New York Times photo by Michael Evans (29 June 1970).

Today Pride Month is a month-long celebration of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender/Transexual, Queer/Questioning (LGBTQ+) people. There are many activities across the country and the globe that bring awareness of the LGBTQ+ triumphs and struggles.  The first Gay Pride  gathering took place on June 28, 1970, with a march led by Gay activist groups in New York City in honor of the Stonewall Uprising of the previous June in Manhattan.  The uprising at Stonewall Inn occurred when the police raided the well-known Gay bar and encountered resistence.  These riots went on for six consecutive nights.  These marches or parades continued to be an annual event until it finally evolved into a month-long celebration. 

Check out our display case for books regarding current issues within the LGBTQ+ community.  There’s also a display of fiction and memoir on the table near the elevators.  For more New York Times articles use the A-Z Databases on the homepage to access the New York Times with Index database.  There you will find primary sources about many more historic moments in Pride history.  

It’s that time of the semester again.  Finals!  The library will be open overnight Wednesday & Thursday, April 27 & 28, 2022 for finals. It will be open from 7AM on Reading Day all the way through 9PM on Friday, April 29. Coffee will be served at midnight. Check out our new official “break room”.  RPL 300A will be a student space to relax, de-stress, and re-charge.

The Break Room will be open for students to chill out between 11PM & 7AM. The coffee will be served in there along with some light snacks. There will be games, puzzles, and coloring available while back-to-back episodes of “The Office” play on the big screen. 

Don’t forget to book your study room now if you are planning on using one.  They fill up fast during finals. You can reserve your own study room at bookit.atu.edu

Take care of yourself through these stressful times.  Eat healthy, get enough sleep, and pace yourself.  You can do it.  

After a two-year hiatus from the popular program, the 2nd Monday Author Series is back. Join us Monday, April 11, 2022, at 7pm in room 300A at the Ross Pendergraft Library & Technology Center. We are happy to have Eli Cranor, a Russellville native, and resident, as our guest speaker. He will be discussing his new book, Don’t Know Tough, his first novel.  The book was chosen out of over 200 nationwide submissions as the winner of the Peter Lovesey First Crime Novel Contest.  There will be signed copies of the book available for purchase that evening. 

“Friday Night Lights gone dark with Southern Gothic; Eli Cranor delivers a powerful noir that will appeal to fans of Wiley Cash and Megan Abbott.” from Penguin Random House.

The book is about Trent Powers who relocates his family from Anaheim to Arkansas to coach the Denton Pirates. The Pirates are a high school football team powered by a volatile but talented running back named Billy Lowe. Billy comes from an extremely troubled home: a trailer park where he is terrorized by his unstable mother’s abusive boyfriend. Billy takes out his anger on the field, and it’s not long before he crosses a line. Instead of punishing him, though, Trent takes Billy into his home, hoping to protect his star player as the Pirates begin their playoff run. But when Billy’s stepfather is found murdered, nothing can stop an explosive chain of violence that could tear the town apart– from the publisher, Soho Crime. 

Photo credit – Andrew Kilgore

About the Author: “Eli Cranor played quarterback at every level: peewee to professional, and then coached high school football for five years. These days, he’s traded in the pigskin for a laptop, writing from Arkansas where he lives with his wife and kids. ” http://elicranor.com

For more information about this event or the Second Monday Author series, contact Luke Heffley at (479) 964-0546 or follow us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram to stay in the loop on all Library events.

This event will be streamed live.  Use this link to join us. https://atu.webex.com/atu/j.php?MTID=mded64510dd7cea6fe7513b8a2f9ca5f5

Tonight kicks off the 7th International Film Festival presented by the Ross Pendergraft Library and the English and World Languages Department. The film is Undine (2020), a German film with English subtitles, about a historian lecturing on the urban development of Berlin who is faced with an unpleasant situation with the one she loves (IMDB).  The film will be shown at the Doc Bryan Auditorium at 7:00 pm.

The purpose of the festival is to offer a glimpse into other cultures and ways of life, to foster an open-minded global cultural identity, to enjoy talented actors and directors from around the world, and to extend sociology, anthropology, and language courses.  The festival was created by  Dr. Lowell Lybager and Philippe VanHoutte librarians at the Ross Pendergraft Library.  Since then it has been supported by members of the English and World Languages Department and organized this year with the help of Dr. Nelson Ramirez.  Title selections were made by the faculty of World Languages. 

The festival includes 8 films, 7 languages, and 3 weeks of viewing pleasure.  A sample of upcoming screenings include the 1954 Japanese language version of Godzilla and the wildly popular Spirited Away (2001). Other languages featured are French and Spanish. For a full schedule and information about all the films go to http://filmfest.atu.edu

This event is part of Tech’s On Track program as part of the Global Focus track.  All films are free and open to the public and will be shown at the Doc Bryan Auditorium.  

The Ross Pendergraft Library and the Social Movements class are working together to bring a Human Library to Tech. This is happening at the library in room 300B on Thursday, November 4, 2021. This will be the fifth Human Library to take place here since 2015.  Our inaugural event included one of the first Black students at Arkansas Tech, Barbara Lackey. Zach Stone who titled his book Zach the Deaf Trans and Bshaer Ahalrazi, an international student who lives with physical challenges, were also “books” at the first human library at Tech. 

You may be wondering what a Human Library is. It is an event where the “books” are people. People who have defied stereotyping. People that you may not get to meet and talk to every day.  The “readers” are the people like you who attend the event and “check out” a book. The book then talks about their unique experiences in life as part of a subculture or marginalized community.  There is time at the end of the session for the reader to ask questions.  The purpose of holding this event is to promote inclusion by getting people, that may not ordinarily sit down together, to talk in a safe environment.  The Human Library provides a place for open conversations about sometimes difficult subjects. 

The very first Human Library or “Menneskebiblioteket” as it is called in Danish, was held at a festival in Copenhagen, Denmark. After the success of the first event one of the founders, Ronni Abergel, realized the potential of such a feat and subsequently formed the Human Library Organization (HLO).  The non-profit organization lends its name and provides guidance to other groups interested in hosting a program. Over the last 19 years, Human Libraries have taken place in 85 countries and 6 continents.  We are honored to be part of such a positive experience. 

Stop by and check out a book.  This event is FREE and open to the public. 

Echoes of the River Valley is a series of events that celebrate, explore, and preserve traditional folk arts of the Arkansas River Valley. From music to social dancing to hand quilting. Come and experience these activities as they have been done for centuries.  All these programs are FREE and open to the public as well as to all skill levels.  We will kick off this year’s events with a quilt workshop. Sindy Devereux, a fourth-generation Arkansas quilter, will demonstrate and teach the technique of attaching a shape of fabric to a quilt top. This method is called needleturn applique. Kits will be distributed so registration is required. 

Music will start the following week. Third Thursdays will be the day for old-timey jams. Come along with your acoustic instrument and take a turn going around the circle to pick the tune for all to play.  Followed by third Fridays with contra dance.  This is a kind of social dance done to live music with a caller who teaches each dance before done.

The last Saturday of the month will bring us a Spin-in with the Ozarks Fiber Group. This is an event where people using various techniques get together to spin yarns and in some cases share the final product.  Some of these talented people are also weavers, knitters, and crocheters while some raise their own livestock for raw materials. Come for the live demonstrations and see the different stages of the process. This is a fun and interesting event to attend. 

September Calendar:

Saturday Sept. 11, 9am – noon – Needleturn Applique

Thursday Sept.16, 4pm – 6pm – Old-timey Jam

Friday Sept. 17, 7pm – 9pm – Contra Dance

Saturday Sept. 25, 9am – 4pm – Spin-in

For more information go to http://libguides.atu.edu/echoes or contact Sherry Tinerella (479) 964-0571 stinerella@atu.edu