Hot Docs highlights interesting new documentaries we’ve recently added to our collection. Human Geography: Making Sense of Planet Earth (DVD 10629) is a four-disc series that introduces the new and developing field of human geography. Human geography fuses traditional geographic studies with the social sciences, developing an understanding of how human population spreads, transfers, and […]
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Forsooth! Happy Talk Like Shakespeare Day
Today is William Shakespeare’s 449th birthday, and accordingly, today is also Talk Like Shakespeare Day. This is an actual holiday that has been proclaimed in Chicago. We see no reason why it can’t be celebrated at the AU Library too. To celebrate the bard’s birthday on this most unusual but completely real holiday, consider coming […]
Continue readingHot Docs: The Uprising of ’34
Hot Docs highlights interesting new documentaries we’ve recently added to our collection. The Uprising of ’34 (DVD 10617) tells the story of a massive but largely unremembered textile worker strike from 1934. It was at the time the largest labor strike in the history of the United States and lasted for nearly a month, greatly […]
Continue readingFinals approach, and it’s too hot out, so have a free movie!
It’s 86 degrees in Washington right now. Wasn’t it just snowing a few weeks ago? As the semester rolls to a close and summer is bounding over the horizon, you probably need an excuse to stay in and relax. You’re in luck: we’re giving away another batch of digital copies of movies! This time, you […]
Continue readingArtist pushes Photoshop pushed to weird limits, turns rust into planets
The New Media Center is getting busy as we head into the second half of the semester, and a good number of our patrons are using Photoshop. The average user might use it to touch up a photo, add text, or do some graphic design work. But then there are the extreme outlier users like […]
Continue readingToday’s reminder to read: Even Jedis are illiterate
Media Services primarily deals with films, so even though we’re part of the American University Library, we don’t often get to talk about literacy and books. But once in a while, we get an opportunity to talk about both. Ryan Britt, an author at science fiction blog Tor.com, wrote a funny-but-deeply-concerning essay pointing out that […]
Continue readingHot Docs: The Boy Game
Hot Docs highlights interesting new documentaries we’ve recently added to our collection. The Boy Game (DVD 8955) views bullying from a gendered perspective. The film – only 16 minutes long – posits that the bullying epidemic is in part caused by social pressure among boys to conform to the resilient, tough gender norms common among […]
Continue readingA salute to “breaking the fourth wall”
“Breaking the fourth wall” is one of the riskiest tools in a filmmaker’s bag. As recently exemplified in Netflix’s version of House of Cards, taking a moment to recognize the audience or the limitations of the visual medium can work like gangbusters for comic or dramatic effect. It can also backfire and distract the audience […]
Continue readingHot Docs: Nuclear Savage
Hot Docs highlights interesting new documentaries we’ve recently added to our collection. Nuclear Savage (DVD 10606) puts a lens on the untold victims of nuclear testing. The effects of nuclear weaponry are well documented, yet few discuss the lives of the people intentionally exposed to radiation during nuclear weapons testing in the Pacific. The film […]
Continue readingHelp us figure out what this is
In the process of cleaning Media Services, we found this unusual… thing in one of our viewing rooms. It appears to be an end-table of sorts, but it goes up or down depending on the weight that’s on resting it. You can adjust the tension, but you can’t lock it at a particular height. We’re […]
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