Websites to help you find the right book: Part 1

Welcome to the summer term! Hopefully you have found some books to read for fun and have picked up books you need for classes. We know finding the right book to help you with an assignment or to read during your homework breaks can be challenging when there are so many options. Ask one of the SWFC librarians for recommendations or research help and don't be afraid to look outside-the-box!

This week, we're going to look at an easy, fun way to continue your research when you have found an author you like: Literature Map.
You simply type in the name of an author and it will bring you to a "map" of related authors. The closer the name is to your search term, the more relevant the person. You can also click on the author to pull up more information or run a new search.

To demonstrate how it works, we ran a search on an author a student who is interested in business or leadership may look up: John C. Maxwell (SWFC also has several of his books).
Our search provided us with this map:

You can see that it suggested Anthony Robbins, Andy Stanley, and John Eldredge as the closest matches.

Go to http://www.literature-map.com/ to try it yourself!

Summer reading

Break week has started and summer term will be starting up soon, making this a great time to start reading books you've put off reading all year. Summer reading can include popular bestsellers or literary classics.

You can use the chart "Which Books Should You Read This Summer?" as a fun way to decide what to pick up. It can be found here at The Daily Infographic.

*SWFC libraries have a great selection of fiction and nonfiction books (including the ones on the chart). Ask one of our librarians what to read if you need some suggestions!

Wisdom for Commencement

Congratulations to SWFC graduates who will be walking this week! You will hear some wise words at commencement, but here are some excerpts from other speeches given by authors and journalists to take with you...

"Remember that hope is not a gift given to us, hope is a gift that we give to others.” - Elie Wiesel (Author, Holocaust Survivor): Wagner College, NY

“I ask you to do two contradictory things—honor difference and commonality. There is a way to do both. Don’t assume that you…stand at the center of the universe. It isn’t true and it never helps.” - Anne Fadiman (Author): Trinity College, CT

“You must bite the hand that feeds you. You are perhaps always told the opposite of this…But from time to time, I tell you, you must." - Jamaica Kincaid (Novelist): Grinell College, IA

“The voices of conformity speak so loudly. Don’t listen to them. No one does the right thing out of fear. If you ever utter the words, ‘We’ve always done it that way,’ I urge you to wash out your mouth with soap.” - Anna Quindlen (Author, Journalist): Bucknell University, PA

Author Neil Gaiman advised students at the University of the Arts, “The things I did because I was excited and wanted to see them exist in reality have never let me down, and I’ve never regretted the time I’ve spent on any of them. The problems of failure are hard. The problems of success can be harder, because nobody warns you about them.”
Watch the video of Gaiman's full speech by clicking here.