Libraries@UW-Madison

Newsletter Archive | Library Communications

Issue 24

7/23/2003

News for Staff of UW-Madison Libraries

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PREVIOUS ISSUES

SNAPSHOTS

~ Where in the Libraries?

PUBLISHED

~ Yvonne Schofer edits literary cookbook
~ John Wanserski publishes article about developing virtual reference systems
~ Parallel Press releases fourth chapbook, Marquees of Buffalo

IN PASSING

~ Dorothy Schultz passes away at 93

25 YEARS AGO IN THE LIBRARIES

~ What is a COM catalog?

LIBRARY NEWS

Memorial Library will celebrate its 50th anniversary Sept. 17, commemorating the day the library opened for business. General Library System Director Ken Frazier will give a speech, "Remembering Our Past, Envisioning Our Future: Memorial Library at Fifty," Sept. 17 at 4:30 p.m., L160 Elvehjem Museum of Art. The talk focuses on the libraries' past and its possible future. Memorial Library archivist David Null compiled an exhibit of photos and documents about the opening Sept. 17, 1953. At the time, Memorial had 600,000 volumes with a capacity of 1.5 million, but additions in 1974 and 1990 increased its capacity and usability. Today, Memorial houses more than three million volumes, the largest single collection in Wisconsin.
UW-Madison is hosting the 10th annual WiLSWorld Conference July 23-24, held at the Pyle Center. The conference serves as a technology forum for librarians across the state and features two days of lectures and discussions as well as a pre-conference workshop July 22. Guest speakers include: Dr. Stuart Sutton, an associate professor at the University of Washington; Jay Jordan, president and CEO of OCLC; and Jerilyn Veldof, director
of undergraduate initiatives for the University of Minnesota Libraries. UW-Madison speakers include: John Wanserski, Wendt Library; Mark Beatty, WiLS; and Peter Gorman, LTG.
Beginning with the Centennial Exposition (Philadelphia, 1876), burgeoning consumer culture and lithographic printing in color--chromolithography--came together in the form of appealing small illustrated cards advertising consumer goods and identifying local merchants who carried them. These "trade cards" not only advertised products from pickles to patent remedies, they also offered a window into Victorian-era sensibilities and consumer culture. Because of their lively illustrations the cards were collectibles then (their heyday was 1875-1900) and remain so today. The Special Colelctions exhibit featuring these cards, Stock & Trade: Victorian-Era Trade Cards from the Collections of Daniel M. Albert and Michael R. Albert, runs through Sept.19, on the ninth floor of Memorial Library.
This exhibit draws upon the trade card collections of Daniel M. Albert, M.D., professor of ophthalmology, UW-Madison, and of Michael R. Albert, M.D., Rhode Island Hospital in Providence RI, and sets these colorful (if small) cards alongside contemporary advertising as found in books and magazines from the UW-Madison libraries' collections. The exhibit explores such themes as the advertising campaign for Dr. Thompson's Eye Water, spectacles and scientific instruments, special effects and illusions, soaps and salves, children and animals in late 19th-century advertising, the pursuit of beauty, and what are known as "before-and-after cards."

A specially designed "trade card" produced by Silver Buckle Press forms the exhibit's poster. A limited number of the posters are available for sale through the Press.

After more than 30 years of providing service, the Information Desk in Memorial Library combined with the Reference Desk into one service desk for library users June 16. The Information Desk opened in the late 1960s in the card catalogue room and made gradual changes throughout its existence as computers replaced card catalogues in searching for materials in the 1980s. Librarians stopped creating new cards for the subject catalog in 1982; the card catalogue ended altogether five years later. Dennis Hill, who recently retired as building manager of Memorial Library and was previously an information librarian, received his share of interesting questions and visitors. "You never knew what you could be asked," Hill says. Among the more notable visitors, Hill received questions from former Wisconsin Governor Lee Sherman Dreyfus in addition to calls from across the country, oftentimes regarding Memorial Library's large German collection. The Information Desk phone number will not change and the computers in the west corridor of the second floor will remain in place.

Shirley Raymakers, a 2003 School of Library and Information Studies graduate, participated in the Festival of Community Cultures May 31, an event that celebrates all cultures on the north side of Madison. Raymakers set up a reading room at Lindbergh Elementary School for children to enjoy and Barbara Arnold, the SLIS admissions and placement advisor, coordinated volunteers to staff the room throughout the afternoon.

UW-Madison welcomed visitors from all over the world when the SLIS Continuing Education Services hosted the U.S. State Department Embassy Information Resource Center staff training program. Twenty-four participants from Africa, Europe, Asia and Latin America came to Madison June 2nd-5th for the conference; these participants are reference and information specialists in consulates and U.S. embassies who supply information about the U.S. Most of these librarians relay information digitally, although some work in more traditional library settings. SLIS hosted a reception in honor of these visitors June 2nd as well as training at SLIS director Louise Robbins' house (see picture above). In addition to the conference, visitors saw the state Capitol, the State Law Library, the Historical Society Library and the School of Journalism.

For the Mills Music Library, the Friends of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries grant allows it to preserve tapes and copies of sheet music that might be lost otherwise. Mills received donations of more than $3,000 and is one of 16 libraries to receive grants, totaling almost $20,000 this grant cycle.

These grants range from $500 to $3,300 and will be used to purchase new preservation materials, preserve old collections and add to existing projects. Librarians in Mills, for example, will purchase a scanner to digitize copies of sheet music written or published in Wisconsin dating from the 1850s--some are the only surviving copies and need to be preserved digitally. In addition, they will preserve reel tapes, mostly of folk music, from the 1970s and 1980s. Other Friends grants include:

Steenbock Library, the main library for the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, the School of Human Ecology, the School of Veterinary Medicine and UW Extension, Cooperative Extension, has a Web-based newsletter.
Read Steenbock Library's newsletter

Notables

Ruth Adams was recently named head of the new Documents Unit, part of Central Technical Services. CTS created this position to handle the increased workload from the Regional Depository Library Program for the University of Wisconsin-Madison Libraries. David Camp, Jim Holtz and Carol Stier also moved to the Documents Unit from other areas of CTS.
Kathleen T. Horning became the new director of the Cooperative Children's Book Center this spring after serving as acting director. Horning has been a librarian at the CCBC since 1982 and also served as a children's librarian at the Madison Public Library for nine years. She has written and co-authored several books and articles on young adult and children's literature, including From Cover to Cover: Evaluating and Reviewing Children's Books. She also co-wrote Multicultural Literature for Children and Young Adults, 1980-1990 with Ginny Moore Kruse, her predecessor as director. In addition to her position at the UW-Madison Libraries, Horning is the president of the United States Board on Books for Young People and a member of the ALA's Association for Library Service to Children board of directors. She has also served on several book award committees. Horning earned a bachelor's degree in linguistics and a master's degree in library and information studies from UW-Madison.
David C. Smith joined the Forest Products Laboratory Library last year as the new catalog librarian and records manager. Smith transferred from the Forest Service Region 8 office in Atlanta, Ga. Before his appointment in Madison, Smith worked in the Centralized Cataloging Unit for the Forest Service Library Network.

The Digital Content Group welcomed new research intern Tom Durkin into its office in early July. Durkin, an associate academic librarian, served as a research intern in the Biology Library for two years prior to his appointment. His duties include working with metadata and text encoding. He graduated from the School of Library and Information Studies at UW-Madison and completed a master's degree in anthropology from the Washington State University.

Bonnie (Hobson) Tijerina, a 2003 SLIS graduate and former library assistant for College Library's Ethnic Studies Collection, recently received a librarian's fellowship at North Carolina State University in Raleigh. Tijerina, one of three fellows selected, will work in Collection Management and design a project titled "Business One-Stop Resource Center" for NC State University's College of Management. While at UW-Madison, Tijerina reviewed "Diversity Now: People, Collections & Services in Academic Libraries," which was published in the Journal of Academic Librarianship. She also volunteered as a grant and library researcher for First Nation's Orphan Association, which works to meet post-adoption needs of Native Americans. Tijerina graduated from Lawrence University in Appleton with a bachelor's degree in religious studies.
Read N.C. State's story
The Educational Committee of the International Primatological Society announced that Larry Jacobsen, the recently retired director of the Library and Information Service at the Wisconsin Regional Primate Research Center, has an educational award in his honor. The Lawrence Jacobsen Education Development Award, worth $1,000, recognizes his contributions to career and education development and supports field conservation programs, work with community and schools and conservation education techniques. Dr. Gigi Joseph, an extension education officer of the Periyar Tiger Reserve in Kerala, India, is the first recipient and will promote teacher and student training on the lion-tailed macaque's conservation needs.

Features

Well-wishers gathered to honor seven retirees June 11 in Memorial Library. These beloved staff members combined served at the UW-Madison Libraries for more than 200 years and witnessed and facilitated many changes within the library system.
Read about the retirees
View pictures from the retirement party
Women's Studies Librarian Phyllis Holman Weisbard recently toured India to present lectures on various women's issues and on Internet-related topics. The trip, from May 13 to June 3, took Weisbard all over India, where she visited temples, libraries, beaches and synagogues.
Read about Weisbard's adventures
View photographs from her trip

The Digital Content Group has updated several collections in its constantly expanding database of online material with new page turner and multimedia projects. The Digital Library for the Decorative Arts and The University of Wisconsin Collection have numerous new online projects.
See a list of projects and descriptions
After giving nearly 35 years of service to the UW-Madison Libraries, John Luedtke, the director of computer services at Wendt Library, celebrated his retirement July 11.
See more information and photos from the event

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IN THE NEWS

Sherry Kanetzke, who works in Administrative Services at Memorial Library, was quoted in a June 27 article, "Health plan would sock part-timers; it would make state workers pay half of insurance premiums" in The Capital Times. Kanetzke discussed rising health insurance costs for state workers, part of a Joint Finance Committee proposal in which those working half-time to 74 percent-time would pay half of their insurance premiums.

SNAPSHOTS

Last issue's answer to "Where in the Libraries?"
Astronomy Library, 6521 Sterling Hall.

In which campus library can you find this image? Please send your answers to Don Johnson, Library Communications, djohnson@library.wisc.edu or Katie Gilbert, kgilbert@library.wisc.edu. The source of the mystery photo will be revealed in the next newsletter.
Photo by Katie Gilbert, Library Communications.

PUBLISHED

Humanities bibliographer Yvonne Schofer is the editor of a cookbook due on stands Aug. 1. This work, A Literary Feast: Recipes and Writings by American Women Authors from History, is not a traditional cookbook in that it uses recipes found in literary works, mostly from the 19th century.
Learn more about A Literary Feast's delicious offerings

John Wanserski, deputy director of Wendt Library, used the UW-Madison Libraries as a model in an article in Virtual Reference Services: Issues and Trends. The article, From AskWendt Live to QuestionPoint™: A Chronology of the Development of a Persistently Virtual Reference Product and Service, addresses the challenges of developing software for virtual reference systems, including troubleshooting, marketing and integration into existing services. UW-Madison underwent this process using Convey Systems' OnDemand™ software, developing its Live Help site that allows users to ask reference questions through live instant messaging with a librarian. The article, published by The Haworth Press, Inc., also appeared in Internet Reference Services Quarterly.

The silver screen provides cinematic memories for poet Dennis Trudell, with Buffalo, N.Y. as the backdrop. Marquees of Buffalo, published by Parallel Press, is an imprint of the UW-Madison Libraries and the newest chapbook release. In this collection of poetry, Trudell, a former UW-Whitewater English professor, takes readers through life at the movies: reliving dates to watching his parents leave for a movie as a child. Trudell is an award-winning poet and has authored several other collections, including Full Court: A Literary Anthology of Basketball. He currently lives in Madison with his wife.

IN PASSING

Dorothy Schultz, director of College Library from 1961 to 1980, passed away this spring at 93. Under Schultz's leadership, UW-Madison saw the transformation of the undergraduate library from a room in Memorial Library to three floors in H. C. White Hall. Schultz was an activist who worked in labor and socialist movements in the Twin Cities in the 1930s and 1940s. After her retirement, she continued to participate in political and social justice organizations as well as open and run Mother's Pub on Williamson Street with her family. A celebration of her life was held Saturday, May 10 at Edgewood College.

25 YEARS AGO IN THE LIBRARIES

What is a COM catalog? That's a good question and Memorial Library's Aug. 4, 1978 issue of Added Entries, the UW-Madison Libraries newsletter, has the answer:
"'COM' stands for Computer-Output-Microfilm. Basically, in a library operation, it means that instead of using a computer to print catalog cards, we use it to produce microfilm containing the information now found on the cards. ... A catalog of 150,000 titles would occupy approximately 300 feet of microfilm. The initial catalog produced by the University of Toronto Library contained approximately 1.2 million titles, with 5.4 million access points (i.e., the equivalent of 5.4 million catalog cards.)"

QUOTATION