What-I'm-Watching-Wednesday: Diabolique

As part of our new "What-I'm-Reading-Wednesday" blog segment, we've decided to also highlight the Ort Library's diverse film collection with an occasional "What-I'm-Watching-Wednesday" post. What better time to feature a classic foreign horror film than the week of Halloween?

Henri-Georges Clouzot's timeless thriller Diabolique debuted in 1955 as a harrowing account of an extraordinarily cruel headmaster who abuses and terrorizes both his wife and his mistress. The two women eventually tire of his ill treatment and plot to end his brutality once and for all. The events of his death seemingly unfold the way they planned, but things take a surprising turn when the body disappears.

Diabolique is a much-admired French suspense film, and a classic psychological thriller. It is based on the novel Celle qui n'etait plus (She Who Was No More) by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac. Alfred Hitchcock was heavily influenced by Clouzot's work, particularly Diabolique, and one can find many similarities between their work, especially in films like Psycho and Strangers on a Train. 

Diabolique as well as all of the other films held by the Ort Library are available on the second floor beyond the Juvenile collection. Films are also searchable in the Library's catalog, and can be requested by clicking on the yellow "Request" button. Log in using your 14-digit Library barcode number (located on your University ID), and your last name. You will then be able to select your pick-up location. The Library will notify you via email when your item has arrived for pick-up. If you need assistance with this process, please contact the Circulation Desk at 301-687-4395.

Citation Workshops - October 27-29, 2015

Do you find that citing sources for your papers and presentations can be a challenge?  Feel free to drop in for one of the Library's open workshops on citing.  They will be held on three different dates at the end of October, and will cover MLA (Modern Language Association), APA (American Psychological Association), and University of Chicago styles.

Do you have an example of a source that you're having trouble citing?  Please bring it along with you, and we will work through it together!

Dates & Times:

Tues., Oct. 27, 2015 - 6:00 PM - 7:30 PM

Wed. Oct. 28, 2015 - 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM

Thurs. Oct. 29, 2015 - 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM

Location:

Library Instruction Center on 3rd Floor

Featured Online Resource - NotAlone.gov

For anyone personally affected, concerned for a friend, or interested in preventing or responding to sexual assault on college/university campuses, this web site can be a very good starting point for gathering information.

The students page provides a list of common questions and concerns along with answers and advice. A locator for local crisis services is also available on the web site.

Hotlines/Web Sites (which include online chat services as well) featured on NotAlone.gov include

• National Sexual Assault Hotline
• 800-656-4673
• Love is Respect
• 866-331-9474
• Text “campus” to 22522
• National Domestic Violence Hotline
• 800-799-7233

NotAlone.gov was launched in 2014 by the White House Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault. 

What-I'm-Reading-Wednesday: Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town by Jon Krakauer

In Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town, Jon Krakauer tackles the disturbing and difficult subject of acquaintance rape, focusing on the experiences of five women in Missoula, Montana at the University of Montana during 2010-2012. The women had all filed reports of either rape or attempted rape with university officials and/or local police. The Justice Department began an investigation into reports of over 80 reports of sexual assault and revealed a culture of victim-blaming, discrimination, and disrespect, which Krakauer further reveals throughout his own investigative reporting.

Several of those accused of assault were key players on the University of Montana football team, which resulted in an angry division between those calling for serious investigation and police action, and those standing behind the football players, particularly star quarterback Jordan Johnson. Investigations into the sexual assault reports were severely mishandled and there was an air of disinterest in the alleged victims' stories. Many attempted to discredit the women, and though the athletic director and football coach were removed from their positions, and Johnson temporarily expelled, the football team made semi-threatening statements which resulted in a secret review leading to Johnson's reinstatement into the university and to the football team.

The accounts of sexual violence on college campuses are deeply disturbing and sadly all-too-common. Krakauer peels back the layers on one particular campus, and attempts to make sense of how a cultural shift has arisen in the way sexual violence is understood by both students and administrators at campuses across the country. As with Krakauer's other works, Missoula is well-written and researched, and a difficult but timely and worthwhile read.

Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town is currently on display on the New Arrivals Shelf on the main floor of the Library. You can also request Missoula through the catalog. Click on the "Availability" link on the catalog record, then click on the yellow "Request" button. Log in using your 14-digit Library barcode number (located on your University ID), and your last name. You will then be able to select your pick-up location. The Library will notify you via email when your book has arrived for pick-up. If you need assistance with this process, please contact the Circulation Desk at 301-687-4395.

Reminder - Tea Ceremony to be held October 21 in the Ort Library

The Lewis J. Ort Library is pleased to present a Tea Ceremony to complement the exhibit on the History of Tea and Teapots being displayed on the 3^rd floor of the Library from October – December 2015. Several international students will talk about the history of tea and present a traditional tea ceremony. This will be held Wednesday October 21, 2015 from 4:00 – 5:00 pm on the 3^rd floor of the Lewis J. Ort Library.

• Learn about the history of tea 
• See a traditional Chinese Tea Ceremony 
• Watch a calligraphy demonstration 
• View the display of tea pots gathered from the collections of the staff of the Lewis J. Ort Library 

For more information please contact Theresa Mastrodonato (tmmastrodonato@frostburg.edu) or MaryJo Price (mprice@frostburg.edu)
 

Companion : Never Walk Home Alone

Have you ever felt unsafe walking home from campus or from a friend’s house late at night? Thanks to five students from the University of Michigan who recently developed an app called ‘Companion,’ your friends can now virtually walk you home at night. The Companion app was featured on Business Insider (http://www.businessinsider.com/campanion-app-surging-in-popularity-2015-9) and other news outlets, and has been catching a lot of buzz, as of late. According to its website, (http://www.companionapp.io/) through the app you can enter your destination, add friends and family, and request them to be your companion on your journey home. Your companion can virtually follow your journey and if at any time you stray off course or say you feel nervous, your companion can call to check on you or alert the police. The developers of ‘Companion’ also hope to work with local police to identify potential locations of criminal activity when numerous people have indicated they feel nervous in a certain area. 

The Companion app is available for download free from The App Store or Google Play.

What-I'm-Reading-Wednesday: The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things by Paula Byrne

The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things by Paula Byrne is a wonderfully robust social history of the life of one of England's most treasured writers. Byrne explores how Jane Austen became Jane Austen, and the complexities of becoming a published female author during the early nineteenth century using eighteen objects connected with Austen, rather than following a typical biographical style. She challenges the common notion that Austen was a spinster, a homebody, and lacked the life experiences of some of her well-traveled and typically male contemporaries.

Many of the objects chosen to tell the Jane Austen story seem at first strange choices, some as pedestrian as seat cushions and a hat. Others are far more intimate items from the Austen family like portraits, a letter game, a lace card, and a fictitious marriage certificate penned by Austen herself. Austen is brought to vibrant life through the history and analysis of these special items and heirlooms. Byrne presents Austen as witty, smart, worldly, and a shrewd businesswoman, traits not often used to describe her.

Though not a narrative, and certainly very different from typical hagiographical biographies, this fun, interesting social history by Byrne is a must-read for any Austen fan. The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things is currently on display on the New Arrivals Shelf on the main floor of the Library. You can also request The Real Jane Austen: A Life in Small Things through the catalog. Click on the "Availability" link on the catalog record, then click on the yellow "Request" button. Log in using your 14-digit Library barcode number (located on your University ID), and your last name. You will then be able to select your pick-up location. The Library will notify you via email when your book has arrived for pick-up. If you need assistance with this process, please contact the Circulation Desk at 301-687-4395.

Citation Workshops - October 27-29, 2015

Do you find that citing sources for your papers and presentations can be a challenge?  Feel free to drop in for one of the Library's open workshops on citing.  They will be held on three different dates at the end of October, and will cover MLA (Modern Language Association), APA (American Psychological Association), and University of Chicago styles.

Do you have an example of a source that you're having trouble citing?  Please bring it along with you, and we will work through it together!

Dates & Times:

Tues., Oct. 27, 2015 - 6:00 PM - 7:30 PM

Wed. Oct. 28, 2015 - 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM

Thurs. Oct. 29, 2015 - 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM

Location:

Library Instruction Center on 3rd Floor

Workshop Flyer

New Library Displays for October 2015

The Lewis J. Ort Library is pleased to present several new displays in the Ort Library. The first display, on the 3^rd floor celebrates National Cyber Security Awareness Month. The display highlights resources the library offers on cyber security and showcases some of the most popular “bad” passwords that people use.

The second display, also on the 3^rd floor, celebrates the 2015 Children’s Literature Centre’s CLC Book Award Winner for 2015. The winner of the CLC Book Award for 2015 is Otto the Owl Who Loved Poetry by Vern Kousky. The display highlights his book as well as some of the past winners of the CLC Book Award.

The third display, also on the 3^rd floor, celebrated the history of tea and includes teapots from the collections of staff members of the Lewis J. Ort Library. This display will be up until December 2015. Additionally, you can join us on October 21, 2015 for a Tea ceremony where students will talk about the history of tea and present a traditional tea ceremony.

The fourth display, located on the 4^th floor, celebrates some of Western Maryland, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania’s most haunted places and legends, just in time to celebrate Halloween. Come see some places you may want to visit to get the scare of your life.

The fifth display, located on the 5^th floor is a celebration of the 125^th anniversary of the founding of Yosemite National Park. This park, located in California was first designated as a national park by President Benjamin Harrison. It was just the third national park in the US at the time.

The sixth display, also located on the 5^th floor, is a celebration of the 50^th anniversary of the release of the final book of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. With the release of The Return of the King, J.R.R. Tolkien had completed what some consider the finest example of fantasy literature ever created.

All the displays will be up through the end of October, except the Tea Display which will be available through December 2015.

If you need additional information, please contact Theresa Mastrodonato (tmmastrodonato@frostburg.edu) or MaryJo Price (mprice@frostburg.edu)

Tea Ceremony to be held October 21 in the Ort Library

The Lewis J. Ort Library is pleased to present a Tea Ceremony to complement the exhibit on the History of Tea and Teapots being displayed on the 3^rd floor of the Library from October – December 2015. Several international students will talk about the history of tea and present a traditional tea ceremony. This will be held Wednesday October 21, 2015 from 4:00 – 5:00 pm on the 3^rd floor of the Lewis J. Ort Library. 

• Learn about the history of tea 
• See a traditional Chinese Tea Ceremony 
• Watch a calligraphy demonstration 
• View the display of tea pots gathered from the collections of the staff of the Lewis J. Ort Library

 

For more information contact MaryJo Price (mprice@frostburg.edu) or Theresa Mastrodonato (tmmastrodonato@frostburg.edu). 

 

What-I’m-Reading-Wednesday: Area 51: An Uncensored History of America’s Top Secret Military Base by Annie Jacobsen

When you hear the name Area 51 – what do you think of first? Do you think about aliens and alien spaceships at the secret base or do you think about how the base was used to develop the U-2 spy plane in the 1950s? Annie Jacobsen takes the reader on a discovery of what Area 51 is and isn’t in the book Area 51: An Uncensored History of America’s Top Secret Military Base. In the first chapter Jacobsen discusses how Area 51 first came to the attention of the public, with the interview of Bob Lazar on a local television station where he talked about aliens and alien spaceships being backwards engineered for use by the US military. Up until that time, Area 51 was not known by most people outside of a few within the military.

Area 51 falls just outside the area in Nevada where the US detonated some of the first atomic bombs that were developed and adjacent to the Nellis Air Force Range. Area 51 was utilized for the U-2 spy plane development because of Groom Lake, which is in the center of the area. Groom Lake is a dry lake bed which makes it ideal for a landing strip. At the time, the U-2 spy plane was under the direction of the CIA because the US government could deny all knowledge of U-2 spy plane operations since the pilots would be wearing civilian and not military clothing.

Jacobsen has extensive notes and interviews with those that worked at Area 51 in the early days. One interesting fact that she includes in the book is that the crash at Roswell, NM in 1947 was not actually an alien spacecraft but a Soviet aircraft that crashed and was able to evade US radar systems.

This volume is available to request from the Ort Library catalog here: http://catalog.umd.edu/docno=004064390 Click on “Availability,” the click on the yellow “Request” button.  Log in using your first name and 14 digit library barcode from your ID.  If you need assistance, please contact the Circulation Desk at 301 687-4395.