WVU Libraries

West Virginia University is pleased to host the 9th Annual Women of Appalachia Project (WOAP) “Women Speak” performance, an afternoon of juried poetry, story and song, featuring 33 artists living in or with strong ties to Appalachia from throughout WV, OH, KY, VA, NM and LA. The event will be held in the Downtown Campus Library, Milano Reading Room, 1549 University Ave, Morgantown, WV, on September 30, 2017, at 1pm. The event is held in conjunction with the Libraries’ Looking at Appalachia exhibit and University’s Campus Read selection for 2017-18, Hidden Figures.

In recognition of this Special Day of Concern, the event will be recorded for those unable to attend.

According to the founder, Kari Gunter-Seymour Peterson, the mission of WOAP is to showcase the way in which female artists respond to the Appalachian region as a source of inspiration, bringing together women from diverse backgrounds, ages and experiences to embrace the stereotype – to show the whole woman; beyond the superficial factors that people use to judge her.

Among the performers are West Virginians Beverly Hart Bisbee, Odana Chaney, Cheryl Denise, Renée K. Nicholson, Lisa M. Pursley, Susan Truxell Sauter, Susan Sheppard, Anna Egan Smucker, Natalie Sypolt (MFA, WVU, 2005) and Sherrell Wigal.

Natalie Sypolt

 Nicholson, Assistant Professor of Multidisciplinary Studies, is among the presenters. Said Nicholson:
“My father grew up in Vienna, and as a child we came to West Virginia for holidays and other family events, so West Virginia became synonymous with family and part of my identity, even when I lived in large cities, in the Midwest and in the South. After moving back to West Virginia to study creative writing, I have found profound meaning working with patients with cancer through a project at the WVU Cancer Institute. The people I work with, most from West Virginia and surrounding Appalachian states, share their life stories with me. They have inspired me to write more of my own experiences from West Virginia as subject for poems.”

Renee Nicholson

Doors open at 12:30 p.m. The presentation is free to the public though donations in support of WOAP will be accepted at the door. There will be a short reception immediately following the performance. Refreshments will be served.

WVU Libraries partnered with the LGBTQ+ Center, the Women’s Resource Center, the Center for Women’s and Gender Studies, and WVU Campus Read to bring the Women of Appalachia Project “Women Speak” event to campus.

Guests will also have the opportunity to view Looking at Appalachia: Selected Images from 2014-2016 a newly installed exhibit of photographs from contemporary Appalachian amateur and professional photographers currently on display at the DCL.

Jack Hodge, WVU’s first African-American graduate (Journalism, 1954) interviewing Thomas Fulton, head of Social Work Department, for The Daily Athenaeum.

The West Virginia University Libraries’ West Virginia & Regional History Center will host a discussion on preserving the history of WVU’s first African-American graduates on October 3 at 4 p.m. in the WVRHC in the Downtown Campus Library.

WVRHC Curator and Assistant Director Lori Hostuttler will highlight the archival materials documenting graduates Jack Hodge (first bachelor degree, 1954), Annette Chandler Broome (first female bachelor’s degree, 1957), Victorine Louistall Monroe (first master’s degree) and John Reuben Sheeler (first PhD.) who are part of the current exhibit Flowing Outward and Beyond: WVU 1867-2017.

In 1957, Annette Broome (on the right) became the first known African-American woman to receive an undergraduate degree from WVU. She was the granddaughter of John Hunt. (L to R: Ruth Barnett, Lennie Wiley and Annette Chandler Broome)

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Grace Martin Taylor

An exhibit created by students and faculty in the West Virginia University Reed College of Media and WVU Libraries will highlight the success of unknown West Virginians through augmented reality.

“Unseen, Unknown: An Augmented Reality Exhibit Exploring WV Sights & Stories gives new voice to these unknown figures by blending history and emerging media, and I’m thrilled to host such an innovative and collaborative exhibit at the Libraries,” said Sally Deskins, exhibits and program coordinator for the Libraries.

The exhibit opens October 1 on the second floor of the Downtown Campus Library and will remain on display through December.

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West Virginia University Libraries invites the campus community and the public to a screening and panel discussion of the West Virginia Public Broadcasting documentary “Vietnam: West Virginians Remember” at the Mountainlair’s Gluck Theatre on September 27 at 4 p.m. The Libraries welcomes all interested attendees and hopes many student veterans and campus veteran advocates will join us for this program.

A panel discussion will follow the film and feature WVPB Executive Producer Suzanne Higgins and WVU Associate Professor of History James Siekmeier. WVU Reed College of Media Shott Chair of Journalism and Assistant Professor Lois Raimondo will moderate the discussion.

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The Morgantown Arts Walk is making it cool to hang out at the library on a Friday night. The Downtown Campus Library will be an event stop Friday, September 22, from 4-6 p.m.

“We are excited to be part the Morgantown Arts Walk for the first time this year. We hope the community will enjoy a conversation with Looking at Appalachia Director Roger May and interacting with exhibit which provides an intimate look into everyday life in Appalachia,” said Karen Diaz, interim dean of Libraries.

Looking at Appalachia, a juried collection of images by amateur and professional photographers currently on display at the Downtown Campus Library, is moving to its second phase with 20 new images.

Looking at Appalachia Director Roger May began his crowd-sourced project in 2014 to mark the 50th anniversary of Johnson’s Poverty Tour, which was heavily covered by the media and generated several images that came to define the region. May, a West Virginia-native, chose open submissions to professional and amateur photographers to chronicle life in the 13-state region in hopes of broadening the contemporary definitions of the region and its people.

The exhibit opened in June of 2016 with 73 selections lining the walls of the DCL’s first floor. Some of the images provoked controversy, which May said was intended to start a conversation. This new exhibit Looking at Appalachia: Selected Images from 2014-16, features 20 new images from 2015-16 alongside 20 images from the original exhibition of photographs from 2014, presenting the project in a new, more concentrated light that has never been done.

The Panolian and a hat on the dashboard of Alice Pierotti’s truck in the cotton fields of Panola County, Mississippi photographed on 8/29/15.
Photo by Pat Jarrett

“The Looking at Appalachia project is a fascinating constellation of images and artists connected by geography and a shared impulse to record the unique qualities of the region,” said Michael Sherwin, CCA professor of photography and Looking at Appalachia contributor.

May will be present to chat with the crowd during the event. Also on hand will be Raymond Thompson, a photographer on the curatorial committee of Looking at Appalachia, and whose The Divide exhibit is on display in the Downtown Campus Library Atrium. Refreshments will be generously provided by Tin 202.

Later in the semester, as part of WVU’s Diversity Week, the Libraries will host a community wide discussion on Appalachian representation in photography on October 13 at 10 a.m. in the Milano Reading Room. Also in the works for next spring is a Looking at Morgantown exhibit.

The exhibits and events are coordinated by the Art in the Libraries Committee. Looking at Appalachia: Curated Images from 2014-16, will be on display through June 2018. For more information on the Art in the Libraries program visit exhibits.lib.wvu.edu.

An exhibit currently on display at the Evansdale Library highlights the history of the packaging of U.S. agricultural commodity products in textile bags, especially dress print cotton bags known as feedsacks.

“All over America, including West Virginia and Appalachia, feedsacks were used during the Great Depression through the 1950s to make clothes and other household items,” said Anna M. Schein, associate curator, West Virginia and Regional History Center. “According to published research, by 1942 an estimated three million women and children of all income levels were wearing printed feedsack garments.”

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The West Virginia University Libraries’ West Virginia & Regional History Center has received a $210,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to continue digitizing newspapers published in West Virginia from 1836 to 1922.

The award is the Libraries’ fourth NEH grant as part of the National Digital Newspaper Program. The collaboration between the NEH and the Library of Congress enlists libraries and institutions from around the country to create a digital database of historical United States newspapers.

“We are honored that the NEH recognizes the tremendous value of the historical newspapers archived in the WVRHC,” WVRHC Director John Cuthbert said. “We are thrilled to make more of these resources accessible to the world.

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The Divide, an exhibit of black and white photographs on display in the WVU Libraries’ Downtown Campus Library Atrium, documents a van trip for families from urban Virginia to visit their relatives incarcerated in Appalachia.

The installation consists of 10 printed photographs as well as an interactive tablet so visitors may see additional photos and learn more about the project created by Raymond Thompson, a multimedia producer for WVU Magazine. A participatory element allows visitors to comment about the impact of the exhibit and share their own experiences.

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Inspired by the realism and symmetry of the Renaissance and other times, award-winning West Virginia University senior Patrick Bayly’s paintings are in a style that is uniquely American. Bayly’s work “New American Paintings” will be on display at Evansdale Library in August.

Read more about Bayley and his work on WVU Today.

West Virginia University Libraries will host a presentation Aug. 4, 3-5 p.m., by Associate Professor of Music History Travis Stimeling about his recent research on musician Charlie McCoy which culminated into his new book from WVU Press, Fifty Cents and a Box Top: The Creative Life of Nashville Session Musician Charlie McCoy (2017).

Stimeling will be joined by former student Dizzandra Linger (BA, 2017), who will present her research on Melvin Wine (1909-2003), a Mountain State fiddler and folk music educator. Linger’s research looks at the impact of the environment of Wine’s performances. The reading will be held in the Downtown Campus Library’s Milano Room, which houses the Appalachian Collection and displays Wine’s portrait.

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West Virginia University’s associate dean of Libraries, Karen Diaz, has been appointed interim dean of Libraries effective July 31. Diaz steps into the role following the departure of Dean Jon Cawthorne, who left for a position at Wayne State University.

“Having been a professional librarian in higher education for 30 years, Karen obviously has tremendous experience,” said Provost Joyce McConnell. “She also has a clear understanding of how university libraries like ours need to redefine their role and the nature of their collections in the 21^st century. I know that under her leadership, our talented library staff will flourish and our libraries will grow as extraordinary campus resources.”

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An interactive sculpture on display at West Virginia University’s Evansdale Library is the result of the Community Engagement in Science through Art program, which has assembled a team of artists, chemists and engineers from WVU and three other universities.

“CESTA gives its participants the unique opportunity to collaborate with others from very different viewpoints to create an original project. I don’t know of anything else like it,” said Todd Hamrick, assistant professor of engineering, Benjamin M. Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources.

The CESTA 2017 teams includes WVU students Trevor Brison, engineering; Cornelius Hugo, sculpture; and Umida Nurjanova, computer science; Owen Phillips, chemistry, Georgetown University; Eric Schreiber, chemistry, The College of New Jersey; and Bridget Stamp, sculpture, Kent State University.

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In this debut video-blog of the WVU Libraries’ new series, Checking Out!, West Virginia and Regional History Center Assistant Director Lori Hostuttler shares about the significance of the monumental exhibit, Flowing Outward and Beyond: West Virginia University, 1867-2017, celebrating WVU’s 150th Birthday opening Tuesday, June 20th and one of her favorite objects featured in it…

Much has occurred since that first day of class in the fall of 1867 when West Virginia University consisted of just two buildings, six faculty members, six college-level students, and 118 young men preparing to attend college.

WVU Libraries and the West Virginia & Regional History Center will provide a crash course in history to celebrate the University’s sesquicentennial as part of this year’s West Virginia Day program on June 20.

“As we commemorate the 150th anniversary of the founding of West Virginia University, it is essential for us to reflect on the early years of the institution to truly understand our land-grant mission and to appreciate the many significant milestones that have brought us this far,” WVRHC Director John Cuthbert said.

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Five ceramic students and a recent graduate from West Virginia University’s College of Creative Arts School of Art and Design are exhibiting their work at Evansdale Library this summer.

George Jae Hyun Cho, Kari Kindelberger, Andrew Kellner, Brandon Schnur, Luke Doyle and Ken Lu are members of the WVU Clay Club whose mission is “to create a community of people with interest in ceramics to educate each other, promote our department and participate in the community.”

“We’re delighted to exhibit the WVU Clay Club’s beautiful ceramic works and Ken Lu’s meticulous paintings. They expose our summer visitors to outstanding examples of the work coming out of WVU’s School of Art and Design,” Creative Arts Librarian Beth Royall said.

“Caught in Between,” College of Creative Arts Ceramics graduate student Ken Lu, stoneware with acrylic, 2017

The exhibits are part of WVU Libraries’ Art in the Libraries initiative to fill library spaces with art exhibits and pieces created by nationally recognized artists with ties to West Virginia or WVU and noteworthy art created by WVU students.

This display at Evansdale shows the breadth of talent and style of the artists, from Cho’s figurative, embracing porcelain figures, to Lu’s geometric brightly colored abstract forms, to Kellner’s hushed-toned, textured stacked houses, Schnur’s sleeping dog, Doyle’s tiny but exquisitely crafted pastel lidded jar, to Kindelberger’s humble, intimate almost invisible 2-d porcelain figures.

Evansdale Library is also hosting a series of Lu’s paintings about optical illusions which he continues to develop for his master’s thesis exhibit next spring.

“Applying atmospheric perspective (color), I am able to play with visual effect to create an illusion of depth or relief. The position of the hexagons creates voids, questioning what image comes to mind first – the cubes or the void it created,” Lu said.

Two of his larger paintings will be on view in the Downtown Campus Library later this summer.

See the works on view during Evansdale Library’s summer hours: Monday-Thursday 8 a.m.-9 p.m., Fridays 8 a.m.-5 p.m. and Saturdays 1-5 p.m.

West Virginia University will be host to the first of an annual series of events this fall—the Women of Appalachia Project, which invites residents of all 420 Appalachian counties to submit writing to be featured in “Women Speak.”

WVU Libraries is partnering with the LGBTQ+ Center, the Women’s Resource Center, the Center for Women’s and Gender Studies, and WVU Campus Read to bring the juried spoken word event to campus on September 30, in conjunction with the Libraries’ Looking at Appalachia exhibit.

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Are you interested in learning about technical and professional communication as it relates to your discipline? Come and learn the basics in our series of workshops with the Eberly Writing Studio designed to introduce technical writing for both undergraduate and graduate students. All workshops are free and do not require pre-registration. Refreshments will be provided.

Monday June 5, 3-4PM, Evansdale Library Room 130 Technical Writing: Clarity & Concision A general workshop that will cover the basics of technical writing, designed for students in all disciplines.

Monday June 19, 3-4PM, Evansdale Library Room 234 *room change* Ethics of Technical Writing A general workshop designed to introduce the ethical issues related to technical writing, for students in all disciplines.

Monday July 10, 3-4PM, Evansdale Library Room 234 *room change* Technical Writing for Engineers This workshop is specifically for Engineering students, though others are welcome to attend.

More information on technical writing can be found at: libguides.wvu.edu/technicalwriting.

West Virginia University Libraries and the Honors College selected Hayley Harman and Janelle Vickers as 2017 Robert F. Munn Undergraduate Library Scholars.

“All of us at WVU Libraries and the Honors College congratulate our Munn Scholars, Hayley Harman and Janelle Vickers, for producing impressive works of scholarship,” Dean of Libraries Jon E. Cawthorne said. “They clearly dedicated considerable time and effort to gathering and evaluating pertinent resources, and we celebrate their use of scholarship in their research.”

WVU Libraries and the Honors College established the Robert F. Munn Undergraduate Library Scholars Award in 2009 to honor Munn, who served as dean of Library Services from 1957-1986. The $1,000 prize goes to one or more graduating Honors students for an outstanding humanities or social sciences thesis based on research conducted in the WVU Libraries.

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MORGANTOWN, W.Va.—The history of labor organizing in West Virginia has much to teach us about this moment in our country. What better way to dive into this history than a celebration of one of its heroes?

Monday, May 1, is traditionally a day of international worker solidarity. It is also believed to be the birthday of Mary Harris “Mother” Jones. Jones, a labor organizer in several industries, became most well known for her work with coal miners during an era of unsafe mining practices and few labor laws. She touched the lives of many miners and their families around the country and became a symbol of workers’ struggles.

For more information visit: http://www.statler.wvu.edu/news/2017/04/12/west-virginia-libraries-and-watts-museum-collaborate-to-celebrate-may-day.

Steve Wolfe (right) and his wife, Darla, along with WVU President Gordon Gee, display a copy of the Chicago Daily Tribune that erroneously reports Dewey Defeats Truman. This newspaper is one of large collection of historical newspapers Steve Wolfe donated to the WVRHC.

Newspapers have chronicled key events from throughout our nation’s history – from crowning achievements like the ratification of the U.S. Constitution and Neil Armstrong’s moon walk to our darkest moments such as President Kennedy’s assassination and the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.

West Virginia University alumnus Steve Wolfe, BA ’81, Political Science, is quite familiar with those historic moments and their media coverage. He spent more than two decades acquiring more than 150 newspapers that reported on these and other pivotal happenings.

Wolfe is now donating the impressive collection to the WVU Libraries’ West Virginia & Regional History Center.

To read more, visit WVUToday.