AntiRacism Reading Knook March 2023 Discussion

AntiRacism Reading Knook

ARRK March 2023 Discussion

Join us on Tuesday, March 21st in the ARRK Meeting Space at 11:30 a.m ET to discuss Chapter Five: There is No Innocence of Reckoning: Kalamazoo College Uncovers Its Racial and Colonial Past (37 pages total) by Anne Dueweke. If you are unable to attend the discussion, please feel free to post your thoughts on the chapter in the ARRK Meeting Space. Also refer to the list below for some helpful discussion/reading questions supplied by Anne Dueweke.

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.

ARRK aims to:

  1. reduce barrier to entry into reading antiracism books,
  2. identify and highlight campus facilitators with experience teaching and/or disciplinary expertise who can provide context and guide discussions of specific texts,
  3. foster broader relationships among faculty and staff, and thus
  4. build greater capacity for an inclusive campus through sustained and focused engagement with shared texts.
  5. help catalyze members of the campus to engage in small group discussions of entire books in the collection (self-organized book clubs, if you will).

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.

Therapy Dogs in the Library 10th Week!

Photo of dog and students

Relax and relieve some stress by spending a few minutes petting a furry animal friend! Therapy dogs will visit campus in the Kalamazoo College Library lobby on Thursday, March 9 from 3 p.m. – 4:30 p.m. De-stress a bit with a canine companion before finals week kicks in.

Date: Thursday, March 9, 2022
Time: 3 p.m. – 4:30 p.m.

Location: Upjohn Library Commons Lobby

Free eBooks on the Internet Archive

Internet Archive logo

The Internet Archive makes many titles available as eBooks for free through the Open Library!

All you need to do to access a digital copy is create an Internet Archive account with any email address and password. This will give you access to digital titles for two weeks.

You can borrow ten books at a time from Open Library. Loans are for one hour for browsing and/or 14 days if the book is fully borrowable. When loans expire the books will be disabled on your device. Any book that you can borrow from Open Library is also available in audio form. Click the “listen” button next to the “borrow” button. Learn moe at the Open Library FAQ.

AntiRacism Reading Knook Feb 2023 Discussion

AntiRacism Reading Knook

ARRK February 2023 Discussion

Join us on Tuesday,Join us on Tuesday, February 21st at 4:15 p.m. in the ARRK Meeting Space to discuss Chapter Four: Behind the Mask (24 pages total), of Reckoning : Kalamazoo College Uncovers Its Racial and Colonial Past by Anne Dueweke. If you are unable to attend the discussion, please feel free to post your thoughts on the chapter in the ARRK Meeting Space.

For further details on the AntiRacism Reading Knook, see the ARRK (AntiRacism Reading Knook) page 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.

ARRK aims to:

  1. reduce barrier to entry into reading antiracism books,
  2. identify and highlight campus facilitators with experience teaching and/or disciplinary expertise who can provide context and guide discussions of specific texts,
  3. foster broader relationships among faculty and staff, and thus
  4. build greater capacity for an inclusive campus through sustained and focused engagement with shared texts.
  5. help catalyze members of the campus to engage in small group discussions of entire books in the collection (self-organized book clubs, if you will).

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.

Get to Know MeLCat!

Michigan E Library Logo

Do you know about MeLCat?

MeLCat is a system that allows you to request books from other Michigan libraries. When you request a book through MeLCat, it arrives for you at the Kalamazoo College Library, and you get an email that it’s here. Then just come to the Library circulation desk to pick it up. It’s that easy!

To use MeLCat, just search the MeLCat catalog for your book. When you find what you want, click “Get this from MeLCat,” choose Kalamazoo College Library from the drop down list, enter your name and barcode number (the 14 digit number on your ID that starts with 25017…), and that’s it! You will receive an email when it arrives.

You can check out a MeLCat book for three weeks, and renew through MeLCat for another three. The system includes academic and public libraries, so it’s great for fun reading as well!

Interlibrary Loan Express Service

OCLC Express Library Badge
OCLC Express Digital Lending

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 Author Reading and Q/A

Mark Nepo
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.

Event Details

When: Thursday, April 13, 2023 from 7:00pm – 9:00pm
Where: Hicks Student Center Banquet Room
(#12 on the Campus Map)

This event is free and open to the public!

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