‘Books are good for your health’

A creative writing student panel, and the presentations, “Rock ‘n’ Roll’s Influence on Popular Culture” and “Libraries Are Good for Your Health” were among the events the UTRGV libraries hosted in observance of National Library Week.

“For this year, the theme is ‘Libraries Equal Strong Communities,’” Milagro Resendez, special collections manager, told The Rider in an interview. “This week is to celebrate the valuable role of libraries, librarians and the library workers as they help and serve the students; to be able to share with the students in regards to the services we provide as a library and on how we can help students by providing these services to them.”

Resendez said there are a lot of resources the UTRGV libraries offer to help students succeed in their careers.

“[It is important to] be able to help them to succeed in life, to be able to help them strengthen their knowledge and finding information they may need,” she said.

The celebration started last Tuesday on the Edinburg campus with “Rock ‘n’ Roll’s Influence on Popular Culture,” a presentation by John Ferris, a research and instruction librarian. The event was also held in Brownsville last Wednesday.

“My event was a PowerPoint presentation that I coordinated with a mini-jukebox of my own with a CD of recorded music that I compiled to complement the presentation,” Ferris told The Rider. “During the presentation, I examined the course of the evolution of music over the last 50 to 60 years, along with the inclusion of personal vignettes related to music, and how our national culture changed along with these developments and continues to impact us.”

In the presentation, Ferris showed how popular music has affected culture.

“I wanted to share with students [how] that popular music has most definitely affected our culture over this period of time, and how it will continue to in the future,” he said. “It will, hopefully, inspire us toward healthier and more productive directions.”

On the Brownsville campus, students in Assistant Professor Christopher Carmona’s advanced creative writing class read their fiction, nonfiction and poetry.

One of the poems senior Kimberly Villanueva presented was about her mother and the “never-ending love” a mother has for her children. Recurrent themes in her work were friendship, losing someone and stage fright, which she described as the perfect poem for her feelings at the moment of the presentation.

“I don’t know how to categorize [the poems] but they’re definitely nonfiction,” Villanueva said.

“Her eyes wandered and looked at the stars above … a sense of love grows as arms wrap around the child’s body,” the senior read aloud.

Senior Destiny McArdle read one of her fiction pieces, titled “Secrets,” in which she touches on themes such as sexuality, abortion and marriage.

“The grandmother finds out her oldest grandchild, the golden boy, is bisexual,” McArdle said while reading the piece from her phone.

Sophomore Bertha Villarreal shared a short story about family and an enchanted forest.

“Heather is a little bit too old to be scared by that now, isn’t she?” Villarreal read from her fiction piece. “Really, Heather, that forest is full of magic.”

Resendez encourages students to share their work.

“This is a good way to be able to give an opportunity to the students to share some of their writing to other students, be able to show the talents that they have … and maybe, using some of the resources that we have at the library,” she said.

Carmona also presented a discussion, titled “I Know It in My Bones: Intergenerational Trauma and the Writing of The Young Adult Novel ‘El Rinche: The Ghost Ranger of The Rio Grande,’” Wednesday on the Brownsville campus and Thursday in Edinburg.

“The presentation discussed the story of the Rio Grande Valley of Texas from 1905 to 1920 during the time known as the Matanza, where hundreds of Mexican Americans were killed,” he told The Rider.

Carmona, a published author, said it is important to support local authors.

“Local authors should be read because it shows students that writers are everywhere, even in their backyard and not just in New York,” he said. “[So] they can see themselves reflected in the literature, which is rare for students of color.”

Research and Instruction Librarian Andrew Portner presented “Libraries Are Good for Your Health: How to Use Your Library to Find Accurate Medical Information and Avoid Scams” last Wednesday on the Edinburg campus and Thursday in Brownsville.

“What’s Your Favorite Book?” was on exhibit in both libraries.

“They [were] cultural events or informative events, so definitely, this [was] very beneficial to [students],” Resendez said.