Open Mic Poetry Reading

In honor of National Poetry Month, the Gleeson Library is pleased to co-sponsor with Sigma Tau Delta an “Open Mic” poetry reading in the Donohue Rare Book Room on Tuesday, April 23rd from noon to 1:00 p.m. Students are encouraged to perform 2-3 minute readings of their original work. Do not miss this opportunity to celebrate poetry and honor student voices.

The program is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served. All are welcome to attend. For further information, please call (415) 422-2036.

John Hawk
Head Librarian
Special Collections & University Archives

Library Faculty Reading

The Gleeson Library is pleased to sponsor a faculty reading on Thursday, April 18 as it welcomes University of San Francisco Professors Kathleen Winter and Brian Dempster (Rhetoric and Language) who will read from their recent works. Kathleen Winter will read from her volume of poetry Nostalgia for the Criminal Past (Elixir Press, 2012). The collection recently won the Antivenom Poetry Award. Professor Dempster will read from his forthcoming volume of poetry, Topaz, as well as Making Home From War: Stories of Japanese American Exile and Resettlement (Heyday Press, 2011). Both works document and consider Japanese American imprisonment experience during World War II and its aftermath in a world that for many had drastically changed in just a few short years.

The program begins at 5:00 on Thursday, April 18 in the Donohue Rare Book Room, located on the third floor of the Gleeson Library. Light refreshments will be served and books will be available for purchase. The program is free and open to the public. All are welcome to attend. For further information, please call (415) 422-2036.

John Hawk
Head Librarian
Special Collections & University Archives

Richard Greggory Johnson III Library Reading

The Gleeson Library is pleased to welcome University of San Francisco Associate Professor Richard Greggory Johnson III, who will read from his most recent book on October 25 in the Donohue Rare Book Room. Professor Johnson teaches in the Department of Public and Nonprofit Administration in the School of Management where his focus is public policy and administration, focusing in the areas of social equity, human resources management, higher education management and qualitative research. Dr. Johnson has published several books, including Cultural Competence for Public Managers: Managing Diversity in Today’s World (CRC Press, 2012) and The Black Professorate: Negotiating a Habitable Space in the Academy (Peter Lang, 2011). His most recent title is Teaching College Students Communication Strategies for Effective Social Justice Advocacy (Peter Lang, 2012). Dr. Johnson’s research centers on social equity and human rights within public policy and administration, targeting issues of race, gender, sexual orientation and social class.

The program begins at 5:00 on Thursday, October 25^th in the Donohue Rare Book Room, located on the third floor of the Gleeson Library. Light refreshments will be served and books will be available for purchase. The program is free and open to the public. All are welcome to attend. For further information, please call (415) 422-2036.

John Hawk
Head Librarian, Special Collections & University Archives

Walls Exhibition

On exhibition in the Donohue Rare Book Room through October 9 is the recent acquisition Walls: A Journey Across Three Continents (Santa Cruz: Quail Press, 1990) by master printmaker, Tom Killion. Exhibited with the book is an archive, on loan from the artist, which includes original watercolors and woodcut blocks used to illustrate the book. A prolific printmaker known for his depictions of Northern California and the California Coast, Tom Killion is also a bookmaker and illustrator who works in the fine press tradition. Among his works housed in the Donohue Rare Book Room are The Coast of California: Point Reyes to Point Sur (1979); Fortress Marin (1977); and the William Everson titles Eastward the Armies (1980) and In Medias Res (1984). The Gleeson Library is pleased to exhibit Walls in conjunction with the exhibition Silent Poetry: Woodcut Prints of the California Landscape by Tom Killion in the Thacher Gallery.

An opening reception will take place in the Thacher Gallery and Donohue Rare Book Room on Thursday, September 6th from 5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. followed by an artist lecture “Topofilia: The California Landscape in Japanese-style Woodcut Prints” in McLaren 250. A printmaking demonstration with USF students will take place in the Donohue Rare Book Room on Tuesday, October 2nd from 10:00 a.m. to noon. Both programs are free to attend and open to the public.

John Hawk
Head Librarian, Special Collections & University Archives

Read a Rare Book This Summer

The San Francisco Public Library’s summer reading program Summer Read SF 2012 begins on June 1. Many readers enjoy books throughout the year, yet there is something inviting about summer reading that encourages one to stretch out a bit: perhaps to spend more time reading while on vacation; to indulge in purely entertaining reading; or to undertake a weighty tome that one has always wanted to complete. In the spirit of adding something new to one’s summer reading regimen, consider reading  a rare book in the Donohue Rare Book Room. The Rare Book Room has nearly 17,000 volumes cataloged in Ignacio, ranging from early printed books to contemporary artists’ books. Most titles are printed in English and many can be enjoyed in one or two visits. Experience the unique opportunity of spending time among Gleeson Library’s special collections with a signed first edition or a deluxe illustrated book. Aside from the singularity of it, imagine how fun it will be to answer the question “have you read any good books this summer?”

Donohue Rare Book Room summer hours are Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. For further information, please call (415) 422-2036.

John Hawk
Head Librarian, Special Collections & University Archives

From the Archives: Bill Cosby

Distinguished comedian and educator Bill Cosby will be an Honorary Degree Recipient and Commencement Speaker at the Undergraduate Arts and Social Sciences ceremony on May 18 in St. Ignatius Church. But did you know that Bill Cosby previously visited the University of San Francisco campus 25 years ago in April, 1987? The Foghorn (Volume 82, Number 19) featured a photograph with the caption:

I Spy—Film and television star, Bill Cosby, ducked onto campus over Easter break. Public Safety’s crowd control nonetheless allowed some fans to encircle The Cosby Show’s lead character, and a wily Foghorn photographer managed to snap the shot. Cosby is in San Francisco shooting a new movie. Said Stephanie Martirani (at Cosby’s right), “It was a lot more fun than watching the grass grow.”

The photographs below (the first of which was published in The Foghorn) are from University Archives where they are housed in an extensive collection of University publicity photographs.

With thanks to Gabby Perez for locating the photographs in University Archives and researching their history.

John Hawk
Head Librarian, Special Collections & University Archives

Annick Wibben Reading

The Gleeson Library is pleased to welcome University of San Francisco Associate Professor Annick T.R. Wibben who will read from her book Feminist Security Studies: a Narrative Approach (Routledge, 2011) on Wednesday, May 2^nd in the Donohue Rare Book Room. The book rethinks security theory from a feminist perspective and challenges the way we think about security, violence and war. Professor Wibben teaches international politics and specializes in critical security studies, international theory, and feminist international relations. Prior to teaching at the University of San Francisco, she worked with the Information Technology, War and Peace Project at the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University from 2001-2005. Her article “Feminist Politics in Feminist Security Studies” (2011) was published in Politics & Gender and “The Gendering of Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan” (co-authored with Keally McBride) is forthcoming in Humanity. She is the Chair of the Bachelor in International Studies program and serves as an Advisory Board Member to Gender and Sexualities Studies; Peace and Justice Studies; and the Master program in International Studies.

The program begins at 5:15 on Wednesday, May 2^nd in the Donohue Rare Book Room, located on the third floor of the Gleeson Library. Light refreshments will be served and books will be available for purchase. The program is free and open to the public. All are welcome to attend. For further information, please call (415) 422-2036.

John Hawk
Head Librarian, Special Collections & University Archives

Dean Rader Poetry Reading

The Gleeson Library is pleased to sponsor a faculty reading on Thursday, April 26 as it welcomes University of San Francisco Associate Professor Dean Rader, who will read from his book Works & Days (Truman State University Press) which received the T.S. Eliot Prize for Poetry in 2010. Professor Rader has published widely in the fields of poetry, literary studies, American Indian studies, and visual/popular culture. He co-edited Speak To Me Words: Essays on Contemporary American Indian Poetry (2003), and his pop culture reader, The World Is A Text, is in its fourth edition. His book Engaged Resistance: American Indian Art, Literature, and Film From Alcatraz to the NMAI was published by the University of Texas Press in 2011. He teaches in the English Department and in the Honors Program in the Humanities. He also is a contributor to the San Francisco Chronicle City Brights Blog.

The program begins at 5:00 on Thursday, April 26 in the Donohue Rare Book Room, located on the third floor of the Gleeson Library. Light refreshments will be served and books will be available for purchase. The program is free and open to the public. All are welcome to attend. For further information, please call (415) 422-2036.

John Hawk
Head Librarian, Special Collections & University Archives

Poetry Month in the Donohue Rare Book Room

April is Poetry Month and the Gleeson Library will be celebrating with three evening programs in the Donohue Rare Book Room. The programs include an event on April 11, co-sponsored by Sigma Tau Delta, at which poets Camille Dungy and Matthew Zapruder will be reading from their work; the fourth annual faculty, staff and student poetry reading on April 19; and on April 26 University of San Francisco Professor and poet Dean Rader will give a faculty reading. All programs begin at 5:00

Poetry Month programs are free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served and books will be available for sale. For further information, please call 422-2036.

John Hawk
Head Librarian, Special Collections & University Archives

California Native Wildflowers

California Native Wildflowers: Prints by Henry Evans is an exhibition of fifteen color linocut prints from the Donohue Rare Book Room’s recent acquisition of a limited edition portfolio of forty botanical prints by the San Francisco printmaker, Henry Evans. The linocut prints, on exhibition through May 11 in the Donohue Rare Book Room, portray some of the most beautiful wildflowers native to California, arranged in chronological order of botanical discovery, accompanied with text written by the artist. Evans (1918-1990) was a prolific artist who produced over a thousand prints in his lifetime. He also was a publisher and bookseller whose shop, The Porpoise Bookshop, was located on Clement Street a few blocks from the University on San Francisco.

The portfolio, California Native Wildflowers complements the Donohue Rare Book Room’s holdings of works by Henry Evans, including materials published by his Peregrine Press. Additional prints are featured in the Thacher Gallery exhibition Aroused Tranquility: Graphic Botanicals by Henry Evans, March 18 to April 22. An opening reception and printmaking demonstration on the Rare Book Room’s historic 1854 Albion hand-press will take place on March 27.

The acquisition of California Native Wildflowers was made possible from a bequest by Nancy Weston in Memory of William J. Monihan, S.J.

John Hawk
Head Librarian, Special Collections & University Archives

Library program on Black Nationalism

The Gleeson Library is pleased to co-sponsor with the African American Studies Program a faculty reading on Thursday, February 2^nd with University of San Francisco Associate Professor James Lance Taylor, who will read from his recent work Black Nationalism in the United States: From Malcolm X to Barack Obama (2011). Professor Taylor is also co-editor of the forthcoming book, Something’s in the Air: Race and the Legalization of Marijuana. His current research is on Peoples Temple, Jim Jones, and Black America. Professor Taylor is a noted political commentator on U.S. and San Francisco politics for national and Bay Area media and has served as a policy consultant for the San Francisco Human Rights Commission and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

The program begins at 5:00 on Thursday, February 2 in the Donohue Rare Book Room, located on the third floor of the Gleeson Library. Light refreshments will be served and books will be available for purchase. The program is free and open to the public. All are welcome to attend. For further information, please call (415) 422-2036.

John Hawk
Head Librarian, Special Collections & University Archives

Follow the Yellow Brick Road

On exhibition in the Donohue Rare Book Room  through December 16 are over eighty volumes from the Rare Book Room’s Dr. M. Wallace Freidman Collection of L. Frank Baum and Oziana. L. Frank Baum (1856-1919) wrote over thirty-eight children’s books, the most famous of which The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was published in 1900 and later was made into a motion picture by MGM in 1939. Baum went on to write fourteen books in the series. Following his death, the series was continued by Ruth Plumbly Thompson. Baum also wrote several non-Oz titles, including Mother Goose in Prose (1897), The Master Key (1901), Phoebe Daring (1912), The Sea Fairies (1911) and Sky Island (1912) among others. The exhibition brings together a selection of Baum’s work, showing the breadth of his life’s work and a range of illustration by such figures as Maxfield Parish, W.W. Denslow and John R. Neill.

The Gleeson Library is pleased to exhibit these materials to coincide with the exhibition Monster in the Bookshelf: The Artwork of Studio 5 in the Thacher Gallery. The books on exhibition are all from the permanent collections of the Donohue Rare Book Room and are available to students and researchers who wish to use them.

John Hawk
Head Librarian, Special Collections & University Archives

David Vann Reading

The Gleeson Library is pleased to sponsor a faculty reading on Tuesday, November 15 when it welcomes David Vann, University of San Francisco Associate Professor in the MFA in Writing Program, who will read from his recent works Last Day on Earth: A Portrait of the NIU School Shooter (University of Georgia Press, 2011) and Caribou Island (Harper, 2011). Vann is also the author of Legend of a Suicide (University of Massachusetts Press, 2008) which won 10 prizes, including the Prix Medicis in France and the Premi Llibreter in Spain. Legend of a Suicide was on 42 “Best Books of the Year” lists including The New Yorker Book Club and The Times Book Club. David Vann is a current Guggenheim Fellow and a former Wallace Stegner Fellow and National Endowment for the Arts Fellow.

The program begins at 5:00 on Tuesday, November 15 in the Donohue Rare Book Room, located on the third floor of the Gleeson Library. Light refreshments will be served and books will be available for purchase. The program is free and open to the public. All are welcome to attend. For further information, please call (415) 422-2036.

John Hawk
Head Librarian, Special Collections & University Archives

Arthur Szyk Program on April 14

Please plan to celebrate an important acquisition in the Donohue Rare Book Room on April 14 when the Gleeson Library welcomes Irvin Unger who will give an illustrated talk on the artistry of Arthur Szyk and the history of The Szyk Haggadah. Mr. Ungar is the proprietor of the antiquarian bookselling firm, Historicana and is an international authority on the work of Arthur Szyk. He also curated the recent exhibition at the Legion of Honor Museum “Arthur Szyk: Miniature Paintings and Modern Illuminations.” The Donohue Rare Book Room recently acquired a facsimile of The Szyk Haggadah which is on exhibition through April 15.

The illustrated talk will lay the groundwork for appreciation of the artist-activist Arthur Szyk (1894-1951) by evaluating his masterwork, his illuminated Passover Haggadah. Drawn and first published on vellum during the rise of Hitler, The Haggadah is a triumphant work of courage and hope, its style and themes remarkably prescient and enduringly relevant. A Polish Jew keenly aware of current events, Arthur Szyk fused his two passions—art and history—into a visual commentary on the dangerous parallel between the Exodus narrative of Egyptian oppression and alarming developments unfolding in Nazi Germany. After the war, he continued to devote himself to justice issues, including support of the creation of Israel. Szyk’s work is characterized by its social and political commitment, and by its adoption of illuminated manuscript tradition.

The program will take place at noon on Thursday, April 14 in the Donohue Rare Book Room. Light refreshments will be served. The event is free and open to the public. All are welcome to attend. For further information, please call (415) 422-2036. The program is co-sponsored by the Swig Program in Jewish Studies and Social Justice.

John Hawk
Head Librarian, Donohue Rare Book Room

Program on Black Womanhood

Please plan to attend a program in the Donohue Rare Book Room on March 24^th with USF Associate Professor of Sociology, Stephanie Sears, who will be speaking on Imagining Black Womanhood.  In her recent publication, Imagining Black Womanhood: The Negotiation of Identity and Power within the Girls Empowerment Project, published in 2010 by the State University of New York Press, Professor Sears examines how Black women and girls seek to change both how they perceive and identify themselves as well as how larger society views them within the context of an Afrocentric womanist after-school program. Her book provides a unique opportunity to observe the ways that an organization’s context mediated stereotypes of Black womanhood and structured how women and girls worked with and against each other to construct authentic and respectable Black femininities.

The program begins at 5:00 p.m. on Thursday, March 24^th in the Donohue Rare Book Room. Light refreshments will be served and books will be available for purchase. The program is free and open to the public. All are welcome to attend. For further information, please call (415) 422-2036.

John Hawk
Head Librarian, Donohue Rare Book Room