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Highline Library Newsletters

News and Updates from the Highline Library

Summer 2021 Hours & Services

TBA means To Be Announced! Keep a keen eye on our library web page and campus email announcements for new Summer and Fall hours!

Highline Library at sunset

From the Circ Desk

Highline Library Circulation Desk crowded with textbook reserves and other resources

Connecting people to learning.

Circulation Services provides friendly and courteous front desk assistance to the students, staff and faculty at Highline College. The library is located on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th floors of building 25 and is closed until further notice. However, Circulation staff continue to work throughout the entire time of Covid-19 to fill all requests for library materials.

The lifeline for life learners. We make it easy and flexible for you to safely pickup and return materials on campus. The library does not mail books.

Circulation staff locate the items you request within the Highline College Library collection, check out the materials to you, and take your items to the curbside pickup location at ITS building 30. Our team does the work for you, allowing everyone in the Highline College community to keep up with their coursework and reading pleasure.

We are not answering the library phone, contact us via email with questions about how to get library materials.

You can take advantage of curbside pickup service throughout spring and summer quarter. For detailed information on how to use curbside service - contact Circulation Services at libcirc@highline.edu 

Open the gate to knowledge. Look for a book, request a movie, finish your research.

Literacy is the most basic currency of the knowledge economy. -Barack Obama

What We're Reading

Do you think that library staff are always reading one or more books? You're correct! Here's a list of what we're reading right now and a little explanation about the books, as described by the reader. Click the title for a permalink. If you see it, you can place a Hold, and read it yourself! Check It Out!

Highline Library bookshelves

Shotgun Seamstress [collection] by Osa Atoe 

Unbirthday by Liz Braswell

Go the distance by Jen Calonita These two books are a part of Disney's Twisted tales series. The first one is a story based on Hercules and the second Alice in Wonderland.

A History of My Brief Body by Billy-Ray Belcourt

The best we could do by Thi Bui
The best we could do is about this family from Vietnam that immigrated to the states in the 1960's. The story is told in graphic novel form about the life of a young Asian American women and her family history that started in Vietnam. The struggles they faced included poverty and raising a lot of children. 

Checking out crime by Laurie Cass
I read the book Checking out crime by Laurie Cass because it is a part of a series that I have been reading which is the cat bookmobile mystery series. It is about a librarian named Minnie Hamilton and Eddie her cat and they solve murder mysteries in their town Chilson Michigan. 

America is not the heart by Elaine Castillo
America is not the heart is about an Asian American family living together with multiple generations. A woman helps to raise her niece when the girl's parents are at work. The child always picks fights at school, gets into trouble consistently and is spoiled at home.**

Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clark
This is my second time reading this book. This is book one in The Infernal Devices trilogy that is set in the same world as Cassandra Clark’s main series The Mortal Instruments. This trilogy is a prequel to the original series, so though it doesn’t have the same characters there’s many ties in with same family names and places and what not. The story is about a woman, Tessa, who travels from America to Victorian England to find her lost brother. She is kidnaped by members of a secret organization and soon learns that she has the power to transform into another person. She is hunted after by The Magister, who seeks to take her newly found power. She is rescued and takes refuge with the Shadowhunters who are warriors dedicated to ridding the world from demons. She soon becomes so drawn into the fight, she realizes that she may need to choose between helping her new friends and saving her brother.

Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning by Cathy Park Hong
Hong, a Korean American woman and poet, writes about her minor feelings which are actually major feelings about her racialized experiences that were/are minimized and not validated by the dominant culture. The book is thought provoking and explores Asian Americans place in racial discourse.

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
In this dystopian world that imagines a world of what would happen if an entire society was set up in a communist eugenics paradigm, all of the main characters have great longing and are hopelessly lost, just like the characters of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, the play which inspired the title. The book focuses first on Bernard Marx, a psychologist who realizes that something is terribly wrong with the people around him, yet he lacks a larger awareness to know exactly what that is and is still wrapped up in the petty games of one-upmanship that pervade the upper classes. Bernard’s aloof nature gets him threatened with certain demotion. His friend Helmholtz similarly feels that something is wrong with the people around him yet has figured out how to fit in well enough. Lenina is Bernard’s love interest, a shallow woman who represents a perfect ideal to what a person should be in this society, yet her pursuit of finding an interesting man to be with leaves her lost as well. When Bernard takes Lenina on a vacation to spend time at the “reservation” in the former American Southwest where primitive people still have a society based on antiquated family values, they meet the son of a modern society woman who was effectively “shipwrecked” and left for dead on this reservation. Bernard brings John the Savage back to London with them and the rest of the story is about the clash of cultures between the old world and the new.

Magus of the Library by Mitsu Izumi  It's a manga series about prejudice and how meeting a librarian changed the main character's life for the better, set in a fantasy world.

Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok
Girl in Translation was about the struggles of a young girl that came over to New York from the Philippines. She and her mom worked in a clothes factory that was owned by her aunt and uncle during the 1980's. This girl was so ashamed of her extreme poverty that she did not have any friends over at her apartment, but she did make friends and overcame a lot of challenges such as learning English.**

Solaris by Stanisław Lem
I am reading this classic Polish sci-fi novel with a longstanding book club I have with friends. It's about making contact with an alien planet and the limitations of human knowledge. 

Where reasons end by Yiyun Li
Where Reasons end is about a Vietnamese woman looking back on the life of her son who committed suicide. She would talk to him as if he were still alive. It shows what grief can do to a person and how they work through it.** . I read those three books on Karen's recommended reads list because I am interested in stories about immigrants coming to America and the hardships they face.

From Scratch: A Memoir of Love, Sicily, and Finding Home by Tembi Locke

No One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood

Where the Wild Ladies Are by Aoko Matsuda
Japanese folktales retold as feminist Japanese short stories

Not Here by Hieu Minh Nguyen (poetry)
I've been reading more poetry during the Covid pandemic and am so glad I came across this collection. It's a beautiful and vulnerable look at issues such as sadness, race, queerness, and difficult family relationships. 

Cribsheet: A Data-Driven Guide to Better, More Relaxed Parenting, from Birth to Preschool by Emily Oster

Southland by Nina Revoyr

A Pale Horse by Charles Todd

The Shooting at Chateau Rock (Bruno, Chief of Police) by Martin Walker
Walker cleverly leads the reader through the mystery as we follow Bruno in his (fictional) town of St. Denis. The setting in the Périgord region in the south of France in the present time, the descriptions of the food, wine, and the daily life of the recurring characters in this series make it a wonderful escape into another world. I’ve read the whole series during the pandemic. Thanks for the recommendation, Ben Horvath!

The Horse: A Miscellany of Equine Knowledge by Julie Whitaker
This is an informative gallop through everything to do with the horse - evolution, history, biology, breeds, behavior, training, competition, health and care - all gathered into an accessible gallery of solid information, essential facts and fascinating trivia. 

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

Caste by Isabel Wilkerson
This book was recommended to me by a lot of people and kept coming up in Anti-racism webinars, resource lists, and is on the Seattle Public Library’s Peak Picks table in our local branch. I am learning why and how racism and white supremacy can endure for so long. Wilkerson does an excellent job explaining her theory of the American caste system, comparing it to caste systems in other countries such as India and South Africa. She weaves stories, personal accounts, and history together to show how we are all caught up in the caste system together and how much harm has been and continues to be done.

Ostfriesenmoor by Klaus-Peter Wolf This is book number 7 in a murder/mystery series set in East Frisia, Germany. A body is found, a child goes missing, and the detectives are also dealing with personal problems. You know, the plot of any murder/mystery book.  

Audiobooks

The Making of Asian America: A History by Erika Lee
I’ve been listening to the audiobook version of this history of Asian Americans in the Americas (with a focus on Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipinos, Southeast Asians, and South Asian Americans), and it’s been reminding me how nuanced and complicated and fascinating American history really is.

Stone of Tears by Terry Goodkind
This book is book 2 of the epic fantasy series The Sword of Truth. I have read this book several times, this is the first time I am reading it via audiobook.  In the previous novel, The Wizard’s First Rule, Richard defeated his father Darken Rahl using the Magic or Orden. This caused a tear in the vail between the worlds and now the Keeper himself is after Richard. At the start of the book, Richard and The Mother Confessor Kahlan go to the Mud People to be married, but before they can do that, Richard begins to suffer from debilitating headaches caused by The Gift – proving that Richard is a Wizard. They are visited by three Sisters of the Light, who have come take Richard with them to learn how to control his magic. After the first two sisters kill themselves when Richard refuses, he and Kahlan consult the spirits of the ancestors and Richard is marked by the Keeper. After this he goes with the third sister to the Palace of the Profits. The story continues with Richard learning that he and Kahlan are woven into an ancient prophecy where they each must face and overcome unspeakable things, or the world they love will be lost to the Keeper and his evil followers the Sister of the Dark. The Stone of Tears reveals the Wizard’s Second Rule: The greatest harm can result from the best intentions.

Sea Witch by Sara Henning
I’m not very far in this book, but I started listening to it via audio book because I’ve always been in love with all things oceans and witches and fantasy like this. This story is Wicked meets The Little Mermaid in an origin story of the sea’s most iconic villainess.

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis
This is the first book in The Chronicles of Narnia, a book series that I have been in love with since I was a very young girl. It’s a story of 4 siblings who are sent to live in the safety of the country side with an old professor during World War II. They find a magical wardrobe that takes them on a magical adventure in the land of Narnia. With the help of the creatures and beings of Narnia, Peter, Susan, Edmond, and Lucy meet with the guardian of Narnia, Aslan. He helps the children find their strength and together they battle the evil White Witch who has been in control of Narnia for over 100 years. Once defeated, the four children take their places as Kings and Queens of Narnia, living there for decades, before stumbling back through the wardrobe and learning that they had only been gone for mere moments.

Media Literacy and Evaluating Internet Sources

Brown and white cow in spectacles. C.C.O.W.: Credentials, Claims, Objectives, Worldview

Highline College Library’s Media Literacy and Evaluating Internet Sources instruction materials have been updated. The newest versions are now available for you to integrate into your courses.

Both were revised to include recent best practices in evaluating misinformation and fake news. In addition, the Evaluating Internet Sources content encourages students to interact with the information they’re viewing, while also considering their own worldview and how it impacts their reaction to the information.

Evaluating Internet Sources

The latest version of Evaluating Internet Sources is available on a website. Note that the previous version still exists in Canvas Commons, but it’s no longer being updated. 

Media Literacy 

Go to the Faculty Guide to Canvas Information Literacy Modules, and follow the instructions under Importing the Modules to import this module or any of the others. 

Questions? Please contact your friendly Highline College librarians at refhelp@highline.edu.

Y.E.L.L. & Y.W.A.C. Summit Resource Guide

Purple text on a gray background with a purple microphone. Y.E.L.L. Female Summit: Serving Young Women of Color

The resource guide for the Young Educated Ladies Leading (YELL) and Young Women Advocating for Change (YWAC) summits brings together resources for summit participants wanting to expand upon what they learned, and for those not able to attend curious about what they missed. Resources include videos and publications from summit speakers and presenters, as well as related books, podcasts and more.

 

Playtime for Students of All Ages

Attending college while raising children brings a unique set of challenges - balancing academics and parenthood, and perhaps a job. Relax, get silly, laugh and have some quality time with your child. 

Play reduces stress

Playing helps emotional growth, and provides an outlet for anxiety and stress, for students of all ages. Physical movement counteracts obesity facing many today. Dance, jump rope, chase bubbles with a child.

Did you know that…play provides rich learning opportunities and leads to children’s success and self-esteem? Through playing with your child they develop valuable skills; tools to help them when they are in college.

Cognitive skills – Development in memory, concentration, attention, perception, imagination and creativity. Learning to think, understand, communicate, remember and work out what might happen next.

Social skills – Interacting with others in a positive manner. Learning speech, gesture, facial expression and body language. Controlling impulses in order to do well at something. Respecting someone else’s personal space, negotiating and problem solving. 

Communication skills – Sounding out new words, talking with others. Practicing how to listen. Singing songs is an interactive way to teach language. Read books, talk about the pictures, allow your child to tell you the story. 

 

Father and daughter reading

 

Physical skills – Large muscle development by running, climbing, skipping, rolling down a grassy hill, riding a bike, pushing toys, learning how to swing. Small muscle development by playing with playdoh, stacking blocks, pouring sand or water, cutting with safety scissors, working zippers/buttons/snaps. 

Don’t forget…create new memories

Remember your own childhood experiences of building forts, playing at the beach, playing in the snow, playing with a beloved pet, or playing with a special friend. Engage in fun activities, create lifelong memories for your child. 

Mother and son in indoor tent

Trust your own playful instincts

Remember when you were young how imagination and play just came naturally. Play is a child’s occupation, it contributes to cognitive, physical, social and emotional well-being of the growing child. Have fun!

From the Library Data Analysis Team

Have you ever heard of the Pareto Principle? It is better known as the 80-20 rule. It supposedly originated in Italy in the early 1900s when Vilfredo Pareto noted that 20% of the Italian people owned 80% of the land. According to Hubspot, a customer relationship management firm, this rule has been applied to a multitude of services and activities, such as:

  • In customer service, 80% of the complaints come from 20% of your customers. 
  • In criminology, 80% of the crimes are committed by 20% of the population. 
  • In software engineering, 80% of the program’s functionality comes from 20% of the developer’s efforts. 
  • In the environment, 80% of the world’s pollution comes from 20% of the factories. 

And even (hopefully not where you work), “80% of the work will be completed by 20% of your employees.”

The same holds true for library database usage. In looking at our individual databases and searching/full-text retrieval statistics, we can safely say that 20% of our databases are the ones providing the overwhelming majority of results to our users. And to go even further, for us at Highline, our top five databases do most of the heavy lifting. The graph below represents the share of searching in our top five most searched databases.

Colorful pie chart showing the % breakdown of searches in top 5 databases: Academic Search Complete (40%), ProQuest Research Library (21%), Ethnic Newswatch (19%),Alt-Press Watch (15%), PsychArticles (9%),

Abolition Resource Guide

Pink and white text on dark green: Abolition as Healing: Liberating Our CommUNITY

The Abolition Resource Guide supports Highline College's Unity Through Diversity Week 2021 theme, Abolition as Healing: Liberating our CommUNITY. This research guide provides resources for understanding, researching, teaching, advocating for, and practicing abolition in our contemporary moment. An international movement—from Chicago to Lagos to Palestine—this guide mainly focuses on abolition in the American context. Included in this guide are links to abolitionist organizations, toolkits and study guides, journals and research databases, art and writing by incarcerated folks, community-based resources for alternatives to calling the police, and additional resources on campus and in the local area.