Read, Listen, Watch

Staff Picks and Suggestions

Joan Krizack appointed to the Massachusetts Archives Advisory Commission

We’re very please to announce that Joan Krizack, University Archivist and Head, Special Collections for Northeastern University Libraries, was appointed by Secretary of the Commonwealth, William Galvin, to the Massachusetts Archives Advisory Commission.   The Archives Advisory Commission was established in the mid 1970’s as the central advisory body for historical records planning for the state.  The Commission is mandated to advise the Secretary on archival matters and establish, with the Archivist of the Commonwealth, a comprehensive statewide documentary preservation plan. Acting as the central advisory body for historical records planning, the Archives Advisory Commission served as the model for the National Archives when it established a State Historical Records Advisory Board in every state. They have a number of online exhibits, and from one entitled Le Grande Derangement, I learned that in 1755 10,000 French Canadians were exiled from Nova Scotia, and 1,000 of them ended up as refugees in Massachusetts. As these ‘Acadians’ did not pledge allegiance to the British Crown, they were compelled to remain until the end of the French and Indian War in 1763.  At that time most tried to relocate to other French regions where they shared a language and religion-France, Quebec and Haiti, along with Louisiana.  It’s an interesting interment history that I knew nothing about until discovering the exhibit.  Apparently, Longfellow also wrote a related poem titled Evangeline, about lovers separated during the conflict, that later served as the basis for a movie starring Dolores del Rio!

Interested in listening to music?

While the Library has a number of different academic resources, some can be enjoyed for non-academic reasons too.  I think the Naxos Music Library is a good example of this.  Even out side of music, history and art classes, you can take pleasure in listening to over 85,000 tracks while studying.  As a bonus, it is a resource also available to our alumni users.  You can search by genres such as Classical, Jazz, Pop and Rock, World, and even Relaxation Music.  I think one of my favorites is Ravel’s Bolero.  Try searching and see what you find!

How we get information

This is my first post.  So, hello.  I’m Ethan.  I work as an Administrative Assistant in the Dean’s Office of the Library.  When I’m not working, I am also a graduate student at the Simmons College Graduate School of Library and Information Science.  Most of my blog posts will likely relate to what I am learning in school. The issue of how people receive and use information is a hot topic in the Library/Information Science community.  It is with this topic in mind that I stumbled upon a blog post from the New York Times culture blog ArtsBeat. It seems that the auction house Christie’s has created an iPhone app that allows users to browse their collections.  I won’t go into too much detail but I would recommend reading the article.  Fortunately, people now have access to Gucci hand bags, with a starting bid of $4,086, in the palm of their hand.

Librarian Artists

Reading this month’s Lucky magazine, I was excited to read about featured
New York artist Roz Leibowitz [who] draws impossibly intricate sketches with nothing more than a pencil and an antique sheet of paper, which the former librarian pulls from her collection of 18th– and 19th-century ephemera.
I took a look at some of her other works at the Sears-Peyton gallery, and thought they were interesting, gothic pieces.   I liked the idea of a librarian-artist re-using found papers.  I think my favorite is The Blizzard.  What’s yours?  And do you have any other favorite librarian-artists?

Chat While Reading

We’ve often discussed the future of books and reading on Snell Snippets, so I thought that some might be interested in this “Chat While Reading: The Future of Books?” article from NPR.  Their article focuses on BookGlutton.com but a number of commenters mentioned other communal reading sites like LibraryThing.com.  How do you think a site like this would function differently for classes than a Blackboard chat or discussion page?  Currently, if I have a friend who lives too far away, we’ll just email back and forth about books we’re reading: quoting passages, etc.  Just this past week, a friend who lives in New Zealand and I were emailing back and forth as she finished up Anna Karenina. I think for now I’m going to stick with that more private way of communication and dialogue.  But I also often like to check out Amazon, IMDB, metacritic  or Wikipedia after I read or watch something, to get a sense of its reception and other people’s reactions.  Any thoughts?