Your virtual care package from the Libraries

The Libraries is sending you a virtual care package, with everything you need to finish the semester strong.

Go ahead and color our collections, take a 10-song study break, watch a relaxing video, travel the world, or find helpful resources to help you maintain focus and keep organized while studying.

Color our collections from the Wangensteen Historical Library

Take a break from studying with coloring sheets of fantastical creatures, detailed figures, and historical marginalia (AKA doodling) from the Wangensteen Historical Library of Biology and Medicine!

So get out your colored pencils, crayons, or watercolors and enjoy these free pdf downloads of our #ColorOurCollections historical coloring books!

• Historical creatures
• Mythical beasts
• Underwater
• This and that
• Historical doodles

Ten, 10-song study breaks

You’ve been studying so hard. Take a well-deserved break with these 10-song Spotify playlists of songs to fit every need.

• Motown
• Songs from the ’80s
• Songs from the ‘90s
• Songs from the ‘00s
• Middle School Dance Party
• Broadway
• Minnesota <3
• “Feelings”
• I’d Rather Be At The Beach
• Disney

Videos for keeping calm and for distraction

Explore the world’s largest cave in Vietnam, listen to the ocean waves in the Dominican Republic, or take a trip to the Vatican! These videos and tours will get you out and about while still staying in!

Videos for keeping calm and studying

• Georgia Aquarium: Six hours of the Georgia Aquarium’s Ocean Voyager tank, with soothing music.
• Cosmic Relaxation: Eight hours of scenes from NASA’s Hubble telescope, exploring stars, nebulas, and galaxies while paired with music.
• Ocean Waves: Eight hours of a beautiful sunny day at Onda Beach in the Dominican Republic, with nothing but the ocean and waves rolling in.
• Campfire by the River: Three hours of a crackling fire next to a calm river, with plenty of birdsong.
• Tropical Forest: Three hours of tropical birdsong and buzzing cicadas in a Thailand jungle.

Tours and exhibits to explore

• World’s Largest Cave: Hang Son Doong, Vietnam: Explore this incredible cave in Vietnam with National Geographic.
• The Vatican: Take a trip through the Vatican and view the gorgeous art throughout!
• Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History: Take the tour and view the exhibits at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.
• Online Exhibits from the British Museum: View over 7,000 items currently in the British Museum, or take a tour through over 60 galleries using Google’s Street View.

Tools to help you focus

Struggling to focus and manage your time while studying at home? Try out these activities and resources to help you focus!

• Pomodoro technique study time using the Tomato Timer: Join us via Zoom May 1 from 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. and May 4 from 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. to do a Pomodoro study hour together! Get some studying in while also learning the Pomodoro Timer technique, a simple methodology that involves breaking down work into timed short intervals that are spaced out by short breaks.
• Noisli: Create your perfect sound environment for free by mixing and matching different sounds through Noisli. Create your own playlist to cover background noise to help keep you focused. They also offer a timer to help you work in sessions to avoid burnout.
• OneTab: Frequently finding that you have too many tabs open in Google Chrome? Try the free OneTab browser extension! When you have a lot of tabs open, you can simply click the OneTab icon to convert all your tabs into a list.  When you need to access the tabs again, you can either restore them individually or all at once.
• Boomerang for Gmail: Boomerang is a free Gmail tool that lets you schedule when to send and receive emails.
• Trello or Asana for project management: Try out these free project management tools to keep track of your various projects and details! These are useful tools for collaborating on group projects, as well as scheduling and managing the details of individual tasks.
• New York Times article “You’re Too Busy. You Need a Schultz Hour.”: Feeling overwhelmed? Check out this article and consider whether you need to regularly work a “Schultz Hour” into your schedule.