With the 2025-2026 school year starting tomorrow, the team at Miller Library would like to welcome our new and returning students and remind the campus community that we are always here to meet your information and research needs. 

At Miller Library you have access to:

• our physical book, CD, DVD/Blu-Ray collection (with your student or staff ID)
• recent issues of the Grand Rapids Press, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and other journals and periodicals
• our extensive database collections 
• color printing with your Papercut account
• writing and editing help via the Writing Center
• research assistance on-demand 
• quiet study and collaboration spaces
• guest computers
• our Curriculum Materials Center (cardstock, cutting dies, Cricut machines, and more - as well as our Jr. library collection)
• Interlibrary loans of materials from across Michigan and the United States 

If you have any other questions or needs, please just ask!

8.26.25

Miller Library is undergoing a summer refresh. Our bound periodicals have been moved from the first floor (in front of the windows) to the back of the second floor (also near the windows). This has opened up a new sitting area and should also give us some space for some future renovations and changes yet to be announced. 

The library team is also working on processing and intaking a large private collection, reducing the number of withdrawn books held in storage (via our ongoing library book sale), and refreshing out website and physical library space. 

While summer is a great opportunity to learn and prepare, we are all looking forward to seeing our students again at the start of the 2025-2026 academic year!

6.30.25

Review of Salt Magic - Story by Hope Larson, Art by Rebecca Mock

(Review by Ethan Stevens, Evening Circulation Supervisor)

Set on the Great Plains in 1919, this graphic novel begins with fairly standard, but masterfully handled, young adult premise. Independently-minded farm girl Vonceil is deeply jealous of the new wife her adored older brother married immediately upon returning from World War One, as well as frustrated at the distance the war has put between her brother and her. Things take a turn for the perilous when the glamourous Roaring Twenties beauty Greda appears. Greda is both a witch and her brother’s war lover, and she is just as upset as Vonceil is at his marriage. Vonceil is forced to set out on a quest to save both her brother and her family’s spring from Greda’s ‘salt magic,’ a quest that ends up involving many more people than she anticipated.
 

Salt Magic immediately invites comparison to Larson and Mock’s previous hit graphic novel work, the high seas adventures Four Points duology, consisting of Compass South and Knife’s Edge. Like Four Points, it is a meticulously researched piece of historical fiction, though disappointingly its cast is noticeably less diverse and lacks even Four Points’ at-times-interesting-at-times-coy engagement with racial issues. Like Four Points, Salt Magic is a tale of multiple changing relationships among family and friends. The reconciliation between Vonceil and her brother one would expect from the standard young adult opening is explicitly subverted, taken by the ‘standard sacrifice contract’ Vonceil signs as part of the intricate web of magic that occupies the latter half of the novel. However, the actual subversion of Vonceil’s happy ending takes place off screen, between scenes that showcase the happy endings of other characters. Unlike Four Points, Salt Magic is fantasy, and this is where it rises above Four Points, by allowing Mock’s art to truly shine.
 

While their eye for historical details and distinctive but not distracting character designs support the ordinary world of 1919 well, it is when Salt Magic enters the worlds of the two witches in the story, Greda the Salt Witch and Dee the Sugar Witch, that it becomes remarkable. Mock illustrates the use of magic with bright colors standing out from the pale palettes of desert and salt pans. Dee’s slightly-nightmarish sugar lair is filled with oversaturated hues to match her tri-colored pupils and Victorian doll-clothes. By contrast, Greda dwells in a world of creams and pastels dotted with flecks of color often reflected in her diamond-shaped pupils, echoing the amazing fusion of Moorish and art-deco designs that make up her mansion. Mock pushes the watercolor-and-ink-wash-emulating digital tools to their limit, making one wonder what would be possible if this artist had pushed into physical illustration.
 

As a work of historical fiction, Salt Magic is good. As a young adult tale of maturation and relationships of many kinds, it is excellent. As a fantasy graphic novel, it is outstanding.

Commentaries in the reference section have increased!

Thanks to a generous donation, several new sets of Bible commentaries have been chosen by the Bible Division and added over the summer to your library's reference section - which means they'll always be readily available for your (in-house) use! 

Old Testament Library (OTL)* - 36 volumes

Smyth & Helwys Commentaries (OT & NT)* - 32 volumes and still growing

JPS Torah Commentaries (and a growing number of other JPS OT commentaries)*

Hermeneia Commentaries (OT & NT)* - 42 volumes

Anchor Bible Commentary (OT & NT) - 91 volumes

Apollos Old Testament Commentary (AOTC) - 9 volumes and growing

New International Commentary on the New Testament (NICNT) - 18 volumes

New International Commentary on the Old Testament (NICOT) - 26 volumes

New International Greek Testament Commentary (NIGTC) - 14 volumes

New Interpreter's Bible - 13 volumes

Pillar New Testament Commentary (PNTC) - 16 volumes

Word Biblical Commentary (OT & NT) - 62 volumes

Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary (ZIBBC) (OT) - 5 volumes

*New to the library

**In most cases, second copies of each commentary are available to check out from our circulating collection on the 2nd floor. 

Commentaries eBooks

Looking for a commentary you can read online --even on your phone or tablet? Try our large collection of commentary ebooks. Click here to find out how to search for ebook commentaries. Or, simply try one of the Brazos Theological Commentaries or Baker's Understanding the Bible Commentary series that are now part of our OverDrive collection.