Don't Forget to Vote!

Photo by jamelah

In celebration of Idaho's May 20th primary election and our right to vote, here are a few samples from ScholarWorks to get you in the political mood.

• Urban West Revisited: Governing Cities in Uncertain Times
  
• Political Advertising in the 2012 Presidential Election: How Visual and Aural Techniques Are Used to Convey Meaning
  
• Towards Improved Paper-Based Election Technology
  
• Unauthorized Televised Debate Footage in Political Campaign Advertising: Fair Use and the DMCA
  
• A Bold, Hopeful, Tolerant, Progressive Way” – Progressives in the Idaho Legislature, 1908-1915

"Democracy is not just voting for your leaders; it's really premised upon ordinary citizens understanding the issues." --Howard Rheingold

Michelle Armstrong,
Scholarly Communications and Data Management Librarian

Congratulations to all of our excellent graduating seniors!

Each semester Albertsons Library honors senior graduating student assistants by placing a name plate dedicated to the student in a book of his/her choice. This semester we have 7 graduating student workers.

The Library could not function without our student employees. They tirelessly help patrons, check-out materials, pull books for staff and students, reshelve books, mail items, process new items, scan documents, assist patrons in the computer lab, move furniture and many other tasks.

Our graduates and their books:

Bader -- Don't Be Sad by Aid Quarni
Melissa -- Practical Botany for Gardeners by Geoff Hodge
Brittanie -- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Osciel -- Compañero: The Life and Death of Che Guevara by Jorge Castaneda
Belinda -- Illustrated Guide to Korean by Chad Meyer and Moon-ung Kim
Russ -- Hermetica: The Greek Corpus Hermeticum and the Latin Asclepius by Brian Copenhaver
Cassi -- The Flower Man by Mark Ludy

Congratulations to all of our excellent graduating seniors!

Mary Aagard,
Head, Access Services 

Yarn Bomb the Library!

Are you a knitter? Want to share your love of knitting with others? Maybe you're not a knitter, but inexplicably inherited your great aunt Sigrid's knitting stash. Want to learn to knit? Perfect, let's yarn bomb the library and relieve some stress! Drop-ins and all skill levels welcome, some supplies provided.

What’s yarn bombing? It’s a little bit renegade and a little bit grandma. From Mandy Moore’s book, "Yarn Bombing", it is defined as merging "the disciplines of installation art, needlework, and street art, yarn bombing takes many forms. It generally involves the act of attaching a handmade item to a street fixture." In our case, each participant will knit a square to be stitched together into a collaborative yarn bomb. It will be installed around one of the columns in the library’s lobby, in time to celebrate International Yarn Bombing Day, Saturday June 7th.

Can knitting really relieve stress? Yes, it can! According to a study published by Riley, Corkhill, and Morris in the February 2013 issue of The British Journal of Occupational Therapy, “The results [of the study] show a significant relationship between knitting frequency and feeling calm and happy. More frequent knitters also reported higher cognitive functioning.” I’m pretty sure you’d like to feel calm and have higher cognitive function during dead and finals weeks.

Knitting can also help you achieve what Csikszentmihalyi refers to as a state of “flow.” He found that people engrossed in activities, such as knitting, experienced a loss of fear and anxiety. This melting away of everyday worries is one of the characteristics of the “flow” state of mind.

Want to be a part of the yarn bomb? Stop by the Starbucks entrance in the library, Monday through Thursday of dead and finals week at 2pm. We’ll be knitting up a storm! Can’t make it to one of the sessions, but still want to participate? Just knit a square on your own time, and drop it off with me before the end of the semester. I’ll make sure it gets included in the finished collaborative piece! We've even created a guide with links to knitting videos, patterns, books, and articles on the connection between knitting and stress relief. Check it out here, http://guides.boisestate.edu/stressrelief.

Happy knitting!

Deana Brown,
Assistant professor/Librarian

Extended Library Hours for Dead Week & Finals

Ready for finals? We'll help! The Albertsons Library will be open 24 hours a day for dead week AND Finals week. This includes the second floor as well, which includes the library's computer classroom (L203) and its 30 additional computers.

Here's the schedule for dead week & finals week (1st & 2nd floors only):

• Sunday 5/4: 10 am to midnight
• Monday 5/5: Open at 7 am and close at midnight on Friday, 5/9
• Saturday 5/10: Open 10 am to midnight
• Sunday 5/11: Open 10 am and close at 7 pm on Thursday, 5/15
• Friday 5/16: Open 8 am to 5 pm
• Saturday 5/17: Closed

During the late night hours staff will be on hand to answer questions and check out first-floor reserve materials. Free coffee and treats will be provided each night (while supplies last!) by the Associated Students of Boise State University (ASBSU). An officer from the Boise Police Department will be on duty in the library all night and can provide escort service as needed.

Please refer to our calendar for a complete list of library hours. Of course, you can always access our online resources 24/7 at http://library.boisestate.edu/

Best of luck on your finals!

Special Collections and Archives receives grant from the GRAMMY Foundation

In 2008, a set of about a dozen recordings made around 1950 by Ione Love Thielke was found by the Idaho Songs Project in a private collection in Blackfoot, Idaho. 

The recordings were homemade using a portable acetate disk recorder of the type that became available after World War II. The Project arranged for the Blackfoot Collection to be donated to Special Collections at the Albertsons Library, Boise State University, where the materials could be archived professionally in a carefully controlled environment.

Research showed that Ione Love Thielke was a colorful, talented rural musician who took regional poetry and set it to music, singing and accompanying herself with a tiple. She was the wife of an Idaho/Oregon logger who performed her music throughout Idaho, Oregon and Washington and occasionally beyond. Thielke was well connected with the Idaho literary community of the time.

Subsequently, the Idaho Songs Project located the descendants of Ione Love Thielke and facilitated the donation of several more boxes of her recordings to the Albertsons Library. A preliminary physical inventory indicates the collection contains dozens more homemade acetate recordings that Thielke made of herself and other Idaho musicians and poets, as well as many reel to reel tapes made from about 1948 to 1951 in Boise, Cascade and Pocatello Idaho and Salem, Oregon. 

The titles also indicate the collection includes numerous radio broadcast of programs hosted by Thielke from 1947-1951 in Boise and Pocatello, with interviews of and performances by numerous Idaho musicians and poets.

Special Collections and Archives received an $11,747 grant from The GRAMMY Foundation to digitize the Thielke recordings and make them available online.

The project will be completed by December 2014.

Ione Thielke collection: http://nwda.orbiscascade.org/ark:/80444/xv47659/

GRAMMY Foundation: http://www.grammy.org/grammy-foundation

Cheryl Oestreicher, PhD
Head, Special Collections and Archives/Assistant Professor

Who is KP2?

Albertsons Library will be hosting the Campus Read Kick-Off event on April 22nd from 10:00 AM to 11:30 AM. We will display this year’s book, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, and announce next year’s Campus Read selection.

Join us on the 1st floor of the Library, across from the Circulation Desk. We will have cake, past Campus Read books to check out, and a presentation of the new book. Come find out about KP2 and get a jump start on the campus wide common reading experience for 2014-2015.

Mary Aagard,
Access Services

Check Out the Special Collections and Archives Exhibits

The next time you pass through the library be sure to take a look at our exhibits on the 2nd floor celebrating the lives of two fascinating Idaho leaders: Pete Cenarrusa and Bethine Church.

 

Learn about Pete and Bethine’s life and accomplishments through their letters, photographs, books, memorabilia, and other rare materials from their archival collections.

Bethine Church, widow of Idaho Senator Frank Church, was born into a politically active family and remained a prominent figure in Idaho politics throughout her life. In partnership with her husband, she earned the nickname of “Idaho’s third senator.”

Pete Cenarrusa's fifty-two years of service as legislator and Secretary of State makes him one of the longest-serving public officials in the United States. Throughout his life Pete Cenarrusa was dedicated to promoting the Basque cause and helping Basque communities and immigrants.

Bethine and Pete both passed away in 2013. Their collections are available for research here in the library.

For more information just stop by and see us or go to: http://library.boisestate.edu/special/

Gwyn Hervochon,
Archivist/Librarian