Talking in the Library

Copyright Quickie: Showing Films in the Classroom

All hail the American Library Association!  The good folks at ALA have published a lovely explanation, with the help a few copyright experts, answering copyright concerns teachers have when they show films in classrooms. 

This is especially cool in light of a few new databases K-State Libraries offers: American History in Video, Theatre in Video, and Dance in Video.  These three databases offer streaming video of shows from the History Channel,  theatre performances (like Langston Hughe's Street Scenes), and dance performances by individuals or troupes, such as the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre.  If you create a user account (which anyone at K-State can do), you can then create playlists or clip a pertinent scene. Then, when you are teaching a class, you can show the film or clip. 

If you are teaching an online class or want students to watch the film on their own time, you can link to the film (or your clips, or your playlist) and the students can follow that to watch the video from the database.  For example, I think people might enjoy this performance of Henry V.  I simply clicked on the little icon for a permanent URL from the Henry V page.  Then, to be sure my K-State peeps could watch it, even if they are off-campus, I swung over to Link It.  There I pasted the URL for Henry V, and Link It added some extra information to the link that will just ask off-campus users to enter their eID and password to access the database.  Then, you can share the URL, or link to it from K-State Online, with K-Staters.  Here's a brief video where I show you how to do all of that.

Students--you can do the same thing for presentations!

We also have a lot of films on VHS and DVD in our collection that can be checked out and watched.  Just search in our catalog and use the Quick Limit option (lower left side of the search screen) to limit your search to Video Recordings.

Black History Month Film Series: The Boondocks

So, we're showing three episodes of Aaron McGruder's "The Boondocks" tomorrow at 12:30 in the Dow Multicultural Resource Center, and that's very seriously awesome.  For those who are unfamiliar, the series follows Robert "Granddad" Freeman and his two grandsons, Huey and Riley, as they try to adjust from their move from the south side of Chicago to the suburb of Woodcrest.  Selected episodes will explore such themes as a leftist revolutionary exposing rich white people to the truth (Episode One: "The Garden Party"), what would happen if Dr. King had survived his assassination, waking from a coma in the 21st century (Episode Nine: "Return of the King") and the unsuspected ill-effects of soul food on white people (Episode Ten: "The Itis").  Shenannigans and horseplay ensue.  Sensitive viewers should be aware that the selected episodes do contain profanity, racial slurs, and brief animated nudity of a non-sexual nature.  

 

The Boondocks is part of our Black History Month film series; check out all the movies we'll be showing every Wednesday in February on our Facebook page.

A Peaceful Transition of Power

Visit Hale Library starting at 9am on Inauguration Day to watch national and international coverage of Inauguration events on the biggest televisions we can find!

The Dow Chemical Multicultural Resource Center on the third floor of Hale will feature coverage rotating among eight international news outlets. This event will be the start of exciting new services in the Center.

You can also watch U.S. news coverage of the events on the east end of Hale's second floor. The Inauguration will take place at 10:30am, but we'll be broadcasting from 9am to 4pm, so drop in!

While you're in Hale, check out an inauguration-related display in the Government Publications area on the third floor that includes presidential papers, photos of the White House gardens, kids' books about the presidency, and lots of other interesting books.

If you're not able to stop by Hale during the day, or if watching the Inauguartion piques your interest in presidential history, here are some interesting Inauguration-related resources.

If you like to know about the behind-the-scenes stuff, here's an article on how the transition takes place at the White House.

Yale Law School's Avalon Project has collected all the presidential Inaugural Addresses. 

If you prefer video, here's a compilation of all the presidential inaugurations captured on film, starting with this clip of McKinley's second inauguration in 1901:

Theodore Roosevelt (1905)
Woodrow Wilson (1917)
Warren G. Harding (1921)
Calvin Coolidge (1925)
Frank lin D. Roosevelt (1945)
Harry S. Truman (1949)
Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953)
Dwight D. Eisenhower (1957)
John F. Kennedy - (part 2) (1961)
Lyndon B. Johnson (1965)
Richard M. Nixon (1969)
Richard M. Nixon (1973)
Jimmy Carter (1977)
Ronald Reagan (1981)
Ronald Reagan (1985)
George H. W. Bush (1989)
Bill Clinton (1993)
Bill Clinton (1997)
George W. Bush (2001)
George W. Bush (2005)

Happy Holidays: What we're watching

As you burrow out from under finals and peer around, you may notice that it's the holidays.  To help you shift into the holiday mood, we offer these suggestions for your viewing pleasure:

It's a Wonderful Life
A Christmas Carol (so many versions to choose from, so I won't try)
The Bishop's Wife
The Preacher's Wife
White Christmas
                           A Charlie Brown Christmas
A Christmas Story (that must be Italian!)
Meet Me in St. Louis (it's not safe to be a snowman in St. Louis)
Die Hard
Elf
When Harry met Sally

Also, the holidays are the perfect time to curl up with a miniseries on dvd.  Some recommendations:

Murdoch Mysteries
Band of Brothers
Pride and Prejudice

By the way, when K-State Libraries doesn't own the film, I link out to Amazon.com.  But the better option is to always check your local public library, like Manhattan Public Library, as they frequently own these films and you can check them out for free!

What are you watching?

Feeling overwhelmed?

Are you buried in invites, notices, and updates from social networking sites?  Way behind in your feed reading? Not even sure how you should react to someone saying they've become an avid tweeter? 

Did you ever wonder where the "e" from "flickr" went?

This video is here to help you. 

P.S. Librarians are total social networking geeks.  Here are our flickr photos, our facebook page, all our RSS feeds, and some del.icio.us links.  Please digg this post; if you don't, we might start plurking.

Preservation Faux Pas

So, there are two million books in the Libraries, and we can only keep them all in good shape with your help. How can you help? A good first step would be to enjoy this video created by local film auteur Dan Ireton and starring your favorite students from the Circulation Desk.

Movies on the Grass kicks-off this Sunday night

Movies on the Grass starts this Sunday night with the film Hacking Democracy ("You Can't Vote Them Out When The Fix Is In "). 

All Movies on the Grass films are free and open to the public.  Bring a blanket or lawn chair to the Coffman Commons (also known as that big lawn in front of Hale where the big blow-up screen will be located.)  If it rains, the showing will be in Foerster Auditorium, Seaton Hall room 63.

 

"What's happenin', hot stuff?" Long Duk Dong's place in our lives

Forget your mom or third grade teacher, there's a whole slew of fictional characters out there that have shaped you into who you are today. NPR (oh, how I love you NPR) has developed the series "In Character" to give these characters their due. From Long Duk Dong to Troy Maxson to Hester Prynne to Indiana Jones to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and, well, it's a long list that just keeps growing.


Better yet, the "In Character" blog gives us the chance to laud our favorites and ream the ones we hate (check out the Long Duk Dong comments to learn how polarizing this character was). You can respond to the pieces you heard or nominate your favorite character. Some nominations are posted on the blog, including a great series of submissions from grade school kids, and a few nominations from the masses have been read on-air as part of the series.

While the characters have ranged from t.v. to film to books to theater, I notice that there are no characters from songs. What kind of oversight is that? Honestly, if it hadn't been for Mr Roboto, I'd never have . . . well, maybe I won't share that personal tidbit.

Russian Punk and Russian Orthodox Monk: Pyort Mamonov in "The Island"

Check out The Island (or in Russan, Ostrov) this Sunday at 2:00pm in Manhattan Public Library's auditorium.  The latest in Manhattan Public Library's International Film series, The Island is about a Russian sailor who, when confronted by Nazis during World War II, shoots his captain in order to stay alive.  Fast forward thirty years and he's a Russian Orthodox monk with mystical healing powers and living with overwhelming guilt.*  Curious? Watch the trailer (although if you don't understand Russian you may be left with more questions than answers. Never fear, the film will have English subtitles.)

Free Film Sunday: Buddy

Manhattan Public Library's International Film Series continues this Sunday with the Norwegian film, Buddy.

Buddy is a film about a young man whose video diaries about himself and his friends becomes a hit on a TV show.  It is not recommended for those under 17 without parental guidance.  I can't determine why exactly from the IMDB information, but I'm guessing some of the "jackass" stunts nudge it up there and I'll bet some of the subtitles may only have four letters.

In addition to winning Norway's equivalent of the Oscar (the Amanda) for Best Actor and Best Film, a good review in Variety and on the blog Film Intuition, people have simply said, "It definitely put a smile on my face."  How can you bypass a free film that makes you feel warm and fuzzy when it's cold and slushy outside?

The film shows in the auditorium of the Manhattan Public Library at 2:00 pm this Sunday, December 30th.  And in the time-honored tradition of public libraries, it's free and open to the public.

By the way, if you for some unimaginable reason do miss the showing on Sunday, the movie will be added to the public library's dvd collection, so you can come back later and check it out (for free!).

By the way (II), K-State Libraries has a pretty good selection of dvds that you can check out for free, too.  Just Ask a Librarian for more information.