Check out our Rock the Block playlist on Grooveshark!

Paul’s Playlist

1. Reunion by M83
2. Mountain Sound by Of Monsters and Men
3. Sim Sala Bim by Fleet Foxes
4. Louder Than Ever by Cold War Kids
5. Why is Dad So Mad? by The Board of Education

Greg’s Playlist

1. Somebody That I Used to Know by Gotye
2. In the Mood by the Andrews Sisters
3. Tacea la notte placida by Verdi
4. Toccata and Fugue in D Minor by Bach
5. Bad Romance by Lady Gaga

Mary’s Playlist

1. Jupiter by Gustav Holtz
2. Spring by Vivaldi
3. She Blinded Me with Science by Thomas Dolby
4. The Elements by Tom Lehrer
5. A Glorious Dawn (remix) by Carl Sagan

Jen’s Playlist

1. Yellow Submarine by The Beatles
2. If Only Tonight We Could Sleep by The Cure
3. Queen of the Highway by The Doors
4. Seven Devils by Florence and the Machine
5. Primadonna by Marina

Glenda’s Playlist

1. Boogie Nights – Heatwave
2. Iowa Waltz – Greg Brown
3. Superstition – Stevie Ray Vaughan version, Stevie Wonder version second choice
4. 59th St. Bridge Song – Simon & Garfunkel
5. Reverie – Claude Debussy

Brooke’s Playlist

1. The Man They Call Jayne from the Firefly Soundtrack
2. An Awful Lot of Running by Chameleon Circuit
3. The Ballad of Barry Allen by Jim’s Big Ego
4. Still Alive by GladOS
5. Write Like the Wind (George RR Martin) by Paul and Storm

Jessica’s Playlist

1. A Praise Chorus by Jimmy Eat World
2. Some Nights by fun.
3. Closer to the Edge by 30 Seconds to Mars
4. Good Feeling by FLO RIDA
5. Love and Memories by O.A.R.

Laura’s Playlist

1. Trombone Shorty: Neph
2. Tom Waits: Diamonds and Gold
3. Gillian Welch: Hard Times
4. Bruce Springsteen: Backstreets
5. Dwight Yoakam: Back of Your Hand

Shawn’s Playlist

1. Bohemian Rhapsody – Queen
2. Set Fire to the Rain – Adele
3. Think – Aretha Franklin
4. Mr. Blue Sky – Electric Light Orchestra
5. Rainbow Connection – The Muppets

Cathy’s Playlist

1. Watercolors – Janis Ian
2. Let It Go – Tenth Avenue North
3. A Home – Dixie Chicks
4. My Favorite Memory – The Cox Family
5. Brave – Nichole Nordeman

Andrea’s Playlist

1. White Room- Cream
2. Jumpin’ Jack Flash- Rolling Stones
3. Fly Me To The Moon- Frank Sinatra
4. Kashmir- Led Zeppelin
5. I Wish You Love- Shirley Bassey

Grace’s Playlist

1. “Dance this Mess Around” by The B-52’s
2. “Creep” by TLC
3. “Crawling King Snake” by The Doors
4. “Honest I Do” by Jimmy Reed
5. “Home” by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros

Kristin’s Playlist

1. You and I – Lady Ga Ga
2. Long Time – Boston
3. Crazy on You – Heart
4. Need You Now – Lady Antebellum
5. Bubbly – Colbie Caillat

Roxy’s Playlist

1. Chelsea Morning – Joni Mitchell
2. My Lovely – Eisley
3. First Day of My Life – Bright Eyes
4. Ambulance – Eisley
5. “Moonlight Sonata” – Ludwig Van Beethoven

Matt’s Playlist 

1. Clutch: The Mob Goes Wild
2. John Denver: Country Roads
3. Michael Jackson: Smooth Criminal
4. 30 Seconds to Mars: Kings and Queens
5. The Doors: Riders on The Storm

Where did Wikipedia go??
Wikipedia, along with other popular websites such as Reddit, Boing Boing, and sites on the icanhazcheezburger network will go black on Jan. 18 to protest SOPA and PIPA, two bills introduced last year. Other sites, such as Google, will remain active while including links to information about the bills and stating their opposition to them.

What are SOPA and PIPA?
SOPA, the Stop Online Piracy Act, and PIPA, the PROTECT IP Act, seek to eliminate online copyright infringement. Supporters of the bills include the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of American), Time-Warner, and several major publishing houses.  The bill as initially proposed would allow copyright holders to file a court order against any site linking to illegal content; actions taken against the site could involve blocking ad revenue to the site, blocking it from search results, and requiring Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to block users from accessing the site.

Detractors of the bills say that it is too vague and too broad; and that ANY website could be easily shut down using the bills–especially those which contain large amount of user-generated content such as Facebook and Twitter.  They claim both bills violate first amendment rights and stifle creativity. Detractors of the bills include Google, Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia, the ACLU, and the American Library Association.

For more information about the bills and the opposition to them (and what you can do about it), take a look at these links:

Texas A&M Libraries Guide to SOPA and PIPA

How SOPA Affects Students, Educators, and Libraries

How PIPA and SOPA Violate White House Principles Supporting Free Speech and Innovation

A Technical Examination of SOPA and PIPA

Library Copyright Alliance Letter to Chairman Lamar Smith (Smith introduced SOPA to Congress)

Infographic: What is SOPA?

Infographic: What it means for business and innovation

Gizmodo: What is SOPA?

SOPA Strike (Information on the Jan. 18 Blackout)

Fight the Blacklist: A Toolkit for Anti-SOPA Activism

Stephen Colbert Explains SOPA (video)

PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet (video)

What happens you are visiting your first grandchild in the Bay Area in July 2011? AND you are staying at your Oakland brother’s place while he is teaching in Africa? AND his apartment sitter, Lorraine, tells you she just finished harvesting honey from her own bee hives in that very kitchen? AND you find out she had borrowed Novella Carpenter’s honey extractor? AND you had recently finished reading Farm City? Of course, we started talking about urban farms.

Sensing my interest, Lorraine offered to give me a tour of some urban farms, including Novella’s, her own, and some community gardens. She was a fabulous tour guide who wove Oakland history & architecture into the tours.  It was great to see Novella’s space in context. A few blocks before we got to her place there was a sign on the side of Martin Luther King Drive (just as official looking as a “No Parking” street sign) that read in part: “No Drugs, No Prostitutes”. I should have known we were getting close!

Novella’s squatter farm is on a large fenced in lot. I understand that she has had a lot of permit issues this year, so  held back on the farming, although you can see there are chickens hanging out behind an old truck, bee hives, fruit trees, vegetables, mulch, etc. all surrounded by a high chain link fence with privacy screens. Artichokes are growing in the easeway between the sidewalk and the street. On the front door of the house, there is a “Danger Bees” sign. Across the street and to the left is the Buddhist temple. Directly across the street there were a couple of people looking like some of the addicts Novella describes in her book. I decided not to take their picture. I didn’t see evidence of Bobby. Maybe he is in jail. The mysterious shaded-window warehouse on the other side of the street has some freshly painted murals on it. Photos of the farm and neighborhood are available here.

Other urban farms and community gardens were springing up everywhere. Lorraine and her housemates share a yard where they have chickens, bees, lots of vegetables and flowers surrounding their solar panels. Lorraine’s allotted section was small but packed with produce. She took me to a large fenced chicken farm & the 55th Street Community Garden in Oakland. We visited a parallel Community Garden in Emeryville (advertising that they are organic, and have a waiting list of 29 families.) Lorraine pointed out the difference in character between these two gardens, which are within a mile of each other, but officially in a different city. There is no space between the cities, but the color of the street signs change, and the neighborhoods have different flavors. The last place on the tour was a huge garden area, built on leased land from an area deemed toxic. They put barriers between the original land and their garden, built up new soil and raised beds, and are growing vegetables that from all appearances look very healthy. Photos from these areas are here.

And yes, my grandson is adorable and healthy.  It was a great trip.

Spring 2011 marks the 150th anniversary of the start of the American Civil War.  To commemorate this event, Cole Library will be spotlighting electronic and print resources relating to the Civil War.  Below, you’ll find links to Civil War journals online and available through the library, and links on the open web to local Civil War resources and events, as well as links on the open web to information with a national Civil War focus.  Check out the display in the library for print resources, including Civil War Diaries, biographies, reference materials, and reproductions of Civil War era documents.

Electronic Resources at Cole

American Civil War

Civil War History

Civil War Times

Civil War Times Illustrated

Creedo Reference’s American Civil War Topic Page

The Underground Railroad: An Encyclopedia of People, Places, and Operations

Nearby Resources and Events

The Iowa State Historical Society

“An Evening with President and Mrs. Lincoln” Dinner Theatre

Lamoni, IA Civil War Days

Carlisle, IA Civil War Weekend

Resources on the Open Web

Civil War Glass Negatives and Prints from the Library of Congress

Liljenquist Collection of Civil War Photographs from the Library of Congress

Iowa in the Civil War

IPTV’s Iowa in the Civil War

The Washington Post’s Civil War 150 Coverage

The New York Times’ Civil War 150 Coverage

The Civil War Trust

The National Park Service: Civil Year 150

Civil War 150: Illinois

Civil War 150: Missouri

Our final woman of the month is one who made a major impact on student research at Cornell.  Mary Byerly worked as a librarian at Cornell College for twenty-eight years, maintaining an impeccable card catalog and serving as assistant director and interim director of the library during her time at Cornell.

Byerly graduated from Cornell in 1941 with a BA in English and moved to Chicago, where she worked for Encyclopedia Britannica.  She returned to Cornell in 1949 as a Recorder, and this time stayed through 1953.  After leaving Cornell again, she attended the University of Illinois and graduated with a Master’s in Library Science in 1956.  Three years later Byerly returned to Cornell, this time as the catalog librarian.  As the catalog librarian, Byerly was responsible for maintaining the card catalog–which was the key to finding materials for students and faculty.  Byerly kept the whole catalog up to date as terminology–and the world at large–changed.  Byerly also set the stage for the online catalog we use today when she began converting records to machine readable format retrospectively in the late 1970′s.  Her worked maintained equal access to materials for all students to library materials and reflected the changing times in which she worked.

Byerly was appointed Assistant Director in 1973 and began serving as the interim director of the library in 1975.  The next year she was honored with an Award of Merit, an award for alumni who have demonstrated outstanding leadership in their careers or professions, and whose work has contributed to the betterment of their community and its citizens, and whose commitment to the college has remained strong for many years.  Mary Byerly retired from Cornell in 1988, having spent parts of six decades at the school.

Geneva Meers took pride in her role as an educator and took her job very seriously.  When a former student of hers, Allan J. Ruter , took a job as a high school English teacher her advice for him was to “always remember that the third best thing a student can say about you is that you’re friendly; the second best is that you’re fair; and the very best is that you’re hard.”  Meers concentrated on helping her students to improve in the most effective ways possible, which is clear from her article Use a Rifle, Not a Shotgun, which appeared in College Composition and Communication in 1959.

An Illinois native, Geneva Meers attended Illinois State Normal University and graduated with a Bachelor of Education in 1942.  She received her Master’s at Northwestern University in 1945 and then completed her Ph.D. there in 1953.  She taught high school in Illinois between 1942 and 1950, and began her career at Cornell in 1953.

Meers was an active member of the academic community at Cornell, and served thrice as department chair of English and sixteen years on Cornell’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors, including two as its president.  Meers placed a high value on equality in higher education and after an incident involving Winifred Van Etten, kept a close eye on discrepancies in salary between the sexes.  During her time as chair of the English department, Van Etten had discovered she was being paid less than newly hired faculty members.  When other members of the department–including Meers–confronted the Dean about the discrepancy, he replied that “I thought Mrs. Van Etten was teaching for the joy of it.”  Meers vowed never to let a dean believe she was teaching only for the joy of it, and during her tenure saw salaries between men and women begin to equalize .  In a report to the AAUP during her sixteenth year of service to the organization, she reported that the salaries of women had drastically improved, and had become equal with the salaries of their male counterparts.

This brief portrait of Meers cannot do justice her steadfast support of women’s rights and equality on campus.  Meers passed away in 2004.

Winifred Mayne Van Etten spent much of her life at Cornell.  She was born in Emmetsberg, Iowa, and attended Cornell as an undergraduate.  She studied English under professor Clyde “Toppy” Tull, who encouraged her as a writer.  She published several pieces in Cornell’s literary magazine of the time, The Husk.  Van Etten graduated in 1925 and earned her Master’s degree from Columbia University.    She returned to Cornell in 1928 as a professor in the English department.

In 1933, Dean Alice Betts called Winifred Mayne into her office to discuss Mayne’s impending nuptials to Bernard Van Etten.  Betts referred to him as the “college Casanova” and the discussion left Winifred hoping that she would be able to keep her job through the end of the academic year.  After her marriage to Bernard around Thanksgiving 1933, Winifred was fired in May of 1934.  College administrators, at this point during the depression, felt that the employment of a married women whose husband was salaried was unethical, and married women such as the new Mrs. Van Etten were replaced by single women.

Van Etten used this forced retirement to work on a novel, with the encouragement of Toppy Tull.  She submitted it to the Atlantic Monthly as an entry into a contest jointly hosted by the Atlantic Monthly Press and Little, Brown and Company.  Van Etten’s book, I am the Fox, was selected as the winner, and was noted as the “most interesting and distinctive contribution to their annual contest” and she received a $10,000 prize.  I am the Fox was published in August of 1936, and Van Etten was subsequently re-hired by Cornell to teach in the English department.

In a radio broadcast from Chicago over the NBC Blue Network in 1936, Van Etten stated that she chose a female subject for I am the Fox, because, to Van Etten, a woman seemed to make a more interesting character in modern novel.  Van Etten felt that the modern woman was caught in a struggle between the desire for career and family.  ”The kind of work a first rate career requires–the concentration, almost consecration that any ambitious man puts into it–eliminates the child for the woman.  Or the child eliminates the career.  She feels, either way, maimed, deprived of the full and complete expression of herself.  The old-fashioned woman accepted it as a woman’s lot.  The modern woman fights it.”

Cornell honored Van Etten with an honorary degree, the Doctor of Letters, in 1976.

For more information about Van Etten, stop by the Library Gallery, where the exhibit The Art of the Book at Cornell has a section on Van Etten, along with a pair of gloves and a purse belonging to her on display.

To read an excerpt from I am the Fox, please click here.

The following is an except from I am the Fox by Winifred Mayne Van Etten.

“We’d better be getting back to the house,” said Gardner Heath.  ”It’s getting cold.”

Selma was reluctant.  She had toiled up the steep sloped of the hill and the exertion had made her gasp.  But now as she paused for breath the cold air wrapped itself about her.  It defined her body, lay like a chill damp mould upon its warm contours, so that she was aware of herself, of her shape, sculptured by chill beneath her thick jacket and skirt.

“I suppose,” she agreed unwillingly.

It was beautiful on the hilltop.  The sun brushed the autumn leaves with a cold gilding.  Below them rolled lesser hills, russet and bronze billows of woods, and frost-dulled coasts of grass, falling away against a sky brilliant with the blue of an October morning.

“I suppose we should,” she murmured again as the wind touched her.

Gardner Heath rested an arm across her shoulders.  ”It’s an almost perfect day, Selma.  If only…”

The girl’s shoulders grew taut under his arm.  ”What’s that?”

A distant rhythm clouded the air and throbbed along the ground.  Through the soles of their feet it came to them, and upon pulsations of the air that seemed to beat, not inward to them, but outward from their quickened hearts.  It rolled in, an ominous undercurrent of sound beneath a soaring clamor, faint, but feverish with excitement.

Read More…

Harriette J. Cooke began her career at Cornell in 1857, as a teacher of Latin, Drawing and Painting.  Born in New Hampshire and educated in New England, Cooke was invited to Cornell by Susan Hale, a former classmate.  Hale was the preceptress of the college, a role in which she governed the female students of the college.  In 1865, Hale left the school and Cooke became preceptress, a position which she held until 1890.  Cooke was described by President King as “strong of will” and by Ada Sherman, daughter of one of Cornell’s first trustees, as “emotional, decided in her opinions and free to express them.”  Cooke was unafraid of expressing her opinions, and, in fact, insisted upon a salary equal to that of her male counterparts when she was appointed a full professor in German and History.  She was the first woman in the United States to receive such a position with equal pay to male professors, and was the first female full professor at Cornell.

After her appointment to full professor, she spent a year in Europe.  Upon her return, she founded the Cornell Association for the Education of Women, an organization which sought to improve Cornell’s dedication to its female students.  Among the goals of the organization were the creation of a “Lady Professorship in a Chair of English Literature” and the construction of an all-female dorm.  Cooke also sought equal treatment and educational opportunities for students; upon her return from Europe, the men were participating in calisthenics and drill.  She immediately pressed for women’s calisthenics, establishing a gymnastics drill for the female students, which was flourishing by May of 1875.  Cooke’s work at Cornell helped to positively impact the rights of and opportunities for female students; Cornell was a campus which saw women participating in scientific courses of study and other activities which were stereotypically male.  Perhaps the strongest example from Cooke’s era was the creation of the Ladies’ Battalion; a group of female students who drilled (and were provided with guns) as Cornell’s male battalion drilled during the 1880′s.

Cooke also traveled extensively, and spoke out for women in higher education at every opportunity.  She was very well-known in Iowa and respected as an educator.  When she left Cornell in 1890, she went first to a school in London–Mildmay Deaconess House–and then accepted an invitation from E.J. Helms (a Cornell alum and the founder of Goodwill Industries) to serve as superintendent of the Women’s Department of University Settlement in Boston, Massachusetts.  There Cooke organized medical aid and the organization soon outgrew the two rooms in which it began.  Cooke lectured about the institution regularly to keep its activities in the public eye and due to her efforts the mission was adopted by the Woman’s Home Missionary, a national organization, in 1897 and became known as the North End Medical Mission of Boston.

March is Women’s History Month.  This year’s theme, Our History is Our Strength, pays tribute to the women who have taken action to create a better world for their contemporaries and for future generations.  This year, the National Women’s History Project has not designated any national honorees and instead would like local communities to honor and recognize women within their community.  Cole Library will be profiling a new woman in Cornell history each week on the Library blog, and we also have some great online resources available through the library and on the open web below.

For more information on women’s history, stop by the Women’s History Month display on the third floor of Cole Library.  For help researching women’s history, stop by the Cole Library reference desk.

Sources from Cole Library

Women Writers Online contains more than 300 works by pre-Victorian women from the sixteenth through the nineteenth century.  Part of the Women Writers Project, WWO seeks to make available materials that are rare or inaccessible.

Creedo Reference is a database containing over 300 reference titles, including:

• A Biographical Dictionary of Women Economists
• An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Women in Early American Films: 1895-1930
• Notable American Women: 1607-1950
• Notable American Women: Completing the Twentieth Century
• Notable American Women: The Modern Period
• The Palgrave Macmillan Dictionary of Women’s Biography
• The Penguin Biographical Dictionary of Women, the Encyclopedia
• The Encyclopedia of Women Social Reformers
• The Reader’s Companion to U.S. Women’s History
• Women in the Middle Ages: An Encyclopedia
• The Cambridge Guide to Women’s Writing in English
• Encyclopedia of Women’s Autobiography
• Encyclopedia of Women’s Health
• The New Harvard Guide to Women’s Health
• Encyclopedia of Women and Gender: Sex Similarities and Differences and the Impact of Society on Gender
• Women’s History as Scientists: A Guide to the Debates
• Encyclopedia of Sex and Gender: Men and Women in the World’s Cultures
• From Suffrage to the Senate: America’s Political Women

Cole Library also subscribes to several journals focusing on women’s issues, including:

• Emily Dickinson Journal
• Bitch
• Feminist Studies
• Journal of Women’s History
• Signs

Sources from the Open Web

The Iowa Women’s Hall of Fame seeks to honor the contributions of Iowa women to society.

The Friends of the Iowa Commission on the Status of Women is an organization which seeks to explore and support the role of women in Iowa.

The Women’s History 2011 Gazette is a short publication from the National Women’s History Project which explores the theme Our History is Our Strength.

Pioneer Women Legislators, an online exhibit from the Nation Women’s History Museum, explores the women who paved the way for female legislators in all 50 states.

The National Women’s History Museum has several online exhibits which explore a wide range of topics, from women in early film to women printers, publishers and journalists.