Staff Pick: Boys Will Be Boys

Book Reviews, Our Collections

libblog-BookReview4Pearlman, J. (2008). Boys will be boys: The glory days and party nights of the Dallas Cowboys dynasty. New York: HarperCollins.

Any Football fan will remember the dominance the early 1990’s Dallas Cowboys Team had in the National Football League.  I remember seeing the games and enjoying my favorite team beat teams like the New York Giants and Philadelphia Eagles.  It was no surprise that the book Boys will be Boys by Jeff Pearlman about the Cowboys caught my attention.

Surprisingly some of the key players for the Cowboy’s Dynasty Team are living in shacks and working assembling line jobs to make ends meet.  Players like Michael Irvin, Emmitt Smith and Troy Aikman are financially stable.  These three superstars have endorsement deals and work as football analyst for FOX, ESPN, and the N.F.L Network.  Other players were able to save money and make wise financial investments.

This book gives the reader an inside look at how fortunes were made and lost in the National Football League.   If you are a football fan and especially a Dallas Cowboys fan, you must take the time to read this Book.  (Click here to check for availability)

Contributed by Jesus Resendez, Library Specialist at the Mid-Valley Campus.

Screening of Iron Jawed Angels at MidValley Campus Library

Library Events, Mid-Valley Campus, Movies, Previous Events

libevents-Movies1 To celebrate Women’s History Month, the Mid-Valley STC Library will be showing Iron Jawed Angels, a 2004 film about the women’s suffrage movement during the 1910s. This movie follows activists, Alice Paul (Hilary Swank) and Lucy Burns (Frances O’Connor), as they fought tirelessly for a woman’s right to be counted.  Returning to the United States from England, Alice Paul and Lucy Burns learned that their ideas about women and voting were too radical for even the National American Woman Suffrage Association. In response, they created the National Woman’s Party, a group that takes drastic measures to ensure women’s rights. Taking the women’s suffrage movement by storm, Paul and Burns put their freedom on the line as they boldly take action.

In a time when it is easy to take the right to vote for granted, this film reminds us that women once had to fight and suffer to step into the voting booth. One hundred years ago women were denied the privilege of expressing their opinions about our government, but because Alice Paul and Lucy Burns (and a number of other brave women such as Susan B. Anthony) refused to be content with their lives as non-voting citizens, we are all able to be counted equally.

Iron Jawed Angels will be showing Wednesday, March 10, 2010 beginning at 10 am at the STC Mid-Valley Library.  It will also be showing Thursday, March 11 at 12:00 pm at the Pecan Campus Library.

Contributed by Jessica Cruz, Library Specialist at the Mid-Valley Campus.

Heart Health Month Display

Book Displays, Our Collections, Technology Campus

This February is Heart Health Month.  Celebrate by getting a recipe or information from one of our many books.

Magazines/Journals
Stroke
Circulation Research
Books
Your heart : an owner’s guide
Platillos Latinos, sabrosos y saludables = Delicious heart-healthy Latino recipes
Bypass: a healthy heart without surgery
Women and Heart Disease: What You Can Do to Stop the Number One Killer of American Women

And if you are near the Tech Campus Library, check out this display:

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Contributed by Sara Martinez from the Pecan Campus Library and Sheila McGee from the Tech Campus Library.

Staff Pick: Batos, Bolillos, Pochos, and Pelados

Book Reviews, Our Collections

libblog-BookReview2Richardson, Chad. Batos, Bolillos, Pochos, and Pelados: Class and Culture on the South Texas Border. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1999.

This easy-to-read and interesting book offers an excellent introduction to life in the Rio Grande Valley.  Using touching personal stories and statistical data gathered from numerous interviews and surveys; the author paints a detailed picture of society in Deep South Texas.  Topics such as the experiences of migrant workers, life in the colonias, Winter Texans, the history of Anglo-Hispanic relations in the Valley, and much more are covered.   Whether you’re a newcomer to the Valley (like me) or you’re a life-long Valley native I think you’ll find this to be an enjoyable and valuable read, that will enhance your understanding of this unique region.

Click here to check availability.

Contributed by Joshua Wallace, Reference Librarian at the Pecan Campus

Books at the Movies

Book Displays, Our Collections, Pecan Campus

Check out these books that have been made into movies very recently.

On PBS’s Masterpiece Theater you can watch Jane Austen’s Emma, Northanger Abbey, and Persuasion this Spring.  They will also be showing a suspenseful adaptation of The Thirty-Nine Steps, previously adapted by Alfred Hitchcock as well as a new adaptation of The Diary of Anne Frank in April.

At the movies you can watch the literary hero Sherlock Holmes, and rent Amelia partly based on S. Butler’s East to the Dawn: the life of Amelia Earhart as well as the epicurean hit Julie and Julia taken from such books as Julie Powell’s Julie and Julia as well as Julia Child’s My Life in France.

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Contributed by Esther Garcia, Library Specialist at the Pecan Campus

Gabriel Salazar

Visions of the Rio Grande Valley

Library Art Gallery, Pecan Campus, Previous Exhibits

Gabriel Salazar

Gabriel Salazar is a self-taught artist who has been painting for 30 years. A Rio Grande Valley native, his inspiration is his home environment. Now he has an entire collection of Valley-inspired art and is sharing it with the students of South Texas College

“Visions of the Rio Grande Valley,” featuring oil on canvas paintings by Salazar will be on exhibit at the college’s Pecan Campus Library Art Gallery from Thursday, Feb. 4 through March 27. An opening reception will take place Thursday, Feb. 4 from 6 to 8 p.m. at the gallery located in Bldg. F at 3201 W. Pecan Blvd. in McAllen. Admission is free and open to the public.

“Once I have an idea, I place myself in it, as if I’m there,” said Salazar. “I imagine it, a landscape situation, and I live what I paint.”

Salazar knows and envisions what he wants in his paintings and changes things as he works along the way. He is inspired by the beauty of the Valley and paints what the Valley “used to be” and, in some areas, still is, including open fields and orchards with blue valley skies.

“Salazar’s mastery of depth and perspective within his paintings are amazingly displayed in this exhibition,” said Sofia K. Vestweber, STC’s Library Art Gallery Program associate. “His paintings are incredibly detailed and rich with nostalgia for rural valley landscapes.”

South Texas College’s Library Art Gallery Program exhibits regional, national and international artwork, explores new visions and theories of creativity, and introduces innovative artistic expressions to the South Texas region.

For more information contact 956- 872-3488 or visit http://library.southtexascollege.edu/libraryartgallery.

Memory, choice, isolation, and suffering to be found in The Giver

Book Reviews, Our Collections

From The Giver “He knew there was no quick comfort for emotions like those.”

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The Giver brings to light the question: Are the trials and tribulations of life worth deeper knowledge of beauty and happiness?

Fans of authoritarian utopian society novels like 1984 and Brave New World will enjoy this different take on societal control and imprisonment. Citizens of the society within The Giver have given up knowledge of love, family, music, and even color so that they no longer have to experience war, jealousy, guilt, and fear. Even death’s place in society is replaced by a much more palatable perception of the event. The authoritarian imprisonment within The Giver takes a softer approach to societal control and the apparent contentment of its citizens, truly allows one to ponder the worth of freedom versus safety.

The Giver is an easy read. Written for a younger audience, the text is not too long or too literally complex. At the same time the novel is not shallow and provides the kind of thought provocation that one would expect from the best of philosophical text.

An excellent read for anyone without a lot of time, but a thirst for perspective.

To check availability click here: (http://lib.southtexascollege.edu/uhtbin/cgisirsi.exe/x/)/0/5?searchdata1=0395645662)

Contributed by Arnold Becho, Librarian at MidValley Campus.

 

Pecan Campus Library exhibits environment-inspired art

Uncategorized
From the Series “After 2002” by Sara Waters.

From the Series “After 2002” by Sara Waters.

The Pecan Campus Library Art Gallery is proud to present “Parallels of Concept: Interpreter and Translator” featuring artworks by Sara Waters and Suzanne Paquette. The exhibit opens Thursday, Sept. 10 and will be on view through October 23, 2009. On Thursday, Sept. 24 art talks will be held at 11:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. in STC’s Pecan Campus Building D Auditorium. A reception will take place that evening from 6 to 8 p.m. in STC’s Pecan Campus Library Art Gallery, Bldg. F. located at 3201 W. Pecan Blvd. in McAllen. Admission is free and open to the public.

Waters is a professor of art at Texas Tech University in Lubbock where she teaches sculpture and drawing. She earned her Masters of Fine Art in Clay/Sculpture from Indiana University. Her work can be found in art collections at The Institute of Contemporary Ceramic Art in Shigaragi, Japan, Southwestern Bell, Compaq Computers, and the Texas Tech University Museum.

In regards to the exhibition Waters says, “The work reveals my interest in history and in documenting, or capturing, the moment. I attempt to work from a place of discovery and of response to my thoughts, emotions and environment.”

“Ascension” by Suzanne Paquette.

“Ascension” by Suzanne Paquette.

Paquette is from Quebec, Canada and earned her Bachelor’s of Fine Arts from Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. She has lived and worked as a professional artist in San Antonio, TX for the past 30 years. Her art can be found in permanent collections at the San Antonio Museum of Art, Tyler Museum of Art, and the San Angelo Museum of Art.

Paquette’s passion for natural sciences and the environment influenced her art since childhood. Today her paintings, sculptures and installations focus on images of heaven and earth.

Regarding her work, Paquette says, “I enjoy working in natural materials with a low-tech process. I attempt to manipulate materials to evoke some quality of the inherent nature of that particular substance. I am most satisfied when the energy of the image and the medium carry an equal balance of visual interest.”

“Waters and Paquette both approach sculpture through shaped mixed media paintings and installation intermingling,” said David Freeman, curator and programs coordinator for STC’s Library Art Gallery Program. “They expand the range of sculpture, performance, and painting to discover new visual concepts in a powerful and demanding manner.”

South Texas College’s Library Art Gallery Program exhibits regional, national and international artwork, explores new visions and theories of creativity, and introduces innovative artistic expressions to the South Texas region.

For more information call 872-3488.