books

books

Censoring Books

Censoring Books

books
Libraries advocate for the freedom to access and read any book a reader might want. To bring attention to the insidious problem of censorship and encroachment on the First Amendment, libraries all over the country celebrate Banned Books Week.  Launched by the American Library Association in 1982, the ALA tabulates reports of challenges to books held in library collections, as well as any times those challenges resulted in restricting access to a book or even, in some cases, of completely withdrawing it from a collection.  The resulting list of the top ten most-challenged books is updated and publicized every year. Challenges against books typically occur in school or public libraries, and often target children’s books.  Common titles that have suffered … Continued
Black Contemporary Science Fiction

Black Contemporary Science Fiction

, , books
In the wake of Octavia Butler’s groundbreaking work in the 1970s, including the Patternfinder series and Kindred, Black science fiction has taken on social justice, culture and history to create one of the freshest and most exciting art forms in contemporary literature.  In this blog, we’ll explore some of the biggest names in the field, covering everything from magical realism to postapocalyptic fiction. Nnedi Okorafor Dr. Okorafor was born in Cincinnati to parents of Nigerian descent,and grew up in Illinois.  Her writing career began with tragedy when an operation for scoliosis left her paralyzed from the waist down.  While recovering, a friend loaned her a copy of the Isaac Asimov classic I, Robot, which Okorafor marked up with notations in … Continued
A sneak peek at the Mary Fell collection

A sneak peek at the Mary Fell collection

, , , books
IU East was lucky enough to enjoy the teaching expertise of award winning poet Mary Fell for over 30 years.  Earlier this year, she donated a number of books, documents and ephemera to the IU East Campus Archives.  And today, we’ll take a brief look at some of the treasures we’ve seen so far.  Let’s go! Class planning materials A working writer relies on a number of tools to complete their work.  Whether it’s the perfectly balanced pen, the elegantly laid cream wove paper or the delicious cup of coffee in the best coffee mug, each writer assembles their tools to begin the day’s task of crafting words.  Mary consulted a number of books related to poetry in order to … Continued
A list of lists!

A list of lists!

, books, Jesse Whitton
As 2020 comes to an end, “Best of …” lists are popular, so we wanted to feature a variety of reading options. Did any of your favorite books from 2020 make the lists? A selection of the 10 Best Literary Adaptations of the Year highlights this year’s new literary adaptations. The most popular and purchased books by Amazon customers in 2020 shares what customers were reading this year. With over 2,000 suggestions, NPR’s Book Concierge provides recommendations of “top books” for the years 2013-2020. What are other writers reading? The Guardian’s best books picked by guest authors provides insight into what authors like to read when they are not working on their next work. Why stop at Top 10? Here … Continued
HathiTrust Special Book Access

HathiTrust Special Book Access

, , books, Library Resources, Research
IU East credentials (user name and password log-in) provide students, faculty and staff with access to many types of scholarly resources, even during the coronavirus pandemic. However, physical books are not currently accessible. IU East owns close to 20,000 print volumes, and millions of books from other IU libraries were also readily available at the click of a button in the library catalog, IUCAT.  Since book stacks are closed, e-books have been valuable; but not all books (particularly older books) are available as e-texts, nor do all publishers license their output for electronic access. There are available digitized copies of print books. Thanks to efforts like Project Gutenberg, we can freely access public-domain books. But some initiatives, such as the … Continued