Tag: fsu libraries

2022 Florida Book Awards Winners Announced

The Florida Book Awards, coordinated by the Florida State University Libraries, announced winners for the nation’s most comprehensive state book awards program established in 2006 to celebrate the best of Florida literature.

The 17th annual competition featured 150 eligible publications submitted across 11 categories for books published in 2022. To be eligible, authors must be full-time Florida residents — except in the Florida nonfiction, visual arts and cooking categories, where the subject matter must focus on Florida.

To check out the list of winners, visit this link.

13 Books to Read This Women’s History Month

Women’s History Month is a time to celebrate the women of both past and present who make a difference in our lives. It’s a time to champion the progress we’ve made, and to challenge ourselves to go further in the fight for safety, visibility, and equality for every woman.

With so much to celebrate, what better way to learn about women’s history than to check out a book by a woman author? We’ve selected 13 different books from our catalog to get you started on your Women’s History Month reads.

This display highlights books from across time, place, and culture that each share diverse perspectives and experiences of womanhood. Below, you’ll find classic, must-read novels like Mrs. Dalloway and The Bluest Eye alongside popular modern works like the New York Times Bestseller, Mexican Gothic. For the more academically inclined, we’ve selected essential feminist writings by Audre Lorde and bell hooks; and for those seeking a gripping story, we’ve got Cristina García’s Dreaming in Cuban and Radclyffe Hall’s once-banned lesbian novel, The Well of Loneliness. You’ll find everything from laugh-out-loud comics like Alison Bechdel’s jaunty The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For, to compelling dramas like The Color Purple by Alice Walker.

There is something for everyone this Women’s History Month!

Each book featured here can be checked out at Strozier Library or retrieved online through the FSU Libraries website. To search for more women’s books, browse our online catalog.

Mrs. Dalloway

by Virginia Woolf

“Mrs. Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself.” It’s one of the most famous opening lines in literature, that of Virginia Woolf’s beloved masterpiece of time, memory, and the city. In the wake of World War I and the 1918 flu pandemic, Clarissa Dalloway, elegant and vivacious, is preparing for a party and remembering those she once loved. In another part of London, Septimus Smith is suffering from shell-shock and on the brink of madness. Their days interweave and their lives converge as the party reaches its glittering climax. In a novel in which she perfects the interior monologue and recapitulates the life cycle in the hours of the day, from first light to the dark of night, Woolf achieves an uncanny simulacrum of consciousness, bringing past, present, and future together, and recording, impression by impression, minute by minute, the feel of life itself.

Image courtesy of Amazon.com. Description provided by Penguin Publishing Group.

Did you know?

Virginia Woolf co-owned and operated a publishing company, The Hogarth Press, which published both her works and those of her contemporaries- authors like T.S. Eliot, Sigmund Freud, and E.M. Forster. As such, the Woolfs’ house became something of a cultural hub for London artists of the time.

Feminism is for Everybody

by bell hooks

bell hooks establishes what feminism is truly about through Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics. The book analytically explores feminism from an intelligent perspective, shining light on the successes and shortcomings of the feminist movement. Removing the strong sexual appetite from the topic of love, the author explores ways to end oppression and sexism. Consider the book a simple guide to understanding feminism.

Image courtesy of Amazon.com. Description provided by bell hooks Books.

The Bluest Eye

by Toni Morrison

Pecola Breedlove, a young eleven-year-old black girl, prays every day for beauty. Mocked by other children for the dark skin, curly hair, and brown eyes that set her apart, she yearns for the blond hair and blue eyes that she believes will allow her to finally fit in. Yet as her dreams grow more fervent, her life slowly starts to disintegrate in the face of adversity and strife. A powerful examination of our obsession with beauty and conformity.

Image and description courtesy of Penguin Books.

Did you know?

In the 1960s, Toni Morrison worked as one of the first Black fiction editors at Random House, where she gave voice to other Black authors such as Angela Davis and Gayl Jones by acquiring and editing their books. In 1993, she became the first Black recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Mexican Gothic

by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

After receiving a frantic letter from her newly-wed cousin begging for someone to save her from a mysterious doom, Noemí Taboada heads to High Place, a distant house in the Mexican countryside. She’s not sure what she will find—her cousin’s husband, a handsome Englishman, is a stranger, and Noemí knows little about the region. Noemí is also an unlikely rescuer: She’s a glamorous debutante, and her chic gowns and perfect red lipstick are more suited for cocktail parties than amateur sleuthing. But she’s also tough and smart, with an indomitable will, and she is not afraid: Not of her cousin’s new husband, who is both menacing and alluring; not of his father, the ancient patriarch who seems to be fascinated by Noemí; and not even of the house itself, which begins to invade Noemi’s dreams with visions of blood and doom.

Image and description courtesy of Penguin Books.

The Essential Dykes to Watch Our For

by Alison Bechdel

Settle in to this wittily illustrated soap opera (Bechdel calls it “half op-ed column and half endless serialized Victorian novel”) of the lives, loves, and politics of Mo, Lois, Sydney, Sparrow, Ginger, Stuart, Clarice, and the rest of the cast of cult-fav characters. Most of them are lesbians, living in a midsize American city that may or may not be Minneapolis. Bechdel’s brilliantly imagined countercultural band of friends—academics, social workers, bookstore clerks—fall in and out of love, negotiate friendships, raise children, switch careers, and cope with aging parents. Bechdel fuses high and low culture—from foreign policy to domestic routine, hot sex to postmodern theory—in a serial graphic narrative “suitable for humanists of all persuasions.”

Image courtesy of Amazon.com. Description provided by HarperCollins.

The Color Purple

by Alice Walker

A powerful cultural touchstone of modern American literature, The Color Purple depicts the lives of African American women in early twentieth-century rural Georgia. Separated as girls, sisters Celie and Nettie sustain their loyalty to and hope in each other across time, distance and silence. Through a series of letters spanning twenty years, first from Celie to God, then the sisters to each other despite the unknown, the novel draws readers into its rich and memorable portrayals of Celie, Nettie, Shug Avery and Sofia and their experience. The Color Purple broke the silence around domestic and sexual abuse, narrating the lives of women through their pain and struggle, companionship and growth, resilience and bravery. Deeply compassionate and beautifully imagined, Alice Walker’s epic carries readers on a spirit-affirming journey towards redemption and love.

Image and description courtesy of Penguin Books.

Did you know?

Alice Walker participated in the historic March on Washington at which Dr. Martin Luther King gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. In 1966, she moved to Mississippi to help local African Americans register to vote and much of her life was devoted to the fight for civil rights.

My Home as I Remember: A Collection of Essays

edited by Lee Maracle and Sandra Laronde

My Home As I Remember describes literary and artistic achievements of First Nations, Inuit and Metis women across Canada and the United States, including contributions from New Zealand and Mexico. Their voices and creative expression of identity and place are richly varied, reflecting the depth of the culturally diverse energy found on these continents. Over 60 writers and visual artists are represented from nearly 25 nations, including writers such as Lee Maracle, Chrystos and Louise Bernice Halfe, and visual artists Joane Cardinal-Schubert, Teresa Marshall, Kenojuak Ashevak, Doreen Jensen and Shelley Niro; and some who are published for the first time in this landmark volume. Lee Maracle is the author of numerous books, including Ravensong. Sandra Laronde, writer/actor, is Executive Director of Native Women in the Arts.

Image courtesy of Amazon.com. Description provided by Dundurn Press.

Dreaming in Cuban

by Cristina García

Cristina García’s acclaimed book is the haunting, bittersweet story of a family experiencing a country’s revolution and the revelations that follow. The lives of Celia del Pino and her husband, daughters, and grandchildren mirror the magical realism of Cuba itself, a landscape of beauty and poverty, idealism and corruption. Dreaming in Cuban is “a work that possesses both the intimacy of a Chekov story and the hallucinatory magic of a novel by Gabriel García Márquez” (The New York Times). In celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the novel’s original publication, this edition features a new introduction by the author.

Image and Description courtesy of Penguin Books.

The Well of Loneliness

by Radclyffe Hall

The Well of Loneliness tells the story of tomboyish Stephen, who hunts, wears trousers and cuts her hair short – and who gradually comes to realise that she is attracted to women. Charting her romantic and professional adventures during the First World War and beyond, the novel provoked a furore on first publication in 1928 for its lesbian heroine and led to a notorious legal trial for obscenity. Hall herself, however, saw the book as a pioneer work and today it is recognised as a landmark work of gay fiction.

Image courtesy of Amazon.com. Description provided by Penguin Books.

Did you know?

Because of the book’s queer themes, Radclyffe Halle was put on trial for obscenity. She lost her case; the book was banned; and all copies were ordered to be destroyed. Still, The Well of Loneliness survives as one of the most important lesbian texts of the 20th century.

Fairest: A Memoir

by Meredith Talusan

Fairest is a memoir about a precocious boy with albinism, a “sun child” from a rural Philippine village, who would grow up to become a woman in America. Coping with the strain of parental neglect and the elusive promise of U.S. citizenship, Talusan found comfort from her devoted grandmother, a grounding force as she was treated by others with special preference or public curiosity. As an immigrant to the United States, Talusan came to be perceived as white, and further access to elite circles of privilege but required Talusan to navigate through the complex spheres of race, class, sexuality, and queerness. Questioning the boundaries of gender, Talusan realized she did not want to be confined to a prescribed role as a man, and transitioned to become a woman, despite the risk of losing a man she deeply loved. Throughout her journey, Talusan shares poignant and powerful episodes of desirability and love that will remind readers of works such as Call Me By Your Name and Giovanni’s Room.

Image and description courtesy of Penguin Books.

Passing

by Nella Larsen

Clare Kendry is living on the edge. Light-skinned, elegant, and ambitious, she is married to a racist white man unaware of her African American heritage, and has severed all ties to her past after deciding to “pass” as a white woman. Clare’s childhood friend, Irene Redfield, just as light-skinned, has chosen to remain within the African American community, and is simultaneously allured and repelled by Clare’s risky decision to engage in racial masquerade for personal and societal gain. After frequenting African American-centric gatherings together in Harlem, Clare’s interest in Irene turns into a homoerotic longing for Irene’s black identity that she abandoned and can never embrace again, and she is forced to grapple with her decision to pass for white in a way that is both tragic and telling.

Image and description courtesy of Penguin Books.

Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning

by Cathy Park Hong

Poet and essayist Cathy Park Hong fearlessly and provocatively blends memoir, cultural criticism, and history to expose fresh truths about racialized consciousness in America. Part memoir and part cultural criticism, this collection is vulnerable, humorous, and provocative—and its relentless and riveting pursuit of vital questions around family and friendship, art and politics, identity and individuality, will change the way you think about our world.

Image and description courtesy of Penguin Books.

Sister Outsider

by Audre Lorde

In this charged collection of fifteen essays and speeches, Lorde takes on sexism, racism, ageism, homophobia, and class, and propounds social difference as a vehicle for action and change. Her prose is incisive, unflinching, and lyrical, reflecting struggle but ultimately offering messages of hope. This commemorative edition includes a new foreword by Lorde-scholar and poet Cheryl Clarke, who celebrates the ways in which Lorde’s philosophies resonate more than twenty years after they were first published. These landmark writings are, in Lorde’s own words, a call to “never close our eyes to the terror, to the chaos which is Black which is creative which is female which is dark which is rejected which is messy which is . . . ”

Image and description courtesy of Penguin Books.

This blog post was created by Lila Rush-Hickey, Student Engagement Assistant for FSU Libraries. She is a third-year Literature, Media and Culture major at FSU.

NEW Media Suite at Dirac: A Creation Space for All

Tired of recording videos for class with your grainy laptop camera? Wish you had a better setup for your podcast? Good news! A new space is coming to Florida State University (FSU) that will allow you to work on videos, podcasts, and more. This space, called The Media Suite at Dirac, will have everything you need to record and edit audio and video, including a green screen and an editing computer with two large 4k monitors. The suite is located on the third floor of Dirac and is currently available for booking. 

Why Create a Media Suite?

FSU Libraries is proud to introduce The Media Suite at Dirac because it satisfies a need that all members of the FSU community share: creating outstanding digital media.

The world is becoming more digital by the day, which we saw clearly at the start of the pandemic. Suddenly, everything from classes to court cases were online, and people had to quickly learn how to communicate effectively through digital media. This shift is not going away any time soon. More and more, job interviews, team meetings, conferences, and other important events are moving online. It’s even predicted that by 2025, 36.2 million Americans will be working remotely, which is a 417% increase from the 7 million remote workers there were pre-pandemic (Flynn, 2022). Given this trend, it’s vital that we all learn how to navigate the digital landscape effectively.

The Media Suite can help FSU students, staff, and faculty practice and perfect their digital communication skills by providing them with the space and tools necessary to create any digital media projects they can imagine.

What Can I Use It For?

The Media Suite can be used for a variety of personal and professional projects. Want to make a short film for your YouTube channel? The suite has lighting, microphones, and a green screen that will bring your vision to life. When you finish filming, you can edit on two 4k monitors powered by a Mac Studio computer. You can record voice-over and edit audio using the headphones, microphones, and mixing board in the suite, which is equipped with audio absorption panels to make your audio crisp and clear. 

Not interested in making your directorial debut? No worries. There is much more you can do in the suite. For instance, you might record yourself giving a presentation or invite friends to start a podcast. The suite is equipped with everything you need to make incredible media projects. But, if you find yourself lacking something, you can check out other materials from the library, including a DSLR camera. Use the equipment search page on the library website to check which materials are available.

How Can I Get In On This?

Eager to get started on your projects? Luckily, utilizing the suite is easy. Anyone at FSU is welcome to use it completely free of charge. All you have to do is reserve the space through the Library Room Reservation System. When it’s your time to use the suite, head to the front desk at Dirac Science Library and request the key from a staff member. 

For more information on The Media Suite at Dirac, visit the suite’s page on the GEOSET website. If you have any questions, reach out to a staff member at the circulation desk or contact GEOSET Studio. 

Reference

Flynn, J. (2022, October 16). 25 trending remote work statistics [2023]: Facts, trends, and projections. Zippia. Retrieved November 16, 2022, from https://www.zippia.com/advice/remote-work-statistics/

STEM Data Fellow Spotlight: Sahil Chugani

When I was in elementary school, I remember Googling various football statistics, running down to my parents, and telling them, for example,  “Ben Roethlisberger had 4,328 passing yards in 2009!” I played football for eight years from elementary school to high school, and I was good with working with numbers. I found that sports analytics was a great combination of the two. In high school, I entered a sports analytics competition, where my project was to determine what would happen if onside kicks in football would be replaced with a 4th down and 15, and I absolutely loved it. Now, I’m fascinated with data science as a whole– being able to make a computer do something that we could never imagine doing as humans is an amazing feeling for me.

Since the sports analytics competition, I’ve been doing anything and everything I could related to data science. Some of the research I’m currently working on includes sports team values, kickstarter data, and sportswashing (for example, Qatar holding the World Cup amidst some controversial political issues). I also had a job this year working for a company called Scouting Heroes, where I logged basic statistics for the FSU football team. (More information on what the data I collected was for can be found at https://simplebet.io/nfl.html.) I’ve also worked on creating data visualizations based on football data. For example, this past summer I created over 20 graphs that can be found at https://twitter.com/a_graph_a_day .

In one of my classes, one of my (now) coworkers, William-Elijah Clark, posted the opening for the STEM Libraries Data Fellowship in the class’s GroupMe, and I was eager to apply. Something I’m super excited for with this Data Fellowship is that I really want to translate my skills into some real-world experience. Instead of simply creating graphs or finding statistics on my own, I want to have a tangible impact with regard to data. I hope to be able to help students out with their needs or be able to have my data analysis translate into a decision being made that affects people. In a way, it would signify that my hard work on data analysis is paying off. 

One of the projects that I’m super interested in working on as a Data Fellow is the use of Jupyter Books to assist users in learning more about how to code and analyze data as a whole. By offering interactive code blocks and giving users the opportunity to run code on their own, they may be more willing to learn about the data analysis techniques used. Furthermore, I hope that by implementing sports analytics examples, specifically football, people who are interested in sports may be more willing to learn how to use data analysis techniques with respect to sports.

As a whole, I’m very excited to learn more about data analysis techniques here at the FSU libraries and as well as apply my skills to tangibly help others at Florida State as a whole. 

This blog post was written by Sahil Chugani, STEM Data Fellow at FSU Libraries.

STEM Data Fellow Spotlight: Reagan Bourne

Prior to my experience at Florida State University, I took a few research classes in high school. In these classes, I had assignments where I would have to collect and analyze data as part of a research project. These experiences sparked my interest in data science, and from that point forward I always knew that I was interested in data-related research. Furthermore, I have always been interested in a few different subjects, including computer science, biology, and mathematics. I never realized that I would be able to combine my interests before starting this data fellowship.

When I first found this fellowship during the summer of 2022, I felt that I was at an academic crossroads. I was unsure of what I wanted to study and my career goals. However, I was extremely interested in this opportunity, because it was unlike anything I had ever really known about. I thought that this position would be a great learning opportunity for me, and would  hopefully allow me to utilize my data skills and pursue some of my interests. So far, this fellowship has gone above and beyond what I was hoping for. 

As I am still in the beginning of my academic career, I have not had the opportunity to obtain much experience using my data skills before this fellowship. For this reason, I am so grateful to be participating in this fellowship. I have already learned so many different things in my few months here. One of my first assignments was to meet with many of the different librarians at FSU Libraries. I really enjoyed this task, because I liked hearing about all of the different paths that were taken until finding this career. It introduced me to a lot of different projects and areas of expertise in the library that I had never known about, such as the Health Data Sciences Initiative and open science. 

Another concept that I have recently learned a lot about is the importance of critically evaluating data. Working on a blog post about this topic has been a great learning experience for me. It has introduced me to so many ideas that I had never known about.  Specifically, I have learned about machine learning algorithms for data science. As a student currently pursuing a computer science degree with a minor in data analytics, this topic was extremely interesting to me, and is something that I am excited to explore further. 

As I take more classes related to my major, I am excited to apply the skills I learn towards this fellowship. In the future I hope to teach workshops about Unix, C#, SQL, and many more.  I am looking forward to continuing my work with the FSU Libraries.

This blog post was written by Reagan Bourne, STEM Data Fellow at FSU Libraries.

FSU Libraries celebrates Love Data Week 2023!

Introduction

Love Data Week is coming back to FSU in 2023! Love Data Week, or LDW, is an international event where individuals and groups are encouraged to host and participate in activities related to any and all data. It occurs every week that Valentine’s Day lands, and focuses on helping people learn about the best data management practices and methods for interpreting data. LDW was started in 2015 and is headed by the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research at the University of Michigan. For those looking to learn more about data or are interested in statistics, this is an excellent opportunity to ask questions and get started!

Events

Because looking at raw data can sometimes be boring, we’re looking to spice things up this year by including two new activities! We’ll be right inside the entrance of Dirac from 12:00 – 2:00 PM on Thursday and Strozier from 12:00-2:00 PM on Friday! First, we’re going to be doing an Adopt-a-Dataset activity, where participants will be able to “adopt” one of the openly available datasets we have displayed. Your task will then be to determine what conclusions can be drawn from the data, and you’ll receive a Dum-Dum for your work! After that, we’ll have a jar of Smarties at the table, with a list of numbers from a normal distribution on hand. From there, you’ll have to guess the number of smarties in the jar, and the person with the closest guess will win them all! In addition to the tabling events, our Research Data Management Librarian, Dr. Nick Ruhs, will be giving a workshop on Data Analysis with Microsoft Excel on Valentine’s Day (February 14) from 3:00-4:30. If you are or will be using Excel for your projects or research and are looking to enhance your skills, this will be a great workshop to attend!

Blog Posts

In addition to the wonderful events that are occurring during Love Data Week, we will be publishing two blog posts introducing the two new Data Fellows at FSU, Reagan Bourne and Sahil Chugani. In those posts, you’ll learn all about what inspired them to become a data fellow and how they became passionate about data analysis and management techniques.

Contact/Resources

For more information about any data questions/concerns you may have, you can either check out https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/web/pages/ or contact Dr. Nick Ruhs, our resident Research Data Management Librarian, at nruhs@fsu.edu. Furthermore, if you ever need any assistance with any data question you may have, you can check out the walk-up hours for our STEM Data Fellows!

This blog post was written by Sahil Chugani (STEM Data Fellow) from FSU Libraries.

Celebrate Valentine’s Day with FSU Libraries!

FSU Libraries invite you to join us to celebrate Valentine’s Day, Love Data Week, and our love of learning! This year, come and spread the love with our engagement team, who are hosting a variety of events during the second and third weeks of February in both Strozier and Dirac. 

There will be two Valentine’s Day tabling events with free exclusive merch on February 8 and February 13 at Strozier. We will also host a special tabling in collaboration with our STEM librarians to share our love for all things data on February 16 and 17. 

Aside from tabling, expect a pop-up performance from FSU’s Fountain Five Quintet at Strozier and a virtual Data Analysis with Microsoft Excel Workshop from our Data at Your Desk workshop series on February 14. If you can’t make the performance, be sure to follow us on Instagram to tune into our live transmission and stay up to date with all the events and new swag that we have prepared for this month.

Lastly, make sure to check out our Blind Date with a Book display! It will be up all month on the first floor of Strozier.

Meet the Engagement Team: Jaidyn Smith

Ever wondered what it’s like to work at the library? We sat down to talk shop with one of our Part-Time Engagement Assistants, Jaidyn Smith, who has been with the Libraries since February 2022.

What’s your major and year in school? 

I’m a Junior Communication Sciences and Disorders Student.

What’s a song that best describes you? 

I would have to say Björk’s “Atopos – Side Project Remix” really connects with me. Like it’s really unique beat wise and that’s really how I would describe myself. I can never really be truly comfortable unless I’m pushing the bounds in some way. 

What made you interested in working for the libraries’ engagement team? 

From the moment I stepped onto campus, I looked for a way to help out at the Libraries. Growing up, I was always really into books and would go out of my way to surround myself with them whether it be volunteering at my high school library or winning bingo night at my local bookstore. Initially, I just would have been fine working anywhere but I think the Engagement Team is the perfect role for me. I love campus events and connecting with people and this allows me to do both. 

What have been some of your favorite projects while working here? 

The postcards event was super fun. It was a lot of work to create and I know the whole team put a lot of effort into it. I think the students really appreciated the opportunity to send a postcard. I also loved the Add-Your-Art Tapestry event. One of my favorite parts of the job is being able to connect with other students. It was nice to just be able to de-stress, talk about our lives, and see the students make some awesome art. 

Is there a resource or service that the library offers that you wish more people knew about?

I think people could benefit from knowing all the different ways to access their class text. I know all my friends complain about paying a bunch of money for a book they only reference a couple of times and don’t use again after the semester ends. We have a huge eTextbook collection for a wide variety of classes. We also have Course Reserves where you can rent a textbook in the library for a period of two hours. If you need to use that textbook outside of the library, there’s a book scanner. Imagine all the money you could save. 

Last Question – what’s your favorite book? 

My favorite book right now has to be Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life. I think Yanagihara is masterful with her storytelling and really brings life to her complex, emotionally hurting characters. Reading the story has allowed me to connect to my emotions in a way I didn’t previously think a book could. A Little Life also introduced me to my favorite photographer Peter Hujar which is a cool bonus.

This blog post was written by Jaidyn Smith, Student Engagement Assistant at FSU Libraries.