News & Events

Are You With the Banned?

09/22/2024

Robyn Williams

0 Comments

It's Banned Books Week!

ALA documented 4,240 unique book titles targeted for censorship in 2023—a 65% surge over 2022 numbers—as well as 1,247 demands to censor library books, materials, and resources. More information is available in your libraries and here online: https://bigsandy.libguides.com/bannedbooksweek

Mayo and Prestonsburg libraries are hosting a word search contest for Banned Books week. Pikeville is hosting a reading and a backpack giveaway. Stop by your library today to see what's there for censorship and challenged materials!

Sociology, Library Events, Political Science

Sign in area Tim Smith stands in fornt of a a classroom of people looking at them, as they have white sheets in front of them with colored pencils. Mary Wallen is discussnig poetry in front of a poem on a slide projection smart screen. Kimberly and Lisa Music display their self-portraits.

Michelle Fields is talking to an attendee. Mary Wallen discusses poetry with the group.

Michelle Fields lectures about women in speculative fiction. Tim Smith kicks off the conference.

After a light lunch, women's history conference attendees created their own canvas artwork in participation with The Printery, a local artist supply store and workshop studio from Prestonsburg.

Jessica Gambill and Dan Bell have some fun as they get ready to start their art pieces. A sample painting from the event, created by Diana Hall. Printery staff help the attendees make artwork.

Judy Howell and sister in law Kathy take a break from their projects. Lisa Music works on her project from the Printery.

Mary Wallen and Michelle Fields work on their artwork. Two attendees create their artwork.

Sociology, Celebrations and Holidays, Library Events

World AIDS Awareness

12/01/2023

Robyn Williams

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Happy Birthday, World AIDS Day: A look back at how this annual commemoration--launched 35 years ago--brought the public's attention to a pandemic's reality. A look at how an iconic red ribbon, grassroots efforts, big name celebrities, and the World Health Organization shined light on a little understood crisis of global proportions.

Sociology

World Tourism Day in Appalachia

09/27/2023

Robyn Williams

0 Comments

On World Tourism Day, celebrate the beauty of Appalachia and the draw of others to her lands and byways!

Welcome to The Kentucky Wildlands. Rich in natural beauty, ancient forests, mist-shrouded mountains, soaring cliffs, lakes, adventurous outdoor recreation, culture, folklore, and tradition, this sprawling 14,000-square-mile region is home to one of the most diverse ecosystems on the planet. The Kentucky Wildlands, a largely untamed wilderness spanning eastern and southern Kentucky is filled with the same breathtaking natural wonders Daniel Boone first set eyes on when he crossed the Cumberland Gap in 1769. And today, this wide-open playground is still waiting to be explored.

The Dawkins Line Rail Trail is the largest rail-to-trail in the state and is open year-round. The entire 36 miles of the trail, stretching from Hagerhill in Johnson County to Evanston in Breathitt County, is now open to hikers, bikers, and horseback riders. The first 25 miles up to Tip Top Tunnel features 24 trestles and the 662-foot Gun Creek Tunnel.

Hillbilly Trails mission is to be the capitol of Adventure Tourism east of the Mississippi River, offering scenic, rugged, mountainous trails where adults can ride at day or night and enjoy spectacular views of the Appalachian and Pine Mountain ranges.

The Appalachian National Scenic Trail — commonly known as the Appalachian Trail or simply “the A.T.” — is the longest hiking-only footpath in the world, measuring roughly 2,190 miles in length. The Trail travels through fourteen states along the crests and valleys of the Appalachian Mountain Range, from its southern terminus at Springer Mountain, Georgia, to the northern terminus at Katahdin, Maine. More than 3 million people visit the Trail every year and over 3,000 people attempt to “thru-hike” the entire footpath in a single year.

Barter Theatre is a repertory company of resident artists dedicated to serving others by creating world-class theatre in the heart of Appalachia. Located in Abingdon, Virginia, it opened on June 10, 1933. It is the longest-running professional Equity theatre in the United States. Famous alumni include Ned Beatty, Frances Fisher, Gregory Peck, and James Burrows.

Located atop Lookout Mountain, just 6 miles from downtown Chattanooga, Rock City is a true marvel of nature featuring massive ancient rock formations, gardens with over 400 native plant species, and breathtaking "See Seven States" panoramic views. Made famous by payment to farmers to paint their barns with the "See Rock City" moniker, Rock City officially opened as a public attraction on May 21, 1932. Take an unforgettable journey along the Enchanted Trail where each step reveals natural beauty and wonders along the woodland path.

The Museum of Appalachia, founded in 1969 by John Rice Irwin, portrays an authentic mountain farm and pioneer village, with some three dozen historic log structures, several exhibit buildings filled with thousands of authentic Appalachian artifacts, multiple gardens and free range farm animals, all set in a picturesque venue and surrounded by split-rail fences. There are over 250,000 artifacts housed in 3 multi-story exhibit buildings; vast collections of folk art, musical instruments, baskets, quilts, Native American artifacts, and much more.

HUM 202, Sociology

Massive Floods in Appalachia - A Look Back

07/27/2023

Robyn Williams

0 Comments

It's been one year since the eastern KY floods affected our region. These 2022 floods are reflective of other floods in the Appalachian highlands, described below, and we're also highlighting what people are doing about them.

A 38 minute documentary on the Eastern Kentucky floods, produced by Daily Yonder, containing interviews and first-person narratives.

Articles:

Flood Fatalities in eastern Kentucky and the Public Health Legacy of Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining

After Flooding, a Kentucky Church Offers Shelter Alongside Prayers

Generations Endured in Kentucky. Then, Floods

They Need Flood Relief, Not Another Prison

Other floods:

The Buffalo Creek Disaster, February 26 1972

Articles:

The June 23, 2016 floods in Greenbrier County, West Virginia

The Madison County, Virginia, Flash Flood of 27 June 1995

Weathering The Future:

As extreme weather in the U.S. impacts more people--with longer heat waves, more intense rainstorms, megafires and droughts--discover how Americans are fighting back by marshaling ancient wisdom and innovating new solutions.

HUM 202, Sociology, Science

May the 4th Be With You!

05/04/2023

Robyn Williams

0 Comments

The World According to Star Wars by Cass R. Sunstein

ISBN: 9780062484222

"Irresistibly charming, acclaimed legal scholar Sunstein writes partly as a rigorous academic and partly as a helpless fanboy as he explores our fascination with Star Wars and what the series can teach us about the law, behavioral economics, history, and even fatherhood. This book is fun, brilliant, and deeply original."--Lee Child The New York Times and Washington Post bestseller, fully revised and updated. There's Santa Claus, Shakespeare, Mickey Mouse, the Bible, and then there's Star Wars. Nothing quite compares to sitting down with a young child and hearing the sound of John Williams's score as those beloved golden letters fill the screen. In this fun, erudite, and often moving book, Cass R. Sunstein explores the lessons of Star Wars as they relate to childhood, fathers, the Dark Side, rebellion, and redemption. As it turns out, Star Wars also has a lot to teach us about constitutional law, economics, and political uprisings. In rich detail, Sunstein tells the story of the films' wildly unanticipated success and explores why some things succeed while others fail. Ultimately, Sunstein argues, Star Wars is about freedom of choice and our never-ending ability to make the right decision when the chips are down. Written with buoyant prose and considerable heart, The World According to Star Wars shines a bright new light on the most beloved story of our time.

Star Wars and the History of Transmedia Storytelling by Matthew Freeman (Contribution by); Lincoln Geraghty (Contribution by); Stefan Hall (Contribution by); Sean Guynes (Editor); Dan Hassler-Forest (Editor); Beatriz Bartolomé Herrera (Contribution by); Will Brooker (Contribution by); Andrew Butler (Contribution by); Gerry Canavan (Contribution by); Megen Bruin-Mole (Contribution by)

ISBN: 9789462986213

Star Wars has reached more than three generations of casual and hardcore fans alike, and as a result many of the producers of franchised Star Wars texts (films, television, comics, novels, games, and more) over the past four decades have been fans-turned-creators. Yet despite its dominant cultural and industrial positions, Star Wars has rarely been the topic of sustained critical work. Star Wars and the History of Transmedia Storytelling offers a corrective to this oversight by curating essays from a wide range of interdisciplinary scholars in order to bring Star Wars and its transmedia narratives more fully into the fold of media and cultural studies.

The Mandalorian is a very popular science-fiction show set in the famous Star Wars Universe. Studies have shown that myth and religious thought played a crucial role in the creation of the Star Wars Universe. This article continues that tradition, albeit from a particular perspective that highlights religious language: by viewing The Mandalorian through a New Testament lens, it is argued that while many elements of popular culture reference Biblical or mythological sources, The Mandalorian’s use of these referents illustrates the way in which ancient religious and New Testament literature are still very much a shared phenomenon. Both The Mandalorian and the New Testament share certain timeless topoi: a mysterious character with extraordinary abilities, a connection to life-giving powers of the universe that give extraordinary abilities, choosing a certain way of life and the costs thereof, and also themes such as “debt”, “redemption”, and “beliefs” and how these are challenged. By using these themes, The Mandalorian presents itself as a modern myth.

Here are a few words in praise of Princess Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher) of "Star Wars." Leia wasn't just the first great heroine of science fiction and fantasy to capture my imagination. She was one of the first characters I encountered whose power came from her political conviction and acumen. Introduced as the cell prisoner, her damsel in distress mode was the breakout of the 1970s. Instead of being helpless and depending on characters like Han and Luke to save her, her efforts invoked revolutionaries from the women's liberation movement to the political struggles of the disappeared in South America. She was a political icon. Leia's not paralyzed: when her unexpected rescuers show up, she's ready to go, and to gripe about their operational sloppiness. Han and Luke, influenced by Leia's passion, take their places as full participants in the Rebellion: Han overcomes his cynicism while Luke rejects his teacher Yoda's (Frank Oz) monasticism. And Leia, whose primary relationship has been to the political movement she helps lead, finds a partner in Han, acknowledging that personal happiness can help her sustain her commitment to building a better galactic order.

This paper takes as its starting point the contention that media representations of crime and policing, and undercover policing in particular, matter. Through a multimodal critical discourse analysis this paper explores the representations of undercover policing and intelligence operations in the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars. The paper contends that despite its status as science fiction The Clone Wars engages with several of the real-life practices and challenges of undercover policing and intelligence operations. The overall analysis indicates that The Clone Wars projects an important critique of the morally problematic nature of the militarisation of policing and the routinisation of deceptive undercover policing practices. The paper concludes with a reflection on the consequences of this depiction, arguing that for those practitioners who are willing to engage with representations of their craft in popular culture there are valuable practical lessons to be learned from such fictional accounts.

"It's just us now," muttered the evil Kylo Ren in The Force Awakens. Yet viewers heard the voice of the films due to nostalgia amongst ardent fans of the universe. If you were watching, you were one of "us." We find in it another desert planet; another force-using, orphaned protagonist; another Death Star. Information crucial to the fate of seemingly everything is once again hidden inside a droid, planets are destroyed in demonstrations of force, and weird creatures mingle in a bar. Granted pride of place in Disney's great franchise the elderly Lor San Tekka (Max von Sydow) utters the first words of the franchise reboot, 'This will begin to set things right' only to be told by Kylo Ren "look how old you've become." For some Star Wars fans, the length of time spent in the franchise universe indeed stretched beyond the horizon. Kylo might as well have been talking to the viewer. The Force Awakens presents to both viewers and critics who cannot help but wonder and even scoff at its narrative choices, it becomes clear that, if individual Stars Wars films remain available as objects of study, they do so only to the extent that we idealise them and thereby artificially separate them from their particular media ecological niche. Viewers nostalgically invested in these characters, these actors and the specific story in which they appear, may be less willing to move on without familiarity. So when a sharp narrative turn comes in a film such as The Last Jedi -- Rey's parents are actually nobody -- the backlash immediately whips the pole back to its straight and narrow, tried and true nemesis of the third sequel, The Rise of Skywalker, "...somehow Palpatine has returned." No longer will Rey represent the nameless, faceless society that could have fostered the light of the Force; only must she descend from one of the chosen families, lest the viewer's own nostalgia become betrayed by new forces within the universe.

More Star Wars commentary pieces

Film, Sociology

Streaming Video for Women's History Month and Beyond

03/29/2022

Robyn Williams

0 Comments

Let's look at some of the online streaming videos available through the library, in this walk-through of Women's History Month titles from Films on Demand. Films on Demand is a free streaming service which provides great documentaries to our community. To watch more films like these titles, check out Films on Demand.

Women First and Foremost: Hosted by Academy Award-winner Rita Moreno and Dee Wallace Stone, Women First & Foremost offers shining examples of how generations of women have achieved their deserved place at the forefront of history. Brief sketches of notable women, such as Phillis Wheatley, Anne Bradstreet, Margaret Fuller, and Ruth Hale, are presented as a means to view cultural and social contributions, reform work, and political activity.

Lives Together, Worlds Apart: Drawing on case studies, this program exposes the "gender apartheid" that has led to the marginalization of women around the world through violence and poverty. Commentary by Kofi Annan, former secretary general of the UN; Festus Mogae, president of Botswana; and Margaret Jay, Britain’s minister for women, as well as by many grassroots leaders reveals the victimization that is occurring through educational neglect, unfair labor practices, spouse abuse, and inadequate reproductive healthcare. The positive effects of rural empowerment programs, battered women refuges, and free health and legal counseling are also presented—but will cuts in funding sweep away the good that these initiatives have done?

What I Want My Words to Do to You: In this classic program from the POV series, playwright Eve Ensler (The Vagina Monologues) leads 15 female inmates—most convicted of murder—through a series of exercises and intimate discussions, enabling them to delve into and expose their most terrifying realities as they grapple with the nature of their crimes and their own culpability. The documentary culminates in an emotionally charged prison performance of the inmates’ writings by acclaimed actors Mary Alice, Marisa Tomei, Glenn Close, Rosie Perez, and Hazelle Goodman.

The Kingdom of Women: In a remote corner of southwestern China are the Mosuo, arguably the best remaining example of a matrilineal society in the world today. In this program, anthropologist Chou Wah-Shan—one of few outside scholars who have lived and worked extensively with the Mosuo—and Mosuo villagers offer insights into what life is like in the 91 communities where women rule and husbands don’t exist.

Chile: From Drama to Hope: This program examines Chile under martyred socialist President Salvador Allende, and the subsequent Pinochet regime that followed. Allende’s niece and novelist, Isabel Allende, exile Hortensia Bussi, Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriela Mistral, and others discuss women’s role in the eventual toppling of Pinochet, and the formation of the Latin American Federation of Associations of Families of Prisoners Missing Since 1981—a tracking organization that helps families discover the fate of relatives kidnapped during the Pinochet reign of terror. The mothers, sisters, and daughters of "the disappeared" were instrumental in bringing the regime's horrors to international recognition.

History, Sociology

COVID 19 E books

01/27/2022

Robyn Williams

0 Comments

While the world has reeled in the wake of the global pandemic, you might be interested in reading a few educational materials related to the COVID 19 disease, understanding it, and how it has changed our culture. If you have questions about these e-book titles or any other book in our Gale Virtual Reference Library, please contact the librarians at Big Sandy.

The Origins and Spread of COVID-19 by John Allen

ISBN: 9781678200398

The new coronavirus that first surfaced in China rapidly spread to all corners of the world. In fits and starts, countries have struggled to contain the virus and the deadly illness it causes. Some have fared better than others. Those that enacted strict and consistent protocols had far different outcomes from those that relied on a patchwork of measures. This book looks at how different nations responded to the COVID-19 threat.

The Search for a COVID-19 Vaccine by Craig E. Blohm

ISBN: 9781678200411

Medical researchers have worked tirelessly to develop--and distribute--a safe and effective vaccine to prevent the spread of COVID-19. As a desperate world waited for a way to stop the spread and restore life to a semblance of normal, research took different tracks--some more traditional than others. This book examines the triumphs and pitfalls of some of the most prominent vaccine development efforts.

Health, Illness, and Death in the Time of COVID-19 by Bradley Steffens

ISBN: 9781678200350

Much about the new coronavirus that causes COVID-19 is still unknown. But researchers are learning more every day about how it kills, how it spreads, why certain groups are affected more than others, how it can be slowed, and how it can be stopped. These are the topics covered in Health, Illness, and Death in the Time of COVID-19.

Collateral Damage by Carla Mooney

ISBN: 9781678200770

As the coronavirus pandemic spread worldwide in 2020 and 2021, countries implemented various public health measures to slow the spread of the highly contagious virus. While these measures may have helped lessen infections, mental health experts warned of another looming crisis - the pandemic's mental health fallout. Throughout the pandemic, people have struggled with isolation, loss of income, grief, and fear, all of which have harmed mental health.

Epidemics and Pandemics: from Ancient Plagues to Modern-Day Threats [2 Volumes] by Joseph P. Byrne; Jo N. Hays

ISBN: 9781440863790

From the Black Death that ravaged Europe in the 14th century to the influenza pandemic following World War I and the novel strain of coronavirus that made "social distancing" the new normal, wide-scale disease outbreaks have played an important role throughout human history. In addition to the toll they take on human lives, epidemics have spurred medical innovations, toppled governments, crippled economies, and led to cultural revolutions. Epidemics and Pandemics: From Ancient Plagues to Modern-Day Threats provides readers with a holistic view of the terrifying--and fascinating--topic of epidemics and pandemics. In Volume 1, readers will discover what an epidemic is, how it emerges and spreads, what diseases are most likely to become epidemics, and how disease outbreaks are tracked, prevented, and combatted. They will learn about the impacts of such modern factors as global air travel and antibiotic resistance, as well as the roles played by public health agencies and the media. Volume 2 offers detailed case studies that explore the course and lasting significance of individual epidemics and pandemics throughout history.

History, Nursing, Sociology

Are You With the Banned?

It's Banned Books Week!

ALA documented 4,240 unique book titles targeted for censorship in 2023—a 65% surge over 2022 numbers—as well as 1,247 demands to censor library books, materials, and resources. More information is available in your libraries and here online: https://bigsandy.libguides.com/bannedbooksweek

Mayo and Prestonsburg libraries are hosting a word search contest for Banned Books week. Pikeville is hosting a reading and a backpack giveaway. Stop by your library today to see what's there for censorship and challenged materials!

Women's Conference

After a light lunch, women's history conference attendees created their own canvas artwork in participation with The Printery, a local artist supply store and workshop studio from Prestonsburg.

World AIDS Awareness

World Tourism Day in Appalachia

On World Tourism Day, celebrate the beauty of Appalachia and the draw of others to her lands and byways!

Hillbilly Trails mission is to be the capitol of Adventure Tourism east of the Mississippi River, offering scenic, rugged, mountainous trails where adults can ride at day or night and enjoy spectacular views of the Appalachian and Pine Mountain ranges.​

Massive Floods in Appalachia - A Look Back

It's been one year since the eastern KY floods affected our region. These 2022 floods are reflective of other floods in the Appalachian highlands, described below, and we're also highlighting what people are doing about them.

A 38 minute documentary on the Eastern Kentucky floods, produced by Daily Yonder, containing interviews and first-person narratives.

Articles:

Other floods:

The Buffalo Creek Disaster, February 26 1972

Articles:

Weathering The Future:

As extreme weather in the U.S. impacts more people--with longer heat waves, more intense rainstorms, megafires and droughts--discover how Americans are fighting back by marshaling ancient wisdom and innovating new solutions.

May the 4th Be With You!

ISBN: 9780062484222

ISBN: 9789462986213

Streaming Video for Women's History Month and Beyond

COVID 19 E books

Hillbilly Trails mission is to be the capitol of Adventure Tourism east of the Mississippi River, offering scenic, rugged, mountainous trails where adults can ride at day or night and enjoy spectacular views of the Appalachian and Pine Mountain ranges.