The new art display in the library gallery is of posters brought to Castleton by two Ukrainian artists as part of a cultural exchange with art professor Bill Ramage. Come take a look and learn more about poster art of post-Soviet Ukraine, and read about the origin of the posters and Professor Ramage’s visit to Ukraine in 1993.

The new book display in the library is of books related to the crisis in Ukraine. While the amount of violence and destruction unleashed on civilians seems incomprehensible, we can strive to understand more about the region, the history of the region, military aggression in general, Russian leadership, what justice there might be for war crimes, and the experiences of war refugees, for example.

The Atlantic magazine recently posted an article, “Nine Books to Read to Understand the War in Ukraine.” The CU library is ordering the ones recommended that VSC libraries don’t yet own. In the meantime, CU faculty, staff and students can request books we don’t have through interlibrary loan.

In addition to books, there are lots of resources online to consult. Several university libraries have created guides to learning resources related to this crisis. Here are links to a few of those. Certainly there’s a lot to learn in order to begin to understand recent events.

The library of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO): The Russian Invasion of Ukraine – Special Focus

University of Minnesota Libraries Research Guide on the Conflict in Ukraine

Portland State University: Invasion of Ukraine

It’s Open Education Week, sponsored by Open Education Global, “a member-based, global, non-profit supporting the development and use of open education around the world to:

• expand access to education enabling every person on earth to access and contribute
• improve the quality of education
• make education more affordable
• improve student success
• foster collaboration and sharing through co-creation of education materials and the freedom to use, customize, improve and redistribute them
• generate pedagogical innovation using the collaborative, interactive culture of the Internet
• foster international partnerships and a global participatory culture of learning, creating, sharing and cooperation”

About Open Education

Also from the Open Education Global website: “Open education is an attitude, a practice, and a method of teaching that inspires inquiry, equal access to course materials, and sharing lessons and materials with the wider community. At the center of open education is the belief that education is strengthened when shared openly. Open education relies on open educational resources (OER) and open licensing.”

See the resources the CU library has compiled and learn more on our
OER and Open Access Resources guide

About Open Educational Resources

Again from the Open Education Global website: “OER are teaching, learning and research materials in any medium – digital or otherwise – that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation and redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions.

OER come with 5R permissions including the permission to:

1. Retain – the right to create, own, and control copies of the content;
2. Reuse – the right to use the content in a wide range of ways;
3. Revise – the right to adapt, adjust, modify, or alter the content itself;
4. Remix – the right to combine the original or revised content with other material to create something new;
5. Redistribute – the right to share copies of the original content, the revisions, or the remixes with others.

OER can include textbooks, instructional materials, interactive simulations, lesson plans, full courses, and even complete degrees (often called Z-Degrees). A popular example of OER is open textbooks that are funded, published and licensed to be freely used, adapted, and distributed. These books can be downloaded for no cost, or printed at low cost offering significant savings, compared to expensive proprietary textbooks. OER provide academic freedom to customize, localize, translate, and update as required. OER expand and enhance the academic offering of an institution.

OER are typically stored and distributed through web sites, platforms or repositories that provide search, view and download capabilities.”

There’s a new book display up in the library in honor of Women’s History Month. The theme for this year’s Women’s History Month book display is taken from a quote by 19th century author and activist Emma Lazarus, the author of the poem at the base of the Statue of Liberty.

“Until we are all free, we are none of us free.”

― Emma Lazarus

This idea was later echoed by Martin Luther King, Jr. and Nelson Mandela. King and Mandela were working toward freedom from racism and apartheid. Lazarus was encouraging American Jews to consider Jews in other parts of the world when she wrote these words in “Epistle to the Hebrews” in 1882.

The books collected in this month’s display consider impediments to women’s freedom in the U.S. and around the world, like gender-based violence and limits on reproductive freedom, and efforts to expand women’s rights and freedoms. Check them out!