Category: Thing of the Day

A round-up of the bizarre and brilliant of the web corralled by the University of Portsmouth Library.

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Today’s LGBTQIA+ Pride Marches are an ongoing celebration of the changes that started outside the Stonewall Inn.  We now have specific Black Pride marches, and Trans Pride marches as well, which draw particular attention to sub-groups of the LGBTQIA+ community that are peculiarly vulnerable. Pride is a protest that is in danger of becoming a party, causing many young people, both within and outside of the LGBTQ+ community, to begin to question the point of pride.  The point of Pride is that LGBTQ+ rights are very recently won and it would be only too easy for all the progress towards equality to be rolled back.  

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February is Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Trans, Queer, Intersex and Asexual (and all the other strands of sexual and gender diversity) awareness month. I will be posting regularly here on the Library blog about the history of how the understanding of sexual diversity developed since the concept of sexuality was discovered or perhaps invented in the nineteenth century, through the fight to develop greater awareness, tolerance and freedoms for all people throughout the twentieth century and then looking at the state of LGBTQIA+ rights today.

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I’d like to start this LGBTQIA+ History Month with a focus on some largely forgotten LGBTQIA+ artists. There are several art exhibitions featuring works by LGBTQIA+ artists that you can visit between February and April 2024, including several in London and one in nearby Chichester you could visit, any of which will make for a pleasant day out.

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Are you a budding artist, designer or hobbyist? Are you passionate about a social issue, your home country, or an academic subject? Is there an academic or work-based project that you have completed that fascinated you and that you would like to share with others? The library display space is available to all students and staff to share their interests with the world, from art and design to photographic collections, painted miniature collections, academic posters suitable for a general audience or more conceptual pieces.

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From tales of Christmases past from around the world, an encyclopedia dedicated to nothing but Christmas, a streamed theatre production of a modern take on Dicken’s classic “A Christmas Carol” or a slew of classic Christmas movies and documentaries available through our free streaming service, Kanopy, there is plenty from the Library to keep you entertained through the holiday season.

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Christmas can be an exciting time for some but a trying time for others. Whether you are wondering how to keep yourself entertained in Portsmouth over the holidays or facing a return home you would rather forego, entertainments, help and advice are all on hand. Whatever you need, there is something or someone who can help.

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Are we alone in the universe? Why do people regularly fancy they see alien spacecraft sojourning in plain daylight in Earth’s lower atmosphere? If not aliens, what explains all these unidentified phenomena? Celebrating 200 episodes this week, the University’s Life …

Of lights in the sky and little green men Read more »

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I have blogged before about productivity tools and tried to sound enthusiastic but this time I have hit gold. Thanks to the rise of our future AI overlords, we have Goblin Tools: an app that offers to turn the chaos …

Introducing Goblin Tools – at last, an app to manage your whole life Read more »

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Libraries are a staple of the university experience. They make conducting research, writing essays, and revising for exams so much easier, but they can also provide benefits outside of academia. Being a student isn’t always easy, and when things get tough, libraries can be incredible sources of support.

In this guest blog post, we explore the various ways libraries can help sustain your mental health.

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