Category: Uncategorized

Bishop Lecture Returns

The 34th annual Bishop Lecture will feature photographer and author Barbara Mensch, who will speak about how she was inspired by Special Collections and University Archives’ Roebling Collection to create her recent book In the Shadow of Genius: The Brooklyn Bridge and Its Creators (Fordham University Press, 2018). Mensch, who has lived alongside the Brooklyn Bridge for over 30 years, will illustrate her talk with striking photographs, including some taken deep inside. During the reception following the talks, guests will have the opportunity to purchase signed copies of the book.

Free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served. RSVP here

Gendering Protest on Display at Douglass

The Center for Women in the Arts and Humanities is pleased to announce the two-person exhibition, Gendering Protest: Deborah Castillo and Érika Ordosgoitti, which features the work of exiled Venezuelan artists whose art responds to the country’s political turmoil of the last decade.

Gendering Protest will be on view from January 21 to April 3, 2020, in the Mary H. Dana Women Artists Series Galleries, Douglass Library. The exhibit is curated by art historian and curator Tatiana Flores, associate professor in the Departments of Latino & Caribbean Studies and Art History, Rutgers University. To accompany the exhibition, CWAH will publish a comprehensive online catalog.

On Wednesday, March 25 at 5 p.m. in the Mabel Smith Douglass Room, Douglass Library, there will be a reception in honor of the artists followed by an artist’s lecture from 5:30 to 6:45 p.m.

Virgilio Papers Now Online

Nicholas Virgilio was instrumental in popularizing haiku poetry in the United States and his own poetry received international acclaim. Except for a brief stay in Texas and service in the Navy, he lived in Camden his entire life. In 1962 he discovered a collection of haiku poems in the library at Rutgers University in Camden. A year later, his own first haiku works were published; he continued writing up until his death in 1989.

This collection contains some of his haiku, including multiple versions of some of his better known poems, showing the development of his work. There are also drafts of correspondence, primarily concerning arrangements and publicity for his work and appearances. The collection includes thousands of unpublished and therefore never before seen haiku.

Latino Oral History

Krista White’s Digital Scholarship as Modular Pedagogy (DSMP) initiative is co-sponsoring an event with Newark Public Library about their Latino Oral History collection, which has been a featured collection used by students in the DSMP courses.

Working Title: Latino Oral Histories: From Start to Finish.  With panelists:

• Yesenia Lopez – managing an oral history project
• Vanessa Castaldo – after the interview (transcribing, indexing, editing, etc.)
• Juber Ayala – accessibility/ promoting the collection
• Interviewee (tbd) – experience of being interviewed
• Potential moderator: Dr. Katie Singer

The program will be accompanied with a digital tour of our oral history collections and audio clips from some of our interviews.

Date and location: Wednesday, April 1, Newark Public Library, 6:00–8:00 p.m. in Centennial Hall. 6:00–6:30 reception (light refreshments served), 6:30–8:00 p.m. program, community question and answers. Free and open to the public.

More Published Poetry

Congratulations to Ermira Mitre, whose English poetry was recently published in the literary magazine Mediterranean Poetry in Sweden.

LOVE FOR MY HOMELAND

I love your playful style, Albania,
since I was a baby; still a gentle child,
plunged myself blissfully, on your gusty roads,
where my dream altered into a butterfly,
chasing my shadow toward avant-garde.

I love your prodigious Adriatic Sea coasts,
the belly laugh of love, coiling on roses,
melodious sounds, dance steps, moccasins,
the echo, the zest of the flattering dances,
the capricious sorceress of the wild tribes,
unfolding the vivacity of the artifice.

…

Read the full poem here.

Vote for Adriana

Adriana Cuervo is running as a 2020 candidate for Council of the Society of American Archivists. “We are at a critical juncture where different constituencies within the profession are championing diverging views on the future of the Society, and this is the time where SAA’s values will provide the grounding to move into what our profession will look like in the years to come,” she said. Learn more here.

Talking Vocational Awe at ACRL

Congratulations to Fobazi Ettarth, who was one of the invited presentations at the annual ACRL conference in Cleveland, Ohio last month. Fobazi’s talk was titled “Becoming a ‘Bad Librarian’: Dismantling Vocational Awe in Librarianship” and you can view the slides below, courtesy of her blog:

The talk also spurred an interview with American Libraries magazine, which you can read here.

A Cataloger, Cataloged

This month, Dominique Dixon got quite the unique tattoo on her wrist, featuring the call number for catalogers (Z682.4 .C38) along with her last name (D59). “I’m so enamored of cataloging that I essentially cataloged myself!” she said. Now how’s that for dedication to the job?

Have a Heart

Dr. Daniel Shindler of Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital, president of the NJ chapter of the American College of Cardiology, requested a 3D printed heart showing a vascular ring defect to be created on the 3D printer at Douglass Library. Files of the heart were obtained fro

m the NIH website at the 3D print exchange and printed by Stacey Carton. The model was presented to Congressman Frank Pallone of the 6th district in April as an example of surgeries being performed at RWJUH, and Stacey was invited to attend the presentation at RWJUH and meet the congressman. Congrats, Stacey!

A Published Poet

Congratulations to Ermira Mitre, whose first book of poetry was published in Albania, her home country. Written in in Albanian, the title of the book is Soul’s Gravity. As if this accomplishment were not enough, Ermira is already working on another book of poetry in English. Kudos, Ermira—we’ll look forward to the next volume!

Opening the Schapiro Papers

Please join Special Collections and University Archives in New Brunswick on Tuesday, May 7 to celebrate the opening of the Miriam Schapiro Papers. The opening, which will take place from 4 to 6 p.m. on the 4th floor of the Alexander Library, will feature audio stations playing digitized cassette tapes of interviews with and by Miriam Schapiro and a few of her lectures. The event will also showcase a slideshow of digitized images from the archives, a display of the finding aid, and a small exhibit of items from the collection. Hors d’oeuvres and drinks will be served.