Literary Lights

Today marks the birthday of several literary lights including a man born into slavery and one of Marilyn Monroe's husbands.

Jupiter Hammon was born into slavery in New York state Oct. 17, 1711. He obtained an education and became a writer of poetry and sermons, although he remained enslaved. His poem An Evening Thought: Salvation by Christ with Penitential Ties is the first published poem by an African American, although it isn't the first one written.

The 88-line An Evening Thought was printed in a broadside newspaper in December of 1760. There isn't much written on the man himself, but his work can be found at the Poetry Foundation's website. Hammond died around 1806.

Playwright Arthur Miller's birthday was also October 17. He was born in 1915 in New York and began writing plays as a young man.

Miller was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Death of a Salesman and also a Tony Award for The Crucible. Miller was married to Marilyn Monroe and also penned a play based on that period of his life. Miller died in 2005.

Maya Angelou remembered

Photo from the Poetry Foundation website.

Prolific writer and poet Maya Angelou died early today at the age of 86.

She may best be known for I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, an autobiographical book whose title was taken from Paul Laurence Dunbar's poetry. She was also known as a civil-rights worker, dancer, actor, producer, and professor.

Angelou's full obituary can be found at The New York Times. The Poetry Foundation website has an extensive biography and bibliography.

Is there an article about Angelou that you would like to access but aren't sure how? Please email us at richlandlibrary@dcccd.edu.

Those wishing to read Maya Angelou's poetry or autobiographies have several choices from the Richland College Library.
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Current DCCCD faculty, adjunct faculty, staff, and administrators are able to check out books.

Everyone must show a valid photo I.D. to check out books. Questions? Please ask at the circulation desk.

Question of the week: Who’s Aurora Leigh and where is she?

Richland holdings of Aurora Leigh

How many times have you found yourself digging around looking for a copy of  Aurora Leigh by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, but you just couldn’t seem to find one? 

You’ve looked in the library catalog, but the Richland Library copies are checked out. Other district libraries have copies, but you don't have time to pick one up or to wait for a copy to come to Richland.

You could surf over to Amazon.com and purchase it for your Kindle, or you could search another library for a copy. You could go online to the Gutenberg Project to see if there is a copy there. You can Google it and find the University of Pennsylvania's digital library holding.

But...You will also need some literary criticism and maybe some biographical information about Elizabeth Barrett Browning, so just finding the digital version may not be enough. What if you easily could find a website that compiles multiple facets of literature and literary research?

Literature Online is one database that fits the bill. It is a web resource that contains full-text prose, full-text poetry, literary biographies, and literary criticism.

To get to Literature Online, follow this path: 

1. Go to the Richland library webpage at http://www.richlandcollege.edu/library.

2. Look for the green tabs in the middle of the home page and click on “Databases.

3. Click on the “L” on the A-Z list.

4. Scroll down and click on the “Literature Online” link.

5. Use the “Quick Search” box at the top left to find your work or author.

If you search Aurora Leigh, the database will give you results under the “Poetry,” “Criticism,” and “Reference” headings. For the poem, choose the first result under “Poetry.”

When you click on it, the title information looks like this:

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 1806-1861:  [from Poetical works (1897)]
Volume section
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 1806-1861 :
AURORA LEIGH.
A POEM IN NINE BOOKS. 1856. [from Poetical works (1897)]

Here, you can scroll through and start reading, click on the “Table of Contents” link to find the section you want, or you can print the 256 pages that comprise this selection. You may also click on the author page to find biographical information, bibliographies, and literary criticism.

Now, not only have you found Aurora Leigh, but you have also found a place where you can read all about her and her creator, Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 
 
Keep searching,
R.D. 

Here’s the durable link to  Aurora Leigh in Literature Online. Students, instructors, and staff with current DCCCD I.D. can log on with their I.D. information.

This is the first of several entries about finding literary works and related information and criticism.

Sensible or censorship?

Once in elementary school, I checked out a book of cartoons that was in the children's section of the public library. Turns out most of the cartoons had sexual content, and the book belonged in the adult section. My brother and I were thrilled to have such racy material in hand. My dad was livid. When he talked to the librarian, she moved the material to a different part of the library, which was absolutely a common-sense move. My brother and I were livid.

Later, I had a tee shirt that read, "Celebrate Banned Books." It listed books that had been outright banned or challenged, and some of my favorite books were listed. Fahrenheit 451 was among them, and I'm pretty certain that was what prompted me to make that purchase. I had also recently arrived in the big city of Denton, Texas, and I felt like a socially-conscious rebel every time I wore it.

Banned Books Week this year starts Saturday, Sept. 24. I know that not everyone agrees with ALA's stance on challenged books no matter the setting, so perhaps a change in thinking is in order.

I agree that lots of challenged books may not belong on the children's shelves and that challenged-book lists are rife with items that may be inappropriately shelved or just don't belong in a particular community. However, many challenges seem to have stemmed from people who act as thought police or political correctness enforcers, and those are the challenges that are most problematic here in the States.

Books including Huckleberry Finn and To Kill a Mockingbird are classics because they address the human condition, yet people continue to challenge them based on a historically-correct portrayal of people using racial slurs. Is it uncomfortable that there were slaves in the U.S.? Is it uncomfortable that people used and continue to use racial slurs in everyday conversation? Yes it is, but these books are a window into other times and places where both were common. The books are not gross in their portrayals and deal quite humanly with their characters. Would you have them taken out of libraries without some sort of sensible discussion?

Whether people believe the ALA’s Banned Book Week is propaganda or not, it certainly gets people talking. In the least, we can use this week to recognize that we are extremely lucky to live in a place where freedom of thought and the freedom to explore ideas is an underpinning of our national philosophy. Perhaps we don’t need to publicize every hamlet where a book challenge is taking place; perhaps we can use a little common sense when trying to determine what is too sexually explicit or violent for our children. But let’s continue to put forth the idea that a democratic nation requires free speech and a well-read citizenry.

Twenty years have passed since that tee shirt purchase, but I would still wear it.

Happy reading,
R.D. 

Read freely : Online literature

“The pages of a book shield us from the distractions that bombard us during most of our waking hours.”

This quote from author Nicholas Carr in The New York Times blog post “Do School Libraries Need Books?” eloquently pinpoints my feelings about reading from the page rather than the screen.
 
Carr (author of The Big Switch) and others thoughtfully discuss the print versus digital argument and how libraries should approach it. While we are seeing many articles, blog posts, and books declaring digitization is becoming the norm, not everyone is ready for this switch. I personally prefer a bound book for leisure, scholarly, or business reading. I simply find that sitting quietly with no distractions on the page - as opposed to a screen - helps me to focus and absorb the material.
 
However, I realize there are several instances when a digital book is needed. For example, a software support engineer needs a quick answer about solving a customer’s issue over the phone. Perhaps the engineer can turn to Safari Books Online. A second example is that of the student wanting to get ahead on literature homework when she doesn’t have a hard copy of the reading material. This student could turn to http://www.gutenberg.org/ for out-of-copyright fiction, non-fiction, and the classics.
 
Here in the Richland Library, we have several databases that offer full-text material ranging from historical documents to American and British literature. One of these databases is Literature Online from ProQuest databases.

Today, we had a student looking for a copy of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. It was available in hard copy, but this may not always be the case; however, Literature Online offers more than one digitized version of the 14th- to 15th-century poem. Material from this database is available to DCCCD students, faculty, and staff with current I.D. numbers. Works, which also include critical essays and encyclopedia entries, may be printed or downloaded for personal use. Visit http://www.richlandcollege.edu/library, click on the “Databases” tab, click “L,” and scroll down for Literature Online. (Log onto library databases remotely with your name and I.D.)

Of course, you may always drop by the reference desk, submit a question online, or telephone (972.238.6082) if you have questions.
 
Now I'm off to immerse myself in a hard-copy book about the digitization of the world.
 
Happy reading, 
R.D.

Photo from

http://www.flickr.com/photos/25559122@N06/ / CC BY 2.0