The BSC Library will observe these hours for the Thanksgiving holiday:
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!
The 2015 National Book Award winners were announced at a gala event in New York City on November 18. Add these books to your reading list!
Here’s the latest book from Dave Eggers, author of our Campus Read selection, The Circle.
Your Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever?
“Another startling leap into new territory . . . Here is a tale as tightly wound as an alarm clock. Told entirely in dialogue, it takes place on a deserted military base on the California coast. Thomas, its hero, has kidnapped an astronaut, Kev, and chained him to a post. . . Eggers has always been as elastic writer, but in Your Fathers he puts his language to the ultimate test. Thomas’ tone yaws from sincerity to creepy insinuation, capturing the abrupt shifts and feedback loops of delirium. Happily, however, Eggers never pushes his young hero over the edge. Thomas has done something at best ill-advised, at worse criminal. Thomas merely wants what we all want; an accounting. In this gripping and saddening book, Eggers has shown what happens when young men like him don’t get answers.” — John Freeman, Toronto Star
Check it out! eBook Collection (EBSCOhost)
*Note: This is a Canadian National Reading Campaign. We can learn a lot from our neighbors to the north.
Gloria Steinem’s new book, My Life on the Road, just arrived and is currently on the New Book shelf at the BSC Library. 
Gloria Steinem was featured in a video interview at last week’s ’60s Symposium. The presentation, The “Second Sex” Takes the Stage: a BSC Interview with Gloria Steinem, included commentary by North Dakotans Dr. Sheryl O’Donnell, Laurel Reuter, and Dina Butcher. Dr. Kimberly Crowley, Assistant Professor of English at BSC, moderated the discussion.
The finalists for the 2015 National Book Award have been announced in these categories: Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, and Young People’s Literature. The winners will be announced on November 18, 2015, at Cipriani Club 55 on Wall Street in New York City.
Excerpt from “The Looming Gamification of Higher Ed” by Kentaro Tomaya, (The Chronicle of Higher Education, October 29, 2015)
“In 2011 there was a loud buzz about gamification — the use of game elements such as point systems and graduated challenges for activities not usually considered games. An online game called Fold.it allowed people untrained in biochemistry to decode the protein structure of an AIDS-related enzyme … The author Jane McGonigal wrote about Quest to Learn, a New York charter school whose entire curriculum is gamified ….
Gamification proponents argue that today’s students are different. They have spent their entire lives surrounded by and using computers, video games … and all the other toys and tools of the digital age … They thrive on instant gratification and frequent rewards …
The problem is gamification’s premise. It suggests that we should capitulate to a generation of students who supposedly can’t muster interest and curiosity on their own … At the heart of this debate is a deep philosophical question about whether we should engage students where they are, or expect them to come with a well of intrinsic motivation.” Read entire article …
Interested in reading Jane McGonigal’s book? We have it at the BSC Library:
Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World (Call number: GV 1201.38 .M34 2011)
Read it! Read it! 