WVU Libraries

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.

West Virginia continuously falls at or near the bottom of national statistics when it comes to the social determinants of health including employment, poverty, education, and healthy food access…but why is that? Dr. Lauri Andress, assistant professor in the Department of Health Policy, Management, and Leadership in the West Virginia University School of Public Health, is exploring this question through her research on low wealth communities, community and economic development, and nontraditional ‘ policy analysis tools’.

People may now get a glimpse into her work through an exhibition, Imagining the West Side: Constructing Health through the Built Environment, on display at the WVU Robert C. Byrd Health Sciences Center April 10-27, with a tour and panel discussion April 19.

Incorporating participatory photoanalytics, GIS mapping, and video with an aim of  integrating the voices of   vulnerable groups into  public policy decision-making, the exhibit sheds light on the built environment and population health status of Charleston, W.Va.’s west side, with photos and narratives supplied by community members and WVU School of Medicine students.

“This exhibit reveals important issues, but also provides solutions,” said Dean of WVU Libraries Jon Cawthorne, “We are honored and privileged to showcase Dr. Andress’ research in the WVU Libraries.”

The exhibit provides a visual display of her research on social determinants of health, inequities, and the built environment of low wealth regions undergoing economic development and possibly displacement.  As viewers reach the end of the exhibition they will find suggested policy solutions to help ensure equitable development.

Viewers are then encouraged to contribute their ideas on population health, economic development and the built environment with a survey.

Said Kathleen Bors, Assistant Dean for Student Services at WVU School of Medicine, Charleston Division: “The West Side Photovoice project was a powerful experience in partnership with West Side community leaders and mentors, along with their stories and tours of the neighborhood. The group discussions between medical students and neighborhood residents offered us all a helpful overview and perspective on the impact of community factors on population health, from toxic stress due to crime ridden, dangerous neighborhood features to hopeful interventions..  The medical students learned a great deal, and were very touched by the event.”

On April 19, Andress will present a narrated tour of the exhibition at 11 a.m., followed by the panel discussion at 12 p.m. The panel will be in Okey Patteson Auditorium while the narrated exhibition tour will start in the Pylons area of the Health Sciences Center.  An exhibition video is available at https://tinyurl.com/mhopfv9.

Lunch will be available to the first 40 people who RSVP at mrobin10@hsc.wvu.edu.

The exhibit is jointly facilitated by the West Virginia School of Public Health, West Virginia University Libraries, and the West Virginia Clinical and Translational Science Institute. The project described was supported in part by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences, U54GM104942. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.

Matthew P. Purtill, a WVU Ph.D. student in Geography, also contributed to the curating of the exhibit, which will travel to the Downtown Campus Library this fall.

The Robert C. Byrd Health Sciences Center is located at 1 Medical Drive, Morgantown, WV, 26505.  For more information, visit www.hsc.wvu.edu/.

Images attached for use: credit West Virginia University School of Medicine in Charleston photographer Adam Cunningham.

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CONTACT: Sally Deskins, Exhibits & Programs Coordinator, WVU Libraries
304.293.0369; sbdeskins@mail.wvu.edu

The Award

The Robert F. Munn Library Scholars Award is presented annually to a graduating Honors student for outstanding research contributions in the humanities or social sciences that have culminated in the production of an exceptional thesis.

The award will be presented during a ceremony held at the Downtown Campus Library. In addition, there is a monetary award of $1,000.

The Robert F. Munn Library Scholars was established during the fall of 2008 in honor of Dr. Robert F. Munn, Dean of Library Services from 1957 – 1986. Dean Munn nurtured the West Virginia and Regional History Collection, the Appalachian Collection, and a unique East Africa collection. He maintained strong collections in the humanities, especially American history and literature. The Libraries’ collections in these areas today are remarkably complete and are a legacy of Dean Munn’s consistent care.

Munn was born in Seattle and grew up in Pittsburgh, where his father was director of the Carnegie Library. He received his bachelor’s degree from Oberlin, his master’s degree from the University of Chicago, and his doctorate from the University of Michigan.

Eligibility

To be eligible to win, applicants must:
• Be an honors student enrolled at West Virginia University as a full-time undergraduate student in good academic standing who will graduate in December 2016 or will graduate in May 2017.
• Have conducted original research using resources from the West Virginia University Libraries and used this research to produce a written thesis that reflects individual work, not that of a group or class project.
• Have completed the research project for a credit course at West Virginia University fall semester 2016 or spring semester 2017.
• Have a cumulative GPA of no less than a 3.4 and have met the additional requirements for graduation as described by the Honors College of West Virginia University.
• Agree to permit West Virginia University Libraries and the Honors College to use their name, photographs, video images, etc., to promote The Robert F. Munn Undergraduate Library Scholars Award to future participants.
• Agree to attend the award ceremony.
• Agree to have his/her work published in the Mountaineer Undergraduate Research Review.

Completed Thesis:

The completed thesis must be submitted no later than 4:00 p.m. on Monday, April 17, 2017. Applicants should submit an electronic copy of their thesis to Associate Dean of Libraries, Myra Lowe, Myra.Lowe@mail.wvu.edu and Associate Dean of the Honors College, Ryan Claycomb, Ryan.Claycomb@mail.wvu.edu.

Subject

The research topic must be in the realms of the humanities or social sciences.

Criteria

Judges will read the theses for:
• Potential impact/contribution to the academic field.
• Significance of thesis.
• Quality of thesis/theoretical value.
• Development of the subject/topic.
• Technical merit.
• Novelty*/generation of new knowledge.
• Use of West Virginia University Libraries resources.

*Work that is attributed to a student’s own initiative, rather than to assist a faculty member’s current research interests, will be considered more favorably by judges.

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Wikipedia is calling on people around the world to celebrate Women’s History Month by participating in one of the many edit-a-thons planned throughout March.

Locally, West Virginia University Libraries, the WVU Art Museum and Arts Mon will co-host an Art + Feminism edit-a-thon on March 15 from 12:30-4:30 p.m. at the WVU Art Museum’s Great Hall.

“This is an exciting collaboration between these parties towards the shared goal of closing the gender gap on Wikipedia and raising awareness about women in art from our region,” said Kelly Doyle, WVU Libraries’ Wikipedian in Residence for Gender Equity.

Wikipedia has a well-documented gender gap – nearly 90 percent of the site’s volunteer editors are male – that has resulted in more content about men and male-related topics than about women and female-related topics.

The Art + Feminism edit-a-thon will focus on female artists on exhibit at the museum. Participants will have the opportunity to write about pieces on display and edit Wikipedia pages of female artists, painters, designers, and dancers.

Doyle will provide a brief tutorial on editing Wikipedia articles and help individuals create an account. Preregistration is not required, but people should bring a laptop. The event is open to the public and refreshments will be provided.

Over the past year, Doyle recruited volunteer editors at WVU to update 50 existing articles and write 20 new posts. A few examples include: Virginia B. Evans, a famous painter and art deco glass designer; Julia Keller, a Pulitzer Prize-winning American writer and former journalist; and Dr. Mildred Mitchell-Bateman, the first woman and African-American to serves as West Virginia’s mental health commissioner.

Join the conversation on Twitter by using the hashtags #artandfeminism and #noweditingaf. For more information, contact Doyle at 304-293-0342 or kelly.doyle@mail.wvu.edu or visit the meetup page. Follow Doyle on Twitter, @WiR_at_WVU

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