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Pop Lit Tattoo Tuesday Posts, Summer 2022

Scroll to peruse all the Popular Literature Committee’s “Tattoo Tuesday” posts for the summer.

(TW: This book contains references to Sexual Assault, Child Abuse and Violence). This #tattootuesday recommendation was submitted by @julno12 and designed by (IG:@leahdavinci). Roses often symbolize love and beauty in literature, but what results when that beauty is kept from the world. “The Butterfly Garden” tells of a beautiful escape, where young, kidnapped women are tattooed and held against their will. This horror/thriller has components like novels “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “The Maze Runner”, while being told through the lens of an FBI investigation.

Today we’re taking inspiration from @Keckster00 and their wings and taking it to the sky with this SciFi dystopian fantasy. Charlie Jane Anders’s All the Birds in the Sky is a tale of childhood friends who must come together to stop – or overcome – the collapse of society and the world around them. They work in their own teams of engineers and magicians to “repair the world’s ever-growing ailments.” As they work in their teams to save the world, something bigger than either of them from their past creeps up and is determined to bring them together again.

For Gargi, we have a wonderful tattoo of a compass with a plane taking off from the North and, below the Southernmost point, the word “Wanderlust” in fancy script. Gargi clearly has a taste for adventure, so for them we’re recommending Atlas Obscura: An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Hidden Wonders by Joshua Foer, Ella Morton, and Dylan Thuras. It is a “bucket-list guide to over 700 of the most unusual, curious, bizarre, and mysterious places on earth” ranging from Europe, Asia, Africa, Oceania, Canada, the United States, Latin America, and Antarctica. There’s something for every traveler in here, and we hope you’ll find the thing that inspires you. You can find Atlas Obscura in the Popular Literature collection in Strozier by the Starbucks, or on our online catalog here: https://fsu-flvc.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01FALSC_FSU/pag4dr/alma990346216880306576.

Today’s tattoo features a sphere with an outer space theme vignette including two astronauts reaching out gloved fingers, much in the same vein as Michelangelo’s famous painting “The Creation of Adam.” Our submitter mentioned they loved space and the ocean. Also, the clean lines and bold features of the tattoo seemed to veer towards a nonfiction book. So, we’re recommending “Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void” by Mary Roach, which explores space travel and what humans give up making it happen. The title addresses everything from how to survive a bailout at 17,000 miles per hour to how to use the bathroom to what happens when you can’t walk for a year. You can find “Packing for Mars” in the Popular Literature collection in Strozier Library near the Starbucks or on our online catalog here: https://fsu-flvc.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01FALSC_FSU/pag4dr/alma990222729590306576

What better book to talk about the music of the heart than Jazz, by Toni Morrison? For Morrison, Harlem in 1926 thrums with grace, power, love, betrayal, and murder. It is enlightened. It is haunted. It is alive with music, and so too will you be. If the complexities of the heart, mind, soul, and the body compel you, check out Jazz in the Pop Lit section by the Strozier Starbucks, or in our online catalog: https://fsu-flvc.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01FALSC_FSU/pag4dr/alma990245192650306576.

Pop Lit Tattoo Tuesday Posts, March 2022

Scroll to peruse all the Popular Literature Committee’s “Tattoo Tuesday” posts for the month of March, 2022.

For this wonderful tattoo my recommendation is “Every Heart a Doorway” (Wayward Children #1) by Seanan McGuire and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Books have always been a doorway to other worlds with new places to explore, people to meet and adventures to have. Children slip through these doors all the time but what happens when the fantasy world no longer wants them? What happens when the children return to a world that no longer understands them and the experiences they have had? This is where Eleanor West’s Home for Wayward Children comes in. The children who come live have all stepped through these doors and been changed but have no way to return. They yearn to find a way to open the door so they return and for some no cost is to high. Nancy, recently expelled from her world, has just arrived when someone starts murdering the other children and stealing body parts. As the new girl she is immediately a suspect and must figure out who the monster is before they get her too.

Your incredible tattoo brought a lot to mind – but eventually we decided on *A Darker Shade of Magic* by Victoria Schwab…just look at that cover! Combining an enrapturing cast of characters with magical world-building, this fantasy takes place in a mythical London and stars Kell, official ambassador and prince of Red London…unofficial smuggler between parallel universes. This is the first in the Shades of Magic series, so if you like this one check out the others, all available in the Popular Literature collection by the Starbucks in Strozier. We hope you enjoy our selection!

This whimsical tattoo sent me down several rabbit holes looking for the right book and narrowing it down to one was tricky. So…a twofer! For a more gritty science fiction read, everyone is universally (online) in agreement that The Lying Cat in the graphic novel series, *Saga*, is the best of the alien cats. She sounds fierce, fabulous and hangs out with a bounty hunter. The series itself is described as “Star Wars meets Game of Thrones” and there are seven volumes to explore if this fits the bill! For something more on the whimsical fantasy side of things, there is *A Taste Fur Murder* by Dixie Lyle in which the main character starts seeing animal spirits, including her dead cat Tango who she can now communicate with telepathically, and they are off to solve a murder together with a ectoplasmic dog named Tiny. This is also the start of a mystery series so more books ot explore if this strikes your fancy. *Saga* is available in the Libraries’ Graphic Novel collection and *A Taste Fur Murder* is in the Popular Literature collection. Happy Reading!

Tattoo Tuesday Posts, February 2022

Scroll to peruse all Tattoo Tuesday posts posted in the month of February, 2022.

Sing, cardinal, sing! Your gorgeous tattoo deserves a gorgeous book, and Jesmyn Ward’s prose hits the mark. Today we’re recommending Sing, Unburied, Sing, by Jesmyn Ward, a book about family, grief, addiction, and personal freedoms. We hope you’re as captivated by the language as we are with your tattoo. You can find it in our online catalog here: https://fsu-flvc.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01FALSC_FSU/pag4dr/alma990353871120306576 or at the Pop Lit collection by the Starbucks in Strozier.

This week’s Tattoo is of Bill from It’s Such A Beautiful Day. This little tattoo reminder to take a look around and see the life around. A book that does the same is Entangled Life by Merlin Sheldrake. It’s “revelatory introduction to this world will show us how fungi, and our relationships with them, are more astonishing than we could have imagined”.

This week’s Book recommendation is Sleeping Giants. You might ask yourself, giants? What does this have to do with my cute cow? Well, a lot! As a spirit animal, the cow is said to symbolize trust and positivity. In Norse mythology, the cow Audhumla had udders that emitted four rivers of power that provided nourishment for giants.You can read more about their symbolism here https://www.artdependence.com/articles/symbolism-in-art-the-cow/#:~:text=As%20a%20spirit%20animal%2C%20the,less%20sacred%20and%20mutual%20relationship. Sleeping giants is a fast-paced thriller about a girl that falls through the earth, and when she wakes up she realizes she’s in the palm of a giant. What follows is a mystery to solve the giants’ origins. We hope you enjoy our recommendation @diannab92. Tattoo artist is @mattisonfire who is local to Tallahassee at Carbon ink Tattoo!

This Black History Month: Celebrating Black Voices in Fiction

Black history in the United States cannot be given due attention in a meager blog post. From the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, to Reconstruction, to the Civil Rights movement and the Black Lives Matter movement, it’s easy to get entrenched in stories of Black pain and trauma. But amidst that there is also: excellence, joy, and success. It’s important to remember that Black history is not a thing of the past; history is being made every day.

Although there’s a plethora of seminal nonfiction texts written on Black history and the Black diaspora in America – you can check out How To Be An Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi or A Black Women’s History of the United States by Daina Ramey Berry and Kali Nicole Gross, among others, for more critical reading – for the purposes of this post, we’ve focused on some wonderful voices in fiction*. We’ve selected a short list of classics and contemporary works from our Popular Literature collection, ranging from literary fiction to romance to science fiction. A permalink for each book is included below, which will take you to our catalog – there, you can search for more books by Black authors.

If you have suggestions for books you cannot find in our collection, please let us know by emailing lib-poplit@fsu.edu.

The Learning District is Open!

Get your semester started right!

Strozier Library’s Learning District offers free, drop-in, late-night STEM Tutoring. From 8 pm until midnight, Sunday through Wednesday, the Learning District’s specialized tutors can help you in math, physics, and chemistry.

No appointment needed, just show up ready to learn! Bring your homework and your study group and spend the night with us.

You can locate us on the first floor of Strozier, right across from Starbucks.

If you can’t come in person, don’t worry! We also conduct tutoring through Zoom.

Make sure you tell your friends!

Learn more at lib.fsu.edu/tutoring

Tattoo Tuesday Posts, January 2022

Scroll to peruse all Tattoo Tuesday book recommendations posted in the month of January, 2022.

With apologies to the tattoo’s owner, we cannot supply a book about dolphins – our Popular Literature catalog is evidently lacking in that department – but this week’s selection is written by someone who loves dragons as much as you love dolphins. We hope that this sense of passion for the extraordinary and inquisitiveness in the ordinary is conveyed in A Natural History of Dragons: a Memoir by Lady Trent by Marie Brennan, and that this selection piques your interest. To learn more about this title, visit it on the FSU catalog here: https://fsu-flvc.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01FALSC_FSU/pag4dr/alma990352349780306576.

Moving into a new house: FSU Libraries updates and improves Research Repository

By Rachel Smart and Camille Thomas

In the Summer of 2021, FSU Libraries migrated DigiNole: FSU’s Digital Repository to a new home that is completely hosted and maintained by Florida State University. DigiNole: FSU’s Digital Repository features FSU’s theses and dissertations, open access research and digitized archival collections. DigiNole is Florida State University’s unified platform for FSU-created and maintained digital resources providing access to a wide range of different materials in the Digital Library and Research Repository.

The transition between site hosts involved a complex, multi-layered process. This transition took two years to complete, beginning in the planning stages and ending at the time of public launch July 15, 2021. Users will notice better responsiveness to mobile devices, a more elegant interface, and better overall site performance. Users are also able to directly download video and audio files from records which is a functionality available in the new system.

Since the launch of the upgrade system on July 15, 2021, the Libraries’ internal Working Group began exploring new features such as a 3D object viewer and integrating ORCID as part of a new repository submission process. The internal group is also working on ADA compliant enhancements to ensure the accessibility for theses and dissertations. Additionally, audiovisual items will display closed captions streams.

FSU faculty, staff, students and postdocs are invited to submit research outputs such as articles, book chapters, reports, datasets, and posters to the Research Repository to make them publicly available at no cost to the author. Library workers are available to assist in compliance with copyright, publisher policies and the FSU Faculty Senate Open Access Policy.

The Research Repository is the platform for self-archiving published or pre-publication works for free public use. Authors provide access to preprints or post-prints (according to publisher policy) in an institutional archive such as DigiNole or a disciplinary repository such as arXiv.org. This is often referred to as “Green Open Access” and aligns with the FSU Faculty Senate Open Access Policy.

FSU students, researchers, and faculty wanting to submit their works to the Research Repository, this process is unaffected by the system changes. Users submit their works through the online submission form.

Figure 1. This animated image demonstrates the utilization of the search bar on the Research Repository’s homepage.

Figure 2. This image is a continuation of the search process introduced in Figure 1., featuring the search results page and the selection of the record the user was searching for.

Our developers are leaders in contributing to the Islandora open source development community. For example, it is the first time ISLE (dockerized Islandora) has been deployed and hosted as a distributed deployment (multiple servers for different parts of the stack) in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud environment, featuring one of the biggest Solr search engine indexes in the digital repository community. The process included building and sustaining this technical infrastructure in a cloud-based computing environment (AWS), deploying an updated version of the repository’s software stack (Islandora) within this environment, and transferring the contents of the old repository to the new one in a way that maintains their integrity and discoverability.

For more information on the system migration, visit https://www.lib.fsu.edu/diginole/diginole-migration or please contact lib-support@fsu.edu with questions.

Latinx Heritage Month

Looking for a way to celebrate Latinx/Hispanic Heritage Month? FSU Libraries have you covered! We’ve compiled a list of novels written by Latinx authors for your enjoyment. With both physical and online options, you can dive into this selection any place, any time!

Popular Literature: Tattoo Tuesdays, September 2021

Scroll to peruse all Tattoo Tuesday book recommendations posted in the month of September, 2021.

Our second September pick is The Happiness Project: Or Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean my Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle and Generally Have More Fun. Phew, that’s a lot but luckily for you, you don’t have to do a lot to have fun! Gretchen Rubin takes you along for the ride of a lifetime as she chronicles her year long adventure for the quest to find happiness. Have Fun! We hope you enjoy our selection; you can find it in the Pop Lit Fiction section just outside the Starbucks area on the first floor of Strozier, or in our online catalog at https://fsu.catalog.fcla.edu/permalink.jsp?23FS025555312

You don’t have to wait until Halloween to get spooky. This week we have a tattoo inked at a Friday the 13th flash sale. In honor of that unlucky day, we’re bringing you a pop lit novel from our horror genre. Our recommendation for this week’s tattoo is Kill Creek by Scott Thomas, published in 2017. Who better to put the nail in your coffin tattoo than “master of the macabre,” main character and best-selling horror writer, Sam McGarver? Follow him and three other genre writers as they try to survive a harrowing Halloween at the Finch House, one of the most haunted houses in the country. It’s been abandoned – until now. When Sam and his genre-savvy compatriots awaken the entity that haunts it, they can either outsmart horror itself or become part of it. Kill Creek was chosen for the ALA’s Horror Book of 2017, and was shortlisted for the Bram Stoker Award. We hope you enjoy our selection; you can find it in the Pop Lit Fiction section just outside the Starbucks area on the first floor of Strozier, or in our online catalog at https://fsu.catalog.fcla.edu/permalink.jsp?23FS03597741.

Popular Literature: Tattoo Tuesdays

The Popular Literature Committee – responsible for the Popular Literature section in Strozier Library – is bringing book recommendations from our shelves to your screens every Tuesday. Although we’re marketing it as a “Tattoo Tuesday,” if you yourself are lacking in the tattoo area, you can always feel free to submit your favorite: movie, song, activity, Starbucks order, et cetera. The way it works is: You email your tattoo (or other submission) to Lib-PopLit@fsu.edu and we choose a book out of our curated Popular Literature collection we think you might enjoy based on our interpretation of your submission.

Below are our tattoo submissions and recommendations to date.