USF Student Creative Activity and Research Day

USF’s Creative Activity and Research Day (CARD) is this Friday, April 19th in Fromm Hall. This annual one-day conference celebrates the research, artistic, and creative work of USF undergraduate and graduate students. It is a great way for students to present the results of their hard work and showcase their knowledge outside of the classroom. Student talks start this Friday at 10:00a and can be heard  continuously until 3:00p. The poster sessions begin at 11:00a. The full schedule can be found on the College of Arts and Sciences CARD website.

CARD 2012 Student Research Presentation

One way the Gleeson Library | Geschke Learning Resource Center supports CARD – we archive digital records of many of the student presentations and posters. Anyone can browse the 2012 and 2013 CARD presentations stored in the Gleeson Library Scholarship Repository.

This year will be another great event!  We hope to see you there on Friday and if you’re presenting give us a shout out in the comments section below.

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

Happy Constitution Day!

Happy Constitution Day, USF! September 17th is the 225th anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Constitution. Now, courtesy of The National Constitution Center, you too can become a signatory of the U.S. Constitution! Sign online at http://constitutioncenter.org/i-signed/

Here’s some Constitution Day trivia to impress your friends:

• The U.S. Constitution is the oldest and shortest of all the written national constitutions in the world.
• More than 11,000 amendments that have been introduced in Congress, but only 33 have gone to the states to be ratified, and only 27 have received the necessary approval from the states to actually become amendments to the Constitution.
• Of the 27 amendments that have been approved, only one has ever been repealed — the Eighteenth Amendment (Prohibition).

To get you in the spirit of Constitution Day and geared-up for the November elections (as well as fulfill your need to further procrastinate), here’s a video from The National Constitution Center on the role of the president and the executive branch in the U.S. Government: 

 

For more information about the U.S. Constitution and Constitution Day, see Gleeson Library’s online guide or contact Carol Spector, the library’s Government Information Librarian.

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

Gleeson Library on the Lawn

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Once again the Gleeson Library joined the USF Farmstand on the lawn outside Library.  We offered books and DVD’s about organic gardening, real food, and healthy cooking all for check out on the spot.

This was USF’s Farmstands first International Farmstand offering different delectable dishes from around the world. The event also coincided with USF’s Dance Program show

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

New Library Twitter: usfgovinfo

FDLP

• Need help finding topics for your paper?
• Looking for primary source information for your research?
• Want up-to-date government information?

Just “follow” the new Twitter account dedicated to providing links to Federal documents and information (including an app or two).

@usfgovinfo

Public Access to NIH Funded Research at Risk

A controversial bill called the “Research Works Act” has been introduced in Congress. This bill would end the current policy (that has been in effect since 2008) that requires any research funded by the NIH be made freely available to the public via Pub Med Central one year after publication in a journal.

For reactions, see this ProPublica article and New York Times op-ed piece.

For the publishing industry’s perspective, see this statement from the Association of American Publishers.

Text of the bill is available here.

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

Happy Constitution Day!

The U.S. Constitution is celebrating its 224th birthday on September 17th. Check out recent books on the Constitution which are currently on display at the library. For additional information on the Constitution, see the library’s online guide.

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

USF Book Club: Cutting for Stone

Happy New Year! The USF Book Club has selected its next book. We are reading Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese and will meet on Thursday, March 3, 2011 to discuss it. We’ll be in the seminar room (#209) of Gleeson Library from 12 noon – 1 pm.

This book is somewhat longer than our usual selections (541 pages) and is insanely popular right now, so make sure to request your copy soon!

Gleeson’s copy is currently checked out, but you can try requesting it through Link+ or accessing it through the San Francisco Public Library, who have numerous paper copies, as well as a spoken word e-edition, an online e-version, and as spoken word via CD. Any California resident can get a library card to SFPL, so if you haven’t yet, I recommend doing so!

Since the book is so popular, you might not have luck getting it through a library. The NOOK (Barnes and Noble) and Kindle (Amazon) e-version is only $5, or you could help out a local independent book store like Green Apple or the Booksmith by purchasing it there. Remember, Gleeson’s iPads and Kindle will also have Cutting for Stone loaded on them!

Lauded for his sensitive memoir (My Own Country) about his time as a doctor in eastern Tennessee at the onset of the AIDS epidemic in the ’80s, Verghese turns his formidable talents to fiction, mining his own life and experiences in a magnificent, sweeping novel that moves from India to Ethiopia to an inner-city hospital in New York City over decades and generations. Sister Mary Joseph Praise, a devout young nun, leaves the south Indian state of Kerala in 1947 for a missionary post in Yemen. During the arduous sea voyage, she saves the life of an English doctor bound for Ethiopia, Thomas Stone, who becomes a key player in her destiny when they meet up again at Missing Hospital in Addis Ababa. Seven years later, Sister Praise dies birthing twin boys: Shiva and Marion, the latter narrating his own and his brother’s long, dramatic, biblical story set against the backdrop of political turmoil in Ethiopia, the life of the hospital compound in which they grow up and the love story of their adopted parents, both doctors at Missing. The boys become doctors as well and Verghese’s weaving of the practice of medicine into the narrative is fascinating even as the story bobs and weaves with the power and coincidences of the best 19th-century novel.

You can visit our wiki or you can sign up for the Book Club’s email list by emailing kbaughmanmcdowell@usfca.edu. Hope to see you there!

Chertsey Breviary Digitized

The Donohue Rare Book Room’s Chertsey Breviary, a fourteenth-century liturgical manuscript, was recently digitized and is now available online in the Library’s Digital Collections.  The vellum manuscript is a psalter, a volume containing the Book of Psalms. Psalters were frequently owned by wealthy individuals and were often richly illuminated. The Donohue Rare Book Room manuscript, which is from the Abbey at Chertsey, a Benedictine monastery in England, is a fragment. One of the leaves has a striking historiated initial D that depicts the anointing of David. Library patrons may wish to know that this treasure is complemented by a collection of early manuscript leaves that are available for individual and classroom use in the Rare Book Room.

John Hawk
Head Librarian, Donohue Rare Book Room