Issue 34, Volume 121
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Music festival shows Appalachian heritage Evan Ford Contributor Students walking down Pedestrian Walkway on Monday had the opportunity to experience local background music. The UT Appalachian Heritage Festival featured student and local musicians playing music native to the region. Throughout the morning, banjos, fiddles and other acoustic instruments could be heard picking out classic bluegrass tunes. In addition, UT hosted a National Symposium on Multicultural Music, which added to the soundtrack of the students’ walk to class. “The Appalachian Heritage Fest is a celebration of the art of the region, so we have music, we have craft fairs, storytellers,” said Heather Floden, general books manager at the UT Bookstore and creator of the festival. “I moved here a few years ago, and kind of fell in love with the history of the area, and learned that there isn’t really a class on campus (on it),” Floden said. “I thought I’d get something started.” This is the third year for the festival, expanding this year from one day to both Monday and Tuesday. Monday included mainly music and storytellers throughout the day, as vendors were hesitant to come out in the rain. Today, however, Pedestrian Walkway should be lined with local craft vendors and merchants, offering students everything from homemade candles to handcrafted jewelry. “I think it’s great they have music going on around campus,” said Robert Dillingham, sophomore in business administration and musician
who stopped by on his way to class to “check out some bluegrass.” He paused under a tree to avoid the rain, enjoying a local quartet’s rendition of the classic folk song “I’ve Been All Around This World.” In the gloomy October weather, the music seemed to brighten students’ moods. Students hurrying to class smiled as they walked by under their umbrellas and raincoats. Several stopped to listen in breaks between or after class, and were hesitant to leave. “I love to see people stopping and chilling, even in the rain,” Dillingham said. “It’s really nice.” Sean McCollough, who teaches musicology classes on Appalachian Music and History of Rock, was also on Pedestrian Walkway to enjoy the music and support a past student who was playing banjo in the festival. He commented that most students don’t make the connection between the university and Appalachia. “I guess because it’s (in) a city and we often associate rural areas with Appalachia, but honestly we’re right smack dab in the middle of Appalachia,” McCollough remarked. “We’re the largest university in the southern Appalachian mountains, so I personally think it’s important to celebrate the culture of the area.” Floden agreed, observing that a lot of people do not know the history of the region. The festival offers a way for people to stop and learn. “We get a lot of questions at the festival,” Floden said. Bundled up against the cold and rain yesterday, Floden was excited about today’s phase, which includes plenty of craft vendors and a favorable weather forecast.
File Photo • The Daily Beacon
Nancy Jones shows a sample of wool to participants at the 2nd Annual Appalachian Heritage Festival in the UC Plaza on Monday, Oct. 17, 2011.
OUTreach utilizes flash mob for ‘Coming Out Day’ orange and white shirts and passing out small gift bags containing information about the OUTreach Center, National Coming Out Day Although National Coming Out Day is tech- and the upcoming OUTstanding 2012 seminar. nically on Thursday, UT is going to be celebrat- The bags will also contain candy. This is not the first year that the UT LGBT ing two days early. In order to raise awareness and appreciation community has celebrated Coming Out Day. for those in the LGBT community coming out While there was no celebratory activity last year, and publicly identifying their sexuality and/or Ford said that the center coordinated a similar gender identity, the OUTreach LGBT & Ally activity in 2010. Ford also said that the planning and coordiResource Center will be coordinating its own “Big Orange Coming Out Day” today at 12:30 nating of the event originated in the “OUT to Lunch” Brown Bag Talks, which the center holds p.m. from 12:15 to 1:15 p.m. every Wednesday. “It’s just a day where “We got input from you can either come out students during one or celebrate people who of our ‘OUT to Lunch’ have come out,” said programs about what Jesse Ford, resource centhey wanted to do to ter director. “It’s just sort celebrate Coming Out of a visibility day.” Day, and this was the National Coming Out most popular idea,” Day is celebrated every Ford said. year on Oct. 11. The date Ford also encourcorresponds to the date of aged anyone interestthe 1987 National March ed in helping out to do on Washington for so. Those interested Lesbian and Gay Rights, can simply show up at which had a half a million Pedestrian Walkway participants and was the at 12:30 p.m. wearing second demonstration of orange and white. that nature and magniThe flash mob is tude. expected to last about While the civil aware15 minutes. ness day will be celebrat“Everyone is weled on a national level come,” Ford said. “We Thursday, OUTreach hope people will come wanted to participate and show their supbefore the Fall Break port and celebrate began in order to maxiNational Coming Out mize awareness. Day with us.” “(It’s) not on the actuTara Sripunvoraskul • The Daily Beacon Coleman Garner, al Coming Out Day, unforYodi Justice, senior in psychology, cel- senior in psychology, tunately, but it’s close to it,” Ford said. “I don’t ebrates during a flash mob on Coming is one of the students think if we did a flash mob Out Day on Oct 11, 2012 to raise that plans to participate in the flash mob. on the first day of Fall awareness of LGBT issues. “It’s an effective Break it would be very way to raise awareness,” Garner said. “It gives successful.” OUTreach will be holding a flash mob to cel- people a sense of community. It also sends a ebrate. While a flash mob traditionally consists message that we’re not alone.” Paige Rupe, junior in public relations, also of people gathering together and conducting what appears to be a spontaneous performance, hopes to attend the celebration. “I think it’s really important just to have some such a choreograph dance or skit, the OUTreach sort of strong basis to get that information out,” flash mob will be a bit more subtle. “We’re just going to keep with a visibility said Rupe. “Not just information, but the idea of theme,” Ford said. “We’re not going to have … the whole day. … And a message of equality and tolerance and acceptance. I think that’s a very any amplified music or things like that.” Those participating will be wearing matching important thing to have, especially now.”
Justin Joo
Staff Writer
Tia Patron• The Daily Beacon
The Commons continue with construction on Oct. 1. Hodges Library now offers a program that displays the location of a book on a map so students can find a book faster within the Stacks.
New maps simplify library Mollie Swayne Staff Writer If you’ve ever gotten lost or frustrated in the Stacks at Hodges Library, help is at hand. Hodges now offers StackMap, a program that displays a map highlighting the shelf on which a desired book is stored during a search in the library catalog. David Atkins, Head of Resource Sharing and Document Delivery at Hodges, is to thank for this program. He discovered the product at an American Library Association conference over a year ago and has been working with fellow librarians and staff to introduce it at UT. StackMap has been available for more than a month and early reports show that it is used in one out of every three searches in the library catalog to find a book. According to Atkins, the way that Hodges Library is laid out makes it “doubly difficult” for students to find books unaided. Students have reported in surveys that they spend up to 20 to 30 minutes trying to locate a book in the Stacks. “Just finding a book with the Library of Congress classification is not easy. And then you ... compound that fact by having hundreds and hundreds of thousands of books in shelves that aren’t really laid out that logically. You could be searching for a call number and then you realize you need to be on the totally opposite end of the floor,” Atkins
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said. “If you’ve ever been on the fourth floor in particular—that floor is huge.” Many students can offer stories confirming the labyrinthine nature of the library. Daysha Henderson, freshman in forestry, said she once spent 30 minutes looking for what she needed. Her trouble stemmed from confusion concerning the organization of the library. “(Finding something) is complicated, very, very complicated. It goes by numbers or something ... you have to find a letter first, but then the letters are spread out throughout the floors and then even on the floor it’s supposed to be on ... I’m not familiar with the system of how you’re supposed to find books,” Henderson said. When Henderson learned of the new StackMap program, she was optimistic it would be helpful, but cautiously so. “It sounds a bit helpful, yeah. At least you know what floor to be on. But, unless they’re telling you, ‘As soon as you get off the elevator or the stairs, right, left, straight, this and that,’ then it’ll still probably take ... a good 15 minutes or so to find it,” Henderson said. Luckily for students that continue to get lost, Atkins has further plans to demystify the library. Atkins said that students will soon be able to look up books and get a map using their smartphones, not only using title, author or subject, but by call number as well. Atkins expects a usable prototype of the system sometime this week.
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