Reader’s Roundup: Monographic Musings & Reference Reviews Column Editor: Corey Seeman (Director, Kresge Library Services, Ross School of Business, University of Michigan) <cseeman@umich.edu> Twitter @cseeman Column Editor’s Note: It is a beautiful day in Ypsilanti, Michigan as I write this and enjoy the beautiful sunshine outside my window. Behind me is my pup Runyon, fast asleep on the chair in my home office and Cosmo the cat is asleep on the bed. There are days like this where the prospect of working remotely seems like a real luxury and a blessing. The classical music is playing from Detroit’s WRCJ 90.9 FM. It could seem like there is not a care in the world. However, as many of us know, what appears to be an idyllic picture might shield an alternative reality that is harder to navigate. Many people struggle with mental illnesses or have loved ones, friends, co-workers or neighbors who do the same. I bring this up because of the theme that developed in this issue’s review. I have always let my reviewers pick the books they would like to review and incorporate the finished reviews when the arrive back to me. So in many ways, the only themes to a typical column is chance and opportunity. But this time, the scope of our own mental issues comes into play very clearly. Included in these reviews are works encouraging us to incorporate mindfulness in your library, struggling with mental illness in the librarian profession, understanding and harnessing the culture of creativity and exploring the world of artificial intelligence. The common thread of these works captures one of the critical aspects of librarianship, creating a safe and nurturing environment for our patrons, our staff and our community. Maybe these works will fit in nicely on your personal bookshelf or your library collection. Our goal here is to help you find good ways to invest your collection budgets.
Charney, Madeline; Colvin, Jenny, and Moniz, Richard. Recipes for Mindfulness in Your Library: Supporting Resilience and Mindful Engagement. Chicago: ALA Editions, 2019. 978-08389-1783-1 paper. 132 pp. $49.99 Reviewed by Sally Ziph (Instruction/Reference Services Librarian, Kresge Library Services, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor) <sweston@umich.edu> Mindfulness practice has become popular in many circles from mental health to business and to education. The benefits of mindfulness are many, including personal resilience in stressful situations, better heart health, and even changed brain structure. And, according to this book’s authors, mindfulness can also be utilized in ways that support social justice efforts and community engagement. This book includes strategies and program ideas for academic and public libraries in the area of educating individuals to the benefits of mindfulness. There are fifteen chapters that are divided by the editors into four sections, including: Library as Hub, Innovative Services, Personal P r a c t i c e , a n d Te a c h i n g Research. Each section includes several chapters written by librarians and other professionals with library or yoga experience. Topics include meditation apps, reflective writing, journaling, and tools for helping students to overcome research anxiety.
The authors are all academic librarians at different schools and with different roles. Madeleine Charney Special thanks to my serves as a research services wonderful and patient Pictured here is Runyon hanging out in his dad’s home office. librarian at the University of reviewers who built this issue: Massachusetts Amherst. Jenny Kathleen Baril (Ohio Northern University), Janet Crum Colvin, MLS, is the assistant director for Outreach Services at (University of Arizona), Carolyn Filippelli (University of Arkansas Furman University Libraries. And Dr. Richard Moniz serves – Fort Smith), Julie Huskey (Tennessee State University), Jennifer as the director of library services at the Horry-Georgetown Matthews (Rowan University), and Sally Ziph (University of Technical College in South Carolina. Charney and Colvin also Michigan). I very much appreciate their efforts to share their share an interest in “contemplative pedagogy.” Colvin is a reviews with the broader library community. co-founder of the Contemplative Pedagogy Interest Group If you would like to be a reviewer for Against the Grain, please within ACRL. Moniz is the author of multiple books on library write me at <cseeman@umich.edu>. If you are a publisher and management and academic libraries. have a book you would like to see reviewed in a future column, Given the kind of stress that library staff (and everyone please also write me directly. You can also find out more about else) have been experiencing over the last two years during the Reader’s Roundup here — https://sites.google.com/view/ the pandemic, I definitely think mindfulness and its practices squirrelman/atg-readers-roundup. could be incorporated within library professional development Happy reading and be nutty! — Corey
26 Against the Grain / June 2022
and programming in valuable ways. Mindfulness has so many
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