A study in contrasts

Over break, Library Director Juana Careaga says she plans to finish reading "The New Year's Quilt," a part of the Elm Creek Quilts series, and start Jim Cramer's "Stay Mad For Life: Get Rich, Stay Rich (Make Your Kids Even Richer)."

More Spring Break reading

Diva/Workstudy extraordinaire Vogue contributes some planned reading: "City of Dreadful Delight" by Judith Walkowitz and "Transgender Warriors" (which has a terrific subtitle: "Making History from Joan of Arc to Dennis Rodman"). Can't wait to hear the report back on those books.
Meanwhile, over at IT, Technology Support Services Director Bryan Gilchrist reports that spring break is the only time he gets to read for fun. His idea of fun? “The War at the End of the World” by Mario Vargas Llosa, “Southern Comforts – Rooted in a Florida Place” by recent FKCC guest Sudye Cauthen and
“Bruce Chatwin” by Nicholas Shakespeare. Keep 'em coming, gang!

Spring Break reading

For some people, Spring Break means getting serious beach time and/or serious bar time. For some of us, it means serious reading time. So we're polling FKCC people to ask what they plan to read over Spring Break. Personally, my list includes the new Library of America volume collecting the poetry, fiction, translations and letters of Elizabeth Bishop, "The Right Hand of Sleep," a historical novel by John Wray and -- in preparation for Library Week which is coming right up in April -- a book from our collection called "Library: An Unquiet History."
The first person to respond to my highly unscientific email survey this morning was former librarian/current distance learning maven Gavin McKeirnan who has more ambitious plans: "Other than catching up on my epicurean magazines, National Geos and Self (yes, I have to fit a little attempt at health in there somewhere) I’ll be reading Tolle’s "A New Earth" and books in my Pema Chodron for some Zen while gazing at the volcano in Costa Rica next week. It’s that time of the year for renewal and refreshing! I’ll also be reading my textbooks for my Educator’s Prep Institute classes that begin when we return from break. Beyond that I won’t have time for much else but really need to get back into some serious fun reading soon!"
Stay tuned here for future posts on what FKCC people plan to read over break.

Chess game

Ever wondered about that cool chess game in the reading area of the library? It actually does get played sometimes -- especially now that a missing pawn has been replaced, courtesy of FKCC student and library volunteer Abalyn, shown here trouncing library specialist Nancy Klingener in a quick game.

Gatherings

Most people think of libraries as a place to get books, periodicals and, these days, use computers -- but the FKCC Library is also host to a wide variety of college events. Yesterday there were two -- a meeting of the Student Government Association about leadership and a talk from distinguished Florida writer Sudye Cauthen, author of "Southern Comforts: Rooted in a Florida Place." What's coming up? Watch this blog, look in the library window or ask a library staffer, like Kevin McGarry or Director Juana Careaga, pictured here. We're happy to help!

March birthdays

It's the start of a new month, so we're changing the display in the corner of the library, in the lounge area where you first walk in. March is a little harder to come up with material for than February (Black History Month and Valentine's Day), so I got to thinking about writers with March birthdays. There's got to be a website, I thought, and no doubt there is, but I didn't find it in my initial stumblings in Google. So I decided to take a radical step and look in ... a book! An actual reference book, right on our shelves. The World Almanac and Book of Facts, right near the start of our reference collection (REF AY 67.N5 W7 in Library of Congress-speak) and wouldn't you know they have a listing of modern writers and their birthdays. So I wrote down all the ones for March -- and even better, the vast majority are represented on our shelves! The list is posted now in the monthly display area -- but for those of you following along at home, here it is: *Edward Albee, *Russell Banks, *Billy Collins, *Dave Eggers, James Ellroy, *Gabriel Garcia Marquez, *Alice Hoffman, *John Irving, Horton Foote, *John McPhee, *James Patterson, *Marge Piercy, *David Rabe, *Philip Roth, *John Updike, *Mario Vargas Llosa, *Tom Wolfe.
(* means they have at least one book in our collection)