Archives Display: May Festivities

This month's display features items from St. Kate's Archives relating to May Fête and Dew Drop Bop. Throughout St. Kate’s history, students have marked the passage of the academic year and the arrival of spring with a festival held in May.

Originally called Whoopee Day, the tradition was begun in 1938.  From 1939-1986, students celebrated it as May Fête, an annual event similar to May Day. An article in the April 24, 1947 Wheel described it this way:

For freshmen who have heard much talk and seen little action, May Fete is the school's contribution to Living A Life of Confusion and most of the planning is done behind locked doors . . . witness the soph skit and senior Varsity Show.

The May Fête revelry included a May pole dance (with the lamp post located inside the campus gate on Randolph Avenue serving as the May pole). Students gathered along the streets of campus to watch a parade in which Freshmen dressed in thematic costumes (often relating to their studies or extracurricular interests), drove cars that were decorated with balloons, flowers and other adornments. In the afternoon, Katies enjoyed the chance to take canoe rides on Dew Drop Pond. May Fête activities concluded with a play performed in honor of the senior class.

Students perform a May Pole dance.

In addition to providing fun, one of the purposes was to raise funds for a major project on the campus.  The first project was converting a former greenhouse into an addition to the student tea room in Whitby.  The second was to raise enough money to erect a shrine to Our Lady of Peace. It took 5 years, but the Shrine was dedicated in 1943.  The statue still stands on campus, now located on the south side of the CDC.

Since 1987, the annual May celebration has been known as the Dew Drop Bop. Whereas May Fête involved pageantry and performances such as a parade and a play, the Dew Drop Bop is similar to a modern day carnival held on the Quad.  The event features rides, games, crafts, live music, and food. Dew Drop Bop is an opportunity for students to socialize and celebrate the end of another academic year. True to its name, the Dew Drop Bop culminates with a dance held in the evening.

This display will be on view during the month of May on the main level of the St. Paul Library, in the case in front of the video of the carrels. Stop by to learn more!

Caring for Your Own Documents and Photographs

This is Preservation Week, a time to focus on what all of us can do to preserve our personal, family, and shared collections.  Are you in charge of your family's history? Do you have your own photographs or documents you want to preserve?  Would you like to learn how to take care of the things in your care?  Here's your chance.

Calling Citizen Archivists: Preserving your own history using archival principles and practice
When: Thursday, May 8th, 10:00-11:30 a.m.
Where: Elmer Andersen Library 120, University of Minnesota, West Bank campus
Who: Ellen Engseth, Curator, Immigration History Research Center Archives
Cost: Free
More information

3rd Annual Haiku Contest

Sharpen those pencils! The library is hosting the 3rd Annual Haiku Contest in honor of National Poetry Month in April. Deadline is 5pm April 16th!

This year the contest will coincide with Poem in Your Pocket Day on April 18th.Stay tuned for more about that.

Submit up to five (5) haiku-style poems by April 15, 2013, to: librarynews@stkate.edu

Along with your entry, please include:

• HAIKU in the subject line

• your full name

• contact info (email or phone number is fine)

• year/major and/or department

Contest open to all St. Kate's students, faculty, and staff. 

MLIS Students Install Little Free Library

Students from the Library and Information Science graduate program recently installed a Little Free Library on campus. Stop by and grab a book for free!

Read more about the project from St. Kate's News.

Join the St. Kate's Library March Madness Contest!

Click here to join the March Madness contest. Click "Register Now," then after filling out information, click "continue." Then enter the password "katies," and you'll be ready to fill out your bracket. Entries must be in before the games start Thursday. Email jdquinn@stkate.edu with any questions.

Do you like the libraries? Then please "Like" us on Facebook!

The Libraries maintain a page on Facebook that includes research hints, study tips, general interest links, and upcoming events. You can also post/ask questions and get help via our wall.

Keep up to date with the Libraries through Facebook! Be sure to "Like" us!

Check It Out - St. Kate's Library News

Dr. Mary Wagner on Zambia Oct. 27

Come hear Dr. Mary Wagner, MLIS, talk about her experience as a Fulbright Scholar in Zambia:

Thursdays, Oct. 27
5:30-7:30
CDC, Library, Faculty Study

Zambia, Africa (CIA World Factbook)

RSVP to Rita Schultz by Oct. 14: rischultz@stkate.edu

Celebrating Banned Books Sept. 24-Oct. 1

Check out the display at the St. Paul Library and check out some banned books.

Banned Books Week emphasizes the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one's opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them.

~ American Library Association

Student Workers and Staff at the Library: Philanthropists

Student workers at the St. Paul campus Circulation Desk, under the direction of staff members Belinda Lawrence and Jenny Peters, created the winning video for St. Catherine University's Tobacco Free promotion. With their $250 in prize money, the group decided to donate goods to the Unidad Académica Campesina - Carmen Pampa in Bolivia. Carmen Pampa serves impoverished rural people through education and community service.The students sent stethoscopes and blood pressure cuffs which will be used by the community.

More:

• "Breathe" Watch the winning video on YouTube 
• Uchumachi Blog: Read More About Carmen Pampa
• Carmen Pampa Fund

Election Day - Tues. Nov. 2

Looking for your polling place? Want to read about the candidates? Find it all on the library's website:

Hot Topics: Elections

Asian Pacific Heritage Month

Celebrate the accomplishments and contributions of Asian and Pacific Americans during May.

Check out the display at the St. Paul Library and visit the newest Hot Topics page.

Photograph of St. Kate's international students in 1957. From the Digital Archives.

Poetry Contest Winners!

Thanks to everyone who submitted haiku poems for the library's First Annual Haiku Contest. The first place goes to Deni Buendorf and her poem about a dictionary. Second place goes to Maggie Weiss and her poem "Remember, Forget." Find these and all the finalists on the National Poetry Month page.

Oh dictionary!
You always have the right words
That must be so nice.
~Deni Buendorf

Haiku Contest

Do you have something to say? Are you a budding poet? Would you like to try your hand at writing your first poem? Enter the Library's first Haiku Contest!

A haiku is a short poem of 17 syllables that expresses a single thought in a structure of three lines. All entries due by April 10, 2010. The best poems will appear on the Library's website and one lucky winner will receive a prize (tba).

Submit entries (no more than 5 poems) to librarynews@stkate.edu along with your name, major/department, year. Open to all current students, staff, and faculty.

Friends of the Libraries present Cathy Wurzer

Take a road trip with featured speaker, Cathy Wurzer, author of Tales of the Road: Highway 61, from 6 to 8 p.m. on Thursday, October 1 in Coeur de Catherine, Rauenhorst Ballroom. This is the annual fundraising event of the Friends of the Libraries.

Wurzer thrives on politics and horses. She gets excited at the thought of the Legislature going in to session every January. Wurzer also is Minnesota Public Radio's (MPR) Morning Edition host and Twin Cities Public Television's (tpt) Almanac co-host. She resides in Minneapolis.

Schedule
Social: 6 to 6:30 p.m.
Program: 6:30 to 8 p.m.

Event is free and open to the public. Wuzer's autographed book and DVD will be available for purchase.

To respond by Monday, Sept. 21, or for more information, contact Rita Schultz at (651) 690-6649 or e-mail.

Fall Book Club: A Graphic Novel

Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi is a memoir in graphic novel format (illustrated like a comic book). Through words and pictures, Satrapi invites us to experience her life as a child during the revolution in Iran in the 1980s. With the political unrest in Iran right now, this book will give readers a history lesson with a human touch.

Nancy Pearl (author of Book Lust) likens Persepolis to The Kite Runner and The Namesake for its portrayal of international family life and the challenges faced by those from conflicted regions.

The book, along with its sequel Persepolis 2, was made into an animated film in 2007. The film is available for viewing at the Library ( St. Paul Media Desk PN1995.9.B55 P477 2008).

Join us October 1 for the St. Kate's Book Club to discuss Persepolis. Check out the novel and reserve your spot in the Book Club by stopping by the Library and/or contacting the Book Club moderator Anika (alfajardo@stkate.edu). Open to students, faculty, staff, and alumnae.

Pick up a Good Book!

Summer is here! Classes have ended, finals are over. Why not pick up a good book from the St. Kate's Libraries? In addition to journals, reference books, and the APA Style Manual, we also have novels, graphic novels, memoirs and more. The Library is air conditioned and has lots of open computers. Stop by and say hi to your friendly librarians!

Book Club - February 2009

The St. Kate's Book Club met in early February to discuss Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees. Although attendance was small, the students, faculty, and staff present were able to engage in a lively discussion about this fascinating saga of mothers and daughters, belonging, and race relations.
If you've read the book but were unable to attend the book club meeting, consider some of these questions that were used for discussion:

1. Who is the "queen bee" in this story?
2. How do the women in this story (the "calendar sisters," the Daughters of Mary, Rosaleen, etc.) transform Lily?
3. How does May's life and death affect the characters?
4. How would you describe Lily and Zach's relationship? What do you foresee for them?

A New "GLO" in the Library

The St. Paul campus library now has a new GLO: the Green Library Organization. This group, consisting of staff members Emily Asch, Barbara Klug, Belinda Lawrence, Jim Newsome, Kathi Rickert, and Martha Vest, is dedicated to finding ways to lower the library’s energy consumption and its uses of non-renewable resources.

The group was formed after Rickert and Newsome attended a session on energy saving at the 2008 Midwest Library Technology Conference. The St. Kate’s Library tends to use lots of paper in copiers, printers, and in print media such as journals and books.

In recent years, print consumption has reduced somewhat as library collections migrate from print to electronic formats. New Computing Services printing policies capping free printing for each user have also helped reduce paper use in the Library and across campus. The group hopes to investigate better ways to reduce waste from abandoned print jobs to old handouts and more.

GLO has begun an energy audit, so we can determine what energy resources the library is currently consuming. The goal will then be to analyze how best to reduce consumption, whether it be by finding more energy efficient lighting or heating patterns, other earth-friendly options.

GLO has just launched, but it should be a key player on campus as it networks with new student groups who have also formed to create a more sustainable campus environment. GLO will also seek ways to build our library book collections in the area of environmental sciences and also hopes to create an annual display for Earth Day in an effort to educate users to be better stewards of the planet.

Whatever happens, it will no longer be business as usual for wasteful consumption. GLO appreciates any comments or suggestions, and readers may contact any of the members listed above.

by Jim Newsome, Head of Public Services

Please Pass the Pie

As part of the faculty and staff opening workshop in August, President Andrea Lee presented The Art of Possibility, a video based on Rosamund and Ben Zander’s book of the same title. Its subtitle is Transforming Professional and Personal Life, and the Zanders present practices that are truly transformational. My personal favorite is Rule Number 6.

“Two prime ministers are sitting in a room discussing affairs of state. Suddenly a man bursts in, apoplectic with fury, shouting and stamping and banging his fist on the desk. The resident prime minister admonishes him: “Peter,” he says, “kindly remember Rule Number 6,” whereupon Peter is instantly restored to complete calm, apologizes, and withdraws. The politicians return to their conversation, only to be interrupted yet again twenty minutes later by an hysterical woman gesticulating wildly, her hair flying. Again the intruder is greeted with the words: “Marie, please remember Rule Number 6.” Complete calm descends once more, and she too withdraws with a bow and an apology. When the scene is repeated for a third time, the visiting prime minister addresses his colleague: “My dear friend, I’ve seen many things in my life, but never anything as remarkable as this. Would you be willing to share with me the secret of Rule Number 6?” “Very simple,” replies the resident prime minister. “Rule Number 6 is ‘Don’t take yourself so damn seriously.’” “Ah,” says his visitor, “that is a fine rule.” After a moment of pondering, he inquires, “And what, may I ask, are the other rules?” “There aren’t any.”

This simple rule, along with another suggesting that we throw ourselves into life, making a difference, contributing freely and allowing others the opportunity to contribute what they have to offer, was the inspiration for a pie contest.

Before our full staff library meeting in November, all staff received a recipe card in their campus mailbox with minimal information regarding the contest. The only rule? Number 6. Despite lower than expected turnout due to scheduling conflicts, the November 21st meeting included a total of eight pies (accompanied the 16 library folks able to attend the meeting). After business, the final agenda item was the pie tasting and “judging.” Karen Harwood, former head of Technical Services, made a guest appearance to help with the event, and a fine time was had by all. Prizes were awarded based on appearance and delectability. Because the pies did appear, and all eight were delectable, all participants received a prize. The very best prizes, of course, were those served on plates to everyone who could stay and enjoy a pie breakfast.

Thanks to everyone who did not take themselves too seriously, contributed freely, and made the event possible. Who knows? One of our all staff library meetings next year could just Take the Cake!

by B. Klug, Technical Services

Note: The book, The Art of Possiblity by Rosamund and Ben Zander, is in our library’s collection (BC199.P7 Z36 2000).

Secret Life of Bees

Did you know the Library has a book club? Winter semester 2009 we'll be reading The Secret Life of Bees. Written by Sue Monk Kidd, this touching novel is now a major motion picture.

Get started on the book over the holiday break and set aside an hour or so in February and join other Katies to discuss the book. If you want to get started discussing right now, check out the discussion board on facebook.