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If you turn on the Hallmark channel between mid-October and December 25^th, you’ll be certain to find a romantic holiday movie, where it always snows on Christmas, small town businesses thrive, and a man who may or may not be Santa Claus (likely named Kris Kringle) helps the main characters realize their feelings for each other. These movies are beloved by many, thanks in part to their comforting and predictable formula: the main characters have their first encounter, are pushed together by fate and circumstance, have a misunderstanding, resolve that misunderstanding with the help of the townspeople, and finally get together, all while discovering the true meaning of Christmas, and stopping all outside dangers (which likely came from the big city). 

Hallmark movies are so popular that they’ve inspired a whole genre, with Netflix, ABC, HBO, and many other companies creating their own holiday romances with a similar structure. They also have inspired a host of novels, parodies, and critiques. Hallmark has reacted to the criticism by branching out, including more diverse characters, love stories, and holidays (for this instance, this year they have a Hanukkah movie, Oy to the World), while still retaining their classic structure, and (dare I say) cheesiness. 

Regardless of the popularity of their Christmas movies, Hallmark is first and foremost a card company. Their cards are sent to celebrate holidays and special events, to mourn losses, to simply say, “I’m thinking of you.” So, how did a card company turn into a holiday movie producing giant? 

The first step in figuring that out is understanding the history of the company, and what allowed it to become successful. Founded by the Hall brothers in 1910, the Hallmark company (renamed as such in 1954 after the official mark stamped on precious metals in England as proof of their quality), was one of the first companies to sell greeting cards in envelopes, and was the inventor of printed wrapping paper. The popularity of these innovations ensured their success, even during times of crisis such as the Great Depression. While other companies were forced to let go of staff, Hallmark was able to not only retain their staff members, but also hire new employees. 

With this success, which was bolstered further by WWII, the Hallmark company began to sponsor radio and TV specials. These were typically adaptations of popular plays and short stories. Eventually, they began producing their own advertisements and films (such as the  Hallmark Hall of Fame films). In the late 1990s, they purchased a TV station of their own, which primarily aired re-runs of family-friendly movies and TV shows. These were slowly phased out as Hallmark began producing and airing more of their original content. However, it took a few years before they introduced the first of their Christmas movies.

The first hit Hallmark Christmas movie was 2006’s The Christmas Card, which contained many of the plot points that would come to be the Hallmark Christmas movie formula. With the success of that movie, they began to produce more Christmas movies with similar storylines, which only grew in popularity. Add to that their consistent casts (often composed of stars from the ‘90s and early 2000s) and it’s easy to see how they’ve created a formula for successful movies. They produced enough movies that in 2009 they introduced their now annual “Countdown to Christmas,” where they devote the channel to holiday-related programming. (In 2009, they released fewer than 10 original movies as part of the Countdown. This year, they have 24 movies set to premiere.) 

The Hallmark Company now releases dozens of holiday movies every year, and their Countdown to Christmas is an integral part of many people’s holiday traditions. While many other companies also produce their own Christmas movies with similar storylines, Hallmark originals are still incredibly popular. They’ve refined their formula, and with their regular stars, are able to produce dozens of movies every year. And with the introduction of their own streaming service, this popularity seems likely to continue. 

While we don’t have any Hallmark movies in our collection, we do have a good-sized collection of holiday movies. Check out the fourth floor display to see what’s available!  

Sources:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/12/23/how-hallmark-took-over-cable-tv

https://www.countryliving.com/life/entertainment/news/a46090/history-of-hallmark/

https://www.mentalfloss.com/holidays/christmas/hallmark-christmas-movie-history

https://www.wgfoundation.org/blog/2022/12/6/hallmark-christmas-movies

https://www.hallmarkchannel.com/about-us

Thanksgiving has been celebrated annually in the United States since 1863, when Abraham Lincoln began the presidential tradition of proclaiming a day of Thanksgiving to be celebrated in November. Thanksgiving didn’t settle firmly on a date until the 1940s, when FDR and Congress set the fourth Thursday in November as Thanksgiving (learn more about the history of Thanksgiving – and the role that the editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book had in making it a national holiday, in this blog post).

Despite the enduring popularity of Thanksgiving, Friendsgiving (a portmanteau of friends and Thanksgiving), a much younger holiday, is growing increasingly popular. According to Merriam-Webster, the term Friendsgiving first appeared in print in 2007, though it likely was used colloquially before then. In 2020, Friendsgiving was officially added to the Merriam-Webster dictionary (and appears in the new dictionary published on November 18, 2025, which is only the 12^th edition published since 1898). 

Friendsgiving is often celebrated by groups of friends, who often are unable to return home for the traditional Thanksgiving holiday. Other Friendsgivings are held by people who will return home for Thanksgiving, but still wish to celebrate together. Friendsgiving is, by design, a flexible holiday, so each celebration can be whatever the participants want it to be. It is increasingly popular amongst younger adults, especially those who are in college, or living away from their families, allowing them to engage in their favorite traditions, while changing things up a bit. 

Freed from the tradition surrounding traditional Thanksgivings, Friendsgiving encourages people to create new traditions. This could be new food (maybe you only serve soups or sushi, instead of the traditional turkey) or new activities (perhaps you watch movies or play board games).

Interested in celebrating Friendsgiving? Check out our collection of cookbooks here. Want to host a movie night as part of your Friendsgiving celebrations? Check out our movie display on the fourth floor!

Regardless of if you celebrate Friendsgiving, Thanksgiving, Hanksgiving (read more about that holiday here), or just enjoy the extra few days off before finals, we wish you the best! 

Novels are what most people think of when they think of books today. They fill the shelves of public libraries, and even academic libraries such as ours have collections of novels. Famous novelists such as Jane Austen, the Brontës, Leo Tolstoy, George Orwell, Agatha Christie, Terry Prachett, and so many others have made the novel popular, and ensured its continuing success. Novels are written for all ages, in a variety of genres, and are published by both professional houses and by individuals. 

While today reading novels is a respectable pastime, in the past, novels, and novel reading, were derided as a waste of time, and seen as ruinous to people’s health (just as TV often is today). Novelists were therefore at the very least silly, and at the worst, dangerous to youth. Libraries, and librarians, even controlled who had access to novels, whereas today, many librarians actively encourage novel reading. 

As part of the support for novels, and those who write them, National Novel Writing Month is celebrated during November. Throughout the month, novelists and aspiring novelists are encouraged to write 1,667 words a day, so that by the end of the month, they have a draft of 50,000 words. Powering through the first draft like this is designed to help writers to just get the first draft over with, to power through what is often the hardest part of the writing process, to just get something on the page.

Until 2024, National Novel Writing Month was organized by NaNoWriMo, a non-profit organization founded in 1999 to encourage writers. Even though the official NaNoWriMo organization has closed, and the website is no longer active, each November is still an opportunity to write your own novel. There are plenty of great resources out there to support you as you begin writing, so you don’t have to venture into novel writing alone. Even NaNoWriMo’s collection of pep talks, written by famous novelists for aspiring novelists, are still available here, thanks to the internet archive. 

Check out the National Novel Writing Month display on the 3^rd floor to see some books about novel writing, and for a selection of novels from our collection. And check out the excerpts from NaNoWriMo pep talks below for some inspiration!

Gail Carson Levine (author of Ella Enchanted, Fairest, The Two Princess of Bamarre, and among other books), writes, “with all the earnestness I can command, here is the only important piece of advice, which is crucial for any speed of writing, any kind of writing: Do not beat up on yourself. Do not criticize your writing as lousy, inadequate, stupid, or any of the evil epithets that you are used to heaping on yourself. Such self-bashing is never useful. If you indulge in it, your writing doesn’t stand a chance. So when your mind turns on you, turn it back, stamp it down, shut it up, and keep writing.”

V.E. Schwab (author of The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, A Darker Shade of Magic, and other titles), writes in her pep talk, “So you’re going to write a story. Not a book. Don’t think of it as anything so formal. You’re just writing down a story. Something that you will have ample time to make better, once it’s done. And I know it’s hard—trust me, I know. Because the moment you start writing it down, you begin to see all the flaws, all the shortcomings, all the things that aren’t perfect. But you’re also writing down everything you need, your raw materials.”

Kristin Cashore (author of Graceling) writes, “Learning to write 50,000 words means learning a whole pile of skills, but they’re learnable skills, and you learn them by writing.”

And finally, in his pep talk, written in his characteristic style, Lemony Snicket (author of The Series of Unfortunate Events), writes, “In short, quit. Writing a novel is a tiny candle in a dark, swirling world. It brings light and warmth and hope to the lucky few who, against insufferable odds and despite a juggernaut of irritations, find themselves in the right place to hold it. Blow it out, so our eyes will not be drawn to its power. Extinguish it so we can get some sleep. I plan to quit writing novels myself, sometime in the next hundred years.” 

November is Native American Heritage month. One of the ways that we can celebrate Native American Heritage Month all year is by reading books by Native American authors. As books by Native American authors have become more and more popular, encouraged in part by Native-owned publishing houses, it has become easier for all of us to find books in our favorite genres that are written by Indigenous authors. Books such as Birchbark House by Louise Erdrich, We Are Still Here by Traci Sorell, Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley, and There There by Tommy Orange, The Truth According to Ember by Danica Nava.

There are several different resources that can help you find books written by Indigenous authors. American Indians in Children’s Literature, written by Dr. Debbie Reese of Nambé Pueblo, and Dr. Jean Mendoza (Euro-American, USA) provides critical analysis of Indigenous peoples in children’s and young adult books. Their website includes lists of books that they do recommend, as well as books that they don’t recommend, and why. 

The website of the American Indian Library Association (AILA) provides resources for “the library-related needs of American Indians and Alaskan Natives.” It also awards the American Indian Youth Literature Awards in even years. The award was established to, “identify and honor the very best writing and illustrations by American Indians and Alaska Natives. Selected titles present American Indians in the fullness of their humanity in the present and past contexts.” Checking out the list of award winners is another good way to discover more books by Indigenous authors.

If you’re looking for more adult and non-fiction recommendations, Birchbark Books is a bookstore owned by Louise Erdrich, who is a well-known Ojibwe author. Browsing through their catalog can be a great way to find books by Indigenous authors that interest you, thanks to their organization by genre. 

Interested in learning more about Native American history? Check out last year's Native American History Month blog post, or this blog post from 2022, which provides more information about traditional Native Lands. For a good non-fiction history book, check out An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States, by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz. 

Check out the Native American History month display on the first floor to see some books by Indigenous authors in our collection. 

Thank you to Hannah Eastburn, Print Materials Processing Specialist at the University of Kentucky for her recommendations of places to find Native authors. Any errors in this post are my mistakes, and do not reflect her excellent advice. 

This week we welcome to the blog Garrett Hohmann, Public Services Librarian here at Loras. Garrett is an avid advocate for graphic novels, and has written this blog to encourage people to read graphic novels.

Five Reasons to Try a Graphic Novel

They are approachable – If you can read this, you are already equipped to read a graphic novel! Some readers are intimated by the format, but the literacy required doesn’t extend beyond making sense of words and pictures. They are a great way to explore complex stories without overwhelming you with text; graphic novels typically do not take long to read.  

They are diverse – Graphic novels are comic books, but they don’t all look like Spiderman. If you haven’t felt drawn to the art styles of comics, you may have not found the right book. The styles are as diverse as the stories themselves. You can find memoirs, history, fantasy, mystery, romance, sci-fi, and your favorite literary classic adapted into graphic form.  

They are immersive - If books are more than words on a page, then graphic novels are more than pictures in a frame. Graphic novels tell you a story but show you that story in a way plain text cannot. Reading a graphic novel is like self-directing a movie that progresses at the pace you determine. You decide how long each shot lasts and how much gravity it has.

They are an entry point– If you don’t consider yourself a ‘book reader’, graphic novels could turn you into one. While they aren’t a cure for your diminishing attention span, you might find yourself liking the idea of sitting down and having a solitary, uninterrupted session of quiet reading on the regular. This could be habit forming!

They are beautiful and unique – To read a graphic novel is to experience an artistic expression distinct from traditional books. There is a sort of magic that emerges between the frames and pages and your imagination once you ‘get it’. I encourage you to try one from our 2nd floor book display which will be up next week after our Ruth Suckow display. 

Open Access Week is celebrated every year to celebrate and champion open access resources. If you’re unfamiliar with open access resources, check out this blog post from 2023 that gives a history of Open Access Week, and defines open access.

Many open access resources are text based, such as open access journals, textbooks, and books. Publishing through an open-access model gives authors more control over their work, and allows more readers to find, and engage with their materials. In academia, open access resources can be great resources for students, as there is no cost barrier to accessing the materials. (If you’re a professor at Loras and interested in using an open educational resources, check out this page. If you’re interested in creating an open educational resource, check out this page)

Open-access resources cover more than just text-based materials. Images can also be open access, often through a Creative Commons license, which allows the creator to still retain some rights over their intellectual property, while also allowing others to use it freely. (Interested in learning more about creative commons licenses? Click here for general info!) Creative Commons zero, or CC0, is a license that allows free use, reuse, and remixing of items. 

Many of the largest museums in the world have begun the process of making items in their collection that are in the public domain available under CC0, which means you can freely make use of those items. You can alter CC0 artwork, use it in your own works of art, sell copies of it, do whatever you’d like with it. (It’s important to check that the item you’re using is in the public domain, and what the license on that item is.) This can be a great way to decorate your home inexpensively, or to add to assignments that need artwork in the public domain. 

Here’s some of the most prominent museums with open access collections: 
    The Met

    The Smithsonian 

    The National Gallery of Art

    The Art Institute of Chicago

    The Cleveland Museum of Art

Thanks to these images being shared under CC0, there are many websites that do creative things with open access artwork. This site is a clock that uses art from the Smithsonian’s open access collections to tell the time. This website, from the Cooper-Hewitt Museum (part of the Smithsonian) has you write on the left side, as it pulls images from the Smithsonian that contain similar words and displays them on the right. The Cleveland Museum of Art lets you view many items in their collection in 3-D, such as this suit of armor for a knight and his charger, or this Hittite statue.

For more information, check out our Open Access display on the fourth floor of the library.

The Society of American Archivists have declared October American Archives Month. American Archives Month is intended to raise public awareness about the importance of historic documents and records, and of archives and archivists to our communities.

Here at Loras, our archive is closely associated with the Center for Dubuque History. They are both housed on the first floor of the Loras College Library, and they both preserve documents, photographs, and other items that help tell the history of Dubuque, of Loras College (or Columbia College, Dubuque College, St. Joseph’s College, Mount St. Bernard Seminary, St. Raphael’s Seminary, or whatever name Loras went by at the time), and the rest of the community. In the archives, you can browse through old yearbooks (Purgold, Restrosum, Lorian Year in Review), view old magazines, old photos of campus and Dubuque, look through scrapbooks, and so much more. Heidi Pettitt, the archivist here at Loras College Library (and director for the Center for Dubuque History) recommends looking through the Hoffmann-Schneider Funeral records. While funeral records may at first not seem like the most entertaining records, they are incredibly useful and interesting resources that tell us more about what life was like in the past through rituals around death.  

Archival collections, here and at other archives, are incredibly important tools for historians, and other scholars. The primary sources found in archives are essential components of historians’ work. Genealogists rely upon archival records as they research family trees. These collections help researchers, regardless of discipline, bring history to life. Archival records go beyond dry old files (though there are plenty of those in archival collections as well) and include documents and photos that allow us to glimpse the past.  

While time travel is impossible, looking through an old diary, examining old photographs, reading letters, all allow us to, if only for a brief moment, glimpse the past. We will never know what it was like to arrive in what is now Dubuque before the city was built, what it was like to witness the crash of the stock market and the ensuing Great Depression, or what it felt like the first year women were allowed to study at Loras, but we can begin to piece together all of those events through archival records.  

Don’t discount archival records as you research. You can never tell what new discovery you’ll make!  

To see for yourself, visit this page, and set up an appointment to view archival collections here. 

Banned Books Week is an annual event sponsored by the American Library Association (ALA) and the Banned Books Coalition. Banned Books Week began in 1982, in response to a sudden surge in book challenges, and is held yearly, highlighting the books that have been challenged the most in the previous year, in a celebration of the freedom to read, even when books are challenged. This year’s theme is, “Censorship is so 1984. Read for your rights.” ALA President Cindy Hohl says, “The 2025 theme of Banned Books Week serves as a reminder that censorship efforts persist to this day. We must always come together to stand up for the right to read.”

Book challenges and bans have increased drastically in the last five years, both in Iowa and across the country. There is an ongoing court case in Iowa, Penguin Random House v. Robbins, where Penguin Random House, the Iowa State Education Association, a group of popular authors, Iowa parents, and others have challenged a 2023 Iowa State Law banning books. Read more about the court case here. Read about an injunction filed against that law earlier here.

The celebration of Banned Books week is a celebration of the freedom to read. The Banned Books Honors group is partnering with the Philosophy Department to host a philosophical exploration of banned books, examining the ethical, political, and cultural questions raised by censorship and the suppression of Ideas on October 9 in the Loras College Pub from 7-8:30pm. 

If you can’t make it to the event in the Pub, you can participate in Banned Books Week by reading a banned book, and learning more about the dangers of censorship and what it looks like in 2025. For more ideas, check out this page from the ALA.

Every year the ALA creates a list of the top 10 banned books of the previous year, drawing on data from news stories and voluntary reporting from libraries around the United States. With top 10 lists dating back to 1999, the lists record the titles of banned books, as well as the reasons they were banned, showing the shifting reasons books are challenged and banned. Check out this year’s list here.

Interested in reading banned books? Check out our collection of banned books on the 1st floor, and see what the fuss is all about for yourself. Interested in the 2024 data on banned books? Here’s the official Banned Books Week website.
 

This week we welcome to the blog Italee Castellon from the Counseling Center to talk about Brain Health Awareness Week (October 5-11, 2025) here on campus.

According to Mental Health America’s (MHA) 2025 calendar, October is a month full of awareness and specifically holds Mental Illness Awareness Week (Oct. 5-11). Loras is choosing to move forward calling this week “Brain Health Awareness Week” as Mental Health is inherently Brain Health. Our brain is an incredibly powerful organ that is in control of so many important features of the body and self; including how we think, how we move, how we behave, how we experience sensations, and overall well-being. Everything that the brain is responsible for – mental and physical – is a part of brain health.

Being able to maintain good brain health is essential to everyone’s overall wellness. Brain health conditions and mental health diagnoses are common, manageable, and treatable. According to MHA’s Quick Facts and Statistics (2025), 1 in 5 people will experience a mental health condition in any given year and approximately half of Americans will meet the criteria for a diagnosable mental health condition sometime in their lives. Many times, the symptoms begin to appear after the age of 14 years old and especially pop up in late adolescence/early adulthood.

What Loras tries to promote during Brain Health Awareness Week is education on brain health, encouraging and enabling people with healthy coping strategies, and contributing to destigmatization in the community. The public’s knowledge and understanding of brain health has moved in a more positive direction over the last 20 years – it is our duty to continue the spread the kindness, hope, and understanding for our Duhawks that have been affected by brain health in their lives. Look out for the events coming up during that week hosted by the Loras Counseling Center and be a part of the change and promotion for better brain health for everyone.