LIBRARY NEWS

~ Evjue grants $18,000 for collections in Central Asian books
~ Staff Service Awards given May 3
~ Honoring the Faculty, given bookplates
~ First Wisconsin Academic Library Associate discusses digitization project
~ Woodman Astronomical Library to join GLS

NOTABLES

~ Wanserski's ideas leave his mark
~ Gorman named head of newly reorganized and newly named UWDCC
~ East Asian Librarian Chu leaving UW-Madison
~ Wendt bids farewell to Kate Anderson
~ Joe Ryan leaving LTG to pursue library degree

FEATURES AND EVENTS

~ UWDCC to give tours June 3
~ Post-ACRL discussion May 31
~ Presentation on grant searching June 21
~ May 14-20 was Bike to Work Week
~ Art of Books presentation May 26

NEW RESOURCES ON THE WEB

~ Four collections expand in UW Digital Collections

IN THE NEWS

~ The Wisconsin State Journal hunts for Ivory-Billed Woodpeckers with Robin Rider
~ Wisconsin State Journal mentions Librarians of the Year
~ Core Weekly discusses Rare Book Collection

SNAPSHOTS

PUBLISHED

IN PASSING

25 YEARS AGO IN THE LIBRARIES

LIBRARY NEWS

• The Evjue Foundation Inc. announced Thursday, May 26 that it will grant $18,000 to the General Library System for the purchase of two private collections of Central Asian books in Baku and Tashkent. These collections will enhance the Center for Russia, East Europe and Central Asia, which currently includes approximately 400,000 titles. Specifically, the collection in Central Asian languages holds more than 2,000 titles and Evjue's grant will help UW-Madison actively add to this collection. "Donations of materials help to continue the growth of the library’s collection and are greatly appreciated," says Andy Spencer, bibliographer for Slavic, East European and Central Asian Studies.
  
  The Evjue Foundation Inc. is part of The Capital Times and is named for founder and longtime editor William T. Evjue, who established the foundation before his death in 1970. To date, the foundation has given nearly $33 million, including the nearly $2 million spread across the University of Wisconsin and 76 community organizations announced May 26.
  
  
• Six library staff members received awards at a ceremony Tuesday, May 3, for excellence in service. This is the first year the campus-wide awards have been given, honoring staff members — student, classified, and academic — from any campus library.
  Read more about the Staff Service Award winners
  
  
• The Honoring the Faculty program of the UW-Madison Libraries recognizes UW-Madison faculty who received a promotion or earned tenure in the previous year. Through the program the libraries will add a book to the collections in the name of the promoted faculty member. Each person was asked to select a book representing something meaningful to him or her and to submit a short statement as to why he or she chose the book. The libraries purchased the book and book plated it with the faculty member's name, department and year he or she was promoted or received tenure. A booklet created by the libraries and University Communications Creative Services lists the honored faculty, the book they selected and a statement behind each selection.
  Read more about Honoring the Faculty
  
  
• UW-Madison’s School of Library and Information Studies graduate student Rusty Michalak led a project spring semester to digitally scan, import and display images from the UW Archive’s image collection, using CONTENTdm’s (digital management system) software: the Acquisition Station. He identified the project in collaboration with UW Library Director Ken Frazier and Archivist David Null. Michalak chose to digitize Jim Feldman’s The Buildings of the University of Wisconsin, due to its high demand.

  This digitization project will serve as a demonstration that can be shared widely with other institutions, museums and libraries as a "how to" digitize using CONTENTdm software. Once the project is complete, Michalak will co-author an article with his colleagues detailing the process, the opportunities and the challenges of this project. He hopes to share his colleagues’ success with the project and enthusiasm for expanding access to images online so that graphic information may be accessed anytime and anywhere.

  Michalak graduated from SLIS in May and immediately left for a visit to Warsaw, Krakow, Prague, Budapest and Zagreb. Upon his return, Michalak plans to find a digital management job where he can apply the skills he learned working with librarians in the UW-Madison Libraries as a Wisconsin Academic Library Associate. Michalak says, “I especially thank my mentor Ken Frazier for the skills he has helped me develop while I conducted this project.”
  
  

• As of July 1, 2005, the Woodman Astronomical Library will be part of the
  General Library System.  In preparation for the transition, Woodman staff members, the Library Technology Group and Central Technical Services are working on barcoding the collection and updating information in Voyager.  The library collections will be in circulation and will be available for book retrieval and UW System borrowing.

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NOTABLES

• John Wanserski, deputy director of Wendt Library, will be retiring from his post this summer. He has spent the last 15 years at Wendt, and has helped Wendt and the rest of the UW-Madison Libraries take advantage of new technology.
  Read more about Wanserski's accomplishments and retirement plans
  
  
• Peter Gorman has been named the new head of the UW Digital Collections Center. Also, the departments that work with UW Digital Collections and MINDS@UW have been reorganized. All staff from either the Digital Content Group or Library Technology Group that work on digital initiatives will become part of the UW Digital Collections Center, led by Gorman. This gives the UWDCC a position of expertise and experience in creating and hosting digital content.
  
  
• East Asian Studies Librarian Victoria Chu will be leaving the UW-Madison Libraries to take a position as the Chinese Studies Librarian at the University of California at San Diego. She has worked with the UW-Madison Libraries since 2002. Chu's last day will be July 29.
  
  Deputy Director Ed Van Gemert says, "I thank Victoria Chu for her work here at Wisconsin and wish her all the best with her new position in California."
  
  
• Services Librarian Kate Anderson's last day at Wendt Library will be July 8. She has been at Wendt since last summer, but also worked at the Pharmacy Library and the CIMC in her career at UW-Madison.
  
  Wendt Director Deborah Helman says, "Kate has made great contributions here and her spirit, willingness to try new things and good ideas will be greatly missed."
  
  
• Joe Ryan of the Library Technology Group will be leaving in early August to pursue a graduate degree at Syracuse's School of Information Studies.  Syracuse awarded Ryan the Gaylord Graduate Assistantship, one of the highest fellowship awards available.  According to Ryan, Syracuse is one of the leading schools for technology oriented information studies.

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FEATURES AND EVENTS

• The newly named University of Wisconsin Digital Collections Center is hosting a workshop and giving tours Friday, June 3. Throughout the day, other library staff will have a chance to meet UWDCC staff and learn about the history and mission of UWDCC. The workshop will explain some of the technology and the workflow at UWDCC. All spaces have been filled as of May 27, but UWDCC hopes to offer more tours at a later date.
  
  
• Various staff from the UW-Madison Libraries attended the Association of College & Research Libraries conference in Minneapolis last April. In an effort to discuss new ideas and programs that staff learned about at the conference, a meeting will be held from 10:30 a.m. - noon May 31 in room 126 Memorial Library for all those who want to attend and discuss applying these ideas and programs to the UW-Madison Libraries. Deputy Director Ed Van Gemert, Library & Information Literacy Instruction Coordinator Abbie Loomis and College Library Reference Coordinator Steve Frye have organized three main topics for the discussion: library as a place, transforming technologies, and marketing and customer service. Frye also developed a Web site which contains notes and comments that staff submitted after the conference.
  
  
• The Grants Information Collection will be hosting a presentation by Erika Wittlieb, coordinator of the nation-wide network of Foundation Center Cooperating Collections, from 1-3 p.m. June 21 in room 126 Memorial Library. She will be talking about the Foundation Center, its resources and services, and using the foundation grantmaker.
  
  
• Many library staff participated in Bike to Work Week May 14-20. This year's campaign within the library was coordinated by Lisa Haller of the Library Technology Group.
  
  "Bike to Work week in Madison was successful this year with more than 100 bikes participating in the bike parade at the kickoff event on Street Street," Haller says. "Our own Aimee Glassel rode her 'basket bike' and wowed the crowd!"
  
  Other events of the week included a bike giveaway, free bicycle maintenance checks, various advocacy and awareness events and a final fiesta to celebrate the week.
  
  
  
• European History Librarian and History Outreach Librarian Barbara Walden and Tom Durkin of UW Digital Collections presented information about the Art of Books: Creating the American Publisher's Bindings Online Database Thursday, May 26. The project is part of a partnership with the University of Alabama Libraries in hopes of strengthening awareness and interest in the art of books. A grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services made the Art of Books project possible.

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NEW RESOURCES ON THE WEB

A plethora of items have been added to UW Digital Collections in the last month.

• The Geology and Natural Resources of Wisconsin section of the Ecology and Natural Resources Collection now includes six more volumes to enhance the foundation of the collection. These volumes provide detailed documentation of Wisconsin geology and natural history in the 19th century. Some of the volumes contain government documents while others are illustration books that help identify different species and fossils. The picture to the right is a selected image from David Dale Owen's Illustrations to the geological report of Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota
  (1852). The image is a fossil from the Protozoic rocks of the northwest.
  
  

• The South East Asia Images and Texts collection expanded in two areas, the E. Murray Bruner Philippine Image Collection and the Joel M. Halpern Laotian Slide Collection.
  
  The Bruner Philippine Image Collection has 134 new images. The collection of images represents captivating images that recount early 20th century U.S. military presence in the Philippines. Bruner was a member of the Philippines Constabulary from 1906-1910. His photographs give insight to military and civilian life. The photograph to the right shows an American soldier posing for a picture with a Filipino child.

  More than 3,000 images were added to the Joel M. Halpern Laotian Slide Collection. Most of the images were taken by Professor Halpern, an anthropologist in Laos in the late '50s and '60s. The collection documents daily activities and life in Laos, including royal ceremonies and rural scenes.
  
  

• The State of Wisconsin Collection has new items in four different sections, including the Appleton Plat Books, History of Wisconsin Agriculture and Rural Life, The Home Front: Manitowoc County in World War II and Wisconsin Goes to War: Our Civil War Experience sections.
  
  Five volumes were added to the Appleton Plat Books section of The State of Wisconsin Collection. As part of a Library Services and Technology Act grant which was awarded in early 2005, seven public libraries around Wisconsin are working with UWDCC to create digital resources. The first of these resources is the Appleton Plat Books section which includes late 19th and early 20th century atlases and maps of Outagamie County.
  
  The History of Wisconsin Agriculture and Rural Life section of The State of Wisconsin Collection has nearly 150 new issues that include Proceedings of the Wisconsin Butter-maker's Association and Reports of the Dairy and Food Commission of Wisconsin, among others. This collection focuses on agriculture and rural life in Wisconsin before 1945. Journals, handbooks, professional and informal reports enhance the collection on topics ranging from engineering to rural sociology.
  

  The Home Front: Manitowoc County in WWII section of The State of Wisconsin Collection includes photographs, oral histories, artifacts and other resources relating to the county's home front and wartime experiences from 1939-1947. Thirty-seven issues of The Sojourner, a monthly newsletter, have just been added to the collection which presents photographic images, oral histories, published sources, artifacts and other resources which document the county’s home front and wartime experiences from 1939 to 1947. The newsletter was created by a group of young women in Two Rivers, Wisconsin from 1942-1945.
  

  The section Wisconsin Goes to War: Our Civil War Experience of The State of Wisconsin Collection now has 14 more archival collections through a collaborative project with UW-Oshkosh and the Wisconsin Historical Society. The collections include letters, diary entries, journals and correspondence by Wisconsin soldiers and citizens during the Civil War.
  
  

• The University of Wisconsin Collection has new resources in two of its sections; The Cultural Landscape of the UW-Madison Campus and History of Women at the University of Wisconsin.

  Nearly 900 images were added to The Cultural Landscape of the UW-Madison Campus section. The photos are part of a gallery that was created to support a two-year effort to inventory and assess the cultural landscape resources on campus. The image to the right is a bird's-eye view of the campus in 1907. The building in the forefront is the State Historical Society. Bascom Hill can be seen in the background while Lake Mendota is on the right.

  Seven volumes have been added to the History of Women at the University of Wisconsin section of the collection. These seven volumes were published by the University of Wisconsin and focus on the roles and activities of women students, faculty and staff.

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IN THE NEWS

• The recent discovery of the presumed extinct Ivory-Billed Woodpeckers sparked the memory of a few images for Special Collections Curator Robin Rider and Biology Library Director Elsa Althen. Ron Seely of the Wisconsin State Journal wrote an article about their hunt for images of the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker in the libraries collections. The article, published May 1, was also published by the Appleton Post-Crescent May 2.
  
  
• The April 30 issue of the Wisconsin State Journal included a short article recognizing Librarians of the Year, Yvonne Schofer and Eliot Finkelstein, for their awards.
  
  
• Core Weekly published an article in the May 5 issue that explored the rare book collections at UW-Madison Libraries. Special Collections Curator Robin Rider and Bibliographer Yvonne Schofer shed light on the collections and the history behind the development of the collections.

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SNAPSHOTS

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PUBLISHED

• The 2005 Friends of the Libraries Magazine has been published both in print and online. Copies are being mailed to more than 10,000 donors and staff. Additional copies for campus libraries may be requested by contacting the Friends, 990 Memorial Library, 265-2505.
  
  
• The latest poetry chapbook released by the Parallel Press, The Minimalist's How-to Handbook by Karl Elder, includes 9 lengthy poems that candidly ponder topics from elephants to Albert Einstein. Elder's poems often involve references to other areas of knowledge, almost as though each poem includes an inside joke between Elder and the reader.
  
  The title poem involves a series of "how-to" instructions for a variety of topics. Each four-line stanza is a different "how-to" and often the directions elicit a chuckle. For example, the sixth stanza reads "How to Walk on Water / Universities / don't hold classes on it. Try / a junior college."
  Read more about The Minimalist's How-to Handbook
  
  
• Illumination, a new undergraduate journal of the humanities, is meant to recognize some of the best work done on campus. The journal is sponsored by the UW-Madison Libraries, and Director Ken Frazier holds a position on board of advisers for the publication.
  
  "The journal is very well done and illustrates the power of the collaborative process of publication we hope to facilitate for the UW-Madison community," says Lee Konrad, head of Public Services for Memorial Library.
  
  Copies of the journal are available at Memorial Library, College Library, Paul's Bookstore and Catacombs Coffee shop.
  
  
• In support of the Creative Writing program, the UW-Madison Libraries and University Communications published Forward - Best Young Poets. This booklet effectively publishes the work of 21 students poets and was given as a surprise gift during an award ceremony honoring the students. The booklet provides a range of poetry due to the multitude of authors. One poem, titled At the Canadian Medical Center in Prague describes an experience in a foreign health care center, while Colonel Mustard's Confession finally solves the great mystery game Clue in a first person account of what it must have been like to hide in rooms with the different weapons available.
  
  
  
• Mills Music Library's spring issue of Jongleur is now online. The issue features the Skitch Henderson Collection because it includes many items relating to Johnny Carson. Henderson was Carson's band leader and donated 800 items to the University of Wisconsin in 1970. Other items included in Jongleur this spring relate to the Future of Folk, the current exhibit Midwest Fiddlers and items recently added to collections.
  
  
• Wendt Director Deborah Helman, who joined the UW-Madison Libraries in January, previously worked at MIT. An article she co-authored while at MIT was recently published by The Johns Hopkins University Press. The article, titled The Viability of Live Online Reference: An Assessment, discusses Ask Us-Live!, a real-time online reference service.
  
  
• The UW-Madison Libraries researched and developed a brochure for the Audubon Room in the Overture Center. Dr. Richard Anderson has donated many John James Audubon engravings to various locations on campus, including Special Collections in Memorial Library. Dr. Anderson donated 24 engravings to the Overture center for the Audubon Room. The brochure created by Library Communications identifies each print and its location in the room.

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IN PASSING

• The former head of Mills Music Library, Lenore F. Coral, passed away March 8. Coral has been attributed with building the core of the research collection and facility at Mills during her leadership from 1972-1982. A full obituary is available at theithacajournal.com.
  Read more about Lenore F. Coral in Mills Music Library's Jongleur
  
  
• Janet Muriel Saul died Sunday, May 1. Saul earned a master's degree in library science from UW-Madison and worked as a reference librarian at the College of Engineering Library for close to 20 years. A memorial was held in Madison Thursday, May 19. A full obituary is available at madison.com.
  
  
• Carol Mueller, head of Original Cataloging, passed away May 15. Her career at the UW-Madison Libraries began in 1972 and she served in a variety of technical services positions ever since. Mueller also taught cataloging for the School of Library and Information Studies. "She was a dedicated and caring librarian and human being," said Associate Director Sandra Guthrie in an e-mail announcement to staff. Louise Robbins, SLIS director, said, "She was a wonderful mentor to many of our students."
  

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25 YEARS AGO IN THE LIBRARIES

• The library softball team received a nod of congratulations in the May 16, 1980, issue of Added Entries.
  
  "After an exhausting regular season of two games (won one, lost one), the team entered the even more exhausting post-season double-elimination tournament. Because of poor planning, an unexpected sand storm, and poor equipment maintenance the team lost the first game of the tournament, 11-10. But then, in the words of Plautus, ubi pervenent difficultates, ibi prodent fortes*, winning their next two games, 18-6 and 20-4. Despite this unexpected (but not undeserved) success, rumors that the proposed area for the catalog extension is to be converted to the trophy case are probably premature. Reports of future triumphs (if any) will follow.
  
  *"When the going gets tough, the tough get going," often, but erroneously attributed to Paul W. Bryant, renowned classical scholar and football coach at the University of Alabama. "
  
  According to Debi Doyle, CTS, players included her, Bibliographer David Henige, and others we would like to hear about.
  

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Quotation

Throughout my formal education I spent many, many hours in public and school libraries. Libraries became courts of last resort, as it were. The current definitive answer to almost any question can be found within the four walls of most libraries.

—Arthur Ashe (1943-1993), American Tennis Player

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