Mary and Jeff Bell Library Blog

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…

Learn More about the Library’s Withdrawal Project

Post author:Bell Library
Post published:April 19, 2024
Post category:Behind the Scenes General Hello, from the Staff

Why are we doing this? Removing outdated materials from any library’s collection is a standard and essential practice to keep the collection current and relevant. It improves access to the library’s more useful resources and allows the collection to evolve to reflect changes in the needs of the library’s users. In the past, the Bell Library has routinely reviewed materials one subject area at a time, but (to our knowledge) never the entire circulating collection as a whole. As a…

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…

How to Celebrate National Poetry Month This April

Post author:Lorin Flores
Post published:April 4, 2024
Post category:Books & More General News @ Your Library Things to Do

April is National Poetry Month, and there are plenty of ways to enjoy and engage with poetry from now till April 30th! Head over to poets.org to subscribe to Poem-a-Day to get a new poem sent to your email inbox daily and to learn more about National Poetry Month events and programming on a national level. Feeling inspired to write your own poetry? National Poetry Writing Month is a yearly event where participants take on the challenge of writing a…

The Eras Tour (Bell Library’s Version)

Post author:Emily Sartorius
Post published:December 18, 2023
Post category:Books & More General

As a librarian and Swiftie, 2023 was a year full of reading, and Taylor Swift. Between seeing everyone’s Spotify Wrapped, and reflecting on my GoodReads’ Year in Review, I had to jump on this BookTok trend with some of my favorite reads of 2023, all of which you can find in our collection. This is the Eras Tour (Bell Library’s Version).

Meet our I-Know Student Employees

Post author:Emily Sartorius
Post published:November 28, 2023
Post category:Behind the Scenes General Hello, from the Staff I-Know

Within the I-Know department at the Bell Library, we have a wonderful team of student employees that bring a valuable perspective and creativity to the work that we do! They assist us in creating lessons and assessments, making videos, putting on events, and all things social media. We took the time to interview our student employees and ask them some questions about their interests and work. Meet Sean and Carolyn!

“Tell me a horror story about…”: Generating Spooky Stories with ChatGPT

Post author:Trisha Hernandez
Post published:October 27, 2023
Post category:Books & More Library Randomness

Greetings, readers!! There are many things to know about me, but the most relevant for today is that I’m a big horror and true crime fan. The thrill began as a child when I would sit in the center of my parent’s bed (obviously the center - my effort to ensure that if something was hiding under the bed, it couldn’t reach me on that big California king), reading Alvin Schwartz’ Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (https://go.exlibris.link/cmRcXzPk). I…

Upcoming Movie Night and Movie Review: Missing

Post author:Bell Library
Post published:October 17, 2023
Post category:General I-Know News @ Your Library

A movie review by Sean Nicastro. Come join us on November 15th at 6:30 pm in the UC Legacy Hall (145) for a film screening! The movie that we will be watching is Missing. There will be drinks, snacks, and everyone will have a chance of winning some cool prizes! Missing is a movie released in 2023 directed by Nicholas D. Johnson and Will Merrick. The movie follows June, played by Storm Reid, as she searches for her mother who…

Introducing Zotero, your personal research assistant!

Post author:Lorin Flores
Post published:October 13, 2023
Post category:Library Hacks Things to Do

Have you heard the news about the University’s new implementation of Zotero? You might be curious what Zotero is and what it does. Zotero is a free online tool that helps you store and organize your research sources (journal articles, book chapters, etc.) Zotero works as a desktop app on your device, but also has a browser connector to help you gather citations from your sources and a web-based version, too. Zotero generates bibliographies of your stored citations either as…

What are Soft Skills?

Post author:Tara Carlisle
Post published:September 12, 2022
Post category:General I-Know

You may have heard the term “soft skills” tossed about when seeking a job or discussing careers, but what exactly does that mean? I was introduced to the concept when I was a college graduate applying for my first professional position. The job market was very competitive and it seemed to me a daunting task to stand out among a crowd of high achievers and polished resumes. In fact, my resume was just half a page, even padded with wide…