Friends, Libraries host variety of activities in spring

Events

Conference Brownbag Meeting

• Those interested in learning about various conferences, including the American Library Association's Mid-Winter Meeting, may hear library staff members discuss their conference experiences at the Conference Brownbag Meeting, sponsored by the Librarians Assembly Program Committee. Those interested in speaking can contact European history librarian Barbara Walden by Feb. 20. Speakers should talk for no more than 10 minutes on topics relevant to the UW-Madison Libraries. Coffee and hot chocolate will be available.

"With Discriminating Knowledge": The Libraries and Archives of the University of Wisconsin-Madison

• With more than six million volumes, the UW–Madison Libraries have grown during the past 150 years into one of the largest library systems in North America. David Null, the University of Wisconsin–Madison archivist and co-curator of this spring exhibit in Special Collections, will speak on the history and development of the university’s collections. The talk will also cover the ways in which the libraries’ histories are documented in media varying from university publications to oral histories.

Semiannual Book Sale: Largest Used Book Sale in Wisconsin

Wednesday, March 3 - Saturday, March 6
Room 116, Memorial Library

• Books for the sale are donated primarily by faculty, staff, students and Madison-area residents. Among the subjects covered by the books available: American studies, fiction, foreign languages, cooking, physical and biological sciences, computer science, government, political science, law, education, fine arts, self-help, reference, business, social sciences, religion, philosophy, women's studies, and history. Money from the sales helps fund an annual lecture series, special purchases for the library collections, and a visiting scholar support program.
  
  Wednesday, preview sale ($5 entry)
  5-9 p.m., Wednesday
  
  Thursday - Friday, regular sale (no entry fee)
  10:30 a.m.-7 p.m.
  
  Saturday, $2-a-bag sale
  (bring your own bag or buy one for $1)
  10:30 a.m.-2 p.m.
  
  All sales are open to the public. For more information on book sale hours, or to find out how to donate materials to sell, visit the Friends' book sales page.
  
  
  

Undergraduate Students' Web Search Behavior: Implications for User Training.

Assistant Professor Sunny Kim, School of Library and Information Studies
Thursday, March 11, 1-2 p.m.
126 Memorial Library

• Kim has been doing research on students' cognitive characteristics and their effects on Internet searching for the past several years and will present her work. The presentation will focus on the various cognitive characteristics of undergraduates, their problem-solving methods and their search habits, and is designed for those working in Reference or Library Instruction.
  
  
  

Evolution of an Icon: Whistler's "Mother" and Popular Culture

Martha Tedeschi, curator of prints and drawings, Art Institute of Chicago
Thursday, March 25 - 4:30 p.m.
126 Memorial Library

• Like Grant Wood’s "American Gothic" and Leonardo da Vinci’s "Mona Lisa," a handful of paintings have evolved beyond masterpiece status and become part of popular culture. These paintings reach beyond the realm of aesthetics or history and become icons.
  
  Martha Tedeschi, curator of prints and drawings at the Art Institute of Chicago, will give a lecture addressing this evolution in Whistler’s painting "Mother," describing not only how this image made the transition, but why.
  
  

Friends of the UW-Madison Libraries Annual Lecture

Carmen Agra Deedy, author and storyteller
Thursday, April 15 - 5:30 p.m.
Howard Auditorium, Fluno Center

• Author and award-winning storyteller Carmen Agra Deedy will be the featured speaker at this spring’s annual lecture.
  
  Often profound and hilarious, Deedy’s stories deal with the themes of separation and perseverance she has encountered growing up with a dual American-Cuban heritage. Born in Havana, Cuba, in 1960, Deedy’s family immigrated to Decatur, Ga., during the mid-1960s to escape the chaos of Castro’s post-revolutionary Cuba. Much of Deedy’s early American experience involved coping with the departure from her cultural homeland and relatives. Eventually, Deedy and her family thrived in their new environment. While Deedy’s storytelling style has deep roots in the difficulties of immigration and cultural collision, she is better known for her sharp wit and humorous approach toward the misunderstandings between cultures.
  
  This year she made her third consecutive appearance at the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C. Deedy has also spoken at the National Storytelling Festival and the National Book Festival and has been featured on NPR’s "All Things Considered."
  
  

Exhibits

Exhibit: 'With Discriminating Knowledge': The Libraries of the University of Wisconsin-Madison

Nov. 13, 2003 - March 15, 2004
Special Collections, Memorial Library

• The quotation above from "Some notable gifts and collections of the University of Wisconsin Library" refers to the manner in which the campus library collections have been built. This exhibit, drawing on holdings of University Archives and many campus library units, highlights collections given by faculty and other friends, points to key events and landmark acquisitions in the history of campus libraries, and suggests the remarkable variety of materials the libraries make available to researchers.

   

Exhibit: University of Wisconsin Digital Collections

Memorial Library lobby
Through February

A new exhibit in Memorial Library's lobby examines the process
by which materials such as books, photographs and other documents
are digitized, or put online. The exhibit displays materials that have
been put online, explains metadata and reformatting processes and
features a computer for visitors to look at projects online. The
exhibit runs through the end of February.

An Artist with a Mission: Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr.

Feb. 1-29, 2004
Kohler Art Library

• The Kohler Art Library features an exhibit of alumni book artist and fine printer, Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr. Kennedy employs historic printing methods through which he expresses his sociopolitical views about topics such as the vulnerability of children, his African heritage and community activism. Kennedy specializes in the old world traditions of creating paper by hand from pulp, typesetting text, using illustrations of African symbolism and covering each book with African mud cloth. Kennedy’s passion for the book arts is evidenced in his cover-to-cover creations of books in a variety of non-traditional forms, such as wearable charm books. Viewing Kennedy’s work is an exercise in consciousness.
  
  
  

The Arts and Crafts Movement, Bungalows and Related Topics.

Through the end of March
Steenbock Library, second floor.

• On display are books and journals from the early 1900s to the present on this popular subject. All the books in the display may be checked out. Journal highlights include volumes of "Keith’s Magazine on Home Building," "House And Garden," "House Beautiful" and Gustav Stickley’s "The Craftsman". Anyone researching mission furniture, Arts and Crafts-era pottery, decorative arts, gardening, home construction, bungalows, and more, will find a wealth of information in these publications. The display is augmented with pottery, bungalow postcards and examples of Arts and Crafts embroidery.
  
  

LAYERS OF KNOWLEDGE

April-May, 2004
Special Collections, Memorial Library

• Layers (especially exposed layers) inform the visual language of discovery in a wide array of subjects. An exhibit in spring 2004, drawing on the resources of the History of Medicine Collections in Middleton Health Sciences Library and Special Collections in Memorial Library, will cut across a variety of fields in exploring the depiction of layers in book illustrations—from the flayed muscles of Renaissance anatomies to the contents of the fossil record, from the cross-sections shown in Hooke's Micrographia through the layers of Repton's landscape designs to the possibilities exposed by Roentgen's rays.
  
  

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