LibraryRunner

You may know the audio and ebook platform, Libby, from the public library, and now it is available at Butte College. The best way to access Libby is to download the app on your phone. Simply search for Libby in the app store. Follow the prompts to find Butte College. You will then need to sign in by using your Butte College login information. Currently we have a small collection but it will grow over the next semester. For more information please see our Libby guide.

May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month!  All sorts of interesting things will be happening on campus, and the library will participate with a display of literature and history.  We've also got a curated online collection in the catalog for you to explore.   Come on by and take a look at what we've got to offer – and take a book home with you to enjoy.  

Are you looking to find a new hobby before summer? What about trying a new craft? Worried about the cost of trying something new before making a commitment? The library can help! The library has lots of both introductory and more advanced books on a variety of hobbies and crafts. Sample topics include knitting and crochet, embroidery, sewing, drawing, language learning, woodworking, leatherworking, 3D printing and of course reading for fun. Check out our curated collection of craft and hobby books. For language learning we have a program called Mango that has over 70 languages to choose from including ASL, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, and English.

Last week was National Library Week, so we talked about what libraries are for: offering access to information for everyone, and protecting American freedoms, along with many other things.  This week, let's talk about the concrete benefits of libraries!

College libraries are one of your best tools for doing your academic work efficiently and well.  It's been shown over and over again that using a college library improves student engagement and GPA.  Butte College data has shown that our laptop and hotspot loan program improves grades!  But don't just take the statistics' word for it; ask the students who come in and use our databases, books, and study rooms.  We usually get good feedback, and when a teacher surveyed her College Connection students last spring, the library and CAS were students' two favorite things.  So if you've never used library resources for your classes, come on in and take a look around.  From our friendly reference librarians who help find needed information, to our study rooms that provide a quiet and private space to work, we're always working to support you.

How about public libraries?  Public libraries have been proven to have great benefits to communities, so much so that businesses looking to build in a new location look for places with strong libraries.  A simple measurement of benefit is ROI, Return on Investment; that is, for every dollar invested, what is the economic benefit to the community?  Public libraries give an ROI of (on average) $4-5, which is an impressive number.  Libraries generate this benefit by helping children and families improve literacy, helping elders stay connected and active, running plenty of educational and helpful programs, and even providing free lunches during the summer (as the Oroville Library has been doing for a while now!)

Finally, how can libraries help YOU?  One big benefit is saving money!  At either the college or public library, you can get lots of things for free:

• Books to read, for yourself or your kids!  We love the 1000 Books Before Kindergarten program, which encourages great literacy skills.  Nobody can afford to buy 1000 books for their kids, but the library will lend you an endless supply for free.
• Access to online resources, from job searching to free New York Times to academic databases
• Streaming movies!  Why pay for streaming when you can get it from your friendly neighborhood public or academic library?
• Tools and equipment!  The Oroville Library now has a Library of Things.
• E-books right on your phone or device
• State Parks passes  (no really!)
• A place to gather and build connections

This weeks TL;DR: libraries are great and will improve your life while saving you money and time!

In celebration of National Library Week, here are a few facts about the importance of libraries:

• Libraries are about access for everyone!  Access to accurate information, technology, education, and other resources, so that everyone, regardless of income or background, is able to connect to the world and find what they need.  Librarians are here to guide you through.
• Your First Amendment right to read and write freely is the core of the library mission.  American freedom depends on a populace that can access all information.  Libraries offer a wide range of ideas and viewpoints so that everyone can find knowledge without restriction.  Libraries don’t tell you what you should read; they create collections to serve the needs of all members of the community.  
• Libraries work to preserve privacy in an increasingly data-tracked world.  What you learn is your business and should not be subject to scrutiny.
• Citizens need to be able to keep an eye on what their government is doing.  Libraries gather and archive accurate information about local and national government activity.
• 54% of American adults cannot read and write at a 6th-grade level, which limits them from getting good jobs and from understanding their own finances and health care.  Libraries not only help children to learn to read well, they also offer adult literacy tutoring so that people can improve their lives.
• Public libraries function as community centers, offering free activities to all age groups and interests.  In our increasingly atomized and isolated society, libraries are one of the last cost-free places to go and connect with others.
• Libraries connect people with local resources that can help with:
  • Job searching
  • Starting a business
  • Finding legal help
  • Caring for family
  • All sorts of things!
• Libraries are considered second responders, acting as support in times of crisis. For example, in summer, libraries are a free place to cool off.  After the Camp Fire, libraries helped people find the resources they needed.

TL;DR: libraries are for everyone, and they should be as free as possible. You shouldn’t have to pay money to find out the information you need to know.

We've got a new book display up, featuring healing fiction.  What on earth is healing fiction?  It's a new story genre!  The New York Times calls healing fiction “cozy, feel-good novels that have long been popular in Japan and Korea and are now catching on in translation around the world.  Fans of the genre say the heartwarming, whimsical stories offer comfort at a time when the world seems off-kilter and chaotic, and feel like an escape from distressing news about wars, political animosity and environmental disasters.”

These stories tend to feature neighborhood locations, like cafes, libraries, or laundromats, where heartbroken characters learn to heal – often with a comforting (possibly magical!) cat along for the ride.  They're usually on the short side and easy to read on a phone.  So if you're feeling like the world is too much to deal with, drop in to the library and see if healing fiction is your kind of book!

March is Women's History Month and as always, the library has a number of great resources to help you learn more about how women have shaped history as well as the fight for equality. Drop by to see what we have on display. Remember all books on display are available for you to check out. We also have a curated collection and research guide in case you want to explore more online. 

Every year, the copyrights on works expire and those works come into the public domain, which means that anyone can use them for performances or as material to produce new works -- of art, music, literature, or whatever.  Modern copyright law gives quite a long time of protection: for most works, it's 95 years, so at the end of 2024, works from 1929 became available to the public domain.  Disney has been a major force in pushing to make copyright protection that long, and protecting Mickey Mouse from being used by other artists is one of the main reasons.   2025 gives us 12 more Mickey Mouse movies to use, but you still can't use the Mickey from the 1980s or from The Sorcerer's Apprentice.  And now, Popeye and Tintin have been added to the list of characters entering the public domain; you may now use early Popeye in your art.

Quite a few famous books have come into the public domain this year, including: 

• William Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury
• Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell to Arms
• Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own
• Dashiell Hammett, Red Harvest and The Maltese Falcon (as serialized in Black Mask magazine)
• John Steinbeck, Cup of Gold (Steinbeck's first novel)
• Agatha Christie, Seven Dials Mystery
• Robert Graves, Good-bye to All That
• E. B. White and James Thurber, Is Sex Necessary? Or, Why You Feel the Way You Do

Movies were huge in 1929 and had started to include sound, and there is some great stuff, including everyone's favorite, the Skeleton Dance!

The copyright on sound recordings is a little longer, so we are now getting songs from 1924, including some well-known numbers like:

If you're interested in questions around public domain, copyright, and what's coming into play right now, here are some excellent and straightforward articles to read:

Public Domain Day at Yale Law

Internet Archive on Public Domain Day

We have two new mobile displays up in the library. The first has a very simple concept, purple books! Drop by the new books section to see all the purple books available in the library along with some famous quotes about the color purple. 

Our other new display, Short and Sweet, features books you can read in one sitting or over the course of a few hours. If you want to start reading more, or are short on time but want to finish a whole book, then these titles are for you. We have lots of different genres to choose from so there is surely something to suit your mood.

Celebrate Black History Month in the library!   We have online resources and collections as well as a great display. 

Here are a few resources to check out:

• Black History Collection - A curated selection of books about Black history as well as art, culture, social issues, and other topics that inform Black history and culture in the United States and around the world.
• Black History Month Research Guide - Celebrate Black History Month by using the tabs to choose an ebook to read, attend an online event, and explore images and items from museums.  Everything here is free to use for Butte College students.
• Ethnic Studies: African-American Experiences Research Guide - A guide to library resources about African-Americans.
• Racial Justice and Anti-Racist E-Reading List - E-books on racial justice.

Make sure to stop by both main Campus and Chico Center to see our displays and take a book or two home with you.

And just for fun, check out the National Museum of African American History and Culture's exhibition of Afrofuturism. Though you may not be able to see the exhibit in person, the museum has lots of materials online including articles such as Five You Should Know: Black Women Icons of Afrofuturism, as well as videos, interactive online collection highlights, and more.