As library collections become increasingly digital, West Virginia UniversityLibraries seeks to engage our users and community in our spaces in new ways. One avenue is the Art in the Libraries program, which brings art and collaborative exhibitions into the library buildings to spark discussions and inspire new ideas.
“Having art and exhibits in these publicly used spaces presents a unique opportunity for exhibitor and library guest,” said Sally Deskins, exhibit coordinator for WVU Libraries. “The exhibitor’s work is in a neutral space, a space which preserves and protects new ideas and perspectives, and a space where some who wouldn’t normally seek out art and exhibits, will go.”
Art in the Libraries programming spans the Downtown Campus, Evansdale and Health Sciences libraries. The committee welcomes ideas for collaborative and engaging programs and submissions for exhibition proposals on an ongoing basis.
In November, the Art in the Libraries Committee awarded College of Creative Arts’ students Megan Grindle and Christina Kang with the Dean of the Libraries’ arts awards. Grindle’s work, Exposure (2017, acrylic paint, ink, glitter, and art resin) and Kang’s work Creatures of Dichotomy: Finding a Bridge Between (2017, sceenprint under etching, watercolor, pins), won the awards selected by the Art in the Libraries Committee at the CCA’s Juried Student Exhibit in Laura Mesaros Gallery.
Exposure will be on display in Evansdale Library January through April 2018; Creatures of Dichotomy: Finding a Bridge Between will be on display in the Downtown Campus Library Lobby January through December 2018.
Artist Megan Grindle’s work can be explained simply as abstract, but there are more to the layers of paint than that. She explains that her process takes a careful, skillful hand but the decisions on how to move her hands comes from her unconscious mind. For her work she uses an abstract fluid style that allows her to use the randomness of the paint to create a beautiful outcome.
Artist Christina Kang is a printmaker working on her BFA. She is a self proclaimed “tiny lines enthusiast” and explains that her creating her artwork is her way of showing people her personal identity.
Grindle and Kang will have more artwork on view alongside work by recent graduate Mallory Burka, on display in Room 1020 of DCL January 20-February 2018.
Artist Mallory Burka’s paintings, from afar, seem photographic until viewers look a little closer. Burka’s paintings, though based on her own photographs, are made with oil paint and drop cloth to create a painterly-realistic depiction of structural and natural landmarks in West Virginia. She hopes to interest viewers and persuade them to visit the sites of West Virginia that inspired her.
Systems Development will be performing server maintenance on Thursday, January 11th beginning at 9am. Downtime should be minimal, but there may be brief outages. The following system will be affected:
The Libraries are now offering two versions of our updated plagiarism avoidance tutorial. Both tutorials cover how plagiarism is defined; why students may advertently and inadvertently plagiarize; possible penalties for plagiarism; how to use information ethically in research papers / projects; and where to get help with researching and writing. To enhance usability, students can watch videos, read scripts, or listen to audio covering the Tutorial’s content. Students work through 5 modules, taking self-tests in order to progress from one module to the next. After completing the last module, students take an exam on the Tutorial’s material. The final exam, consisting of 20 questions, randomly draws from a bank of 58 possible questions. Students generally require about 1 hour of concentrated work time to complete the tutorial.
eCampus
This version can be added to your course in eCampus, and the exam’s grade is immediately entered into the eCampus gradebook. To add the Plagiarism Avoidance Tutorial to your class:
Click on the course that you want to add the Plagiarism Avoidance Tutorial to.
Click on the Request Content button.
Check the box next to the sections you want to add it to and click Next.
Click on Development System when it asks where your source content is located.
Then click on Other.
In the Name box, type “WVU Plagiarism Avoidance Tutorial” and click Next.
Then click Submit.
If you would like to review the Plagiarism Avoidance Tutorial before adding it to your current or future class, you can add it to the course shell of a non-current class using the process listed above.
Web
This version is available at https://lib.wvu.edu/plagiarism. Students will simply visit this link and take the tutorial and quiz. At the end of the quiz, they will be prompted to email their scores to their instructors. This new process will eliminate the need for students to register or for instructors to be added to a list. This will streamline the process for both students and instructors. Both this updated version of the tutorial and the previous tutorial will be available through the Spring 2018 semester. On May 7, 2018, the old version will be removed.
As part of its mission, Art in the Libraries seeks to highlight the art and scholarship of WVU faculty and staff. With the Annual Faculty/Staff Exhibits Award, Art in the Libraries committee invites current WVU faculty and staff to submit ideas for consideration for an exhibit to visually showcase their scholarship in new and experimental ways, providing a visual evolution of their work, visualizing their research and influences, or answering a research question.
Broader goals of this award include:
to provide a multidisciplinary platform for deeper learning.
to foster a continuation of intellectual discourse and discussion.
to demonstrate the breadth of WVU’s creative and innovative activity.
Exhibitions will take place in the Downtown Campus Library, room 1020 for an agreed-upon duration, and include a public lecture, program or demonstration. Non-art faculty or staff may submit a proposal based on their academic research that could become visualized with Library consultation and limited resources. Applicants must submit an outline of their proposal on the Propose an Exhibit online form , with “Annual Faculty/Staff Exhibits Award Submission” in the Proposed Exhibit Location section. (Exhibits.lib.wvu.edu)
Award includes $1,000 as professional development funds. Award also includes promotion, and coordination of public program and reception, offering an opportunity for exposure.
Eligibility: All West Virginia University part-time or full-time faculty or staff.
Winners will be selected by the Art in the Libraries Committee. Selection will be based on applications that best meet the award’s goals listed above.
Deadline: Midnight, February 28, 2018
Exhibition space is in Downtown Campus Library room 1020. This is a prime viewing location with glass front walls, located on the first floor of the Library (which averages 4,000 visitors each day). A hanging system allows for two-dimensional work to be displayed conveniently on the 12’ tall off-white walls. Three dimensional work can be displayed using the exhibitor’s own pedestals or installation, but must not inhibit student study space area. Exhibition space will be open during normal Downtown Campus Library hours listed on the website and security is limited to the staff working at the service desks. There is no security guard or locked hanging system, however the Libraries hold the University-wide insurance which can cover loss or damage with proof of worth.
Applicants may contact Sally Deskins, sbdeskins@mail.wvu.edu, for a tour and/or consultation before applying.
Room 1020 Floorplan (above); entrance is from main 1st floor area.
The Libraries will be performing server maintenance next week on Wednesday, December 20. Downtime should be minimal, but there may be brief outages. The following systems will be affected:
WVU Libraries was pleased to host Women of Appalachia: Spoken Word, September 30, 2017 in the Milano Reading Room of the Downtown Campus Library. The curated event that travels around the region featuring some 30 women artists, included several West Virginia artists. WVU Campus Read Director and Teaching Assistant Professor of Marketing, Susan Lantz, graciously provided a reflection of the event for the Libraries’ blog, below, accompanied by links to recordings of the event.
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Today, as I begin the semester assessment in my 97-student “Intro” classes, I asked the students,
“What things did we do in class to make you better understand the diversity of West Virginia University?”
I expected typical answers like. . .
“We read a book about women who were African American.”
“We watched a TED talk about women in Rwanda who are entrepreneurs.”
“We talked about race and class in business when we watched the one video.”
And, indeed. I got those answers. But I got another one that pleasantly surprised me.
A young women raised her hand and said, “That event you told us to go to at the library…the one where the women read stories. ‘Women Speak,’ I think it was called.
I could have kissed her.
Because, even though a 48 year old Assistant Professor of Marketing like me absolutely knew that a spoken word event consisting of Appalachian Women telling their stories speaks to the diversity of our college, state, and region. . . I wasn’t sure the students would. Especially because the event was on a beautiful September Saturday afternoon. And especially because the event was on a list of events that students could choose from (they were required to attend five.)
But, to my surprise, not only did over 100 people show up to the Spoken Word Event, but over 30 of them were students. Some of them were native West Virginians. Some of them were from New York, New Jersey, and Washington D.C. One young woman was from Oman, and one was from Saudi Arabia.
And they were INTO IT. When I quizzed my classes later to find out which events from the list of 19 they had enjoyed the most, this event was often mentioned.
We linked the event to this year’s Campus Read, *Hidden Figures*, a book about the female African American Physicists and Mathematicians who were the underpinnings of the space program. We had chosen the book because two of these women had lived in our town. In fact, one of them had actually attended West Virginia University. We are very proud.
We thought that the subject matter of the book, daughters of Appalachia who used their talents to achieve great things, would link naturally to an event that celebrated Appalachian Women. And it did, and it was a huge success.
How would you capture the spirit of Morgantown in a photograph? Is it fans tailgating before a Mountaineer game, hikers exploring a trail at Coopers Rock, or a family gathering together for Sunday dinner?
The exhibit is in conjunction with Looking at Appalachia: Selected Images from 2014-2016 currently on display at the DCL. Looking at Appalachia is an ongoing crowdsourced photography project created by West Virginia-based photographer Roger May as a response to media coverage and perceptions of Appalachia and the President Johnson’s War on Poverty.
In 1976, Nick Rahall II, a 27-year-old native of Beckley, WV, won the race for the West Virginia Fourth Congressional District and went on to win re-election to the U.S. House of Representatives for another eighteen terms (1977-2015), making him the longest serving congressman in West Virginia history.
Before he was elected to Congress, Nick Rahall worked in the office of then U.S. Senator Robert C. Byrd and as assistant to the Majority Secretary of the Senate. He is pictured with senators Jennings Randolph, Mike Mansfield and Byrd in June 1976. Read the rest of this entry »
Moments in time captured on film are taken into the hands of West Virginia University College of Creative Arts painting graduate student Tiera Joy Tanner and made into something new yet nostalgic.
Tanner works with photographs dated from the early 1990’s by embracing the out-of-focus details. In order to bring new concepts into focus she resizes and crops her images in order to emphasize the lack of detail and out-of-focus look of them. By doing this she brings attention to the lack of clarity and the way that these subtle distortions evoke differing feelings and perceptions of these flashes from the past. Within her painted work she uses these elements to show fragments of their childhood, giving us memories in paintings. More information can be found at tierajoytanner.com.
Her work is on display on the 1st floor and 2nd floor of Evansdale Library through January 2018.
Art in the Libraries develops exhibits and related programs in the Downtown Campus Library, Evansdale Library, and Health Sciences Library, highlighting the creative endeavors and scholarship of WVU faculty, staff, and students, reaching across the University, the region, and the broader academic community. This program demonstrates how art, libraries and scholars encourage the community to explore, reflect, and discuss what they encounter in the WVU Libraries which seeks to embody the mission of West Virginia University by excelling in discovery and innovation, modeling cultural diversity and inclusion, promoting vitality and building pathways for the exchange of knowledge and opportunity.
The speaker is Sarah LeMire, the First-Year Experience librarian at Texas A&M University and the co-author of Serving Those Who Served: Librarian’s Guide to Working with Veteran and Military Families. Before becoming a librarian, LeMire served in the U.S. Army as an Arabic linguist including a deployment to Iraq in 2005-2006.
WVU Libraries was pleased to host Women of Appalachia: Spoken Word, September 30, 2017 in the Milano Reading Room of the Downtown Campus Library. The curated event that travels around the region featuring some 30 women artists, included several West Virginia artists. Multidisciplinary Studies Professor Renée K. Nicholson was one such West Virginia artist who read at the event, and she graciously provided a short reflection for the Libraries’ blog, below. If you missed the live event, we have links to the Youtube records included as well.
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On a crisp, early October Sunday afternoon, I made my way to WVU’s Downtown Library, climbing the spiral stairs and making my way to the Milano Reading Room for the first of the Women of Appalachia readings for 2017-2018. The sun slanted in the windows, filling the room with natural light, as people milled around the refreshments set out for the occasion. Though this was my first time reading as part of the series, the project has enjoyed many years of women writers and artists from all around Appalachia.
Some familiar faces were in the room. Cheryl Denise, a poet from Phillipi, WV is someone I’ve known for years and whose work in poetry both tells a story and celebrates language. Anna Smucker was another poet, whose work on many acclaimed children’s books is well known in West Virginia and beyond. Kari Gunter-Seymour Peterson, a writer I had met before, had worked tirelessly to assemble this group after a professional vetting process, and also read as part of the event. There were also many writers whose work I didn’t know, and so it made for a delightful treat to learn of the work they did.
One of the goals of the project is to challenge the stereotype of “Appalachian Woman.” With so many different voices, not just from West Virginia, but Ohio, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina and beyond, and with a mix of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, the range alone challenged the idea of single Appalachian Woman. Instead we stitched together in worlds a quilt of language and lived experience that was beautiful more for the ways it kept pattern at bay than for the way it conformed. Listening to others felt like the true reward of the day.
Place defines people, and an event like the Women of Appalachia gathering presented the idea of place as a rooting one. Roots support and nourish, and clearly the work of the assembled readers showed how Appalachia sustained the writing shared. Outside the autumn sun illuminated trees that would soon burst forth into garnet and persimmon and golds, all the glory of autumn and inside, the vibrancy of the words were already in full view. In the patter of after-reading conversation, once again I felt reminded of what place and poetry can do—create community.
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Renée K. Nicholson, MFA
Assistant Professor, Programs for Multi and Interdisciplinary Studies, West Virginia University
Assistant Director, West Virginia Writers’ Workshop
Author of Roundabout Directions to Lincoln Center
Co-editor, Bodies of Truth: Narratives of Illness, Disability & Medicine (Nebraska UP, 2019)
A project exploring stereotypes and mass incarcerations will bring journalist Sylvia Ryerson to campus November 15 for multiple class visits and a public presentation in the Downtown Campus Library’s Milano Reading Room at 6 p.m.
Sylvia Ryerson
Ryerson’s presentation, “Public Airwaves through Prison Walls: Restoring Connection in the Era of Mass Incarceration,” will complement the visual perspective of The Divide, WVU Multimedia Producer and photojournalist Raymond Thompson’s exhibit of photographs on display in the Downtown Campus Library Atrium. Ryerson partnered with Thompson to document a 2015 trip by Virginian families as they drove together in a van from urban centers to rural Appalachian prisons to visit incarcerated loved-ones.
Raymond Thompson
“ ‘Restoring Connections’ showcases how art, journalism, and activism intersect to highlight topics of academic interest that have a direct impact on society; exactly the programming we are aiming to host in the libraries,” said Karen Diaz, interim dean of WVU Libraries. “Raymond’s photographs have been surrounding library users for months, bringing an awareness of the families impacted by incarceration. This program will fill out those photos with the stories of those affected and give us all a new perspective on the impacts of mass incarceration in our country. These sorts of conversations are essential to helping us shape the thoughtful democratic society we wish to create for ourselves.”
Events kick off Monday, Oct. 30, at noon with a presentation by Jaime Banks, professor of Communication Studies, and Ph.D. student Joe Wasserman, titled “Real Representations and Liminal Lessons: Considerations for Games in Learning” in Room 104.
Monday through Saturday, Oct. 30-Nov. 4 – Take a break from work or study to play arcade games provided by local Star Port Arcade and Pub in Room 1036.
Wednesday, Nov. 1, at 11 a.m. in Room 104 – A panel of WVU instructors (Banks; Mark Benincosa, School of Music; Dr. Bob Britten, Reed College of Media; and Dr. Brian Ballentine, Professional Writing and Editing) will discuss how they use games and gamification in their teaching and research. Librarian Jing Qiu will facilitate. Following the panel, instructors are invited to participate in a noon workshop on gamifying lesson plans featuring lunch provided by Lotsa Motsa.
Thursday, Nov. 2, from 11 a.m.-7 p.m., in Room 2036 – Cartridges Galore Video Games will provide an on-site open gaming station for users to play with for free.
Friday, Nov. 3, from 11 a.m.-6 p.m., in Room 2036 – The WVU Student Game Developers Club will have an open showcase of games they designed.
Saturday, Nov. 4, from 2 p.m.-7 p.m. – Family Day offers a casual community game extravaganza that includes lessons for beginners for all kinds of games, giveaways, competitive tournaments, open play, live WVU Jeopardy and an appearance by real Jeopardy star and Morgantown resident Leigh Limerick. College of Creative Arts Professor Jeffrey Moser’s game design class will display Breakout Storytelling. Four Horsemen Comics and Games and Star Port Arcade is giving out free prizes. Visitors can learn and play Magic the Gathering, Pokémon, board games and more.
Attendees are encouraged to use social media and tag #wvulibraries or #wvugamesweek to celebrate the fun.
International Games Week has been celebrated in 53 countries and territories on all 7 continents. Hundreds of libraries across the country will join WVU in celebrating the popularity and educational, recreational and social value of games. For more information, contact Sally Deskins, Libraries Exhibits and Programs Coordinator, sbdeskins@mail.wvu.edu or Beth Toren, Interdisciplinary, Cultural and Film Studies Librarian/Games Week coordinator, beth.toren@mail.wvu.edu.
WVU Libraries will host a discussion on Appalachian photography and identity on Friday, Oct. 13, from 10 a.m.-noon in the Downtown Campus Library’s Milano Reading Room.
The program will begin with short presentations exploring different ways of representation and discuss intersectionality with regard to identities exuded in photos of the people and places of Appalachia. Intersectionality reflects the idea that multiple identities intersect to create a whole and proposes that an individual’s personal character traits are intimately linked and therefore inform one’s complete identity.
In the 80’s the crisis was access to information; in the 90’s, it was about the digital divide; in the 2000’s, the challenge became information glut; and now in the 2010’s, we are experiencing the latest round of information challenges – rampant disinformation. Assertions of fake news, Russian intervention in our social media streams, and confirmation-biased streams of information all lead to a crisis of belief in information itself.
One institution rarely mentioned in reports and calls for action to managing information crises are libraries. And yet, libraries have a long view of information flow and are in the thick of each challenge that arises. The current challenge is no different, and WVU Libraries is among those answering the call.
WVU Libraries not only supplies proprietary information to the campus, our bedrock curriculum is information literacy, a term difficult to define, but exactly what is needed in times of information crisis. Librarians are here, not only to help students learn how to use the library, but also how to think about their own thinking so that they become more literate information users.
Wallace, a Wheeling-based artist, shares self-portraits and other artwork she has painted throughout her experience in and out of hospitals as a patient with cancer as she has become “more aware of my new body, my cancer body.”
Wallace’s bright and intimate portraits are coupled with narratives written by her as well as those around her who have been moved by her courage and stamina including members of her healthcare team and others. As an act of story, art and healthcare, Bodies of Truth illuminates a full circle view of Wallace as a strong patient, artist, mother, community member and human being.
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.
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.
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)
“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.
