A drawing of the Old Well on a 1900 letter from UNC President Francis Venable.

A new online exhibit, Water at UNC-Chapel Hill, explores the role that water has played in the history of the University.

The exhibit is the latest addition to The Carolina Story: A Virtual Museum of University History. It connects with the University’s two-year academic theme “Water in Our World,” which seeks to mobilize the campus, inspire interdisciplinary research, and spark new thinking about water issues.

Water at UNC-Chapel Hill features links to brief narratives and 19 sets of images taken from the University Archives, the North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives, and the North Carolina Collection Gallery.

Exhibit Highlights

• Photographs of local waterways and the Old Well;
• A 1793 letter from “Father of the University” William Richardson Davie in which he described the land on which the future university would be built as having an “abundance of springs of the purest and finest water”;
• An image of the indoor pool inside Bynum Gymnasium, now used as office space for the Graduate School;
• Images and materials related to the severe droughts of the 1960s and 70s, when the University Lake reservoir fell to one-sixth of its normal level, leading Chapel Hill to purchase water from Durham and institute usage restrictions.

The Virtual Museum tells the story of the history of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill through online exhibits of digital texts and images.

Other exhibits on the site include campus architectural highlights, Carolina’s literary history, and student life at Carolina.

For more information, contact Records Services Archivist Lawrence Giffin at (919) 962-6402 or lgiffin@email.unc.edu.

Related Links

• Water at UNC-Chapel Hill virtual exhibit
• The Carolina Story: A Virtual Museum of University History

Jason Tomberlin

Jason Tomberlin is Head of Special Collections Research and Instructional Services, effective June 1.

In this position, Jason will provide leadership and administration in special collections for research and reference services, instructional programs, stacks management, user information channels, permissions and reproduction services, and data reporting. As a member of the management group of the Wilson Special Collections Library, he will help to plan and implement goals, priorities, policies, and workflows for special collections, and to promote use of special collections at the University.

Prior to this appointment, Jason served as Public Services Librarian, also at UNC’s Wilson Special Collections Library. He holds an M.A. in public history from North Carolina State University and a B.A. in history from UNC.

Contact Jason at (919) 843-5863 or jasont@email.unc.edu.

Lauren Menges was appointed Manuscripts Digitization Project Librarian, effective May 1.

Lauren Menges

Lauren will coordinate operational activities for the multi-year grant Content, Context, and Capacity: A Collaborative Large-Scale Digitization Project on the Long Civil Rights Movement in North Carolina. Members of the Triangle Research Libraries Network (TRLN) will digitize approximately forty modern manuscript collections and archival record groups and make them freely available online.

Lauren has served as temporary Project Manager for the Content, Context, and Capacity project at UNC. She has also held a librarian appointment at the Ridley-Lowell Business and Technical Institute in Binghamton, N.Y.

She holds an M.L.I.S. from the University of Pittsburgh and a B.A. in English from Lafayette College in Easton, Penn.

Contact Lauren at (919) 966-5903 or lmenges@email.unc.edu.

UPDATE (June 19): The emergency drill is complete. All floors of Davis Library are now open.

Davis Library will be the site of an emergency drill on Wednesday, June 19, from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m.

The UNC Department of Public Safety will coordinate the exercise, which will also include local law enforcement and response agencies.

During the drill, actors will portray gunmen, hostages, and victims. Emergency vehicles and personnel will be visible in and around Davis Library. Uniformed responders will react as they would in an actual emergency.

Library Access

The 7th and 8th floors of Davis Library will be closed during the drill. Books, carrels, and offices on those floors will not be accessible. The Library cannot page books from those floors during the drill. Other areas of Davis Library will remain open. Patrons are encouraged to use other campus libraries during this time.

Traffic

The area surrounding Davis Library will be blocked to pedestrians and vehicles, and Chapel Hill Transit service will be re-routed. Much of Raleigh Street will be blocked, and vehicles will be routed down Country Club Road. There will be access to the Cobb parking deck.

Questions?

Please direct questions about the exercise to Ron Campbell, UNC emergency management director: rcampbe@psafety.unc.edu. For questions about Davis Library access, please contact the Circulation Desk at (919) 962-1053 or Ask a Librarian.

For updates and information, visit alertcarolina.unc.edu.

Related Links

• Alert Carolina informational message (June 4, 2013)

Dr. Charles Kurzman, UNC professor of sociology

OCLC Research Briefing
Friday, June 7
9 a.m. – 12 p.m.
205 Undergraduate Library (and online)
Free and open to the public. Registration required.

UNC professor Charles Kurzman will be one of the featured speakers at a free public briefing June 7 to explore trends in scholarly research.

OCLC, a worldwide library cooperative, will sponsor the briefing, which will take place at UNC, in room 205 Undergraduate Library, and online.

The schedule for the briefing is as follows:

• 9 – 10 a.m. – “Shifts in Scholarly Attention among World Regions” by Dr. Charles Kurzman. Kurzman will present his research on how social science maps the world through changing academic attention to world regions over the past 50 years.
• 10 – 11 am. – Break
• 11 a.m. – 12 p.m. – “Why Google?: “…[Google] saved time, it saved gas, I got what I needed, and it wasn’t a big deal.” by Dr. Lynn Silipigni Connaway, senior research scientist, OCLC Research. Connaway will discuss results of multiple user behavior studies and recommendations for promoting user engagement with library services, sources, and systems.

Registration for both the in-person and online versions of the briefing is required. Register here via OCLC.

Charles Kurzman is a professor of sociology at and co-director of the Carolina Center for the Study of the Middle East and Muslim Civilizations. He is author most recently of The Missing Martyrs (2011) and  Democracy Denied, 1905-1915 (2008). He has also been a member of the Administrative Board of the Library at UNC.

Related Links

• Registration information for OCLC Research Briefing
• “Shifts in Scholarly Attention among World Regions” briefing description
• “Why Google?” briefing description
• Charles Kurzman homepage

The Library relies on private giving for about 15 percent of its annual budget. For example, expendable gifts and endowment income make it possible to:

• keep Davis Library open until 2 a.m. during classes,
• buy thousands of books and e-books,
• acquire and make accessible manuscript materials,
• support visiting scholars who come to use UNC’s unique library collections; and
• refresh technologies and refurbish physical spaces.

Please make a gift today, and your contribution will make the June 27, 2013, deadline and the next honor roll of donors. It’s easy!

• Give online: Use the secure giving site and select “Library” or a specific library fund of your choice.
• Give by mail: Send a check payable to “UNC-Chapel Hill” (with “Library” or the library fund name in memo line) to:  UNC-Chapel Hill, P.O. Box 309, Chapel Hill, NC 27514-0309.
• Give through payroll deduction: Staff and faculty can set up contributions by completing the Employee Gift Form.

For more information, contact the Library Development office at (919) 843-5660.

Thank you!

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