The Main Building, including the PSC Library, will be closed from Friday, December 13 through Monday, January 13. You may contact us at library@prairiestate.edu.
Starting Monday, 11/2/2020, on-campus staffing of the library will be reduced to Mon/Tue/Wed from 8 am - 4:30 pm and closed Thursday and Friday. On-campus use of the library is still currently restricted to laptop/book pick-up by appointment. Other library services, including reference, student help, and information literacy instruction remain available Mon/Tue/Wed/Thur 8 am - 8 pm and Friday 8 am - 4:30 pm.
The library can take returns through our exterior book drop. If you have overdue items, now is the time to return them.
Speaking of getting rid of things, are you sick of magazines, journals, and other periodicals piling up in the mail room? Recycle them first, and then look to the library. We subscribe to thousands of periodicals through our various research databases, and we might have yours. These can be accessed through our Publication Finder. Try searching for your subscriptions and contact librarians@prairiestate.edu if you have questions, or if you'd like to request a subscription to a particular title.
One way to keep students engaged is with one-on-one appointments with librarians. You don’t have to be an English professor to use our resources either, and we are happy to offer these to students in any class. Whether you would like to have this service at the end of the semester, or as a requirement for the next one (or both), we are available to have research appointments with your students to talk about how to find and use the information they need for your class. Email us to make arrangements at librarians@prairiestate.edu.
For November we are featuring a new research guide on Annotated Bibliographies and Literature Reviews. This guide is intended to give an overview of both annotated bibliographies and literature reviews, how they are the same and different, how to set up a work flow, and examples of successful ones. Videos complement the guide for learners with different needs and preferences.
Between the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 election, misinformation on social media is just as widespread as the virus. For example, misinformation has real world consequences when people don’t heed the warnings about COVID-19. The library can’t change the world, but we can give you some tips to combat misinformation in our own spaces. The Media Manipulation Casebook, is “a digital research platform linking together theory, methods, and practice for mapping media manipulation and disinformation campaigns. This resource is intended for researchers, journalists, technologists, policymakers, educators, and civil society organizers who want to learn about detecting, documenting, describing, and debunking misinformation.” (Media Manipulation Casebook. mediamanipulation.org.)
The Media Manipulation Casebook explains how extremists created parody Antifa accounts to discredit the movement. They show how the Plandemic documentary was strategically used to spread conspiracy theories about COVID-19. The casebook covers a coordinated effort to use racist memes to take over the Black Twitter hashtag with digital blackface, again, to discredit the movement. The list goes on, but this resource is for you and your students to better understand the way these coordinated efforts are sowing the seeds of discontent via social media.
Life is off-balance right now. Many of you are working at home with children. Lots of us are competing for internet bandwidth with partners and other learners. In the meantime, we are coping with multiple real threats. Balance is an illusion, but maybe this reading list from our Work/Life Balance guide will help a little. This guide also includes Podcasts and articles.
 OverwhelmedBrigid Schulte |
The Parent TrackChristina DeRoche |
SuperdadsGayle Kaufman |
Striving for BalanceGayle Baugh |
 Unfinished BusinessAnne-Marie Slaughter |
