Library Closed Sept 5

The Main Campus Library and Higher Education Center Libraries will be closed Monday, September 5, in observance of Labor Day.

Regular hours resume Tuesday, September 6.

The Online Library is always open! SWC students, staff, and faculty may request passwords for off-campus access to full-text articles, databases, and e-books.

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Check it Out

Wall and Piece by Banksy. London : Century, 2005. New Books N6797.B363 A4 2005.

Book review by Jamie Lin.

“Nobody ever listened to me until they didn’t know who I was.”

When I lived in LA a few years ago, I went to a downtown warehouse after receiving a text message with the address. Banksy was in town, and in true clandestine fashion, the location of his show was a secret until just hours before it opened. I was impressed. I had never heard of Banksy, but his highly successful guerilla marketing intrigued me. I did a Google search on him and was even more impressed with the images of his work. He was a famous graffitti artist from Britain, but the work I found also included beautifully and painstakingly altered oil paintings from the previous century -- work that conveyed intelligence, humor, and political intent. Who was this guy?

The LA show was dominated by an elephant in a room. A live elephant, elaborately painted in pink, in a staged living room. Brilliant!

“I like to think I have the guts to stand up anonymously in a western democracy and call for things no-one else believes in -- like peace and justice and freedom.”

I loved every page of Wall and Piece. Banksy’s work encompasses different styles and techniques, but all capture the mind of an engaged and passionate artist. Every image evokes a reaction from me. Some are laugh out loud funny, some are disturbing, all are clever and thought provoking. His words are just as effective.

Banksy ends this book, “People either love me or they hate me, or they don’t really care.” I’m part of the first category, and I honestly don’t know how anyone can go through this book and not have an opinion. What’s yours? Check this book out to find out!

Website of the Week

CIA Freedom of Information Act Reading Room
http://www.foia.cia.gov/

This website contains documents that the CIA has released through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and other disclosure statutes.

You can search all of the documents using the search box at the top of the screen. Or, you may browse the three collections: Frequently Requested Records (such as those about UFOs or Bay of Pigs), Special Collections, or the 25 Year Program Archive ("historically valuable" documents are automatically declassified after 25 years).

Have a question? Ask a Librarian!

ARTstor: Latin American Studies

To support Latin American Studies, the ARTstor Digital Library offers many excellent resources, encompassing materials from the Pre-Columbian era through the Spanish conquest, and from Cuba’s revolution in 1959 to images of Carnavalin Brazil in 2008.

A history of the region can be illustrated with images from the encyclopedic collections available in the Digital Library. An excellent start can be The Bodleian Library, University of Oxford, which includes hundreds of pages from Aztec codices that provide excellent primary sources for Pre-Columbian culture. The Codex Mendoza (ca. 1541), for example, illustrates the history of Aztec rulers and their conquests, the tributes paid by their provinces, and a fascinating general description of daily Aztec life. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Brooklyn Museum Costumes contains examples of 19^th and 20^thcentury costumes from different Latin American countries, providing a glimpse of the culture after the region’s independence from Spain.

ARTstor also features many collections that specialize in or are substantially devoted to Latin American topics. Some concentrate on the arts, such asJacqueline Barnitz: Modern Latin American Art (University of Texas at Austin): modern art from Mexico and ten other Caribbean, Central, and South American countries; and Latin American Art (Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros): colonial, modern, and contemporary Latin American art.

To view ARTstor from off campus locations you need to create an ARTstor account at http://www.artstor.org/ from any computer on the Southwestern College campuses.

E-books: Check It Out

The Beauty Bias : The Injustice of Appearance in Life and Law by Deborah L. Rhode. Oxford University Press, 2010.

Deborah L. Rhode is the Ernest W. McFarland Professor of Law and the Director of the Center on the Legal Profession at Stanford University.

"'It hurts to be beautiful' has been a cliche for centuries. What has been far less appreciated is how much it hurts not to be beautiful. The Beauty Bias explores our cultural preoccupation with attractiveness, the costs it imposes, and the responses it demands.

Unattractive individuals are less likely to be hired and promoted, and are assumed less likely to have desirable traits, such as goodness, kindness, and honesty. Three quarters of women consider appearance important to their self image and over a third rank it as the most important factor.

The Beauty Bias provides the first systematic survey of how appearance laws work in practice, and a compelling argument for extending their reach. The book offers case histories of invidious discrimination and a plausible legal and political strategy for addressing them. Our prejudices run deep, but we can do far more to promote realistic and healthy images of attractiveness, and to reduce the price of their pursuit." -- from Publisher

Students, staff, and faculty have off-campus access to this e-book and thousands of other e-books. Fill out the Password Request Form and select "EBSCOhost e-books at Southwestern" on the Articles and Databases page of the library's website.

Have a question? Ask a Librarian!

National City, Otay Mesa, San Ysidro

SWC Higher Education Center Libraries

Librarians are available to help you at each of the Higher Education Center (HEC) libraries. Find out if we have your textbook on Reserve, request a book from Main Campus, or find out more about research and off-campus access. We're here to help.

HEC - National City Library
619-216-6665 x4868
libraryhec@swccd.edu

Hours:
Mon: 10:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
Tue: 9:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. & 4:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.
Wed: 4:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.
Thu: 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.



HEC - Otay Mesa Library
619-216-6750 x4424
libraryom@swccd.edu

Hours:
Mon: 12:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.
Tue: 7:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Wed: 7:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Thu: 12:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.




HEC - San Ysidro Library
619-216-6790 x4907
librarysy@swccd.edu

Hours:
Tue: 9:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.
Wed: 8:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. & 2:30 p.m. - 6:30 p.m.
Thu: 9:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.