What's New

Latest Issue of "Off the Shelf" Arrives

The Spring 2013 issue of Off the Shelf, the Libraries' biannual magazine, has arrived on campus and is on its way to the mailboxes of library supporters. It is also available for view online, at http://library.wustl.edu/offtheshelf/, along with past issues of the publication.

This latest issue highlights 24-hour access to Olin Library, the role of libraries in an evolving information landscape, and a range of recent developments and events at Washington University Libraries.

For more information about Off the Shelf or to send feedback, contact Joy Lowery (jlowery@wustl.edu) or Evie Hemphill (ehemphill@wustl.edu).

Junior Jumpstart Includes Panel on Library School, Careers

Washington University's upcoming annual Junior Jumpstart mini-conference--held on Thursday, May 9, this year--will include a session highlighting masters programs in library and information science. A panel comprised of library staff will offer insight and answer questions about library and information science as a potential career path from 11:25 a.m. to 12:25 p.m. in Eads Hall (Room 209).

In addition to recently appointed Associate University Librarian Trevor Dawes, who comes to WUSTL after a number of years at Princeton University Libraries, and panel moderator and subject librarian Cheryl Holland, several other library staff members will also speak. They include Film & Media Archivist Nadia Ghasedi; Digital Data Outreach and Political Science Librarian Cynthia Hudson; and Evening Reference Assistant Paula Wiggam. Andrea Johnson, creative experience specialist at St. Louis Public Library's newly renovated Central Library, will join the panel as well.

The one-day Junior Jumpstart conference is open to all current WUSTL juniors. Registration is required to participate. Attendees can mix and match sessions on full-time employment, graduate school, personal statements, and more.

Tour the Book Studio at Open House April 30

 

On Tuesday, April 30, from 5 to 6:30 p.m., WU Libraries and the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts will host the annual Kranzberg Book Studio Open House.

Founded in 1997, the studio provides an expansive workplace equipped with printing presses and other specialized tools, where students learn about book design, bookmaking, authorship, and publishing.

During the open house, guests can tour the Book Studio, meet current students and faculty, and learn who’s won this year’s Nancy Award for outstanding student achievement in book design.

The event takes place in Walker Hall, Level 2, on Washington University’s Danforth Campus. Walker Hall is near the intersection of Skinker & Forsyth, just east of the Kemper Art Museum and north of Bixby Hall.

The event is free and open to the public. For more information, call the Department of Special Collections at Washington University Libraries at 314-935-5495. 

Olin Library's Arc Hosts Twitter 201 Series

Several librarians at Washington University are offering a series of free workshops this spring to help students, faculty, and staff tap the practical powers of Twitter. Each of the sessions is held in Olin Library’s Arc (Level A) at 3 p.m. on various Thursdays throughout the spring semester.

Twitter 201: Professional Development and the Job Search is set for 3 p.m. Thursday, March 21. Lauren Todd, subject librarian for engineering, will suggest ways to develop professionally and foster meaningful connections using Twitter. The platform can be valuable networking tool in a variety of professions—to start conversations, to get help with a tricky professional problem, to follow conference activities from afar, and to search for new opportunities. Todd will also talk about developing a strong, professional web presence.

Twitter 201: Photography & Images will be at 3 p.m. Thursday, March 28. Librarian Jaleh Fazelian will join Todd for this presentation, helping attendees learn how to take beautifully composed pictures on a smartphone, why Instagram isn’t the only option, and where to connect with photographers on Twitter.

Twitter 201: What the @RT#? Twitter & the #Hashtag Movement is set for 3 p.m. Thursday, April 18. Co-presenters Makiba Foster and Fazelian can attest that understanding Twitter is an education unto itself, including what may appear to novices as random uses of symbols and letters (e.g., #, RT, @, MT).  This final Twitter 201 session will discuss the various uses of the hashtag and its importance in Twitter, where it opens up a more dynamic and diverse Twitter experience to users.

For more information and to register, visit http://wulibraries.doattend.com. Follow University Libraries on Twitter at http://twitter.com/WUSTLlibraries.

Exhibition, Reading to Feature William Gass

In conjunction with the debut of William Gass’s new novel, Middle C, the University Libraries present an exhibition and a reading featuring the critically acclaimed author this spring.

“William H. Gass: The Soul Inside the Sentence” opens Monday, March 11, in Olin Library’s Ginkgo Reading Room and Grand Staircase Lobby. Drawing on Special Collections’ archive of his literary papers, the exhibition includes items related to each of Gass’s many books, which range from novels to short story collections to essays and literary criticism. Materials related to Gass’s education, World War II navy experience, teaching career, photography, and bibliophilism are also among the items to be displayed. Continuing through early July, the physical exhibition will precede a digital exhibit. Once available online, that ongoing resource will include content from the physical exhibition, as well as audio and video elements and a closer look at some of the Gass manuscripts.

Gass will also give a reading on the Danforth Campus in Wilson Hall, Room 214, at 4 p.m. Tuesday, April 2, titled “How to Behave Around Books.” Gass will open with an essay, “I Live in a Library,” and then read selections from his new novel, Middle C (Knopf). A reception and book signing in the Gingko Room of Olin Library follows, with Middle C and other books by Gass available for sale.

Gass is the David L. May Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Humanities at Washington University in St. Louis, where he taught philosophy for 30 years and also founded and directed the International Writers Center. Gass began donating his literary papers to the Modern Literature Collection in the 1960s, before the publication of his acclaimed first novel, Omensetter’s Luck. Now in his late eighties, Gass continues to write prolifically, most recently publishing essays in Conjunctions and Harper’s, among others. Middle C is his 15th book.

To learn more about the Manuscripts unit at Washington University Libraries, visit the website. The reading and exhibition are free and open to the public, and the exhibition will be available for viewing any time that Olin Library is open (see the library hours page at http://www.library.wustl.edu/about/hours.html). Call 314-935-5495 for more information.

Photos of Gass by Michael Eastman, 2013

Collaborative Book Artists Visit Feb. 19

Book artists Uta Schneider and Ulrike Stoltz will give a presentation titled "The Making of" at 5 p.m. Tuesday, February 19, in the Ginkgo Reading Room (Olin Library, Level 1). Schneider and Stoltz worked collaboratively and on solo projects for 27 years, after studying visual communication at Germany’s Offenbach Academy of Art and Design.

Stoltz focuses on books, typography, text, and sound, and teaches typography and the book at Braunschweig University of Art and Design. Schneider focuses on drawing, typography, installation, and text. They exhibit internationally and have work in the collections of the Victoria & Albert Museum (London), the Pompidou Centre (Paris), Houghton Library & Fogg Art Museum at Harvard University, New York Public Library, the Museum of Modern Art (New York), and many others. The piece pictured here is called “zwiefach” meaning two-fold or double.

The event is free and open to the public. For more information, contact Special Collections at 314-935-5495 or spec@wumail.wustl.edu.

Susannah Cahalan to Read, Discuss "Brain on Fire"

Susannah Cahalan's harrowing medical trauma sounds like something straight out of the TV medical series House. A healthy young woman is sitting calmly at home when suddenly her arms whip straight out and stiffen like a mummy's, her eyes roll back, and foam spurts out of her mouth. For the next month, Cahalan, a 2007 WUSTL graduate and New York Post reporter, would experience not only seizures but also strange, terrifying hallucinations and paranoid fixations—symptoms that led to the conclusion that she was psychotic. Fortunately for Cahalan, a real "Dr. House" solved the medical mystery. Her recovery is another fascinating aspect of the story, recounted in her book Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness.

At 5 p.m. Monday, February 18, Cahalan will give a reading and commentary in Simon Hall's May Auditorium on the Danforth Campus. Following her presentation, which is co-sponsored by the University Libraries, several WUSTL faculty will join Cahalan for a discussion of her experience, including Lenard Green, professor of psychology; Rebecca Lester, professor of anthropology; and Eugene Rubin, professor of psychiatry.

The event is free and open to the public. For information on this and other Assembly Series programs, visit assemblyseries.wustl.edu or call (314) 935-4620. ​​​

WU Professor to Give "Cheap Photography, Classy Illustration?" Talk Jan. 31

Washington University’s own Douglas B. Dowd will give a talk at 5 p.m. Thursday, January 31, in Olin Library’s Ginkgo Reading Room (Level 1).

Dowd, a professor of art and American culture studies, has titled his presentation "Cheap Photography, Classy Illustration?: Class, Price, Style and Desire in Mid-Century American Periodicals for Men (and Women)."

Dowd is an active curator, essayist, and critic in the realm of modern graphic culture, writing on topics in comics, animation, and illustration. He writes the blog Graphic Tales and serves as an advisor to the Norman Rockwell Center for American Visual Studies in Stockbridge, Massachusetts. He is also an illustrator, animator, and printmaker.

An illustration by Al Parker for Sports Illustrated, May 11, 1964.

His presentation will compare the phenomena of pin-up painting for Brown & Bigelow, photographic "girlie mags," and the advent of Playboy. In addition, Dowd will discuss the relationship between Ladies Home Journal and Modern Romances.

"I’m interested in the prestige of illustration, followed by its collapse," he says, "and the transition from somewhat harsh black and white photography to the airbrushed color photography of post-Playboy."

A reception will follow the event, which is free and open to the public. The talk is sponsored by the University Libraries and given in conjunction with an exhibition currently on display in Olin Library, Thrill Seekers: The Rise of Men’s Magazines. For more information, contact Skye Lacerte, curator of WU’s Modern Graphic History Library, at slacerte@wustl.edu.

Novelist and Poet Qiu Xaiolong to Give Talk

At 4 p.m. Friday, February 1, the novelist, translator, poet, and critic Qiu Xiaolong (pronounced shew shaow-long) will describe his experiences writing about his birthplace—Shanghai, China—from his current home in St. Louis, where he has lived since 1988. The book talk, titled "Tales of Two Cities," will be held in Umrath Hall.

His recent book, Disappearing Shanghai: Photographs and Poems of an Intimate Way of Life, is a collaboration with photographer Howard French, former New York Times bureau chief in Shanghai and now a professor in the Columbia School of Journalism. Qiu Xiaolong is author of the award-winning Inspector Chen series of mystery novels, and won the Anthony Award for Best First Novel for Death of a Red Heroine. Qiu Xiaolong earned a doctorate in comparative literature at Washington University.

This event is free and open to the public. It is sponsored by East Asian Languages and Cultures, the University Libraries, the Center for the Humanities, and the McDonnell International Scholars Academy.

To view books by Qiu Xiaolong that are available through Washington University Libraries, click here.

Olin Library Hosts Spring Twitter Classes

Washington University Libraries staff members are offering a series of free workshops this spring to help students, faculty, and staff tap the practical powers of Twitter.

Each of the sessions will be held in Olin Library’s Arc (Level A) at 3 p.m. on various Thursday afternoons throughout the spring semester, with topics ranging from Twitter 101, an introductory class, to more advanced workshops—collectively titled Twitter 201—on specific uses of the popular social media platform.

Twitter 101 will be held at 3 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 31. Geared for the Twitter novice, this hour-and-a-half session led by Islamic Studies Librarian Jaleh Fazelian will cover account creation, search features, what it means to follow someone, how to construct a tweet, what hashtags and retweets are, and other Twitter basics.

Twitter 201: Photography & Images will be at 3 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 21. Engineering Librarian Lauren Todd will join Fazelian to help attendees learn how to take beautifully composed pictures on a smartphone, why Instagram isn’t the only option, and where to connect with photographers on Twitter.

Stay tuned for more classes to come in March and April. Those classes will focus on Twitter & the Job Market and Twitter & the Hashtag.

For more information and to register, visit http://wulibraries.doattend.com. Follow University Libraries on Twitter at http://twitter.com/WUSTLlibraries.