Get a CLUE in Wilson Library on May 22. The doors will open after hours for UNC students to paricipate in an immersive–and haunted–live action game of Clue.

Round up a team and solve the mystery by interrogating Clue characters, answering questions, and gathering evidence. Winning teams will receive prizes including gift certificates to Student Stores, the Yogurt Pump, and more. All players will enjoy free pizza while the scores are tallied!

Sponsored by the Wilson Special Collections Library, the R.B. House Undergraduate Library, and Friends of the Library.

Related Links

• Sign up for May 22 Clue game (UPDATE 5/20/13: Registration is now full)
• Photos from 2012 Clue
• Facebook event

Alison Blaine, of Durham, N.C., will work with the Library and Information Technology department. She will be part of the team that is responsible for technical development of the Carolina Digital Repository and the Curator’s Workbench. She is a graduate of Duke University and holds a Master of Theological Studies from the Harvard Divinity School.

Hillary Miller, of Birmingham, Ala., will work with the E-Resources & Serials Management department, where she will be involved in the acquisition and management processes for electronic resources. Miller holds a B.A. in English from the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Sarah Morris, of Asheville, N.C., will have a placement with Davis Library Research and Instructional Services. She will provide traditional reference services and also participate in a full range of liaison services. She is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Jaci Wilkinson, of Decorah, Iowa, will have joint appointment with the Preservation and Music Cataloging departments. She will work with both units on a combination of special projects and ongoing processes. She holds a B.A. from Luther College in Decorah.

The Library also congratulates its graduating CALAs: Christopher Holden, Benjamin Jahre, and Sara Suiter.

The Library introduced the CALA program in 2000 to help prepare graduate students at UNC’s School of Information and Library Science (SILS) for careers in academic librarianship.

CALAs work 20 hours per week in their assigned department, for which they receive a salary, tuition awards, health insurance, and professional development opportunities.

To learn more about the CALA program, visit the CALA web page or contact Tiffany Allen, Director of Library Human Resources, at twallen@email.unc.edu.

Download a copy of the report (pdf)

Despite budgetary setbacks, writes University Librarian Sarah Michalak, the Library has transformed itself dramatically in a time of rapid change.The Library has helped to drive scholarship, teaching, and learning with outstanding research collections and leading-edge technologies.

To request a print copy of the report, please contact Judy Panitch, Director of Library Communications, panitch@email.unc.edu.

Download event flier (pdf)

University History Lives in Wilson Library
Wilson Special Collections Library
Saturday, May 11, 2013
1-5 pm.
Free and open to the public
Information: (919) 962-3765

Commencement visitors can step back in time during an open house at the Wilson Special Collections Library on Saturday, May 11.

Yearbooks and memorabilia from the reunion classes of 1953, ’58, ’68, and ’73 will be on view. A special class of ’63 slide show will feature music of that year, drawn from the Southern Folklife Collection.

Visitors will also be able to view the exhibitions A Right to Speak and to Hear: Academic Freedom and Free Expression at UNC in the North Carolina Collection Gallery, and the Rare Book Collection exhibition The Encyclopedic Impulse in the Melba Remig Saltarelli Exhibit Room.

Wilson Library is located on the south side of Polk Place, opposite South Building. It is home to the North Carolina Collection and North Carolina Collection Gallery; the Rare Book Collection; the Southern Historical and Southern Folklife collections; and University Archives and Records Management Services.

The open house is sponsored by the Wilson Special Collections Library and the Friends of the Library.

Download event flier (pdf)

“James Reston, Jr.: A Life in Writing”
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Wilson Special Collections Library
5:30 p.m. Program | Pleasants Family Assembly Room
Free and open to the public
Information: Liza Terll, Friends of the Library, (919) 548-1203

Journalist and author James Reston, Jr. (’63) will reflect on his life as a writer and discuss two of his forthcoming books on May 7 at the Wilson Special Collections Library.

Reston, currently a Senior Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, will talk about his September 11 novel The Nineteenth Hijacker and his nonfiction book The Real Target in Dallas, which argues that then Texas Governor John Connally was the intended target in the JFK assassination.

Sponsored by the Southern Historical Collection and the Friends of the Library, the 5:30 p.m. event is free and open to the public.

Reston’s appearance also comes on the occasion of his donation of his personal archive to the Southern Historical Collection. The donation includes more than 25 boxes of correspondence and notes from Reston’s writing career.

Reston, who has been a fellow at the American Academy in Rome and a Scholar in Residence at the Library of Congress, served as an assistant to U.S. Secretary of the Interior Stewart Udall 1964-65. In 1976-1977, Reston was David Frost’s Watergate advisor for the famous televised interviews with President Richard Nixon. His role in the interviews was depicted by the actor Sam Rockwell in the 2008 film Frost/Nixon.

He served as a UNC Lecturer in Creative Writing 1971-81, and was a Morehead scholar and an All South soccer player during his time as a UNC student.

Reston’s books include The Conviction of Richard Nixon: The Untold Story of the Frost/​Nixon Interviews (2007), The Lone Star: The Life of John Connally (1989), and Our Father Who Art in Hell: The Life and Death of Jim Jones (1981). His journalism has been published in The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Time, and The New York Times Magazine, among others.

Reston will also participate in UNC’s reunion weekend May 9-12, including moderating the panel “Race, Desegregation, and Chapel Hill, 1959-63” at 10:15 a.m. on Saturday, May 11, at the Wilson Library.

Related Links

• A new website collecting almost all of James Reston, Jr.’s journalism and essays of the past forty years
• Southern Historical Collection

Hours for each library are posted here.

Special Hours and Highlights

Davis Library will open at 7 a.m. Monday, April 29 through Friday, May 3, and again on Monday, May 6 and Tuesday, May 7. We’ll even have a pot of coffee out to welcome early birds on the morning of April 29.

Davis will close at 2 a.m. Sunday, April 28 through Monday, May 5, with the exceptions of Friday, May 3 (midnight) and Saturday, May 4 (8 p.m.). The 2 a.m. closing time has been made possible this year through a gift from The Educational Foundation (also known as The Rams Club).

The Undergraduate Library will stay open continuously from 11 a.m. on Sunday, April 28 until 12 a.m. on Sunday, May 5. The UL will reopen later that morning at 11 a.m., staying open again until 5 p.m. on Tuesday, May 7.

Wilson Library will offer quiet study from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. in the Grand Reading Room and in room 504, Monday, April 29 through Friday, May 3.

Whether you like quiet surroundings or prefer a crowd, UNC’s campus libraries offer a place to hit the books. Good luck, Tar Heels!

In conjunction with the Wilson Library exhibit A Right to Speak and to Hear: Academic Freedom and Free Expression at UNC, the University Gazette has published a quick quiz about the history of free speech at the University.

Take the quiz and let us know how you do!

You can cram first by visiting the North Carolina Collection Gallery on the main floor of the Wilson Special Collections Library. A Right to Speak and to Hear will be on exhibit through June 2.

Related Links

• UNC academic freedom quiz in the University Gazette (April 17, 2013)
• A Right to Speak and to Hear: Academic Freedom and Free Expression at UNC exhibition information

Shutterbugs, library fans, and proud Tar Heels are invited to participate in UNC’s first Library Snapshot Day on Tuesday, April 16, 2013.

Activities will offer an opportunity to explore campus libraries and share what Carolina’s libraries mean to you.

Take a photograph of yourself with Sir Walter Raleigh in Wilson Library, your favorite children’s book in the School of Information and Library Science library, or enjoying the Samuel Hitt Medicinal Garden at the Health Sciences Library. Your photographs might help you win the Amazing UNC Libraries Race contest. Prizes include gift certificates to Student Stores and the Daily Grind.

Details and registration information are here.

Library Snapshot Day Happenings

All Day – The Amazing UNC Libraries Race contest (register now)

10 a.m. -  Story hour in the School of Information and Library Science Library, Manning Hall

11 a.m. – 2 p.m. – Photo booth at the Undergraduate Library (with snacks!)

Noon – 4 p.m. – Video booth in Davis Library (more snacks!)

1 p.m. – Behind-the-scenes tour of Davis Library (meet in the lobby)

5 p.m. - An Evening with NPR’s Carl Kasell, Friends of the Library event, GS200 Genome Sciences Building

Student opposition to North Carolina’s 1963 Speaker Ban Law will be the subject of the annual Gladys Hall Coates University History Lecture Thursday, April 11, at the Wilson Special Collections Library.

Former UNC student body president Robert Spearman (’65) will discuss the controversial law that barred certain individuals from speaking on campus. Known members of the Communist Party, those who advocated the overthrow of the federal or state government, and those who pleaded the Fifth Amendment when questioned about communist or subversive activities were all prohibited from speaking at state-supported campuses.

The 5:30 p.m. lecture, sponsored by the North Carolina Collection and University Archives and Records Management Services, is free and open to the public.

The passage of the Speaker Ban Law fifty years ago drew almost immediate reaction from students and faculty, who protested that the law infringed on their rights to free speech. Students invited banned speakers to address their classmates from the sidewalk on Franklin Street and eventually initiated a lawsuit in federal court.

Spearman, now an attorney for a Raleigh law firm, testified before a state commission tasked with revising the law, which was eventually overturned in 1968.

Prior to the lecture, attendees can view the North Carolina Collection Gallery exhibition A Right to Speak and to Hear: Academic Freedom and Free Expression at UNC beginning at 5 p.m.

The exhibition uses original letters, documents, and photographs to examine the University’s long history of free speech controversies from the nineteenth century to the present.

The exhibition runs through June 2, 2013.

“Wikipedia Edit-a-thon: African Americans in North Carolina”
Sunday, April 14, 2013
Wilson Special Collections Library
1 – 5 p.m.
Free and open to the public (Registration requested)
Information: Emily Jack, North Carolina Collection Gallery, (919) 962-0104

Academics, history buffs, and Wikipedians are invited to UNC’s first-ever Wikipedia Edit-a-thon on Sunday, April 14, at the Wilson Special Collections Library.

Participants will update, improve, and create new Wikipedia articles about African American history and institutions in North Carolina.

The free public program will take place from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Refreshments and tours of Wilson Library will be provided.

Participants do not need specialized historical knowledge or experience with Wikipedia. Assistants will help locate book and article source materials and teach Wikipedia syntax and style.

Organizers encourage participants with personal laptops to bring them.

For more details and to register, visit the event page.

The event sponsors are the North Carolina Collection and student groups from the UNC School of Information and Library Science (SILS), including the Student Chapter of the Society of American Archivists (SCOSAA), the Art and Museum Library and Information Student Society (AMLISS), and the Information and Library Science Student Association (ILSSA).

Related Links

• Wikipedia Edit-a-thon registration
• Facebook event page