The idea of setting aside one day each year to honor mothers was the suggestion of Anna Jarvis of Philadelphia.  On May 12, 1907 Anne held a memorial service for her late mother in Grafton, West Virginia.  She asked those in attendance to wear white carnations to celebrate her mother.  The observance sparked a trend across the nation and within 5 years nearly every state participated in the May celebration.  On May 9, 1914 President Woodrow Wilson declared Mother's Day a national holiday.  

Mother's Day is now celebrated in the United States on the 2nd Sunday in May.  Popular convention suggests wearing pink and red carnations to pay tribute to living mothers and a white carnation in rememberance of a mother who has died.

"Mother's Day." Entry 1236. Holidays, Festivals, and Celebrations of the World Dictionary. 2nd ed. 1997. 211.

"Mother's Day." The Folklore of American Holidays. 2nd ed. 1991. 280-281.

 

No more lugging books back and forth from the library to renew them.  Do it online!  From the library's home page, click on the "Renew Books (My Account)" link.  Then, enter your last name and library borrower i.d., which is on the back of your DePaul i.d. card and starts with 20511. Check the boxes next to the books you want to renew and click "renew."  It's that simple! 

 

*Jeltovski. "mf264." Morguefile.<http://tinyurl.com/d5ahx6>.

The term ides (idus in Latin) comes from the earliest Roman calendar and simply means the middle of the month.

For the Roman ruler Julius Caesar, the ides of any month would have been just another day. Only because of Shakespeare's tragedy, Julius Caesar, have the Ides of March in particular become inextricably linked with a sense of doom. In Act I, Scene 2, a fortune teller warns the dictator to beware the approaching ides. Too proud and arrogant, he fails to heed the warning. (Click to view a one minute video clip from the play.)

History records that Caesar was assassinated on March 15th (the Ides of March) in the year 44 BC as depicted in this painting by Vincenzo Camuccini:

 

Sources:

Brunner, Borgna. "The Ides of March". Infoplease. Retrieved March 10, 2009, from http://www.infoplease.com/spot/ides1.html.

Bunson, Matthew. Encyclopedia of the Roman Empire. Facts on File: New York, 2002. Available in print at Lincoln Park Library Reference

Theatre in Video is a database containing more than 250 definitive performances of the world's leading plays, including the BBC's Shakespeare series, in streaming video.

You may check out as many books as you need from DePaul and I-Share libraries! If you are an undergraduate student, you may keep books for 4 weeks.  Graduate students have 8 weeks, and faculty have 16 weeks to return or renew their items. DePaul Library  CDs, DVDs, and other media may be borrowed for one week, and you may  borrow up to two at a time.

Keeping track of your borrowed items (and renewing them when they come due) is easy. Click on the link to “Renew Books (My Account)” on the front page of the library web site—it’s the  first thing on our list of services on the left-hand side of the page.  Once you’ve logged in with your 14 digit Library Borrower ID (located on the back of your DePaul ID card), you should see a list of the items you’ve checked out.  Mark the items you wish to renew and click “Renew Selected Items."   

 

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/phonono/520421532/

You bet.  You can find what we have by searching the library catalog.  You can access the catalog a number of different ways, but one way to start you search is to click on the word “Find” in the middle of our page.  Next, click on the link that says, “Videos, Music & Images”.  You should see a list of helpful FAQs for finding films, and link to DePaul’s Library Catalog.

To find a specific film (e.g., Casablanca)
•    Type the title of the movie in the search box, and select 'Title' from the Search by menu.
•    Use the Quick Limits drop-down just below the search box to select "Films/videos/DVDs".

To find films on a topic (e.g., Japan)
•    Type your keyword(s) in the search box.
•    Use the Quick Limits drop-down just below the search box to select "Films/videos/DVDs".

DVDs and videocassettes are shelved on the first floor of the Lincoln Park campus library in the Media Viewing & Listening Room; swipe your DePaul ID to enter. At the Loop campus, you'll find video materials in the AudioVisual Room, DPC 10011. DePaul students, faculty and staff can check out up to two videos for a seven-day period.

If DePaul's copy is checked out, or we don't have the movie you are looking for, feel free to contact us by phone, email, or IM via our Ask A Librarian service, or just stop by the reference desk at any campus; we'll be glad to help you locate what you need.

We probably all have a little spam in at least one of our email inboxes--those unsolicted messages offering to boost our staminia or enhance various parts of our anatomies. But what does an offer from Tortoiseshell S. Factual for the "Cheapest AND The Best!!!!!" have in common with pork and ham in a can?

According to the OED, to "spam" is "To flood (a network, esp. the Internet, a newsgroup, or individuals) with a large number of unsolicited postings, or multiple copies of the same posting. Also intr.: to send large numbers of unsolicited messages or advertisements,"¹and cites the earliest usage for the verb as 1991 (although it applied to programing and not internet communications at the time).  Fortunately, page 3 of the introduction of Anti-Spam Measures: Analysis and Design provides us with a bit more background: 

"The eytmology of the word "spam" is, usually, explained by using an old skit from Monty Python's Flying Circus comedy program...In the sketch in question, a restaurant serves all its food with lots of Spam, which is canned meat and an acroymn for 'Shoulder of Pork and Ham.' The waitress repeats the word several times in describing how much Spam is in dishes on the menu.  When she does this, a group of Vikings in the corner start singing a chorus of "SPAM SPAM SPAM..." at increasing volunes in an attempt to drown out other conversations.  As 'unsolicited buld e-mail' disturbs Internet communication likewise, it was termed "spam."²

The wikipedia article on "Spam (electronic)" has a few more examples and a more detailed history.  You can also watch the orignal Monty Python skit on YouTube.  

 

¹ Spam, v. In the Oxford English Dictionary online. Retrieved December 5, 2008, from http://library.depaul.edu/CheckURL.aspx?address=http://dictionary.oed.com/entrance.dtl

² Schryen, G. (2007). Anti-Spam Measures: Analysis and Design. Berlin: Springer.

Photo credit: Galore, Janet. spam. 2006. <http://www.flickr.com>

The day after Thanksgiving has become recognized by retailers and shoppers alike as the official start of the Christmas shopping season, but why is it referred to as "Black Friday"?

One explanation offered frequently is that the expression refers to the day many retailers finally move out of the red, indicating losses, and into the black, representing profits. However, according to researchers at the American Dialect Society, the expression originated in Philadelphia and was first seen in print in the mid-1960s to describe the crush of pedestrians and bumper-to-bumper traffic that would descend on downtown to shop the day after Thanksgiving. This follows a long tradition of labeling any day of infamy or crisis as "black". It's only in the past few decades that a more positive, business-oriented connotation has been implied.

Often billed as the biggest shopping day of the year, in fact, Black Friday is not necessarily the day American retailers see the most dollars spent. According to the International Council on Shopping Centers, that title is usually claimed by the Saturday before Christmas.

 

Sources:  http://holiday.icsc.org
 http://www.americandialect.org

Well…no.  Of course not.  But we’ve all been there—we know how the stress builds up this time of year.  

We will, however, do our best to help you find what you need as quickly and efficiently as possible.  You just need to ask.  Stop by one of our reference desks, give us a call, email or IM.  We can even set up an appointment to sit down with you and show you, step by step, how to find what you are looking for.   Of course, you’ll still have to read and evaluate what you’ve found and organize your thoughts into a paper or presentation.  That’s where the Writing Center comes in:  appointments are available through November 18th at the 250 McGaw and 1620 Lewis Locations. This link will take you directly to the appointment page of the Writing Center: http://condor.depaul.edu/~writing/html/sched/index.html.
Drop-in appointments are also available at the Lincoln Park Library Outpost from 12-5 on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays and at the Loop Campus library from 12-6 on Mondays.  

Good luck!

(This was, by the way, a real question sent to Ask a Librarian.)