Black Lives Matter

The Queens College Libraries declare our opposition to the racial terror and state-sanctioned violence that shape the lives of Black people in the United States. Black lives matter. We share the sorrow and rage of our community and stand in solidarity with protests against police brutality. We recognize and condemn these acts and other forms of racial violence, bigotry, and institutional racism, and hold ourselves accountable to work against the policing of CUNY and its libraries. This statement affirms our commitment to anti-racist practice and our pledge to use our skills and resources to advance the production of knowledge for social justice.

The Queens College community has a long history of supporting the movement for racial justice. In fact, the iconic Rosenthal Library clock tower is dedicated to the memory of three civil rights workers–Michael Schwerner, James Chaney, and Queens College student Andrew Goodman–who were murdered while helping organize voter registration efforts in Mississippi during the Summer of 1964. As the struggle for racial justice continues, we honor this history and stand against police brutality and white supremacy. 

This statement is adapted from the CUNY Graduate Center’s statement on Black Lives Matter, and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license

Celebrating Diversity: Double Feature!

Welcome to Celebrating Diversity, a library newsletter series showcasing books and resources that tell the stories of the many cultural and ethnic groups that call Queens home. Whether you are preparing an academic assignment or looking for your next great read, we hope you find inspiration in the history and culture of our colleagues, friends, and neighbors in “The World’s Borough.”

May is both Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month and Jewish American Heritage Month. Professors Q. Joan Xu and Izabella Taler, our expert subject librarians in these areas, are kicking off this series with featured ebooks and other resources from their Research Guides.

Access to ebooks and most other featured resources requires a valid QCard: please contact us if you have any issues logging in.

Asian/Pacific American and Jewish American Heritage Month

Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month was first declared in 1978. The month of May was chosen to commemorate the immigration of the first Japanese to the United States on May 7, 1843, and to mark the anniversary of the completion of the transcontinental railroad on May 10, 1869. The majority of the workers who laid the tracks were Chinese immigrants (https://asianpacificheritage.gov/).

Jewish American Heritage Month’s history is more recent, as it was declared by President George W. Bush in 2006.

Two ebooks examine the intersections of Asian American and Jewish American experiences and are highly recommended: 

Modeling Citizenship: Jewish and Asian American Writing, by Cathy Schlund-Vials
Temple University Press, 2011

 

 

 

 


JewAsian : Race, Religion, and Identity for America’s Newest Jews, by H.K. Kim and N.S. Leavitt
University of Nebraska Press, 2016

 

 

Asian/pacific american heritage Resources

Professor Xu’s Asian Studies Research Guide has a comprehensive array of ebooks and websites. Here are some highlights:

Featured Websites

Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month: this guide, produced by the National Park Service, Library of Congress, and other federal partners, has extensive history and heritage information, and a special portal for educators.

APA Heritage: San Francisco’s official celebration site lets you virtually explore Asian food, literature, films, museums, and performances.

Featured ebooks

The Color of Success, by Ellen D. Wu
Princeton University Press, 2013

Negotiating Tradition, Becoming American, by Rifat Anjum Salam
LFB Scholarly Publishing LLC, 2013

Scent of Apples, edited by Bienvenido N. Santos
University of Washington Press, 2015

Jewish American heritage Resources

Research Services Librarian Izabella Taler, liaison for Jewish Studies, presents highlights from the Jewish Studies Research Guide.

Featured E-Resources and Websites

The Association of Jewish Libraries leads one to extensive information related to Jewish Americans.

Jewish Review of Books includes much more than just reviews. It also offers articles about “religion, literature, culture, and politics, as well as fiction, poetry, and the arts.”

Ethnic NewsWatch is another great resource-you will find articles published in journals and newspapers including  American Jewish History, Jerusalem Post, Jewish Chronicle, and Jewish Film & New Media.

Featured ebooks

American Jewish History, edited by Gary Phillip Zola and Marc Dollinger
Brandeis University Press, 2014.

Recommended for an overview of the American Jewish historical experience, and for students looking for primary source materials.

 

 

 

New York’s Yiddish Theater: From the Bowery to Broadway, edited by Edna Nahshon
Columbia University Press, 2016

Explore the historic role of American Jews in the entertainment industry. An excellent source for students interested in performing arts, New York City history, and the evolution of theater.

 

 Typically Jewish, by Nancy Kalikow Maxwell
The Jewish Publication Society, 2019

A humorous romp through Jewish American culture and history, organized into chapters like “Worrying,” “Kvelling,” “Dying,” and “Noshing.”

 

Faculty Workshop: Open Educational Resources

All Queens College faculty are invited to an Introduction to Open Educational Resources workshop on Friday, May 22, from 2-3:30PM. The event will be hosted on Google Meet.

Teaching with Open Educational Resources (OER) and zero-textbook-cost (ZTC) materials makes college more affordable. Especially in the current economic climate, high textbook costs can make it difficult for CUNY students to meet their potential: students report failing or dropping classes because they can’t afford the textbook, or going into debt or going without basic necessities to buy expensive books. This workshop will present concrete strategies you can use to make your course more affordable and accessible. 

Please contact Jeremy Czerw, Outreach Communication Librarian, with any questions: Jeremy.czerw@qc.cuny.edu

 

Culture Watch: Recommendations from QC Libraries (Apr. 2020)

Is your Netflix queue looking a little picked over? Not sure where you’ll find the next concert, play, or exhibit to inspire you? We have you covered! Here are some cultural recommendations, selected by QC librarian Leila Walker.

Finally, a personal recommendation I found (promptly disappearing down an internet rabbit hole), while compiling this post:

  • Contagious Cities Cultural Initiative. To understand the current pandemic in a broader historical context, spend some time with the Center for the Humanities’s revisiting of this 2018-2019 project, which addressed the topic of infectious disease through a variety of cultural programming. New York institutions involved in the project include the CUNY Graduate Center, The New York Public Library, and the Museum of the City of New York.

Wishing you enjoyable, incisive listening, viewing, and reading!

Queens Memory COVID-19 Project

This borough-wide archiving campaign, initiated by Queens College Library and Queens Public Library, will collect first person stories and documentation of life in the epicenter of the pandemic. The public can submit testimony, photographs, and documents through this site, powered by our tech partner, the Urban Archive.

It will become a permanent archive, open to researchers.

In addition to collaborating on the borough-wide outreach campaign, archivists at the Rosenthal Library are conducting long-form interviews with Queens College faculty, staff, and students, to ensure that our unique perspectives are recorded. For more information or to get involved, contact Queens Memory Outreach Coordinator Lori Wallach at lori.wallach@qc.cuny.edu.

 

Upcoming Workshops for Distance Learning

The Queens College Library is offering two workshops to support faculty transitioning to an online environment.

Getting Started with Qwriting

Monday, March 16, 2020 • 3pm–4:30 pm
Rosenthal Library Room 227
Due to popular demand, this is now a virtual workshop hosted on Google Meet
(a link will be sent to registered participants 15 minutes before the start of the workshop)

In this workshop, faculty will learn the bare minimum to create a course site that works. Faculty should bring digital copies of a syllabus and course schedule. They can expect to leave with the basic structure of a working class site. You will not unleash your creativity, and we will not cover anything beyond the basic skills required to convert a syllabus and course schedule into a digital learning environment using QC’s WordPress platform.

Collaborative Annotation

Wednesday, March 18, 2020 • 2pm–3:30 pm
Virtually hosted on Google Meet
(a link will be sent to registered participants 15 minutes before the start of the workshop)

How do you discuss the reading if you can’t meet in person? In this workshop on “Collaborative Annotation,” Emerging Technologies and Digital Scholarship Librarian Leila Walker will show how collaborative annotation tools can help cultivate critical reading habits and develop close reading skills, and indicate where students might need extra guidance to understand the material.

Faculty can expect to leave the workshop with a basic understanding of the tools and a draft lesson plan involving collaborative annotation.

Library Support for Off-site Teaching and Learning

The Queens College Library would like to share some tips for remote access to many of our resources and services. The full guide to our services and other tools for supporting remote research is available here: https://qc-cuny.libguides.com/coronavirus.