Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month

Please check out our Asian American & Pacific Islander Heritage Month guide, full of great books, e-books, sites, and films to explore at and through Haggerty Library. You will find DVDs featuring Asian/American titles on top of the DVD shelves and select books in New Arrivals.

Each year, other than during the previous administration, the President makes a proclamation for this month. Read President Biden’s here.

Remember, explore and engage with Asian history all the time – not only during May! Asian American history is American history.

image from Lakeland Regional Health.org

Haiku Contest Winners!

Congratulations to our 2024 Haiku Contest winners! Read the winning entries below. You can read all past winners here.

Thank you to all those who remembered the book-ish theme, and for making this year the largest number of entries we have received in the 8 years of the contest! It was quite difficult to decide.

The winners below can pick up their prizes at our main desk in the Learning Commons.

A huge thank you to all who submitted, and we’ll see you for National Poetry Month in 2025!

1st place: Jean Hoffmann

Books bring joy!

M. Kondo once said

Shoot for less than thirty books.

Per room? Per nightstand?

2nd place: Amy Schoofs-Rahne

Storm

Brisk pages flicker,

Breeze violates asylum,

Petrichor cracks mind.

3rd place: Maeve Mullooly

Library Class

Words of nonfiction.

On the never washed beanbag.

Crate of untouched books.

statue image of haiku master, Matsuo Bashō, from japantravel.com

National Library Week

It’s not just National Poetry Month, but this month contains National Library Week, which is this week! Ready, set, library!

Take a moment to appreciate the libraries in your lives, or check out something! Like in our New Arrivals section! Or our Red Rose Graphic Novel Collection!

To kick off the week, the American Library Association releases the most banned and challenged books from the past year. Below is the list and you can learn more here. Any hyperlinks take you to our Primo catalog, where you can find their availability.

1. “Gender Queer,” by Maia Kobabe
2. “All Boys Aren’t Blue,” by George M. Johnson
3. “This Book is Gay,” by Juno Dawson
4. “The Perks of Being a Wallflower,” by Stephen Chbosky
5. “Flamer,” by Mike Curato
6. “The Bluest Eye,” by Toni Morrison
7. (TIE) “Tricks,” by Ellen Hopkins
8. (TIE) “Me and Earl and the Dying Girl,” by Jesse Andrews
9. “Let’s Talk About It,” by Erika Moen and Matthew Nolan
10. “Sold,” by Patricia McCormick

National Right to Read Day was yesterday, but we missed that. Oops, and sorry! Have a good week!

image from the American Library Association

National Poetry Month

April is National Poetry Month!

Click here for our National Poetry Month guide to explore all things poetry!

Poem in Your Pocket Day is on the 30th. Find poems to stuff in your pockets just inside the Learning Commons. Or just snap pics of your favorites!

Also in the Learning Commons you’ll find a few of our poetry titles on display. Plenty more are on the 2nd floor in the 811s.

Our annual Haiku Contest is underway! Find official rules here. Peek at past contest winners here. You can submit haiku through the last day of April.

Have a great month reading and sharing poems!

The 2024 poster features artwork by award-winning children’s author and illustrator Jack Wong, and lines from “blessing the boats” by beloved poet Lucille Clifton. 

Women’s History Month 2024

Happy Women’s History Month! Please check out our new Women’s History Month Guide, full of great books, e-books, sites, and films at and through your Haggerty Library.

Find books in New Arrivals and our leisure reading area, just inside the Learning Commons. Among others, you’ll find female-centric memoirs and the Red Rose Graphic Novel Collection.

Kanopy also has a TON of films featuring and created by women!

Explore and engage with women’s history all the time – not just during March! Women’s history is American history…

image from David Douglas School District

History, Poetry

In the summer of 1966, Elizabeth Kray, then executive director of the Academy of American Poets, invited Langston Hughes, the leading poet of the Harlem Renaissance, to read in New York City at the Guggenheim Museum with fellow New York poet Léonie Adams. The “dreary times” Hughes mentions likely refers to the civil rights struggles of the 1960s and the escalating war in Vietnam. However, However, August 1966 was a particularly troubled time in American history. In the first week alone, the country witnessed a mass shooting at the University of Texas at Austin, race riots in Lansing, Michigan, and Martin Luther King’s civil rights march in Chicago that ended with King being struck by a rock thrown by white protesters. Hughes would read at the Guggenheim with Adams that October, both poets introduced by Marianne Moore. He died the following spring on May 22. 

Browse more archival materials, as well as poems, essays, and videos in honor of Black History Month.

History and letter from the Academy of American Poets

Black History Month

It’s February, so welcome to Black History Month!

Please check out our newly updated Black History Month Guide, full of great books, e-books, sites, and films at and through your Haggerty Library.

Check out Kanopy’s featured titles here all month.

Our book display is back and you will find DVDs featuring African American titles of interest on top of the shelves just inside the Learning Commons and on the Featured DVDs spinner rack.

Check your Mount Mary email and announcements with plenty happening around campus all month.

Remember, explore and engage with Black history 365 – not just during February! Do it, and encourage others to, because it’s hard in other states!

Black history is American history.

image from the National Health Council

Welcome back!

Welcome to spring, 2024 at Mount Mary! Haggerty Library remains ready to serve as a place for group work or quiet study. And we have some cool stuff to check out.

Curious about the annual survey results? Find two infographics here, and contact library staff for more details. We are already at work on making changes, based on your responses!

If you’re new to campus, check out our variety of study spaces here, and feel free to contact us with any questions here. Or just stop by.

Have a great start to the snowy/rainy semester!

image from chibird.com

Public Domain Day

Once again, the first of the year is the day when dozens of previously-copyrighted artistic works enter the public domain. These works are now available for free and can be used or “remixed” in any way. Mostly. And once again, the Duke University Center for the Study of Public Domain covers all the works and complicated nuances. Find more coverage in the Public Domain Review.

This year is especially notable and complicated because of a certain mouse.

Always head to Open Culture for a one-stop-shop of all things public domain, or Open Access.

Happy exploring and creating!

Library Survey Week

Our annual Library Survey Week is underway! Help the Haggerty Library improve its services by telling us what we’re doing well and how we can improve; what kinds of resources you’re using and what you need more of; what you’d like to see added to the library’s spaces, and more. Make your voice heard!

Complete the short, anonymous survey right here. It will be open through Friday, Dec. 8. Thanks in advance for your feedback!

image from freepik