Tag Archives: special collections

Special Collections Library offers summer research travel awards

The Eberly Family Special Collections Library invites applications for its annual Summer Research Travel Awards. The awards are available in five different categories to applicants who reside outside a 100-mile radius of State College, Pa., and who are not Penn State faculty, staff or students.

For more information on the five categories of awards and additional requirements, or to apply online, visit: https://libraries.psu.edu/about/libraries/special-collections-library/apply-travel-grant.

Applications are due by April 1, and recipients will be notified by May 1. Contact Instruction & Outreach Specialist Katelyn Town at kmd5013@psu.edu with any questions.

 

2017 Mann Lecture focuses on art and information of dance notation

Linda Tomko, a historian, performer, and embodier of dances past, will serve as the distinguished speaker for the 2017 Charles W. Mann Jr. Lecture in the Book Arts at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 30 in Foster Auditorium, 102 Paterno Library on Penn State’s University Park campus. Tomko will share her talk “Books, Bodies, and Circulations of Dancing in Early 18th-Century France and England” which includes references to items in the Mary Ann O’Brian Malkin Early Dance Collection (1531–1804). A reception following the lecture will be held in the Mann Assembly Room, 103 Paterno Library.

Tomko holds a Ph.D. in history from UCLA and her work focuses on the embodiment and theorization of early 18th-century French and English court and theatre dances. She leads the Baroque dance troupe Les Menus Plaisirs and has choreographed period-style dances for Stanford University. Active in scholarly dance organizations, she currently serves as editor for the Dance & Music series published by Pendragon Press.

Many of the books in the Malkin Collection are known to scholars like Tomko through the catalog of the Malkin Collection, “Dancing by the Book: A Catalogue of Books 1531–1804” in the Collection of Mary Ann O’Brian Malkin. The Malkin Collection includes books on early dance, both amateur and professional dancers, and dance notation, the shorthand used by choreographers to make detailed records of their work. The collection, which Malkin donated in 2003 to Penn State, her alma mater, is especially strong in 18th-century European material and was considered the best in private hands.

The Charles W. Mann Jr. Lecture in the Book Arts, named in honor of Charles W. Mann Jr., the first Dorothy Foehr Huck Chair for Special Collections in the University Libraries. This annual event featuring scholars with academic research areas connected to the materials held in the Eberly Family Special Collections Library is supported by the Mary Louise Krumrine Endowment.

Details about the 2017 Charles W. Mann Jr. Lecture in the Book Arts are included in the recent Penn State News article. An 8.5×11 poster with information about the Charles W. Mann Jr. Lecture in the Book Arts is available as a downloadable PDF.

WPSU’s Blockson documentary wins an Emmy


In a ceremony held on Saturday, Sept. 24, in Philadelphia, the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Mid-Atlantic Chapter presented Emmy Awards in 78 different categories with WPSU winning for its documentary on the collection of Charles L. Blockson. “Holding History: The Collections of Charles L. Blockson,” co-written by Cole Cullen and Cherlaine Stanford and produced and directed by Stanford, won a 2016 Emmy Award in the Human Interest Program/Special category.

The original, short-form piece tells the story of Charles L. Blockson’s lifelong journey to unearth and preserve the history, culture, and contributions of people of African descent.

The Charles L. Blockson Collection of African-Americana and African Diaspora is one of the most requested collections for instruction in the Eberly Family Special Collections Library at the Penn State University Libraries.

– submitted by Julie Porterfield, Special Collections

Exhibition explores Judy Chicago’s studio art pedagogy

“Challenge Yourself: Judy Chicago’s Studio Art Pedagogy,” an exhibition, is on display March 24–June 13, 2014, in The Eberly Family Special Collections Library, 104 Paterno Library. The exhibit is one of many activities at Penn State, during spring 2014, to celebrate Chicago and her work and can be viewed online at judychicago.arted.psu.edu.

Judy Chicago boxingPR

Judy Chicago” by Jerry McMillan, 1970, gelatin silver print, 14”x11” Edition 20. Courtesy of Jerry McMillan and Craig Krull Gallery, Santa Monica, California.

In 2011, artist, author and educator Judy Chicago gave Penn State University Libraries the Judy Chicago Art Education Collection, one of the most important private collections of feminist art education. The collection includes textual, photographic, graphic and audiovisual materials related to various art education projects and instruction of Chicago as well as her extensive journal writing about her teaching. It began in the early 1970s, when after a decade of professional art practice, Chicago began a program for women at the California State College, in Fresno—a pedagogical approach to art education that expanded and continues.

University Archivist Jackie Esposito writes, “Art is tactile; archives are contextual. For each moment that art touches the human soul, an archive offers a visual, written or audio reflection of that event to provide visceral documentation for the ages. Art transcends time; archives capture the moments that resonate within human experience and preserve them for eternity. Judy Chicago’s archival collection allows the researcher to connect her art with her need to instruct the viewer over a transom of ideas, ideologies, concepts, theories and emotions, so that when the viewer walks away from the work, he or she is changed forever.” Continue reading →

Bayard old-time music tunes available on YouTube

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Famed folklorist Samuel Preston Bayard

The Eberly Family Special Collections Library at Penn State’s University Libraries announces the release of the Samuel Preston Bayard folklore recordings on YouTube. Treasured by folklorists, folk musicians, and American culturists, all sixty-one recordings from the Samuel Preston Bayard folklore recordings playlist are now digitized and available to the public for listening as a YouTube video playlist (http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfkrWr_vIGB9l33oOjTC2M6JlhxfoPlQz.)

Among the tunes are “The Dublin Jig,” “Scotch Laddie,” “Irish Washerwoman,” “Froggie Went a Courting,” and “Down in Lock Haven.” The videos are structured by performing artist and, where available, feature images of sheet music, lyrics, and song title lists taken from Bayard’s own field notes.

Library offers $1,500 research travel grant awards

Four $1,500 travel grants are currently available to researchers who use collections from The Eberly Family Special Collections Library, located in 104 Paterno Library, within the University Libraries at Penn State University Park. The application deadline is Friday, February 28, 2014, and grant recipients will be announced March 31. The grants cover expenses incurred with travel between June and August 2014, to use University Park resources. Any faculty member, graduate student, or independent scholar with a research project that utilizes the Special Collections Library and lives beyond a 100-mile radius of State College, Pennsylvania, may apply for the grant. More details coming soon.

Exhibition explores research collections

“Exploring Research Collections: A Special Collections Sampler,” an exhibition, is on display January 8–March 7, 2014, in The Eberly Family Special Collections Library, 104 Paterno Library.

Special collections can often be a patchwork quilt of rare books, scarce publications, unique documents, archival materials, and hard to find resources that support and enrich the educational and research missions of a university. This sampling showcases pieces that have been woven together to create a rich tapestry of collections of distinction for Penn State.

Continue reading →

Exhibit celebrates 50 years of Plant Pathology

“Healthy Plants for a Healthy World: 50 Years of Plant Pathology at Penn State,” an exhibit, will be on display June 5–September 17, 2013, in The Eberly Family Special Collections Library, 104 Paterno Library, Penn State University Park. General exhibit hours are Monday–Thursday, 8 a.m.–6 p.m., and Friday, 8 a.m.–5 p.m. The exhibit will also be open during the special events times. Call 814-865-1793 to confirm times.

The public is invited to the exhibit grand opening and a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the beginnings of the Department of Plant Pathology and Environmental Microbiology on June 7, 3:30–6 p.m., in Foster Auditorium, 102 Paterno Library, followed by a reception in Mann Assembly Room, 103 Paterno Library. Presentations will be featured by Dr. George Abawi, Cornell University professor and president-elect of the American Phytopathological Society; Dr. Barbara Christ, interim dean of the College of Agricultural Sciences and faculty member and former head of the department; and Dr. Frederick Gildow, current department head. (See end of post for additional special events to be held throughout summer.)

Continue reading →

Research travel grant award winners announced

The Eberly Family Special Collections Library is pleased to announce the winners of the 2013 research travel awards program. All winners will visit the Special Collections Library between May and August.

Dorothy Foehr Huck award winners
• Professor Paul Kerry, Brigham Young University, will be researching the life of Bayard Taylor, using the papers of this Pennsylvania-born author, translator and diplomat in the library’s collection.

• Professor Kristine Thompson, Louisiana State University, will be researching photographic representations of death and mourning, from the 19th century to the present day, using the Jay Ruby Collection and other related materials.

Helen F. Faust Women Writers award winners:
• Professor Emily VanDette, State University of New York at Fredonia, will do research on “Six Scribbling Women and the Politics of Literary Reputation,” using Fred Lewis Pattee’s papers and other related collections.

• Professor Carly Woods, University of Nebraska – Lincoln, will be researching “Women Debating Society: Gender, Citizenship, and Social Change in Debating Societies, 1840-1960,” using the records of the Penn State Women’s Debate Team among other sources.

During their research visit, the winners will be invited to give a short, informal presentation about their research that will be open to the public.

Tim Pyatt, the Dorothy Foehr Huck Chair and head of The Eberly Family Special Collections Library at Penn State University Park, sees the incentive of travel grants as an excellent way to promote use and disseminate information about our collections. Now in its second year, the awards showcase the wealth of materials in the library.

Additional details are available at http://www.libraries.psu.edu/psul/speccolls/travel.html or call Tim Pyatt at 814-865-7931. For an interview with Pyatt, see http://www.rps.psu.edu/indepth/special_collections.html

Kasdorf discusses novel by Fred Lewis Pattee

The public is invited to join Julia Spicher Kasdorf on April 19, 4–5 p.m., in the Foster Auditorium, 102 Paterno Library, for a presentation on Fred Lewis Pattee’s novel, “The House of the Black Ring: A Romance of the Seven Mountains.”

Pattee, long regarded as the father of American literary study, also wrote fiction. Originally published in 1905 by Henry Holt, this book was Pattee’s second novel—a local-color romance set in the mountains of central Pennsylvania. The plot is driven by family feud, forbidden love, and a touch of the supernatural. This recent edition from the Penn State Press, available at http://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-0-271-05420-9.html, makes the novel accessible to new generations of modern-day readers as a thriller that preserves details of rural life and language during the late nineteenth century. Scholars will read it as an expression of cultural anxiety and change in the decades after the Civil War. Continue reading →

Spitzmueller, distinguished conservator and book artist, to give Mann Lecture

Pamela Spitzmueller will give The Charles W. Mann Jr. Lecture in the Book Arts, at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 21, in Foster Auditorium, 102 Paterno Library on the University Park campus of Penn State. Her talk is titled, “Books as Physical Objects or How Conserving Damaged Rare Books Inspired Me to Create New Book Objects.” A reception will follow in the Mann Assembly Room, 103 Paterno Library.

Continue reading →

A celebration of central Pennsylvania architecture

The University Libraries will host “A Celebration of Central Pennsylvania Architecture and the work of A. William Hajjar,” on Sunday, January 13, 2013, from 3 to 5 p.m., in The Eberly Family Special Collections Library. Activities include a display of original plans and drawings of local houses designed by former Penn State faculty member, A. William Hajjar. In the 1950s and 60s, Hajjar challenged the conservative look of the State College community with his contemporary-styled homes. More than 50 years later, his forty-plus buildings still delight those who appreciate post-war modern design, and their owners are proud to play a part in conserving a significant part of local history.

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The event will also unveil a new digital collection: “Central Pennsylvania Architecture and Landscape Architecture.” The Hajjar architectural drawings are a recent donation by his children to the University. For more information, contact Tim Pyatt, tdp11@psu.edu/814-865-1793.

Library offers $1200 research travel awards

Three $1,200 travel grants are currently available to researchers who use collections from The Eberly Family Special Collections Library, located in Paterno Library, Penn State University Park.

The application deadline is February 28, and grant recipients will be announced March 29. The grants cover expenses incurred with travel to use University Park resources. Any faculty member, graduate student, or independent scholar with a research project that utilizes the Special Collections Library and lives beyond a 100-mile radius of State College, Pennsylvania, may apply for the grant. All applicants are encouraged to discuss proposed projects with Special Collections staff prior to submission

  • Two awards supported by the Dorothy Foehr Huck Research Travel Award will be given for research using any material in the Special Collections Library.
  • One award supported by the Helen F. Faust Women Writers Research Travel Award will be given for research using items related to women writers in the Special Collections Library.

Grant recipients are expected to use the collection between June 3 and August 30, 2013, and to participate in an informal public talk about the research project.

Tim Pyatt, head of the Special Collections Library and the Dorothy Foehr Huck Chair, created the travel awards using funding from his endowed position as an opportunity to showcase the wealth of materials in the collections. Now in its second year, the awards program gives scholars funding to pursue their research and highlights strengths of the collection.

Additional details are available at www.libraries.psu.edu/psul/speccolls/travel.html. To view last year’s winners, see http://dontcallusdusty.blogspot.com/search/label/travel%20grants. For more information, contact Luann Shifter at 814-867-0290.