The Library at the Center for Graduate Studies of Asheville

For many of you, today is your last day of classes for the semester. We bid our graduates adieu! Au revior! Auf wiedersehen! And, in case we don't see ya - good afternoon, good evening, and good night. To our students just finishing another semester: see you soon -- but not too soon; may your break take its time with you. What better way to end this post about endings than with one of the most beautiful types of endings: the sunset! We have the advantage of a fantastic westward view of the Blue Ridge Mountains that crown Asheville. The views here truly earn the "Land of the Sky" nickname. Since we work mostly in the evenings when classes are in session, Allison has been documenting the sunset view from the computer lab since her first few days here over two years ago. She just added a gallery of those photos to our new & improved LibGuide for the Asheville Center Library ( libguides.lr.edu/ashevillelibrary ). Which you should check out to get library help any

December is a month that marks many occasions. A few of those:  The  winter solstice  brings us into a new winter season. This year the winter solstice is on December 22nd. There are many different holidays celebrated around the world all throughout the month. (Check out this site discussing all the multicultural holidays in December  here ).   December also marks the end of the calendar year.  A lesser known tidbit about December is that it is: "Write to a Friend" Month We're not talking about texting, messaging, or emailing a friend. We're talking about good old fashioned hand written letters. Do you remember this lost art? It used to be a common way to communicate with friends and family. Probably even more common than keeping up with friends on social media, such as Facebook.  When is the last time you wrote someone a handwritten letter?  Who doesn't like receiving mail? The majority of letters most people find in their mailboxes nowa

Henry Owl & Native American Heritage Month In honor of November's  Native American Heritage Month , we thought we would focus our History Section on Henry Owl .  Henry Owl Photo from http://dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm/ref/collection/vir_museum/id/568 Who is Henry Owl, you ask? Henry Owl was the first Cherokee to graduate from a North Carolina college in 1928, which just so happened to be Lenoir College. (Lenoir-Rhyne University was once called Lenoir College.  Learn more about that history in this post here .)  Not only was Henry Owl the first Cherokee to graduate from a NC college, but Owl was the first Native American to be accepted into Lenoir-Rhyne and represent LR athletics. He later went on to earn his Masters Degree in History from the University of North Carolina in 1929. In his Lenoir-Rhyne days, " Owl played three years on both the football (1925-27) and baseball (1926-28) squads and still holds the record for longest fumble return for a to

In our recent #HASHINGOUT  Libraries Without Books post, we focused on libraries that mostly have digital collections versus print collections - but we would like to further give an example of how libraries can provide new experiences through the wonders of the Internet and digital technology such as this: allowing users to interact with physical books without ever touching them ourselves. A prime example is the Rare Books GIFs from the University of Iowa Special Collections blog . A special collection's materials are restricted: you usually can't take items out on loan and sometimes you need special permissions to even see items, let alone handle them. These GIFs make this experience possible. Librarians at the UI Special Collections have gotten really creative with giving users a digital experience with the materials, like one of their posts featuring miniature books , where they created charming stop-motion style animations with the illustrations: We have been hav

In #hashingout, we talk about the issues that are positively GRIPPING the library world.  Today we are hashing out: #LibrariesWithou tBooks   Some call them "bookless libraries", some call them "digital libraries", and some stinkers call them "not real libraries". No matter what you call them, there are many places all over the world where libraries without books are popping up. These libraries offer their information in ALL DIGITAL formats via e-books, e-journals, databases filled with electronic articles, digitized resources, and other technology to search, access, and use digital media. Among these libraries without books is yours truly:  The  Library at the Center for Graduate Studies of Asheville . No, we don't have a collection of print books here at the Center, save for the APA Manual we have on our reserve shelf. (Don't all come running for it at once, now, we only have one copy!) In fact, here on the LR-Asheville cam

Most of us modern day librarians roll our eyes at the stereotype of the scary librarian, though many of us wholeheartedly embrace others such as cats and cardigans. (Haha.) Yet, sometimes you just have to laugh or maybe... SCREAM!!!! All because we're getting into the "spirit" of Hallowe'en with our top 5 scariest librarians : 1. The Ghost Librarian from the opening scene of Ghostbusters (1984) Described as a "free-roaming, vaporous, full torso apparition" and featured as the first ghost the Ghostbusters encounter in the film, we take our hats off to Eleanor Twitty, the Librarian who wouldn't let death come between her and her duties at the New York Public Library. Read More... 2. The Night Vale Public Librarians (aka Randall): Night Vale is the horrifyingly endearing little town immortalized in the Welcome to Night Vale podcast, and very recently in book form . "Before episode 16, the library had no entrance. Inst

 "Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary..."  Although this famous line above describes a dreary night in December, Edgar Allan Poe's The Raven , or really anything by Poe (the original goth kid), is perfect for setting the Halloween tone. A few days ago, Christopher Walken's reading of the poem was circulating around the Internet. With Halloween just TEN days away, we think the perfect way to invoke the spirit of Halloween is to watch these 9 celebrities reciting the famous Poe-m, as shared by one of Sarah's favorite sources:  Mental_Floss . Just think - you could watch one every day until Halloween gets here. By then, you might be able to recite the poem to impress your friends. Not only can you watch Christopher Walken's reading, you can also see JAMES EARL JONES! (say, isn't there something about Star Wars that's topical?) CHRISTOPHER LEE! VINCENT PRICE! STAN LEE! and more... so, go! Fly, my pretties. Watch 9 Celebr

A Scotland-based costume company, Morphsuits, came up with this ~~SPOO-OOKY~~ rating of literature's most popular monsters. What do you think? Loyal, Sukhi. (2015, Sept. 10). Monsters in literature. Retrieved from: http://www.morphsuits.com/blog/monsters-in-literature/

What's in a Name?  The Lenoir-Rhyne Namesake  If you've wondered where, or from whom, Lenoir-Rhyne University got its name,  keep reading and wonder no more. Who put the "Lenoir" in Lenoir-Rhyne? His name was Walter Waightstill Lenoir. He was born on the 13th of March, 1823 in Fort Defiance, which is now in Caldwell County, North Carolina. His grandfather, William Lenoir, was a General in the Revolutionary War. Walter Lenoir graduated from The University of North Carolina in 1843. He studied law and he was the valedictorian of his class.  After graduation, he was licensed to practice in North Carolina. However, back in the small farm town where he lived, there was very little law being practiced. He then concentrated on his other trades, mainly farming and cattle raising. It is said that before the Civil War, Lenoir opposed slavery and the attempted secession. However, he eventually enlisted in the Civil War for the Confederate Army. He became a C

In #hashingout, we talk about the issues that are positively GRIPPING the library world. Stay tuned for upcoming #hashingout posts on libraries without books, net neutrality, and open access. In our seminal #hashingout, we hash out: #BannedBooksWeek What is Banned Books Week? photo by ALA Every year, the American Library Association (ALA) celebrates Banned Books Week near the end of September. This year we celebrate Banned Books Week from  September 27th-October 3rd .  Over the course of each year, the ALA’s office of Intellectual Freedom relies on the self-reporting of libraries to keep track of books that are challenged or outright banned.  A book challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials based upon the objections of a person or group. A book being banned is the actual removal of those materials from the library collection in a school or public library across the country.  In 2014, according to ALA, there were at least  311  instances

Sarah Reeves traded the tranquil blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico for the graceful beauty of the Blue Ridge Mountains in late 2014. She earned Master’s in Library and Information Studies at Florida State University, where she also worked as a graduate assistant in FSU’s Goldstein Library. Sarah’s first fate-filled taste of library work was during her undergraduate years at Florida State’s satellite campus in her hometown of Panama City, FL - a campus atmosphere very similar to the Lenoir-Rhyne Graduate Center of Asheville. She has felt at home in WNC from day one and shares her joy in these surroundings with a few life-long best friends, and two black cats, Regina and Leo. A fan of corny humor, Neil Gaiman, and Dunkin Donuts coffee, you can usually find Sarah napping, disc golfing (poorly), or enjoying the fare at one of our many fine local establishments. We hope you’ll stop by and get to know Sarah and Allison, your L-R Asheville Librarians! Contact Sarah! sarah.reeve

Allison Etzel earned her Masters of Arts in Library and Information Science from the University of South Florida in 2008.  A few years later, this very mountain town began calling her name. Allison is forever grateful to escape the FL heat and is happy to call Asheville her home. She loves to serve the students and faculty of the Center for Graduate Studies of Asheville as an Instruction & Reference Librarian.  As many often assume about librarians, Allison has a passion for the written word. She especially loves poetry. She is currently in the works of writing poems for a children's poetry book. She is also fond of painting and in the middle of painting a series of strange kitties. Outside of academia and having bookworm tendencies, you can probably find Allison taking in the natural beauty of Western North Carolina, spending time with her black cat Diego, sipping coffee, haunting the local thrift stores, or most likely, out seeing live music. Contact Allison! 828