Banned Books Week began in the 1980s as a small exhibit at a book fair. Since then, it has become more widely recognized with the help of the American Library Association (ALA). Each year since 1990 the ALA has put out their list of top 100 challenged books for that year.
Banned Books Week isn’t just a week to highlight banned and challenged books, at the heart of this week is promoting the right of everyone to read what they choose and reminding us that censorship can cause more harm than good. This year’s theme is “Censorship leaves us in the dark. Keep the light on.”
We may all be aware of some of the most often challenged books such as Catcher in the Rye, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and To Kill a Mockingbird, but did you know that both American Heritage and Merriam Webster dictionaries, the Bible, Charlotte’s Web, and Where’s Waldo? have been banned in some schools and libraries?
If you want to learn more about banned and challenged books, see Censorship by the Numbers, which was put together by the ALA. If you want to participate in Banned Books Week, you can read a book from one of ALA’s lists of frequently challenged books, or you can write to or Tweet a banned or challenged author.
The Library is holding its Second Annual Library Open House from September 30th to October 4th. Students, staff, and faculty are welcome to attend our asynchronous events! We will be doing a scavenger hunt, locate the hidden Librarian, and open chat for everyone to stop in and say hello!
Each of these activities provides an opportunity for a chance to win a prize!
A grand prize of an Amazon Kindle will be drawn from qualified entries. The first twelve people to correctly complete the scavenger hunt will win a $25.00 gift card for Walden Gear or a $25.00 Amazon gift card.
Other prizes include a five dollar gift card to the Walden Store or Amazon for the first 3 chats of the day for each day of the open house. See the rules for prize entry.
The link to the Open House will be active beginning the morning of September 30th. We look forward to chatting with you and having everyone learn a little bit more about the library!
Librarians are creating a series of short (3 minutes or less) instructional videos. Videos will focus on research tips and tricks. The first video is on search alerts. Watch for more videos to be announced!
As a scholar, it’s important to keep up with newly published research. You can do this by creating search alerts in Library databases and Google Scholar. Instead of going back to the database again and again to do the same search, you will get alerts about new articles that match your search. This can save time and help keep you up-to-date on research.
If you have a doctoral student who is struggling with research, information literacy, or any other library related skill, please fill out the Student Referral Form. We will reach out to the student and do our best to assist them.
Is there a research topic you feel your students are struggling with? Or an assignment that requires intense and in depth research? Perhaps there's a resource that students are struggling to navigate? Please provide us with some suggestions for library lab topics you'd like to see us cover and we'd be happy work with you to create it.
Walden University's library didn't make this list but these are some impressive libraries!
Get to know the Walden Library Librarians. A new Librarian will be featured in every newsletter!
Meet Anne Rojas!
Academic residencies are action packed with opportunities for networking, and who doesn’t love meeting colleagues and students face to face? Residencies also provide an excellent opportunity for faculty to meet with their Liaison Librarian. Liaison Librarians are assigned to specific schools, colleges, and degree programs. They provide reference, instruction, research support, and collection development to support students and faculty in their assigned areas. Typically, 3-5 Liaison Librarians attend residencies and teach library seminars. Depending on the degree, the library seminar at residencies will cover one of these core concepts:
It’s essential that our students are introduced to these core concepts so they can perform better in coursework and capstone.
Additional tips for connecting with librarians at residency
For more information on both virtual and face to face residencies, please see Walden Academic Residencies.
Please feel free to share these Library labs with your students!
Please provide us with any suggestions about the newsletter or any other ideas you may have!
Please contact the Library at libraryliaison@mail.waldenu.edu if you have any questions, content ideas or are having difficulty accessing newsletter content.