Augie T-Dog and Buddy wish you all a very happy Thanksgiving. They are thankful to be a part of such a vibrant and wonderful college community.
In celebration of the Thanksgiving holiday, the library will be operating under reduced hours.
Regular hours will resume on Monday, December 1st, at 7:30 a.m.
-Christine Aden
Special Collections, Augustana’s repository for rare books and manuscripts, has a new website! Through it you can find information about holdings in Special Collections, hours and location, and contact information. New additions to the site include information on resources by subject, a brief history of Special Collections, images of items held in Special Collections, and descriptive information about digital projects such as the Upper Mississippi Valley Digital Image Archive. You can see the new site at http://www.augustana.edu/library/SpecialCollections/home.html.
Special thanks to librarian Amanda Makula, who did the design for the site.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. The very title intrigued me. After all, what is a potato peel pie? And why would someone name a literary society that?
This enchanting novel, told via letters between islanders, visitors, and friends, chronicles the hardships of some residents of Guernsey during World War II and the strength they found in this unlikely group.
Though it certainly deals with very serious elements of the war, including the German occupation of the island and concentration camp survivors, there is a warmth and humanity of character throughout this book. The sadness and the depth of the trials the Guernsey people went through is tempered by the moments of lightness that come from living on an island cut off from the world through much of the war. I can’t truly call this a fun book – the subject matter is too serious – but it has a lot of fun moments, and a reminder that sometimes, friends and books can get you through a lot of trouble.
–Christine Aden
The Generall Historie of Virginia, New-England, and the Summer Isles by John Smith was published in London by Michael Sparks in 1624. Smith was one of the founders and leaders of the Jamestown, Virginia colony, the first permanent English settlement in what would become the United States. This book contains the famous story of Smith’s capture by the Algonquin tribe and how his life was saved by the chief’s daughter, Pocahontas, although many scholars consider Smith’s account of the event to be embellished. Smith was the first colonist to write primarily for other settlers rather than for patrons or future readers. He gives many examples of the resources and opportunities available in the colonies, although he also describes colonists’ conflicts with Native Americans. In addition to the history of the Jamestown colony, the Generall History describes the previous history of Virginia and provides histories of New England and the Summer Isles or Bermudas. Also included are early maps of Virginia and New England.
This is one of the earliest and most important books on American history. Special Collections’s copy is from the Jesse Spencer Collection.
“I hope that these displays inform the Augustana Community about all that has been done and all the great initiatives we have to look forward to.”—Joshua Schipp, Global Affect
Check out the newest display in the library, assembled by students in Global Affect, led by Joshua Schipp. Located just to the right as you enter the library, the display by Global Affect highlights the progress Augustana has made in regard to its sustainability efforts, including awards given by QCTAG to Global Affect and Mark Vincent, emails and letters that represent Global Affect’s on-going efforts to eradicate the water bottle culture from campus, information about the actions of the Sustainability Committee and Farm to Fork, and information about recycling and the upcoming RecycleMania, which Augustana has won two years in a row. This full and eye-catching display illuminates various environmental initiatives on campus that focus on one central theme: one planet sustains us and we must all share in taking care of it.
Augustana College begins a new international study program this year in Vietnam. Twenty-six excited students will spend the first five weeks of the term on campus studying and preparing for travel in Vietnam. On January 31, the class will leave for five weeks in Vietnam. Students will take three courses, Vietnam’s Economic Liberalization with Dr. Ann Ericson, Politics in Developing Nations with Dr. Mariano Magalhães, and Vietnam Literature with Dr. David Crowe. To mark this rich international learning opportunity, the library has mounted a display that includes cultural and art objects of Vietnam collected by Dr. Ericson and Dr. Katie Hanson, when they were traveling in Vietnam this past summer; quotations from the students expressing why they wanted to study in Vietnam; and a map showing the itinerary of the group.
