UMHB Townsend Memorial Library

"The campus novel is often synonymized with the academic novel, and they do share some characteristics. But academic novels tend to focus on the faculty while campus novels revolve around the students."

Dark Academia’s Roots Lie in the Campus Novel - JSTOR Daily Revolving around student life, campus novels present a microcosm of the outside world, staged far from the humdrum of middle-class realities.

"The queen’s steady presence symbolized stability during a period of profound change. Under Elizabeth’s leadership, the United Kingdom navigated multiple wars, ongoing unrest in Northern Ireland, leaps in technology, economic crises, Brexit, the rise of far-right nationalist politics, pandemics and the dissolution of a once-dominant empire."

Elizabeth II Was an Enduring Emblem of the Waning British Empire The British queen died on Thursday at age 96

"...whether or not you are a devotee of the House Targaryen, you have to admit that the series is at least a significant contribution toward the field of dragon-forward entertainment."

The 50 Best Fictional Dragons, Ranked Dragons are in the news again! The Game of Thrones spin-off/prequel House of the Dragon has officially aired. And whether or not you are a devotee of the House Targaryen, you have to admit that the…

"He noted in an account of his struggles in Library Quarterly that the bookworm displays a 'universal disrespect for almost everything, including arsenic and lead.'"

Panic at the Library | Brian Michael Murphy The sinister history of fumigating “foreign” books.

"By the 1600s, mechanical clocks were available, but only for the very wealthy; timing by incense was cheap, accessible, and, as the passage notes, perfectly functional. Hence, no doubt, its surprising persistence: well into the twentieth century, writes Liu, coal miners continued to use the glow of incense to track the time they spent underground, while tea-roasters used them to approximate the time it took to toast batches of tea."

Keeping Time with Incense Clocks - JSTOR Daily As chronicled by Chinese poet Yu Jianwu, the use of fire and smoke for time measurement dates back to at least the sixth century CE.

"Literature’s history is a history of mistakes, errors, misapprehensions, simple typos. It’s the shadow narrative of expression—how we fail because of sloppiness, or ignorance, or simple tiredness. Blessed are the copyeditors, for theirs is a war of eternal attrition. Nothing done by humans is untouched by such fallenness, for to err is the universal lot of all of us. Authors make mistakes, as do editors, publishers, printers (and readers)."

How Many Errorrs Are in This Essay? - The Millions Literature's history is a history of mistakes, errors, misapprehensions, simple typos.

"A long-proposed theory is that there are natural explanations for dragons. That’s not to say the beasts of myth existed in real life but rather that fossils, living animals and geological features existing in the natural world inspired their creation."

Terrifying dragons have long been a part of many religions, and there is a reason for their appeal Enormous, scaly, fire-breathing dragons have fascinated civilizations for centuries. A scholar who studies monsters explains their power and appeal.

"In one of the largest efforts thus far, 10 U.S. colleges and universities have teamed up with U.S. technology company Meta and Irish virtual reality platform Engage to create 3D digital versions of their campuses, known as a metaversity. Students will engage in learning wearing immersive virtual reality headsets."

Six benefits that the metaverse offers to colleges and universities Sitting in the front row of a lecture hall could become obsolete as more colleges and universities enter the metaverse.

"Puzzles have always fascinated us. They’ve been used to encrypt top-secret military secrets and to frustrate us with our lack of knowledge around five-letter words. (Looking at you, Wordle.)"

7 Puzzles That Perplexed People for Centuries From the secrets of Venice’s codebreakers to China’s intricately carved puzzle balls, these historical ciphers will inspire your curiosity.

"Most people believe that music has some therapeutic power, and that confidence is increasingly backed by empirical evidence. However, there remains little consensus on precisely how or why music has an ability to influence our emotional, physical and mental well-being."

How Stoicism influenced music from the French Renaissance to Pink Floyd Stoicism can easily be misread as pessimistic because of its relentless focus on mortality and fragility. But its core message – contained in songs spanning generations – is profoundly empowering.

"This is where the last man standing mourns his aloneness. Just him and no one else. 'Now there are no heroes, no soothing music, / No harp, no hawk soaring through hall,/No swift horses trampling green grass. / We existed; now we’re extinct.' (Lines 2261-2264, emphasis added.)"

What a New Translation of Beowulf Says About Extinction December 2020 was grim. We were post-election here in the United States and pre-Capitol riots. Covid cases surged amid the Alpha variant wave and vaccines hadn’t been announced. My then seven-month…

"As a teenager growing up at Fountain Lake Farm (today a National Historic Landmark and nature preserve in Marquette County, Wisconsin), Muir – who had emigrated from Scotland with his parents as a teenager – acquired technical and farming skills and the ability to work with wood."

John Muir's Alarm Clock Desk Before he was America’s most famous preservationist, John Muir was an ingenious mechanical inventor.