K College students, faculty, and staff looking to engage with antiracist ideas and practices can find resources at the Library!
Kalamazoo College Inclusive Excellence (KCIE) has purchased and recommends the Reading for Change book collection. These materials are featured on the Reading for Change Guide. All are available through the Kalamazoo College Library!
These materials were purchased through the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Inclusive Excellence Grant.
The Library of Congress recently made personal papers of Rosa Parks available online, for free.
The collection contains approximately 7,500 manuscripts and 2,500 photographs. It documents many aspects of Parks’s private life and public activism on behalf of civil rights for African Americans. The collection includes the years 1866-2006.
Many of Parks’s writings describe the events surrounding her arrest in 1955 after she refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white passenger, as well as the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Her papers also include writings on Parks’s work in Congressman John Conyers’s Detroit office; her participation in major civil rights events such as the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom in 1957, March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963, Mississippi Freedom Project in 1964, and the Poor People’s Campaign in 1968; and Parks’s Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal.
The collection also documents Parks’s affiliation with organizations such as the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development; Hampton Institute; Highlander Folk School; Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change; National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; Southern Christian Leadership Conference; and Saint Matthew African Methodist Episcopal Church, Detroit, Michigan.
AntiRacism Reading Knook
Please join Alison Geist and Regina Stevens-Truss on Tuesday, February 15th from 4:10 – 5 p.m in the ARRK Teams Meeting Space. The discussion will be about structural and systemic racism as social determinants of health and disease.
For further details on the AntiRacism Reading Knook, see the ARRK (AntiRacism Reading Knook) on the Inclusive Excellence website.
The AntiRacism Reading Knook (ARRK) is a collaboration between the K College library staff and our Inclusive Excellence (KCIE) leadership team. This initiative is NOT a book club, but seeks to facilitate campus-wide engagement with the books in the KCIE Reading for Change book collection. This collection was created to encourage learning about and facilitate greater access to antiracism information to all members of the campus community.
For further information on #ARRK see the KCIE AntiRacism Reading Knook page. To volunteer to lead one of these sessions complete the ARRK Discussion Leader application.
Kalamazoo Public Library’s 2022 Reading Together title is The Best We Could Do: An Illustrated Memoir by Thi Bui.
Several events are scheduled, starting Saturday, February 12, on KPL Live and on Zoom. The author will speak at 7 pm on Tuesday, March 22, 2022 on KPL Live. This event is free and open to the public.
This beautifully illustrated and emotional story is an evocative memoir about the search for a better future and a longing for the past. Bui documents the story of her family’s daring escape after the fall of South Vietnam in the 1970s, and the difficulties they faced building new lives for themselves.
You can get The Best We Could Do on our shelves, or through the Kalamazoo Public Library or MeLCat if the K College Library copy is checked out.
About Reading Together
The purpose of Reading Together is to build a stronger community with deeper connections through the common experience of reading the same book and exploring its themes together. When we do that, we engage and learn, not only about ourselves, but more importantly about each other and the world around us.
By experiencing the same book, hearing the author of that work speak right here in Kalamazoo, and examining the book’s themes through a local lens, we are able to embrace our similarities and differences from a common point of reference.
Very simply, when we read together, we grow together.
Librarians at Kalamazoo College have put together a book display to celebrate Black History Month! Check it out in person in the library lobby, or browse the virtual version below:
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.
Kalamazoo College is participating in the MISO Survey this year. This survey asks randomly selected students, faculty, and staff about what library and technology services and resources are important to you, how successfully do we deliver these services, and how effectively do we communicate about service delivery.
The survey opens on Thursday, January 27. If you receive a link to the survey, please participate so we can serve you better!
Come check out our Soundproof Booth! Located on the second floor of the Library near the atrium windows, the booth is a sound-isolating room for one. It includes a seat and a moveable desk, so you can sit or stand with your phone, tablet, or laptop. The booth will be helpful for when someone needs a quiet place for telehealth or counseling appointments, interviews and calls, and other private conversations.
The booth has an electrical outlet, a USB C outlet, a small fan to vent the air, and is sealed across the top and at the door. Though not completely soundproof at high decibel levels, the booth does allow for privacy by muffling conversation.
Important: Library rules must be followed in the booth!
If someone pops in to use the vbooth without a booking, they will beed to vacate it for someone who has booked it.
We hope you like this exciting addition to our space!
We are open our regular hours on Monday, January 17: 8am – 10pm.
In celebration of the day, check out these titles recommended by Kalamazoo College Inclusive Excellence (KCIE) to engage with antiracist ideas and practices:
Check out the New Books display on the library’s first floor in the lobby! Highlights include:
You can also keep up with our new books any time by checking out our new items collection through our catalog. If you need help finding a book or other materials, contact us at reference@kzoo.edu. We love to hear from you!
Over the winter break the library dusted off and brought up historical runs of 71 popular periodicals from the basement. For example, you can now find Time Magazine in the compact shelving on the 2nd floor going back to 1930. While we have database access to many of these titles (and the databases are more complete), browsing through these titles in physical format is a much different experience. You can see articles in context, encounter advertisements, and get a much greater feel for these rich historical and cultural artifacts.
We’ve added colorful signs to our shelves in order to highlight where you can find these titles. We’ve also added a description of the publication, and where relevant, a link to the online version of the publication.
We’re hosting two Open Houses to highlight these titles. Please come if you are able!
In addition, we will be adding these titles to our Research Guides. Please contact reference@kzoo.edu if you have any questions!
