Whipple Browsing Area

Many Coe students use the library to study, check-out materials for class, read items their professors have put on hold, and request books and articles using the interlibrary loan system. What they often forget is that Stewart Memorial Library has a large variety of newly released books to read for pleasure. These books are located in our Whipple Browsing Area right as you enter the library across from the circulation desk. This area is full of books for all ages that are current releases. Patricia Cornwell, James Patterson, John Sandford, John Grisham, and Marjane Satrapi are a few popular authors who have multiple works located in our Whipple section. If you are looking for some popular children’s books we also have those as well. A few of my favorites in the Whipple section are The Princesses of Iowa by Molly Backes and Wonder Struck by Brian Selznick. If you want a break from homework and are looking for a good book to read check out the Whipple Browsing Area at the library this weekend.

Megan

The Library is now on Twitter!

Stewart Memorial Library is now on Twitter! Check out our twitter page, and follow us at CoeSML for updates on library news and events.

Citing a Tweet

Although it may seem a bit silly at first glance, there may come a time when you need to cite a tweet from Twitter in a formal way for a paper or project. For example, if doing a paper on the Arab Spring, it would be hard to avoid at least some mention of the role of social media as events precipitated there, and you might decide that you want to use some of those tweets as a form of primary source material. Well, fret no more about the format for such a citation, as the Modern Language Association (MLA) has posted their guidelines for such a event. And remember, if you're ever not sure as to how to go about citing something that you're using, you can always swing by the reference desk (which is different than the circulation desk, btw), and we're happy to try and help you out!

-Katelyn, Head of Reference

Working in the library

There are many reasons that working for the Coe Library is an enjoyable job, the flexible hours, the ability to do some homework between tasks, and being able to say hi to your friends as they come in to print something out or to study. But there are two main reasons that I love it here; being able to help someone out when they need something and learning the layout of the library that I wouldn’t have known so well otherwise.
With the shelving, book searches, and shelf reading that I do for the circulation desk I have gotten to know where things are in the library. As a result of that it is pretty easy to help someone out if they are looking for a specific book or a subject in the library. Whether I am looking for books to read just for fun (the Whipple section) or looking for books for a class, working at the library has helped me have a better idea on where to start.
Ashley Kupka

Coe College Publications: Zip n' Tang

What do the Caravan, The Courier, Zip n' Tang, The Cosmos, and the Freshman Folio all have in common?  They are Coe publications featured on the website "Coe College: the First Hundred Years."  For those publications you don't recognize the site gives a description of its history and place on campus (a few weren't necessarily sanctioned).  For those you do, the site supplies bits of trivia you may not know (quick who was the first editor of the Cosmos?).

One of the publications featured on the site is the Zip n' Tang.  The Zip n' Tang was a student owned humor magazine that was published from 1929-1936.  In 1929, when the magazine began, the faculty refused to sanction it forcing its offices off campus and the publication into private ownership.  The Zip n' Tang was owned by its editors who sold the publication to the following years editors until 1936 when the college bought it and shut it down.  This publication was loved and hated by students in equal measure.  Loved for its humor and popular material hated for its Razz issue.

This hatred of the Razz issue was due to an entire section dedicated to sorority gossip, where there was something written for every girl in every sorority on campus. With six sororities averaging thirty girls in each, this was a considerable amount of gossip. The Razz issue contained this editorial: "We desire to have it spread abroad before every one on campus starts snobbing us, that we (editorial we) did NOT write the razz about all the sorority girls, but instead, all of that was written by co-eds, most of which were in the sorority about which they wrote. (So take that and that and that!) Some of the cracks weren't exactly flattering, but as I said before, what do you expect for fifteen cents - a bunch of roses?" Comments ranged from "sweet and innocent" to "she's always near beer and pretzels" and "her sudden crush on a certain person ought to be bad news to Frank W.; or hasn't he heard of it yet. Everyone else has."

To get the full story of this controversial Coe publication see the article on "Coe College: The First Hundred Years" here.

~Sara Pitcher, Archives Assistant

Riddle Me This! Brainteaser Thursday

Part of being a successful searcher (in my mind anyway) is being able to logically think through your search while linking together related information to complete the big picture of whatever issue you are researching. Thus, the justification for posting this riddle, allegedly created by Albert Einstein a century ago.  There are no tricks, as this can be solved with some simple (and complex) logical thinking.  Give it a try and have fun!

The Riddle

1. In a street there are five houses, painted five different colours.
2. In each house lives a person of different nationality
3. These five homeowners each drink a different kind of beverage, smoke different brand of cigar and keep a different pet.

THE QUESTION: WHO OWNS THE FISH?

HINTS

1. The Brit lives in a red house.
2. The Swede keeps dogs as pets.
3. The Dane drinks tea.
4. The Green house is next to, and on the left of the White house.
5. The owner of the Green house drinks coffee.
6. The person who smokes Pall Mall rears birds.
7. The owner of the Yellow house smokes Dunhill.
8. The man living in the centre house drinks milk.
9. The Norwegian lives in the first house.
10. The man who smokes Blends lives next to the one who keeps cats.
11. The man who keeps horses lives next to the man who smokes Dunhill.
12. The man who smokes Blue Master drinks beer.
13. The German smokes Prince.
14. The Norwegian lives next to the blue house.
15. The man who smokes Blends has a neighbour who drinks water.

Psychology Podcasts

Need something new to listen to at the gym or on long car rides home? The American Psychological Association has a great selection of podcasts relating to psychology. The podcasts, available here, are said to "showcase the academic, the scientific and the clinical sides of the field." One that I found really neat that the site links to Scientific American's "60-second Mind." Updated every Saturday, the podcast discusses some of the latest developments in human behavior and research on the brain, and it does so in a concise, one minute package. Recent podcasts have covered how body image is affected by the images that people see and Michael C. Hall, on TV's Dexter, talking about psychopathy. It's really pretty interesting stuff, and you can check it out for yourself here. Here's to starting off the new year with new podcasts for the mind, about the mind!

-Katelyn, Head of Reference

Coe College People: C.D. "Dad" Meyers, Custodian of Coe

The People tab on the site "Coe College History: the First Hundred Years" is broken down into sub-categories.  Are you interested in Coe's Alumni or it's Presidents?  How about Friends or Visitors?  You can also choose from Faculty, Staff and Trustees.  In all more than 60 individuals from Coe's history are recorded here.  You may be surprised on who you find.

One of the individuals remembered is C.D. "Dad" Meyers, Custodian of Coe.  Mr. Meyers, or Dad as he was affectionately nicknamed,  was Coe's custodian from 1893-1922.  He dedicated 29 years to the college and retired only when health complications made it difficult to complete his work.  He was 80 at the time.  A search of student publications from those years will reveal poems, verses, and cartoons depicting this beloved custodian, one of which is recorded on "Coe College History: the First Hundred Years":

In the halls of old Coe College
Of the great and famed Coe College
Stands our Prof of Dust and Ashes
Mr. Myers of dust-pan fame.
How he sweeps and dusts and shovels,
How he rakes and mows the campus,
How he yells for old Coe College,
For the great and famed Coe College.

You can find another one on page 6 and 7 of the Ditty Book by Don Chilcote and "Buddy" Burrows.  Most often Mr. Myers was depicted in his duties taking care of the lawn:

Known for his lawn care, Myers would instruct students at the beginning of each school term to keep off the grass. "Then, as if by magic, fences spring up across the places where people have been accustomed to make short cuts, and flower beds are dug up and planted. Soon comes the time when Mr. Myers can show his true worth. When this green grass springs up and begins to lengthen, then his portly form may be seen calmly and serenely following the lawn lower as it makes its regular trips across the campus...thus comes our beautiful campus," The Acorn, 1903.

A busy man, he still found time to attend Coe's athletic events and swap stories with the boys.  You can find the full article on this beloved custodian here.

~Sara Pitcher, Archives Assistant

Lonely Frog wants to go Home!

Find me in Lost and Found behind the circ desk!

A new program series

Perrine Presents…

The library is sponsoring a new program series entitled Perrine Presents.  This series will allow faculty, staff and students to showcase their special interests.  The kickoff event will be with Bruce Nesmith performing his folksy guitar, coffee-house style. 

Please be sure to join us January 31, 4-5p.m.  in the Perrine Gallery of the Library. 

Light refreshments will be there for the whole campus community to enjoy.

If you have an idea for this series please let us hear from you.  Contact one of the following staff members; Cheri Pettibone, Sandy Blanchard, Harlene Hansen or Linda Hummel.

Sponsored Content on Websites: Who's providing the information?

Welcome back to Coe for the Spring 2013!  Campus was exceedingly quiet over the holidays, with one giant blizzard that shut everything down for a day thrown into the mix.  But now that everyone is back and ready to embark on another semester of learning and critical thinking, I wanted to touch on something making the news rounds for last day.  Yesterday, the Atlantic, a publication that has been around for more than 100 years and published the likes of Mark Twain and other great American writers and journalists, published a post that can only be described as curious.  The post, which has subsequently been pulled, was an unabashedly positive review of the past year for the Church of Scientology; many of the initial comments on the article were equally enthused.  The reason everything sounded as though it came straight from the Scientology PR folks was that it.  The church paid to post the content on the Atlantic's website, while also formatting and presenting the article just like any other article on the site.  Although the article has been pulled, you can see a screengrab of it here.  Take a look at the screenshot, then head over to the Atlantic's site and see if you think that you would spot the difference in a hurry.  This problem, the idea that readers might believe that this sort of content has the been through the same editorial review process as other content on the site, along with the question of how comments are presented to the masses on pieces such as this, raise real questions for publications that are looking to diversify their profit streams in new and reader-engaging ways.

Response from the media at-large has been widely negative, including from journalists currently published by the Atlantic.  Here are a few of the articles covering this situation:
-"The Atlantic Is Now Publishing Bizarre, Blatant Scientology Propaganda as ‘Sponsored Content’" from Gawker
-Business Insider's coverage
-Salon's coverage
Just searching "Atlantic Sponsored Content" via search engine takes users to dozens upon dozens of reactions, so it's easy to see this is something bothering the media at large right now. But for users, those seeking information on a topic, this is a just an additional challenge that must be kept in mind as they search for answers. WHO is giving you your information? Always be thorough when checking out a source, and don't assume that just because something appears on a reputable website that they are also the creator of this content. Read carefully before citing something, and with this in mind, good luck this semester at Coe!

-Katelyn, Head of Reference

Coe College Histories: "The Four Lamb Brothers of Coe College"

Under the Histories tab on the website "Coe College History: the First Hundred Years" you can find six full text histories of Coe College.  One of these histories is "The four Lamb Brothers of Coe College", written by Harris Lamb '27.  For seven years (1920-1927) Coe had two Lamb brothers on campus each year.  The two elder brothers (Clyde and Ray) made sure to finish their education in three years so as to be out of College when their identical twin brothers (Harris and Willis)  entered, saving their parents the worry of having four boys in college at once.  Harris went on to dedicate more than thirty years to Coe as an athletic Coach and then alumni director.  His history of Coe is full of antidotes and stories of Coe College in the 1920s through the 1970s.

Below is an excerpt from pages 11-13, when Harris was the football coach:

In 1945, we played Cornell.  Cornell still had the Navy unit.  We had no business playing them.  They were outstanding.  They had just tremendous players.  Anyway, it's a game.  It doesn't make a lot of difference whether or not you win or lose, but of course you like to win.  But, we played Cornell, and I thought the coach of Cornell would make it a good game.  He would not run up the score.  Listen.  that afternoon Cornell College beat us 52-14.  They walloped us.  Ozzie Brahos '48 caught a pass and he ran for one touchdown, I remember.

The next game was with Beloit.  Dolph Stanley saw the score in the paper.  Right away he's on the telephone.  He says, "Harris, are you comin'?"  I says, "Why sure, Dolph.  We're going to be there for the game this Saturday." "Well." he says, "I thought maybe you'd be quitting."  "No," I says.  "We'll be there."  Well, I had Bob Tvrdik '46 and Bob Wessale '46 and, oh, a few good players.  But I know we had Bud Collette '50, who was a tennis player at Franklin high school.  He played one of our ends.  We didn't really have an outstanding team.

So, on the telephone Dolph says, "Now, Harris, we're going to be very, very fair with your.  We won't do what Cornell did. I says, "That's all right.  It would be nice of you not to beat us too much."

So, when we get up there, I'm out on the field.  The team's starting to warm up.  It was a night game.  I looked over at the Beloit team and he had 'em.  Boy, he had the horses, big chunky tackles from Chicago.  They looked even bigger and better than Cornell.

Dolph came over to me and he said, "Say, Harris, you know I told you on the telephone that we would take it easy, but....." he said, "I noticed in the paper tonight they've got us predicted to beat you about 35-0."  He said, "I just got to let them go; I can't keep that score down less than 35."

I turned to him and this is a quote.  I said, "Dolph, I told you on the phone that we would treat you fair if we had a good team.  Well, I don't have a very good team, but if we should be lucky enough to ever beat you, it won't be by a big score."

Well, he left me.  I went to the dressing room.  I told those guys, "That dang crook!  He said he was going to take it easy on us.  He isn't! He's going to wallop us!"

I never had a team so keyed up in my life.  I said, "Now, doggone you guys, you gotta fight and you gotta play for inches...inches...and you got to hit with all your might!"

Well, we went out there.  I've never seen such a football game.  That big Beloit College football team...cocky, smart...they were going to run all over us.  Well, boy, our team wasn't good, but we matched them touchdown for touchdown.  We did beat them one touchdown, 33-27.  I couldn't believe it!  Bob Tvrdik threw a pass, and Bud Collette.....I don't think he ever caught a touchdown pass in his life!  He grabbed that pass in the end zone, just jumped up over that Beloit half-back, and pulled it in and we won the ball game.

After the game you usually greet the other coach.  I never did see Dolph Stanley.  That night before we left we didn't get our contract check.  He was so disappointed, he was so mad, he was so upset, that the check, our guarantee, was mailed to me.  Oh, listen, that Coe team defeated Beloit up there when we weren't supposed to even have a team on the field.

The full text of Harris Lamb's history of Coe can be found here.  These are the stories the alumni tell of the 'good ol' days' sprinkled with a few wrong twin clarifications.  It is all around a good time.

~Sara Pitcher, Archives Assistant

Coe College History: The First Hundred Years

"Coe College History: the First Hundred Years" is a website containing articles on Coe's history written by Writing Center Students since 2009 (at least).  If you haven't stumbled across this gem of a site I highly suggest checking it out.

The site organizes Coe's history into 7 categories: histories, people, publications, events, the campus, athletics, and daily life.  It also includes a timeline to help keep everything straight.  Over the next 7 weeks I am going to pick an article from each of these categories to give you a taste of  Coe's varied history, and to show you what you can find on this resource.

This week you get a clip from the sites timeline of Coe College.

In the beginning:

1851
-Rev. Williston Jones and his wife open a school ("The School of the Prophets") in parsonage of Presbyterian Church;  his intent is to prepare young men for the ministry; school also includes three young women.

1853
-New York farmer Daniel Coe donates $1,500 to support Jone's school which will provide equal education opportunities for both men and women.
-The Cedar Rapids Collegiate Institute is incorporated.  Trustees purchase an 80-acre farm.
-David Blakely is hired as principal  of the Institute.

1855
-Cedar Rapids Collegiate Institute is suspended due to low attendance.
-Institute's Board attempts to give acquired property to the Iowa City Presbytery; offer is declined.

1867
-Many of the original founders of the Cedar Rapids Collegiate Institute create Parson's Seminary, in hopes of securing financial support from the Parsons estate.
-Parson's Seminary begins its three-year span.

1868
-Parson's Seminary Building, the west half of Old Main, is completed in the summer; used by the seminary beginning in the fall of its second year.

1869
-Parsons Seminary Board report in February records institutional debt at $7,000.

1870
-Due to declining enrollments and increasing debts, the Parsons Seminary suspends operations at conclusion of spring term.

1872
-New fund-raising efforts are made to begin a new Presbyterian college in Cedar Rapids.

1875
-Trustees vote to put Parsons Seminary to rest and incorporate a new school, the Coe Collegiate Institute.
-On September 1, Robert Aaron Condit is appointed Principal of the Coe Collegiate Institute.
-Coe Collegiate Institute starts its first term on October 1 with 40 pupils.

1876
-Institute establishes a Conservatory of Music with C. W. Kidder serving as its principal.
-Fall term enrollment for 1876 is 160 students.

1879
-First graduates of Coe Collegiate Institute receive their diplomas in June.  Commencement exercises at the First Presbyterian Church.  Six graduates; Miss Maggie S. Cooper is valedictorian.

1880
-Institute's second graduate class, two graduate.
-Announcement during the school year; the Institute will become Coe College.

I resisted adding comments to the timeline as I typed it out, but I will tell you there are many stories behind and between the events listed above.  There is even one event I would dispute (was the school really first called "The school of the Prophets"?).

Next week will take a look at one of the published histories on "Coe College History: The First Hundred Years".

~Sara Pitcher, Archives Assistant