Sometimes you like the book better than the movie, but sometimes the movie is better. But when you’re a big fan of one, it’s a bonus that you can enjoy the other too.

New films and TV series come out all the time, some consisting of original content, but many of them are based on published novels or nonfiction books. The library might already own a copy of the book, or we might purchase it if the movie or TV show is important culturally.

Where the Crawdads Sing just opened recently in theaters. The book by Delia Owens was hugely popular when it came out in 2017. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel was on many lists of best books of the year for 2015 and was a National Book Award Finalist. It is now a series streaming on HBO Max. Wonder by R.J. Palacio was a hugely popular and educational middle grades book about a boy with facial anomalies. The film based on the book starring Jacob Tremblay as Auggie, and Julia Roberts and Owen Wilson as his parents, was also very successful. A film based on R.J. Palacio’s more recent book, White Bird, will be out soon. All of these books are included in our new display, at least until someone checks them out 😉

Come on in and take a look at the books on display and check some out, or see the list of books we’ve selected here. If you didn’t know some of these books were made into films or series, you can learn more about them at The Internet Movie Database, imdb.com. To find out where a film or series is streaming, see JustWatch.com. To see if we have the film in our DVD collection, check the catalog. Students, faculty and staff can request DVDs through interlibrary loan. If you have a favorite adaptation we haven’t included in our display this time, you can email library@castleton.edu with your suggestion.

It’s always a joy to have the creative and spirited young people with the Governor’s Institute of the Arts in residence on campus–and especially this year after their absence during Covid. To welcome them again this year, we’ve got a special book display celebrating creativity and the arts.

In this very special summer program, high school students join professional artists and other creative students from throughout Vermont for “an exciting learning community, overflowing with creative energy, collaboration, and inspiration.” They get to take lessons in the media of their choice like music, dance, writing, theater, painting, sculpture, or film, and explore potential careers in the arts, surrounded by people who love to create as much as they do.

More information on the Governor’s Institute summer programs.

June is Pride Month for the LGBTQIA⁺ community.  From the Library of Congress:

“Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ) Pride Month is currently celebrated each year in the month of June to honor the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in Manhattan, a tipping point for the Gay Liberation Movement in the United States…The purpose of the commemorative month is to recognize the impact that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender individuals have had on history locally, nationally, and internationally.”

The American Library Association (ALA) celebrates it as Rainbow Book Month™

“Rainbow Book Month™ is a nationwide celebration of the authors and writings that reflect the lives and experiences of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, pansexual, genderqueer, queer, intersex, agender, and asexual community. As of 2020, GLBT Book Month™ (celebrated by the American Library Association since 2015) has been renamed Rainbow Book Month™…This occasion is an opportunity for book lovers and libraries (to share) the very best in LGBTQIA+ literature.”

The CU library has a book display up celebrating those writings, this year especially highlighting books for teens and books about expanding our understanding of gender beyond the male/female binary.

Here’s are some resources to read online until you can get to the library to check out some books:

• The Complete Guide to Queer Pride Flags by Ariel Sobel

• LGBTQIA+ Studies: A Resource Guide from the Library of Congress

And some recommendations for Pride Month reading from the New York Public Library:

• New LGBTQ Nonfiction for Pride 2022

• New LGBTQ Fiction for Pride 2022

• Staff Picks: Trans, Nonbinary, and Gender Nonconforming Reads

• New LGBTQ Reads for Adults

• LGBTQ Reads for Young Adults

Pride reading recommendations from ALA:

• Stonewall Book Awards – The first and longest-enduring award for GLBT literature
• Rainbow Books – for Kids and Teens
• Over the Rainbow Books – for Adult Readers

If you see books on these lists that are not in the CU library’s holdings, let us know and we will consider purchasing your suggested title.  Send suggestions to reference@castleton.edu.

Note: Lists updated 7/26/2022 to reflect changes to new and continuing databases.

Updating our database collections is always an ongoing process, and we want your input! Please use the Database and Journal Suggestion Form to make recommendations about what databases (or journals) you’d like to see.

We do have a few changes to our existing subscriptions coming up for next year, most of which will be active July 1. Please see below for a list of what’s new, what’s leaving, and what’s staying the same. Please feel free to get in touch with us at the library with any questions, comments, or concerns.

NEW Databases

• Kanopy

Discontinued Databases

• BioOne
• Environment Complete
• Oxford Music Online
• SocINDEX with Full Text

Continuing Databases

• Academic Search Premier
• Business Source Premier
• Chronicle of Higher Education
• CINAHL Plus with Full Text
• CQ Researcher
• Credo Reference
• EBSCO eBooks
• Education Research Complete
• ERIC
• Films on Demand
• GreenFile
• Health Source: Nursing/Academic Edition
• HeinOnline
• Health & Environmental Research Online (HERO)
• JSTOR Arts & Sciences I, II & III
• Learning Express Library
• LISTA (Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts)
• Literary Reference Center Plus
• MEDLINE
• MLA International Bibliography
• NCJRS Abstracts Database
• New York Times Historical
• NYTimes.com
• PLOS
• ProQuest Central
  • Latin America and Iberia Database
  • ProQuest Arts & Humanities Database
  • ProQuest Education Database
• Psychology & Behavioral Sciences Collection
• PsycArticles
• PsycINFO
• Resources for College Libraries
• Salem Reference Online
• ScienceDirect: Health & Life Sciences Collection
• SPORTDiscus
• Statista
• WorldCat
• All databases in the Gale VOL: https://support.gale.com/vol/products

“Asian/Pacific American Heritage Week,” later expanded to “Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month,” has been celebrated in May in the U.S. since 1977. This year Native Hawaiians have been added to the groups recognized.

To learn more:

National Public Radio shares “The story behind Asian Pacific American Heritage, and why it’s celebrated in May.” You can learn more on the website of the Federal Asian Pacific American Council. The Library of Congress offers some resources here. The National Archives holds a wealth of material documenting the Asian and Pacific Islander experience, including digitized items.

Various publications and organizations have come out with reading lists for AAPI Heritage Month

• LitHub.com: 34 books for Asian Pacific American Heritage Month (and all months)

• New York Public Library: Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Reading List

• New York Magazine: 22 Books to Read During AAPI Heritage Month, Recommended by AAPI Writers

• GoodReads.com: 111 New Books to Read for Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month

The Boston Globe recommends some non-book resources for learning more about AAPI heritage.

The Vermont Humanities Council has selected the Vermont Reads book for 2022. It is The Most Costly Journey, a collection of stories from migrant farmworkers in Vermont drawn by New England cartoonists.

From the Vermont Humanities Council website:

“Much of the work on Vermont dairy farms is done by people from Latin America. Over a thousand migrant laborers from Mexico and other countries milk cows, fix tractors, shovel manure, and take care of calves in our state.

Our Vermont Reads 2022 choice, The Most Costly Journey (El Viaje Más Caro), tells the stories of 19 of these workers in their own words. Illustrated by New England cartoonists in a variety of styles, each short chapter describes aspects of life as an immigrant farm worker in Vermont: crossing the southern border, struggling with English, adapting to winter, growing gardens, raising children, dealing with health crises, and working long hours…

The Most Costly Journey had its genesis at The Open Door Clinic in Middlebury, a free health clinic that serves people who do not have health insurance, and those who are underinsured. About half of the clinic’s patients are agricultural immigrant workers.

Many of these workers stay close to the farms where they work out of fear of being deported, lack of transportation, or other reasons. The problems caused by this isolation led nurse Julia Doucet to imagine a series of Spanish-language pamphlets that would help farm workers share their stories with each other. She chose cartooning as the medium for the pamphlets, as comics are common in Latin America and can be enjoyed by people of all ages and literacy levels.”

The CU Library owns a copy and will be getting more for the CU community in the fall.

Here’s a short video about the making of the pamphlets that became “The Most Costly Journey.”

Castleton is celebrating this Earth Week with the theme of Food Sustainability and Climate Change. See all the CU Earth Week events here.

The Library is promoting lots of relevant reading and other learning materials. See our Earth Week guide focusing on food waste. See the list of related books on display and come check some out! Of course we have many, many more books on topics like climate change, sustainable agriculture, humans’ relationships with animals and plants, toxicology, the natural world. Read all about it and appreciate our Mother Earth even more.

The Library’s Earth Week book display has special artwork this year from international student Aurooba Shafquat from Pakistan, pictured below. This is what Aurooba has to say about this project:

We exist because of the earth we have. If we damage it, we damage ourselves, we darken our future, we give our children a life they would not want because for all their lives they would have to struggle for things as minimal as clean air to breathe or clean water to drink. This month the library has a book display and poster to spread awareness to the students of Castleton about the environment and how we can save it. The poster has different messages for every one, do spare a few minutes to come and read what the poster says to you.

The American Library Association has announced its list of the most “banned” books of 2021.

“The ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom tracked 729 challenges to library, school, and university materials and services in 2021. Of the 1597 books that were targeted, here are the most challenged, along with the reasons cited for censoring the books:

1. Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe
   Reasons: Banned, challenged, and restricted for LGBTQIA+ content, and because it was considered to have sexually explicit images
2. Lawn Boy by Jonathan Evison
   Reasons: Banned and challenged for LGBTQIA+ content and because it was considered to be sexually explicit
3. All Boys Aren’t Blue by George M. Johnson
   Reasons: Banned and challenged for LGBTQIA+ content, profanity, and because it was considered to be sexually explicit
4. Out of Darkness by Ashley Hope Perez
   Reasons: Banned, challenged, and restricted for depictions of abuse and because it was considered to be sexually explicit
5. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
   Reasons: Banned and challenged for profanity, violence, and because it was thought to promote an anti-police message and indoctrination of a social agenda
6. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
   Reasons: Banned and challenged for profanity, sexual references and use of a derogatory term
7. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews
   Reasons: Banned and challenged because it was considered sexually explicit and degrading to women
8. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
   Reasons: Banned and challenged because it depicts child sexual abuse and was considered sexually explicit
9. This Book is Gay by Juno Dawson
   Reasons: Banned, challenged, relocated, and restricted for providing sexual education and LGBTQIA+ content.
10. Beyond Magenta by Susan Kuklin
    Reasons: Banned and challenged for LGBTQIA+ content and because it was considered to be sexually explicit.”

What can you do to stand up against censorship and for intellectual freedom? Many things. For example:

• Read “banned” books
• Learn more about intellectual freedom through an Intellectual Freedom and Censorship Q & A from the ALA and through other resources
• Learn more about ALA’s list of most challenged books and how it is compiled

As a protest against the recent increase in book censoring activity nationwide, the New York City Public Libraries are offering free digital library cards to people across the U.S. from now through May, to enable access to the books others would censor, and many more–the opposite of banning them. Libraries celebrate and protect your freedom to read freely, we hope you will join us.

#Celebrate Diversity

April is Autism Acceptance Month. The Library is putting together a book display so our community can learn more about autism and neurodiversity and the experiences of neurodiverse people.

See the list of books we are collecting for the display.

What does it mean to be neurodiverse?

“Neurodiversity is both a philosophy and an emerging civil rights movement. Neurodiversity Scholar in Residence John Elder Robison has written this defining neurodiversity. 

Acknowledging and appreciating the wide range of human neurologies, including Autism and ADHD, for example, while also acknowledging and appreciating the challenges of brain difference, is key to neurodiversity.

‘Neurodiversity may be every bit as crucial for the human race as biodiversity is for life in general. Who can say what form of [brain] wiring will prove best at any given moment?” Harvey Blume, “Neurodiversity:  On the Neurological Underpinnings of Geekdom’ The Atlantic “

From the Neurdiversity Initiative website, William and Mary College

Read an explanation of the term neurodiversity from The SAGE Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood Studies.

Some more resources

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