Learn more about Native Americans During November

The Robert R. Muntz Library has a book display in observance of National Native American Heritage Month. In the course of putting together that display, I found various links to website and free online resources that may be of interest. Here is the list:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

• The Indian Health Service, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, has a page honoring National Indian and Alaska Native Heritage Month. Some of the posters I used on the display come from this page. They have various resources of interest and links to other agencies with relevant information.
• Want some more posters? The U.S. Air Force has a few here.
• This is the federal website for Native American Heritage Month. It is an information portal created by various federal agencies.
• President Obama hosted a Tribal Nations Conference this month. President Obama delivered remarks, and you can view them via the White House blog here. You can view more of the conference and get some transcripts via C-SPAN here.
• Federal agencies often have their own proclamations and statements to go along with a federal observance. For example, from the Administration on Aging, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,  here is the statement from Kathy Greenlee, Assistant Secretary for Aging, for National American Indian and Alaska Native Heritage Month.
• Jefferson Keel, President of the National Congress of American Indians, has released a statement for the month. The NCAI is a tribal governments association.
• U.S. embassies around the world often highlight federal observances like this as part of their mission to showcase the U.S. around the world. For example, here is page on American Indian and Alaska Native Heritage Month created at the U.S. Embassy in Japan. These pages are meant for local people, but they make a good way for us here in the U.S. to see how the U.S. presents itself around the world.
• You may want to visit the website for the National Museum of the American Indian, part of the Smithsonian. From the website, “The National Museum of the American Indian is the sixteenth museum of the Smithsonian Institution. It is the first national museum dedicated to the preservation, study, and exhibition of the life, languages, literature, history, and arts of Native Americans. Established by an act of Congress in 1989, the museum works in collaboration with the Native peoples of the Western Hemisphere to protect and foster their cultures by reaffirming traditions and beliefs, encouraging contemporary artistic expression, and empowering the Indian voice.”
  
• The National Park Service has a feature for National American Indian Heritage Month. One of the things the NPS does is highlight places in the National Park System listed for American Indian Heritage.
  
• The U.S. Census Bureau has published a Facts for Features article with facts and figures about Native Americans. I particularly like the Facts for Features series because it compiles in a convenient place all sorts of statistics on any given topic. For example, did you know that there are 160,471 American Indian and Alaska Native veterans of the U.S. Armed Forces in the U.S.?
• The Centers for Disease Control have a page for health issues related to American Indian and Native Alaskans. You can find demographic data, leading causes of death, various informative brochures, and a many other resources.
• Another organization with medical interest for Native Americans is the Association of American Indian Physicians. Here is some of the work they do, from their website: “A major goal of AAIP is to motivate American Indian and Alaskan Native students to remain in the academic pipeline and to pursue a career in the health professions and/or biomedical research, thereby increasing the number of American Indian and Alaskan Native medical professionals in the workforce.”
• This is the official website of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Here is a bit of what they do, from the BIA website: “The United States has a unique legal and political relationship with Indian tribes and Alaska Native entities as provided by the Constitution of the United States, treaties, court decisions and Federal statutes. Within the government-to-government relationship, Indian Affairs provides services directly or through contracts, grants, or compacts to 564 Federally recognized tribes with a service population of about 1.9 million American Indian and Alaska Natives.”
• The Office for Victims of Crime, part of the U.S. Department of Justice, has a listing with resources of interest here. The list is not too prominent, but if you search the website, you can find more information.
• The U.S. Geological Survey has been creating some very nice posters for the observance. You can view and download them here. If you visit the link, you can also learn about the work of the USGS Native American Tribal Liaison Team.
• Various libraries around the nation create websites and resource lists for these observances. For example, the Madison (WI) Public Library has a page with reading lists and links to other resources of interest. If you are looking for some reading ideas, you can look over their lists. You can then check our library’s catalog via our website to see if we have the title or not. This is in addition to the books we have placed on our display case this month. As always, if you wish to find books on this or other topics, you can stop by or contact our Reference Desk.
• The Programming Librarian, a resource from the American Library Association Public Programs Office, offers a post on “Native American Heritage Month” with links to reading lists, other resources, and examples of how other libraries are celebrating.
• Want more reading ideas? Want to learn about perspectives of indigenous peoples in children’s books? There is a blog for that. You can visit American Indians in Children’s Literature, a blog maintained by Debbie Reese, former teacher and now professor in the American Indian Studies Program at UIUC. She has an extensive list of books, but she also writes on other topics related to indigenous peoples.
• And finally, find more resources for teachers and librarians related to native theme from YA author Cynthia Leitich Smith.

 

New Research Guide for the national health care debate

Check out the Muntz Library’s new Research Guide on Health Care Reform & Management. With links to statistics, surveys, policies, books, databases, news, etc., it is a great place to start as a point of reference for a research assignment, or to satisfy your personal curiosity about the national debate.

The library offers 51 Research Guides on all subjects—all created by librarians. If you have an assignment for class but are unsure where to start, use one of these guides. Each guide also has a chat widget on the right side of the screen, in which you can ask for help from a librarian. Don’t be shy about asking chatting with us; we like to help and answer questions.

To view all guides, click “Research Guides” from the library’s homepage (http://library.uttyler.edu). Browse by subject with the links on the left of the page, or click “Browse All 51 Guides (A-Z).” Here’s a direct link to the full list of Research Guides.

Also of note, especially for end-of-semester projects and papers, our Citation Guide contains helpful links and information on how to cite sources in APA, MLA, Chicago, and other styles. If you ever have a question about how to cite something, just ask a librarian (email: library@uttyler.edu; phone: 903-566-7343; chat with a librarian from the UT System; or use the Research Guides to access the librarians’ Meebo chat widgets).

Come celebrate National Library Week and National Library Workers Day @ Your Library

Next week, April 12-18, 2009, is National Library Week. This national observance is sponsored by the American Library Association. ALA first sponsored it in 1958, and since then it is a great way to to celebrate the contributions of our nation’s libraries and librarians and to promote library use and support. All types of libraries – school, public, academic and special – participate.

In addition, Tuesday April 14, 2009 is National Library Workers Day.Library workers are all responsible for a wide variety of services that patrons come to expect from their libraries. The Robert R. Muntz Library works because they do.

To recognize National Library Workers Day, as well as to celebrate National Library Week, the UT Tyler Robert R. Muntz Library is hosting a reception and open house on Tuesday April 14, 2009 from 1:30pm to 2:30pm. Dr. Rod Mabry, President of The University of Texas at Tyler, will be here to read a special proclamation recognizing our library workers and the observances. In addition, library departments will be open to answer any questions from patrons, and we encourage our visitors to have a walk, look around,  and learn about what we do.

There will be free cake and refreshments as well.

To learn more, you can visit the links provided, or you can contact Angel Rivera, Outreach Librarian, via e-mail at arivera AT uttyler DOT edu (just replace for the appropriate symbols) or at 903-566-7165. You can also visit the library’s website at http://library.uttyler.edu/.

Library Celebrates Annual Read Out for Banned Books Week

“If  you don’t want a man unhappy politically, don’t give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none. Let him forget there is such a thing as war.”

–From Ray Bradbury’s novel Fahrenheit 451.

The UT Tyler Robert R. Muntz Library will be celebrating “Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read” during the week of September 28 to October 4, 2008. Observed since 1982, this annual event is celebrated during the last week of September. Nationally, Banned Books Week is sponsored by American Library Association (ALA), the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, the Association of American Publishers, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, and the National Association of College Stores. Banned Books Week is also endorsed by the Center for the Book of the Library of Congress.

As part of the celebration, the Robert R. Muntz Library will hold its annual Banned Books Week Read Out. Faculty, staff, students, and members of the academic community can sign up and read from their favorite banned or challenged books. This is a great way for the community to come together and share readings as well as raise awareness about the dangers of restricting information and ideas in a free society. The details are as follows:

When: TUESDAY SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

Where: LIBRARY READING AREA (2nd Floor).

Time: Library Director Jeanne Pyle will open the event with some remarks and a reading of the Banned Books Week Proclamation at 9:45am. The first reader will kick readings off then at 10:00am. From there, we will have a reader every 15 minutes until 5:00pm.

People interested in reading with us can sign up for a 15 minute spot by contacting Angel Rivera, Outreach Librarian, at 903-566-7165 or via e-mail at arivera AT uttyler DOT edu (just replace the AT and the dot with the appropriate symbols for your e-mail). Listeners are welcome to join our audience throughout the day. We are looking forward to seeing you there.

Join the Robert R. Muntz Library to Celebrate National Library Week

Join the Circle of Knowledge @ Your Library: Celebrate National Library Week at the UT Tyler Robert R. Muntz Library, April 13-19, 2008.

We are celebrating National Library Week next week. We would like to invite students, faculty, staff, and friends to a small reception on Monday, April 14, 2008 at 10:00a. We’ll be serving some punch and cake. Stop by, meet our librarians and library workers, and discover why the Robert R. Muntz Library is “Your Doorway to Scholarly Research.”

It’s National Library Week, a time to celebrate the contributions of libraries, librarians, and library workers in schools, campuses, and communities nationwide–and the perfect time to discover how you can join the circle of knowledge @ your library. First sponsored in 1958, National Library Week is a national observance sponsored by the American Library Association (ALA) and libraries across the country each April.

Knowledge River: Earn your MLS in a Multicultural Learning Community

Do you have an interest in becoming a librarian? Do you have an interest in serving the information needs of Hispanics and Native Americans? Then the Knowledge River program at the University of Arizona’s School of Information Resources and Library Science may be an option to consider. Recently, our director received an informational letter about the program, and we are passing on the information for any potential student. Note that the deadline to apply for the next cohort of students, starting in Fall 2008, is February 1, 2008.

Some highlights about the program:

• The program provides “a unique opportunity to prepare for a career as a librarian or information professional with specific focus perspectives of Hispanic and Native American communities.”
• You do have to apply for admission. If you are selected, they provide support that includes tuition, fees, and a graduate assistantship. You can find information about the application process at their website.
• The program is based in Tucson, AZ. It is not a virtual or part-time program.

If this sounds like an interesting opportunity for you, please make sure to visit their website for details.