News & Blog

American history is a broad and varied topic. It ranges from the native inhabitants who formed communities here thousands of years ago to the creation of a new nation of states to the dreamers who immigrate to these shores today. It is a vast tract of information to cover, but it is important that we all learn about our past. As Edmund Burke said in Reflections on the Revolution in France, “Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.”

The founders of the United States, beyond their faults and foibles, began this nation with a grand and noble sentiment of “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity….”

Never forget “We the people” is us.

Click on the  link below to see the full list, descriptions, and catalog links for the 20 titles on American History suggested by UCF Library employees.

Featured Bookshelf: American History

It’s Pride Month! Time for shouting out the celebration of the LGBTQIA community (yes, there are more than lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender in the queer community). June was chosen to honor the Stonewall Riots which happened in 1969. Like other celebratory months, LGBT Pride Month started as a weeklong series of events and expanded into a full month of festivities.

In honor of Pride Month, UCF Library faculty and staff suggested books, movies and music from the UCF collection that represent a wide array of queer authors and characters. Additional events at UCF in June include “UCF Remembers…6.12.16” which commemorate the shooting at the Pulse nightclub last year. These four events scheduled for June 8 (to avoid a conflict with other Pulse memorial events) include a blood drive at Memory Mall, an art gallery exhibit, “Reflections on Pulse” tribute event, and a “UCF Remembers” ceremony.

Click the link below to see the full list, descriptions, and catalog links for the 20 titles by or about LGBTQIA people suggested by UCF Library employees.

Featured Bookshelf: LGBTQIA Pride Month

May was officially designated as Asian Pacific American Heritage Month by Congress in 1992 (Public Law 102-450 if you want to read the specifics).

As you can imagine, Asian Pacific American covers a fair amount of area. An Asian Pacific American is an American (whether born, naturalized, or other) who was born on or has heritage from anywhere on the Asian continent and the Pacific islands of Melanesia (New Guinea, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Fiji and the Solomon Islands), Micronesia (Marianas, Guam, Wake Island, Palau, Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Nauru and the Federated States of Micronesia) and Polynesia (New Zealand, Hawaiian Islands, Rotuma, Midway Islands, Samoa, American Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu, Cook Islands, French Polynesia and Easter Island). These areas cover a wide array of languages, cultures, religions, and ethnicities that have brought countless skills, hopes and dreams to the United States. The more voices that are heard the better we all are so (if you’ll pardon the *dun dun*) these are some of their stories.

Click the link below to see the full list, descriptions, and catalog links for the 20 titles by or about Asian Pacific Americans suggested by UCF Library employees.

Featured Bookshelf: Asian Pacific American Heritage Month

“I think that I shall never see
A poem as lovely…”

Yes, I’m going Joyce Kilmer on you. It’s National Poetry Month. How could I not start with the opening of a poem we all learn in primary school?

The Academy of American Poets, inspired by the success of Black History Month and Women’s History Month, created National Poetry Month in 1996. It is the largest literary celebration in the world and UCF Library is proud to do our part.

We gathered suggestions for 20 books of poetry that are currently in the UCF collection. These works represent a wide range of favorite poetry books of our faculty and staff. Click on the link below to see the full descriptions and catalog links.

Featured Bookshelf: National Poetry Month

Women’s History Month began as a week-long celebration by in Sonoma, California in 1978 which was centered around International Women’s Day on March 8. A year later during a women’s history conference at Sarah Lawrence College, participants learned how successful the week was and decided to initiate similar in their own areas. President Carter issued the first proclamation for a national Women’s History Week in 1980. In 1987, Congress (after being petitioned by the National Women’s History Project) passed Pub. L. 100-9 designating March as Women’s History Month. U.S. Presidents have issued proclamations on Women’s History Month since 1988.

Here at the UCF Libraries, we have created a list of suggested, and favorite, books about women’s history in both fact and fiction. Please click on the link below to see the full list with descriptions and catalog links.

Featured Bookshelf: Women’s History Month

For information about the bevy of Women’s History Month events at UCF, visit Office of Diversity and Inclusion Women’s History Month site.