EIU Booth Library

Celebrate National Poetry Month in April

Posted on April 2nd, 2021

Established in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets, National Poetry Month is a chance to explore the importance of poetry in our culture.

Booth Library has co-sponsored many programs related to poetry during the 2020-2021 year through our #NEABigRead programming series. Our Big Read programs were related to “An American Sunrise,” by U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo. To learn more about Harjo and her many literary works, visit this guide created by librarian Janice Derr. Harjo, a writer and musician, was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and is a member of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation.

How else can you celebrate National Poetry Month? Read a favorite poem or discover a new poet! Here’s a helpful guide to get you started.

Happy National Poetry Month!

Make your own mask! Kits available for wellness day

Posted on January 30th, 2021

Looking for a creative outlet during the wellness day on Feb. 24? Pick up a FREE make-a-mask kit in the library’s Marvin Foyer. Choose either a no-sew, simple hand sewing, or sewing-from-scratch project. All supplies are included. Kits are provided by the Tarble Arts Center.

If you prefer to spend your wellness day relaxing with a good book or movie, then we encourage you to enjoy our robust collection of leisure media. From streaming films and digital magazines to ebooks and digital audiobooks, you don’t have to leave the comfort of your home to access these collections.

So take time for yourself, relax and rejuvenate with your favorite form of entertainment. Access our list of select titles and link into these full collections at https://eiu.libguides.com/wellness.

Digital Library of Illinois now includes magazines!

Posted on January 27th, 2021

Booth Library now offers access to a large collection of digital magazines through the Digital Library of Illinois. You can borrow and read the magazines using Libby or any other method you currently use to access OverDrive titles. Magazines don’t count toward your checkout limits.

The collection has over 3200 magazines of current and popular interest on a wide variety of subjects. All are available for simultaneous use, with no waiting or restrictions.

Happy browsing! For any questions, please Ask a Librarian.

Elections: Films On Demand

Posted on January 27th, 2021

This year’s contentious Presidential election had the greatest voter turnout in history. With so much conflicting information flying around our 24 hour news cycle and so many claims of “fake news,” it is nice to know there are sites like Booth Library’s streaming video resource Films On Demand, to show us some historical context. Films On Demand allows you to explore hundreds of films dedicated to elections, government and political topics. Many of these films showcase historical elections and the lead-up to current elections such as 2012 and 2016, featuring political rallies, candidate interviews, the community reactions, polls, and outcomes. There are even some very historical elections such as 1860, 1800, and the public’s reactions to them at the time.

You can also preview the video you are watching before opening up a new tab when watching. Within each of these videos, you can august settings for subtitles, share it, add it to a playlist, or cite it if you are using it as a source for your research. Along with every video, there is a sidebar to the right to help navigate segments of the video or follow the audio in the video transcript. Segments are similar to a table pf contents that connects with timestamps for specific moments. They can be clicked on to move to that place in the film. The transcripts have a search fear to help find terms used in the video. Transcripts can also be downloaded.

Explore Music from Films On Demand

Posted on January 11th, 2021

One of the highlights of the Film On Demand Streaming video resource is the huge variety of videos about music that are available. You can search for artists, genres or famous pieces of music to explore the collection, but the sidebar icon to the left of the Films On Demand logo allows you to browse by several different musical categories.

Films On Demand has are over 1,600 videos related to Music. There are sections on music appreciation, music history, world music, documentaries/live performances. There are even special series such as Great Film Composers: music of the movies, Features of current and historical rock performers like Elvis, Queen, Metallica and Green Day. Suppose you need to learn more about a specific style of music. You can find videos on Gospel, Music from Zimbabwe, or Opera, and many more.

But in addition to recordings and performances, other educational films and documentaries go into depth in how music is composed and the structure of what makes each genre of music unique. There are videos on how different forms of music affect us and how they can benefit, such as videos on music therapy and the human experience.

Whatever your interest in music, Films On Demand will have something for you.

Film On Demand Quizlets

Posted on November 20th, 2020

Booth’s new streaming video service, Films On Demand, has a great new quiz feature for professors.

The quiz feature is beneficial because professors can test students during the video! It also helps to ensure that students watch and retain information from the assigned videos.

The way it is done is on the side of the video. There is a section called transcripts, which is like a table of contents, where you can search for keywords used within the video. Next to it is the quiz link. When creating it, it can be named, have an unlimited amount of questions, and be anything from multiple choices to true or false. It can be timed as well. There is an option to get test results sent to you via email and an option to clarify instructions on the quiz and how to submit it. These quizzes can be shared through links or online classrooms if a professor wishes to create a class section on Film On Demand. The snapshots below illustrate these features.

Chicago Manual of Style now available online!

Posted on September 14th, 2020

Booth Library has a new subscription to the online Chicago Manual of Style. This well-known reference work, published for over a century, provides authors, scholars, editors, indexers, and other writing professionals with guidance on grammar, usage, and style, including formatting for bibliographic citations and manuscript preparation.

The complete contents of the 17th edition (2017) are browsable and searchable, as is material from the previous edition.

Consult the Quick Guide for sample citations using the Notes and Bibliography or Author-Date styles, browse common questions and answers, and check out the CMoS video tutorials.

Please contact your subject librarian with any comments or questions.

Post Amerikan available digitally

Posted on July 9th, 2020

Booth Library has completed the digitization of the Post Amerikan, the longest continuously published underground newspaper in America.

The Post Amerikan began publication in 1972 in Bloomington-Normal, Illinois. An underground, alternative newspaper, it was run collectively by volunteers and funded by subscriptions, ads sales, and community fundraisers. The paper was published from 1972 to 2004, making its 32 years the longest continuous publication run for any underground newspaper in America.

EIU Professor Dr. Gary Fritz is leading research into the publication and is planning a documentary. Library staff members Todd Bruns, Stacey Knight-Davis and Tina Jenkins oversaw the digitization of the print editions of the Post Amerikan, on loan from the Bloomington Public Library.

To view the Post Amerikan in The Keep, EIU’s institutional repository, visit https://thekeep.eiu.edu/post_amerikan/.

Recent Losses in the Jazz World

Posted on April 21st, 2020

Two elder statesmen of the Jazz world, Pianist Ellis Marsalis Jr., and saxophonist Lee Konitz have died after contracting COVID-19.

Naxos Music Library, Jazz homepage

Through Booth Library’s subscription to NAXOS Music Library: Jazz, EIU can stream dozens of albums and hundreds of tracks  by these legendary artists (and their progeny). You can explore Naxos from these links or anytime from the library’s list of online resources.

From the Washington Post through Booth’s subscription to Proquest’s Global Newsstream:

“Mr. Marsalis was a leading jazz pianist in New Orleans for decades, but he did not gain widespread renown until his sons reached prominence as they helped lead a jazz revival in the 1980s. Wynton, a trumpeter who became an outspoken advocate for a return to the early traditions of jazz, has won nine Grammy Awards, is the co-founder of Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York and is probably the best-known jazz musician in the world. Branford, the winner of three Grammys, toured with Sting, led the “Tonight Show” band and is one of the leading saxophonists of his generation. Two other Marsalis sons, trombonist Delfeayo and percussionist Jason, also became musicians, making them unquestionably the American first family of jazz.
“All I did was make sure they had the best so they could be the best,” Ellis Marsalis told Ebony magazine in 1993.
“They did the rest.”

Schudel, M. (2020, Apr 03). Pianist and patriarch of a New Orleans jazz dynasty. The Washington Post Retrieved from https://search-proquest-com.proxy1.library.eiu.edu/docview/2385557215?accountid=10705

From the New York Times through Booth’s subscription to Proquest’s Global Newsstream:

Lee Konitz, a prolific and idiosyncratic saxophonist who was one of the earliest and most admired exponents of the style known as cool jazz, died on Wednesday in Manhattan. He was 92.
His niece Linda Konitz said the cause was complications of the coronavirus. She said he also had pneumonia.

1949–50: Subconscious-Lee (Prestige, 1949–50) aka Lee Konitz with Tristano, Marsh and Bauer

Mr. Konitz initially attracted attention as much for the way he didn’t play as for the way he did. Like most of his jazz contemporaries, he adopted the expanded harmonic vocabulary of his fellow alto saxophonist Charlie Parker, the leading figure in modern jazz. But his approach departed from Parker’s in significant ways, and he quickly emerged as a role model for musicians seeking an alternative to Parker’s pervasive influence.
Where modern jazz in the Parker mold, better known as bebop, tended to be passionate and virtuosic, Mr. Konitz‘s improvisations were measured and understated, more thoughtful than heated.
“I knew and loved Charlie Parker and copied his bebop solos like everyone else,” Mr. Konitz told The Wall Street Journal in 2013. “But I

Lee Konitz Quintet, Peacemeal 1969

didn’t want to sound like him. So I used almost no vibrato and played mostly in the higher register. That’s the heart of my sound.”

Keepnews, P. (2020, Apr 17). Lee Konitz, ‘cool’ jazz saxophonist who blazed his own trail, dies at 92: [biography]. New York Times Retrieved from https://search-proquest-com.proxy1.library.eiu.edu/docview/2390408515?accountid=10705

For additional news and information about Marsalis or Konitz, follow these search result links:

Lee Konitz results from selected EBSCO Databases.

Ellis Marsalis results from selected EBSCO Databases.

JSTOR also offers ebooks!

Posted on March 23rd, 2020

Many library users recognize JSTOR as an easy-to-use online archive of scholarly journals, but did you know it also offers ebooks? Booth Library’s JSTOR collections now contain over 4,000 open-access ebooks as well as a selection of additional English-language ebooks from a variety of scholarly publishers.

These ebooks offer the following benefits:

• Unlimited, DRM-free access: The ebook chapters have no access restrictions for EIU users. It’s just like using journals on JSTOR, ensuring a great user experience.
• Integration with journals: The ebook chapters are available on JSTOR alongside more than 2,000 journals. When you search JSTOR, you’re cross-searching the full text of all the resources the library provides through JSTOR. The ebooks and journals are also linked in ways that make research more efficient.

To get started with searching, visit the JSTOR site or choose the JSTOR option from the Articles tab on the library’s home page.

For any questions about JSTOR content, please consult your subject librarian.  For help with searching JSTOR, please contact a Reference Librarian.