‘A new awareness of the power of poetry’

Following on from the poet Christopher Reid’s recent triumph at the Costa Book Awards (blogged here last week), I read a good article in the Sunday Times, A good poem is better for you than pills or therapy. Written by Daisy Goodwin as an introduction to a regular weekly poem in the Sunday Times, she writes that many readers have written to Reid saying his book, The Scattering, about the death of his wife, has helped them in their own bereavement:

Although A Scattering had at the time of the award sold only around 1,000 copies (about average for a volume of poetry), Reid had received many letters from readers saying it had helped them or that they had given it to a friend who had suffered a bereavement: “Even though my poems record my own experience, which is utterly singular, I think that they serve as a focus for others. I think poetry is one particular form of meditation.”

People turn to poetry at times of great emotion because it is a way of ordering their thoughts — as Coleridge said, finding poems to be “the best words in the best order”.

She goes on to list some poems which are known to be particularly effective treatments for other difficult life events.

We also learn that Reid’s wife, Lucinda Gane, played Miss Mooney in the BBCs Grange Hill.

The Scattering was not only a triumph for Reid, but also for the small publisher Areté run by fellow poet Craig Raine. It was the publisher’s first book, having published the excellent literary triquarterly, Areté,  since 1999.

Cambridge Libraries widget for Facebook, iGoogle

Users of Facebook, iGoogle or CamTools can now add a Cambridge Libraries Widget to their pages. The Widget, which takes only seconds to install, allows you to search, view your library profile, view and renew loans, and view and cancel requests within the above three web applications.

The Widget covers only Voyager libraries so, unfortunately, you cannot use it to renew or reserve items at Homerton College Library. However, remember that you can access your Homerton account online (and search our full catalogue) using our Heritage Online system.

UPDATE: I should have mentioned that:

• This Widget is a product of the Arcadia Programme, developed by the University Library and the University’s CARET (Centre for Applied Research in Educational Technologies).
• The Arcadia Project blog is worth reading  if you are interested in web application projects and the creative ideas in this direction being developed for the University.
• The University Library Toolbox, from where the Libraries Widget is linked to above, is a useful growing collection of browser toolbars, reference managment systems, search plugins and the like.

How not to write a thesis

Don’t know if the article is any good, but this headline caught my eye in this week’s Times Higher Education Supplement: How not to write a thesis. Subtitled ‘Tara Brabazon gives her top ten tips for doctoral failure’, it’s all online at the above link, but we also have the hard copy of the journal in the library.

Costa Book of the Year 2009

Christopher Reid has won the overall Costa Book of the Year Award for his collection of poems, A scattering. The poems were written during his wife’s death from brain tumour; they are said to be ‘unbearably emotional’. Josephine Hart, a novelist and one of the judges, said the book was ‘good bordering on great’ and when she said great she was talking Yeats or Browning. Poetry is not a great seller: A scattering has sold fewer than 1,000 copies since publication. Poetry also rarely wins the Costa Prize, this honour being restricted to Ted Hughes (twice), Seamus Heaney and Douglas Dunn.

Besides poetry, there are four other categories in the Costa Award. The category winners, including Christopher Reid, were announced earlier this month. For the other four categories they were:

• Novel: Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín
• First Novel: Beauty by Raphael Selbourne
• Biography: The strangest man: the hidden life of Paul Dirac, quantum genius by Graham Farmelo.
• Children’s Book: The ask and the answer by Patrick Ness

Tóibín’s Brooklyn was the favourite to win the overall prize. The library has ordered many of this year’s Costa books. So far we have received winner Christopher Reid’s A scattering and first novel Raphael Selbourne’s Beauty and a few others.

The Guardian: Christopher Reid wins Costa book prize.

Computing Service news

The university Computing Service News Round-up site has a new News Round-up for January 2010.

Carol Ann Duffy and poetry at Homerton

The Swearing-in Ceremony for an Honorary Fellowship for Ms Carol Ann Duffy (the current Poet Laureate) will take place at Homerton this Wednesday, 6.00pm, in the Combination Room. Note that attendance is by invitation only.

At the ceremony there will also be a presentation to the winner of the Elizabeth Fletcher Prize for Poetry. The Prize was open to all students at Homerton; 24 entries were received.

Maria Nikolajeva, Professor and Scholar of Literature at the Faculty of Education and one of the judges, writes about the Elizabeth Fletcher Prize on her blog. A blog where she has also documented, over the last two years, the ups and downs of her journey from her previous home in Sweden to her post here at Cambridge.

University Library research skills courses

The UL has released this term’s research skills courses—free courses on how to make best use of the many resources it offers. Note that some of the courses must be booked (via the website above), notably the 45-minute library tour and How to do a literature search.

These others do not need booking::

• 19th-century resources
• How not to plagiarise
• Get cited: publishing your thesis with DSpace
• Maps and cartographic resources
• Taming Google: making the web work for you

You can also download handouts used for the courses from the website.

Daily newspapers in the library

You may or may not know that the Library now subscribes to three daily newspapers (Monday-Friday editions only) during Full Term. As well as the Financial Times and The Guardian, starting this term, in response to requests, we have added The Times.

The newspapers are for reference only. They are kept in the ground floor reading area; please read them there. Do not take them to other locations in the Library. We keep old copies of the newspapers for reference in our Journals Collection on the top floor.

Note that a range of newspaper searchable archives are subscribed to by the University via the eresources@cambridge portal including the Financial Times and The Times Digital Archive. Also, the newspapers’ own websites (linked above) usually have all current content free of charge (except for the Financial Times) but they do not necessarily contain a comprehensive or freely accessible archive.

We also subscribe to several journals of general interest including The Economist, The Spectator, Prospect, BBC Music Magazine, Gramophone, TLS: The Times Literary Supplement, and The New York Review of Books. As with the newspapers, they are for reference only to be read in the Library.

Computing Service – free courses during Lent Term 2010

The University Computing Service has released a timetable of instructor-led courses for Lent Term 2010. The courses are FREE for all University students and staff and cover a very wide range of computer applications. You are required to book a place, via each course’s web page. Self-taught course material is also available for loan or online. These are included in a separate alphabetical list of all courses, selectable by theme.

System upgrade – no access to catalogue

Apologies for the late announcement. Our Library Management System (Heritage) is being upgraded today, Wednesday 16 December, starting from around 11.00am until late in the afternoon.

There is, therefore, no access to the system (and that includes us). We cannot be more specific about when our sytem will be up and running again, but it should be by the end of this afternoon, at the latest, if all goes well.

If you are searching for an item you can use Newton bearing in the mind the usual provisos that Newton does not contain our full catalogue and cannot indicate if our items are available or on loan. To search just our catalogue on Newton click on the ‘Colleges A-N’ catalogue and pick Homerton College in the ‘Limit To:’ drop-down list.