Category Archives: Culture

Free Times Newspaper Subscription for all Loughborough Students

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Loughborough University is partnering with The Times and Sunday Times to offer all students a complimentary subscription to the newspaper’s digital content.

For the next 12 months, students will have digital access to The Times website and its smartphone and tablet apps.

The newspaper will also be hosting a series of exclusive events over the next year featuring its journalists and key political figures.

As a subscriber, you’ll be able to access a number of benefits, including:

  • Smartphone and tablet apps with exclusive interactive features
  • Access to special events with journalists, movie previews and private views
  • Get Odean 2-for-1 cinema tickets every weekend
  • Exclusive access to Premier League and Premiership Rugby video highlights
  • Download a free ebook each month from Times+

To start your subscription, simply follow the instructions you will have been sent to your student email.

“What’s On the Box?” World Television Day

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Watching TV by Aaron Escobar, reproduced under CC License

“I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.”

As librarians, we tend to agree with Groucho Marx’s oft-quoted remark about the medium of television – even in the digital age, we still love a good book – but there is no denying that television is still one of the world’s biggest phenomenons – and is likely to remain so for long years ahead.

And so it was in 1996 that the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed 21st November as World Television Day, in recognition of the increasing impact television has on decision-making by bringing world attention to conflicts and threats to peace and security and its potential role in sharpening the focus on other major issues, including economic and social issues. It is not so much a celebration of television as a communication tool, but as a symbol for communication and globalisation in the contemporary world.

We hold a huge range of books about every aspect of the medium among our collection, from historic studies to the nuts-and-bolts of television engineering and broadcasting. We also provide access to a number of very popular online resources all about television, most notably Box of Broadcasts (BoB), from which you can not only catch up with the latest episodes of your favourite shows, but also easily create your own clips from TV programmes, and create useful playlists of clips to refer to at a later date for further study or research. And if you’re more interested in more vintage television, try dipping into the British Film Institute’s archives in BFI Screenonline, where you can watch old episodes of classics like Doctor Who, Fawlty Towers, and even University Challenge!

“It was all started by a Mouse…”

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Plastic Mickey Mouse figure from the Glud Museum, Denmark, reproduced under CC License

One of the most iconic characters of modern times celebrates their 90th birthday this very day – the one and only Mickey Mouse!

Created by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks in 1928 for Steamboat Willie, one of the Disney Studios’ earliest sound animations, the character has gone on to appear in over 130 films and countless spin-offs in every conceivable medium – and became the figurehead of the Disney phenomenon. Walt Disney himself acknowledged the debt his studio owed to the lovable cartoon rodent – “it was all started by a mouse”, he declared in an interview in 1954!

We have a wide range of books about Walt Disney, his films and Mickey Mouse among our art and cinema books on Level 2.

You can also explore more about the history and influence of Disney (and Mickey!) at the British Film Institute website and our online art databases including Art Retrospective and Art & Architecture Source.

Spotlight On… Vogue

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Interested in fashion, either for your studies or just in general? Then settle down and treat yourself to a browse through the archives of the world’s foremost fashion magazine, Vogue.

The Vogue Archive contains the entire run of Vogue magazine (US edition), from the first issue in 1892 to the current month, reproduced in high-resolution color page images. Every page, advertisement, cover and fold-out has been included, with rich indexing enabling you to find images by garment type, designer and brand names. The Vogue Archive preserves the work of the world’s greatest fashion designers, stylists and photographers and is a unique record of American and international fashion, culture and society from the dawn of the modern era to the present day.

In addition to the editorial content, all covers, advertisements and pictorial features have been captured as separate documents to allow for searching and discovery. For advertisements, the featured company and brand names have been assigned to the document records, and all image captions are captured to a high accuracy, allowing accurate retrieval of photographs and illustrations. Contributor names that appear in image credits, such as photographers, stylists and illustrators, are also indexed.

You can also limit your search by journal editor, and specialist indexing of full-page images from photo features. There are separate designated fields for Fashion Items, Trends, Colour and Prints.

The Vogue Archive is available through Library Catalogue Plus and seperately via Proquest here.

‘Co-working with Things’ – Exhibition Preview at the Martin Hall

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Join LU Arts for the opening of Assunta Ruocco’s ‘Co-Working with Things’ in the Martin Hall Exhibition Space on Wednesday 14th November, from 4-6pm. Wine and refreshments provided, and the artist and curator will be present to discuss the work.

In 1947, artist Anni Albers urged us to consider ‘materials as our co-workers’. In so doing she invited us to develop new relationships with machines, tools, materials and working spaces. This exhibition explores how the things with which artists work can be seen as co-workers. All the artworks presented are based on simple sets of rules derived from what was possible within a particular, contingent context: working at home or in the printmaking workshop. The works are ongoing, and insist on labour intensive relationships with materials, tools and machines arranged within particular furnished spaces.

An exhibition of artistic research conducted as part of the practice-based PhD project ‘Co-working with Things. How Furnished Spaces Contribute to the Emergence of Artworks’, supervised by Gillian Whiteley and­­­­ Eleanor Morgan, within Loughborough University School of the Arts, English and Drama. All prints were produced within SAED Printmaking Workshop with the help and advice of printmaking tutor Pete Dobson. Exhibition curated by David Bell, with support from Radar­.

For further details visit the LU Arts website here.

World Space Week 2018

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Boldly going where no one has gone before, it’s World Space Week, the annual celebration of mankind’s exploration of outer space.

Each year, the World Space Week Association (WSWA) selects a theme for the upcoming World Space Week (WSW) to provide a focus of the activities and events that take a place throughout the world, during 4th-10th October . The 2018 theme is Space Unites the World, which celebrates the role of space in bringing the world closer together.  The theme is inspired by UNISPACE+50, an historic gathering of world space leaders which will occur in 2018. UNISPACE+50 will promote cooperation between spacefaring and emerging space nations and help space exploration activities become open and inclusive on a global scale.

Launched specifically on 4th October by the UN General Assembly to mark the successful launch of Sputnik 1, the first man-made satellite, in 1957, and the signing of the ‘Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Peaceful Uses of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies’ on October 10th 1967, World Space Week has been held every year since 1999, and seeks primarily to educate people about the positives of space exploration and encourage better public understanding and support for space programmes.

We have many and various astronomical and astronautic resources in the Library, including access to the  National Geophysical Data Centre database, which provides the latest satellite geophysical data from the Sun to the Earth and Earth’s sea floor and solid earth environment, including Earth observations from space, and the NASA Scientific & Technical Information database, which includes up-to-date information about NASA’s space projects. We also hold a good selection of books about space & space exploration in general.

To find out more about World Space Week, visit their website here:

http://www.worldspaceweek.org/

Roll Up, Roll Up! Dip into our Exciting New Resource!

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We’re thrilled to bring you our new acquisition, Victorian Popular Culture from Adam Matthew Digital. This primary source archive is an important research resource for historians, social scientists and literary scholars, spanning the period from 1779 to 1930 and showcasing popular entertainment in Britain, America and Europe.

Explore a wealth of media history in the form of printed books, early film, posters, playbills, photographs, objects and ephemera as well as contextual essays and an interactive chronology. Collections include: Moving Pictures, Optical Entertainments and the Advent of Cinema; Music Hall, Theatre and Popular Entertainment, Spiritualism, Sensation; Magic and Circuses, Sideshow and Freaks.

Access is via IP address. To begin searching go to:

www.victorianpopularculture.amdigital.co.uk

Database Trials – Adam Matthew Resources

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This month the Library is trialing four databases from the Adam Matthew stable.

Gender: Identity and Social Change

Essential primary sources documenting the changing representations and lived experiences of gender roles and relations from the nineteenth century to the present. This expansive collection offers sources for the study of women’s suffrage, the feminist movement, the men’s movement, employment, education, the body, the family, and government and politics.

To begin searching go to www.genderidentityandsocialchange.amdigital.co.uk – access is via IP address and the trial runs to 4th July 2018.

Literary Manuscripts Berg

The Berg Collection is recognised as one of the finest literary research collections in the world, and the Victorian holdings are the undisputed jewel in its crown.  A broad range of authors from across the nineteenth century make this an essential research tool for all scholars and students researching Victorian literature.  Most of these unique manuscripts are unavailable in any medium elsewhere. They are supplemented by some rare printed materials, including early editions annotated by the authors. Each author collection is included in its entirety, allowing users to browse and search the manuscripts as they would in the Berg Reading Room.

To begin searching go to www.literarymanuscriptsberg.amdigital.co.uk– access is via IP address and the trial runs to 27th June 2018.

London Low Life

London Low Life is a full-text searchable resource, containing colour digital images of rare books, ephemera, maps and other materials relating to 18th, 19th and early 20th century London. It is designed for both teaching and study, from undergraduate to research students and beyond.

In addition to the digital documents, London Low Life contains a wealth of secondary resources, including a chronology, interactive maps, essays, online galleries and links to other useful websites.

To begin searching go to www.londonlowlife.amdigital.co.uk – access is via IP address and the trial runs to 27th June 2018.

Leisure, Travel and Mass Culture: The History of Tourism

This resource presents a multi-national journey through well-known, little-known and far-flung destinations unlocked for the average traveller between 1850 and the 1980s. Guidebooks and brochures, periodicals, travel agency correspondence, photographs and personal travel journals provide unique insight into the expansion, accessibility and affordability of tourism for the masses and the evolution of some of the most successful travel agencies in the world.

To begin searching go to www.masstourism.amdigital.co.uk– access is via IP address and the trial runs to 27th June 2018.

Please note that PDF download options are not available from these databases during these trials.

We welcome feedback – good or bad – on this trial, please contact Steve Corn (s.c.corn@lboro.ac.uk) with your comments.

Loughborough University Arts Festival 6th-15th June

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The University is marking the end of another successful academic year with a brand new Arts Festival on campus this June.

Organised by LU Arts, Loughborough University’s arts programme, the festival will bring together local artists and leading creatives, academics from the School of Arts, English and Drama, students and alumni.

The festival – which is to run from 6th-16th June – is a mixture of both daytime and early evening events, which include student showcases, alumni presentations, discussions and theatre performances.

The line-up features talks with talented individuals such as writer and poet Kate Rhodes, portraitist Alastair Adams and illustrator and alumna Katy Halford, creator of Moz the Monster (from the 2017 John Lewis Christmas advert).

In addition, there will also be a discussion with renowned food writer William Sitwell (a regular on BBC’s Masterchef), and a Skype call with installation and performance artists Tania Bruguera.

Many of the events are free to attend. For the full programme and to book tickets visit the Loughborough Arts Festival website.