The first blog of Summer! A reminder of those glorious days spent at Aunt Gertrude’s tea party instead of down at the beach wishing you hadn’t forgotten the SPF-30. People have always thought it would be useful to be in two places at once, and the same goes for information.

Unfortunately, you can’t do this unless you have a clone, and with your luck, it’s the clone that will always get the beach assignment. Same for information. Unless there are multiple copies of a book, it can be found in only one place. There may be different ways to access it such as the stairs or the elevator, but it’s always in once place.

Now, librarians do try to help by classifying like materials together, so often related material can be found by browsing around the area. But what happens when a book can logically be put into two or more different subject areas?

There was an example in my last blog with The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James, a classic work dealing with the psychology of religion. Should it be classified with the books on psychology, or with religion? Both are important areas of study, and would be delighted to have such a high-class work gracing their shelves.

In such cases, librarians often employ a strategy called Phase Relations. (Don’t worry about the jargon, just the principle.) When a book covers two major concepts, determine if one is influencing the other. If so, classify under the subject being influenced rather than the one doing the influencing. Thus, The Varieties of Religious Experience studies the effect of psychology on religion, so it goes in the religion section.

Need a more down-to-earth example? OK. Remember the kerfuffle last year when Kim Kardashian posted a photo which attracted so much attention that it “Broke the Internet”? If we ever receive a book about the incident – and it wouldn’t surprise me in the least — we will probably use the phase relations principle to classify it. Is it about how a single post was able to disrupt the entire Internet? Then it will go in the technology section. Or, is it a book about the role played by the Internet in Kim Kardashian’s career? In that case, it will go to the area for entertainment celebrities.

There are other principles of classification. For instance, a book like Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My! will probably wind up in a general number for animals. But, really, the classification is not as important as the relation between various subject areas studies in the book. An important step in research is finding information about these subjects, wherever the book might be shelved.

Browsing on the shelf is nice, but limited. The advantage of using the catalog is being able to use the subject heading links found in catalog records to locate other related material throughout the library’s collections.

Using subject headings in the catalog is the next best thing to a book being in two places at the same time. There may be only one copy, but there are many different ways to get there from here.

David Moody, Associate Librarian

Recently, Sue Homant, Head of Reference Services at the library, discussed her trip to Normandy, France with Cameron Pierson, library intern. Her experiences (and pictures) had them thinking about D-Day and the part librarians played in World War II. So, they dug a little deeper. 

American Cemetery, Normandy, France

    72 years ago, on 6 June 1944, the Allied Forces landed on Normandy in an event that would become known as D-Day. This was a major turning point in the war, contributing to the eventual defeat of the Axis Powers. Now, in 2016, most of us know of these events, either from our grandparents, school, or the History Channel. Yet, what is lesser known are the efforts undertaken by the American Library Association to insure that our men in uniform, no matter where they were in the world, would still have access to reading material.

    The Victory Book Campaign (V.B.C.) was a program that worked to maintain and enhance library services to those in the Army, Navy, and the Marines. Such services were spurred by the previous World War and laid the groundwork for continued library support, even to this day. Initiated by the leaders of the American Library Association, the campaign itself is said to have had mixed results as it worked within a war-time backdrop. Nonetheless, the program was able to collect in excess of a million books which were used by soldiers for continued education, technical support, and even leisure – something fundamental to morale.

German bunker, Normandy, France

     The program coordinated with many organizations (both public and private) to obtain donations from the American people. The books collected and later deemed suitable were an effort to support the mental and emotional wellbeing of the soldiers during such a horrific war. This type of undertaking is astounding even by today’s standards. It serves to remind us of the democratic function of libraries. In appreciating this lesser known piece of history, one cannot think about libraries without also thinking about those democratic values so central to free societies.

Remnents of Allies Mulberry, a floating harbor on Omaha Beach, Normandy, France

Connor, J. (1942). On to victory with the Victory Book Campaign. ALA Bulletin, 36(9), 552-554. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.proxy.lib.wayne.edu/stable/25691447

Passet, J. E. (2007). [Review of the book Books and Libraries in American Society during World War II: Weapons in the War of Ideas, by Patti Clayton Becker]. New York: Routledge. Retrieved from https://muse.jhu.edu/article/214299

Weeks, L. (2015, July 4). When America’s librarians went to war. NPR. Retrieved from
http://www.npr.org/sections/npr-history-dept/2015/07/04/418840245/when-americas-librarians-went-to-war

Written by Cameron Pierson, Wayne State University LIS practicum student.  Photos by Sue Homant.

At times events unfold that reveal the true nature of violence. Whether it be sanctioned and justified, or punished and condemned, few would argue that the aftermath is complex and full of emotion.

There is room for understanding realities vastly unfamiliar to our own, but it means that we will be uncomfortable. It means being forced out of our comfort zone and into the realms of the unfamiliar where it may seem as if there is little to go on, little to fall back on, little to hold on to to keep our bearings. It’s in this place of unfamiliarity, discomfort, and awkwardness that we must rely on and trust in the words, instincts, feelings, and intuitions of those that we may have felt, or assumed were “others”. We must trust in their experienced realities. We need to hear their hearts fully and empathize with them.

This is the context in which the documentary film P.S. I Can’t Breathe was created and the context in which it should be watched. Rather than seeing the death of Eric Garner as an isolated incident it should be viewed within the framework of longstanding tensions with the New York Police Department due to allegations of misconduct and brutality towards African-American communities. It’s an incident that highlights the stark divide between those who are oppressed by the various sociopolitical rules, regulations, and institutions that uphold white supremacy and those who benefit directly from the status quo.

Take a few moments this month to relax with some of your favorite poems, or to discover some new ones.  Stop by the UDM McNichols campus library to pick up volumes of recent Pulitzer prize winners including Gregory Pardlo’s Digest, Vijay Seshadri’s 3 Sections, and Tracy K. Smith’s Life on Mars.  For something closer to home, check out Roses and Revolutions, by Dudley Randall, who served as a poet-in-residence in 1969 at what was then the University of Detroit.

The library also offers online poetry, such as The New Anthology of American Poetry, or, if you are pressed for time, how about some online haiku?  You could also subscribe to the digital poem-a-day poetry series, or take a look at A Work Day in Hard Times, a blog by UDM’s own Fr. Staudenmaier, which includes daily poems and reflections.

Finally, if you would like to listen to local poets or work on or share your own poetry, make sure to visit the Grounds coffeehouse on campus on Sunday, April 17th from 3:00pm to 6:00pm for the Broadside Lotus Press Poets’ Theatre.  The afternoon will start with a poetry workshop, followed by an open mic session from 4:30-6:00.

Jill Spreitzer, Librarian