One of the highlights of the year at the University of Illinois Springfield is the Annual STARS Symposium (Student Technology, Arts, & Research), where students get an opportunity to present their research to the UIS campus and community. The Library is honored to be a part of the Luncheon, where we present the Library Undergraduate Research Award to three deserving students. Sadly, the luncheon was cancelled this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the Library still held our annual Undergraduate Research Award. This year, we were able to expand the prize pool and the number of winners thanks to generous support from the Friends of Brookens Library.
This year we were honored to recognize the following students for their exceptional research using Library resources.
1st place: Anna Kanai – Americanization in Europe: History, Hollywood, and European Perceptions
2nd place: Hunter Niebrugge – Ouch!: Female Student-Athletes and the Influence of Collegiate Athletics on Injury
3rd place: Rebecca Wheeler – Decision Vision: Utilizing Mental Simulation to Promote Accuracy During Intuitive Decision Making
4th place: Jermaine Windham – The “Black Nerd Stereotype” & The African American Representation in the Media
5th place: Sagun Pandit – Analysis of Sexual Assault in Nepal
The competition was tough this year and all of our submissions were top quality research. A big congratulations for all our winners and all of our entrants!
We have had a major transition in the past month and many of us are finding new ways to cope and entertain ourselves. Cooking is be a great way to find some comfort while simultaneously being productive and ensuring your own well-being. While Brookens Library might be closed, many resources are still accessible to students on our website. Included in these resources is our extensive list of digital cookbooks! You can access these digital cookbooks by going to our website and browsing the catalog or cloudLibrary. You might be surprised at how easy it is to prepare your favorite restaurant dish at home.
Feeling southwestern cuisine? Dive into The Austin Cookbook which explores southwestern recipes that are prominent and have been modified in Texas.
The library building might be physically closed, but we still provide access to many of our services and resources remotely, including research help from librarians and access to our ebooks and databases. Here are seven (remote) ways we’re still here for you.
1.Chat with a librarian. Ask a librarian your library questions with our new online chat service. Simply ask your questions in the chat box on our library website. Available Monday – Friday, 9am – 7pm.
2.Get personalized research help by scheduling a research consultation. If you’re not sure who your librarian is, find your librarian sorted by research area here. If you have questions about how to research, access databases, or other library needs, we can help through virtual appointments or via email.
3. Download some ebooks and audiobooks to read or listen to for fun. Need a distraction from everything that is going on? Browse our collection of eBooks and eAudiobooks and download the free cloudLibrary app to your device. You can even suggest a book you’d like us to purchase!
4. Explore UIS history by browsing our Archive’s digital collections. Check out historical UIS photographs, newspapers, documents and texts from our Archive’s digital collections.
5. Find the best research guide for you. Not sure where to start researching? Our Research Guides provide links to some of the most commonly used databases and resources for specific disciplines.
6. Learn a new language with Mango Languages. Pick up a new language from the comfort of your home today with Mango Languages. Over 70 languages are available!
7. Look beyond the library. We’ve compiled a list of free resources that some publishers have made freely available on our COVID-19 Library Updates Guide. While students, faculty and staff have access to electronic resources, don’t limit yourself to only what you can find at our library. There are a lot of free resources out there!
The library will be temporarily closed starting Tuesday, March 17. This was a decision that had to be made during these extraordinary circumstances. The health and safety of our campus community and staff is our priority during this time.
You can continue to use the library without visiting by going to our library website.
Here you will find access to:
Databases with scholarly articles, popular articles, and academic eBooks
eBooks and eAudiobooks through our CloudLibrary app
We will be waiving all overdue and lost item fees once we are able to reopen and materials are returned. You may renew items online if you’d like, but please do not worry about due dates. Continue to enjoy the materials you have checked out. We’ll provide information about returning materials at a later date when we are able to reopen.
For questions about your library account or materials please email libcirc@uis.edu
Stay connected with us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for updates.
We look forward to assisting you online and in person again when it is safe to do so.
Sunday, March 8th was International Women’s Day. Perhaps you noticed articles in the news about women (and men!) in countries all over the world who staged marches, protests, celebration and, in the case of Mexico, a gender strike. In Springfield, the home of UIS, there was a rally at the state capitol accompanied by speeches from several women activists and political figures and recitations by local poets decrying global gender inequities. The turnout was impressive for a Sunday afternoon – around 300. Around the world, this scene was replicated in cultural and political specifics.
International Women’s Day started in 1909 and was originally organized by the Socialist Party of America. In 1910, at the international Socialist Women’s Conference, it was proposed that it be organized annually. Following on the heels of the women’s suffrage in Russia in 1917, March 8th became the officially designated date and, to this day, it is a national holiday in Russia. In 1967, the feminist movement adopted it and the United Nations began celebrating it in 1977.
This year is particularly notable for U.S. women as we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment to the Constitution, which gave women the right to vote.
Amendment XIX
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
The Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. has curated an exhibit to commemorate this historic event called Shall Not Be Denied: Women Fight for the Vote, which will be running through September 2020. If you cannot make it to D.C., you can explore aspects of the exhibit online.
In tandem with this, the National Portrait Gallery (Smithsonian, Washington, D.C.) has a extensive exhibit which includes hundreds of objects as well as manuscripts. It is entitled Votes for Women. The exhibit is impressive for its breadth and depth and would be well worth your time if you are in the nation’s capital. But if you are unable to see it in person you can explore aspects of it online, here at this link.
In addition to the exhibit, the National Portrait Gallery published a companion book – Votes for Women: A Portrait of Persistence, which you can find in the new books section at Brookens Library (Call #: KF4895 .L46 2019).
Notably, the Suffragettes pioneered picketing the White House for political causes as they were the first group of people ever to do so.
Marking the centenary of the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920, Votes for Women celebrates past efforts while looking toward what actions we might take in the future to further support women’s equality. – Taken from the Introduction.
And Yet They Persisted traces agitation for the vote over two centuries, from the revolutionary era to the civil rights era, excavating one of the greatest struggles for social change in this country and restoring African American women and other women of color to its telling. Author Johanna Neuman demonstrates that American women defeated the male patriarchy only after they convinced men that it was in their interests to share political power. Reintegrating the long struggle for women’s suffrage into the metanarrative of U.S. history, Dr. Neuman sheds new light on such questions as why it took so long to achieve equal voting rights for women, how victories in state suffrage campaigns pressured Congress to act, why African American women had to fight again for their rights in 1965, and how the struggle by eight generations of female activists finally succeeded. – Taken from book cover
This film is the dramatized story of Alice Paul and Lucy Burns, leaders of the suffragist women who fought for the passage of the 19th Amendment. They broke from the mainstream women’s rights movement to create a more activist wing, daring to push the boundaries to secure women’s voting rights in 1920.
Online Primary Sources:
If you are a history buff and want to do more extensive research on your own using primary source materials, here are a couple of specialized database resources to get you rolling.
Gerritsen Collection: The Gerritsen Collection was begun by Aletta Jacobs Gerritsen in the late 1800s. By the time her successors finished their work in 1945, the Gerritsen Collection was the greatest single source for the study of women’s history in the world, with materials spanning four centuries and 15 languages. The primary source materials date from 1543 to 1945 focusing on the U.S., Europe, the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand.
Women and Social Movements in the United States: The focus of this resource is on women’s activism and spans four centuries from 1600-2000. There are over 125 document projects and archives, approximately 4,700 publications, a chronology of women’s history, teaching tools, book and web site reviews, archival news regarding primary sources in U.S. Women’s History, a digital archive with a focus on federal, state, and local commissions on the Status of Women between 1961 and 2005. It also includes a dictionary of social movements and organization along with an online edition of the five-volume biographical dictionary, Notable American Women (1971-2004).
The University of Illinois Springfield has extended Spring Break for an additional week. For more information regarding this change and other changes for this semester please visit the UIS News blog.
Library hours will be updated on a daily basis. For the latest hours please check our hours page.
Whether you’re traveling over spring break, or staying put for some restorative time, our Cloudlibrary collection has got you covered.
Check out our feature shelves for reading inspiration:
Looking to set better habits and be more mindful about setting yourself up for success during the second half of the semester? Check out titles from our Be your best self shelf:
The road trip shelf will keep you entertained on long drives or flights.
If you haven’t downloaded the cloudLibrary app, get started at our cloudlibrary guide.
We hope you have a safe and relaxing spring break!
