WVU Libraries

If you’re on Facebook, twitter or Instagram, it’s impossible to miss the selfies people post to announce a night on the town, a trip to an exotic location or just a new pair of sunglasses.

Set aside the Internet and smartphones, and they’re simply following a social norm established more than 150 years ago. While Millennials are growing up on social media, the Civil War generation was the first to grow up with photography.

“Photography was an earth-shattering innovation in the mid-19^th century, perhaps like the introduction of the computer or the cell phone,” said John Cuthbert, director of the West Virginia and Regional History Center. “It was introduced in the U.S. around 1840 and within a couple of decades people all over America were getting their pictures taken by itinerant photographers who would travel from town to town.”

Blog post by Catherine Rakowski, Administrative Associate, WVRHC.

In 1947, West Virginia University student John Poulos wrote the following description of the World War II military fighting man for a history class essay:

 “He is pretty young, between 17 and 25. As a fighter, he’s a cross between Geronimo . . ., Buck Rogers, Sergeant York and a clumsy heartsick boy.  He had an understanding of the war that it will take most Americans a long time to get.  For one thing he has lost several friends. He knows plenty about fear, about huddling up in a foxhole . . . when a big one is coming in with its ghastly, spiral noise”.

Blog post by Stewart Plein, Assistant Curator for WV Books & Printed Resources & Rare Book Librarian

Decoration Day, May 30, 1881.  Frederick Douglass, considered among the greatest orators of the nineteenth century, stood on the grounds of Storer College, the first institution of higher learning for African Americans in West Virginia, a state not long separated from its parent, Virginia.   Douglass, a trustee of Storer College, was the Decoration Day keynote speaker.  The events of the day were part of a commencement celebration that also included the laying of the cornerstone for a new building.  This new addition to campus would be called Anthony Hall, “in honor of Mr. Anthony, of Providence R. I., a relative of Senator Anthony.”  But Douglass was not there to praise the success of Storer College, or to decorate the graves of soldiers who fought and died during the late Civil War, instead, Douglass took this occasion to talk about his friend and fellow abolitionist, John Brown, whose execution following his failed raid on Harper’s Ferry in 1859, twenty-two years before, was within living memory of many of the attendees that day.

West Virginia University Libraries will host an opening reception for an exhibit recognizing the lifetime achievements of Dr. Emory L. Kemp, Professor Emeritus of History and Civil Engineering, at 3 p.m. Friday, May 31, in the John D. Rockefeller IV Gallery of the Downtown Campus Library.

“The Structure of History: Celebrating Industrial Heritage and Preservation in the Dr. Emory L. Kemp Collection” will showcase items from Kemp’s donation to the West Virginia and Regional History Center, which included blueprints, maps, restoration project reports, structural analysis papers, drawings, correspondence and more that Kemp collected throughout his extensive career that spanned 50 years.

“Emory Kemp is a renowned figure in the field of Civil Engineering and it is a tremendous honor to preserve his papers in in the Regional History Center,” WVRHC Director John Cuthbert said. “Records pertaining to his work ranging from world landmarks like the Sydney Opera House to West Virginia’s iconic Philippi Bridge and Wheeling Suspension Bridge will be a boon to industrial architecture historians for generations to come.”

Blog post by Jane Metters LaBarbara, Assistant Curator, WVRHC

Please note, this post mentions the suicide of a fictional character.

While reprocessing the collection of Margaret Prescott Montague, a West Virginia-born author, I discovered that one of her stories was made into a movie when I found a large folder of clippings about it. I wanted to know more about what this White Sulphur Springs native had written that would make it to the big screen.

“Uncle Sam of Freedom Ridge” first appeared as an 11-page short story Atlantic Monthly in June 1920. Later that year, Uncle Sam of Freedom Ridge was published by Doubleday, Page & Company as a small, 60 page book (with generous margins). You can read it here: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=nyp.33433076044944;view=1up;seq=9

Blog post by Lori Hostuttler, Assistant Director, WVRHC.

Dr. Ancella R. Bickley is a celebrated author, historian and educator from West Virginia. The Ancella Bickley Research Papers (A&M 4208) held at the West Virginia & Regional History Center document her life, work, and service to the public, especially her research and writing on topics of African American history. 

Ancella Bickley speaking at Marshall University commencement in 1990. Image from the Bickley Collection.

One of the projects recorded in her papers are interviews of black women teachers in West Virginia that she undertook with Dr. Rita Wicks-Nelson.  The interviews are part of Series 4, Interviews and Oral History Interviews—Black Teachers, 1955-2011, and were completed during Bickley and Wicks-Nelson’s time as Rockefeller Scholars-in-Residence at Marshall University.  The series includes transcripts of the interviews, correspondence with interviewees, as well as background information about the women.  Additionally, the project files contain administrative records about the project and scholarly articles by Bickley and Wicks-Nelson that draw conclusions from the interviews.

West Virginia University Libraries and the Teaching and Learning Commons (TLC) have selected three faculty members to receive inaugural Open Educational Resources (OER) grants: Corey Colyer, an associate professor of sociology, Eberly College of Arts and Sciences; Caleb Holloway, an assistant professor of mathematics, Leonard C. Nelson College of Engineering & Sciences, WVU Institute of Technology; and Chris McClain, assistant professor of mathematics, Nelson College, WVU Tech.

“We’re so excited that our inaugural OER grant program is off to a great start with the potential of saving WVU students nearly $50,000,” said Martha Yancey, chair of the grants committee. “This first cohort of grant recipients will provide good models for other faculty to learn from and consider during next year’s grant process. We hope to continue building momentum toward even bigger savings in the future.”

The aim of the grants is to encourage development of alternatives to high-cost textbooks, lower the cost of college attendance for students, and support faculty who wish to implement new pedagogical models for classroom instruction. Awardees agree to use their open textbooks in courses to be taught in fall 2019 or spring 2020, and then submit a course review/report.

Blog post by Michael Ridderbusch, Associate Curator, WVRHC.

Recently, while working the reference desk in the Manuscripts Room at the History Center, I browsed the papers of West Virginia Governor Ephraim Morgan (1921-1925) that had been retrieved for a researcher and discovered a couple items of historical interest.  While the era of the early 1920s was a time in which Governor Ephraim’s attention was focused on the conflict between labor and management in the coal industry, a conflict known as the “mine wars,” it was also a time of prohibition in America, so it wasn’t surprising to discover letters in the collection related to its enforcement.

West Virginia University Libraries’ Teaching and Learning Committee has selected Hannah Coffey and Kelsey R. Eackles as 2019 Robert F. Munn Undergraduate Library scholars.

“All of us at WVU Libraries are pleased to name Hannah Coffey and Kelsey Eackles as Munn Scholars,” Dean of Libraries Karen Diaz said. “Both exceeded expectations with their remarkable efforts in researching their topics and then writing their impressive works of scholarship.”

It’s an exhibit ~270 million years in the making.

During the Permian Period, acidic, salty lakes and groundwaters existed in Kansas. Remnants of these extreme environments have been preserved as rocks and include red muds, blue gypsum, and clear halite, along with entrapped microcapsules of Permian water, atmosphere, and microorganisms.

WVU geology professor Kathleen Benison’s photographs of these rocks serve as both scientific evidence and aesthetic objects.

The West Virginia University Arts in the Libraries committee wants people to get creative with history.

“REMIX the WVRHC Archives,” an exhibition and online project by the Art in the Libraries program, encourages people to use the West Virginia & Regional History Center’s online resources to design unique artistic works, such as collages, memes, GIFs, creative writing, redaction poetry and other agglomerations.

“While archives are used for research, they can also inspire contemporary thought, perspective and fun, which is the aim of this curated project,” said Sally Deskins, exhibits coordinator for WVU Libraries.

Kelly Diamond, head of West Virginia University Libraries’ Office of Curriculum and Instructional Support, has been selected as a 2019 Fellow for the Institute for Emerging Leadership in Online Learning (IELOL). In its 11^th year, the IELOL Institute selects its Fellows from an international pool of candidates through a competitive application process.

The five-month Institute incorporates online learning with a week-long onsite immersive experience. The cohort of IELOL Fellows investigate personal, local, and global leadership challenges in online learning through individual, group, and team projects. Participants apply their new knowledge, experience, and connections to online learning projects at their home institutions. The IELOL Institute begins this July and will culminate with the IELOL Masters Class at the Online Learning Consortium annual conference in November.

Blog post by Lori Hostuttler, Assistant Director, WVRHC.

In 2018, the WVU Humanities Center funded a project to explore the memories of the Scott’s Run community through oral history and photography.  For the project, grant team members chose a set of historical images of the Scott’s Run area from the West Virginia & Regional History Center’s online photographs database, West Virginia History OnView. Over a series of interviews with community members who gather every Saturday at the Scott’s Run Museum, team members recorded residents’ memories and observations derived from viewing the selected photographs. 

Blog post by Stewart Plein, Assistant Curator for WV Books & Printed Resources & Rare Book Librarian

Spring is here and what better way to celebrate William Shakespeare’s 455^th birthday, than to look at the way he used flowers in his plays. 

If you were a student at West Virginia University sometime during the past four decades, you probably benefited from Carroll Wilkinson’s work at WVU Libraries.

Did you ever check out a book at the Charles C. Wise, Jr. Library or the Downtown Campus Library? Did you log into eReserves to retrieve required course materials? Are you a student-veteran studying for final exams in one of the Libraries’ two Study Bunkers?

After 41 years of service to WVU, Wilkinson officially retired April 15.

“Carroll Wilkinson has been a valued librarian at WVU for 41 years,” Dean of Libraries Karen Diaz said. “She’s seen many changes within the profession and on campus and has herself been a change agent in helping move the libraries ever forward. Her insights, experience, and wisdom have been incredibly valuable to me during my interim term as Dean, and into my permanent role. I’ll miss her very much, but can think of no one more deserving of a rich and healthy retirement!”

Blog post by Jessica Eichlin, Reference Supervisor, WVRHC.

Lucy Shuttlesworth, a twenty year old West Virginia University student, recorded the 1918 flu epidemic in her diary, writing that “the Spanish influ[enza] is spreading like mad, 150 of the boys have it, (the Delt house has been taken over as a hospital) ten girls at the hall and five of our kids at the house” have it.  The particularly deadly strain of Spanish influenza initially appeared in August 1918, but the first mention of the fall epidemic did not appear in a local Morgantown newspaper until September 11, 1918.  By September twenty-fifth, an unidentified Associated Press author states that “Spanish influenza has spread over the country so rapidly that officials of the public health service, the war and navy departments and the Red Cross conferred today on measures to help local communities in combating the disease,” which had spread to twenty-six states.  By October first, the number of cases nationwide reached 88,000, and the Spanish flu finally arrived in Morgantown.

WVU Libraries and the Morgantown Public Library will jointly hold events on Friday, April 12, in conjunction with Food Justice Day, to celebrate the opening of the Morgantown Seed Preservation Library.

The Downtown Campus Library will host a panel session on seed sovereignty and seed/food justice from 1:30-3 p.m. in the Milano Reading Room. Barbara Hengemihle, associate university librarian, will open the session, and the moderator will be Mehmet Oztan, a WVU service assistant professor of geography who created the Morgantown Seed Preservation Library in collaboration with the Morgantown Public Library, WVU Libraries and the Food Justice Lab at WVU.

The Awards Committee of the West Virginia University Library Faculty Assembly has selected Alyssa Wright, social sciences librarian, as the Outstanding Librarian for 2019.

The award, presented triennially, recognizes a faculty librarian who has made exceptional contributions toward the delivery, development, or expansion of library services or special programs for the constituencies of WVU. 

“Alyssa is a creative and dedicated librarian, and we are honored to present her with the Outstanding Librarian Award this year,” said Anna Crawford, chair of the Library Faculty Assembly Awards Committee. “The impact Alyssa has made with the social science students and faculty she works with is apparent and highly valued. And her work combining information literacy with community engagement is just one example of the kind of innovative services she provides.”

Rather than simply trying to define trauma, a group of undergraduate honors students created works of art that illustrate and narrate trauma. Their exhibit, “Understanding Trauma through Art and Literature,” will remain on display at the West Virginia University Health Sciences Library through May 20.

“In healthcare, practitioners are often tasked with working with those in acute distress, which we might generally describe as traumatic. Understanding trauma, then, is an important aspect of the human condition that relates to medicine,” said Renée Nicholson, an assistant professor of multidisciplinary studies.

This blog post, written by Libby Coyner, Archivist and Assistant Librarian at Elon University’s Carol Grotnes Belk Library, was originally posted on November 30, 2018 at https://www.librarylibby.com/single-post/2018/11/30/Clover-Lick-Homecoming. You can see additional photos relevant to the post at that site.

 *The text here is from a talk I gave as part of Elon University’s Numen Lumen weekly storytelling event. 

It’s November 2018, Thanksgiving, and I’m making my way to West Virginia, 14 miles past the Virginia border into to a place that no longer supports a store, post office, or gas station. No cellphone service. My pal from graduate school, now working as a librarian in Spartanburg, South Carolina, has agreed to come along for the ride. We prepare for three days with 24 degree weather and no running water.

We are making our way to the little turn in the road where my father was born, which has been all but abandoned for about thirty years now, save a few old houses that get dusted off and used during hunting season. Clover Lick, unincorporated, a sign reads, sits along the Greenbrier River, and declined around the same time that the train stopped coming. Today, Clover Lick is mostly in a state of neglect. My cousin maintains one of the houses, always dubbed “Cold Comfort Farm” in our family, and this is where we will stay.