Tag Archives: UCBA

On Display: Black History Month and National African American Read In Titles

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Black history month display

 

The National African American Read-In display represents a selection of “Must Read” books by African American authors available at UC Blue Ash Library. Books will be on display until February 28, 2020. Borrow a book and volunteer to read an excerpt from a book by an African American Author by visiting ucblueash.edu/readin. Rachelle Lawson, UC staff alumna and author of Girl, Get Yo’ Life is the special guest for this year’s National African American Read In on February 13, 2020 at 11:00 am in the Muntz Auditorium Lobby.

 

 

February Book of the Month

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Your UBCA Library’s Book of the Month for February 2020

 

Native Son by Richard Wright

Native Son bookcover

Right from the start, Bigger Thomas had been headed for jail. It could have been for assault or petty larceny; by chance, it was for murder and rape. Native Son tells the story of this young black man caught in a downward spiral after he kills a young white woman in a brief moment of panic.

Set in Chicago in the 1930s, Richard Wright’s powerful novel is an unsparing reflection on the poverty and feelings of hopelessness experienced by people in inner cities across the country and of what it means to be black in America.

 

Is it checked out?  Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered:

Invisible Man (PS3555.L625 I5 1995): A first novel by an unknown writer, it remained on the bestseller list for sixteen weeks, won the National Book Award for fiction, and established Ralph Ellison as one of the key writers of the century. The nameless narrator of the novel describes growing up in a black community in the South, attending a Negro college from which he is expelled, moving to New York and becoming the chief spokesman of the Harlem branch of “the Brotherhood”, and retreating amid violence and confusion to the basement lair of the Invisible Man he imagines himself to be.

Lighting the Fires of Freedom: African American Women in the Civil Rights Movement by Janet Dewart Bell (E185.61 .B375 2018): Lighting the Fires of Freedom Janet Dewart Bell shines a light on women’s all-too-often overlooked achievements in the Movement. Through wide-ranging conversations with nine women, several now in their nineties with decades of untold stories, we hear what ignited and fueled their activism, as Bell vividly captures their inspiring voices. Lighting the Fires of Freedom offers these deeply personal and intimate accounts of extraordinary struggles for justice that resulted in profound social change, stories that are vital and relevant today.

A vital document for understanding the Civil Rights Movement, Lighting the Fires of Freedom is an enduring testament to the vitality of women’s leadership during one of the most dramatic periods of American history.

Richard Wright: Native Son, Actor, Activist (streaming film): Richard Wright was an African-American author of novels, short stories and non-fiction that dealt with powerful themes and controversial topics. Much of his works concerned racial themes that helped redefine discussions of race relations in America in the mid-20th century. Born on a plantation in Mississippi, Wright was a descendent of the first slaves who arrived in Jamestown Massachusetts. This program follows his arduous path from sharecropper to literary giant. Through authors like H.L. Menken, Sinclair Lewis, Theodore Dreiser, he discovered that literature could be used as a catalyst for social change. In 1937 Wright moved to New York and his work began to garner national attention for it’s political and social commentary. Much of Wright’s writing focused on the African American community and experience; his novel Native Son won him a Guggenheim Fellowship and was adapted to the Broadway stage with Orson Welles directing in 1941.

 

by Christian Boyles 

Closed in Honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day

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Martin Luther King in front of US flag

The UCBA Library will be closed Monday, January 20, 2020 in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. We will resume our regular Spring Semester hours on Tuesday, January 21st at 7:30 am.

Please visit our website to view all UCBA Library hours, including holidays and any exceptions to our regular schedule.

October Book of the Month

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No Visible Bruises bookcover

We call it domestic violence. We call it private violence. Sometimes we call it intimate terrorism. But whatever we call it, we generally do not believe it has anything at all to do with us, despite the World Health Organization deeming it a “global epidemic.” In America, domestic violence accounts for 15 percent of all violent crime, and yet it remains locked in silence, even as its tendrils reach unseen into so many of our most pressing national issues, from our economy to our education system, from mass shootings to mass incarceration to #MeToo. We still have not taken the true measure of this problem.

In No Visible Bruises, journalist Rachel Louise Snyder gives context for what we don’t know we’re seeing. She frames this urgent and immersive account of the scale of domestic violence in our country around key stories that explode the common myths—that if things were bad enough, victims would just leave; that a violent person cannot become nonviolent; that shelter is an adequate response; and most insidiously that violence inside the home is a private matter, sealed from the public sphere and disconnected from other forms of violence. Through the stories of victims, perpetrators, law enforcement, and reform movements from across the country, Snyder explores the real roots of private violence, its far-reaching consequences for society, and what it will take to truly address it.

Is it checked out?

No worries, we have more titles on the subject.

Framing the Victim : Domestic Violence, Media, and Social Problems – HN59.2 .B468 2004

Violent Partners : a Breakthrough Plan for Ending the Cycle of Abuse – HV6626.2 .M58 2008

Teen Dating Violence : How Peers Affect Risk & Protective Factors – ebook

 By Christian Boyles

On Display for Hispanic Heritage Month

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Visit the UCBA Library to browse a selection of print books about the histories, cultures and contributions of American citizens whose ancestors came from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean and Central and South America.

Be sure to also visit the Hispanic Heritage Month Display online guide.

Hispanic Heritage Month

 

by Christian Boyles

Book of the Month for September 2019

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Your UCBA Library’s Book of the Month for September:

Money: 5000 Years of Debt and Power 

by Michel Aglietta 

Money book cover 

As the financial crisis reached its climax in September 2008, the most important figure on the planet was Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke. The whole financial system was collapsing, with little to stop it. When a senator asked Bernanke what would happen if the central bank did not carry out its rescue package, he replied, “If we don’t do this, we may not have an economy on Monday.” 

What saved finance, and the Western economy, was fiscal and monetary stimulus – an influx of money, created ad hoc. It was a strategy that raised questions about the unexamined nature of money itself, an object suddenly revealed as something other than a neutral signifier of value. Through its grip on finance and the debt system, money confers sovereign power on the economy. If confidence in money is not maintained, crises follow. Looking over the last 5,000 years, Michel Aglietta explores the development of money and its close connection to sovereign power. This book employs the tools of anthropology, history and political economy in order to analyse how political structures and monetary systems have transformed one another. We can thus grasp the different eras of monetary regulation and the crises capitalism has endured throughout its history. 

Is it checked out?  Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered: 

The Ascent of Money: a Financial History of the World (DVD)
HG171 .A83 2009 

Bestselling author, economist and historian Niall Ferguson takes a look at how money evolved, from the concept of credit and debt in the Renaissance to the emergence of a global economy and the subprime crisis we face today 

A History of Money (E-Book) 

A History of Money looks at how money as we know it developed through time. Starting with the barter system, the basic function of exchanging goods evolved into a monetary system based on coins made up of precious metals and, from the 1500s onwards, financial systems were established through which money became intertwined with commerce and trade, to settle by the mid-1800s into a stable system based upon Gold. This book presents its closing argument that, since the collapse of the Gold Standard, the global monetary system has undergone constant crisis and evolution continuing into the present day. 

Digital Gold: Bitcoin and the Inside Story of the Misfits and Millionaires Trying to Reinvent Money 
HG1710 .P68/ 2015

The notion of a new currency, maintained by the computers of users around the world, has been the butt of many jokes, but that has not stopped it from growing into a technology worth billions of dollars, supported by the hordes of followers who have come to view it as the most important new idea since the creation of the Internet. Believers from Beijing to Buenos Aires see the potential for a financial system free from banks and governments. More than just a tech industry fad, Bitcoin has threatened to decentralize some of society’s most basic institutions. An unusual tale of group invention, Digital Gold charts the rise of the Bitcoin technology through the eyes of the movement’s colorful central characters, including a British anarchist, an Argentinian millionaire, a Chinese entrepreneur, Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, and Bitcoin’s elusive creator, Satoshi Nakamoto. Already, Bitcoin has led to untold riches for some, and prison terms for others. 

 

by Christian Boyles

Reduced Hours on July 12, 2019

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by Heather Maloney
closed for maintenence sign
The UCBA Library will have reduced hours on Friday, July 12th from 8:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. due to facility maintenance.  We will resume our regular Summer hours on Monday, July 15th at 8a.  Please visit our hours webpage to view all UCBA Library hours, including holidays and any exceptions to our regular schedule.