Benson Latin American Collection, Exhibits

A View Through the Student Lens

November 12, 2014 Susanna Sharpe Leave a comment

Dark clouds gathered in the late afternoon sky in anticipation of the last storm of the summer. Inside, a DJ set the needle down on the 45-rpm version of a Jorge Ben classic just as the rain began to fall. Flecked by the light of a disco ball on the circulation desk, a convivial crowd had gathered to chat, snack, and enjoy the fact that it was almost Friday. The occasion was Field Notes, the fifth annual LLILAS Benson student photography exhibit and competition, held in the Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection on the third Thursday in September.

Photographs from a summer of study, both abroad in Latin America and in Latina/o communities in the United States, hung in the Benson’s first-floor corridor, and visitors took in the images with interest and curiosity. The photos themselves expressed the range of experiences, viewpoints, and settings encountered by the student photographers: Ruijie Peng’s prize-winning photograph, taken in Ecuador, depicts Chinese and Ecuadoran workers standing in hard hats among rocky debris at the site of a hydroelectric construction project; the other prize winner, by Mariana Morante Aguirre, was snapped in Guadalajara, Mexico, outside a hostel along a railroad route used by Central American migrants and transient Mexican nationals alike.

In Mario Mercado’s photo, a trumpeter plays on a San Juan sidewalk in front of exuberant graffiti that invokes the instrument’s brassy sound. In a lovely image by Charles Wight, a lone boat floats on the Rio Negro near Manaus, Brazil. Our gaze turns skyward via the lens of Felipe Fernández Cruz, who photographed airplanes flying in formation against a clear blue sky above the Christ statue in Rio, the wings in identical posture to the outstretched arms of O Redentor. (A history student, Fernández went to Brazil to study how the twentieth-century state built air routes to colonize the interior.) A stunning black-and-white image by MFA film student Álvaro Torres Crespo shows two boys fishing from a pier under a cloudy sky at dusk in Puerto Jiménez, on Costa Rica’s southern Pacific Coast.

tasker — Photo by Kaitlin Tasker, Department of Geography and the Environment

Some student researchers encountered roadblocks both expected and unexpected…

(Continued at the LLILAS blog.)

Appointment

Quigley Heads Acquisition Services

November 6, 2014 Texlibris Leave a comment

The University of Texas Libraries announces Brian Quigley as Head Librarian, Acquisition Services, Collections and Technical Services.

The Libraries acquire materials in dozens of formats from across the globe in support of the research and teaching missions of the university. Acquisitions Services is charged with coordinating all activities related to the ordering and receipt of materials for library collections regardless of format and for providing financial reporting on those services. Using a variety of approval and selection plans, firm orders from subject bibliographers, and input from constituents across campus, the department manages the ingestion of new resources into the collection. As the department’s Head Librarian, Brian Quigley coordinates the unit’s activities with other library departments and with external content providers, publishers, and vendors.

Brian has a Master of Arts in Latin American Studies and an MLIS, both earned from the University of Texas at Austin. He brings 30 years of experience to his new position from the University of Texas’ Tarlton Law Library, where he was at various times the Acquisitions/Serials Librarian, Director for Bibliographic Services, Head of Systems and Technology, and Associate Director for Administration and Collection Services.

Reach Brian at: bquigley@austin.utexas.edu, (512) 495-4149, PCL 2.306.

Appointment

Cofield Becomes Charter Metadata Coordinator

November 6, 2014 Texlibris Leave a comment

The University of Texas Libraries are pleased to announce the appointment of Melanie Cofield to the position of Metadata Coordinator.

As Metadata Coordinator, Melanie provides innovative leadership in planning, implementing, and assessing metadata practices for the University of Texas Libraries’ digital collections and services. Proactively engaging with staff from various units within UT Libraries and also with faculty, staff, and students across campus, Melanie identifies metadata needs, prospective projects, and training opportunities. She represents the UT Libraries’ Cataloging and Metadata Services department to the campus and wider metadata community, and facilitates policy development in support of digital curation and interoperability efforts.

Prior to joining UT Libraries, Melanie was the Digital Resources Librarian at the Tarlton Law Library, UT School of Law. She received her Master of Information Studies with a specialization in digital curation from the UT School of Information, and her academic library experience spans nearly two decades working in various roles including collection management, patron services, instructional and emerging technologies, digital asset management, and digital preservation. Melanie recently joined our staff on September 22, 2014.

Contact Melanie at: m.cofield@austin.utexas.edu, (512) 495-4355, PCL 2.330.

Archives, Benson Latin American Collection, Exhibits

Benson Goes for Baroque

October 20, 2014 Texlibris Leave a comment

Iglesia de Santa María Tonantzintla, Puebla. Caroyln Brown.

The extravagance of the Baroque period in Spanish America is currently on display in an exhibition at the Benson Latin American Collection.

Inside the Baroque illuminates the splendor and diversity of Mexican arts and letters in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and their enduring legacy. A selection of photographs by Carolyn Brown accompanies rare books and manuscripts from the Benson’s collections to present the Baroque period’s ornate style as it was manifested in the Spanish colonies of the Americas.

A complementary documentary film by Quin Mathews presents arresting views of Mexico’s baroque churches against a backdrop of life in modern-day Mexico. Mathews traveled with photographer Carolyn Brown in 2008, recording scenes of daily devotional and festive practice, and the film captures the centrality of local churches.

Wedding at Catedral de Zacatecas. Carolyn Brown.

Originating in 16^th century Italy as a European Catholic response to the austerity of the Protestant Reformation, the Baroque style found purchase in the art, architecture and music of the period, and made its way to the Western Hemisphere by the end of the 1600s.

Catedral de Zacatecas at dusk. Carolyn Brown.

What made the movement particularly unique as it was expressed in the Americas was the influence of indigenous populations, craftsmanship and resources on the decorative style of religious structures that were erected as monuments to Spanish colonial power in the New World.

The exhibition will be on display through January 31, 2015, in the Benson Second Floor Exhibition Gallery, and is free and open to the public. Check the Benson website for a complete listing of hours.

Concurrently on view in the Benson’s first floor gallery is the 5th Annual LLILAS Benson Student Photography Exhibition featuring photography by University of Texas at Austin graduate and undergraduate students highlighting their expansive research, fieldwork, and volunteer activities within Latin American and U.S. Latina/o communities during the previous year.

Advisory council, Alumni, Books, Development, Exhibits, Faculty, Fine Arts Library

Distinguished Author Dinner Recap

October 17, 2014 Texlibris Leave a comment

Earlier this month, the Libraries hosted a Pulitzer Prize finalist for its third annual Distinguished Author Dinner.

Jacqueline Jones — who has earned accolades for her book A Dreadful Deceit: The Myth of Race from the Colonial Era to Obama’s America, — spent the evening before a rapt full house of University of Texas Libraries supporters discussing her ideas on race as a social construct.

“The effects of this fiction have been devastating throughout history,” Jones recently told The Daily Texan. “The idea here is that this myth or idea has been a very powerful one in justifying the exploitation of [people of] African descent and other people as well.”

The thought-provoking talk provided attendees with ample fodder for discussion after Jones exited the dais.

Jones is Walter Prescott Webb Chair in History and Ideas and Mastin Gentry White Professor of Southern History at the University of Texas at Austin. She’s also the recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship and the Bancroft Prize for American History, among many other awards and distinctions. She’s author of Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow (Basic Books, 1985) and Saving Savannah: The City and the Civil War (Vintage, 2009).

The Distinguished Author Dinner is an invitation-only event to acknowledge and thank major donors, advisory council members and friends for their support and interest in the Libraries.

In addition, it provides an opportunity to reinforce the Libraries role in teaching, learning and research, and to promote the outstanding research of world-class faculty on the campus of The University of Texas at Austin.

Past events have featured Hamilton Book Award winner for Scripting Jesus: The Gospels in Rewrite Dr. L. Michael White, and acclaimed author, library advocate and Texas favorite, Sarah Bird.

To become a Libraries donor and receive invitations to events like this one, please visit our online giving page.

Books, Collections

The Birth of Chemistry

September 15, 2014 Texlibris

Annales de Chimie, Tome Premier. Paris, 1789. Octavo, 22cm. Mallet Chemistry Library.

Antoine de Lavoisier (1743-1794) was one of the founding fathers of the modern science of chemistry. He and his contemporaries established a more quantitative, empirical method of inquiry grounded in physics and mathematics. In 1789, as the French Revolution was beginning, Lavoisier and his colleagues, including Claude-Louis Berthollet and Antoine-François Fourcroy, launched the first French chemical journal, Annales de Chimie. Despite the upheavals of the Revolution and Lavoisier’s own execution during the Reign of Terror, the Annales became a major component of the early literature of chemistry.

The establishment of a strong chemical research library was a high priority for the University’s first chemistry professors. Significant sums were spent on acquiring complete runs of major chemical journals. The first series of the Annales (volumes 1-96, 1789-1815) was purchased in 1914 for $325 – over $7,300 in 2014 dollars, and resides in the Mallet Chemistry Library.

Contributed by Mallet Chemistry Library Head Librarian David Flaxbart.

Alumni, Research, Uncategorized

Thank You!

September 12, 2014 Texlibris Leave a comment

The students appreciate your support. — Students appreciate your support.

The University of Texas Libraries would like to thank alumni, friends, foundations and businesses for contributing over $7.6 million to the Libraries during the Campaign for Texas.

Your support provided funds for the purchase of significant items like the Carmen Lomas Garza Print Collection and the KUT Music Collection. You helped us renovate and create new spaces for students like the Roberts Reading Room in the Fine Arts Library; the UFCU Student Learning Commons in Perry Castaneda Library and new presentation practice rooms in the Mallet Chemistry Library.

Your gifts created 11 new endowments that will transform the Libraries for decades to come. Most notably are Blake Alexander Architectural Library Endowment, Holsey Literary Collection Endowment, and the Heath Libraries Tomorrow Fund.

We have made world-class acquisitions like the archive of Chicana author and cultural theorist Gloria Anzaldua; the papers of human rights activities Charles and Joyce Horman; the collection of architects, Herbert Miller Greene and Karl Kamrath; and the Romo Collection of Mexican American Art Prints.

Contributions have also created world-changing projects like the Human Rights Documentation Initiative and Primeros Libros. With more than 3,300 gifts and nearly half of them from UT alumni, the Libraries have enhanced its collections, services, space and value to our university community. Thank you!

Instruction, News, Outreach, Staff

Rallying the Next Generation of African Leaders

September 3, 2014 Texlibris

As the Business Librarian at UT Libraries I frequently work with entrepreneurs from the McCombs School of Business and sometimes from the Cockrell School of Engineering. For the first time this summer I had the honor of working with a group of young entrepreneurs from Africa.

The 25 attendees here at UT Austin were part of the 500 Mandela Washington Fellows for Young African Leaders Institute (YALI) selected from over 40,000 applications for this prestigious program. President Obama invited the group to the U.S. from Sub-Saharan Africa as part of his signature effort to invest in the next generation of global leaders. Twenty universities were selected to host the fellows. UT Austin chose the theme of Business & Entrepreneurship for its institute.

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The UT Austin YALI Fellows are creating and/or growing businesses back home. Their interests are broad; women’s and children’s health initiatives, farming, training computer scientists, and translation services. One of the most inspirational companies is one that trains women incarcerated for prostitution to become fashion designers and tailors. The fashion company hires these women upon their release thereby improving the women’s situations and helping them stay out of prison.

Just like I would for students on our campus, I provided a business research workshop to the YALI group and coordinated with the UT Austin International Office to develop a course guide and a hands-on research workshop for these entrepreneurs. In the workshop we practiced search strategies and I introduced them to resources containing market research, economic, and demographic data.

At the end of their UT visit, the Fellows participated in a pitch competition in front of a three-judge panel of successful Austin entrepreneurs. I saw first-hand how they incorporated their research into their pitch for future funding. The judges asked tough questions about growth and sustainability. The Fellows handled the inquiry with aplomb and you could see the passion they all had for their projects.

To cap off the 6-week event all 500 Fellows attended a summit in Washington, D.C. where they met with Secretary of State John Kerry and President Obama. At the summit President Obama announced the program was to be renamed the Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders to honor Nelson Mandela. Not only is the program going to continue next year, but the President has also committed to double the number of participants to 1000 for the summer of 2016.

I hope that the University of Texas will be hosting again next year and that I have the opportunity and privilege to work with these global entrepreneurs as they go out and change the world!

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Books, News, Poetry, Staff

A Poet in the Science Library

September 3, 2014 Texlibris

One wouldn’t necessarily expect to find a poet in the stacks of a science library, but then again, creativity often occurs in the least anticipated of places.

The Life Science Library boasts among its staff a prize-winning poet, as Library Specialist Harold Whit Williams has garnered praise for his work, which is both a catalog of his experience as a musician, and reflective of his southern heritage. His most recent collection of poems, Backmasking, earned Williams the 2013 Robert Phillips Chapman Poetry Chapbook Prize from Texas Review Press, and his poem “Blues Dreams,” received the 2014 Mississippi Review Poetry Prize.

In some ways, it would seem to make perfect sense that Williams would understand the finer points of cadence and pentameter — he’s also the guitarist for notable Austin pop band Cotton Mather.

Williams’ first collection of poetry, Waiting For The Fire To Go Out, was published by Finishing Line Press, and his work has appeared in numerous literary journals.

Whit kindly indulged a line of questioning about his poetry, his music and his life at the Libraries.

When did you start writing poetry? Was it an outcropping of your music?

Harold Whit Williams: I’ve been writing poetry off and on since college days, but started giving serious attention to it, and publishing, now for about seven years.

Strange, but poetry is a totally separate thing to me from songwriting. As a guitarist first, my songs, or the guitar parts I play in Cotton Mather, happen musically first. Then lyrics come later. But with poetry, it’s all wordplay from the get-go, and the musicality in the words themselves tend to direct where I go in a poem.

Does the inspiration for poetry and music come from the same place, even though the jumping off point is different? Or are they driven by different urges?

HWW: Good question. What makes me plug in an electric guitar and make loud horrendous noise has to come from a much different urge than the one making me get to a quiet place, alone, to jot down a poem. Continue reading A Poet in the Science Library →

Archives, Collections, Ephemera

Collections Highlight: Companion to “The Flora of Forfarshire”

July 22, 2014 Texlibris

William Gardiner. “A selection of the native plants of Forfarshire; to accompany ‘The flora of Forfarshire'”. Paper. 45 cm X 29 cm. Life Science Library. University of Texas Libraries

William Gardiner (1808-1852) typifies the self-taught scientists who made substantial contributions to botany and natural history studies in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Pursuing botany as an avocation while employed as an umbrella-maker, he later published Twenty Lessons on British Mosses (1846) and The Flora of Forfarshire (1848).

“A selection of the native plants of Forfarshire; to accompany ‘The flora of Forfarshire'”

The Flora was supported by subscribers and accompanied by a hand-written, bound volume of plant specimens, A selection of the native plants of Forfarshire; to accompany The Flora of Forfarshire.

This volume is part of the collections of the Life Science Library, the botany collections of which support and complement the research and collections of the Plant Resources Center.

Additionally, The Flora of Forfarshire was recently digitized and added to the university’s digital repository, Texas ScholarWorks, and is now available for perusal worldwide. View the online version here, and read more about the digitized version here.