Here is a list of the research guides that I have created. They are geared toward those involved in education but the Children's Literature, Graphic Novels, Multicultural Literature, and Virtual Toolbox guides are geared toward all types of readers. Just click on the drop down menu to select a guide. Hope you enjoy!

Utilizing Graphic Novels

Check out my research guide to all things graphic novels! Included are subject categories, award winners, book lists, and indexes. It's a great resource for educators, librarians, and readers alike!

Very cool library that is partially underground. Check it out!

Virtual Tools for Scholarly Research

Ever wanted to use virtual tools in your scholarly research? Well you've come to the right place! Check out my research guide that covers everything from Google tool utilization to the best apps to use for scholarly research.

Here is a link to my relaxation display I have set up entitled "Tranquilize Yourself": http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150927251635061.763047.93138620060&type=1

Tranquilize Yourself

With the end of the semester drawing nearer finals, dissertations, and papers loom ahead. With all the studying and research that will encompass your life for the next few months don’t forget to take time to relax! Provided in this oasis of serenity are tips for focusing and relaxing, peppermint oil to inhale, soothing CDs to listen to, and poems, psalms and other books to peruse. Try taking a stroll through the Arla Ray Tyson art gallery while you inhale peppermint oil, heading over to the rec center for some yoga, or lazing about on a beanbag whilst listening to classical music to relax and recharge yourself J

Match the Hitchcock Movie with the Personality Disorder!

Disorder Descriptions (Taken from the DSM IV):

Dissociative Identity Disorder: “The essential feature is the presence of two or more distinct identities or personality states that recurrently take control of behavior.”

Dissociative Amnesia: “Essential feature is an inability to recall important personal information, usually of a traumatic or stressful nature, that is too extensive to be explained by normal forgetfulness.”

Antisocial Personality Disorder: “Essential feature is a pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others.” (DSM IV)

Voyeurism: “Involves the act of observing unsuspecting individuals, usually strangers” (DSM IV)

• o   "The voyeur is presented as a ‘diseased’, often paranoid, violent individual who violates the norms of everyday life. Films validate these depictions of the voyeur by having persons in power (family members, editors, supervisors, the police) articulate how and why the voyeur is a sick or deviant person and why his or her gaze is inappropriate." (Denzin 1995: 3)

Paranoid Personality Disorder: “Essential feature is a pattern of pervasive distrust and suspiciousness of others such that their motives are interpreted as malevolent.” (DSM IV)

Borderline Personality Disorder: “The essential feature is a pervasive pattern of instability of interpersonal relationships, self-image, and affects.”

Movies

Rear Window- L. B. "Jeff" Jeffries 

Strangers on a Train- Robert Walker

Rope- Phillip Morgan

Vertigo - John "Scottie" Ferguson

Spellbound- Dr. Edwardes

Psycho- Norman Bates

Film Summaries:

Rear Window: As a photographer with a broken leg, L.B. Jeffries takes up the fine art of spying on his Greenwich Village neighbors during a summer heat wave. Things really begin to get hot when he suspects a salesman may have murdered his nagging wife and buried the body in a flower garden. He actively enlists the help of his girlfriend to investigate the highly suspicious chain of events. Events that ultimately lead to one of the most memorable and gripping endings in film history.

Strangers on a Train: Guy Haines, a tennis star who hates his wife, is approached on a train by a stranger, Bruno Anthony, who hates his father. Anthony offers a plan: each could kill the other's victim. No motive, no clue would link the two murders save the casual meeting of strangers on a train. Haines doesn't take the plan seriously, however, until his wife is suddenly murdered, and Anthony appears to demand that Haines keep his part of the bargain.    

Rope: Two friends strangle a classmate and invite his family and mutual friends to dinner--with the body stuffed inside the trunk for a buffet table. Inspired by the Leopold-Loeb murder.

Vertigo:  Scottie Ferguson, a San Francisco police detective is forced to retire when a freak accident gives him a severe case of acrophobia. Ferguson is hired by a rich shipbuilder to follow his wife who is behaving suspiciously and might be planning suicide. He falls in love with her, she is later murdered and Ferguson becomes obsessed with his desire to re-create her in another woman.

Spellbound:  A female psychiatrist protects the identity of an amnesia patient accused of murder while attempting to recover his memory.

Psycho: Horror melodrama in which a woman disappears after spending the night in an isolated motel which adjoins an eerie Victorian mansion, inhabited by a disturbed young man and his mother. 

Click here for the answers!

Postmodern Picture Books

Postmodernism

There are many definitions for the term "postmodernism." According the the Encyclopedia of Nationalism one of the most popular is Lyotard's definition: '"incredulity towards metanarratives."' It stems from the "ideas and arguments relating to advanced industrialized societies of the late twentieth century onwards. It is concerned with the description and analysis of the distinctive features of these societies for relations between social groupings, for individual selves and identities, and for the status and forms of knowledge, science, and culture" (50 Key Concepts in Gender Studies). 

Postmodern picture books "expand the conventional boundaries of the picture book format with its nonlinear structure, surrealistic imagery, and multiple story lines. Some are wordless and some have multiple stories in one" (Booklinks). By allowing the reader to invent the story themselves based on the pictures is in line with the postmodernist thought of focus on the "self."

Check out my display of postmodern picture books!! http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150831495170061.742232.93138620060&type=1

Here is a list of the titles I have included:

• Voices in the Park
• Reflections
• Tar Beach 
• Cinderella's Rat
• Black & White
• Rosie's Walk
• Zoom 
• The Arrival
• Squids Will Be Squids
• Wolves
• The Frog Prince Continued

My favorite would probably be The Frog Prince Continued. What are your favorite postmodern picture books?

Peru 2011

Read about my adventures of starting a library in Urubamba, Peru by clicking here!

Under Water Ereader

Read about Sony's new Under the Sea Reader where one can read ebooks 300ft under water!

Cool Music Website

Musicovery

This Website plays music according to your mood!

Summer Reads

Can't decide what to read during the hot sweltering months that make up Texas' summer? Well kick back, relax, stay in the comfort of you airconditioning and check these out (pun intended)!

Fiction

1) Hot Off the Press!

a) The Vaults, Toby Ball

b) The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, Stieg Larsson

c) The Help, Kathryn Stockett

d) Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk, David Sedaris

2) Oldies but Goodies

a) Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger

b) Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Richard Bach, 1970

c) The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran

d) Brave New World, Aldous Huxley

3) Spacey/Fantasy

a) Dresden Files (Series), Jim Butcher

b) World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War (series), Max Brooks

c) A Game of Thrones (Series), George R.R. Martin

Non-Fiction

1) Encyclopedias

a) Print

i) Encyclopedia of Weird Westerns: Supernatural and Science Fiction Elements in Novels, Pulps, Comics, Films, Television, and Games

ii) Encyclopedia of Food and Culture, Solomon H. Katz and William Woys Weaver, 2002

iii) Weird Creatures Encyclopedia

iv) Encyclopedia of the Blues, New York: Routledge, 2006

b) Online

i) Emily Post’s Online Etiquette Encyclopedia: http://www.emilypost.com/etipedia

2) Interesting Reads

a) A History of the World in 6 Glasses, Tom Standage, 2006

b) Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Tahir Shah

3) Go Somewhere!

a) Lonely Planet (Useful if you are going for cheap travel)

i) China, India, and Asia are good ones

b) Let’s Go

i) I like Let’s Go Mexico

c) Rough Guide (Good if you are interested more in a place’s cultural aspects)

4) Try Something New!

a) Teach Yourself Visually Crochet (Also comes in a Knitting version), Cecily Keim

b) How to Rock Climb!, 5^th, John Long, 2010

c) Poi Spinning, Michal Kahn, 2002

d) Hoop-La: The Ultimate Book of Hoop Tricks, 2002

e) Stand Up Paddling: Flatwater to Surf and Rivers, Rob Casey, 2011

5) App Guides

a) Print

i) Best iPhone Apps, J.D. Biersdorfer, 2010

b) Online

i) Iphone:

(1) http://www.pcworld.com/appguide/index.html?platform=1

(2) http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/0,28757,2044480,00.html

(3) http://bestapps.com/

ii) Andriod:

iii) http://www.pcworld.com/appguide/index.html?platform=2

iv) http://bestapps.com/

6) Relax!

a) Print

i) 1,001 Ways to Relax: An Illustrated Guide to Reducing Stress, Mike George

ii) Relax and Renew: Restful Yoga for Stressful Times, Judith Lasater

b) Online

i) Zenguide.com

7) Read for Free Online!

a) http://levysheetmusic.mse.jhu.edu

b) http://www.alexandria.ucsb.edu

8) Quirky

a) Darwin Awards, Wendy Northcutt

b) 5 People who died during Sex: and 100 Other Terribly Tasteless Lists, Karl Shaw

c) Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, Mary Roach