MSL buzz: the Michael Schwartz Library blog - Research Guides at Cleveland State University

Are you ready to vote? Learn to make confident decisions in the upcoming elections.

This election year the Michael Schwartz Library is offering a series of workshops, engaging speakers, interactive displays, and more, all aimed at helping you navigate the complexities of democracy. Whether you're learning how to register to vote, exploring key issues, or discovering how to spot misinformation, Democracy 101 provides the tools and knowledge you need to make informed decisions. Let's work together to ensure that every vote is thoughtful and informed.

Fall 2024 Events, Resources, & Opportunities

Free Workshops: Avoiding Election-Related Misinformation

October 22, 11:30-12:20pm
October 23, 4:00-4:50pm

Register Here

Strengthen your ability to discern credible information in a world full of misinformation. This workshop will equip you with the skills to critically evaluate sources, spot misleading content, and make informed decisions in your academic work.

Avoiding Misinformation Research Guide

Civic Engagement & Voting

National Voter Registration Day is September 17th

New voter? Don't know if you registered to vote? The Office of Civic Engagement will host voter registration tables on 9/17 from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. in the lobby of the library and the Student Center Innerlink. Take a moment to get registered to vote, update your voter registrations, or get help with an application to vote-by-mail. Please stop by!

Informed Voting Cart
While you're there, your CSU Librarians can help you learn how to register, avoid misinformation, and research the issues that matter most to you at our “Informed Voting Cart”. Our resources are designed to help you cast your vote with knowledge and confidence…please stop by!

Constitution Day Events in the Library

Book Display
Constitution Day is September 17th. Stop by the first floor of the library to see our book display celebrating this important holiday!

Connect with Faculty Series:
"To Form a More Loving (Perfect) Union: Love as a Principle of Democracy, Free Speech, and Racial Equality"
Professor Reginald Oh, CSU College of Law

Tuesday, September 17th
11:30-12:30
Michael Schwartz Library Connection Lounge
(1st Floor, west of the front desk)

This presentation will explain that love is perhaps the most important constitutional principle of democracy. Love is implied in key parts of the Constitution: the Preamble, the Bill of Rights, and the Fourteenth Amendment. Love is the constitutional glue that can transform a divided nation of us versus them into We the People. The presentation will discuss how love informed Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court decision that struck down racial segregation in public schools in 1954. It will also discuss how love can guide us in navigating difficult freedom of speech issues such as the debate over what books are appropriate for school libraries and classrooms.

Presented as part of the Friends of the Michael Schwartz Library "Connect with Faculty" Series

Banned Books Week Events in the Library

Banned Books Week is September 22-28th. Check out our banned books display and take a “mugshot” selfie with your favorite banned book. Show your support for the freedom to read!

free webinar:
Stand Up and Speak Out! How You Can Help Fight Library Censorship
Dr. Belinda Boon, Kent State University iSchool
September 24th, 11:30-12:30, virtual

Register Here

Over the past several years, schools and public libraries have experienced unprecedented numbers of challenges from conservative groups and lawmakers targeting books on the experiences of Black, indigenous, and people of color and the LGBTQ+ community. But a growing number of individuals and groups are fighting back against would-be censors and helping to combat the growing spread of mis- and dis-information. This webinar covers some of the issues involved in preserving intellectual freedom and offers suggestions for how you CAN make a difference!

Presented in collaboration with the Michael Schwartz Library Friends of the Library

The Michael Schwartz Library has partnered with the CSU Office of Civic Engagement to provide multiple sources of information in preparation for the upcoming elections. See the Office of Civic Engagement website for additional resources, information about upcoming events, and more.

Recent Posts

New books this Fall

New books this fallJust a handful of the hundreds of books we've added to our collection recently… From Slavery to Freedom by John Hope Franklin; Alfred A. MossISBN: 0070219079Publication Date: 1994-02-01This work charts the journey of African Americans from their origins in the civilizations of Africa, through slavery in the Western Hemisphere, to their struggle for freedom in the West Indies, Latin America and the United States. One Asian Eye by Jean GiovanettiISBN: 9780595335879Publication Date: 2004-11-01"The great thing about being ostracized is there's no peer pressure." Jean is the ultimate outsider. With a white father and Asian mother, she is too dark to be considered "white" and too white to be considered anything else. She catches grief from whites and minorities alike as she tries to piece together clues from her ancestry among a predominantly white populace. This personal anthology is composed of a series of telling moments. Headed by popular songs, each carefully crafted short story and essay provides humor, drama and powerful insight into the changing face of America. "One Asian Eye fills two important gaps in Asian American literature: accounts of the condition of being multiracial and literature in any genre about growing up in the Midwest. Korean-Americans by Ilpyong Kim (Editor)ISBN: 1565911210Publication Date: 2004-08-01History of Korean immigration to the US and the status of Korean-Americans at present and future. Commemorating 100 years of immigration.Evolutionary Psychology by David BussISBN: 0205370713Publication Date: 2003-08-06Focuses on the field of evolutionary psychology. This second edition offers a logical progression of topics by discussing adaptive problems that humans face. It integrates material on cognition and language throughout the text. It includes stories, media and cultural examples and illustrations, and applications to the personal lives of students. Standing Again at Sinai by Judith PlaskowISBN: 0060666846Publication Date: 1991-02-01A feminist critique of Judaism as a patriarchal tradition and an exploration of the increasing involvement of women in naming and shaping Jewish tradition. Still I Rise by Roland Owen Laird; Taneshia N. Laird; Charles Johnson (Foreword by); Elihu BeyISBN: 0393045382Publication Date: 1997-10-01A complete documentary history of African Americans in one cartoon narrative. Art Spiegelman and Larry Gonick opened the door for an all-out renaissance of the cartoon form, bringing a medieval form of history -- through pictures -- together with a modern sensibility. In Still I Rise Roland Laird and Elihu Bey take the form to another level, using cartoons to tell the rich history of the achievements, struggles, hopes, suffering, and triumphs of people of African descent in America. In the process, they bring to light many surprising and little-known facts of American history, making the book a joy to both those who thought they knew it all already and those learning history for the first time. As National Book Award winner Charles Johnson points out in his introduction, the history of African American cartooning is itself a vibrant one, and almost unknown. The Amish by Jan FolsomISBN: 0811725588Publication Date: 1995-06-01Through personal stories and photographs the author reveals the Amish beliefs, values, and traditions, and conveys their view of the outside world. Ahead of Her Time by Dorothy SterlingISBN: 0393030261Publication Date: 1992-01-01The biography of a nineteenth-century activist who dedicated her life to abolitionism by lecturing, organizing, and fund-raising for human rights. Queenship in Europe, 1660-1815 by Clarissa Campbell Orr (Editor)ISBN: 0521814227Publication Date: 2004-08-12This pioneering survey of court cultures in the age of the High Baroque through to the age of Enlightenment uses the role of the queen consort as the principal means of inquiry. The principal themes explored are the consort's formal and informal power, her religious role, and her cultural patronage. The book reveals the dynamics of dynastic politics as courts used their family linkages to advance themselves in the hierarchy of European powers, and suggests how women sometimes formed their own networks. The courts surveyed include those of France, Spain, Russia, Sweden, Denmark, the Imperial court at Vienna, and the three German electorates linked to monarchies: Brandenburg-Prussia, Saxony-Poland and Hanover-Great Britain. Also included is the duchy of Württemburg, which achieved royal status by the end of the period, and Savoy, which attained it through acquiring Piedmont at the beginning. The Oxford W. E. B. du Bois by Henry Louis Gates (Editor)(19 volumes)ISBN: 9780195311808Publication Date: 2007-03-15W. E. B. Du Bois was a public intellectual, sociologist, and activist on behalf of the African American community. He profoundly shaped black political culture in the United States through his founding role in the NAACP, as well as internationally through the Pan-African movement. DuBois's sociological and historical research on African-American communities and culture broke ground in many areas, including the history of the post-Civil War Reconstruction period. Du Bois was also a prolific author of novels, autobiographical accounts, innumerable editorials and journalistic pieces, and several works of history. The Oxford W. E. B. Du Bois is a collection of Du Bois's works in 19 volumes. Each work is introduced by a brief essay by an eminent scholar and each volume includes a general introduction from the series editor, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Spanning over a half-century, this collection is essential for anyone interested in African American history. The Muslim Diaspora by Everett Jenkins(2 volumes)ISBN: 0786407441Publication Date: 2000-07-01This volume, the second of a series that chronicles the most significant events in the dynamic spread of Islam, covers the period from 1500 to 1799. This era saw the spread of Islam to the Americas and the precipitous decline of the powerful Muslim states of the Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal empires. Let Nobody Turn Us Around by Manning Marable (Editor); Leith Mullings (Editor)ISBN: 0847683451Publication Date: 1999-10-01This anthology of black writers traces the evolution of African-American perspectives throughout American history from the early years of slavery. The essays, mainfestos, interviews and documents included, show the character and important controversies of each period in black history. Conscience and Slavery by Victor B. HowardISBN: 0873384113Publication Date: 1990-08-01A history of the struggle in both the church and the state over the issue of slavery and the roles they played in events leading to the Civil War. The author chronicles the domestic missions in Calvinist churches in the antebellum period, linking free-soil concepts with post-millenialist thought. Reason in the Age of Science by Hans Georg Gadamer (Editor); Frederick G. Lawrence (Translator)ISBN: 0262070855Publication Date: 1982-03-23The essays in this book deal broadly with the question of what form reasoning about life and society can take in a culture permeated by scientific and technical modes of thought. They attempt to identify certain very basic types of questions that seem to escape scientific resolution and call for, in Gadamer's view, philosophical reflection of a hermeneutic sort. In effect, Gadamer argues for the continued practical relevance of Socratic-Platonic modes of thought in respect to contemporary issues. These essays, which are not available in any existing translation or collection of Gadamer's work, are remarkably up-to-date with respect to the present state of his thinking, and they address issues that are particularly critical to social theory and philosophy. He is recognized as the chief theorist of hermeneutics, a strong and growing movement here in a number of disciplines, from theology and literary criticism to philosophy and social theory. A book in the series Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought. Children of the Roojme by Elmaz AbinaderISBN: 0299157342Publication Date: 2018-12-31In this lyrical memoir of her Lebanese-American family, Elmaz Abinader offers a vivid account of uprooted and resettled lives. Spanning four generations and two continents, Children of the Roojme is the story of a family from the mountains of Lebanon and their emigration to western Pennsylvania. More than that, it bears intimate witness to the hardships of World War I, the disintegrating Ottoman empire, abandonment of centuries-old villages, and the New World conflict between cultural tradition and assimilation....

Banned Books Week

September 22 - 28, 2024 is Banned Books WeekTake a Mugshot With Your Favorite Banned BookStop by our display on the first floor of the Library and take a mugshot with your favorite banned book. Post it on Instagram with the hashtag #bannedbooksweek to show your support for free and open access to information. Free WebinarTuesday, September 24th, 2024 at 11:30 AMBanned Books Week: “Stand Up and Speak Out! How you Can Help Fight Library Censorship”with Belinda Boon MLIS, PhD, Kent State University iSchoolVia ZoomOver the past several years, schools and public libraries have experienced unprecedented numbers of challenges from conservative groups and lawmakers targeting books on the experiences of Black, indigenous, and people of color and the LGBTQ+ community. But a growing number of individuals and groups are fighting back against would-be censors and helping to combat the growing spread of mis- and dis-information. This webinar covers some of the issues involved in preserving intellectual freedom and offers suggestions for how you CAN make a difference!The webinar is FREE and open to all. Please register at https://forms.office.com/r/bBKuszk6j9 to receive a Zoom link.About Our SpeakerDr. Belinda Boon is a non-tenure track professor in Kent State University’s MLIS program where she has taught since 2006. Before moving to Ohio, she was the Manager of Continuing Education and Consulting and a CE Consultant with the Texas State Library & Archives Commission. Her early career included directing a small community public library and serving as a Children’s Librarian in a large urban library system. Her areas of expertise include public libraries, collection management and reference services. She has presented workshops and webinars for public, academic and school library staff since 1995 and has also taught undergraduate courses in information fluency. This free event is part of the Library's Democracy 101 series of events and is sponsored by the Friends of the Michael Schwartz Library. ...

E-books for National Hispanic Heritage Month

During the annual month-long celebration honoring the cultures, history and heritage of Hispanic and Latino Americans, we're featuring e-books that explore the experiences, celebrate the contributions, and promote understanding of the diverse cultures within the Hispanic and Latinx communities. Learn more about National Hispanic Heritage Month.Explore all our E-Books related toHispanic History, Culture, Identity & Politics orBrowse a few recent & featured titles: The Power of Latino Leadership, Second Edition, Revised and Updated by Juana BordasISBN: 9781523004096Publication Date: 2023Experience the power of inclusion, community, and taking action! An updated, expanded edition. By 2045 Latinos will make up 1 in 4 Americans. They are projected to be 78% of the new entries into the labor force in the next ten years. By sheer numbers alone, Latinos will shape the 21st Century. What does it take to lead such a varied and vibrant people who hail from twenty-six countries and are a blend of different races? And what can leaders of all cultures and ethnicities learn from how Latinos lead? Juana Bordas takes us on a journey to the very heart and soul of Latino leadership. She offers 10 principles that richly illustrate the inclusive, people-centered, socially responsible, and life-affirming ways Latinos have led their community. This model is uniquely suited to this century's multicultural, global age. This new and expanded edition includes a chapter on intergenerational leadership that recognizes vast generational shifts are occurring: ten thousand Baby Boomers retire every day and Millennials and Zs are the largest generations in history. Six out of 10 Latinos are millennials. This new chapter can guide us in preparing the next generations to take the helm of leadership. This unprecedented and wide-ranging book shows that Latino leadership is indeed powerful and distinctive and has lessons that can inform leaders of every background. We Were Always Here: A Mexican American's Odyssey by Ricardo ChaviraISBN: 9781518506505Publication Date: 2021A Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Ricardo Chavira writes in his memoir about the challenges growing up in a marginalized community in Pacoima, California, where he attended a high school notorious for gang violence and inadequate teaching. Against all the odds, he managed to reject gang affiliation, avoid serious crimes, evade the Vietnam War draft and earn undergraduate and graduate degrees. He became passionate about journalism because it gave him the chance to report about the lives of Latinos that mainstream American media either ignored or misrepresented. Chavira was one of the few Latinos working in the most elite newsrooms in the United States, covering natural disasters, including the 8.0 magnitude earthquake that devastated Mexico City in 1985, and interviewing the likes of Mexican presidents Carlos Salinas de Gortari and Vicente Fox and Panamanian dictator, Manuel Noriega. Interspersing his journalistic adventures with his family's history as Americans, Chavira examines his dual identities Mexican and American and their contribution to his success in navigating and reporting stories around the world. Latino Identity and Political Attitudes: Why are Latinos not Republican? by Angel Saavedra CisnerosISBN: 9783319339696Publication Date: 2017This book explores the forces that shape Latino political preferences, arguing that social identities are at the center of Latino partisanship. Despite hopes of the Republican Party for bringing in Latinos through religious and moral issues, Latinos in America consistently side with the Democratic Party. Two possible explanations based on social identity emerge as theories of Latino partisanship. The first possibility is that Latinos behave as a single-issue public driven politically by the issue of immigration. A thorough exploration of this possibility in part two of the book finds very little evidence to justify treating Latinos as a single-issue public. The second explanation, presented in part three, relies more heavily on the concept of social identities. Latino pan-ethnic identity emerges as one of multiple identities available to Latinos in America. These multiple, diverse, and overlapping identities are the force behind Latino partisanship. Latino ethnic identity trumps the impact of religious identities in making Latinos more Democratic. Latinx Business Success: How Latinx Ingenuity, Innovation, and Tenacity are Driving Some of the World's Biggest Companies by Frank Carbajal; Jose MoreyISBN: 9781119840831Publication Date: 2021An inspiring new message of resilient leadership Latinx Business Success delivers a powerful and inspiring message of Latinx leadership. Via interviews with many of the most accomplished Latin business leaders in the United States, authors Frank Carbajal and José Morey offer readers a full picture of what it takes to succeed in modern leadership and how to close the digital divide that keeps Latinx people underrepresented in positions of authority. The book explores the authors' DIGITAL framework--which includes the principles of Decision, Intelligence, Game Plan, Insight, Technology, Abundance, and Leverage--and explains how each element of the system contributes to leadership success for current and aspiring Latinx leaders. Readers will also find: Interviews with renowned and accomplished leaders from the Latinx community, including Ramiro Cavazos, President and CEO of the US Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Esther Aguilera, President & CEO at Latino Corporate Directors Association (LCDA), and Silvina Moschini, Executive Producer at The Unicorn Hunters Show, and Cofounder, President, & Chairwoman of the Board of Transparent Business. Discussions of what it means to achieve a truly diverse and inclusive society and how we'll know when we've realized that goal Coverage of a wide variety of industry sectors, including healthcare, media, education, finance, tech, and athletics Perfect for managers, executives, and business leaders of all kinds who seek a new and refreshing perspective on leadership, Latinx Business Success is also required reading for any member of the Latinx community who hopes to make innovative contributions to the business world.Latinx Shakespeares by Carla Della GattaISBN: 9780472903740Publication Date: 2023Latinx peoples and culture have permeated Shakespearean performance in the United States for over 75 years--a phenomenon that, until now, has been largely overlooked as Shakespeare studies has taken a global turn in recent years. Author Carla Della Gatta argues that theater-makers and historians must acknowledge this presence and influence in order to truly engage the complexity of American Shakespeares. Latinx Shakespeares investigates the history, dramaturgy, and language of the more than 140 Latinx-themed Shakespearean productions in the United States since the 1960s--the era of West Side Story. This first-ever book of Latinx representation in the most-performed playwright's canon offers a new methodology for reading ethnic theater looks beyond the visual to prioritize aural signifiers such as music, accents, and the Spanish language. The book's focus is on textual adaptations or performances in which Shakespearean plays, stories, or characters are made Latinx through stage techniques, aesthetics, processes for art-making (including casting), and modes of storytelling. The case studies range from performances at large repertory theaters to small community theaters and from established directors to emerging playwrights. To analyze these productions, the book draws on interviews with practitioners, script analysis, first-hand practitioner insight, and interdisciplinary theoretical lenses, largely by scholars of color. Latinx Shakespeares moves toward healing by reclaiming Shakespeare as a borrower, adapter, and creator of language whose oeuvre has too often been mobilized in the service of a culturally specific English-language whiteness that cannot extricate itself from its origins within the establishment of European/British colonialism/imperialism. LGBTQ+ Affirmative Psychological Interventions: A Latine/x Perspective by Editors: Reynel Alexander Chaparro, Roberto L. AbreuISBN: 9783031306440Publication Date: 2023This book presents descriptions of interventions, results of empirical research, and theoretical contributions developed by Latine/x psychologists based on affirmative approaches aimed at promoting acceptance and understanding of LGBTIQ+ people. Contributions in this volume bring together the work of Latine/x scholars, practitioners, and activists across five Latin American countries or territories (Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Puerto Rico) and in the United States, in an effort to provide multicultural perspectives to LGBTIQ+ affirmative psychological interventions that highlight local, regional and national particularities. Chapters in this volume go beyond contributions made by applied psychology fields (e.g., clinical and counselling psychology), where affirmative orientations are predominantly located, and include contributions from other fields of psychological research such as social and community psychology. The book is divided in two parts. Chapters in the first part focus on the experiences of trans and gender non-conforming people, with emphasis on contemporary systemic issues that affect gender identity among Latine/x communities and those who do not conform to hegemonic narratives about gender. Chapters in the second part focus on sexual identity among Latine/x LGBTIQ+ people and their families and communities. Contributions in this part present discussions about sexual orientation (grouped in LG/LGB identities), sex and gender dissidence, and the inclusion of intersex. LGBTQ+ Affirmative Psychological Interventions: A Latine/x Perspective will be of interest to both researchers and practitioners in different fields of psychology such as clinical, counselling, social, and community psychology interested in a multicultural perspective to understand and develop LGBTQ+ affirmative actions to fight against the repathologization of individuals, groups, families and diverse communities Geographies of girlhood in US Latina writing : decolonizing spaces and identities, by Andrea Fernández GarcíaISBN: 9783030201074Publication Date: 2020This book is an in-depth study of Latina girls, portrayed in five coming-of-age narratives. The texts under study here are Julia Alvarez’s Return to Sender (2009), Norma E. Cantú’s Canícula: Snapshots of a Girlhood en la Frontera (1995), Mary Helen Ponce’s Hoyt Street: An Autobiography (1993), and Esmeralda Santiago’s When I Was Puerto Rican (1993) and Almost a Woman (1998). Unlike most representations of Latina girls, which are characterized by cultural inaccuracies, tropes of exoticism, and a tendency to associate the host society with modernity and their girls’ cultures of origin with backwardness and oppression, these texts contribute to reimagining the social differently from what the dominant imagery offers. The Boy Who Touched the Stars / el niño Que Alcanzó Las Estrellas by Steven James Petruccio (Illustrator); José M. Hernández; Gabriela Baeza Ventura (Translator)ISBN: 9781518505799Publication Date: 2019In this bilingual picture book, astronaut José M. Hernández recounts his childhood as the son of Mexican migrant workers and his life-long dream to travel to the stars. The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Latinoax Theology by Orlando O. Espin (Editor)ISBN: 9781119870333Publication Date: 2023The new edition of the standard resource for those teaching or learning Latinoax theology Now in its second edition, The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Latinoax Theology remains the most up-to-date, fully ecumenical collection of scholarship in the field. Bringing together contributions by a diverse panel of established scholars and newer voices within various theological disciplines, this comprehensive volume challenges Western readings of Christianity and offers fresh insights into theological truth from varied cultural and ethnic perspectives. The Companion addresses a wide range of Latinoax contexts while highlighting the thought of female, male, and LGBTQ+ Latinoax scholars in theology, introducing readers to this significant movement. Each chapter provides the historical background of a particular topic, explores its treatment by Latinoax theologians, discusses the current state of the topic, and offers the unique perspective of internationally recognized authors. The revised second edition incorporates recent developments within Latinoax studies, featuring new and expanded chapters that reflect numerous traditions of thought, up-to-date sources and methodologies, diverse intra-Latinoax communities, and contemporary Latinoax theologies and theologians. This invaluable and unique companion: Provides a systematic account of the past, present, and future of Latinoax theology Features new essays by the most influential voices in the field, incorporating recent research from Catholic, Protestant, and Evangelical scholars Addresses the Latinoax experience of alienation and marginalization Represents the wide range of ecclesial and theological traditions Discusses Latinoax in timely contexts such as politics, immigration, feminism, gender, queer theory, and social and economic justice Edited by one of the world's leading Latino theologians, The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Latinoax Theology, Second Edition is an indispensable resource for academic scholars, undergraduate and graduate students, and instructors in universities and seminaries covering courses in theology, political thought, Latinoax studies, religion in the United States, and related topics. ...

Constitution Day is September 17th

Join us on September 17th for a thought-provoking special presentation by CSU Law professor Reginald Oh, and stop by the first floor of the library to see our book display celebrating this important holiday.This is just one of our series of Democracy 101 events this election season! Connect with Faculty Series:"To Form a More Loving (Perfect) Union: Love as a Principle of Democracy, Free Speech, and Racial Equality" Professor Reginald Oh, CSU College of LawTuesday, September 17th11:30-12:30Michael Schwartz Library Connection Lounge (1st Floor, west of the front desk)This presentation will explain that love is perhaps the most important constitutional principle of democracy. Love is implied in key parts of the Constitution: the Preamble, the Bill of Rights, and the Fourteenth Amendment. Love is the constitutional glue that can transform a divided nation of us versus them into We the People. The presentation will discuss how love informed Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court decision that struck down racial segregation in public schools in 1954. It will also discuss how love can guide us in navigating difficult freedom of speech issues such as the debate over what books are appropriate for school libraries and classrooms.Presented as part of the Friends of the Michael Schwartz Library "Connect with Faculty" Series...

Democracy 101 - events for Election Season 2024

Fall 2024 Events, Resources, & Opportunities

Free Workshops: Avoiding Election-Related Misinformation

Civic Engagement & Voting

Constitution Day Events in the Library

Banned Books Week Events in the Library