Library news and events

Winter Stories Program Dec. 10

A Seasoning of Stories and Songs
17th Annual Winter Stories Program for Children of All Ages
Thursday, Dec. 10, 2009
Refreshments: 5 p.m.
Program: 5:45 p.m.
Wilson Special Collections Library
Free and open to the public
Information: Liza Terll, Friends of the Library, (919) 962-4207

Storytellers and musicians will entertain children of all ages at Friends of the Library’s 17th annual Winter Stories program Dec. 10 in UNC’s Wilson Library.

The fun will begin with refreshments in the lobby at 5 p.m. and continue with music and tales from around the world in the Pleasants Family Assembly Room at 5:45 p.m.

Storytellers will be Brian Sturm, associate professor at the UNC School of Information and Library Science (SILS), and SILS students Katherine Lukmire, Jane McMahon, and Vickie Shore. They will recount tales representing every season from Germany, West Africa, England, and the Czech Republic.

Instrumental music will be provided by guitarist and SILS library assistant Kate Barnhart; flutist and Davis Library music cataloger Laurie Neuerburg; violinist Steven Wiggins; and guitarist and SILS student Carrie Stubblefield. There will also be sing-alongs.

Attendees are encouraged to bring a new or gently used children’s book to contribute to a book drive for the Book Fairy, an organization that donates children’s books to the Pediatric Oncology Clinic at UNC Hospitals. The need is especially great for Spanish-language books at the preschool level and picture books or easy readers in English.

Related Links

• Book Drive information

Software Provides New Look at Digital Library Collections

Online visitors have new options for interacting with digital library collections from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The Library has implemented software that provides advanced browsing and viewing for most photographs, postcards, letters, drawings, and other items that the Library has digitized and placed online. (View demonstration.)

Users of the Library’s digital collections site can look for the “View in 3D” icon and select it to:

• Display images side by side on a “3-dimensional wall;”
• Navigate among those images by scrolling forward, backward, in and out;
• Opt to view images in a slideshow format;
• Move with a click from the wall to higher-resolution images with accompanying descriptive data;
• Search for specific images within the wall display.

“It’s a seamless way to view a large set of materials at a glance and focus in on items of interest,” says Tim Shearer, the Library’s Web development coordinator. Shearer compares the display to an interactive photographer’s lightbox.

The software, from the company Cooliris, may be familiar to viewers from sites such as Google Images, Flickr, and Facebook, says Shearer.

Users who download the free Cooliris software will be able create additional customized views of Library collections, including a whole-screen display that makes it easier to note details and read text.

For questions about the Cooliris implementation, contact Shearer at sheat@ils.unc.edu.

New viewing options for digital collections

View in 3D ← look for this in our collections

When clicked, the “View in 3d” link will open a viewer like this:

Film and Discussion Dec. 1 Will Recall 1960s Anti-Poverty Work

The First 100 Film Screening and Panel Discussion
Tuesday, Dec. 1, 2009
5:30 p.m. Reception | 6 p.m. Program
Carolina Union Theater
Free and open to the public
Information: Liza Terll, Friends of the Library, liza_terll@unc.edu, (919) 962-4207

The Southern Historical Collection presents a rare screening of the film The First 100, a 30-minute documentary produced in 1964 to promote the anti-poverty work of the North Carolina Fund.

A panel discussion will follow featuring:

• Billy Barnes, public relations director and photographer for the North Carolina Fund, 1964-69;
• Rebecca Cerese, director and producer of the 2007 documentary Change Comes Knocking: The Story of the North Carolina Fund;
• Katherine Shelburne, a 1964 Fund volunteer from Durham, N.C.;
• James Leloudis (moderator), associate professor of history at UNC, director of the James M. Johnston Center for Undergraduate Excellence, and co-author of the forthcoming book To Right These Wrongs: The North Carolina Fund and the Battle to End Poverty and Inequality in 1960s America (UNC Press, May 2010).

The North Carolina Fund was an independent, non-profit, charitable corporation that sought and dispensed funds to fight poverty in the state between 1963 and 1968. The North Carolina Fund records are part of the Southern Historical Collection at UNC’s Wilson Special Collections Library.

The program is presented in conjunction with the exhibit We Shall Not Be Moved: African Americans in the South, 18th Century to the Present, on view in the Melba Remig Saltarelli Exhibit Room of Wilson Library through Feb. 5, 2010.

Related Links

• Southern Historical Collection
• North Carolina Fund records at UNC
• We Shall Not Be Moved: African Americans in the South, 18th Century to the Present (exhibit information)

2,000 World War I Postcards Now Online for Veteran’s Day

Approximately 2,000 postcards from the First World War debut on the Library’s Web site today in honor of Veteran’s Day. The postcards are the first of nearly 6,400 that the Library plans to digitize by June 2010.

Loading Field Artillery (published in New York, ca. 1916)

They are drawn from the Bowman Gray Collection of World Wars I and II in the Rare Book Collection of the Wilson Special Collections Library. The Bowman Gray Collection features 16,000 graphic images from the wars including prints, postcards and posters.

World War I was the golden age of postcards, said Libby Chenault, interim curator of the Rare Book Collection.

“This was one of the last major world-historical events before the advent of mass media,” said Chenault. Postcards were used to depict new military technology such as tanks and airplanes; to record scenes of mass devastation; and to distribute propaganda messages.

The digitized postcard collection, when completed, will be the largest such presentation on the Web.

Bowman Gray attended UNC in the 1890s. The native of what was then Winston, N.C., went on to become president and chairman of R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and was a major benefactor to both UNC and Wake Forest University.

Related Links

• World War I Postcards from the Bowman Gray Collection
• World War I Postcards to go online on Veteran’s Day (release from UNC News Services)
• Rare Book Collection

Pow! Workshop on Comic Book Collecting Nov. 21

Download flier (pdf)

Comic Book Collectors Workshop
Saturday, Nov. 21, 2009
11 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Wilson Special Collections Library, Rare Book Collection Reading Room
UNC-Chapel Hill
Free and open to the public
Information: Rare Book Collection, (919) 962-1143 or rbcref@email.unc.edu

It’s a bird! . . . It’s a plane! . . . It’s a comic book collectors workshop!

Join the UNC Library for a panel discussion about comic book collecting Saturday, Nov. 21, 11 a.m. – 1 p.m., in the Rare Book Collection Reading Room of the Wilson Library.

Attendees will be able to interact with experts, get information on developing and preserving a collection, and view dozens of rare, unique, and popular comics.

Panelists will include Dr. Libby Chenault, Rare Book Collection librarian; Daniel Breen, collector and donor; Andrew Neal, owner of Chapel Hill Comics; Ben Bolling, Ph.D. student in UNC’s English department; and April Brewer, Rare Book Collection temporary employee.

Related Links

• Rare Book Collection

Book Drive to Benefit Pediatric Cancer Patients at UNC

Children undergoing cancer treatment will find comfort in new books thanks to a book drive on the UNC campus Nov. 9 – Dec. 10.

Several UNC departments and organizations are sponsoring the drive on behalf of the Book Fairy, an organization that donates children’s books to the Pediatric Oncology Clinic at UNC Hospitals.

All new or gently-used books for ages one through mid-teen are welcome. The need is especially great for Spanish-language books at the preschool level and picture books or easy readers in English, said Book Fairy Kathy Humphries.

Download book drive flier (pdf)

Campus drop-off locations are:

• Davis Library lobby
• Undergraduate Library lobby
• Wilson Library lobby
• Health Sciences Library
• Law Library
• School of Information and Library Science, Manning Hall lobby
• School of Education, Peabody Hall Student Affairs Office lobby 1st floor
• School of Social Work, Tate-Turner-Kuralt Building lobby

A list of suggested books is available at http://www.librarything.com/catalog/bookfairy_unc.

The book drive is sponsored by the University Library Diversity Committee, the Health Sciences Library, the School of Information and Library Science, the School of Education, and the School of Social Work.

Friends of the Library will wrap up the drive by accepting donated books at the annual Winter Stories program on December 10 at 5 p.m. in the lobby of Wilson  Library.

For information about the drive, contact Rebecca Vargha, librarian, Information and Library Science Library, (919) 962-8361.

Related Links

• The Book Fairy
• List of suggested books
• Searchable campus map

Hugh Morton Photographs from Library Part of N.C. Cancer Hospital

Hugh Morton Collection Archivist Elizabeth Hull with one of the newly installed Hugh Morton photographic murals at the North Carolina Cancer Hospital

Photographs taken by the late North Carolina photographer Hugh Morton are now part of the newly opened North Carolina Cancer Hospital.

The half-dozen mural-size enlargements are copies from the Hugh Morton Collection in the Photographic Archives of the Wilson Special Collections Library. All depict natural scenery of the Tar Heel State, from the mountains to the coast.

Read more about the installation on the blog A View to Hugh, which describes the efforts of UNC archivists to process the collection’s half-million images and ready them for use.

Morton, a prominent entrepreneur, tourism booster, conservationist, environmental activist, and sports fan, was also the owner of Grandfather Mountain, now a state park. The Hugh Morton Collection came to UNC in 2007 following Morton’s death the previous year. They were a donation from Morton’s wife, Julia T. Morton.

For information about the Hugh Morton Collection, contact Elizabeth Hull, Hugh Morton Collection Archivist, or Stephen Fletcher, Photographic Archivist.

Related Links

• Color and Places: Hugh Morton Photographs in the North Carolina Cancer Hospital (entry from the blog A View to Hugh)
• North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives

Exhibit on African American History Topic of Nov. 18 Tour

Download event flier (pdf)

Gallery Talk for We Shall Not Be Moved: African Americans in the South, 18th Century to the Present
Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2009
2-3 p.m.
Wilson Special Collections Library, Melba Remig Saltarelli Exhibit Room
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Free and open to the public
Program information: Liza Terll, UNC Friends of the Library, (919) 962-4207

Join lead curator Holly Smith for a guided tour highlighting the people, places, events, and themes represented in the exhibit We Shall Not Be Moved: African Americans in the South, 18th Century to the Present.

We Shall Not Be Moved presents more than 100 documents, photographs, letters, diaries, and other items from the Southern Historical Collection, covering these topics: Enslavement; Labor; Politics; The Civil War and Reconstruction; Business and Industry; Education; Military; Community and Culture; and The Long Civil Rights Movement.

We Shall Not Be Moved is on display in the Melba Remig Saltarelli Exhibit Room of Wilson Library October 8, 2009 – February 5, 2010. Exhibit information: (919) 962-1345.

Related Links

• We Shall Not Be Moved: African Americans in the South, 18th Century to the Present (exhibit information)
• African-American experience to be exhibit, Web guide topic (release from UNC News Services)

Geographic Information Systems Day Events in Davis Library, Nov. 18

Download GIS Day flier (pdf)

Celebrate GIS Day
Wednesday, Nov. 18, 2009
214 Davis Library
1 p.m. Program: “Preserving North Carolina’s Vanishing Geospatial Data”
1:30 – 2:30 p.m. Map competition and refreshments
Free and open to the public
Information: Amanda Henley, GIS Librarian, (919) 962-1151

Join the staff of Davis Library for GIS Day, a celebration of Geographic Information Systems, on Nov. 18, 2009.

At 1 p.m. in 214 Davis, Alec Bethune and Jon Breece from the GeoMAPP program (”Geospatial Multistate Archive and Preservation Partnership”) will discuss the challenges of preserving North Carolina’s geospatial data.

At 1:30, there will be light refreshments and a chance to vote on entries in the GIS Day map competition for student-created maps.

Did you know: Governor Bev Perdue has declared Nov. 18, 2009 to be GIS Day in North Carolina. Join our GIS Day activities to learn more about Geographic Information Systems!

Students: Enter the GIS Day map competition for a chance to win a cash prize.

Related Links

• GIS Day student map competition details
• More about GIS Day at Davis Library
• GIS Day official Web site

Liberalism, Black Power, American Politics Book Talk Nov. 2

Download event flier (pdf)

Liberalism, Black Power, and the Making of American Politics, 1965-1980

Program with author Devin Fergus
Monday, Nov. 2, 2009
Reception at 5 p.m. | Program at 5:45 p.m.
Wilson Special Collections Library, UNC-Chapel Hill
Free and open to the public
Information: Liza Terll, Friends of the Library (liza_terll@unc.edu, 919-962-4207)

Hear an interview with Devin Fergus.

In his book Liberalism, Black Power, and the Making of American Politics, 1965-1980, author Devin Fergus returns to the tumultuous era of Johnson, Nixon, Carter, and Helms and challenges us to see familiar political developments through a new lens.

Focusing especially on North Carolina, Fergus reveals how liberal engagement helped to bring a radical civic ideology back from the brink of political violence and social nihilism.

Author Devin Fergus will speak Nov. 2 at Wilson Library

He covers Malcolm X Liberation University and Soul City, two largely forgotten, federally funded black nationalist experiments in North Carolina, and the political scene in Winston-Salem, where Black Panthers were elected to office in surprising numbers.

Fergus is assistant professor of modern United States and African American history at Vanderbilt University. In 2007, he was a Fellow of the Southern Historical Collection, and his book draws upon research conducted at UNC.

His talk is part of the Southern Historical Collection Book Series and is being presented in conjunction with the exhibit We Shall Not Be Moved: African Americans in the South, 18th Century to the Present, on view in the Melba Remig Saltarelli Exhibit Room of Wilson Library through Feb. 5, 2010.

Related Links

• Liberalism, Black Power, and the Making of American Politics, 1965-1980 (book information from University of Georgia Press)
• We Shall Not Be Moved: African Americans in the South, 18th Century to the Present (exhibit information)
• Southern Historical Collection