Special Libraries News

Janet Olson Appointed to Illinois Records Advisory Board

Northwestern Associate University Archivist Janet Olson has been appointed to the Illinois State Historical Records Advisory Board. She will begin serving a three-year term starting in October 2010—which happens to be American Archives Month. ISHRAB, as this organization is known, is an arm of the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC). ISHRAB serves as the state-level review body for records grant proposals from libraries and archives within the state of Illinois. It is also a coordinating body for facilitating cooperation between historical records depositories and other information agencies within the state. ISHRAB supports at the state level the mission of the NHPRC, "to ensure understanding of our nation's past by promoting, nationwide, the identification, preservation, and dissemination of essential historical documentation." Click here for more information on the Illinois State Historical Records Advisory Board.

This is the second honor which Janet has received in recent months. In March, Janet was named the 2010 recipient of the Midwest Archives Conference’s Distinguished Service Award.

Congratulations, Janet!

Frances Willard Rides Again: Willard Exhibit Goes Online!

For anyone who missed the exhibit "Radical Woman in a Classic Town: Frances Willard of Evanston" during its three-month run at the Northwestern University Library, or who wants to learn more about social reformer Willard (1839-1898) and her ties to Evanston, the exhibit now lives on virtually at http://www.library.northwestern.edu/archives/exhibits/willard/willard.html.

To create the virtual exhibit, the contents of each display case have been digitized as a separate online "chapter," including an image of each photograph, document, or artifact, along with the full captions. For ease of access, the virtual "chapters" are in PDF format, and each contains links to the previous and next chapters. A list of resources forms the final chapter.

The exhibit looks at how Willard's reformist vision was shaped by her experiences in Evanston--the "Classic Town" she called home for forty years--, and with Northwestern University, where she served as the first Dean of Women. Materials in the exhibit came from the Northwestern University Archives and from the Frances Willard House Museum and Library/Archives in Evanston. The exhibit was curated by Janet Olson, and the virtual exhibit was created by Yvonne Spura.

D.J. Hoek Selected 2010-11 Kaplan Institute Fellow

D.J. Hoek has been named the Alice Berline Kaplan Institute Library Fellow for 2010-11. A three-member jury composed of AUL Jeff Garrett, Assembly representative Karen Miller, and current library fellow John Russell selected D.J.'s proposal from a very strong field. The jury's recommendation has been accepted by University Librarian Sarah Pritchard. D.J. will begin his year-long fellowship in September 2010.

The 2010-11 Kaplan Institute Library Fellow intends to research connections between jazz-oriented record companies and 20th-century experimental music, taking as his case study a pioneering series of 20th-century classical music recordings that, surprisingly, was produced and issued by a company remembered today mainly for revolutionary jazz releases. Entitled "From Bird to Cage: The Circumstances and Aesthetic Rationale behind the Dial Library of Contemporary Classics," this project builds upon D.J.'s long-cultivated interest in intersections between jazz and contemporary music. It will draw on primary and secondary sources at Northwestern as well as significant primary sources held elsewhere, especially the papers and correspondence of Ross Russell, founder and operator of Dial Records between 1946 and 1955, which reside at the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin.

Congratulations to D.J., thanks to the members of the jury, and special thanks to everyone who submitted proposals for this year's competition! We look forward to D.J.'s tenure as Library Fellow and to the fruits of his work and research, which will be presented to the Kaplan Institute and his library colleagues in spring of next year.

Uri Orlev Gives Books and Documents to Northwestern

The prominent Israeli children's writer Uri Orlev (b. 1931), author of The Island on Bird Street and other famous works on the experience of Jewish children and young people in World War II and in the new state of Israel, has donated 150 editions of his books to Northwestern University Library. In addition to books in the original Hebrew and translations into English, the gift includes translations of his works into major world languages, such as French, German, Spanish, Russian, Chinese and Japanese, but also into many other languages of the world, among them Albanian, Catalan, Korean, Vietnamese, and numerous languages of the Indian subcontinent: Hindi, Urdu, Tamil, Oriya, and Telugu, among others. Almost all of these books are available for checkout and interlibrary loan via NUcat in the Curriculum Collection in 5North. Orlev has also given Northwestern hundreds of other documents relating to his career as a writer: newspaper articles, interviews, award citations, and fan letters from children all over the world. These have been integrated into our existing documentation on the writer, which includes the original dossier prepared in Israel in support of Orlev's successful candidacy for the 1996 Hans Christian Andersen Medal.
Uri Orlev, originally Jerzy Henryk Orlowski, was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1931. He is a survivor both of the Warsaw Ghetto and the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. After the war he moved to Israel. He began writing children's literature in 1976 and has since published over 30 books, many of which have been translated, while he himself has also translated Polish literature into Hebrew.
We will be celebrating his gift to Northwestern—and his 80th birthday!—with an exhibit in the New Books Alcove, Main Library, from January to March 2011.
Jeffrey Garrett

Claire Stewart Named to ALA's Google Books Settlement Task Force

M. Claire Stewart, head of NUL's Digital Collections Department, was recently named to an important new American Library Association task force charged with examining the impact of the proposed Google book search settlement on libraries. The task force was convened pursuant to a resolution by ALA Council at the ALA Annual Meeting in Chicago this past summer requesting the ALA President, with advice from the ALA Executive Board, "to convene an ALA wide representative group to continue to assess the proposed Google Book Search Settlement and its ongoing impact on ALA members and member institutions to make recommendations for action by the Association and its members.”

The new task force is chaired by past ALA president Jim Rettig and includes library leaders from both academic and public library environments, copyright law experts, as well as the state librarians of Connecticut and New York.

The ALA Google Book Search Settlement Task Force had its first meeting on December 11, 2009. On December 15, ALA joined the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) and the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) in addressing a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice (online at http://www.wo.ala.org/districtdispatch/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/AntitrustdivASA-FINAL1.pdf), asking for ongoing judicial oversight of the Google Book Search settlement, if approved, and making other important points on behalf of the interests of libraries and academic authors.

Membership on this high-profile task force is a great honor for Claire—and for Northwestern University Library—but it comes with a big workload and significant responsibility. Everyone in NUL's Special Libraries Division congratulates her and wishes her well on this new and important assignment.

-Jeff Garrett, AUL for Special Libraries

Special Collections & Archives Post Events Timeline for 2008-2009

To view the Special Collections & Archives Post Events Timeline for 2008-2009 please click here.

Three New Special Libraries Exhibits for the Summer

Northwestern's Special Libraries have given visitors to campus this summer several attractive reasons to stop by the library. Three new exhibits showcase areas of our collections with strong visual components.

Just after entering the library, visitors can explore the lost art form of the phonograph album cover. Sound Design: The Rise and Demise of Album Art is a new exhibit that celebrates the glory days of the album cover, explores its dual identity as an art form and a marketing strategy, and mourns the loss of a consumer experience that has been gradually extinguished by the advent of downloadable music. Classic flower-power covers of the 60s and 70s--the original skull-and-roses cover on the Grateful Dead's eponymous 1972 release or the psychedelic, fish-eye portrait of Jimi Hendrix on his 1967 album, Are You Experienced—alternate with the dignified covers and distinctive crown-of-tulips logo of Deutsche Grammophon, the brainchild of advertising consultant Hans Domizlaff (1892–1971), now recognized internationally as one of the fathers of modern marketing. This fascinating exhibit, drawn from the vast collection of more than 25,000 LPs in the Northwestern Music Library, was curated by Music Library and Art Collection staffers Greg MacAyeal, Stephanie Hewson, Lindsay King, and Morris Levy. It runs through September 10, 2009. More information can be found here.

Then, in the corridor to Deering Library, the exhibit Daniel Burnham at Northwestern marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of architect Daniel H. Burnham's Plan of Chicago by adding a very local touch to the current city-wide celebrations. This mastermind of big-city planning became a resident of suburban Evanston in 1887 and designed over twenty buildings in the area. Although Northwestern can claim just one Burnham building—Fisk Hall, built in 1898—Burnham's connection with Northwestern dates to 1895, when he received an honorary degree, and continued to 1905, when he submitted several potential "Plans of Northwestern" to the Board of Trustees. This exhibit, co-sponsored by the University Library and the Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences, and featuring materials from the University Archives, includes documents and photographs, blueprints from the construction of Fisk Hall, and sketches of Burnham's proposals for a redesigned Evanston campus—which make for an interesting comparison with the Plan of Chicago he produced a few years later. The exhibit, which will continue into the fall, was curated by Associate University Archivist Janet Olson. For more information, please click here.

Finally, upstairs in Deering Library, we celebrate Northwestern University Library's extensive collection of international children's literature with the exhibit Best of Bologna: Edgiest Artists of the 2008 International Children's Book Fair. Produced in collaboration with the Bologna Book Fair and the Itabashi Art Museum in Tokyo, "Best of Bologna" features works by 23 talented children's illustrators from around the globe—Argentina, Belgium, Germany, Iran, Japan, and Russia, among other countries—a selection from an original pool of more than 3,000 artists who competed to be featured in Bologna at the world's largest and most important annual children's book event. The exhibit includes a movie about the Bologna Fair created by Ayami Moriizumi along with personal statements from each of the illustrators, offering intriguing glimpses into the ideas and experiences that inspire these artists. "Best of Bologna," curated by Special Libraries staff members Kim Specht and Jeff Garrett, will run through October 8, 2009. Click here for more information.

All exhibits are free and open to the public during the Library's public hours (Monday–Friday, 8:30–5:00). "Burnham at Northwestern" is also viewable Saturdays 8:30-noon.