Highline Library Newsletters

Ever wonder if you can find magic in a book? Or maybe a place to disappear-If only for a little while? An escape with new friends or maybe delve into the world of someone’s true self turned into the pages of a story to share?

The Highline Library is where you can go for all of this and more.

On the 2nd floor, to the left of the entrance where you walk in and see the welcoming circ staff and the beautiful multicolored mural above, is a set of displays designed for just that.

We have our New Books Display, which features new books that have been added to our collection and spanning topics that you maybe only thought about and haven’t been able to get into yet. They range from topics such as Young Adult Fiction, Study Guides, Fossils, and Self-Care. Every quarter there is always something new for you to choose.

Or maybe you want to browse the Recommended Reading Display, which showcases books recommended by our lovely librarians and rotated every two months to cover topics such as Political and Racial Justice, LGBTQIA+ History and Guidance, Unions and Labor Protections, or Adventuring in the Great Outdoors.

Still, maybe those displays aren’t quite what you’re looking for. That’s all right. We also have a Fun Reads Display! Get lost and frightened in a Stephen King Novel or maybe get to know more about yourself and how to be a better adult. Or perhaps you want to eat some fashionable drama with Kevin Kwan’s trilogy Crazy Rich Asians. Or maybe you want to settle into a collection of short stories and poetry.

Whatever you’re looking for, the Highline Library has it all for you.

Shay Kelley-Wilder

Circulation & Technical Services

2nd floor book display cases, with Recommended Reads, New Books, and Fun Reads.

New Titles in the Library Display

New multilingual printer sign

New: 4 week book check out

New: Extended Library hours (M, W 8am - 6pm, T, Th 8am - 8 pm | F 8am - 2pm)

New: Printer Signage. Much appreciation to Hye Yoon Choi in the Print Shop for designing our beautiful, multilingual new Print Sign!

Patrons with personal mobile devices and headphones with microphones are welcome to use these Building 25 spaces for Zoom classes/meeting:

• 2nd floor: Zoom spaces in the southeast corner (when you enter the library at the main entrance, turn right to see the Zoom spaces)
• 3rd floor: Any personal cubby hole study space in the corners of the 3rd floor (our group study rooms are prioritized for groups of 3 or more students).

Did you know that the Highline Library creates an inventory of our books, magazines, and other items every two years?

Gerie Ventura writes:

• From Fall 2022 to Summer 2023, Circulation Services and Technical Services library staff worked together to complete the biennial inventory of the physical books collection.

• In the end, only .72% of the Main Collection books are missing, which is really good considering that the first time we did an inventory in 2007, 12.7% of the books were missing. We have newer security gates, now, and less books are checked out compared to 2007, but that’s another story!

Librarians have been collaborating with faculty and staff to scaffold information literacy (IL) and visual literacy (VL) more fully into the campus curriculum, and we want to continue this work with you and your department. By scaffold, we mean integrating IL and VL into the campus curriculum so students build research and evaluation skills at the appropriate levels. For example, students in COL101 and STEM101 learn introductory IL skills such as finding a website or article, evaluating and citing it, and avoiding plagiarism. In addition, through the work the Assessment Committee is doing, IL and VL will be assessed as they exist within programs’ courses. And some departments (both BAS and others) have created program maps that track how they have integrated IL and VL throughout their curriculum so students learn introductory, intermediate, and advanced skills (demonstrated through a capstone project) while completing their degree. We librarians are happy to work with anyone on campus who wishes to review how IL and VL are integrated/scaffolded into your programs.

Book a one-on-one appointment for librarian support.

Fall cleaning? Please consider donating books that you really will never read to the (Unofficial) Little Free Library cart outside 25-206A (the library instruction classroom).

If you have a book on your desk that you don’t like anymore, or a 3-ring binder, or any gently used books at home, please bring them in and put them on the (unofficial) LFL cart.

Need a new book or binder?

Take one.

Have an extra book or binder?

Leave one.

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.”  Dr. Seuss

All Highline College students and employees have free and automatic access to the King County Library System (KCLS) Online Library. 

The Villainess Enjoys a Carefree Life Married to Her Worst Enemy! (My 7th Time Loop) (KCLS link)
by Touko Amekawa and Wan Hachipisu

What You Are Looking for is in the Library (KCLS link)
by Michiko Aoyama
Why read it: If the title wasn’t enough, here’s the book description: “What are you looking for? So asks Tokyo's most enigmatic librarian. For Sayuri Komachi is able to sense exactly what each visitor to her library is searching for and provide just the book recommendation to help them find it.” (from the publisher)

The Bride of Demise vol. 1 (Bookshop.org link)
by Keishi Ayasato

Six Scorches Roses (KCLS link)
by Carissa Broadbent

March (Highline Library link)
by Geraldine Brooks

Why read it: This book, which won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize, tells the story of the father from Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, who is serving in the American Civil War for most of Alcott’s novel. His encounters with the brutality of the war and the horrors of slavery come through clearly in March, making it a thought-provoking and intense read. 

Origin story: a big history of everything (Highline Library link) 

By David Christian
Why read it: from the Big Bang to now, the greatest story of all

Grimm up north (Amazon link)
By David J. Gatward
Why read it: for those who are always looking for a good mystery series

Villains Are Destined to Die (Current Series) (KCLS link)
by Gwon Gyeoeul

Rest is resistance: a manifesto (Highline Library link)
By Tricia Hersey
Why read it: everyone needs to rest more

A guide to the good life: the ancient art of stoic joy (Highline Library link) 

By William B. Irvine
Why read it: stoicism to handle the slings and arrows of outrageous misfortune

The Weight of Blood (KCLS link)
by Tiffany D. Jackson

Powers and thrones: a new history of the middle ages (Highline Library link) 

By Dan Jones
Why read it: The Middle Ages – a springboard to our modern era

My Secret Affection vol. 2 (KCLS link)
by Fumi Mikami
Why read it: knowing what exactly may happen next or where exactly the stories may go [some are predictable but still great reads] is what drew me in to look beyond the titles and summaries to the story beneath. Will the main character survive? I can't wait to read and find out.

The beautiful ones (KCLS link)
By Prince
Why read it: fans of Prince love everything Prince

Five Total Strangers (KCLS link)
By Natalie D. Richards
Why read it: has a darker theme but with a comedic edge

Capital Dames: The Civil War and the Women of Washington, 1848-1858 (KCLS link)
By Cokie Roberts
Why read it: Women’s history is not often well documented or taught – this book provides insights on female contributions during an important time in United States history.

Nervous: essays on heritage and healing (KCLS link)
By Jen Soriano

Why read it: interested in reading about the connections between heritage, healing, history, and transgenerational trauma

Currently listening to:
How Do You Live? (KCLS link)
by Genzaburō Yoshino
Why listen to this: In preparation for the latest Ghibli movie. Originally published in 1937, this book asks the question, How do you become a genuinely good person and live a meaningful life? During World War II, Japanese military authorities banned this book, in part because the book encouraged individualism and critical thinking. Part portrait of a long vanished pre-World War II Tokyo, part moral guidance, this book is said to have been Ghibli filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki’s favorite childhood read, and a character in his newest film is found reading the book.

New and interesting eBook alert:

 The Mindful Twenty-Something (Highline Library link)

Did Not Finish (DNF):

Thinking, Fast and Slow  (KCLS link)
by Daniel Kahneman
Why did not finish: I listened to about half of this book before I had to return it. Explains the two systems that drive the way we think, but it’s probably better for me to read than listen. I can’t remember any of it.

Can you match the librarian with their current to-read pile? Hint: this German-speaking librarian is also a poet.

Another librarian's current to-read pile. Hint: This librarian can often be found watching baseball games.

Hint: This librarian grows beautiful plants in their garden.

Hint: This librarian can often be found enjoying plant-based food.

"Breathing Space" mural by Saiyare Refaei

Come and enjoy the seating area on the 3rd floor of the library, building 25. Study, charge your devices, hang out with friends, or just breathe and be.

The mural on the south wall was painted by a Chinese Iranian artist based in Tacoma, Saiyare Refaei, in 2018. This painted mural and the newer blue and green furniture nearby (nickname for the area was: Multicultural Hangout Space) were purchased ($20,000) thanks to a Capital Projects committee of Highline’s Student Government. The mural includes a diversity of actual Highline students (sometimes they or their families come by to look at it, still) and is meant to be a celebration of the accomplishments and resilience of Highline students. Saiyare calls the mural “breathing space” because she spent so much time in libraries when she was younger and finds libraries to be an important place to just breathe and be.

Eureka

By Ian Porter (Reference Librarian)

When you read the line all the way to the end

And it falls off the page into the cool, damp morning soil of Spring,

Sprouting a miracle, you cry “Eureka!” 

For the warm sun will do its job, as will the rain and bacteria and worms.

Just as you do the human work of thinking and walking and reading and digging

Alongside the rest of us doing our human work, incubating a vital energy.

But, what did you discover? Like Plato, do you believe knowledge is something

We must remember from our time wandering some primordial landscape? 

Or, is it new, like, for real new, in all the grandiosity and vulnerability of what new signifies?

Fear not, for you may know one day, but for now the work must be done.

3 Haiku

By Jack Harton (Reference Librarian)

Under the Ask sign

Printing, email, more printing

Research anyone?

Sunshine and bright smiles

Change with November

To gray and brave smiles

A chaotic world

Anxiety and confusion

Time for a good book 

1 Haiku

By Gerie Ventura (Associate Dean of Library & Learning Services)

Fall Quarter is here!
Lots of students every day
All the seats are full

1 Haiku

By Katie Straton (Reference Librarian)

Tea steeping, fire lit

My time belongs to this book

Alas, the doorbell

1 Haiku 

By ChatGPT (with help from Katie Straton)

Library book waits,

Whispering tales on each page,

Knowledge in my hands.

References

OpenAI. (2023). ChatGPT (Mar 14 version) [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/chat 

The new ASK sign hangs above the former Library Reference Desk.

Scenes from Math Week 2023.