The Library’s thematic print and virtual book displays feature recent fiction titles this month. A wide variety of genres should satisfy most readers and include:
View the entire It’s All Fiction collection and do stop by to browse the print titles on display next to the Ask Us desk.
Our Collections, Virtual Book Display
Categories: Featured Collections
May is Asian Heritage Month in Canada. In honour of this, we invite you to hear from Asian Voices, a collection of books, e-books and streaming videos on topics as diverse as spirituality, immigration, cooking, and cultural confusion. This collection includes fiction and non-fiction with several titles exploring the Asian-Canadian experience.
Items are a mix of online and print titles. Stop by the print display next to the Ask Us desk to browse and borrow.
Our Collections
Categories: Featured Collections
A new term and a fresh start on one of the prettiest campuses around! Welcome to the spring term at Brock and the Library.
Whether you are a new or returning student or instructor, learn something new on the Discover Your Library page. Complete our popular Scholar Style quiz and receive customized services based on your answers.
If you are on campus or live in the Niagara area, we are open from 8am to 8pm Monday through Friday and 1pm-5pm on Saturdays. Stop by the Ask Us desk to kick start your research.
For those studying at a distance, we offer hundreds of thousands of e-books and journal articles, and help is just a few clicks away with email and chat services as well as online research consultations with our librarians.
We look forward to working with you and wish you all the best for a successful term.
Archives and Special Collections, Makerspace, MDGL, Our Collections, Services, Staff, Students
Categories: Main, MDGL
Our latest virtual book collection presents readers with 29 new books (written within the past 5 years), on the history, geo-politics, economy, and people of the country.
The War in Ukraine’s Donbas Origins, Contexts, and the Future, and Flight MH17, Ukraine and the new Cold War : prism of disaster give insight to the 2014 conflict. Internal divisions within the country between east and west, and wedge issues such as European Union membership (Ukraine and Russia : from civilized divorce to civil war and Ukraine : contested nationhood in a European context) provide insight into the complexity of the current crisis.
Providing access to credible sources of information is never more important than in times of crisis.
Browse the full Ukraine in Crisis collection.
Our Collections, Virtual Book Display
Categories: Featured Collections
In celebration of Freedom to Read Week (February 20-26), we present a selective timeline of censorship activities throughout history.
For more recent challenges to the printed word, check out 7 days | 7 Challenged Books on our Instagram and Twitter feeds from February 20-26.
8 C.E.
The Roman poet Ovid was banished from Rome for writing Ars Amatoria (The Art of Love). He died in exile in Greece eight years later. All of Ovid’s works were burned by Savonarola in Florence in 1497, and an English translation of Ars Amatoria was banned by U.S. Customs in 1928. 8th Floor of the Library – PA 6519 A8 H6
35
The Roman emperor Caligula opposed the reading of The Odyssey by Homer, written more than 300 years before. He thought the epic poem was dangerous because it expressed Greek ideas of freedom. 8th Floor of the Library – PA 4025 A5 M43 2004
1525
Six thousand copies of William Tyndale’s English translation of the New Testament were printed in Cologne, Germany, and smuggled into England were then burned by the English church. Church authorities were determined that the Bible would be available only in Latin. 10th Floor of the Library – BS 140 1989
1597
The original version of Shakespeare’s Richard III contained a scene in which the king was deposed from his throne. Queen Elizabeth I was so angry that she ordered the scene removed from all copies of the play. 8th Floor of the Library – PR 2821 A2 W5 1968
1614
Sir Walter Raleigh’s book The History of the World was banned by King James I of England for “being too saucy in censuring princes.” 10th Floor of the Library – D 57 R183 1972
1624
Martin Luther’s German translation of the Bible was burnt in Germany by order of the Pope.
10th Floor of the Library – BS 239 1967
1859
Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species was published, outlining the theory of evolution. The book was banned from the library of Trinity College, Cambridge, where Darwin had been a student. In 1925, Tennessee banned the teaching of the theory of evolution in schools; the law remained in until 1967. On the Origin of Species was banned in Yugoslavia in 1935 and in Greece in 1937. 5th Floor of the Library – QH 365 A1 1987 v.15
1885
A year after the publication of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, the library of Concord, Massachusetts decided to exclude the book from its collection. The committee making the decision said the book was “rough, coarse and inelegant, dealing with a series of experiences not elevating, the whole book being suited to the slums that to intelligent, respectable people.” By 1907, it was said that Twain’s novel had been thrown out of some library somewhere every year, mostly because its hero was said to present a bad example for impressionable young readers.
6th Floor of the Library – PS 1306 A1 1996
1929-1962
Novels by Ernest Hemingway were banned in various parts of the world such as Italy, Ireland, and Germany (where they were burned by the Nazis). In California in 1960, The Sun Also Rises was banned from schools in San Jose and all of Hemingway’s works were removed from Riverside school libraries. 6th Floor of the Library – PS 3515 E37 S9 1954
1932
In a letter to an American publisher, James Joyce said that “some very kind person” bought the entire first edition of Dubliners and had it burnt. 6th Floor of the Library – PR 6019 O9 D8 1969
1980s
During its examination of school learning materials, the London County Council in England banned the use of Beatrix Potter’s children’s classics The Tale of Peter Rabbit and Benjamin Bunny from all London schools. The reason: the stories portrayed only “middle-class rabbits.” I.R.C. (WH 222-Book Stacks) – PZ 7 P85 Tap 1979
Freedom to Read Week “is organized by the Book and Periodical Council’s Freedom of Expression Committee, a group committed to promoting intellectual freedom in Canada. Since 1978, the committee has worked with educators, librarians, publishers, writers, booksellers, advocacy groups and the community at large to provide information that addresses censorship and book and magazine challenges in Canada.” (Book and Periodical Council, 2022).
Our Collections
Categories: Main
Our February featured collection is comprised of recently published titles on aspects of the Black Canadian and African American experience.
Topics as diverse as sexuality, literature, geography, dance, and mob-boss prosecution are represented.
Enjoy this collection of e-books and browse the corresponding print display in the Learning Commons.
Explore our varied featured collections @ bit.ly/VirtualBookDisplay
Our Collections, Virtual Book Display
Categories: Featured Collections
Welcome to the Winter 2022 term. Your library has the people and resources you can count on for academic success.
With classes running online this month, library hours and services have been adjusted. Read about the changes and keep up-to-date by monitoring the Library Resources and Services Amid COVID-19 page.
Have you made resolutions to try something new or, perhaps leave a habit behind? Get inspired by the Fresh Start book collection. A mix of print and online titles, topics include mindfulness, healthy eating, positive aging, friendship, and living sustainably.
If academic improvement is on your list, explore new content for Research Help On-Demand. Learn the mechanics of research with short videos and lessons on peer-review and compiling annotated bibliographies among other must know topics for success in your studies.
The Wellness Book Club returns this term with Liaison Librarian and Fitness Instructor Justine Cotton leading participants through a reading of Dr. John Ratey’s 2008 book Spark: The Revolutionary new Science of Exercise and the Brain. Sign up at: bit.ly/wellnessbookclubwinter2022
And, on the topic of wellness, Library Yoga with Liaison Librarian and Yoga Instructor Chelsea Humphries, returns this month with online sessions via ExperienceBU and an in-person event coming later this spring.
Best of luck on the term ahead!
Our Collections, Services, Students, Virtual Book Display, Wellness
Categories: Main
Have you made resolutions to try something new in 2022. Or, perhaps leave a habit behind? Get inspired by this collection of print and online titles with topics including mindfulness, healthy eating, positive aging, friendship, living sustainably and more.
Some titles are available in print. It’s quick and easy to place a hold for pickup.
Find additional #VirtualBookDisplay topics in Omni.
display, Our Collections, Virtual Book Display
Categories: Featured Collections
James A. Gibson Library Student Assistants are beautifying our display cases with striking new exhibits on a variety of themes.
This month, the interior library cases are exhibiting the work of Chyna-Rose Bennett whose display “is all about plants, and plant care, as I have a love for plants and wanted to share it with the Brock community.” She notes that “plants have been a huge part of my life this past year, and they have really helped me cope with the isolation of the pandemic.”
The exhibit features tips on plant maintenance and care and features a selection of Brock books which will be available to borrow when the display ends at the end of the month.
Stop in and view the exhibit which runs until the holiday break. Many thanks to Chyna-Rose.
display, Our Collections, Students
Categories: Learning Commons, Main
During Welcome Week 2021, we put out a large white board and asked you “What was the last good book you read?” We were impressed by the variety of titles. What a well rounded bunch of readers you Badgers are!
The list of titles included classics works such as Lust for Life by Irving Stone, Canadian literary fiction such as Motorcycles & Sweetgrass by Drew Hayden Taylor, Murder on the Orient Express, by renowned mystery fiction writer Agatha Christie, to popular non-fiction works such as Atomic Habits (James Clear), and The Mastery of Love: a practical guide to the art of relationship (Don Miguel Ruiz) and of course being the life long learners that you university students are, even titles such as How to Watch Television (E.Thompson & J.Mittell) and A History of Economic thought (W.Barber).
We loved the book suggestions so much, that we went out and bought them all! (or at least the titles we didn’t already have). You can browse the full list of Student Picks in Omni and of course place a hold on any of them (Holiday reading anyone?).
We plan to put them all on display in the Learning Commons soon. Keep your eye out!
Our Collections, Students
Categories: Featured Collections, Learning Commons