Voting is your opportunity to have a say in the leaders and the laws that govern us. Here’s some information on how to vote in this year’s elections in Colorado.

Registering to Vote

Registering to vote is the first step in participating in the voting process.

In order to register to vote in Colorado, you must be:

• A United States citizen
• A resident of Colorado* for at least the 22 days leading up to election day (Tuesday, November 8, 2016)
  • Non-Colorado residents can consult their home state for voter registration information. You might consult your home state’s information if you’re attending ASU, but you still consider your family’s address in another state to be your permanent address.
• At least 18 years of age on election day
• Not serving a sentence of confinement, detention or parole for a felony conviction

*If you aren’t already a Colorado resident, review the residency requirements and prerequisites for any financial aid or scholarships you may have before you consider registering to vote in Colorado.

How to register to vote:

• If you have a current Colorado driver’s license or ID card, you can register online here! In order to receive a mail-in ballot, register online by Monday, October 31.
• At the Alamosa County Clerk and Recorder’s office, 8999 Independence Way in Alamosa.

Voting

Colorado voters can vote either by mail-in ballot or in person.

To receive a mail-in ballot by mail, you need to register to vote by Monday, October 31.

Completed mail-in ballots must be received (not postmarked) by the Alamosa County Clerk and Recorder by 7pm on election day, Tuesday, November 8. You might want to try and get your mail-in ballot in the mail by the week before the election.

If you’re concerned you might be too late to mail your ballot, you can drop it off:

Mail-in ballots can be dropped off by election day in the provided envelope at:

• The Alamosa County Clerk and Recorder’s office: 8999 Independence Way

If you decide to vote in person, you can register to vote any time up until election day.

If you vote in person or you’re voting for the first time by mail, you’ll need an acceptable form of identification.

The polling place (where in-person voting happens) for Alamosa County is the Alamosa County Clerk and Recorder’s office at 8999 Independence Way.

If you’re still unsure about anything related to registering to vote or voting, check with:

• The Colorado Secretary of State’s Voters page
• The Alamosa County Clerk and Recorder’s website
  • You can give them a call, too: 719-589-6681

Commemorated since 1982, Banned Books Week is an annual celebration of our freedom to read.

That freedom, libraries believe (and we hope you do, too), should extend to whatever a person may want to read.

However, there have been numerous examples of state and local governments and school boards attempting to remove materials from library shelves or curricula because of one person or group’s objections to their content.

In the face of these attempts, Banned Books Week brings together interested parties like librarians and educators (and more generally, readers!) “in shared support of the freedom to seek and to express ideas, even those some consider unorthodox or unpopular.” (American Library Association)

But what books are banned? How and why are they banned?

The American Library Association has a wealth of information related to Banned Books Week, including the difference between a challenge and a ban and how books come to be challenged and a list of 10 frequently-challenged books.

The American Civil Liberties Union has an excellent interactive list of banned books. Hover over each one to see where and why it was banned.

Celebrate your freedom to read with us at the Nielsen Library’s Banned Books Week display and mug shot booth (next to the circulation desk on the first floor). Take a mug shot with one of the banned books on our display and share it with us on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook (and hashtag it #bannedbooksweek, too, if you think of it), and you’ll be entered in a prize drawing!

The Nielsen Library is making it easier and less time consuming to request articles. The next time you make a request, you’ll be taken to a login page that looks like this:

Go ahead and login using your Adams State login information (whatever you use for Blackboard or for your Adams State email address). From there, you’ll be asked to enter your contact information.

Here’s where it just got easier: this will be the only time you ever have to enter your contact information. No more punching it in for every request! That’s worth celebrating!

Now your personal information is saved, your article will be emailed to you, and you can track your requests in the “View Your Requests” section of your account.

If you don’t know…

In addition to the thousands of articles we already provide access to, the Nielsen Library can borrow virtually any article on earth from another library on your behalf through a service called Interlibrary Loan. FOR FREE!  

If you’re searching in a database and you can’t find the full text of an article, just look for:

 or 

If you just have a citation for an article we don’t have, just click “Request Materials” in the black box on the upper-right of the Nielsen Library home page.

When you request an article, it typically just takes a day or two to get an electronic version (though one week is not unusual, so do your research early!).

The Nielsen Library’s adventure-themed lecture series, Earth, Water, Sky: Conversations on the Great Outdoors – San Luis Valley and Beyond, continues this fall!

All events take place on the second floor of the Nielsen Library and are free and open to the public.

We’ll kick things off on Sunday, September 20 @ 6pm:

Join Broughton Coburn, author of The Vast Unknown: America’s First Ascent of Everest, joins us for a discussion of the triumphant 1963 United States Everest expedition. Dick Pownall, a member of the 1963 team, will also be present to share his experiences and answer any climbing queries.

And later this fall…

Tuesday, October 6th @5pm – The Tunnels Under Our Feet: Colorado’s Forgotten Hollow Sidewalks with Tracy Beach

Tuesday, November 17th @6pm – Hiking the Tour du Mont Blanc with Carol Smith

The Nielsen Library will host “My World”, a photography exhibition by Tetsuko of Cold Mountain, September 14-30. The exhibit will be on display on the 2nd floor of the library next to the Grizzly Testing & Learning Center.

Join us for an opening night reception with light refreshments from 3-4pm on Monday, September 14.

Tetsuko of Cold Mountain’s artist’s statement: “Tetsuko of Cold Mountain has been an exhibiting artist since 1974, when she arrived in New Mexico from the Northeast. She has only shown in New Mexico and Colorado and has cone from being a representational artist to an abstract artist. Her photography reflects both representative and abstract influences. She has lived in Monte Vista since 2006, moving down from Boulder where she lived for many years. She has been a student of Buddhism and a peace activist for many years. Tetsuko hopes that all of this is reflected in her work.”

It’s not at all uncommon to see the prices of all your text books and have a reaction like this:

A reaction like this is not uncommon either:

But what if the Nielsen Library had a collection of Adams State course textbooks you could check out?

No seriously, we do! In our reserves, behind the Circulation Desk on the first floor, we have a large number of textbooks you can check out and use here in the library for two hours at a time. Check and see if we have yours here! Or just ask at the desk.

We know…

So now, with that knowledge, you can hopefully relax a little…

This post is for Adams State’s new first year and transfer students:

College is different. It just is. New experiences, more freedom.

But don’t forget more responsibility and more work. That’s part of the deal, too.

One major thing new college students notice is the papers. You’re expected to write papers for class, and you’re expected to do research and make arguments. It can be a little bit overwhelming.

But if, while working on your research, you have a moment like this…

…Understand that 1) it happens to all of us sometimes, and 2) you can get in touch with your Personal Librarian. The Personal Librarian Program assigns one of the Nielsen Library’s librarians to each new student at Adams State.

When you do, don’t be surprised if you and your personal librarian have a moment like this:

…or like this:

Your Personal Librarian will reach out to you directly a few times over the course of the school year, and you can also find out who your personal librarian is here.

New students aren’t the only ones with personalized librarian support…

Upper division undergraduates, graduate students and faculty can also use the link above to find out who their subject librarian is. There’s one for every department! Get in touch and you’ll be celebrating well-executed literature reviews like…

The clock is ticking on the start of another new school year here at Adams State. That means that soon, this might be you:

OK, let’s be honest. This might be you some of the time:

But before you get to this point:

Or this point:

Come Ask a Librarian (!!!), we’ll be like:

We’re here to help. Check us out.

Clean out your pantry and clear your library fines at the same time!

Bring non-perishable food items to the Nielsen Library from April 27 – May 15. Each food item waives one $5 library fine, and there is no limit. All food will be donated to the Food Bank Network of the San Luis Valley.

This program does not apply to replacement charges for lost items.