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Vol: 2 Issue : 3 March 2021
@The Library
Dear Marywood Community, Happy New Year, the Year of OX!
One day, an elephant saw a hummingbird lying flat on its back on
the ground. The bird’s tiny feet were raised up into the air.
“What on earth are you doing, Hummingbird?” asked the ele-
phant.
The hummingbird replied, “I have heard that the sky might fall
today. If that should happen, I am ready to do my bit in holding it
up.” The elephant laughed and mocked the tiny bird.
“Do you think that those little feet could hold up the sky?”
“Not alone,” admitted the hummingbird.
“But each must do what he can, and this is what I can do.”
Another Chinese year has ended; a new year begins. Not alone, but together we can heal and change the world.
Cooperation is the key to success in ways we could not imagine before.
On behalf of the library staff and librarians, I wish you all the best in this year of OX!
While you are firing on all cylinders to attend to class assignments, tailor syllabus as best as you can, create the
best study environment for our students still under the cloud of COVID-19, and pursue your academic endeavors,
we are just clicks away via chat, library helpdesk, email, or a phone call. Also, please take advantage of our newly
established services, such as campus books delivery, book chapters scanning and delivery, and online appoint-
ments.
Our invitation to appreciate your participation in the second “Celebrating Marywood Authors” event is waiting in
your inbox. Please send us your academic works such as books, chapters, or peer reviewed journal articles. Your
academic achievements along with a biography will be on display at LC. You will also be honored on the Research
Day, followed by a photoshoot, and a possible reception at a time and date when COVID-19 concerns are at bay.
The library has just created a book browsing display which showcases some 100 books selected on a specific
academic discipline. The Art Therapy collection will kick off the display which rotates every two weeks. We
appreciate it if you want to share with us your choice of books to put on display, and we will even make a name
label for you if you do so.
Turnitin has a new feature now, named Draft Coach which enables the students to pre-check their assignments for
any possible plagiarism prior to the final submission. Draft Coach can be activated in Google Doc. Please contact
the librarians if you need any help.
It has been a great pleasure and honor to communicate with you via this platform. I am sure my contact with you
will find some other forms to continue. Thank you!
Zhong Geng
geng@maryu.marywood.edu
Jim’s Picks
As March begins and winter reluctantly gives way to spring, it is also time to look forward
to the fun and festivities that have become synonymous with St. Patrick’s Day. Thus, for
this edition of the newsletter, we celebrate Ireland with Choice book reviews of histories
of Irish Americans and St. Patrick’s Day. Erin go Bragh!
Whether they are about spring, Ireland, or quantum physics, please keep your book re-
quests for the library collection coming to Jim Frutchey.
Irish Americans: The History and Culture of a People ed. by William E. Watson and
Eugene J. Halus, Jr.
This worthy volume can be used for ready reference, or readers can have a jolly good browse learning more
about favorite Irish American personalities. Highlighting the impact of contributions by Irish Americans on
American history, the work’s four parts outline its scope: “Context of Irish American Immigration,” “Political
Activity and Economic Life,” “Cultural and Religious Life,” and “Arts and Sciences, Sports, and Popular Cul-
ture.” One- to four-page entries (some with black-and-white photos) offer cited sources that are rarely dupli-
cated in the volume’s bibliography. Contributors are experts in their fields, although minor flaws dot the work.
For example, under Walt Disney’s entry, it reports that he traces his “ancestral links to Clone County, Kilkenny,”
making it sound like there is a county in Ireland called Clone. The comma is misplaced; correctly, it should be
“Clone, County Kilkenny.” Adding considerable value to the work are the chronology and the primary doc-
uments, which include items such as “The Start of the American Revolution and the Friendly Sons of St. Pat-
rick,” “Nativist Bigotry Exposed in the Ursuline Convent Attack, 1834,” “The Molly Maguires: Trial Testimo-
ny,” or “The Founding of the Ancient Order of Hibernians in America.” The book nicely complements Timothy
Meagher’s The Columbia Guide to Irish American History (CH, May’06, 43-5478).
Reviewer: L. K. Miller, Western Kentucky University
The Wearing of the Green: A History of St. Patrick’s Day by Mike Cronin and Daryl Adair
St. Patrick’s Day (March 17) is celebrated in more countries around the world than any other national holiday.
Cronin (history, De Montfort Univ.) and Adair (Univ. of Canberra) chronicle the changes (societal, political,
denominational) that caused the shift in its celebration from a religious one to the present-day secular, commer-
cial, and hedonistic event. In illuminating detail they trace its development in Ireland and the Irish diaspora (US,
Canada, Britain, Australia), using it to examine Irish and diaspora history. They do not claim to be comprehen-
sive or conclusive, but seek instead a “wide-ranging, general overview.” About half the text deals with the period
before 1914, the other half since. The diaspora treatment has an urban bias, and for the US and Canada, the focus
is on East Coast locations. An overly lengthy treatment of Australia is apparent (especially in the 20th century,
dictated, perhaps, by one coauthor’s domicile there and the concomitant access to archives), compared to Cana-
da, where the Irish population is larger and of greater longevity. (No Canadian archival institution is listed in the
bibliography.) The authors pioneer the study of St. Patrick’s Day as a subject of serious academic inquiry and
have rescued the topic from historiographical obscurity. All levels and collections.
Reviewer: T. P. Power, Trinity and Wycliffe Colleges, University of Toronto
with guest columnist Joshua Carey,
MA, PhD-candidate
How Number Theory Can Help With Group Work In Your Classes
Many of us, from time to time, find it beneficial to ask our students to work in groups.
My personal preference when assigning group work is to split my class up such that
every group has no fewer than 3 students and no more than 4 students. Two reasonable
questions about this are whether or not this can be done for any class size and if so, how
is it affected by the absence of any number of students on a given class day? To explain
the answer to these questions, I will start by explaining a concept from the field of
number theory called the division algorithm, an important concept given to us by the great Greek Mathematician
Euclid (c. 4BC-3BC).
We can recall from elementary school math class that multiplying whole numbers is simply repeated addition.
For example, 2×5=5+5 (or 2+2+2+2+2). Since division is the inverse operation of multiplication (i.e. it reverses
the process of multiplication in some sense), we can understand the division algorithm as follows: Consider the
example 16÷3. We know that the answer is 5 with a remainder of 3. But, we can think of this problem as saying,
“Rewrite 16 as a sum of numbers in such a way that we use as many 3s as possible, and then count the number
of 3s.” So, we would say 16 = 3+3+3+3+3+1. We see that there are five 3s and there is one “non 3” which is our
remainder. What the division algorithm tells us is that our remainder must always be smaller than our divisor
(i.e. the number after the division sign). To see why this is, consider if we had written 16 = 3+3+3+3+4. This is
incorrect because we can write this sum with more 3s than we chose to. And so our incorrect remainder of 4 can
be split into 3+1.
Considering a class with 6 or more students, we see that we will have at least 2 groups of 3. We also know, by the
division algorithm, that if we divide our class size by 3, we will have a remainder of 0, 1 or 2. If our remainder is
0, then we can evenly divide the class into groups of 3. If our remainder is 1, we can add this remaining student
to a group of 3 to make a group of 4 (since we have at least 2 groups). Similarly with a remainder of 2, we can
add each one to two different groups of 3 to make a group of 4 (remember, we have at least 2 groups). If our class
size is less than 6 we run into some problems. A class of 1 would not need group work and a class of 2 can only
have one possible group. Classes of size 3 or 4 automatically work with my scheme. Classes of 5 won’t work
because our remainder is 2, but we can only have at most one group of 3. I often challenge my students to solve
this problem and many go straight to showing why this works in specific examples. However, the mathematician
is not content with a finite number of examples that work. Here, we are able to prove this beautiful concept for all
class sizes larger than 5, no matter how unrealistically large. What about larger group sizes? Increasing to groups
of size 4 or 5 only works if we can have at least 3 groups because division by 4 yields remainders of 0, 1, 2 or
3. As you increase your range, you increase the minimum number of groups required. Finally, what about larger
ranges, like breaking the class into groups of size 3, 4 or 5? I’ll leave the answer to this an exercise for the reader.
Hong Miao, MLIS, MA.
Popular Business Magazines Available Online at Marywood Library
Please click on the image to access a magazine.
Send questions and suggestions to hongm@maryu.marywood.edu.
Faculty Authors
A Conversation with Jeremy Rich, Professor of History
and Chair of the Social Sciences Department
Q: I know you have written several books. Can you briefly describe what each is about?
My first book is entitled A Workman is Worthy of His Meat: Food and Colonialism in the
Gabon Estuary. It is a social and cultural history of how the Gabonese port city of Libreville
became dependent on foreign imports for food, making it one of the most expensive cities
in the world to live in. Some of the story lies in how people’s tastes changed as a result of
colonial rule, which introduced canned goods and bread. However, the ways French officials
neglected roadbuilding and rural communities also meant agriculture languished, a situation
only worsened after Gabon became an oil producing country.
My second book, Missing Lnks: The African and American Worlds of R.L. Garner, Primate
Collector looks at the racist underpinnings of primate research in early 20th century America.
Its main figure is Richard Lynch Garner, a figure who in some ways resembles more an embittered alt-righter on social
media than most of his contemporaries. Despite coming from Appalachian southwest Virginia with only a high school
education, Garner tried to reinvent himself in middle age in the 1890s as a maverick self-taught scientist who could master
the language of chimpanzees. He lived in Gabon intermittently from 1894 to 1919, hoping to show how chimpanzees
were supposedly more advanced than some humans by claiming apes could be more caring than Black humans. Although
his views reflected the dominance of racism among the US scientific elite in the early 20th century, most other research-
ers considered Garner to be a deluded eccentric pretending to be a scientist. Gabonese people tried to use Garner as an
intermediary against the growing oppression of French colonial rule, even as he wrote in his diaries how much he loved
watching his dog maul African men.
My latest book, Protestant Missionaries and Humanitarianism in the DRC: The Politics of Aid in Cold War Africa, con-
siders the links between the US government and private religious aid agencies in the Congo in the 1960s. US officials
propped up anti-Communist Congolese political leaders through government surplus food and medical supplies. US and
Canadian missionaries provided food and medical care to Congolese to help stop the spread of Communism and to heal the
legacy of colonial rule. Many volunteers agreed to staff hospitals without any previous experience outside the US, trying
to perform surgery without electricity or even running water. Although missionaries saw themselves as independently
working to build a Christian Congo, their aid helped reinforced US influence over the Congo.
Q: What inspired you to write your books?
Since I started learning about African history as an undergraduate, I always have been interested in the creativity of Af-
rican efforts to defend their interests against obstacles, most notably colonialism and the impact of violence. Part of me
loves the challenge of struggling through records previously ignored by other researchers and interviewing people who felt
the stories they had to tell weren’t important to others.
Q: What do you hope readers will take away from your books?
I hope my readers recognize the brutal impact of colonialism and Cold War politics on ordinary peoples’ lives in Africa. I
also want people to see how Western views of Africans as inferiors led directly to violent and demeaning outcomes, even if
North Americans and Europeans claimed they were working for the betterment of African lives.
Q: Are you currently working on any new books?
I am slowly researching a book on pacifist North American aid workers who worked in the Congo for the Mennonite
Central Committee between 1960 and 1991. MCC workers avoided the US military draft in the Vietnam war era by going
to help church development projects in the Congo. I hope to also work on a book on the Congolese Red Cross to better
“On Doughnuts and the Digital Economy:
Do You Think of Your Attention as a Resource?”
by Amanda Avery, MLIS
Associate Faculty Librarian of Assessment & Digital Projects
It may seem unnatural to think of your attention as raw material that can be extracted like crude oil. But, in
the digital economy, there is little difference. Consider, just as a tree is currently “worth” more to the econo-
my dead than alive, we are worth more to a tech company with an unhealthy, addictive relationship to online
media than a healthy balanced one.
It’s now a truism to say that if you aren’t paying for something then “you are the product.” The typical shoul-
der-shrug in response to this belies a disturbing nihilism. I think this is partly because it’s hard to imagine an
alternative. It seems impossible and undesirable to completely eschew online life in order to take back our
attention “capital,” inconceivable because these technologies are now woven into the fabric of our daily lives,
much like fossil fuels. But our attention is limited, right? And what we pay attention to impacts our lives
offline.
In a recent podcast episode of Your Undivided Attention, co-hosted by the Center for Humane Technology
founder Tristan Harris (of recent Netflix documentary “The Social Dilemma” fame) interviews “renegade”
economist and author Kate Raworth on her economic framework and book Doughnut Economics: Seven
Ways to Think Like a 21st Century Economist. In it, they explore the question, amongst others:
“What’s the balance in our use of digital technologies? Where do we find that point where it’s engag-
ing, it’s useful, it’s where I feel we belong, but without getting addicted, drawn, depressed, thrown off
course by it?”
Under the current digital economic model, tech companies invest in development to create free-use platforms
through which users freely provide attention and data, which it sells to advertisers, netting them exponential
profit above their development costs. Meanwhile, “users” receive diminishing “value” in terms of media
quality, credibility, public discourse, etc. and the negative externalities keep piling up in real life, from the
mundane to the existential. The perverse part of it is, the “worse” the online behavior, the more profit there is
to be made. By keeping Facebook “free” to use, we allow it to externalize all societal costs.
If we consider the digital economy as part of a larger economic system that ONLY concerns itself with profit,
growth, and avoiding responsibility for negative externalities, we will continue to fight an uphill battle with
tech companies that do not care, can out-fox slow-moving governments, and have convinced us that it is just
a matter of us becoming “more responsible” tech consumers.
A doughnut economy is simply one that integrates and is accountable to ev-
erything (the big circle) that falls outside of the myopic market paradigm (the
little circle). The kicker is that the outside circle is also finite. Also, doughnuts
just make economics infinitely more fun to think about!
Applying a “doughnut economic” framework to the digital economy would
force platforms to consider costs it does not currently pay for, but that makes
it possible for it to exist, and that it impacts significantly. This larger circle of
externalities and roles that surrounds an economy is also just known as “lim-
its” or...reality. A sustainable digital economy would factor in things like the
societal costs of political polarization and sleep-deprivation. Like ecological economics, as Harris remarks:
“We have an infinite growth paradigm living on a finite substrate of human attention.”
Ultimately, I do not see well-intentioned digital-detox strategies doing much to mitigate the attention traps
laid by armies of well-paid data scientists, behavioral theorists, and designers employed by attention-based
platforms. I think it’s fair to say the onus of responsibility--the desire to embody it--needs to be shifted from
the user to the platform and developers, by incentivizing positive social values, rather than rewarding its
worst abuses. Even if you think you are personally immune to social media’s wiles, its use has scaled to the
point where it has the power to impact everyone’s “real” life in staggering ways, from elections to genocides.
Life IS what is between the two circles. Life IS the donut. Mmmmm...
If the similarity between ecological and digital economics interests you, I highly recommend checking out
the episode with Kate Raworth. The Your Undivided Attention podcast in general explores problems inher-
ent in the digital attention economy. It features a range of guests from interdisciplinary perspectives offering
ideas for how to design online tech with human-centered values. Worth a listen!
Thoughts? Comments? aavery@maryu.marywood.edu
Maple Syrup or
Honey Glazed Cod
Maple Syrup or Honey Glazed Cod Recipe
Kate O’Conner, this cod dish is for you if you have not changed your love of cod yet, though you seem to change
your mind every hour or shorter? Haha!
Ingredients
• 4 6-ounce cod filets (I used cod steaks instead)
• 1 tablespoons butter, softened
• 3 tablespoons olive oil
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 2 tablespoons parsley, chives, or green onion, finely chopped
• 2 tablespoons of maple syrup or honey
• 1 tablespoon of soy sauce
• salt and pepper, to taste
• chili pepper flakes, optional
• 8 oz spinach
• 2-4 potatoes
Fish Cooking:
• Mix butter, olive oil, garlic, pinch of salt and pepper, and green stuff and smear evenly on the cod
• Place cod (room temperature) on a baking sheet and bake at 400 for 15 minutes
• While the fish is still in the oven, put honey or maple syrup and soy sauce in a small saucepan and
cook until you see bubbles
• Drizzle the sauce on top of the fish and enjoy
Spanish and potatoes cooking:
• Cut potatoes into little cubes
• In a cooking pan, put in 2 tablespoons of olive oil and cook potatoes for 4-5 minutes each side
• Wilt spinach in hot potatoes with pinch of salt and pepper
Tech Talk with
Mrs. Katherine Fisne, Sr. Associate Director,
Educational Technology Services and Ben Babarsky,
Technology Support Manager
The Chat is where it’s at!
If you thought we were chatterboxes before, just wait ‘til you see us in the chat box!
The Help Desk is excited to announce that you can now CHAT US when you’re looking for quick assistance.
Visit our Chat Page by going to www.marywood.edu/itchat to access our chat directly on the web. If you happen
to be on Brightspace working on your courses, you can use the embedded chat right on the Brightspace homep-
age to reach us with your quick questions.
Chat is available during all Help Desk hours:
• Monday - Thursday, 8am - 7:30pm
• Friday, 8am - 5pm
• Saturdays 9am - 1pm
If you have any issues using the chat, please let us know.
TIME IS (NOT) ON YOUR SIDE with Mary Kay
Time. Like money, we never seem to have enough of it. I can’t help with the money part,
but I can help out a little with the time. This is in regard to borrowing books. Let’s face
it, the faster you get your books for your research assignments, the faster the assignments
gets done, and the faster you move on with your life. So, you can understand my frus-
tration when I see time wasted when it comes to borrowing books that could be avoided.
Interlibrary Loan provides three sources of borrowing: books, book chapters, and
articles. Each of these has its own unique form. Too often though, book requests come
through on the Article Request form. The path that the article form takes is to me.
Whereas, PALCI E-ZBorrow requests go DIRECTLY into the PALCI system and are
sent to a lending library with no involvement from me. It’s only when the book arrives
that I enter the picture. While I can submit article requests from home, I cannot do so with book requests. So, if
I am not on campus, due to weather, or health, or any other reason, the request will sit in an email queue. This
can delay the receipt of a requested book by close to a week. Also, these same variables come into play on the
lending end of a request, adding to potential delay.
So, at the risk of being repetitive, I am including a refresher as to where these forms are found. First, go to the
Library homepage. There you will see two sets of search boxes containing links: RESEARCH LINKS and SER-
VICES. Since a picture paints a thousand words, I am pasting a screenshot of where you want to be and what
you should see. (See next page.)
Services
• Account Login
• LC Hours
• Ask Us: Get Research Help
• Library FAQs
• Inter-Library Loan Forms
• Reserve Group Study Rooms
• Course Reserves
• Support for Faculty
A click on Inter-Library Loan Forms will give you what you see below. This is the form to use when
requesting a book.
To request a book, use PALCI E-ZBorrow
It is a self-service system for borrowing books from over 60 academic li-
braries. To login to the system use your MarywoodYou portal username
and password. After being logged in you can search for the title of the
book you want.
I know I’ve mentioned this all before, but if a simple link can make your research a little easier, then I will
repeat myself.
I mentioned at the start of this column that I can’t make you more money, but I can pass along a saying that
my dear of a Dad always told me, “If you don’t need it, it’s not a bargain.” Hopefully, this can save you some
money.
On that note, I bid you adieu until next month.
“Can You Dig It?” by Christine C. Zwick
“From December to March, there are for many of us three gardens — the garden
outdoors, the garden of pots and bowls in the house, and the garden of the mind’s
eye.”
~ Katharine Sergeant Angell White
After being closed during 2020 due to the pandemic, the Marywood Seed Library
is open for the 2021 gardening season! Located on the First Floor of the Learning
Commons near the back entrance, the Seed Library is available to all gardeners. We
ask that you take only what you will be able to plant this year (3-4 seed packets), and
that you follow the guidelines posted.
Our goal is to provide access to free seeds and to support our community of gardeners — from beginner
to expert — through the process of growing, harvesting, and seed saving. This year, our seed chest is stocked
with more than 1000 packets of vegetable and flower seeds, some easy to grow, some a bit more challenging.
But don’t let a challenging variety keep you from trying it!
Most seeds can be started indoors, weeks before the last frost date*, in a variety of containers, using a
very good quality seed starter medium. The very best is soilless seed starter — not to be confused with pot-
ting soil, which is entirely too dense and heavy for seed starting. Water should be able to pass through the seed
starter mix without saturating it, allowing for good drainage. In addition, a soilless seed starter allows oxygen to
reach the tender seed, enabling it to germinate (grow) and put out roots and shoots (stems).
A good soilless seed starter is a mixture made up of equal parts peat moss or coconut coir, perlite and
vermiculite. You can buy these ingredients and mix your own seed starter, or you can find soilless seed starter at
your local nurseries and box stores as well as online. Seeds do not need fertilizer in order to germinate, so avoid
seed starters that have fertilizer listed as an ingredient. Potting soil is different from soilless seed starter. Some
potting soils contain fertilizer in the mix, which is perfectly fine to use when repotting the matured seedling,
but not for starting seeds. But we’ll talk about that in next month’s issue; this month is devoted to acquiring and
planting seeds and how to give them the best start possible.
If you don’t want to purchase or make your own seed starting medium, there are seed starter kits that
include peat pods that resemble little hockey pucks. When water is added, these pods expand, becoming the per-
fect little containers of seed starter mix, ready to accept your seed. The cornstarch-based netting which holds the
peat inside the pods is biodegradable, so when your seedling has matured enough to repot or plant in the garden,
you’ll plant the entire pod — easy-peasy! These kits also include a tray that holds them in place and catches the
excess water, and a clear plastic dome that acts as a greenhouse, helping to create a warm, humid environment
for your seed to germinate in. A complete seed starting greenhouse kit made by Jiffy, containing 36 peat-filled
expanding pods, tray, and clear plastic dome, is available for about $7.00. Choose your seed from the Mary-
wood Seed Library, read the instructions on the seed packet, and you’re all set!
I used these greenhouse kits when I first started seeds a few years ago. They are terrific for seed starting,
and the trays are reusable year after year. But when I started sowing more and more seeds
it became rather pricey to purchase more kits. Now, I reuse small yogurt or Italian ice containers. I just drill a
few holes in the bottom of each container for drainage before filling with seed starter mix, and reuse the con-
tainers over and over, year after year, keeping them out of the landfill.
….to be continued in the April issue….
*Scranton is located in Zone 6B. According to The Old Farmer’s Almanac, our last frost date is estimated to be May 2.Library Hours March 2021
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How Does It Feel To Be Back On Campus?
“Beautiful…wonderful…so thankful to be back.”
~Lauren Lalik, North Hampton, PA Major: Bio Secondary Education
“Feels great especially with the potential for sports season, and it’s great to see all of my friends
and stuff especially on campus and in-person classes being available.”
~Matthew Klipple, Bethlehem, PA Major: Elementary and Childhood Education 5-year Pro-
gram Special Ed
“It’s really good to be back. Architecture is hard to do online, and we have really long studios so
it just gets repetitive online. It’s just nice to be back in person and see everyone again.”
~Luke Stine, Danville, PA Major: Architecture
*all photos pre-covid*You can also read
