University Libraries

Ruthann McTyre, head of the Rita Benton Music Library, was named the Chair of the Midwest Chapter of the Music Library Association this fall.

As Chair, McTyre plans to continue the outreach efforts to Midwest library schools as well as lead the chapter’s participation with the MLA/Music OCLC Users Group jointly sponsored Educational Outreach Program which will provide educational opportunities for music librarians, public librarians, library school students, and library support staff at the regional level.

Chapter promotes the growth of music libraries and collections of music and music materials in the Midwest; it brings together music librarians in the region to exchange ideas and discuss problems. Member states in the MLA Midwest Chapter include: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, Wisconsin.

McTyre has been a member of the Midwest Chapter since she joined the UI Libraries in 2000. Before becoming chair, McTyre had served the Chapter as the Program Chair. She had previously been involved with other regional chapters in Texas and North Carolina.

The University of Iowa Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity has announced the recipients of the 2007 Catalyst Awards. The awards will be presented at the 2007 Catalyst Award Reception, 4 to 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 15, in the Wayne Richey Ballroom, Iowa Memorial Union.

Outreach and Recruitment Librarian Rachel Garza Carreon will be honored as one of this year’s staff winners.

The Catalyst Awards are designed to honor individuals, departments or programs, and students or student organizations engaged in diversity initiatives during the previous academic year which have served to promote the development of an inclusive, diverse campus community. A minimum of three $500 awards, one to an individual, one to a department or program, and one to a student or student organization will be presented during a reception to which all nominees, nominators, and the campus community are invited.

Michael Wright, head of Acquisitions and Rapid Cataloging, won an at-large seat on the Iowa City council.

Mike joined the University of Iowa Libraries in 2002 after working as a consultant. He earned his Masters in Library and Information Science at the University of Minnesota.

We congratulate Mike on his hard work in the Libraries and in community.

Timothy Tyson, prize-winning author of “Blood Done Sign My Name,” will bring southern history to a Midwestern audience at 7 p.m., Friday, Oct. 26, in Room C20 at the University of Iowa Pomerantz Career Center.

Tyson’s book was selected for the 2007 “One Community, One Book” project by the UI Center for Human Rights (UICHR). Gospel singer Mary Williams, a native of Raleigh, N.C., will join Tyson in a presentation of songs from the book.

The community-wide reading project, now in its seventh year, highlights a chosen literary work and strives to broaden and foster an understanding of human rights through reading. Tyson’s book, published by Random House in 2004, won the Southern Book Award for Nonfiction.

Tyson’s memoir explores the subject of human rights in rich detail as he delves more than 30 years into his childhood memories to tell the true-life story of Henry Marrow, a 23-year-old black U.S. Army veteran, murdered in Oxford, N.C., in 1973.

“The book was chosen because it is well-written and very timely,” said Joan Nashelsky, co-coordinator of the program. “Written from the vantage point of a 10-year old child, these events really changed the author’s life.”

The events in Oxford spanned much of Tyson’s life, later becoming part of his professional career, first as his graduate thesis topic and later his book, which he wrote while a professor in the Afro-American studies department at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Nashelsky said.

Tyson is a senior research scholar at the History Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, visiting professor of American Christianity and southern culture at Duke Divinity School, and an adjunct professor of history and of American studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

For more information, visit the UICHR Web site at http://www.uichr.org where discussion notes and questions are posted. For special accommodations to attend the event, contact Nashelsky at 319-335-3900 or joan-nashelsky@uiowa.edu.

The culimination of the International Writing Program’s 40th Anniversary Celebration is a reading by influential Slovenian poet Tomaz Salamun on Friday, October 12 at 8 p.m. in Shambaugh Auditorium.

Tomaz Šalamun was born in Zagreb, Croatia, raised in Koper, Slovenia, and now makes his home in Ljubljana. He studied art history and worked as a curator and a conceptual artist before turning to the written word. Having published 25 volumes of poems in his native Slovenia, Šalamun has received many prizes in Europe and been translated into nearly a dozen languages. The Selected Poems Of Tomaz Šalamun, edited and in large part translated by Charles Simic, was the poet’s debut collection in English, brought out in 1988 as part of Ecco Press’s prestigious Modern European Poetry series. It was followed by The Shepherd, The Hunter (Pedernal, 1992), The Four Questions Of Melancholy (White Pine Press, 1997), Feast (Harcourt, 2000), and The Book for My Brother (Harvest Books, 2006).