Voting is the cornerstone of democracy. In the United States, this constitutional right has been reinforced and expanded through constitutional amendments and landmark legislation, including the Fifteenth Amendment and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The ballot box is the one place where citizens, regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, income, or social status are equal under the law. Yet, throughout history, there have been forces at work to deny or suppress this fundamental right. In North Carolina, voter suppression has occurred through violence and intimidation, poll taxes, literacy and identification requirements, and more. The ongoing lawsuit over North Carolina’s 2013 voter ID law shows that the question of who can vote and when remains contested in North Carolina even today. This year, 2020, marks another historic juncture in voting history as the country attempts to complete the decennial census and carry out a presidential election, both marred by the effects of an international pandemic.

Featuring:

• Nadine Gibson, Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Wilmington 
• James Leloudis, Ph.D., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• Robert Korstad, Ph.D., Duke University 

Please join us for a virtual panel discussion on these topics and more, September 22, 2020, at 5:30 pm.

Zoom: https://lib.uncw.edu/barrierstotheballot

This event is made possible through Randall Library Special Collections, in part from grant funding received through the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) as administered by the State Library of North Carolina, a division of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. Randall Library Special Collections would also like to thank the UNCW History Department for co-sponsoring the event.

Randall Library is proud to present out new homepage design to the UNCW community. This new design will become the library’s homepage starting in August 2020.

The new homepage design elevates and features our search experience ensuring access to all of our online and print content. It makes prominent some of the most used and important information on our site, including our hours of operation, library news stories, and links to finding your librarian and making a group study room reservation. With this design, we were able to improve the mobile experience of the homepage. It also calls attention to key content including popular book and ebook titles and our digital collections. We did extensive usability testing with students, staff and faculty to learn what was important to our users.

Take a look at the new design and let us know what you think! We’d appreciate your feedback

Are you missing your favorite Randall Library spaces? If so, fret no more! RL Zoom Backgrounds are here for your zooming pleasure! This bundle includes images of library spaces, beach photography, and various designs created by RL's Digital and Visual Coordinator. Jazz up your next Zoom meeting with these one-of-a-kind backgrounds!  

Zoom Backgrounds from other websites:

• Backgrounds 1
• Backgrounds 2
• Backgrounds 3

Need help changing your Zoom backgrounds? Click here for written or video instructions.

Hi all; we took a break for a month there to deal with more urgent issues, but Faces of Randall is back! This one contains dolphins!

Name: Laura Wiegand McBrayer

Title: Associate Director, Library Information Technology and Digital Strategies

What that means: Laura manages the area of the library that provides behind the scenes technology support for student computing, the Digital Makerspace, our online resources, digitization, and library systems. She also recently took on a new role in library administration in the areas of budget and HR responsibilities.

Favorite book: Though she read it 30 years ago and is concerned it’s probably out of fashion, the book that’s most stuck with her is The Stand by Stephen King. She doesn’t know why she likes it so much, but it has informed her love of “apocalyptic-type things.” (This interview was conducted several months ago and originally planned for March, so we’re very aware of the eerie coincidence of this title!) Currently, she’s reading a book called Where the Forest Meets the Stars; it’s about a woman who’s working on her PhD and had breast cancer, both things that are meaningful to her.

Favorite place in the library: She actually likes to walk right down the middle of the library through the atrium and take in all of the sights and sounds of students accomplishing all sorts of different things while they’re here. She finds it to be very energizing and inspiring to walk through the middle of it all and marvel at what a great place this is.

If you could instantly learn any one (real) skill, what would it be and why?: 
To learn to repair her own car. She never feels confident that she’s paying for anything real at the mechanic. She likes to fix things and technology, so she doesn’t see why she couldn’t fix her car if she just knew something about cars.

About Laura: 
Laura has been working at Randall since June of 2008—that’ll be 12 years this June! At the time she was the Information Technology Librarian. She did a little bit of everything in the department she now manages. Before that she was at the University of Minnesota, where she ran a little library on the Life Sciences campus that doesn’t even exist anymore.
Back before her library career, she describes herself as having been “very much a hippie” when she was in college, and was briefly going to be a yoga teacher after taking a yoga class for fun. Though she doesn’t do anything remotely close to yoga anymore, it appealed to the side of her that leans towards peace and harmony.
Instead of yoga, she now seeks out that harmony by taking their small fishing boat 40 miles out into the middle of nowhere on a regular basis and “attempting” to fish. “It’s the most amazing place on earth to not see another human being or land, and there’s just nature all around you,” she says. “That’s probably something people don’t know that I crave on a regular basis—just getting in a boat and driving away.”

BONUS: Laura shared a photo from their boat, as well as a great video of dolphins that swam alongside them: https://www.flickr.com/gp/187945447@N05/tr41r1