Winter break is almost here, and it’s time to think about all the great pop culture you can consume while homework is on the back burner! The library staff would like to share their holiday favorites. From Santa Claus to John McClane, this list includes anything we think might inspire holiday cheer (or terror).

These were solicited independently from staff across the Carney & Law Libraries. In case you prefer a shortlist, we note that the following films received at least two recommendations:

• A Christmas Story
• Batman Returns
• A Charlie Brown Christmas
• Die Hard
• Elf
• Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
• Scrooged
• The Year Without a Santa Claus

Rachel Baum, Information Services

• A Charlie Brown Christmas
• Die Hard
• You’ve Got Mail

Billy Cryer, Systems & Digital Services

• Krampus
• Scrooged

Judy Farrar, Archives & Special Collections

• Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

Chris Garron, Systems & Digital Services

• A Christmas Story

Bela Gupta, Technical Services

• Home Alone 1, 2, & 3
• While You Were Sleeping

Lorraine Heffernan, Information Services

• A Christmas Carol (the 1984 version, with George C. Scott)

Hilary Kraus, Information Services

• Die Hard
• It’s a Wonderful Life
• Miracle on 34^th street (the original, with Edmund Gwenn)
• Scrooged

Maureen McDevitt, Access Services

• Christmas in Connecticut (the original, with Barbara Stanwyk)
• Last Holiday

Joanne Mello, Technical Services

• Elf
• It’s a Wonderful Life

Olivia Miller, Information Services

• Batman Returns
• The Muppet Christmas Carol
• The Nightmare Before Christmas

Kari Mofford, Access Services

• A Charlie Brown Christmas
• The Grinch Who Stole Christmas (the original animated film, with Boris Karloff)
• Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

Misty Peltz-Steele, Law Library

• A Christmas Story

Susan Raidy-Klein, TechnicalServices

• A Christmas Carol (the 1938 version, with Reginald Owen)
• A Christmas Story
• The Year Without a Santa Claus

Matt Sylvain, Systems & Digital Services

• Elf
• The Year Without a Santa Claus

Lauren VanDenBerg, Archives & Special Collections

• Batman Returns
• Christmas at Pee Wee’s Playhouse
• Desk Set
• The Holiday (the original, with Cary Grant)
• The Shop Around the Corner

Emma Wood, Law Library

• Christmas Vacation

Crunch time is upon us and soon our library will be full of students working on group projects and studying for finals.  Here are a few tips that may help alleviate some stress.  

We begin 24/7 hours tonight, Monday, Dec. 3 until Monday, December 17 when we close at 1AM.  Also be aware for security you will need to have your UMass Pass to access the building after 10PM and until our normal open hours the next day.  

Group Study Rooms – Don’t forget to reserve time in our study rooms through the library website to make sure you can use them, as groups with reservations have priority of the space.  You get three hours per week in your name and we ask that if you make reservations please do so in consecutive blocks or have a group member use their time if needed.

Veterans’ Reading Room and Graduate Study Room – Don’t forget the Veterans’ Reading Room (354) and Graduate Study Room (306)…and if you are not a Veteran or Graduate Student, please respect that these rooms are designated for them.  

Quiet Study Area – The only designated quiet study area is located in the South Reading Room in the Learning Commons, first floor.  If you need complete quiet, please use this room.  Noise levels should be kept at respectable, conversational levels throughout the rest of the building.  

Finding Computers to Use – We have three computer classrooms (128, 225, 226) that are available for public computer use when no instruction sessions are being held.  We have schedules on each door to let you know when they are free and they are also listed on ReservIT if you want to check before you come to the library.  We also loan out laptops from the Circulation desk.  Be aware that these are due back the same day…actually an hour before the desk closes, so be mindful of the time so you don’t accrue overdue fines.

Sharing Large Study Tables – You may have seen our table tents on the 3rd and 5th floors that encourages everyone to share large tables as much as possible.  Please use these table tents to invite others to join you whenever you can, as finding a seat for an individual can be very challenging as the semester winds down. 

We are Here to Help! – Lastly, please contact the Librarians or staff (You can stop by the Learning Commons or Circulation Desk) if you have any issue or need assistance.  We also have security guards at night who can help.  We are here for you!  This building gets very full during this time of year and finding study space can be challenging. Please be respectful of others and remember this is a public space for everyone to use…so it may not be perfect for every expectation, but with everyone’s assistance we can make it work.  

The Science Fiction Book Club is looking forward to our last venture into time (for the semester) with Jeff Lemire’s Trillium. It’s a cross between Romeo & Juliet, Indiana Jones, and Cloud Atlas with a heavy dose of sci-fi masterfully illustrated in ink and watercolor. Trillium was originally published as comic book miniseries. This collects all eight issues into one trade publication.

Lemire is a prolific comic creator, having written and illustrated many titles of his own and contributed to works published by DC and Marvel. Lemire’s perhaps best known for Essex County, a graphic novel about a fictionalized version of his hometown in Canada. With it he earned a nomination for a Harvey Award in 2008 for Best New Talent. The first volume won the Alex Award from the American Library Association. Trillium was nominated for an Eisner (the Oscars of comics) for Best Limited Series.

You can find Trillium at your local public library or through interlibrary loan.

We look forward to chatting with you about Trillium on Tuesday, December 4th at 2pm in Library 314.

Halloween is right around the corner, and if you’re looking for a spooky read this month, our library staff have a few favorites to recommend!

Some of the books below we own, while others can be requested through the Commonwealth Catalog (ComCat) using your UMassD login. You can also download ebooks and audiobooks from the Boston Public Library collection if you register for a free Boston Public Library eCard (https://www.bpl.org/ecard/).

Questions about how to get fun books to read or listen to when you need a break from school? Ask a librarian!

Great reads from your librarians:

Rachel Baum, social sciences & data services librarian

• Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (read a review; read our copy; read free online)
• Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (read a review; read our copy; read free online)

Billy Cryer, web & discovery services Librarian

• Song of Kali by Dan Simmons (read a review; request a copy)

Judy Farrar, Archives & Special Collections Librarian

• The Alienist by Caleb Carr (read a review; read our copy)

Lorraine Heffernan, business & economics librarian

• Dracula by Bram Stoker (read a review; read our copy; read free online)
• The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty (read a review; read our copy)

Hilary Kraus, nursing & health librarian

• Carter & Lovecraft by Jonathan L. Howard (read a review; request a copy)
• Strange Practice by Vivian Shaw (read a review; request a copy)
• I’ll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara (trigger warning: true crime, rape and murder) (read a review; request a copy)

Olivia Miller, arts & humanities librarian

• The graphic novel series Locke & Key by Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez (content warning for violence, sexual assault, and physical abuse) (read a review; request a copy)

Kari Mofford, undergraduate & user services librarian

• Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury (read a review; request a copy)
• Coma by Michael Crichton (read a review; request a copy)
• Can You Survive the Zombie Apocalypse? by Max Brallier (read a review; request a copy)

Susan Raidy-Klein, collection development & acquisitions Librarian

• “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Cask of Amontillado” by Edgar Allan Poe (read a review; read our copy; read free online)
• “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” by Washington Irving (read a review; read in our copy of the anthology American Gothic Tales; read free online)

Matt Sylvain, systems and digital services librarian

• Passing Strange by Joseph A. Citro (read a review; request a copy)

The Science Fiction Book Club team recommends A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny (read a review; read our copy) and Lovecraft Country by Matt Ruff (read a review; request a copy), both of which we read last year. Heather Tripp, video production specialist in University Marketing and one of our dedicated Science Fiction Book Club members, suggests Hannibal by Thomas Harris (read a review; request a copy).

The Science Fiction Book Club is ready for our second read of the semester: Connie Willis’ Blackout. The book centers around a group of Historians (yes, capital H) at Oxford in 2060 that travel back in time (as Historians do) to varying times and places in WWII England. Without spoiling too much, things don’t go as planned. This is actually the first of two volumes, so be prepared to want to read All Clear immediately after finishing this one.

Blackout and All Clear are part of Willis’ “Oxford Time Travel” universe, where many of her previous works, such as Doomsday Book and the short story “Fire Watch,” are set. If you enjoy this, you’ll have much more to explore! Willis is a prolific science fiction author, bearing the title of “Grand Master” by the Science Fiction Writers of America. She’s won numerous Hugo and Nebula Awards, including one of each for the combined work made up of Blackout and All Clear.

You can find Blackout at your local public library or through interlibrary loan.

We look forward to chatting with you about Blackout on Monday, November 5th at 1pm in Library 314.

The Science Fiction Book Club is excited to go backwards and forwards in time this semester! At our first meeting, we’ll discuss Michael Crichton’s Timeline. This book takes us to France (Dordogne, to be exact) during the Hundred Years War where a team of historians and archaeologists find themselves trapped thanks to quantum technology and the company financing their dig.

Michael Crichton was a prolific author and “entertainment giant.” He was probably most well-known for Jurassic Park. If you’ve ever read one of his books, his skill with writing technical details is obvious and can be explained by his degree in medicine. He published regularly until his untimely death in 2008 at the age of 66. Several books have been published posthumously, such as Dragon Teeth, and his work Westworld has taken on new life thanks to HBO.

You can find Timeline on reserve in our library, at your local public library, or through interlibrary loan.

We look forward to chatting with you about Timeline on Thursday, October 4^th at 12:30pm in Library 314.

Continuing on our Cinderella Summer theme, the Science Fiction Book Club is now reading Ash by Malinda Lo. Ash is a Cinderella retelling that leans more to fantasy than science fiction. As usual, Ash’s parents have died and she’s left with a Step Mother who’s not so great. Unlike most retellings, however, Ash’s love is not so predictable. This version acknowledges the weight of grief and brings LGBTQ representation into a stereotypically heteronormative story.

Considering Ash is Lo’s first novel, the fact it was nominated and placed on so many award lists is truly impressive. Some particularly noteworthy ones include being nominated for a Lambda Literary Award and the William C. Morris Debut YA Award. Lo keeps a thorough and informative blog on her website. If you dig deep enough you can find some gems such as a reflection on writing five years after Ash was published, a guide to researching for a “diverse” scifi/fantasy novel, and thoughts on self-rejection as a person from a marginalized group.

If you can’t tell from her blog, Lo has been very active in bringing attention to the fact young adult books have historically been very homogeneous. In 2011 she founded a website with fellow author Cindy Pon called Diversity in YA. While it’s currently on an indefinite hiatus, you can still look through their blog posts and statistics on the emerging representation in the genre.

You can find Ash at your local public library or through interlibrary loan.

We look forward to chatting with you about Ash on Wednesday, July 18th at 12pm in Library 314.