Get a sneak peek at the new books coming into Leddy Library by visiting the New Arrivals shelf behind the Reference Help Centre on the main floor. Browse by subject.  See what’s new. Find your new favourite book.

Dr. Bastable teaches for the History Department at the University of Windsor. He has taught about wars and revolutions at universities in Canada and the United States. He finds The War of 1812 particularly interesting for how it is remembered.

Bicentennial commemorations of the War of 1812 are underway in Canada and the United States. This summer will see military re-enactments, warships and tall ships visits, plaques unveiled and commemorative ceremonies and events held. But remembering and commemorating this long-ago war can be tricky. Much attention is given to which side won, but there are other important questions too. How did the various people at the time see the war? Was it a popular war? Was it a civil war? Was it glorious or a war full of terrible suffering and atrocities? How should we of 2012 remember the War of 1812?  The War of 1812 was a turning point in Canadian, American and First Nations histories. Yet, like our recent war in Afghanistan, assessing the War of 1812 and deciding how to remember and commemorate it is a problem. The books recommended here are chosen to help us make those judgments. They also show how fascinating and important the War of 1812 remains.

Click here to read Dr. Bastable’s Overview of the War of 1812
Donald R. Hickey, Don’t Give Up the Ship! Myths of the War of 1812
Hickey aims to dispel many myths, misconceptions and misunderstandings about different aspects of the war and how it is remembered. Much of the book answers specific questions, in a format which allows readers to open the book at any page. The questions range from the trivial (Did Brock have a fiancée?) to the interesting (Why did the British burn Washington? Is the role of Laura Secord exaggerated? What are the true origins of the Star Spangled Banner? Who were the most hated men in the war? ) to the weighty (Who were the real War Hawks? How decisive was the Battle of the Thames? Who were the best generals? Is Tecumseh over-rated? Did the Canadian militia save Canada/Did the American militia save the United States?) This is an entertaining and thought-provoking book on the myths and memories of The War of 1812.
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Donald Graves, Field of Glory; The Battle of Crysler’s Farm, 1813 is a fast-paced battle-field narrative of a crucial battle in the war in which the British defeated a much larger American force on the move towards Montreal. This victory kept the St. Laurence River open to British transportation and ended any American hopes of winning the war. Graves tells a gripping story with lots of fighting and heroes.
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In The Civil War of 1812: American Citizens, British Subjects, Irish Rebels and Indian Allies, Alan Taylor argues that the United States invaded Canada to save itself from bitter internal partisanship on the one hand, and to defend the young and fragile Republic from the perceived ambition of imperial Britain to destroy it on the other hand. Taylor calls it a civil war in that it created new tensions and exacerbated old ones in American society: between Patriots from Loyalists, Irish Americans and Irish soldiers serving in the British army, the anti-war north eastern America and the pro-war west and the south.
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George Sheppard, Plunder, Profit and Paroles: A Social History of the War of 1812 in Upper Canada is a ground-breaking revision of the war. Sheppard shows how deeply divided the population of Upper Canada was before the war and how very unpopular the war was amongst Upper Canadians. He takes the reader as close as possible to the terrible social and economic impact of the war on ordinary Upper Canadians. The memory of the War of 1812 as a glorious war of national unity, of heroic acts and mythical battles was imposed upon that conflict long after it had come to an end.
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R. David Edmunds, Tecumseh and the Quest for Indian Leadership takes the reader into the world of First Nations and the failed efforts of Tecumseh to forge a confederation ofall the tribes to defend their land and culture against the incursions of the land-hungry and expansionist-minded Americans. Edmunds combines and good story with a realistic analysis of Tecumseh’s struggles to create an Indian confederation state. Fist Nations warriors proved essential in the successful defence of Upper Canada during the war, but were unable to create their own state when peace came.

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We’ve uploaded a series of images from a document commemorating the Library at Assumption University in 1957. It looks very Mad Men, no?

• Five Books for October:  Five Books You Shouldn’t Read While Drinking Any Liquid (because it will come out your nose) by John Wing
• Five Books for November: Five Books You Should Read about the Arab-Israeli Dispute by Jonathan Nehmetallah
• Five Books for December: Five Great Books of Prose Poetry from Dr. Susan Holbrook
• Five Books for January: Five Young Adult Novels You Should Read by Melanie Santarossa
• Five Books for February: Five Books You Should Read for Black History Month by Dr. Mohamed Hassan Mohamed
• Five Books for March: Five Graphic Novels You Should Read by Dr Dale Jacobs
• Five Books for April: Five Books You Should Read on Getting Together, Changing the World, and Caring About Your City by Justin Langlois
• Five Books for May: Five books on why and how games make us and the world better by Mita Williams
• Five Books for June: Five Great Novels from 2010 to Read this Summer on a Porch, Patio, Plane, Train or Beach by Heidi Jacobs

A citizen scientist is a volunteer who collects and/or processes data as part of a scientific inquiry. The roots of citizen science go back to the very beginnings of modern science itself.

Our display features a number of projects that make use of citizen participation in data collection and refinement:

• The Audubon Christmas Bird Count
• Nature Watch (WormWatch, Frog Watch, Ice Watch, PlantWatch)
• Zooniverse (GalaxyZoo, MoonZoo, OldWeather, SolarStormWatch)
• Phylo
• Sharkrunners
• FoldIt
• Gulf Spill Oil Tracker

Our display also highlights scientific papers that report on the growing number of citizen science projects:

• Citizen Science: Can Volunteers Do Real Research?
• Thinking scientifically during participation in a citizen‐science project
• Marine invasive species: validation of citizen science and implications for national monitoring networks
• Citizen science as a tool for conservation in residential ecosystems

Oh yes, and we have books!

In the middle of the display are two wordclouds dedicated to data.

As a library, we are re-thinking how we can host data so that it might act as a platform for work by both scientists and citizen scientists.

On the floor of the display is only a sample of the full 22 pages needed to print out all of the authors of Galaxy Zoo2.

The display consists of fifteen graphic panels, each 54″ wide by 42″  high, and a slightly larger introductory panel, and was constructed to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Québec. WMU faculty and graduate students selected images and wrote text for the exhibit, and designer Joe Hines oversaw design and fabrication of the panels.

Check it out – you’re sure to find something of interest. Here are some books from the display that caught my eye:

And if you need a temporary distraction from inconvenient truths,  our co-op student Harjinder Rana, with assistance from Dino Spagnuolo, have created a wonderful shrine to the FIFA World Cup.

The Leddy Library has an extensive collection of graphic novels and comic collections on the third floor of the Leddy Library’s main building in the call number ranges of PN 6700 – PN 6790. Highlights of this collection are currently being showcased in the front lobby display of the Leddy Library. The display was put together by Dr. Heidi Jacobs and Dino Spagnuolo.

In the display case across from the Williams Cafe, more sequential art is featured through the work in the student assignments from Dr. Dale Jacob’s English 452 class on the Contemporary Graphic Novel.

And speaking of comics, the Leddy Library now offers a new online resource : Underground and Independent Comics, Comix and Graphic Novels

Beginning with the first underground comix from the 1960’s to the works of modern sequential artists, this collection will contain more than 75,000 pages of comics and graphic novels, along with 25,000 pages of interviews, criticism, and journal articles that document the continual growth and evolution of this artform  At present there are 23,199 pages in 130 series and 355 publications

[The collection includes one of my personal favourite comic series: Love and Rockets. Yay! - mw]

There are two beautiful displays gracing the Leddy Library at the moment. In front of Williams Coffee Pub is “A Look At Windsor’s Past” with images from The Walkerville Times.

And in the Leddy Library Lobby, there is a display commemorating National Social Work Week.

National Social Work Week is celebrated by the Canadian Association of Social Workers and each year they address a particular theme with this year’s being poverty.