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Jun 17

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The financial lives of the poets, by Jess Walter

I’m working my way backwards through Jess Walter’s fiction, after reading and loving his Beautiful Ruins last fall. Ruins jumped from Italy to Edinburgh to Hollywood, from the 60s to the present. This earlier novel is solidly American in setting and themes, but no less engrossing. The main character, Matt Prior, has given up his day job as a reporter to pursue a venture that sounds like a joke: a financial journalism website composed entirely in blank verse. Unfortunately for Matt, his wife, their two sons, and their mortgage (with its upcoming balloon payment), this works about as well as it sounds like it would. Read more

Jun 13

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The golden carrot: Finger sandwich outreach with business librarian Mark Bieraugel

This is a guest post by Mark Bieraugel, the business librarian. His interests include big data and helping student entrepreneurs. In his spare time he searches for nudibranchs and octopi in tide pools. 

Finger sandwiches. No-cook appetizers. BBQ chicken.

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Jun 10

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5 Tips for Beating Finals Stress and Acing School

The gigantic number of students in Kennedy Library can only mean one thing: it’s finals week! Every seat is full and the lines at Julian’s have never been longer.

With end-of-year finals here, that means Cal Poly students are currently facing their most stressful week ever (and just when you thought dead week was the worst).

But we’re here too help! Don’t let finals stress you out. I’ve compiled my top 5 tips for beating the stress and acing your exams.

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Jun 10

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Reinventing the library website: The mockups

Our heroic web designer, Conny Liegl, has emerged from countless meetings and reams of feedback with some beautiful and impressive mockups of our website redesign.

This redesign raises the bar for library website navigation and functionality. As Conny puts it, “Look around at other library websites. You won’t see this kind of navigation and simplicity. What we are doing is new and exciting!” Read more

May 31

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Top 7 Best/Worst Things About Graduating

June 2013 is officially here, and that means the day I’ve been dreading expecting avoiding eagerly anticipating is finally here: graduation.

Obviously, I’ve got some mixed feelings. This is a huge step into the next stage of any young adult’s life. It’s like going from adult life with the training wheels still on to full-fledged grown-up individual. My heart is doing little backflips right now just thinking about commencement, and I’ve still got two weeks to freak out about it.

So, on the threshold of the next stage, my boss asked me to write about the graduating experience. All I could think was, “AAAAAAAaaaaaahhh!”

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May 30

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Arcadia, by Lauren Groff

This book should quickly clear up any romantic notions you might have about how idyllic it might have been to live on a commune in the 60s. True, it’s fiction, but the numerous ways it could go wrong (winter, infidelity, bad parenting, rock star egos, and outhouses, to name but a few) are so convincingly portrayed that I found myself searching the author’s bio to see if she might have done time in one herself.
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May 30

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Your meditative study break of the day

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