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Library News

Katherine Wolf, Librarian

How God Becomes Real book cover
Recommended Reading: Social Inequality

April 2024 – Explore the issues of American poverty and social inequality with titles selected to support SAR’s upcoming programs in April and May. Library copies of the books featured in the Social Inequality lecture series are available: 10,000 Years of Inequality: the Archaeology of Wealth Differences, Poverty Paradox, and The Dawn of Everything. Related subjects on the reading list include economics, social history, food insecurity, debt, social status, public health, and homelessness. With respect to equity, the list covers a range of reading interests, genres, and formats in an effort to provide something for everyone.

How God Becomes Real book cover
March 2024 – Check out the recent Staley Prize winner from the library, How God Becomes Real by Tanya Luhrmann. Copies of her previous books are available as well. The J.I. Staley Prize is awarded each year by SAR for an outstanding book in anthropology. All past winners are on permanent display in the library. Browse the titles online in the catalog list: Staley Prize – Best in Anthropology. The library carries two copies of each winner: one circulating copy to borrow and one display copy always available for reference.
Feb. 14, 2024 – For Valentine’s Day I have curated a new catalog list about our love of stuff, including material culture, archaeology, and consumerism. In what ways do we create, collect, display, and reuse our stuff? How do our possessions define ourselves and our culture? What roles do material objects play in memory, collective and personal? Read all this and more regarding the human relationship with things. But you won’t find any books here on decluttering. For that very necessary and oft neglected aspect of thing-relationship, go to the public library and browse their self-help (158) or housekeeping (648) sections.
New electronic resource: Anthrosource
Jan. 8, 2024 – The library now subscribes to Anthrosource with full access to all 37 journals published by the American Anthropological Association (AAA). Browse current or past issues, read online or download PDF articles. From any computer on campus: go to the Journals page on the library website for the link to Anthrosource. No login required! Campus users will see the SAR logo at the top indicating full access.
library book display food
Book Display and List: Food & Culture

Nov. 11, 2023Come sample the delectable new book display in the library, where you can find titles like these on display through the holidays:

Book Display: Indigenous Voices

Oct. 4, 2023Celebrate Indigenous Peoples Day (Monday, Oct 9) with a visit to the SAR library. Check out books by these Indigenous authors and more: Sherman Alexie, Paula Gunn Allen, Ned Blackhawk (SAR resident fellow and board member), Margaret Bruchac, Philip Deloria (SAR 2023-24 resident scholar), Vine Deloria, Jr. , Max Early (SAR resident fellow), Louise Erdrich, Joy Harjo, Thomas King, Winona LaDuke, N. Scott Momaday (SAR resident fellow and senior scholar), Leslie Marmon Silko, Paul Chaat Smith, David Treuer (SAR resident fellow), Gerald Vizenor (SAR resident fellow).

Electronic Resource: SAR’s Exploration magazine

Sept. 27, 2023 – All issues of SAR’s Exploration magazine are now available in PDF format in the library catalog. Look for “Online access: PDF” in the catalog record for each issue. For quick access, the Journals subpage has a link to the Exploration series. This is a valuable resource for SAR history and for Southwest archaeological sites. Exploration was published for a limited period (1970-1991) and is rich in photographs and feature articles about Bandelier, Chaco Canyon, Pecos, Grand Canyon, and more. One issue is all about China. The magazine is the only detailed source of SAR history for the early 1970s and 80s when the annual reports were minimal.

Book Display & List: Atomic Reading

Sept. 18, 2023 – In response to the recent Oppenheimer film, there is currently a book display in the library about the Manhattan Project and Los Alamos featuring history, biography, fiction, ethics of war, anthropology, and environmental justice. The books are available to borrow for members and staff and will be on display through the end of September. The Atomic Reading list will be permanently available in the library catalog.

The Seminar House Book Collection: Project Complete

Sept. 12, 2023 – Visitors to SAR’s Seminar House will notice the books are now neatly organized and labeled. Over the summer, the books were inventoried, processed, and cataloged by the librarian and expert volunteers. The Seminar House book collection was created to showcase both SAR’s Advanced Seminar Series and the breadth of subjects published by the SAR Press. The books are for the exclusive use of guests attending events or residing in the Seminar House, particularly for Seminar participants, whose work SAR publishes in the Advanced Seminar Series. Circulating copies of all the titles are available in the library.

AIQ: American Indian QuarterlyAmerican AntiquityCurrent AnthropologyJournal of Anthropological ResearchNAIS: Native American Indigenous StudiesNew Mexico Historical Review
Journals Online

August 16, 2023 – Library visitors, staff, and resident fellows can now access several journals from any computer on campus! Browse current or past issues. Visit the new Journals subpage on the library website for all titles currently received in print format and links to those with online access. The library subscribes to these six journals (left) in both print and online format.

Digitization Update: SAR Annual Reports

July 27, 2023 – Access SAR annual reports (1907-2005) directly from the library’s Digital Collections page. Reports from 1960 through 2005 are now complete, all scanned, cataloged, and uploaded by the librarian. Earlier years are becoming available as the digitization project continues. The reports document nearly 100 years of SAR activities, including the early history of the Museum of New Mexico and the School’s field archaeology. Reports from the last four decades are rich in photographs. Now a part of the New Mexico Digital Collections website, they will reach a much wider audience. As always, print copies of all annual reports are available for browsing in the library.

July 7, 2023 – The library has a copy of Shelby Tisdale’s new book, which will be featured in her talk at SAR’s upcoming President’s Circle event about Marge and Jack Lambert. Several photographs in her book are from the SAR library archives. The event will take place in Marge Lambert’s former house on SAR property, which is now used as a scholar residence for SAR fellows.

For more books about intrepid women in the profession, see the list in the online catalog about Women & Anthropology

Book Display & List: Women in the Southwest
July 3, 2023 – Those who want to take a deeper dive into the issues raised by Flannery Burke, PhD, in her SAR course “Women of the Lost Territory” of Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado are welcome check out the current book display and list. Explore the broader context of collective experience and cultural heritage of women in the Southwest with titles such as Writing the Range : Race, Class, and Culture in the Women’s West and Land of Disenchantment : Latina/o Identities and Transformations in Northern New Mexico. For stories about well known women, see the library’s biography section. Books are available to all visitors as well as course students.
Resource List: SAR History

April 19, 2023 – Library materials about SAR history, people, and programs, including the IARC and the El Delirio estate, are now compiled in the SAR History list. Located on the catalog home page, under the “Featured Lists” column on the left. Familiar titles like Peculiar Alchemy and Stephen Post’s archaeological study of the campus (print + online access) are joined by hidden gems such as the Amelia Elizabeth White home movies. The list includes various formats and materials, such as guidebooks, pamphlets, biographies, articles, films, lectures, and rare books.

Resource Spotlight: El Palacio Magazine

April 2023El Palacio, the magazine published by the Museum of New Mexico, includes programs and people connected to SAR, particularly in the early twentieth century when SAR was part of the museum. The library’s print holdings (1917 to present), plus an index, are available to browse in a study carrel in the open book stacks. The New Mexico State Library digitized the publication for online access and searching.

April 10, 2023 – To support the SAR member trips to Canyon de Chelly coming this spring and fall, the librarian collaborated with the membership coordinator to create a list of books for further reading. This curated list of scholarly and general interest titles, such as A Diné History of Navajoland, will guide readers deeper into the history and culture of the region. Topics range from geology, archaeology, and biography to art, literature, and poetry. The books are available in the library for all SAR members to borrow.
April 4, 2023 – April is National Humor Month! Bring a little laughter to your day with the book list above, plus a couple articles:
“Very Good Medicine: Indigenous Humor and Laughter” by Cynthia Lindquist Mala. Tribal College: Journal of American Indian Higher Education 27(4), Summer 2016. 
“An Anthropologist Walks Into a Bar and Asks ‘Why is this joke funny?” Story on NPR, August 6, 2012
New Books for SAR Lecture: The Invention of Race
March 20, 2023 – The library has the books by the speakers Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Andrew Curran for their upcoming April lecture on The Invention of Race:
February 10, 2023 – February is Black History Month, a national celebration to recognize the Black experience in American history and culture. The library has books by Black scholars on subjects ranging from history to anthropology to literature. To support Black History Month, as well as SAR’s upcoming public lecture on The Invention of Race, the online catalog now features a new list of books about Black Identity & Race. Black contributions and struggles merit year round recognition, so this list will be permanently available in the catalog. SAR is also celebrating its inaugural year of the Wenner-Gren Fellowship in Anthropology and Black Experiences. This new residential fellowship supports a PhD scholar researching Black experiences, critical race studies, and the African diaspora.
The Book of Unconformities Speculations on Lost Time by Hugh Raffles.
March 10, 2023 – The library has two copies of the recent winner of the J.I. Staley Book Prize: a reference copy always on display for visitors to browse, and a circulating copy to check out. This year’s winner has a broad scope and style (“genre-spanning” according to reviewers) that appeals to general readers and scholars. Wide ranging topics include geology, time, human effect on the environment, museum ethics, Indigenous/European contact, travel, grief and mourning.
Curated list of related books in the library collection: Staley 2023 Reading
Banned Books Week 2022

Sept. 15, 2022 – Next week libraries celebrate Banned Books Week, a censorship awareness campaign sponsored by the American Library Association (ALA). “In a time of intense political polarization, library staff in every state are facing an unprecedented number of attempts to ban books. ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom tracked 729 challenges to library, school and university materials and services in 2021, resulting in more than 1,597 individual book challenges or removals. Most targeted books were by or about Black or LGBTQIA+ persons.” — American Library Association