Read, Listen, Watch

Staff Picks and Suggestions

Join us for the 2024 Reading Challenge!

The Northeastern University Library is proud to be an official partner for the 2024 Reading Challenge hosted by the Massachusetts Center for the Book. Here’s how it works…

THE CHALLENGE

Read a book!
The Mass. Center for the Book has chosen a reading theme for each month of 2024. To participate in the challenge, read at least one book each month that fits the theme.

Not sure what to read? Northeastern librarians have put together a handy suggested reading list in OverDrive (yes, ebooks and audiobooks count, too!). If you’re on the Boston campus, you can also stop by our monthly tabling events in the Snell Library lobby to check out a selection of on-theme print books—and pick up some great Reading Challenge swag!

2024 Reading Challenge topics by month

Here are the themes for the year:

  • January: A book you read years ago that you may feel differently about now
  • February: A book with a color in the title
  • March: A book whose protagonist has a different culture or lifestyle from you
  • April: A book about nature, the environment, or climate change
  • May: A graphic novel
  • June: A book that inspired a film or television series
  • July: A book by an author born outside the United States
  • August: A book whose title starts with the same letter as your birthday month
  • September: A debut book by a Massachusetts author
  • October: A book about a time in history you’d like to know more about
  • November: A relaxing, soul-soothing book
  • December: A well-reviewed book in your least favorite genre

Tell us about it!
Once you’ve read your book, just fill out a quick questionnaire on the library website. Library staff will draw one name each month to win a prize!

Want more chances to win? Make sure you also complete the submission form on the Mass. Center for the Book website! They’ll be doing monthly drawings and prize giveaways all year.

THE PRIZES

From Northeastern University Library
Prizes for Northeastern students, faculty, and staff will vary by month, but may include:

  • gift cards to local bookstores
  • a stocked study room during finals week for Boston campus students
  • finals week care packages for students at global campuses
  • Northeastern University Library swag

All Northeastern students, faculty, and staff are encouraged to participate in the challenge, even if you’re not based at the Boston campus.

From Mass. Center for the Book
Readers who log their reading on the Mass. Center for the Book website also have the opportunity to win additional prizes! From the MBC website:

  • Dedicated readers will be invited to a year-end celebration hosted by Mass. Center for the Book.
  • If you read a book in each of the 12 months, you will be entered in a drawing to win 1 of 2 totes filled with books.
  • New this year! We will be drawing two names on the last day of each month to win a free book! Make sure you get those entries in before the end of the month!

HAPPY READING!

You can find more information on the Northeastern Library’s 2024 Reading Challenge page. We look forward to hearing about your reading journey!

Boston Globe Archival Advisory: Highlighting the Dairy Festival

This blog post is the first in a series by members of the Northeastern University Library’s Digital Production Services and Archives and Special Collections teams sharing their favorite images and their role in the Boston Globe Library Collection digitization project.

My name is Kim Kennedy and I’m the Digital Production Librarian in the Northeastern University Library. In our recent push to digitize Boston photographs from the Boston Globe Library photo morgue, I coordinated the work with our vendor Picturae. In four months, they digitized 59 boxes of material. I developed a workflow to perform quality control checks on the digitized items and helped prepare them for upload to our Digital Repository. Most of these images are limited to the Northeastern community while we determine the rights status of the photographs, but a subset has been reviewed and is available to the public.

Some of my favorite images are of the Boston Common Dairy Festival, an annual event in which cows returned to the Boston Common (in the 17th and 18th centuries, the Common was used as a cow pasture by colonists).

Black and white image of three children posing next to a fake cow with a sign that says Milk Products
Roy Magnussen, Greg Gannon, and David Bruno pose with the Dutch Cow, a paper mache cow made by a third-grade class in Raynham, June 6, 1973. Photo by Ed Farrand, Boston Globe Library Collection
Black and white image of two girls feeding hay to a cow
Sandra Lee Nickerson and Vicky Lynn Nickerson of Rockland feed hay to a cow at the 15th annual Dairy Festival on May 30, 1970. Photo by Charles Carey, Boston Globe Library Collection
Black and white image of a girl looking at a bull
The Dairy Festival on June 5, 1967. Photo by Joe Dennehy, Boston Globe Library Collection

Here are some resources to learn more about the Boston Common Dairy Festival:

Boston’s Uncommon Park; Common and Garden Provide Togetherness in 75-Acre Refuge, September 27, 1964, New York Times

An Uncommon Common, August 28. 1994, Boston Globe

The Singing Cowsills to Sing Out for “Cowes” During Boston Common Dairy Festival, June 1969, Vermont Farm Bureau News

What is Inclusive Citation and Why Does It Matter?

As awareness of systemic racism grows on college campuses, one hot topic has been inclusive citation. So, what is inclusive citation, why does it matter, and what can we do about it?

Inclusive citation is about whose work we decide to cite. When we cite, we are situating our own work in the larger scholarly conversation about our topic. When we choose which sources to cite, our decisions influence who is part of that conversation—and who is not. Practicing inclusive citation means making intentional choices to find and cite the work of scholars with varied backgrounds and identities, in order to increase equity and inclusion in your field.

Why does inclusive citation matter? Citation counts are considered a metric of success for scholars, and can heavily influence job offers, promotions, tenure decisions, and more. However, there is a growing body of evidence showing that women and underrepresented minorities are consistently cited at lower rates than men, across disciplines. And the more a scholar’s work is cited, the more they will continue to be cited over time. This inequity makes it harder for people from underrepresented groups to succeed in their field.

How can we practice more inclusive citation? Here are a few ideas to get us started:

  • Analyze your reference list and ask yourself, who am I not citing? Are there other perspectives that I should consider?
  • Find a leading researcher in your field with a marginalized identity, and follow their work on social media.
  • Experiment with different search strategies or sources to bring back different (and potentially more diverse) results.
  • Make diversity of authors and perspectives a factor in prioritizing what research you decide to read.

Want to learn more?

What is inclusive citation? is a short tutorial that details these strategies and the research behind them.

The rise of citation justice: how scholars are making references fairer is an article from Nature that provides an excellent overview of research on citation inequities, efforts to diversify citations, and critical responses.

Staff Book Recommendation: I Live a Life Like Yours by Jan Grue

Book cover of I Live a Life Like Yours by Jan Grue

As the summer comes to an end, I would like to share a book that I read this year and highly recommend.

I listened to the audiobook, I Live a Life Like Yours, available in the library’s OverDrive collection. I don’t remember exactly how it came to my attention, but it may have been this Guardian review. It interested me because I always need to be reminded that I experience the world as an able-bodied person. What does that mean, anyway? I can walk upstairs, run out of the rain, step over the wide gap to get onto the T’s Green Line. These things are something someone in a wheelchair can’t do. In this book, Jan Grue tells his personal story, making the point that he may have physical limitations, but he experiences the same joys and sorrows that everyone does.

I listened to it 26 weeks ago (according to my Libby app from OverDrive) but others will tell you that I have mentioned it several times. It made an impression.

Author photo of Jan Grue, a Norwegian person with short brown hair, resting their head on their hand
Author Jan Grue
Photo courtesy of Macmillan

First, the title basically says, “Don’t think that I am less than you.” Grue does speak to the challenges he has faced, weaving them into the ways his life is amazing, including his family and career. He speaks about the hierarchy of disability, sharing how he compared himself to others at camp for “kids like him.” Was he better because his disability was less restrictive? How does their physical strength or fine motor skills compare to him? He had physical limitations but, like many of us, he would decide he was better than another. He was a child like all of us, sometimes comparing qualities (perceived or visible).

He tells the story of being carried and dropped, of the challenge to find the only handicap accessible bathroom in an airport, and several other anecdotes. But he doesn’t want people to feel sorry for him.

The book reminds the reader that although Grue has experienced many barriers, there are still many open doors. I should not think that his life is less than mine, just different. I feel like I should be aware of those challenges and barriers, though. I will try to be more aware, not only of my perceptions but of my surroundings. Are they accessible to everyone? I haven’t had to consider it for myself, but shouldn’t I still think about it?

There is a lot in this book, and I have barely touched on it. I suggest reading or listening to it as I did.

Barbie in the East Boston Community News

Black ink drawn portrait of Maxine Tassin Ari-Teixeira
Maxine Tassin Ari-Teixeira aka Ms. Tex

In anticipation of the Barbie movie premiere, many archives and museums, including the Smithsonian and the National Archives, have been consulting their records to see what stories related to the iconic doll are preserved in their collections. At the Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections, our greatest source of Barbie insight comes from the East Boston Community News. 

Maxine Tassin Ari-Teixeira, or Ms. Tex, wrote about all kinds of issues facing a mother working and raising a family in East Boston. One of the subjects that kept reappearing in her “Heights Notes by Ms. Tex” column in the East Boston Community News was toys, and in particular, Barbie. Every December, Ms. Tex would give her annual toy report while Christmas shopping for her family. Barbie is mentioned in 17 of her columns between 1972 and 1988.

Newspaper clipping of Heights Notes by Ms. Tex. Headline reads Year of the Toy Takeover

In a December 7, 1982 issue of the East Boston Community News, Ms. Tex titled her column “Year of the Toy Takeover” and under the heading “Doll Debt” described the complexity of the Barbie dream house. 

“As I said last year, dear old Barbie’s dream house is enormous. You would need a separate room for this house, with the patio and pool (sold separately) and the Corvette. You have your choice of the plain ‘vette that does nothing, or the remote controlled one. You not only need a room for the dream house, you need a mortgage. That plastic nightmare is $98.87!!!! That is unfurnished, naturally. The furniture costs between $9 and $15 per piece!!!  Actually, looking at the doll houses, I wondered if Child World had considered the mortgage business. They could make a killing.”

On December 20, 1988 Ms. Tex observed a shift in Barbie-land in her Heights Notes column: 

“Finally at the ripe of age of what? 29? 30? Barbie has a career. Doctor Barbie comes with a white lab coat, and doctor things. But she is still Barbie after all, and also comes with an evening gown for her nights off with Doctor Ken.”

To find more of Ms. Tex’s observations on living in East Boston, the daunting task of Barbie shopping in December, and more, you can search and read the East Boston Community News in Northeastern Library’s Digital Repository Service.

Portrait of Maxine Tassin Ari-Teixeira was drawn by Joe Porzio and is a part of the Joe Portzio cartoons collection at the Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections.

Read the full December 7, 1982 issue of the East Boston Community News.

Read the full December 20, 1988 issue of the East Boston Community News.