The JKM Library Blog

April 2016

Looking to catch up on some much needed rest and relaxation by watching a movie? If you’re like me, you’re looking to enhance your viewing experience by learning background information about the actors, script, or filming locations. The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) offers the IMDb Movies & TV mobile app, which incorporates the functions of the popular website. The app is free to download and available for iOS and Android users. IMDb is owned by Amazon.com. Within the app, you can: -Search and browse by movie titles, t.v., celebrities, news, and special features like details about seasonal television, award shows, film festivals, and IMDb user polls. The “movies” section allows you to browse by U.S. box office results, top and lowest rated movies, best picture winners, and more. New movie pages include a feature where you can check show times in your local area. -In individual movie pages, you can watch trailers, access major quotes, trivia, soundtrack information, and read reviews. -If you have an account on IMDb you can use the app to add to your watchlist, track your ratings, manage lists, and “check-in” to movies or television programs you are currently watching. You do not have to have an account to access your viewing history or view notifications. -Under settings, you can manage access to your device location, control video quality, and manage notifications about opening movies, recent trailers, or individual people. The “Contact Us” section includes links out to IMDb support pages, the site’s Google+ Community page, and email. The “About” section includes your app’s version number, updates to that version, legal information, and similar Apps from Amazon. I like this app because I can get quick information without having to open a browser or interrupting whatever I’m watching, which is usually streaming from my computer. With around 185 million data items, there is a lot of content to access. There are in-app advertisements, but they are not overly intrusive. The mobile interface is also very similar to the web version, making it easy to navigate for regular users of the site. If you’re looking for a source of movies to watch, you can now stream for free from Swank now available through our database portal. 

April 19, 2016

Lyra:
Is a bit of a jigsaw puzzle expert
Is usually planning her next trip abroad to somewhere fascinating
Is 100% on board with having a library cat
What do you do here at The Jennie King Mellon Library?
I’m a part-time Reference Associate.
What made you choose your current profession?
I worked in higher education since graduating from college myself and I love the atmosphere of a college campus! I’ve also always loved the atmosphere in libraries
(thanks to my mom who was a teacher and volunteered at our local library) so when I decided to go to graduate school I chose Library Science.
When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
An architect! Then I realized a lot of math was involved so I gave that idea up – but I do still love looking at houses and I still have many of the floor plans (likely completely unrealistic) that I dreamed up as a kid.
What’s your favorite part of your job?
Helping people realize all the great resources (for work, school, and for fun) that the library has.
If you could do one thing to change/improve the JKM Library- with no worries about time or expense, what would you do?
I am 100% on board with having a library cat. Also, I think it’s a great idea to have a jigsaw puzzle out for people to work on when they need a break from studying!
What do you like to do on your days off?
I like taking a run outside on a nice day or fitting in some yoga if I have time. I’m also taking French classes now and I actually enjoy doing the homework because it’s something I’m doing just for fun. I love reading (obviously), baking (and eating), and hiking. I also love to travel so I’m usually planning a trip (that may or may not happen).
What’s the last thing you checked out? (Brief reviews are appreciated)
I’m almost always reading more than two books at a time – two I recently finished are Mosquitoland by David Arnold (great!) and Ways to Disappear by Idra Novey (the
main character is from Pittsburgh – Shadyside is mentioned once or twice) and I also check out a lot of French language movies – the last one I watched was Ernest &
Celestine (lovely and cute).
What book do you think everyone should read? Why?
This is a hard question!! But the first thing that comes to mind is Sweetland by Michael Crummey. I read this book more than a year ago and I still think about it and it’s characters regularly. Some characters just stick with you, as if they were real people you knew. But I just thought of something else I’d recommend too – anything by James Michener. He writes long sagas based around a specific geographic region. Some might find his books a little dry and boring but I love them – my favorite is Chesapeake. When I finish one of his books I feel like I intimately know a place and its history even if I’ve never been there (ahem … Hawaii).
Some of our student workers update the popular reading display and are always looking for recommendations. If you could please list 5 or so of your favorite books that JKM has, that would be great!
I don’t know that many of these could be termed “popular reading” but:
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides,
Living Poor by Moritz Thomsen (one of my favorite Peace Corps-related memoirs – I’ve read almost every Peace Corps memoir that I know of so I can always give more
recommendations on this or memoirs in general – my favorite genre!)
The Cider House Rules or The Hotel New Hampshire by John Irving
something by Willa Cather (like Shadows on the Rock, O Pioneers!, or My Antonia)
something by Bill Bryson (like the Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid)
What’s your favorite thing about living in Pittsburgh?
The landscape, hills, rivers – and the neighborhoods.
What’s one thing you think everyone should do while they live in the city? (This includes restaurant recommendations, of course)
Walk through Allegheny Cemetery.
Tell us some surprising things about yourself (2/3 would be great):
I am a bit of a jigsaw puzzle expert.
I love clothes and fashion but HATE shopping.
I got my nose pierced about 5 years before I got my ears pierced. In fact, I only got my ears pierced because my friends thought it was weird that my nose was pierced but not my ears and took me to get them done!

April 15, 2016

Megan:
Is a fan of Pittsburgh’s hills (to look at, not climb)
Likes a good thrifting trip on her days off
Is a secret trekkie
What do you do here at The Jennie King Mellon Library?
I’m a Reference Associate! Which means… I help you find and retrieve the right books, articles, and other media to fulfill your research needs. I can help check-out
materials for you or let you know about a resource that you might not have known about before. I do a variety of things and usually know the right person to ask if I don’t know the answer myself.
What made you choose your current profession?
I’ve always fancied myself a detective, so reference work is right up my ally. I’m also trained as an archivist and have an affinity for primary resources and preservation.
When you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A cartographer and interior designer.
What’s your favorite part of your job?
I love hearing about what other people are into, what they get excited about. I also enjoy learning about how information systems, like the library catalog and databases. Being able to work around a bunch of books doesn’t hurt either.
If you could do one thing to change/improve the JKM Library—with no worries about time or expense—what would you do?
I know there’s been a theme in answers to this question involving a library cat, which would only improve all of our lives. We could even get one that is hypoallergenic. I’d also like to see a pop-up library somewhere outside elsewhere on campus or a seed library.
What do you like to do on your days off?
I love spending time outdoors, riding my bike or walking around town. A good thrifting trip or checking out an art museum or gallery are also high on my priority list on my days off.
What’s the last thing you checked out? (Brief reviews are appreciated)
Women of Steel. This short documentary was made by a group of former female steelworkers in the Pittsburgh area in 1984. In it, they discuss their experience finding
work in the steel mills and subsequently getting laid off due to mill closings. There is a theme song and it’s amazing.
What book do you think everyone should read? Why?
I’m interested in first-person narrative and autobiographies. I really like Revolution from Within by Gloria Steinem. This book of essays on the theme of self-esteem
connects external, social revolution to an internal revolution of spirit and consciousness. Several of the essays include parables from the lives of individuals such as Wilma Mankiller and Julie Andrews as well as observation from Steinem’s own experiences. I don’t know if I think everyone should read it, but it has certainly been meaningful to me. Some of our student workers update the popular reading display and are always looking for recommendations. 
If you could please list 5 or so of your favorite books that JKM has, that would be great!
Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy
Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
How to Save Your Own Life: A Novel by Erica Jong
Art 21: Art in the 21st Century (DVD). Any season.
Anything by Octavia Butler.
Contesting Archives: Finding Women in the Sources ed. By Nupur Chaudhuri, Sherry J. Katz, and Mary Elizabeth Perry
What’s your favorite thing about living in Pittsburgh?
The hills! (Looking at them, not so much traveling on them.)
What’s one thing you think everyone should do while they live in the city? (This includes restaurant recommendations, of course.)
Ride an incline, kayak on the rivers, eat pierogies, and visit an art museum. That’s four things.
Tell us some surprising things about yourself (2/3 would be great):
I moved from Arkansas to Pittsburgh about a year and a half ago.
I’m a Trekkie.
 

April 2016

Happy National Poetry Month 2016! National Poetry Month was founded in April 1996 to highlight the achievements of poets in the United States, increase publication and distribution of poetic works, and aid teachers in bringing poetry to their students. Last year, we reviewed The Poetry Foundation’s POETRY app. This year, we’ll take a look at a few apps to help you celebrate. The Poet’s Almanac, created by the journal Poetry East at DePaul University in Chicago, matches a poem published in its pages to the current weather in your location using GPS and meteorological data. It is developed by digital publisher Appoet and is free to download for both Android and iOS devices. The layout is simple and easy to navigate and there are built-in options to share poems via Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus. A shopping cart icon links out to the publisher’s website for purchase of the physical journal. Although the selection is limited to poems already published by Poetry East, I find myself checking the app regularly to see what poems are selected on rainy days or when it’s particularly sunny. To get your own creative juices flowing, try the Diamante Poems app to experiment with a specific poetry style. Diamante poems are written in the shape of a diamond and use nouns, adjectives and gerunds (nouns made from verbs by adding –ing) to describe two opposing or one central topic. The Diamante Poems app is freely available for both Android and iOS. It was created by the International Reading Association, ReadWriteThink, and the National Council of Teachers of English. It provides a template to create a diamante poem and includes definitions for each element. It has a profile system that allows for multiple users to save and edit completed poems within the app. While a great tool for teaching, the text is very small and does not scale well to small mobile devices. Check out some experimental digital poetry with Speak, part of a series of poems meant to be read as interactive text called P.o.E.M.M (Poetry for Excitable [Mobile] Media). Speak is free to download, but only available for iOS. To read the poem, you simply drag your finger across a black screen and letters from the background gather to form lines of the poem “What They Speak When They Speak to Me.” The longer you drag on the screen, the more words form in line and once you break contact, the letters dissipate once more into the background. According to the app’s description, this process is meant to replicate the confusion and frustration of communicating in a foreign place. You’re given the option to write your own poem or pull text from Twitter to interact in the same way. Looking for more ways to celebrate? The Academy of American Poets has 30 ways to celebrate national poetry month.