The Weinberg Memorial Library will be hosting its second ever Library Gaming Night on Monday, April 12th.
Due to the success of the first gaming night held on Mardi Gras, we have decided to expand. This time there will be more gaming systems and more food.
All students are welcome to join us in the Heritage Room (5th floor) to Play Games, Eat Food, Enter our Raffle for Gift Cards, and/or just come to hang out with your friends.
Scranton native Jay Parini spoke at today’s Schemel Forum luncheon about his 1990 novel, The Last Station, which was recently transformed into an Oscar-nominated film by the same name.
The novel describes the last year of Leo Tolstoy‘s life and focuses on the battle between Tolstoy’s wife Sophia and his disciple Chertkov for Tolstoy’s soul. Parini wrote the novel after reading several diaries written by people who lived in Tolstoy’s house during the tumultuous year. In today’s talk, Parini described his work as a “found novel,” a narrative shaped from the layered viewpoints of those diaries.
Parini has authored 21 books and is currently working on a new novel on the life of Herman Melville. When it’s done, we hope he’ll find his way back home to Scranton for another visit with the Schemel Forum!
P.S. The Last Station has been shown in cities all over the world – but not in Scranton. Tolstoy fans will have to drive to Tunkhannock’s Deitrich Theater, where the film will be shown on three different days (4/14, 4/18, and 4/22) during this month’s Spring Film Festival.
Update: A video of Parini’s talk is now available on the University’s YouTube channel!
For experienced Facebook users, these concerns might be old hat. But if you’re a relatively new Facebook user and you’re not sure how to tweak your profile to account for all of these changes, we’ve got a workshop for you.
Next Wednesday, April 7 from 12pm-1pm in WML306, Public Services librarian Donna Mazziotti will teach a Technology on Your Own Terms workshop that she’s titled “Share With Surety: Facebook Privacy Settings for the Casual Facebook User.” During the session, Donna will walk participants through customizing their own Facebook Privacy Settings and will help attendees understand what each setting means.
The workshop is open to University of Scranton faculty and staff members, so if you’re interested, please let us know by registering at www.scranton.edu/ctleregistration. The workshop will be hands-on, and we’re assuming that attendees already have a Facebook account. If you plan to participate, make sure that you’ll be able to remember your account information when you arrive at the workshop. Hope to see you there!
The computers in the Library are networked using a system called UniPrint. Sometimes UniPrint goes down. The Library now has a backup plan in place for students when this happens which uses a “crash cart” with a stand-alone computer and printer. The “crash cart” will be located in the alcove adjacent to the Reference Desk on the 2nd floor of the Library. If this happens, you’ll need to save the document you want to print to a flash/thumb drive or e-mail the document to yourself. If you need any help, you can ask one of the Reference Librarians.
Digitization of special collections is ongoing at the Weinberg Memorial Library, and as a result we’re happy to have one more digital collection available for public use this Spring.
Now online and fully searchable is the University of Scranton Course Catalogs collection, which includes 123 St. Thomas College and University of Scranton undergraduate and graduate course catalogs from 1926 through 2008. These catalogs will be useful not only for former students seeking course descriptions, but also for local historians and genealogists interested in the University’s history.
University course catalogs from 2007 and earlier were digitized in 2009 by Internet Archive as part of the Lyrasis Mass Digitization Collaborative, a group effort to digitize cultural heritage materials in which the Weinberg Memorial Library has participated since the Fall of 2008. Each catalog was digitized in full color at 400 dpi, and each image was preserved in JPEG2000 format. In order to save on server space and make the catalog images faster to download, we’ve uploaded PDF derivatives of those master JPEG2000s into our CONTENTdm collection. As a result, some of the photographs in the catalogs may appear blurred. If you’d like a higher resolution copy of a catalog, you can download the original JPEG2000s from Internet Archive by clicking on the Internet Archive URL, stored in each catalog’s “document description.” And of course, the original printed catalogs are still available in the Library’s University Archives and can be viewed by appointment.
Catalogs from after 2007 are born digital documents, which we’ve downloaded for preservation from University Catalogs web site.
If you have questions about the course catalog collection or about the digitization process, please contact the Digital Services department. And don’t forget to take a look at our other recent digital collections!
Sondra Myers, director of the University of Scranton’s Schemel Forum, with CNN foreign affairs correspondent Jill Dougherty
CNN foreign affairs correspondent (and Dunmore native!) Jill Dougherty came to campus today to speak to University and local community members on the topic “Who Runs Russia? Deciphering Moscow’s Centers of Power.”
Formerly CNN’s Moscow bureau chief, Dougherty described her experiences as a journalist in Russia, providing character sketches of former President of the Russian Federation Boris Yeltsin, former President and current Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, and current President Dmitry Medvedev. She also discussed the evolving nature of Russian democracy and provided insight on demographic changes, Russia’s relationship to China, the reliance on an oil and gas economy, and the importance of civic society.
Dougherty’s talk was the second of this Spring’s Schemel Forum Insights Luncheons, a series focused on discussions of world affairs. Next in the series will be Alex Thier of the United States Institute of Peace, who will present on “Enigma and Dilemma: Our Fraught Relationship with Afghanistan and Pakistan” on March 19th at 12pm in the Weinberg Memorial Library’s Heritage Room.
Now that the Olympics are over, it’s time to start preparing for the next big event – the Academy Awards are this Sunday! And this year, there’s a Scranton connection.
West Scranton native Jay Parini is the author of The Last Station, a novel about the last year of Tolstoy’s life – and the film adaptation of the novel has received two Oscar nominations. Helen Mirren (who plays Sofya Tolstoy) and Christopher Plummer (Leo Tolstoy) are up for Best Supporting Actor and Best Actress, respectively. The Last Station was also nominated for five awards (including Best Feature) at Friday’s Film Independent Spirit Awards. For more details about the film and Parini’s work, see this article from the February 5 Scranton Times-Tribune.
This Spring, Mr. Parini will be making a special appearance on campus to discuss his book and the film at one of our Schemel Forum“Insights” luncheons. The luncheon will be held Friday, April 9 from 12pm-1:30pm in Room 509 Brennan Hall. Registration fees are $20 per person or $30 per couple for the luncheon – and Schemel Forum members get in free. To register, please contact Kym Fetsko at fetskok2 (at) scranton (dot) edu.
Thank you all for making our first gaming night at the library a big success! Last night, at least 65 students came by the 5th floor Heritage Room to eat wings and pizza, and get their game on.
Super Smash Brothers was a big hit.
Games that got the most play include Super Smash Brothers and the Wii Fit — even the classic game Scattegories got in on the action.
There was also a raffle, which 67 students entered. There were three $10 Amazon gift cards awarded as prizes. The winners of the raffle drawing are:
Dan Parisi (Senior)
Devin Patel (Junior)
James Costello (Senior)
Winners will be notified via email of how and where to pick up your prizes.
We got enough positive feedback to know that gaming night is something we should do on a regular basis. So, we can all look forward to another gaming night in the library, since this one was such a hit.
But, by far, the best part of Mardi Gras at the Library was all of the *library love* we got from everyone who participated. Thanks for the great feedback guys, and we can’t wait for the next one!
Library Love (aw shucks :) )
(A special shout-out to the Center for Health and Education Wellness for lending us the games, and to our very own Bonnie Oldham and George Aulisio for planning this awesome event. For more coverage of Mardi Gras at the Library, including photos, check out our Facebook page: www.facebook.com/UofSLibrary.)
