Welcome to the winter quarter “We’re Listening” Whiteboard Feedback series! We wanted to find ways this quarter to continue learning what you — our students, staff, and faculty — need from the Library now that we’ve reopened our physical spaces. We’ve set up a whiteboard on the fourth floor of TLB, and are asking weekly questions that you can answer when you come and spend time in the Library!
We will use this site to track that feedback, and answer questions here on a regular basis. A QR code on the whiteboard will guide you to this site. Thank you so much for your participation. We love hearing from you!
Week of March 21, 2022
What book is on your nightstand? (What are you reading right now?)
Our Response: “In 1971 Dr. Theodore Kaczynski rejected modern society and moved to a primitive cabin in the woods of Montana. There, he began building bombs, which he sent to professors and executives to express his disdain for modern society, and to work on his magnum opus, Industrial Society and Its Future, forever known to the world as the Unabomber Manifesto. Responsible for three deaths and more than twenty casualties over two decades, he was finally identifed and apprehended when his brother recognized his writing style while reading the ‘Unabomber Manifesto.’ The piece, written under the pseudonym FC (Freedom Club) was published in the New York Times after his promise to cease the bombing if a major publication printed it in its entirety.” – Amazon
Our Response: Author of books like After Death Signs from Pet Afterlife & Animals in Heaven: How to Ask for Signs & Visits and What it Means and Lessons from Loved Ones In Heaven: How to Connect to your Loved One on the Other Side to Heal from Loss, Atwater’s expertise is “animal communication readings with Spirits on the Other Side, [having] helped heal the hearts of 1000’s of pet loss clients around the world. Ms. Atwater’s psychic and intuitive consultations have taught clients how to get and identify signs from their pets in the afterlife. Brent’s insights transform their lives with validation of life after death and answers that provide comfort, healing and peace in knowing Love is Never Ending!” – Author’s website
Animal Afterlife[: In Their Own Words by Leta Worthington]
Our Response: “After almost 20 years of animal communication work and spiritual exploration, the author found herself suddenly and inexplicably inundated with requests to communicate with animals who were either in the throes of death and dying or who had already passed over. This sea change in Leta’s practice became the framework for helping clients devastated by the loss of a special animal better understand life after death and find peace and solace. Listen to the animals while they share with us how we do not cease to exist when we cross the Rainbow Bridge, and how we can never really be separated from those we love.” – Amazon.com
Our Response: “Claire Randall is leading a double life. She has a husband in one century, and a lover in another…In 1945, Claire Randall, a former combat nurse, is back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon–when she innocently touches a boulder in one of the ancient stone circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is a Sassenach–an ‘outlander’–in a Scotland torn by war and raiding border clans in the year of our Lord…1743. Hurled back in time by forces she cannot understand, Claire’s destiny in soon inextricably intertwined with Clan MacKenzie and the forbidden Castle Leoch. She is catapulted without warning into the intrigues of lairds and spies that may threaten her life …and shatter her heart. For here, James Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior, shows her a passion so fierce and a love so absolute that Claire becomes a woman torn between fidelity and desire…and between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives.” – Delacorte Press
Our Response: “For years, rumors of the “Marsh Girl” have haunted Barkley Cove, a quiet town on the North Carolina coast. So in late 1969, when handsome Chase Andrews is found dead, the locals immediately suspect Kya Clark, the so-called Marsh Girl. But Kya is not what they say. Sensitive and intelligent, she has survived for years alone in the marsh that she calls home, finding friends in the gulls and lessons in the sand. Then the time comes when she yearns to be touched and loved. When two young men from town become intrigued by her wild beauty, Kya opens herself to a new life–until the unthinkable happens.”
Forrest Gump [by Winston Groom]
Our Response: “‘Bein a idiot is no box of chocolates, ‘ but ‘at least I ain’t led no hum-drum life, ‘ says Forrest Gump, the lovable, surprisingly savvy hero of this wonderful comic novel. When the University of Alabama’s football team drafts Forrest and makes him a star, that’s only the beginning! He flunks out–and goes on to be a Vietnam war hero, a world-class ping-pong player, a wrestler, and a business tycoon. He compares battle scars with Lyndon Johnson, discovers the truth about Richard Nixon, and suffers the ups and downs of true love. Now, Forrest Gump is telling all–in a madcap screwball romp through three decades of the American landscape. It’s Gump’s amazing travels … and you’ve got to read them to believe them.” – Pocket Books
Pachinko [by Min Jin Lee]
Our Response: “A saga about four generations of a poor Korean immigrant family fight to control their destiny in 20th-century Japan, exiled from their home. Pachinko follows one Korean family through the generations, beginning in early 1900s Korea with Sunja, the prized daughter of a poor yet proud family, whose unplanned pregnancy threatens to shame them all. Deserted by her lover, Sunja is saved when a young tubercular minister offers to marry and bring her to Japan. So begins a sweeping saga of an exceptional family in exile from its homeland and caught in the indifferent arc of history. Through desperate struggles and hard-won triumphs, its members are bound together by deep roots as they face enduring questions of faith, family, and identity.” – Author’s website
The Life of Jada ~ Jada Simpson
Our Response: We wish we were able to give you all more information about this title! But there are a few other Jada’s that showed up in our book search like Girls Hold Up This World by Jada Pinkett Smith, the Jada Jones series of children’s chapter books, and Will Smith’s memoir entitled Will.
Our Response: Did you know that a UW Libraries search of “Bible” that only takes into account print books brings back over 67,000 results? From an 1838 copy in Finnish to nearly 200 different copies of the King James version to an inclusive language translation. Not to mention concordances, commentaries, and so much more. It was hard to choose just one resource!
With Malice [by Eileen Cook]
Our Response: “Eighteen-year-old Jill Charron’s senior trip to Italy was supposed to be the adventure of a lifetime. And then the accident happened. Waking up in a hospital room, her leg in a cast, stitches in her face, and a big blank canvas where the last 6 weeks should be, Jill comes to discover she was involved in a fatal accident in her travels abroad. She was jetted home by her affluent father in order to receive quality care. Care that includes a lawyer. And a press team. Because maybe the accident…wasn’t an accident. Wondering not just what happened but what she did, Jill tries to piece together the events of the past six weeks before she loses her thin hold on her once-perfect life.” – Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
A Little Life [by Hanya Yanagihara]
Our Response: “A Little Life follows four college classmates—broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition—as they move to New York in search of fame and fortune. While their relationships, which are tinged by addiction, success, and pride, deepen over the decades, the men are held together by their devotion to the brilliant, enigmatic Jude, a man scarred by an unspeakable childhood trauma. A hymn to brotherly bonds and a masterful depiction of love in the twenty-first century, Hanya Yanagihara’s stunning novel is about the families we are born into, and those that we make for ourselves.” – Penguin Random House
Edgar Cayce: The Sleeping Prophet [by Jess Sterns]
Our Response: “Life, prophecies and medical predictions from clairvoyant readings of Edgar Cayce which have been the subject of controversy throughout wide areas of the United States.” – UW Libraries
Queenie [by Candice Carty-Williams}
Our Response: “Queenie Jenkins is a twenty-five-year-old Jamaican British woman living in London, straddling two cultures and slotting neatly into neither. She works at a national newspaper, where she’s constantly forced to compare herself to her white middle class peers. After a messy break up from her long-term white boyfriend, Queenie seeks comfort in all the wrong places…including several hazardous men who do a good job of occupying brain space and a bad job of affirming self-worth. As Queenie careens from one questionable decision to another, she finds herself wondering, “What are you doing? Why are you doing it? Who do you want to be?”—all of the questions today’s woman must face in a world trying to answer them for her.” – Simon & Schuster
The Queen of Nothing – Author: Holly Black
Our Response: “A powerful curse forces the exiled Queen of Faerie to choose between ambition and humanity in this highly anticipated and jaw-dropping finale to The Folk of the Air trilogy from a #1 New York Times bestselling author. 0He will be the destruction of the crown and the ruination of the throne. Power is much easier to acquire than it is to hold onto. Jude learned this lesson when she released her control over the wicked king, Cardan, in exchange for immeasurable power. Now as the exiled mortal Queen of Faerie, Jude is powerless and left reeling from Cardan’s betrayal. She bides her time determined to reclaim everything he took from her. Opportunity arrives in the form of her twin sister, Taryn, whose life is in peril. Jude must risk venturing back into the treacherous Faerie Court, and confront her lingering feelings for Cardan, if she wishes to save her sister. But Elfhame is not as she left it. War is brewing. As Jude slips deep within enemy lines she becomes ensnared in the conflict’s bloody politics. And, when a dormant yet powerful curse is unleashed, panic spreads throughout the land, forcing her to choose between her ambition and her humanity . . .” – Little, Brown and Company
The Girl with the Seven Names [by Hyeonseo Lee with David John]
Our Response: “As she escaped to stay with distant relatives in China, Hyeonseo still believed that North Korea was the best place in the world to live, and that Kim Il-Sung was her savior. She did not know it would be seventeen years until she was reunited with her family. She could not return, for fear that she and her family would incur the punishments of the government authorities – involving imprisonment, torture, possible public execution. Hyeonseo instead remained in China and strove to learn Chinese and a little English in an effort to adapt and survive. Fourteen years and two lifetimes later, she would return to the border in a daring mission to spirit her mother and brother to South Korea, on one of the most arduous, expensive and dangerous journeys imaginable. This is the unique story not only of Hyeonseo’s escape from the darkness into the light, but also of a coming of age, an education and a resolve rebuild her life not once but twice – first in China, then in South Korea. Strong, brave and eloquent, this memoir is a triumph of spirit.” – Author’s website
At the Mountains of Madness – H.P. Lovecraft
Our Response: “This classic mind-shattering tale, which ‘ranks high among the horror stories of the English language,’ plunges into the darkness of the Cthulhu mythos (Time). In the uncharted wastes of Antarctica, an exploration party from Miskatonic University encounters a gory sight when they discover their advance team’s camp has been destroyed and its members slaughtered. There is no evidence of what happened except a series of burial mounds, six of which contain dead specimens of unknown species. Eight similar tombs are empty, but they haven’t been broken into-they’ve been broken out of. What began as a search for knowledge soon becomes a terrifying confrontation with the true nature of the world and the universe in all its stark blackness and unyielding oblivion. For mankind is not-and never has been-the bright light of creation. It’s all a mistake, an insignificant stain of existence, forgotten by an unwitting and indifferent creator . . . until now.” – UW Libraries
Our Response: “Coming of age as a Fat brown girl in a white Connecticut suburb is hard. Harder when your whole life is on fire, though. Charlie Vega is a lot of things. Smart. Funny. Artistic. Ambitious. Fat. People sometimes have a problem with that last one. Especially her mom. Charlie wants a good relationship with her body, but it’s hard, and her mom leaving a billion weight loss shakes on her dresser doesn’t help. The world and everyone in it have ideas about what she should look like: thinner, lighter, slimmer-faced, straighter-haired. Be smaller. Be whiter. Be quieter. But there’s one person who’s always in Charlie’s corner: her best friend Amelia. Slim. Popular. Athletic. Totally dope. So when Charlie starts a tentative relationship with cute classmate Brian, the first worthwhile guy to notice her, everything is perfect until she learns one thing–he asked Amelia out first. So is she his second choice or what? Does he even really see her? Because it’s time people did. A sensitive, funny, and painfully honest coming-of-age story with a wry voice and tons of chisme, Fat Chance, Charlie Vega tackles our relationships to our parents, our bodies, our cultures, and ourselves.” – Penguin Random House
Our Response: “Sometimes it is the one who loves you who hurts you the most. Lily hasn’t always had it easy, but that’s never stopped her from working hard for the life she wants. She’s come a long way from the small town in Maine where she grew up–she graduated from college, moved to Boston, and started her own business. So when she feels a spark with a gorgeous neurosurgeon named Ryle Kincaid, everything in Lily’s life suddenly seems almost too good to be true. Ryle is assertive, stubborn, maybe even a little arrogant. He’s also sensitive, brilliant, and has a total soft spot for Lily. And the way he looks in scrubs certainly doesn’t hurt. Lily can’t get him out of her head. But Ryle’s complete aversion to relationships is disturbing. Even as Lily finds herself becoming the exception to his “no dating” rule, she can’t help but wonder what made him that way in the first place. As questions about her new relationship overwhelm her, so do thoughts of Atlas Corrigan–her first love and a link to the past she left behind. He was her kindred spirit, her protector. When Atlas suddenly reappears, everything Lily has built with Ryle is threatened. With this bold and deeply personal novel, Colleen Hoover delivers a heart-wrenching story that breaks exciting new ground for her as a writer. Combining a captivating romance with a cast of all-too-human characters, It Ends With Us is an unforgettable tale of love that comes at the ultimate price.” – Author’s website
Our Response: “Ardent, gregarious British naval officer Jack Aubrey is elated to be given his first appointment as commander: the fourteen-gun ship HMS Sophie. Meanwhile—after a heated first encounter that nearly comes to a duel—Aubrey and a brilliant but down-on-his-luck physician, Stephen Maturin, strike up an unlikely rapport. On a whim, Aubrey invites Maturin to join his crew as the Sophie’s surgeon. And so begins the legendary friendship that anchors this beloved saga set against the thrilling backdrop of the Napoleonic Wars.” – W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.
Our Response: “A bleak moon settled by utopian anarchists, Anarres has long been isolated from other worlds, including its mother planet, Urras—a civilization of warring nations, great poverty, and immense wealth. Now Shevek, a brilliant physicist, is determined to reunite the two planets, which have been divided by centuries of distrust. He will seek answers, question the unquestionable, and attempt to tear down the walls of hatred that have kept them apart. To visit Urras—to learn, to teach, to share—will require great sacrifice and risks, which Shevek willingly accepts. But the ambitious scientist’s gift is soon seen as a threat, and in the profound conflict that ensues, he must reexamine his beliefs even as he ignites the fires of change.” – Author’s website
The Atlas Six [by Olivie Blake]
Our Response: “The Alexandrian Society, caretakers of lost knowledge from the greatest civilizations of antiquity, are the foremost secret society of magical academicians in the world. Those who earn a place among the Alexandrians will secure a life of wealth, power, and prestige beyond their wildest dreams, and each decade, only the six most uniquely talented magicians are selected to be considered for initiation. Enter the latest round of six: Libby Rhodes and Nico de Varona, unwilling halves of an unfathomable whole, who exert uncanny control over every element of physicality. Reina Mori, a naturalist, who can intuit the language of life itself. Parisa Kamali, a telepath who can traverse the depths of the subconscious, navigating worlds inside the human mind. Callum Nova, an empath easily mistaken for a manipulative illusionist, who can influence the intimate workings of a person’s inner self. Finally, there is Tristan Caine, who can see through illusions to a new structure of reality—an ability so rare that neither he nor his peers can fully grasp its implications. When the candidates are recruited by the mysterious Atlas Blakely, they are told they will have one year to qualify for initiation, during which time they will be permitted preliminary access to the Society’s archives and judged based on their contributions to various subjects of impossibility: time and space, luck and thought, life and death. Five, they are told, will be initiated. One will be eliminated. The six potential initiates will fight to survive the next year of their lives, and if they can prove themselves to be the best among their rivals, most of them will. Most of them.” – Macmillan
Dante’s Inferno
Our Response: There’s a few to choose on this one, too! “Award-winning poet Mary Jo Bang has translated the Inferno at a moment when popular culture is so prevalent that it has even taken Dante, author of the fourteenth-century epic poem The Divine Comedy, and turned him into an action-adventure video game hero. Dante wrote his poem in the vernacular, rather than in literary Latin. Bang has similarly created an idiomatically rich contemporary version that is accessible, musical, and audacious. She’s matched Dante’s own liberal use of allusion by incorporating cultural references familiar to contemporary readers: Shakespeare and Dickinson, Freud and South Park, Kierkegaard and Stephen Colbert. With haunting illustrations by Henrik Drescher, this is the most readable Inferno available in English, a truly remarkable achievement.” – Graywolf Press
Iron Widow [by Xiran Jay Zhao]
Our Response: “The boys of Huaxia dream of pairing up with girls to pilot Chrysalises, giant transforming robots that can battle the mecha aliens that lurk beyond the Great Wall. It doesn’t matter that the girls often die from the mental strain. When 18-year-old Zetian offers herself up as a concubine-pilot, it’s to assassinate the ace male pilot responsible for her sister’s death. But she gets her vengeance in a way nobody expected—she kills him through the psychic link between pilots and emerges from the cockpit unscathed. She is labeled an Iron Widow, a much-feared and much-silenced kind of female pilot who can sacrifice boys to power up Chrysalises instead. To tame her unnerving yet invaluable mental strength, she is paired up with Li Shimin, the strongest and most controversial male pilot in Huaxia. But now that Zetian has had a taste of power, she will not cower so easily. She will miss no opportunity to leverage their combined might and infamy to survive attempt after attempt on her life, until she can figure out exactly why the pilot system works in its misogynist way—and stop more girls from being sacrificed.” – Penguin Random House
Week of February 21, 2022
What book inspired and influenced you? Tell us about it!
Pan-African Social Ecology [by] Modibo Kadalie
Our Response: “Modibo Kadalie has spent nearly six decades as an activist, organizer, teacher, and scholar in the civil rights, Black power, and Pan-African movements. In this collection of interviews and public talks, he reflects on the sit-ins, boycotts, strikes, urban rebellions, and anticolonial movements that have animated the late-twentieth and early-twenty-first centuries. Kadalie demonstrates how the forms of direct democracy that have evolved through these freedom struggles present the promise of a future defined by social liberation as well as ecological healing.
This concise, radical, and iconoclastic book connects Black liberation struggles to ecological activism in the era of climate change, calling on present and future generations of activists to reconnect with the spirit of past movements without lionizing individual leaders or lending legitimacy to any governments or politicians.” – AK Press
The Great Gatsby – 1st Person Narrative
Our Response: A classic by F. Scott Fitzgerald, “The mysterious Jay Gatsby embodies the American notion that it is possible to redefine oneself and persuade the world to accept that definition. Gatsby’s youthful neighbor, Nick Carraway, fascinated with the display of enormous wealth in which Gatsby revels, finds himself swept up in the lavish lifestyle of Long Island society during the Jazz Age. Considered Fitzgerald’s best work, The Great Gatsby is a mystical, timeless story of integrity and cruelty, vision and despair. The timeless story of Jay Gatsby and his love for Daisy Buchanan is widely acknowledged to be the closest thing to the Great American Novel ever written.” – UW Libraries
The Alchemist [by] Paulo Coehlo ← love this one ♡
Our Response: “A special 25th anniversary edition of Paulo Coehlo’s extraordinary international bestselling phenomenon–the inspiring spiritual tale of self-discovery that has touched millions of lives around the world. Combining magic, mysticism, wisdom and wonder, The Alchemist has become a modern classic, selling millions of copies around the world and transforming the lives of countless readers across generations. Paulo Coelho’s masterpiece tells the mystical story of Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy who yearns to travel in search of a worldly treasure. His quest will lead him to riches far different–and far more satisfying–than he ever imagined. Santiago’s journey teaches us about the essential wisdom of listening to our hearts, of recognizing opportunity and learning to read the omens strewn along life’s path, and, most importantly, to follow our dreams.” – HarperOne
A Child Called ‘It’ by Dave Pelzer
Our Response: A Child Called ‘It’: One Child’s Courage to Survive “chronicles the unforgettable account of one of the most severe child abuse cases in California history. It is the story of Dave Pelzer, who was brutally beaten and starved by his emotionally unstable, alcoholic mother: a mother who played tortuous, unpredictable games–games that left him nearly dead. He had to learn how to play his mother’s games in order to survive because she no longer considered him a son, but a slave; and no longer a boy, but an “it.”
Dave’s bed was an old army cot in the basement, and his clothes were torn and raunchy. When his mother allowed him the luxury of food, it was nothing more than spoiled scraps that even the dogs refused to eat. The outside world knew nothing of his living nightmare. He had nothing or no one to turn to, but his dreams kept him alive–dreams of someone taking care of him, loving him and calling him their son.” – Simon & Schuster
Peaceful Warrior – Feel it-Let it go!
Our Response: This movie is based on the book Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman, blends “fact and fiction, the story relates an odyssey into realms of light and shadow, romance, and mystery. Guided by an eccentric old warrior named Socrates, drawn to an elusive young woman called Joy, Dan moves toward a final confrontation that will deliver or destroy him.
This classic tale, told with heart and humor, speaks to the peaceful warrior in each of us, moving readers to laughter and tears — even to moments of illumination — as they rediscover life’s larger meaning and purpose.” – Author’s website
Trade the Trader [by] Quint Tatro
Our Response: “When you trade, you’re not just trading companies that deliver goods or services. You’re trading against other traders who care about only one thing: taking your money. That’s the #1 hard reality of trading – and most traders either don’t know it, or don’t act as if they do. In this book, top trader and hedge fund manager Quint Tatro shows how to win consistently in the “zero sum” game of trading, where there’s a loser for every winner. You’ll learn how to reflect your trading competition in every facet of trading and investing: choosing companies to invest in, knowing when to jump in and out of the market, and mastering the psychology and gamesmanship of trading.” – Pearson FT Press
In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts [by] Gabor Maté
Our Response: “Based on Gabor Maté’s two decades of experience as a medical doctor and his groundbreaking work with the severely addicted on Vancouver’s skid row, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts radically reenvisions this much misunderstood field by taking a holistic approach. Dr. Maté presents addiction not as a discrete phenomenon confined to an unfortunate or weak-willed few, but as a continuum that runs throughout (and perhaps underpins) our society; not a medical “condition” distinct from the lives it affects, rather the result of a complex interplay among personal history, emotional, and neurological development, brain chemistry, and the drugs (and behaviors) of addiction. Simplifying a wide array of brain and addiction research findings from around the globe, the book avoids glib self-help remedies, instead promoting a thorough and compassionate self-understanding as the first key to healing and wellness.
In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts argues persuasively against contemporary health, social, and criminal justice policies toward addiction and those impacted by it. The mix of personal stories—including the author’s candid discussion of his own “high-status” addictive tendencies—and science with positive solutions makes the book equally useful for lay readers and professionals.” – Penguin Random House
Remember When – WW2 Romance. True story
Our Response: This was a tough one! Is this the title you meant? We found a movie from 1974 that seems to meet the ticket.
Our Response: The first in the series by Jeff Kinney, Diary of a Wimpy Kid finds Greg Heffley “thrust into middle school, where undersized weaklings share the hallways with kids who are taller, meaner, and already shaving. The hazards of growing up before you’re ready are uniquely revealed through words and drawings as Greg records them in his diary.
In book one of this debut series, Greg is happy to have Rowley, his sidekick, along for the ride. But when Rowley’s star starts to rise, Greg tries to use his best friend’s newfound popularity to his own advantage, kicking off a chain of events that will test their friendship in hilarious fashion.” – Author’s website
Week of February 7, 2022
Tell us about a library you spent time at as a kid.
My public library was always the place I went when I needed a good book recommendation (Harry Potter was always a good choice).
Our Response: Ah, favorite books! Another good question for the whiteboard. Have you tried Nnedi Okorafor’s Akata Witch/Warrior/Woman series?
I remember the excitement, because it was a chance to get fun books or movies! My elementary opened a little cabin w/ books that was so adorable.
Our Response: We would love to see that cabin! It sounds so fun. There’s excitement to be had at the UW Tacoma Library with fun books and flicks, too! But there’s a trick to see what’s new:
- Start on the UW Tacoma Library homepage
- Click on the “Advanced search” link on the purple search bar where you will use the “Show Only” to select the UW Tacoma Library.
- Change the “Any field” dropdown to “Subject”. We recommend changing the “Publication Date”, too, such as to “Last 5 years”.
- Type in keywords to explore the genre you’re interested in. Love science fiction? Type that in the search! Maybe graphic novels or historical fiction are more your style. There’s so much to explore!
- Pro Tip: After you’ve hit enter, you might want to filter the type of item you’re looking for. For example, if you’re looking for recent fantasy fiction books, click the “Print Books” box in the “Resource Type” menu and apply the filter.
Our Response: We really appreciate our library colleagues up in Federal Way! Did you know that the Federal Way Branch went under a major (and amazing!) renovation back in 2010? It was historically one of the busiest King County Library System branches and continues to be so.
I remember playing type-to-learn at my old public library.
Our Response: If the Type to Learn of yore is anything like the version that is available now, we would can see our child selves begging to go to the public library every chance we could! But if you’re looking for a no-cost option to brush up on your keyboarding skills or learn more about digital literacy and coding, check out typing.com.
I can still picture my school library!
Our Response: A group of children sitting criss-cross applesauce on the floor in a nook between floor to ceiling bookshelves. They all sit at the foot of their school librarian in her wooden rocking chair while she reads to her young audience, some of whom pout silently because they weren’t among the fortunate few who were able to clamber into the first row. What is she reading today? Harry the Dirty Dog by Gene Zion with pictures by Margaret Bloy Graham. Don’t mind us, we’re enjoying our cloud of nostalgia, too!
Week of January 17, 2022
In addition to our question of the week, we had some lovely artwork and recommendations:
What services that the Library provides do you find the most valuable?
Very clean
Our Response: We totally agree with you. UW Tacoma’s Integrated Facilities Management team is amazing! Not only does staff keep your Library in tip top shape, they manage over 500,000 square feet of space in 19 structures across 46 acres. Kudos to an amazing team!
Cares about recycling! ☺♻
Our Response: You’re absolutely right! UW Tacoma is committed to sustainability, including successful recycling and composting programs to limit the amount of waste that will be sent to landfills. We do our part with recycling bins located on each floor of the library in TLB and also in SNO.
Books!
Our Response: Did you know that the UW Libraries is home to over “9 million books, journals, millions of microforms, thousands of maps, rare books, film, audio and video recordings”? It’s the largest collection in the Pacific Northwest!
Research Help!
Our Response: Your UWT librarians are here to help you at any point of the research process. We can help you formulate your research question. We can also help you broaden or narrow your existing topic. We can help you identify keywords to make your search more effective. Not sure what resources are available to you? We can help with that, too! From 24/7 chat to individual consultations, we’re here to help you search smarter, not harder.
Nice pretty view ☺
Our Response: That’s so true, especially up on TLB 4! You’ll get lovely views of downtown as well as the E 21st Street Bridge.
Comfortable and quiet
Our Response: We love that about the library! There are even more comfortable spaces now that we updated our soft seating in the Tioga Library Building. We have study corrals, booths, and so much more!
Nice quiet place to learn
Our Response: TLB 4 is the space for you if you’re looking for a whisper-quiet space to study. We have so much more to offer in the UWT Learning Commons, too!
- The Tioga Library Building is also home to the TLC Writing Center on TLB2.
- You can connect to the Veteran & Military Resource Center (VMRC) in TLB 307A.
- Need help in your math and science classes? TLC Quantitative Skills Tutoring can assist with that and more in the Snoqualmie Building (SNO) on the second floor.
- We have an amazing makerspace on the first floor of SNO, too!
- The new home of the Center for Equity and Inclusion is right here in the Learning Commons. It’s also located on the first floor of SNO.
Good study area ☺
Our Response: Yes, we have great study areas! But if you’re looking for even more places to study around campus, we can help you find them from reservable study spaces to open study spaces.
Week of January 10, 2022
Can’t stop by the Library to give your feedback on the “We’re Listening” whiteboard series? No worries! You can participate online now, too! Click on the link to read our question of the week and weigh in: https://forms.gle/DtKrWajYmru12tMR7. We’ll check back in with you with your feedback and our responses at the end of week!
Week of January 3, 2022
Now that you’re settling into your winter quarter routines we thought we’d kick things off with a retrospective, so this week we’ll start with our response! Thanks for giving us such great recommendations on what you were reading and listening to last year.
What’s the best book, article, or podcast that you consumed in 2021?
- Freakonomics!
“Freakonomics began as a book, which led to a blog, a documentary film, more books, a pair of pants, and in 2010, a podcast called Freakonomics Radio. Hosted by Stephen J. Dubner, it became and remains one of the most popular podcasts in the world, with a reputation for storytelling that is both rigorous and entertaining. Its archive of more than 400 episodes is available, for free, on any podcast app, and the show airs weekly on NPR stations. Freakonomics Radio is now the flagship show of the Freakonomics Radio Network, which includes the podcasts No Stupid Questions (est. 2020), People I (Mostly) Admire (2020), Freakonomics, M.D. (2021), and a variety of special series.” - Lex Fridman Podcast
“Conversations about the nature of intelligence, consciousness, love, and power.” - Crime Junkie Podcast
“Crime Junkie is a weekly true crime podcast dedicated to giving you a fix. Every Monday, Ashley Flowers will tell you about whatever crime she’s been obsessing over that week in a way that sounds like you’re sitting around talking crime with your best friends. The storytelling is straightforward and free of rabbit holes so the cases stay suspenseful and are easy to follow. If you can never get enough true crime… Congratulations, you’re a Crime Junkie!” - Jordan Peterson – “12 Rules for Life”
“What does everyone in the modern world need to know? Renowned psychologist Jordan B. Peterson’s answer to this most difficult of questions uniquely combines the hard-won truths of ancient tradition with the stunning revelations of cutting-edge scientific research. Humorous, surprising, and informative, Dr. Peterson tells us why skateboarding boys and girls must be left alone, what terrible fate awaits those who criticize too easily, and why you should always pet a cat when you meet one on the street…Dr. Peterson journeys broadly, discussing discipline, freedom, adventure, and responsibility, distilling the world’s wisdom into 12 practical and profound rules for life. 12 Rules for Life shatters the modern commonplaces of science, faith, and human nature while transforming and ennobling the mind and spirit of its listeners.” – Amazon.com - Ologies with Alie Ward
“Take away a pocket full of science knowledge and charming, bizarre stories about what fuels these professional -ologists’ obsessions. Humorist and science correspondent Alie Ward asks smart people stupid questions and the answers might change your life.” – Apple Podcasts - TMG
“Comedians Cody Ko and Noel Miller make you laugh, hopefully.” – Apple Podcasts - Crime Show – Gimlet
“These are not those crime stories. Stories of crimes, told by the people who lived them. Every two weeks.” - 5-4 podcast → about Supreme Court cases
“5-4 is a podcast about how much the Supreme Court sucks. It’s a progressive and occasionally profane take on the ideological battles at the heart of the Court’s most important landmark cases, and an irreverent tour of all the ways in which the law is shaped by politics. Listen each week as hosts Peter, Michael, and Rhiannon dismantle the Justices’ legal reasoning on hot-button issues like affirmative action, gun rights, and campaign finance, and use dark humor to reveal the high court’s biases.” - [Goblet of Wine]: A Drunken [British] Harry Potter Podcast – funny but very interesting points and connections.
“Two British lifelong Harry Potter fans Hannah and Charlie re-read their favourite childhood book chapter by chapter with added alcohol and cynicism in fortnightly episodes!” - I discovered CBC’s “Someone Knows Something”.
“Someone Knows Something is a true crime series from CBC Podcasts, hosted by seasoned investigator and award-winning documentarian David Ridgen.” - Such A Fun Age by Kiley Reid @Real(Lit)
“A striking and surprising debut novel from an exhilarating new voice, Such a Fun Age is a page-turning and big-hearted story about race and privilege, set around a young black babysitter, her well-intentioned employer, and a surprising connection that threatens to undo them both.”