Campus may be emptier, and the traffic lighter, but the library is still open during the summer months:
Swing by, enjoy our air-conditioned computer labs, book and DVD collections, and excellent staff working hard to make your summer classes and/or summer reading a success.
With the spring semester winding down, the frantic race to finish those papers, projects, and future plans is nearing an end. To help you crawl to the finish line, the Ross Pendergraft Library is offering extended hours and resources during the next two weeks.
We will begin our day as usual on Reading Day, May 1st, at 7:00 AM. But we will not close until Friday, May 3rd, at 8:00 P.M. While we advocate strongly sleeping at some point, if you need to come in early or stay late, we’ve got your back during the first week of finals. Will there be coffee? Yes. When? Follow our Twitter @ATULibrary to find out brew times or other special announcements.
Procrastination – Endless
Nervous about your citations? Easybib no longer making any sense? Make sure your MLA is not DOA by taking a look at our links to instruction, videos, sample papers, and other tools to help you cite right. We also have trained experts at the main Research Help Desk to give you guidance and pointers, or if you’d rather consult the ultimate source, they can also help you locate the official citation manuals for APA, MLA, Chicago, and more.
Having trouble finding the right place to study? The library is full of open computer labs, tables for group work, and couches/comfortable chairs scattered throughout the building. But if you need your own room, we have 8 study rooms to reserve for quiet escapes or a guaranteed meeting spaces. Secure your space today by going to our Room Reservation System. Click on any green block to reserve your room. Click on the room number to find more details about room size and if there’s a whiteboard. But hurry–space is filling up fast!
This may be your first year or your last, and when you are here at midnight, tired, exhausted, or in that weird space where you are so tired you are actually giggly, deliriously wide-awake–we see you. This is college, and you’re still here, doing the best you can to make it through. Remember, you’ve made it this far, and we’re all rooting for you. Keep going, and if you have a break or feel like you are nearing your breaking point, come see us at the desk and just check in. If you need help, we can help. And if you need to cry, we have tissues. Good luck!
If you haven’t had a chance to take the Library survey, take three minutes and help us, help you: Take the Library Survey. Available until Wednesday, April 24th, the annual library survey is your chance to suggest changes, recommend new services or collections, and/or lodge complaints about the temperature.
Because of your input, we’ve made the following changes to the library:
As you can see, we’re eager to make the same changes, and your comments and input help us advocate for your needs. While we always try to improve what we can, there are always a few requests that are not feasible at this time or cannot be so easily accommodated. Below are some suggestions we simply cannot make happen at this time:
Even if there is a limit to what we can do, there is no limit to how hard we will work to help you succeed academically. Tell us how best we can help: https://techlibraries2019.questionpro.com/
In the meantime, stay up to date on all library events and happenings, including our 24 hour schedule for finals on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.
On Tuesday, April 16th, at 7:00 P.M., the Ross Pendergraft Library will hold a panel discussion on climate change—what is it, how does it affect our environment, and what we can do to help save our planet. The discussion will feature four experts in business, chemistry, sustainability alternative energy and natural disasters:
The discussion will center on the PBS NOVA series episode, Decoding the Weather Machine. This event is free and open to the public—all are welcome!
For more information about the event, you can visit our event guide or contact the library at (479) 964-0569. You can stay up to date on the series and all library events by following us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.
The series finale of Game of Thrones takes place in a few days but if you want to get your fix early, tune the Ross Pendergraft Library has GOT you covered. On Thursday, April 11th, at 7:00 P.M. in RPL 300A, we will host our very own “small council” of scholars and writers discussing the stories, the politics, the history, the show, and the writer behind one of the biggest pop culture sensations of the past ten years. The event will feature four experts from the ATU family who will discuss an aspect of the series and take questions from the audience. Panelists include:
Dr. Arwen Taylor, Assistant Professor of English
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Dr. Deborah Wilson, Professor of English
Slade Dupuy, Science Fiction and Fantasy AuthorAll are welcome! A small reception will precede the event at 6:30 P.M.
Need to get to catch up on the show, re-watch your favorite parts, or see what all the fuss is about? The Ross Pendergraft Library has all seasons available on DVD, as well as the entire book series in both hardback and audiobook format.
You can stay up to date on this and all library events by following us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. For more questions or information about the Game of Thrones discussion, or to simply discuss Game of Thrones, contact Angela Black at (479) 964-0569.
Tonight at the Ross Pendergraft Library, join us at 7:00 PM in RPL300B for a special guest speaker, Jim Yeager who will talk about his book: Backroads and Ballplayers: A Collection of Stories About Famous (and Not So Famous) Professional Baseball Players from Rural Arkansas. All are welcome!
Backroads and Ballplayers recalls the paths that more than 50 Arkansans took in pursuit of their dreams to play professional baseball, including individuals from the River Valley area, the mountains of North Arkansas, and the Delta farmland.
Assisted by various members of the Robinson-Kell Chapter of the Society for American Baseball Research, these stories of rural Arkansas baseball during the first half of the twentieth century recounts “Arkansas’ Fields of Dreams.”
Yeager is retired from an education career that spanned more than 40 years and included service as a coach, teacher, guidance counselor and educational technology specialist. He was the first coach during the intercollegiate era of women’s basketball at Arkansas Tech and established the Golden Suns’ winning tradition by guiding them to four consecutive conference championships from 1979-82.
This presentation is part of our Author’s Second Monday Series featuring the works of our local writers and researchers. You can stay up to date on the series and all library events by following us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. For more questions or information about the Second Monday Author Series, contact Luke Heffley at (479) 964-0546.
Come shake it up to live music next Saturday, April 6th at the Ross Pendergraft Library as we host our second Contra Dance in RPL 300B from 7:00-9:00 P.M. No partner and no experience necessary. Each dance will be taught before it begins, and no one will be left behind. The event includes live music from the Valley Jam Session Players and caller Cynthia Callahan.
An old-time contra dance, also referred to as a barn dance, is an informal country dance stemming from such dances in 17th century Western Europe. It has evolved just as the old-time music has. Traditionally this type of dance always uses live musicians playing fiddle tunes.
As part of the Echoes of the River Valley series, the library is bringing to life the folk arts of the past for a new generation. In addition to dancing, the series has featured events like yarn spinning, hand-quilting, and open jam sessions. The Jam Sessions occur every Thursday night from 5:30-7:30 PM in Doc Bryan 133. To learn more about this event, or others in the series, check out our resource guide or follow us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram.
The Ross Pendergraft Library is going on spring break! At least for a few extra hours during the week. Here’s the schedule for our reduced hours during spring break:
If you are planning a long trip, don’t forget the library has a collection of Audiobooks on CD and MP3 that you can pop in the car stereo or download to your phone for bluetooth broadcast. Here’s a few new titles, fresh on the shelf:
Children of Blood and Bone – Zélie Adebola remembers when the soil of Orïsha hummed with magic. Burners ignited flames, Tiders beckoned waves, and Zélie’s Reaper mother summoned forth souls. But everything changed the night magic disappeared. Under the orders of a ruthless king, maji were killed, leaving Zélie without a mother and her people without hope.
Educated : a memoir – Traces the author’s experiences as a child born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, describing her participation in her family’s paranoid stockpiling activities and her resolve to educate herself well enough to earn acceptance into a prestigious university and the unfamiliar world beyond.
The Good Neighbor : the Life and Work of Fred Rogers – Drawing on original interviews, oral histories and archival documents, the author traces the iconic children’s program host’s personal, professional, and artistic life through decades of work. Narrated by LeVar Burton.
Pet Sematary: A novel – When Dr. Louis Creed takes a new job, and moves his family to the idyllic, rural town of Ludlow, Maine, this new beginning seems too good to be true. Yet despite Ludlow’s tranquility, there’s an undercurrent of danger that lingers like the graveyard in the woods near the Creed’s home, where generations of children have buried their beloved pets. This Stephen King classic is narrated by Michael C. Hall.
Always Look On the Bright Side of Life : A Sortabiography – From the ingenious comic performer, Eric Idle, founding member of Monty Python, and creator of Spamalot, comes an absurdly funny memoir of unparalleled wit and heartfelt candor.
The Greatest Love Story Ever Told – Presented as an oral history in a series of conversations between the couple, the book features anecdotes, hijinks, photos, and a veritable grab bag of tomfoolery. This is not only the intoxicating book that Megan Mullally’s and Nick Offerman’s fans have been waiting for, it might just hold the solution to the greatest threat facing our modern world: the single life.
Join us Monday night, March 11th, at 7:00 P.M. in RPL 300B for a look back at the struggle for Civil Rights in Arkansas from professor of history and author, Dr. James Moses. Dr. Moses’s latest book, Just and Righteous Causes: Rabbi Ira Sanders and the Fight for Racial and Social Justice in Arkansas, 1926-1963, focuses on the efforts of Rabbi Ira Sanders of Little Rock who fought for justice and equality for African Americans in the segregated south. Dr. Moses will discuss Rabbi Ira Sanders as well as the role of Southern rabbis as change agents. All are welcome to attend.
Dr. Moses earned his Bachelor of Arts from Louisiana State University, a Master of Arts from the University of New Hampshire, and a Doctor of Philosophy from Tulane University. He has been a professor at Arkansas Tech since 1999 and specializes in modern United States and cultural history. His current research projects include the completion of his book on the career of Justice William O. Douglas, and a project tentatively entitled Before Brown: The Long Civil Rights Movement, 1945-1954, which focuses on the often-overlooked decade between the end of World War II and the Court’s landmark Brown decision. In his off time, he enjoys jazz, playing drums, and collecting comics.
His book, Just and Righteous Causes, was published by the University of Arkansas Press. In one review, Mark K. Bauman, editor of Southern Jewish History called it, “. . a must read for anyone interested in Little Rock, Arkansas and southern history, the civil rights movement, and southern and American Jewish history.” Read more about the book and Ira Sanders in Tablet Magazine’s article, “Tikkun Olam, Y’all: Rabbi Ira Sanders of Arkansas, little-known Civil Rights hero”.
Stay up to date on more library events, including our next second Monday Author, on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. For questions or more information about the library, email your friendly neighborhood librarians at: askus@atu.libanswers.com. We hope to see you this Monday!
Get your hands on history here at the Ross Pendergraft Library as we host a special series called Echoes of the River Valley, aimed at exploring the culture and the craft of our local past. Join us for music, dancing, sewing, and spinning all semester long as we partner with community members to connect with the skills and talents that helped shaped the character of the Ozarks. Here’s a list of the open classes and events hosted this month:
The Ozarks Fiber Group will be here for a spin-in at the Library. Live demonstrations of spinning fibers of many kinds will be done. Materials in various stages of the yarn or string making process will be available. This is is the literal portion. The figurative part of the program will look at Arkansas and Ozark region folklore and stories. Books by Vance Randolph and other story collectors and tellers will be featured. There may even be a story or two to be told.
This is a drop-in/open-house event. Come when you want–stay as long as you like. We will be working on projects throughout the day.
We invite student, faculty, staff, and community members to come to a jam session of fiddlers, guitar pickers, and banjo players. You don’t need to be Doc Watson to play; the chords and notation to the songs are posted on the screen. We’ll be playing music heard during the 19th century–classic fiddle songs invented long before bluegrass. Players and listeners are welcome!
Learn the art of hand quilting as it has been done for centuries. Local quilters will display hand quilted pieces both old and new. There will be a short presentation discussing the background and process of quilting by hand rather that by machine followed by a demonstration. Learn more about hand piecing by visiting this guide.
An old-time contra dance, also referred to as a barn dance or square-dancing, is an informal country dance stemming from such dances in 17th century Western Europe. It has evolved just as the old-time music has. Traditionally this type of dance always uses live musicians playing fiddle tunes. No experience or partner necessary! Each dance will be taught before it begins, and no one will be left behind.
More events are scheduled throughout the year. Be sure to check the calendar for more information and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for upcoming events, photos, and other news from the library.