Today’s Special – Mary and Jeff Bell Library Blog

Islander Poets Interview Series – Jayne-Marie Linguist

Post author:Lorin Flores
Post published:April 26, 2024
Post category:Books & More General Today's Special

Jayne-Marie Linguist is a TAMU-CC graduate student and poet from north Houston, Texas. Jayne-Marie described her work as very personal, and her poems draw on her experiences coming to terms with her identity as a fat queer woman, grief, mental illness, and her journey into fat liberation. Jayne-Marie’s poetry has been published in the Windward Review. She recently was a featured panelist in the Embodying Women’s Bodies in Writing session at the 2024 People’s Literary Festival. In this interview, Jayne-Marie…

Islander Poets Interview Series – Daunte Gaiter

Post author:Lorin Flores
Post published:April 19, 2024
Post category:Books & More General Today's Special

Daunte Gaiter is a senior majoring in Marine Biology from Dallas, Texas who describes himself as “a scientist by day and a writer by night.” Daunte’s passion is writing and reading among other things. He feels that poetry is a comfortable place to express his thoughts. Daunte’s work has appeared in the Windward Review. During the interview Daunte described the connections between word choices, word connotations, and the influence of his own personal feelings in the moment to create poems…

Islander Poets Interview Series – J.L. Wright

Post author:Lorin Flores
Post published:April 12, 2024
Post category:Books & More General Today's Special

We’re excited to introduce our first featured Islander poet to kick-off our month-long series, faculty member J.L. Wright. She began writing poetry as a young girl, publishing her first poem in the local newspaper at age 10. She has since written three poetry collections, Unadoptable Joy, Homeless Joy, and Unsettled Joy. In this interview, she spoke about themes present in her three published poetry collections, the origin of poetry and its role as the “voice of the common man,” the importance of persisting during often-grueling submission…

Dog holding a pipe in his mouth.

Unexpected and Still Historic

Post author:Amanda Kowalski
Post published:March 22, 2022
Post category:Library Randomness Today's Special

People expect the archives to be a serious place filled with staunch academic research. While it is that, it is also so much more. For the staff of Special Collections and Archives sometimes the unexpected is the most exciting part of our collections. The Charles F.H. von Blucher papers are historic, they document the settling of South Texas. These papers start in the mid-1800s and follow the Blucher family through several generations. The Bluchers were surveyors and engineers which makes…

How to Celebrate Women’s History Month with the Bell Library!

Post author:Emma Drumright
Post published:March 2, 2022
Post category:Service for You Things to Do Today's Special

March is here which means Women’s History Month is here! Women’s History Month is dedicated to honoring contributions of women and girls across the ages. This year’s theme, Women Providing Healing and Promoting Hope, is a tribute to the work of health care workers, caregivers, and frontline workers as well as the ways women of all cultures have provided both healing and hope throughout history. The National Women’s Alliance webpage has more information on this year's celebration and theme! Looking…

GIS Day

Post author:Alexa Hight
Post published:November 16, 2021
Post category:Today's Special

GIS Day is an annual event that celebrates the technology of Geographic Information Systems (GIS). This annual international celebration of GIS technology was first celebrated in 1999. GIS is the scientific framework for gathering, analyzing, and visualizing geographic data to help humans make better decisions. GIS day helps others learn about geography and real-world applications of GIS that are making a difference to society. This day is a chance for folks to share their accomplishments and inspire others to discover…

Censorship and Inaccessibility

Post author:Bell Library
Post published:September 21, 2021
Post category:Today's Special

Happy Almost-Banned Books Week, everybody! We at Bell Library love a themed celebration, and Banned Books Week is particularly near and dear to our hearts as it celebrates everyone’s right to read. Specifically, everyone’s right to read whatever books they like. Books are regularly “challenged” in school libraries and public libraries. A challenge is when someone complains that a book is available and demands it be removed. If they succeed, the book has been “banned.” Usually, folks try to ban…

Descubrir, Aprender, y Mejorar! Discover, Learn, and Improve During Hispanic Heritage Month 2021

Post author:Trisha Hernandez
Post published:September 7, 2021
Post category:Things to Do Today's Special

It’s September!! This wonderful 9th month of the year brings all sorts of wonders with it. We’re shaking off the start of a new semester and getting settled in. Starbucks, and almost every other brand in the nation, has a pumpkin spiced something available for all. We officially transition into autumn. Temperatures start dropping…or rather we desperately hope that temperatures start dropping because the warm weather we wished for all winter has become hot and sticky and gross and we’re…

Happy Pride Month! Celebrate with Popular Reading

Post author:Trisha Hernandez
Post published:June 15, 2021
Post category:Books & More Today's Special

Happy Pride Month, Islanders!! For those unaware, Pride Month is celebrated across the nation every June. But why June? In June of 1969, a total of around 200 individuals (many were patrons of a popular Greenwich Village gay bar – the Stonewall Inn) rallied against routine police harassment against the LGBTQ+ community. It all began as a police raid of the bar based on false accusations. As police were arresting patrons and employees, those who hadn’t been grabbed yet were…

One Librarian’s (Very Personal) Opinion on GOP Lawmakers Wanting to Ban ‘Woke’ Philosophies

Post author:Alexa Hight
Post published:June 11, 2021
Post category:Behind the Scenes Library Randomness Today's Special

About a month ago, the Texas Tribune published an article on the Texas Legislature 2021: GOP lawmakers want to ban “woke philosophies” like critical race theory in Texas schools. The article briefly explains what critical race theory (CRT) is with “an academic discipline that views race as a social construct and examines how racism has shaped legal and social systems.” Sounds fairly reasonable, given the history of what are now known as the United States and recent events around policing of black people and other…