American Routes ~ Oklahoman JJ Cale

American Routes ~ JJ Cale and Cedric Watson

J.J. Cale came up in the clubs of Tulsa, Oklahoma playing everything from Western Swing to Rock 'n' Roll. He even wrote songs that became hits for his friend Eric Clapton. But it was in the recording studio where he found his true calling. American Routes speaks with J.J. about his career as a guitar man, songwriter and studio wizard. Visit with American Routes Web Radio and hear the history of Oklahoma Music.

Strengths

The book display on "strengths" provides several books about positive psychology.  SWOSU will be starting the "StrengthsQuest" program from Gallup, Inc. soon.  Finding your talents and developing your strengths provides the path to excellence in life and work.  The Strengths program is all about helping students, faculty and staff achieve academic, career, and personal success.

List of Talents

When a person takes the Clifton StrengthsFinder assessment, he or she may download a report that identifies their top five talents.  Talents are the ways in which your naturally think, feel and behave.  However, most people have not recognized their talents and often wander in life with little focus.  So, the Strengths program provides a starting point for a person.  Once a person knows his or her top five talents, the goal is to add skills and knowledge to turn those talents into strengths.  You were born with talents, but strengths are earned.  A strength is defined as the ability to consistently provide near-perfect performance in a specific task. Finding and developing your strengths is the desired outcome of the StrengthsQuest program.  So, check out this library display today and find out about your strengths - your path to excellence in life and work.

The Blues

The blues, along with jazz, of which it is an essential part, is one of the most significant US musical forms of the twentieth century. Emerging in the rural South around the turn of the century and first recorded in the early 1920s, the musical form’s characteristic feature is of a direct lyrical confrontation with the joys and hardships of individual existence.

A literary and musical form…a fusion of music and poetry accomplished at a very high emotional temperature…these are different ways of describing the same thing. A gigantic field of feeling…that’s a way of describing something enduring, something that could be limitless. How much thought can be hidden in a few short lines…how much history can be transmitted by the pressure on a guitar string? The thought of generations, the history of every human being who’s ever felt the blues come down like rain.

-Palmer, R. (1981). Deep Blues. NYC: Penguin.

The Al Harris Library is hosting a new display on Blues Music. Stop by, take a look, take a listen.

Voices of Oklahoma

Are you new to Oklahoma? A returning student who wants to know more about their home state? Voices of Oklahoma, a new website founded by John Erling, long time radio voice for Tulsa's KRMG, includes hundreds of wide-ranging recorded interviews from famous Oklahomans and ordinary citizens, "first-person accounts of the way life was" in Oklahoma and the rest of the world.

Famous Oklahomans such as Boone Pickens, Barry Switzer, Henry Bellmon, Chester Cadieux and Wilma Mankiller, are all featured.

Take a look.

Take a listen.

And welcome back to SWOSU!

The Holocaust

11 million dead.....of this six million were Polish Jews and three million Christians. Others were people that the Germans thought to be racially inferior and degenerate and therefore worthless. Courageous resisters and the members of Poland's Underground Army were killed for defending the lives of thousands of its Jewish and non-Jewish citizens. Hitler wanted to replace Jesus Christ as a person to be worshiped and expected his followers to worship the Nazi ideology theology. To achieve this goal, thousands of Catholic priests and Christian pastors were forced into concentration camps.

Why did Hitler cause 11 million to die? Hitler came to power in 1933 during severe economic hardship following the defeat in WWI. He used propaganda techniques to convince the German people that he would use military actions to restore Germany to a position of power. Greed was a primary factor (Hitler's Beneficiaries and Hell's Cartel).

1945....sixty-six years after the liberation of the concentration camps, there are those who deny the Holocaust happened (Denying the Holocaust). The library has both fiction and non-fiction books and videos on "The Holocaust". Clara's War is a story about fifteen people who survived two years in a dugout under the house of the Jewish family's housekeeper and her anti-Semitic husband. I want to read Upon the Head of a Goat, The Shawl, The Red Magician and The Hiding Place. Also, All Rivers Run to the Sea, Behind the Secret Window, and Child Survivors of the Holocaust are survivor stories. Stories about people who risked their lives to save the Jews....Schindler's List (both in print and video), In Search of Sugihara and The Zookeeper's Wife are available in the Al Harris Library. Summaries of the books can be found in the catalog of the library website.

Get Your Kicks on Route 66!

Take a tour of Oklahoma’s rich Route 66 landscape and learn about our stretch of the Mother Road. Check out our Route 66 museums (one in nearby Clinton!), beautiful old bridges, the Round Barn, the giant blue whale and who can forget the Rock Café featured in Disney’s hit Cars. Stop by SWOSU libraries and check out or display featuring maps, guide books and historical narratives of Route 66. Visit the Oklahoma Route 66 Association's website here for more info.

Math books for pleasure reading, what an idea!

‘Math literacy’ or numeracy is improved by reading books about mathematics just as literacy is improved by reading any kind of book. Dislike and discomfort with the subject are common motives to ignore math as soon as possible. However, books about numbers don’t have to be unpleasant. See the display case at the library entrance for many examples of interesting books about mathematics and science, available for you to check out, that can show you new ways of looking at the world we live in and about numbers.

The International Rankings Report released in Dec. 2010 “show the United States is merely an average performer” when tested for math and science knowledge compared to other countries around the world. Development of math literacy for each college student is an important part of preparing to compete in the global market place.

Robert P. Moses is excited about mathematics education and understands the connection between mathematical skills and financial success. See his book Radical Equations: Organizing Math Literacy in America's Schools in which he argues that “math literacy is a civil right.” The book is available to you as an ebook or can be checked out from the Al Harris Library.