Category Archives: Current Affairs

From Tree-Top to Throne… Sixty Years (and Counting)

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Her Majesty Queen Elzabeth II, image copyright the National Archives, reproduced under CC Licence from Flickr

Sixty years ago today marked a momentous occasion in contemporary British history – Princess Elizabeth succeeded her father, King George VI, to become Queen Elizabeth II.

But, long before the days of satellite communication and the internet, the Princess did not discover about the fateful event until the following morning, as she was on safari near Nairobi in Kenya on a Royal Visit, and indeed spent the night in a game lodge situated in a tree-top!
 
A glittering range of celebratory events are planned throughout the course of 2012, including an extra Bank Holiday in June, and already the media have been filling column inches, air waves and digital screens in honour and in celebration of an eventful reign which has already encompassed 11 British Prime Ministers.
 
But if you want to take a look back at what the papers were saying at the time of the accession, why not dip into one of our online newspaper archives? We have access to full-text facsimile editions of the Times, Guardian and Mirror newspapers, so you can see what else was going on in the world at the time as well.

Ever Wondered What Librarians Do…?

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Image copyright Roxana Morosanu

Ever wondered what Academic Librarians do? What their hopes (and fears) are of, and for,  the role of University Libraries in the ever-changing landscape of 21st century higher education?

 
The Guardian newspaper is going to be posing these very questions to a panel of leading UK academic librarians in a live online chat this afternoon between 12-2PM. Topics will also range from funding to open educational resources and contributing to the student experience.
 
If you’re interested in following the debate, you can find it here:
 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/higher-education-network/blog/2012/jan/31/what-do-librarians-do?newsfeed=true

Holocaust Memorial Day

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Treblinka Memorial Site, image copyright Radio Nederland Wereldomroep, reproduced under CC Licence from Flickr

Today (January 27th) is Holocaust Memorial Day, and coincides with a recent BBC radio programme which recounts a geophysical examination of the Treblinka death camp site by a team of British forensic archaeologists.

Over 800,000 Jews were murdered on the site between 1942 to 1943 before the Nazis destroyed the camp in a vain attempt to erase all evidence of their crimes. But unlike Auschwitz, where its gas chambers and crematoria have survived, the memorial at Treblinka simply consists of 17,000 stones with the names of places where Jews were transported from all around Europe. A team  from the University of Birmingham have used the latest imaging techniques to help locate the remains of victims at the site of the camp and to throughly map its location.

The Hidden Graves of the Holocaust is currently available to listen to again via the BBCi Player here. For further reading on the topic, the Library has a large stock of material devoted to the history, study and discussion of the Holocaust, searchable through Library Catalogue Plus. 

The stated objective of Holocaust Memorial Day is to “provide an opportunity for everyone to learn lessons from the Holocaust, Nazi persecution and subsequent genocides and apply them to the present day to create a safer, better future”. To find out more about it, visit the HMD Trust home page here.

Feeling Lost Without Wikipedia…?

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Wikipedia may have closed its doors for 24 hours, but don’t despair if you’re looking for some gem of general knowledge – we’re still open!

In addition to our wealth of electronic databases, we still have a vast range of traditional Library print resources such as encyclopedias and dictionaries of all sorts to cater for any kind enquiry (within reason!) in our Reference collection on Level 3.

And don’t forget that behind every Information Desk in the Library sits a veritable walking Wikipedia, in the shape of our ever-helpful, ever-obliging Customer Services Team! (And even if they don’t know the answer, they’ll know someone who does…)

Come and Meet Pudsey!

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This evening the BBC hosts its annual Children In Need appeal, with televised charity spectaculars going on all over the country. And this year, the University is entertaining one such event!

The evening will be hosted by CBBC presenters Sam and Mark, who will be joined by BBC East Midlands Today reporter Anne Davies (and Pudsey the Bear!) for a night of live music and entertainment.

This five-hour free party  is being held in the Sir David Wallace Building and is open to the public, with doors opening at 6pm.  There will be the opportunity to meet Pudsey, buy official Children In Need merchandise and hand over money collected at fundraising events.

Music will be supplied by Loughborough’s big band Tuxedo Swing and the Derbyshire A-cappella chorus DaleDiva. BBC East Midlands Today weather presenters Sara Blizzard, Anna Church and Sally Pepper will be also perform Walking On Sunshine. Two hundred school pupils from Leicestershire will join 12 other choirs from across the country to sing Avril Lavigne’s Keep Holding On and BBC radio presenters will take part in a general knowledge quiz for the Pudsey Trophy. BBC TV will be broadcast live from the venue too!

The first Children In Need telethon was held in 1980 and raised £1 million. By contrast, the 2010 event raised a staggering sum of over £40 million through events throughout the year.

The University does its bit too! This Children In Need event will mark the culmination of this year’s fundraising activities by Loughborough Students’ RAG. Loughborough Students’ Rag is one of the biggest and best student fundraising organisations in the country – last year it raised over £1.1 million for local, national and international charities.

The Queen Elizabeth Engineering Prize

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Image copyright freefotouk, reproduced under CC Licence

A new award, worth £1 million, was launched by Prime Minister David Cameron at London’s Science Museum yesterday, with the primary objective of raising the profile of engineering globally.

The Queen Elizabeth Engineering Prize,  funded by an endowment from a number of engineering companies, will be awarded biannually to an individual or team for making “groundbreaking advances in engineering which has created significant benefit to humanity”. The competition is open to anybody of any nationality.

Mr Cameron – joined at the launch by rival political leaders Nick Clegg and Ed Milliband in a rare show of cross-party unity – hopes the prize will go on to assume the same stature and importance as the Nobel Prizes.

Loughborough University enjoys a proud history of engineering achievement, and this is reflected by the rich selection of engineering resources available from the Library, easily searchable via our Library Catalogue Plus system.

National Apple Day

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Image copyright Lisa Clarke, reproduced under CC licence from Flickr

Today, October 21st, marks a day celebrating a fruit which is popular, ubiquitous and occasionally notorious (particularly when offered by a snake!) - the apple.

Apple Day was initiated by the ecological charity organisation Common Ground in 1990 and has been celebrated in each subsequent year by people organizing hundreds of local events across the country, using the apple as a symbol that links nature to local culture and diversity, raising awareness not only of the importance of orchards to our landscape and culture, but also of the growing interest in locality and in the provenance and traceability of food. Many medical organisations and charities, such as the Cancer Research Campaign, have also used the event to promote healthy eating.

To find out more, visit the Common Ground website. Don’t forget that the Library has access to a wide range of electronic resources containing a wealth of information about health & nutrition, including the Cochrane Library and Highwire Press, as well as resources about culture, ecology and the environment, including the British Humanities Index and GreenFILE, all available through the Library’s new-look search engine, Library Catalogue Plus. Why not take a bite today?

And the Winner of the 2011 Booker Prize is…

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Image copyright Kara Allyson, reproduced under CC Licence from Flickr

… Julian Barnes with his novel The Sense of an Ending. But not without a whiff of controversy!

 Judges of the Award have faced some criticism for their criteria in selecting the crop of likely winners this year, with some people accusing them of lowering the standard of the competition by putting popularism – or ‘readability’, according to chairwoman Stella Rimmington – ahead of true literary merit.
 
Which ever way, most commentators seem to agree that Mr Barnes is a worthy winner, having already been nominated for the award three times in the past.
 
The Library is quite well stocked with his earlier works which are included in our ever-expanding English literature section, where you can find books from Chaucer to J.K. Rowling, as well as plenty of other Booker Prize award winners and nominees; something for students and casual readers alike!

Library in a… Phone Box?

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Villagers in the aptly-named Gloucestershire village of Box have come up with a ’novel’ use for their recently decommissioned British Telecom phone box… they’ve turned it into a mini lending library!
 
Although not as infinitely capacious as Dr Who’s TARDIS, this phone box currently contains around 40 books, all donated by the villagers, which people can borrow for as long as they like, whenever they fancy a read… with no fines for late returns either!
 
The kiosk was bought from BT – for the princely sum of £1 - because the villagers wanted to keep what they believed was an “integral part” of the local area. The idea to turn it into a library apparently was inspired by an episode of the BBC radio serial The Archers!
 
This isn’t the first time a local community have found such a literary use for an old phone box – villages in Derbyshire and Hampshire have already done so – besides other ’interesting’ uses as well. Villagers in Shepreth, Cambridgeshire converted their kiosk into a temporary pub for the local village fete following the closure of their local inn!
 
BT have said that the Box ‘Box’ was the 1,500th phone box in the UK to have been adopted by its local community – a remarkable form of preservation for one of the most enduring icons of 20th century British heritage.
 

Domesday Reloaded

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Domesday Books (image copyright Electropod, reproduced under CC License)

The BBC often revisits the past – too often for those who aren’t keen on TV repeats! - but at the moment they’re turning the clock back to a very worthwhile project they embarked on 25 years ago, itself inspired by a historic chronicle of England begun under the reign of William the Conqueror some 900 years ago.

The Domesday Project, begun in 1986, was an ambitious attempt to capture the essence of life in the United Kingdom, as the original Domesday Books had attempted to do nearly a millenium ago. Over a million people contributed to the project, and now the BBC is looking to refresh the venture for the digital age. 

From now until October 31st the BBC are asking people to help bring the project back up to date, by re-examining and updating the data provided by local communities and scholars in 1986. All you have to do is browse an interactive online map on the BBC website, search for a location you know, or try finding articles about something you remember, and then send in your updates, new stories or photos using the links provided. 

To find out more information and download information packs visit the BBC Domesday Reloaded site here.

Don’t forget that the Library has a large and extensive history section itself, including works on local, national and global events, all searchable through Library Catalogue Plus.