The Kalamazoo College Library has been selected to join to OCLC’s Express Interlibrary Loan program! Due to our ILL staff’s exceptional work, we meet Express standards for consistently and quickly delivering articles and other digital resources. This puts us in the top 10% for OCLC Interlibrary Loan! What does this mean for you? Kalamazoo College users will benefit from the speedy delivery of other libraries reciprocating this same high level of service.
Who can take advantage of ILL services?
All Kalamazoo College students, staff, and faculty have access to millions (that’s right, millions) of articles and will receive the fastest interlibrary loan service available. For more information about ILL at the Library, visit the Interlibrary Loan page or contact ill@kzoo.edu for assistance.
How???
To place a request, sign into your ILL account or click the “Request via Interlibrary Loan” icons when using resources like Library OneSearch or our Databases.
Mark Nepo – spiritual writer, poet, philosopher. Author of The Book of Awakening.
Presenting author and poet Mark Nepo!
The Kalamazoo College Library is excited to present author and poet Mark Nepo for the first publication reading for his book, The Half-Life of Angels. A discussion and Q/A with a book signing will follow.
Seating is first come first served (no reservations required).
Free visitor parking is available in the Hicks Center parking lot (blue on the campus map). Free street parking is available on a first-come first-served basis on Academy and neighborhood streets. Please observe posted limitations on these city streets. More information about parking and printable campus maps
About The Half-Life of Angels
After fifty years of exploring, retrieving, and writing, poet and philosopher Mark Nepo is arranging his life’s poetry, more than 1400 poems, into several volumes to be published in limited editions. The Half-Life of Angels is the first volume in this series, containing three books of poems, written in his fifties and sixties.
The first book, A Thousand Dawns, explores the difference between hardening, which will help us get through life, and softening, which will let us experience life. The second book, The Gods Visit, explores one of the anchoring purposes of poetry, which is to help us settle more deeply into what is. This anchoring into the life of being gives us the strength to go on. And the third book, The Tone in the Center of the Bell, explores how we are shaped by the Oneness of Life. For once we open our heart, the thousand feelings come at us non-stop, the endless waves of a Mysterious Unity. How they wash over us and through us transforms us as we are worn into exquisite shapes by the friction of the world, grounded by our suffering and lifted by love and wonder. Let these poems be companions on your path to know yourself and the inner and outer nature of life more intimately.
For this publication event, Mark will offer a 35 minute reading from the new book, followed by a 35 minute question and response time, a second 35 minute reading, and a book signing to follow.
Please join us.
“To make our way through adversity requires an inner exploration we each must map for ourselves, though there are common passages along the way. Though our particular paths will vary, the ways we endure the storms we are given are timeless and the same. Once the rubble clears, we, like those before us, are inevitably called to build the world one more time, admitting that we need each other.” —Mark Nepo
Mark Nepo is a Great Soul. His resonant heart—his frank and astonishing voice—befriend us mightily on this mysterious trail. —Naomi Shihab Nye, author of You and Yours, 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East, and Red Suitcase
Mark Nepo is one of the finest spiritual guides of our time. —Parker J. Palmer, author of A Hidden Wholeness and The Courage to Teach
Mark Nepo joins a long tradition of truth-seeking, wild-hearted poets—Rumi, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Mary Oliver—and deserves a place in the center of the circle with them. —Elizabeth Lesser, Cofounder, Omega Institute, author of Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow
Nepo is a consummate storyteller with a rare gift for making the invisible visible.—Publishers Weekly
The A.M. Todd Rare Book Room at the Kalamazoo College Library is hosting Judging a Book By Its Cover, an exhibit featuring decorative bindings in the A.M Todd Rare Book Room.
Come check it out in ULC Room 326!
Dates: January 10 – March 17, 2023
Days/Times: Tuesdays: 10 a.m. – 12 p.m., Fridays: 1 p.m. – 4p.m., other times by appointment
The rare book collection contributes to the educational program of the college by introducing students to unique primary source materials in the context of their academic course work and through regularly scheduled public exhibitions.
The Library of Michigan has announced the selections for the 2023 Michigan Notable Books list. Every year, the Library of Michigan selects up to twenty of the most notable books, either written by a Michigan resident or about Michigan or the Great Lakes. The selected books are honored in the year after their publication or copyright date. Each selected title speaks to our state’s rich cultural, historical, and literary heritage and proves without a doubt that some of the greatest stories are found in the Great Lakes State. You can check out these picks through MeLCat!
As Long as I Know You: The Mom Book by Anne-Marie Oomen – University of Georgia Press
Blood and Fire: The Unbelievable Real-Life Story of Wrestling’s Original Sheik by Brian R. Solomon – ECW Press
Chevy in the Hole: A Novel by Kelsey Ronan – Henry Holt and Co.
Dilla Time: The Life and Afterlife of J Dilla, the Hip-Hop Producer Who Reinvented Rhythm by Dan Charnas – MCD Books
Ferne: a Detroit Storyby Barbara Henning – Spuyten Duyvil
Guardians of Michigan: Architectural Sculpture of the Pleasant Peninsulas by Jeff Morrison – University of Michigan Press
Hadha Baladuna: Arab American Narratives of Boundary and Belonging edited by Ghassan Zeineddine, Nabeel Abraham, and Sally Howell – Wayne State University Press
I’ll Be There: My Life with the Four Tops by Duke Fakir with Kathleen McGhee-Anderson – Omnibus Press
It’s Hard Being You: A Primer on Being Happy Anyway by Sharon Emery – Mission Point Press
Love Radio by Ebony LaDelle – Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Magic Season: A Son’s Story by Wade Rouse – Hanover Square Press
The Peacekeeper: A Novel by B.L. Blanchard – 47North
Satisfaction Guaranteed: How Zingerman’s Built a Corner Deli into a Global Food Community by Micheline Maynard – Scribner
Scarlet in Blue: A Novel by Jennifer Murphy – Dutton
Shapes, Lines, and Light: My Grandfather’s American Journey by Katie Yamasaki – Norton Young Readers
The Star That Always Stays by Anna Rose Johnson – Holiday House
The Turtle of Michigan: A Novel by Naomi Shihab Nye – Greenwillow Books
Uphill: A Memoir by Jemele Hill – Henry Holt and Co.
We Kept Our Towns Going: The Gossard Girls of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula by Phyllis Michael Wong – Michigan State University Press
What the Fireflies Knew: A Novel by Kai Harris – Tiny Reparations Books
Librarians at Kalamazoo College have put together a centralized resource for information about historical and current discrimination of African Americans in the United States, Michigan, and Kalamazoo College.
This guide contains historical contexts, current events, and anti-racist resources, including support resources for people of color and resources for allies.
We also recommend Kalamazoo College’s Praxis Center website for additional resources, local learning and growth opportunities, and community connection. The Arcus Center for Justice Leadership hosts this overall excellent and thoughtfully curated website with content from faculty and students engaged deeply in social justice work.
This collection is like a virtual New Books shelf. It includes new books, audio, and video materials acquired by the Library and is updated regularly. Unlike a physical shelf, this collection can include electronic materials. Check out what the Library has to offer!
Did you know that the Library has many textbooks available on Reserve? We may have the book you need for your class — check our catalog and find out!
Reserve materials circulate for two hours at a time – just enough for you to get your reading done and share with others. Questions? Let us know how we can help! Email us at library@kzoo.edu.
