Uncovering the Controversy of Thirteen Reasons Why with GVRL

| By Traci Cothran |

There’s been a bit of controversy about this Netflix series, based on the teen novel of the same name, Thirteen Reasons Why.  The novel is about the suicide of a teen girl, and concerns have been expressed about the content as well as the visual depiction of the suicide on screen.  Parents should decide for themselves what is best for their children, and Gale’s GVRL collection (from Novels for Students, 51) provides information about this novel that is useful in making that determination.

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For Students to the Rescue! Fear Not the Required Readings for High School

| By Nicole Albrecht |

The look in my students’ eyes, when I would pass out the first set of novels for the school year, would convey an array of emotions from fear, apathy, excitement, genuine interest, and, my favorite, rebellion. Introducing a novel to a high school English class can be a teacher’s worst nightmare, but I enjoyed every minute of it because it was a challenge to me. A challenge to change their mind about not only reading in general, but how they see the world after they are finished reading a particular work. I didn’t always feel this way about introducing a novel to my students, in fact, in the beginning of my teaching career, I would lose sleep for several days prior to introducing a novel. I felt this way because I knew how it felt for students to “fear the novel” and I remembered how I felt when my own high school teachers would introduce one.

I grew up with a love for reading—it was a chance to experience life from another perspective, to walk in someone else’s shoes, and upon finishing the story, become a new person with a new way to look at the world. It wasn’t until I was in high school that I started to loathe reading novels and I actually stopped reading altogether during this time.

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Unearth the Story Behind Hulu’s Riveting New Series, The Handmaid’s Tale

| By Traci Cothran | The Handmaid’s Tale is a new TV series on Hulu, and it’s getting a lot of attention. The Guardian calls it a “timely adaptation [that] scares with dystopian dread.”  USA Today dubs it “a wake-up call for women.”  James Poniewozik from The New York Times says, “It is unflinching, vital and … Read more

Pellissippi State Community College Librarian Shares Why Gale Resources are Successful

|  By Jennifer Mezick, Acquisitions and Collection Development Librarian Pellissippi State Community College |

At Pellissippi State Community College (PSCC), our users have access to many Gale resources through the Tennessee Electronic Library (TEL). Through our TEL setup we are able to track only statistics for PSCC users. From our statistics, we know that Gale resources are heavily used by PSCC patrons and there are a few reasons behind this success:

In Class Instruction
Our students primarily use the resources shown to them during class. PSCC librarians provided research instruction to 137 classes this past fall semester. PSCC librarians and teaching faculty find that students who receive in-class research instruction achieve higher grades on their research assignments. One of the lessons we present to students is the importance of finding background information before searching for journal articles. Opposing Viewpoints In Context is our go-to database for demonstrating background research. All the “In Context” databases contain Topic Pages for select topics, which provide histories and explain the different viewpoints of those topics or issues.

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Faculty Outreach
Because not all of our faculty can find the time in a 5 to 16 week semester to have us in their classes, educating our faculty about our resources is the next best way to reach our students. Our faculty learn about Gale databases at our New Faculty Academy, where we introduce library resources, and at Faculty In-Service, where we demonstrate new databases or changes and new features to current databases. Librarians at PSCC are faculty and serve as subject liaisons. With this designation comes the responsibility to serve on campus academic committees and attend academic department meetings (and sometimes share after-work beers). Relationships with faculty are formed through these committees. I find that these relationships make faculty more comfortable talking with librarians about research assignments and available resources, which provides us the opportunity to recommend the most appropriate resources for their upcoming assignments (or their own research).

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