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Mar 28 2011

Elizabeth Berg to headline the Iowa City Book Festival, July 15-17

Novelists Elizabeth Berg and Jane Hamilton, journalist and historian Adam Goodheart, and poets Camille Dungy and Robyn Schiff are among a rich lineup of writers who will take part in the Iowa City Book Festival (ICBF) this summer, the University of Iowa Libraries announced today.

The ICBF is a three-day celebration of books, reading and writing presented by UI Libraries Friday, July 15 through Sunday, July 17. The book festival will begin on Friday with an author dinner in the Main Library. Saturday is festival day in Gibson Square with booksellers, music, children’s activities, food vendors, book arts demonstrations and readings and panel discussions. Sunday will be “A Day in the City of Literature.” Local businesses of all kinds throughout Iowa City, Coralville and North Liberty will participate with readings and special activities all day.

Berg will be the keynote speaker for the ICBF Author Dinner on Friday; she will also present a public program on Saturday as part of the Shambaugh Auditorium Author Series. Berg is the author of many bestselling novels, two collections of short stories and two works of nonfiction. “Open House” was an Oprah’s Book Club selection, “Durable Goods” and “Joy School” were selected as American Library Association Best Books of the Year, and “Talk Before Sleep” was short-listed for an American Booksellers Book of the Year Award. Her writing has been translated into 27 languages and she adapted her novel “Pull of the Moon” into a play that has been successfully performed on two stages in the Chicago area.

Hamilton will appear on Sunday with Paul Ingram from Prairie Lights for an ICBF edition of Paul’s Book Club. Hamilton’s first novel, “The Book of Ruth,” won the PEN/Ernest Hemingway Foundation Award for best first novel and was a selection of the Oprah Book Club. Her second novel, “A Map of the World,” was an international bestseller.

Goodheart will appear as part of the Shambaugh Auditorium Series. He is regular columnist for The New York Times’ acclaimed Civil War series, “Disunion.” His new work, “1861: The Civil War Awakening,” will be published in April. Goodheart is a historian, journalist and travel writer. His articles have appeared in National Geographic, Outside, Smithsonian, The Atlantic and The New York Times Magazine, among other publications. He is also the director of Washington College’s C. V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience.

Stephanie Kallos, author of “Sing Them Home,” the 2011 All Iowa Reads selection, will present on Saturday in the Shambaugh Auditorium Series. She has received the Raymond Carver Award and a Pushcart Prize nomination for her short fiction. Kallos’ first novel, “Broken for You,” won the Washington State Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award and was chosen as a “Today Show” book club selection. “Sing Them Home” was a Pacific Northwest Independent Bookseller bestseller and a January 2009 IndieNext pick.

Festival programming on Saturday also includes UI Press award-winning authors Will Boast, “Power Ballads”; Julie Hanson, “Unbeknownst”; Thisbe Nissen, “The Good People of New York”; Josh Rolnick, “Pulp and Paper”; and Don Waters, “Desert Gothic.”

Fiction writers featured at the ICBF are Bonnie Jo Campbell, “Once Upon a River: A Novel”; Gregg Hurwitz, “You’re Next: A Novel”; Jeremy Jackson, “Hot Lunch”; Julie Kramer “Silencing Sam”; David Mullins, “Greetings from Below: Stories”; and Mary Helen Stefaniak, “The Cailiffs of Baghdad, Georgia: A Novel.”

Nonfiction writers include Jerry Harp, “For Us, What Music?: The Life and Poetry of Donald Justice”; John T. Price, “Man Killed by Pheasant and Other Kinships”; and Robin Romm, “The Mercy Papers: A Memoir of Three Weeks.”

Poets Camille Dungy, “Suck on Marrow”; Robyn Schiff, “Revolver” will headline the poetry readings.

In addition to children’s book characters and other hands-on activities for kids, the ICBF has expanded programming by inviting children’s and young adult authors: Ibtisam Barakat, “Al-Ta’ Al-Marbouta Tateer (Flight of the Tied T)”; Linda Gerdner, “Grandfather’s Story Cloth”; Claudia McGehee, “Where Do Birds Live?”; Sarah Prineas, “The Magic Thief”; Laurel Snyder, “Penny Dreadful”; and Tess Weaver, “Opera Cat.”

The UI Libraries again is partnering with the UI Press, Iowa City Public Library, the UNESCO City of Literature and Prairie Lights Book Store to organize ICBF. The ICBF receives significant support from Humanities Iowa as well as the Community Foundation of Johnson County, the City of Iowa City and MidWestOne Bank.

For more information about the ICBF, to register as a vendor at the festival or to submit a program idea for the Day in the City of Literature activities, please check the website: http://www.iowacitybookfestival.org.

Mar 24 2011

Persson Recognized as Person with Heart & Soul

UI Librarian Dottie Persson was profiled along with dozens of other community members in the Iowa City Press-Citizen’s Heart & Soul publication. She is one who gives all she has to the community. Dottie’s giving nature is not news to the hundreds of students, faculty and staff members she has worked with during her years at the University of Iowa Libraries.

Read more about Dottie and her work with the Shelter House.

Mar 23 2011

Remember the Triangle Fire, March 25

We will close women’s history month on Friday, March 25th  with “In Memoriam:  The Triangle Factory Fire 100th Anniversary,” an event to commemorate the 146 young, immigrant garment workers who lost their lives in this tragedy. 

Friday, March 25
12:00 – 1:00 p.m.
Second Floor Conference Room (2032), UI Main Library

Remarks by Professor of History Linda K. Kerber and dramatic readings by Carol Macvey and UI theater students will follow, with comments by playwright Janet Schlapkohl. 

For further information call 319-335-5068.  Event is free and open to the public.

Mar 22 2011

Filmmaker Booth to speak in Iowa Women’s Archives, March 22

Award-winning filmmaker Marlene Booth will present a talk entitled “Tell Me a Story:  Making and Learning From Documentary Films” on Tuesday, March 22nd. Born and raised in Des Moines, Booth looks back – with clips from her films – on 35 years of filmmaking as a woman, a feminist, and a dyed-in-the-wool Hawkeye. 

Iowa Women’s Archives, third floor UI Main Library
March 22, 2011
4:00 – 6:00 p.m.  Reception at 4:00 p.m., followed by presentation from 4:30-5:30 p.m.

Booth, a lecturer in film at the University of Hawaii, has worked in film since 1975, both as an independent and for public television station WGBH-TV in Boston. She has produced and directed several major documentary films screened on PBS, at national and international film festivals, and in classrooms nationwide. Her most recent film, Pidgin: the voice of Hawaii (2009), examines the language spoken by over half of Hawai’i’s people, and confronts issues of language and identity, and who gets to decide what language we speak. 

Booth’s 1999 film “Yidl in the Middle: Growing Up Jewish in Iowa” (1999) explores her Iowa-Jewish roots and uses home movies, period photos, her high school reunion, and interviews, to examine the process of negotiating identity, as an American, a Jew, and a woman.  “Yidl in the Middle” will be screened at Hillel (122 E. Market St.) on Wednesday, March 23rd at 7:00 p.m., followed by a question and answer with the director.

Feb 21 2011

Today’s Hot Topic: underage drinking on campus

Do you have a speech or a paper due on a current event? You’ve come to the right place. In 15 minutes, you’ll develop your research skills and learn about a database that will be sure to add credibility to your paper or speech.  These mini-workshop are like veggies for your brain!

Topic: Underage Drinking
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
12:00-12:15 p.m.
Room 4037, Main Library

For more information, check our brainfood LibGuide.

Feb 14 2011

Walton earns NLM fellowship

Linda Walton, associate university librarian and director of the Hardin Library for the Health Sciences, has been accepted for the prestigious National Library of Medicine’s 2011 fellowship program in Biomedical Informatics held at the Marine Biological Laboratory located in Woods Hole, MA. This week-long survey course is designed to familiarize individuals with the application of computer technologies and information science in biomedicine and health science. Taught by a nationally known faculty, the course prepares students to become actively involved in making informed decisions about computer-based tools in his/her organizational environment.

Jan 19 2011

UI Libraries bind 10,000-page, two-foot thick book of poetry

The University of Iowa Libraries now has a massive volume of poetry in its collection, a 100-volume work of 10,000 pages of poetry, measuring two feet thick.

The book, “Poetry City Marathon” was written by Iowa City poet Dave Morice (aka Dr. Alphabet) during a 100-day poetry marathon this summer. The marathon was a highlight of an UI Main Library exhibit from July to October 2010 about the history of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and the Actualist Poetry Movement.  The full text of the book and is at http://iowacitypoetrymarathon.com/index.html.

Sponsored by Sackter House Media in Iowa City, the book was made as part of the celebration of Iowa City being named a City of Literature by UNESCO. The final text of 10,119, 8 1/2 by 11-inch pages was printed out by Bu Wilson and bound by Bill Voss of the UI Libraries Preservation Department. 

Nancy Kraft, head of the Preservation Department, said it was no small task to bind a 10,000-page book. It usually takes about three hours to bind a 200-page book, but “Poetry City Marathon” took 24 hours to bind, spread over four days with a half day devoted to making a special press to put all the pages together.

“You can’t get your hands around all 10,000 pages at once so the book needs to be assembled into smaller units and then bound together using a specially constructed press to hold everything in place, nicely squared up, until the book text block is dry,” she explained.

Kraft added that the book must be supported while reading, which can be done by using blocks to support the “shorter” side and adjusted as the reader turns the page.

Now that the work is complete, Preservation staff and Morice are considering submitting “Poetry City Marathon” to the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s thickest book.
For more details and photos of the binding process, see http://blog.lib.uiowa.edu/preservation/.

Jan 13 2011

Digital Collection of Portraits in Conversation with Felix de la Concha

The University of Iowa Libraries is pleased to announce the launch of its latest digital collection, Félix de la Concha’s Portraits in Conversation— http://digital.lib.uiowa.edu/felixdelaconcha .

De la Concha is a painter who creates multidimensional portrayals of his subjects while conducting and recording interviews about their life, work, and views on art. The collection features Spanish-language interviews with some of the leading cultural figures in Spain, as well as English-language interviews recorded in the U.S., including with writers at The University of Iowa’s International Writing Program.

Spanish-born de la Concha studied at the Facultad de Bellas Artes in Madrid, where he was awarded the prestigious Prix de Rome. His work has been exhibited in museums around the world, with solo exhibitions throughout Europe and the United States. De la Concha lives in Madrid and Iowa City with his wife, poet and University of Iowa professor Ana Merino. The two are close collaborators, with Merino frequently drawing upon de la Concha’s work in her scholarship on the choreography of storytelling.

In 2005 de la Concha embarked on a project to record his portrait sittings with writers and artists. “This series started as a kind of experiment: I wanted to see what kind of portrait would come about if, while I was painting the model, the focus was kept on conversation, and the model’s pose was constrained for only two hours,” he explains. “Each portrait was an unpredictable adventure, both in its conversation and in the painting that resulted.”  In 2007 de la Concha began a similar project creating portraits of Holocaust survivors. He has exhibited these works at museums such as the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo in Madrid and the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College.

This collection of de la Concha’s interviews and portraits is the latest edition to the Iowa Digital Library ( http://digital.lib.uiowa.edu ), which features more than 300,000 digital objects created from the holdings of The University of Iowa Libraries and its campus partners. Included are illuminated manuscripts, historical maps, fine art, political cartoons, scholarly works, and more. The University of Iowa Libraries is a staunch supporter of new forms of scholarly publishing, digital humanities, data curation, and open/linked data.