Extended Hours for Final Exams

Once again, the Loyola/Notre Dame Library will be open overnight on several days during finals. As in the fall semester, the entire library will be open! Access will be limited to current students from Notre Dame and Loyola; all students will be required to show their institutional ID to enter.

UPDATE 5/11/11: Please note that starting at 2am on Thursday, May 12, only the Main Level Gallery and Cyber Café will be open between 2am and 8am. The full library will be open at all other scheduled hours.


Extended hours will begin on Sunday, 5/1:

• Starting at 10am on Sunday, 5/1, the entire library will be open continuously until 10pm on Saturday, 5/7.
• LNDL will reopen at 10am on Sunday, 5/8, and will remain open continously until 10pm on Friday, 5/13.
• Saturday, 5/14, hours will be 8am - 10pm.
• Starting at 10am on Sunday, 5/15, the library will remain open continuously until 5pm on Friday, 5/20.
• The library will be closed on Saturday, 5/21 and Sunday, 5/22.

Please check the website for more information about library hours.

E-Book of the Week: Conspiracy Theories

Fenster, Mark. Conspiracy Theories: Secrecy and Power in American Culture (2nd ed.). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2008.

Fenster advances a progressive argument that conspiracy theories are a form of American (though perhaps not exclusively American) popular political interpretation, and he contends that understanding how they circulate through mass culture helps us better understand our society as a whole. Starting with (and revising) theories from Richard Hofstadter's seminal work The Paranoid Style in American Politics, he goes on to offer contemporary critiques of the militia movement, "The X-Files," popular Christian apocalyptic thought, and such artifacts of suspicion as The Turner Diaries, the Illuminatus! trilogy, and the novels of Richard Condon. He also analyzes the "conspiracy community" that exists in radio, publishing, Internet sites, and role-playing games. He believes conspiracy theory has become, among other things, a thrill for a bored subculture that reinterprets "accepted" history and is cynical about contemporary politics, but often longs, implicitly or explicitly, for a utopian future.

Previewed by John Breitmeyer, Research and Instruction Librarian/Web Support Specialist. Click here to read this book.

E-Book of the Week: Uncorking the Past

McGovern, Patrick E. Uncorking the Past: The Quest for Wine, Beer, and Other Alcoholic Beverages. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009.

In Uncorking the Past, Patrick McGovern explores the history of alcohol in civilizations around the world. From Africa to Asia, he discusses archaeological sites he’s visited and the types of analysis used to determine what types of beverages were consumed. He also provides background information on the types of situations in which these beverages were used (burials, particular celebrations, etc.) and how they may have been enjoyed.

Previewed by Alison Cody, Public Relations & Instruction Librarian. Click here to read this book.

E-Book of the Week: Demanding Respect

Lopes, Paul. Demanding Respect: The Evolution of the American Comic Book. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2009.

You might think an erudite text about comic book history is a bit oxymoronic. But you may be wrong. It’s not as if Paul Lopes uses a graphic presentation to tell this story.

The first age is referred to as the “industrial age,” later ages as “heroic,” from the 1930's till 2008. That was then and this is now. Today we live in an era of graphic novels, graphic education and still graphic entertainment, with great appeal to an ever widening audience. I recommend this E-book for anyone wishing to connect the dots between Marvel and DC comics, the works of Harvey Pekar, Robert Crumb (“American Splendor”) and Art Spiegelman. Just imagine movies today without all the metaphoric action heroes including: Batman, Wonder Woman, Superman, Cat Woman, Iron Man, Swamp Thing and the Incredible Hulk. Mainly but not exclusively male.

I then recommend going beyond American graphic novels to such artworks as “Maus,” “Persepolis” and “Stuck Rubber Baby.” The concluding chapter, “The Development of an Art Form” is particularly fascinating. The graphic publishing field is evolving at lightning speed now, quickly suggesting an update is in order, even with a historical treatment. And what about the graphic material now on the Web? So don't get me started.

Previewed by Philip Fryer, Digital Media Librarian. Click here to read this book.

Speakers for Celebration of Faculty Scholarship

We are pleased to announce that the following faculty will present at this year's Celebration of Faculty Scholarship on Friday, April 8. Each will give a brief presentation on their own research, and then the group will form a panel to address questions from the audience. Presentations will run from 3:30-4:30pm in the Ridley Auditorium.

• Associate Professor Kim Derrickson, Loyola University Department of Biology
• Professor Joseph Di Rienzi, College of Notre Dame Department of Mathematics and Physics
• Assistant Professor Jocelyn McKeon, College of Notre Dame Department of Chemistry
• Associate Professor Robert B. Pond, Jr., Loyola University Department of Engineering Science & Associate Dean for Natural Sciences
• Assistant Professor Mili Shah, Loyola University Department of Mathematics & Statistics

E-Book of the Week: Japan

OECD Publishing. Japan: Large-Scale Floods and Earthquakes. Paris, France: Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), 2009.

In view of the recent catastrophes suffered by Japan, it is instructive to peruse this 2009 report from the OECD Futures Project on Risk Management. As the project name suggests, this review plays more to policy wonks than general readers, but it is well organized, clearly written, and features executive summaries for its two major topics. Interestingly, threats to nuclear power plants receive scant attention, although buried on p. 104 is the prescient recommendation that “chemical and nuclear industries and activities need to be obliged by law to take flood-related risks…more specifically into account, especially large scale ones…”

Previewed by Jack Ray, Associate Director. Click here to read this book.