Hutchins Library News Blog

We are closed for #LaborDay, but our electronic resources, including Access World News (Newsbank), are available remotely 24 hours, 7 days a week. Find the information you need most from the comfort of home all through the holiday. 

We will be open again regular hours on Tuesday, September 2, 2025.

Note: If you are off campus, you will need to log-in using your Berea College credentials and DUO to use our online resources. 

And while you are here, if you are interested in learning a bit more about Labor Day, we have a blog post highlighting some books and resources about Labor Day and work that may be of interest. 

Welcome to “From Our Shelves” where I read a book from our library collections and write a short review about it. This week I am featuring Verified: how to think straight, get duped less, and make better decisions about what to believe online (link to library catalog) by Mike Caulfield and Samuel S. Wineburg. 

This book is an essential guide everyone using the internet needs to have handy. This book teaches how to be skeptical of what you see online and how to evaluate it. In a time when the internet and social media are full of scams, click bait, rage bait, and other deceptions, this book gives you the tools to separate the crap from the few good things that remain. 

Caulfield, one of the two coauthors, created the SIFT method (Stop, Investigate, Find other coverage, Trace the claim). This is one of the research methods we teach here in library instruction to empower our students to evaluate what they find online and act accordingly. Their lessons are relatively easy and teach you how to assess quickly, so you can find the information you need and navigate the web efficiently. 

Locally, this book may be of interest in writing classes that require research. It may also be of interest for some journalism classes. 

If you read this book, or any other book in our collections or just any interesting book, feel free to leave a comment and let us know. 

Our library director is pleased to announce the return of “FREE TEXTBOOKS” for fall 2025. She writes: 

FREE TEXTBOOKS AVAILABLE!

Welcome back to campus!

At the end of last semester, students left behind a large number of textbooks in the residence halls. We've gathered them, sorted them by subject, and placed them on top of the reference shelves on the main floor of Hutchins Library.

Take what you need—no cost, no catch!

Reuse books and save money!

Need our hours? Find them here:

Https://berea.libcal.com/hours  

Did you pick up any books?

Let us know how much you saved!

Take our quick survey:

https://berea.libwizard.com/f/Free_Textbook_Savings_2025 

The library, including the library annex, will be closed tomorrow, Friday, August 8, 2025 so the building can be fumigated. 

We will reopen on Monday, August 11, 2025.

You can check our hours at any time by visiting the library website and using this link: https://berea.libcal.com/hours. 

Welcome to another edition of “From Our Shelves” where I read and review a book from our collections. This week's featured title is Barons: money, power, and the corruption of America's food industry (link to library catalog) by Austin Frerick. The book includes a foreword by Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation (link to library catalog). 

This book is the real life account of seven robber baron dynasties and the empires they created. The book does not skimp on the details and gives us a solid and strong picture of these baron dynasties and how they control not just the American food systems but also food systems around the world. 

The men, and they are mainly men, like to portray themselves as self-made men, but that is often far from the truth. They may have started out with a smart idea, concept, and/or product, but they did not do it all on their own. They had various forms of help along the way. Some ways were legal, others not so much. Often, the American government and U.S. taxpayers helped pay for their exploitative and often morally questionable successes. In one case, there is even a Nazi fortune involved. 

The book is very easy to read. Corporate history books can often be long and dense, written for specialists. This book is written for regular secular readers. It explains concepts with ease, keeps jargon to a minimum, and it has a good narrative pace.

Locally, the following subject areas may want to consider this book for their classes: 

• General Studies.
• Peace and Social Justice.
• Political Science.
• Economics.
• Business Administration.
• Agriculture. 

Juneteenth celebrates the emancipation of enslaved people in the United States. June 19th, 1865 was the day federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas to announce emancipation. Though the federal holiday started in 2021, many communities have been celebrating it and continue to do so. 

Here are a few books from our collections you can read. Title links lead to the catalog record so you can locate the book.  

• Ralph Ellison's novel, Juneteenth, may be of interest. If you've read his Invisible Man, you may want to try this next.

• On Juneteenth by Anette Gordon-Reed. 

• How the word is passed : a reckoning with the history of slavery across America by Clint Smith. 

• Go back and get it : a memoir of race, inheritance, and intergenerational healing by Dionne Ford. 

Want to find some scholarly articles or other periodicals? Try one of our databases which you can access from our website. Please note: if you are off campus, you will need to authenticate access with your Berea College credentials and DUO. If you would like assistance using our databases or any other of our resources, you can visit or contact us at the Reference Desk. Our contact information is on our website where you can also chat virtually with the Reference Desk and set up an appointment with a librarian for in-depth research. 

• Academic Search Complete

• America: History and Life.

• J-Stor. 

• Ethnic Newswatch.

Here are some free online resources that may also be of interest: 

• The Wikipedia entry for Juneteenth. It provides a history overview and list of references. 

• Congressional Fact Sheet for Juneteenth, from the Congressional Research Service. You will find a link to the PDF document at the site. 

• An article from the Library of Congress. 

• A digital toolkit with various resources for Juneteenth from the National Museum of African American History and Culture, part of the Smithsonian. This is where I found the graphic for Juneteenth. 

• Some resources from PBS to learn about Juneteenth.

Finally, from now to the end of the month, we have a small library display of books with a slideshow that you can come view during library regular hours. 

Welcome to another edition of “From Our Shelves” where I read a book from our collections and write a short review. 

This week I read War Made Invisible: how America hides the hidden toll of its military machine (link to library catalog) by Norman Solomon. In this book the author discusses in detail how the United States stays in a continuous state of war, but its citizens have no idea it is happening. The US Government uses all kinds of propaganda and subterfuges to cover up the constant warfare, and the American media is complicit in the process. This is something that both political parties maintain when they are in power. 

The book mainly stays within the late 20th Century and into the 21st Century. The role of 9/11 in ramping up the American war machine is prominent, but the United States was already deep in constant warfare well enough before 9/11.The narrative in the book is not fully linear; the author often jumps back and forth in time. Overall, the military industrial complex is very much alive, well, and wealthy in the United States. The book is not an easy read at times, but it is worth reading. It is well written and accessible. Locally, classes in political science may be interested in adding it to their reading lists. 

May 22 is Harvey Milk Day, a day to honor the life and legacy of the first openly gay politician in California and civil rights leader and activist. Sadly, he was assassinated by a political rival in 1978, but his legacy and contributions live on. 

If you would like to learn more, here are some library resources that may be of interest: 

• An Archive of Hope: Harvey Milk's Speeches and Writings (e-book). 
• Harvey Milk: his lives and death by Lillian Faderman (biography, e-book). 
• The Right Side of History: 100 Years of LGBTQI Activism (essay collection, print edition). See the essay “The Mayor of Castro Street.” You can find the book in the General Collection Stacks (2nd floor) by call number 323.326 B873r 2015. 
• Milk (2009, film). This is the biopic of his life with Sean Penn portraying Harvey Milk. You can find it in our DVD Collection in the main floor under call number DVD 791.437 M644 2009. 
• The Times of Harvey Milk (2004, Documentary). You can find it in the DVD Collection under call number DVD 364.152 T583 2004 Discs 1-2.

If you want to find and read articles on Harvey Milk, LGBTQ+ topics, and other civil rights issues, the following databases may be of interest. You can find our databases on our library website via the “Databases A-Z” link: 

• Academic Search Complete
• Alt Press Watch
• J-Stor 
• Project Muse

Resources from the open web: 

• Harvey Milk on Wikipedia. 
• Harvey Milk Day on Wikipedia.
• The Harvey Milk Foundation. 
• The Mayor of Castro Street. This is the 1982 biography written by Randy Shilts. I was a bit surprised our library does not have it at the moment, however, you can borrow it online via the Internet Archive. 

Notes: Please note that to access our library's electronic resources off campus, you will need campus authentication (your Berea College username, password, and DUO authentication). You can also access our electronic resources if you visit the library in person. 

If you need research assistance, you can always stop by the reference desk, use the chat widget on the library website, or make an appointment with one of the librarians from the library website. 

To borrow books on Internet Archive, you will need an account with Internet Archive. If you do not have one, you can set up a free account with Internet Archive. I have one, and I do use it. Just click on their “Sign Up/Log In” link to get started. 

Welcome to another edition of “From our shelves” where I read a book from our collection and write a short review about it. This week I am reviewing Antifa: the antifascist handbook by Mark Bray.

The term “fascism” seems to be in the news constantly. We also often hear the terms “anti-fascist” or “antifa.” If you want to learn more about what antifa is and its history, this book is a pretty good primer that goes over the history of anti-fascism, Antifa, to today. The history starts around the 1920s with the rise of Hitler and Mussolini then the author takes us through to the 20th century and into the 21st century. 

The book has six chapters including history of the movement, interviews with anti-fascists from around the world, though the focus is a bit Eurocentric, tactics and philosophy of the movement. The book offers an accessible text, and unlike other texts on the topic this one does not get bogged down in theory and jargon. It also includes a list of resources for further reading. 

You can find the print edition of the book Antifa: the anti-fascist handbook in the library's General Collection Stacks (second floor) under call number: 320.533 B827a 2017 (link to catalog record).