilities of how you can use library resources without having to be at the library! And there are lots of resources and activities that…

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Bringin’ Book Talks Back!

Do you ever get excited when someone nerds out in a way that resonates with you? I was lucky enough to have that feeling last week when Dr. Jarred Wiehe gave a Book Talk with the Library on Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Mexican Gothic. As a former English major who was (and still is!) into magical realism and uncanny fiction, Moreno-Garcia’s book ticked all the boxes! Isolated house on a hill? Check. Scary patriarch? Check. Blurred lines between reality and hallucinations? Check.…

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Encyclopedias

When I was growing up, I loved to read the World Book Encyclopedia.  I suppose you could say I was a word nerd.  It was not unusual for me climb up onto the desk to pull down two or three of the hefty, green and white volumes off the shelf, then go back and forth looking up different topics just for fun.  I might look for a picture of a particular city, or read about the climate of South America,…

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Pulitzer Prize Winning Books for 2021 @ Your Library!

The Pulitzer Prize winning books for 2021 were recently announced, and there are some great titles in the list. Here are the books that are already in the collection at Bell Library: Winner in Fiction: The Night Watchman, by Louise Erdrich (Harper) It’s hard to believe that two years ago Louise Erdrich thought she might never write again. A cache of her grandfather’s letters provided her the inspiration she needed to write her latest novel. The reviewer Joshua Grace, writing in The…

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Gathering Resources for our LGBTQIA+ Guide

Gathering Resources for our LGBTQIA+ Guide The Bell Library is currently working on expanding our Social Justice Resource guides to cover a wide range of topics. Our most recent guide is our LGBTQIA+ Social Justice Resources Guide. Below I ‘m going to walk through the guide to share more about how we have organized it and about the different types of sources we’ve gathered! Books & Online Resources These tabs contain resources, items, and services that we have right here in…

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