“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.
Posted by Jane Metters LaBarbara.
January 29th, 2019
Blog post by Lori Hostuttler, Assistant Director, WVRHC.
Fifteen years before she became a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, Ruth Bader Ginsburg visited West Virginia University to serve as a keynote speaker for the 1978 September Festival of Women. Evidence of her visit was recently found in sources at the West Virginia & Regional History Center. A student in a class session at the Center found images and news clippings about the festival in a photocopied scrapbook from A&M 5131, the WVU Women’s Studies Center collection. Newspaper articles found in the scrapbook were also located in the archives of the Daily Athenaeum newspaper found on microfilm at the WVRHC.
Niedoba
finished first with her response to “Base of Perito Moreno glacier outside El
Calafate, Argentina” by Ben Silverberg.
In
her submission, Niedoba explained that she was captivated by Silverberg’s
photograph of a glacier in Argentina because it made her think about people choosing
to climb the glacier despite the difficulty. She compared the climbers and their
tenacity to patients at WVU Medicine, specifically the ones
participating in the Narrative Medicine project.
Posted by Jane Metters LaBarbara.
January 16th, 2019
Blog post by Lemley Mullett, Program Assistant
Marc Harshman, the poet laureate of West Virginia since 2012 and an author from Marshall County, donated his life’s work collection to the WVRHC’s Distinguished West Virginians project. His collection reflects his dedication to both his craft and to Appalachia: not only do we have many of his rustic poem collections such as Believe What You Can, and Green-Silver and Silent, but many letters to and from publishers about his children’s books also are part of the collection–plus many manuscript drafts enclosed therein.
President
E. Gordon Gee is known nationwide for his bow tie style, with feature articles
and interviews in fashion publications Bow
Tie Aficionado and Ivy Style,
among bow tie mentions in national media such as USA Today and the New York
Times, and regional media as well. He’s made several videos about his
famous collection that began at age 16, and developed while he was President at
WVU the first time, 1981-1985. One of his thousands of ties has flown to space.
He’s met past US Presidents in them and made a plethora of service visits in
them. People have imitated his style and Ohio State University even created an
individualized mascot sculpture—“Gordon Gee Brutus”—donning his tie. Folks gift
him with handmade ties and objects—funky and precious objects he holds dear.
This
exhibit, which run January 20-May 15, takes a look at his collection and some
notable times where he and his notable ties were worn and honored, with a
selection of his ties, photographs and personal objects. A reception with
President Gee will be held Feb. 6 from 5-6 p.m.
The grant’s
aim 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.
“Textbook
affordability is a very real issue for many students, and we’re excited to see
WVU supporting instructors in offering low-cost, or no cost, options for our
students. There is a wide variety of
high-quality, free resources available for faculty to consider and we look
forward to partnering on these projects from a teaching and learning
perspective.” Dr. Keith Bailey, assistant provost for Teaching and Learning and
dean of WVU Online.
A cartoon commentary from the 1930s on the coal industry and coal commission, from the Rush Dew Holt Collection at the West Virginia and Regional Center.
Digital Virginias, consisting of institutions from both
Virginia and West Virginia, offers more than 58,000 items from historical and
cultural collections for research and exploration. Read more about the service
hub, including how to get involved, at digitalvirginias.org.
“We are thrilled to be part of DPLA’s tremendous
initiative,” WVU Libraries Dean Karen Diaz said. “Digital Virginias will be a valuable
resource to people living in Virginia and West Virginia and anyone who wants to
delve into the history of both states.”
The cost of textbooks is rising at a rate of
four times inflation.
Sixty percent of students have delayed
purchasing textbooks until they’ve received their financial aid.
Seventy percent don’t purchase a required
textbook during their academic career because of cost.
Are you an instructor who is concerned about the impact of
high textbook costs for your students’ academic success?
You can help by attending the Open Textbook Workshop and
Textbook Review where you can discover open textbooks in your field. After the
workshop, you will be asked to write a short review of an open textbook. Your
review will benefit other faculty considering open textbooks. You’ll receive a
$200 stipend for your participation and a written review. The workshop will be
held March 7 at 10 a.m. in Downtown Campus Library, Room 104. Librarians Hilary
Fredette and Martha Yancey will lead the workshop.
Posted by Jane Metters LaBarbara.
January 7th, 2019
Blog post by Stewart Plein, Assistant Curator for WV Books & Printed Resources & Rare Book Librarian
“Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.”
The first few
lines of Stopping by Woods on a Snowy
Evening, by poet Robert Frost, pictured below. One of the great masterworks now entered into
the public domain.
West Virginia University
Libraries has reinstated its subscription to Scopus, a popular scholarly search tool. Currently the
largest curated abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature, it
includes the fields of science, technology, medicine, social sciences, and arts
and humanities. It can be accessed on the Libraries website.
Additionally, Interlibrary Loan continues to be a tremendous service for
acquiring content necessary for research at WVU. In many cases, journal
articles can be supplied within hours of the request. There is never a cost to
the researcher or the department for obtaining materials through ILL. Liaison librarians are happy to meet with individuals or
departments to discuss library resources and research needs.
Margaret by Jacqueline Circkirillo Dolma by Cancan Huang
In November, the Art in the Libraries Committee awarded College of Creative Arts students Jacqueline Circkirillo and Cancan Huang with the Dean of the Libraries’ arts awards. Huang’s work, Dolma, an oil painting, will be on display in the Downtown Campus Library lobby for the spring semester. Circkirillo’s work, Margaret, an oil painting, will go on display at Evansdale Library for the spring semester.
Posted by Jane Metters LaBarbara.
December 17th, 2018
Blog post by Jane Metters LaBarbara, Assistant Curator, WVRHC.
Family papers are a relatively common sight in archives like the WVRHC. We collect them because they tell the stories of the people of our state and region, and because they can be great genealogical resources. The WVRHC has hundreds of collections of family papers, ranging from collections with just a few items to collections like the Siler Family Papers, which contain over 150 boxes of material. I’m currently processing the Orum, Eskey, and McCaffery Family Papers, detailing intersecting family lines from Sherrard, WV, and I wanted to share a few items from the collection that I found particularly special.
Do you know about the John F. Kennedy Memorial in Star City?
Did you know the large Coca-Cola mural on a High Street building is a
restoration originally painted in 1953?
Posted by Jane Metters LaBarbara.
December 10th, 2018
Blog post by Anna Schein, Associate Curator for Printed Ephemera, WVRHC.
McLoughlin Brothers, Inc. was a New York publishing firm which pioneered the use of color printing technologies in children’s books. Actively publishing between 1858 and 1920, the company was particularly well known for its early use of hand-stenciled colored illustrations and its later printing techniques using chromolithographs and photo engravings.
The company flourished under the leadership of John McLoughlin, Jr., who learned wood engraving and printing while working for Elton & Co., a publishing company owned by his father, John McLoughlin, Sr., and engraver/printer, Robert H. Elton. After McLoughlin, Sr. and Elton retired, John, Jr. had control of the business. He started to publish picture books under his own name and made his younger brother, Edmund McLoughlin, a partner in 1855.
Posted by Jane Metters LaBarbara.
December 5th, 2018
Blog post by Stewart Plein, Assistant Curator for WV Books & Printed Resources & Rare Book Librarian
Recently the West Virginia and Regional History Center received the gift of hundreds of cookbooks that are part of the Lucinda Ebersole Collection. Ms. Ebersole was bookstore co-owner, cookbook enthusiast, editor, and book collector. Her collection of cookbooks spans the late nineteenth century up to 2016. The much beloved cookbook pictured here arrived as part of the larger Ebersole collection.
Beneath the hand sewn plaid cover is the Rumford Complete Cook Book printed in 1918. Nearly every page is covered with handwritten recipes, cooking spills and splashes marking favorite recipes, clippings pasted on pages that completely cover the text and recipes attached by paperclips.
For two years now, West Virginia UniversityLibraries has been working toward bringing our materials spending in line with the new budget realities that we have faced since 2016. One of the biggest challenges in our reduction in funds is managing “bundled” journals subscriptions that historically provided us with more journal title subscriptions at less cost. Unfortunately, over time the inflationary costs of these bundle subscriptions have outpaced the size of our budget.
In 2016, when we were first presented with the need to reduce our spending, bundled journal packages accounted for 30 percent of our materials budget but only provided 6.2 percent of our titles. We recognized at the time that we would have to address this significant portion of our budget to achieve the necessary savings. We did so immediately by unbundling our Wiley subscription package which provided us with about $400,000 in savings at that time. Now we are moving to unbundle the remaining packages.
Remedies, Consequences and Negotiations
Our librarians have spent the last year and a half doing a tremendous amount of analysis on our bundled packages. We have looked at where there is title overlap between different packages we purchase. We have purchased a detailed report that helps us understand which journals our campus researchers are downloading from, publishing in, and citing in their published research. Based on that we have been able to rank in importance the journals for our community in a data driven manner. Our internal collections advisory committee has reviewed and adjusted this work based on extra knowledge gleaned from relationships they have developed with colleges across campus.
The WVU Libraries’ Arts in the Libraries Committee is seeking content from scholars, artists, community groups and practitioners from a range of fields to integrate into a curated exhibition that will be designed and installed in WVU’s Downtown Campus Library in the spring and summer of 2019, and potentially travel throughout the state.
“This collaborative, multidisciplinary exhibit and programming will address the dominant contemporary narratives about Appalachia in a new way – how the people of Appalachia have worked and will work to rewrite their own narrative and transcend limiting definitions of what it means to be Appalachian,” said Sally Deskins, exhibits and programs coordinator for WVU Libraries.
“Avatars and their Players: From Object to Other,” an exhibit by 2018 award winner Dr. Jaime Banks.
The West Virginia UniversityLibraries’ Art in the Libraries committee seeks submissions for the Libraries’ Annual Faculty/Staff Exhibits Award. The 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.
The winner will receive a $1,000 professional development funds award and an exhibition in Downtown Campus Library, Room 1020. The winner will give 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, by midnight Feb. 28, 2019. More information is available at exhibits.lib.wvu.edu.
The 2018 winner was Dr. Jaime Banks, who worked with Dr. Nick Bowman to create the exhibit “Avatars and their Players: From Object to Other,” which visualizes their scholarly research on the experiences and effects of video gamers’ connections with their avatars. It will remain on display in the Downtown Campus Library, Room 1020, through Dec. 30.
Posted by Jane Metters LaBarbara.
November 19th, 2018
Blog post by Jane Metters LaBarbara, Assistant Curator, WVRHC.
Sometimes, when processing a new collection of archival materials, you get an interesting snapshot of someone’s life. Occasionally, if you want to know how that person’s story continues, you will have to do some research outside the collection. While processing a new collection, I came across clippings and a few photos of Esther Benford. According to one of the clippings, from a city newspaper, she was a WVU student on track to receive in 1937 the “first degree in civil engineering ever granted to a woman” (probably “at WVU” and not the first in the world, but the article didn’t specify).
The WVU Libraries Faculty Assembly is seeking nominations for the Outstanding Librarian Award and Distinguished Service Award. These awards are presented once every three years to recognize exceptional contributions toward the delivery, development or expansion of library services or special programs for the constituencies of WVU.
